Keeping the Camp Holy

Parshat Ki Tetze 

by Rabbi Avi Billet

The Torah speaks of the military encampment, and a level of purity, holiness, and even cleanliness which is meant to be maintained while out in the field. One aspect, the covering of human waste, can verily be understood to be the Torah’s way of also protecting from filth and disease which can easily be spread in a military space, when people do not properly tend to hygiene. [Incidentally, until the 20th century, in just about every military conflict in history, more soldiers died from disease, starvation and the elements than from combat. Even some fronts in WWI and WWII are disputed about these outcomes, but after the World Wars, this has certainly been the case – now, in general, there are far more casualties from combat than from those other factors.]

 

From Devarim Chapter 23:

Tamim Tihyeh = A Dose of HUmility (Baal Tefillah and Lashon Hora)

Parshat Shoftim

by Rabbi Avi Billet

Rav Shimshon Rafael Hirsch writes on the verse “Tamim Tihyeh Im Hashem Elokekha” (“You shall be whole/complete with the Lord your God”) (18:13):

“Temimus required for the offerings, and for the offerers symbolizes the requirement of our wholehearted devotion to God – the devotion of the whole person, including all his relationships, to God. This wholeness is the direct result of our awareness of God’s unity. It is the realization of our vocation as עם סגולה, a nation belonging exclusively to God. 

“Here, this wholeness is described in its concrete sense. Not even the smallest fiber of our lives shall be detached from God; we must be with God in our entirety. Consequently, all the heathen ways described in the preceding verses are banned from the Jewish sphere. God alone is the director of our fate and the guide of our actions; He alone decides our future, and His will is the sole criterion by which we are to decide what to do and what to refrain from doing… Only from God would we seek instruction regarding what we should or should not do, if God had not already given us such instruction in his Torah. Actually, one who is Tamim is so completely engrossed in God that he thinks only of the duties he must perform at the present moment, and as for his success and his whole future – he puts all his trust in God. By fulfilling his duty, he has already attained the supreme goal of his doing and not doing. He has paid God the tribute of duty faithfully fulfilled, and he is impervious to anything beyond that.”

While I removed from his comment several sentences related to not seeking divination to know the future, his point that we don’t need to know the future, but it is necessary for us to have a hand in writing our own future. It is through being attached to God, and most specifically through Godly living, which means living a life focused on Mitzvah Fulfillment and doing Chesed, imitating the ways of God, and upping our game in our own Middos – through this we have a hand in our destiny. 

לשכנו תדרשו – L’shikhno Sid’r’shu

Parshat Re'eh 

by Rabbi Avi Billet 

 In furthering his instructions to the people as to how they are to go about their business of acquiring and settling the land, after informing them of the need to eradicate all places of worship they will encounter, altars, monuments, idols, worshiped-trees directed at the ‘gods’ of the nations, Moshe tells the Israelites that their own worship is to be confined “only to the place which the Lord your God shall choose from all your tribes, to set His Name there; you shall inquire after His dwelling and come there.” (12:5) 

 There will be exception to this for the first few years of their living in the land, as the bamah will be available for certain devotional offerings, but eventually all will be consumed under the rubric of the Mishkan and Mikdash, each being in a defined space in the future – the Mishkan being the central location, until such time as the Mikdash will be built. In the meantime, all formal sacrifices (Korbanot) are to be brought at the Mishkan.