UNDERSTANDING THE TRUE MEANING OF CHESED - KEDOSHIM

In the latter part of the Parsha the Torah enumerates the various forbidden relationships and their punishments. Towards the end of this list the Torah states: “A man who takes his sister, the daughter of his father, or the daughter of his mother, and sees her nakedness, it is a chesed and they shall be cut off in the sight of the members of their people; he will have uncovered the nakedness of his sister, he shall bear his iniquity. ” There is a glaring problem with this passuk - the description of an incestuous relationship as being a ‘chesed’. Chesed is normally translated as kindness - what kindness is involved in arayos?!

In order to answer this question it is necessary to alter our understanding of what ‘chesed’ actually entails. It seems that chesed is more appropriately understood as a mida that is characterized by overflowing and lack of boundaries. One significant outgrowth of this is kindness in that chesed causes a person to want to unabashedly share with others, breaking his boundaries of selfishness. However, that is just one manifestation of chesed, and like all midos, chesed has negative, as well as positive, apects. One negative manifestation is that a person can lose his appreciation of a proper sense of boundaries. Arayos involves ignoring the Torah’s assertion that certain relationships break the appropriate boundaries. Consequently, the Torah describes arayos as chesed;

Two prominent characters in the Torah represent negative aspects of the mida of chesed; Yishmael and Lot. Chazal tell us that Yishmael was deeply involved in arayos and thievery . Both of these emanated from his distorted chesed which broke the acceptable boundaries. An attitude of ‘what is mine is yours and yours is mine’ causes a person to believe that he has the right to infringe on other people’s wives and material possessions. Lot grew up in Avraham Avinu’s home and therefore became habituated to doing chesed with others, as is demonstrated by his great hachanasos orchim in Sodom. However, Lot clearly developed a warped sense of chesed. For example, when the people of Sodom threatened to abuse his guests he preferred to offer them his own daughters! He wanted to do chesed with his guests at the expense of his own daughters .

Why did Yishmael and Lot so badly misapply the mida of chesed? The answer is that their chesed was not acquired through avodas hamidos based on the Torah‘s guidelines, rather it came as a result of genetics and upbringing. Even a generally positive mida such as chesed has undesirable offshoots if it is not applied in the correct way. For example, a person with a natural inclination to chesed may do kindness in the wrong way or quantity. He may be overflowing with chesed to friends, but forget about sufficiently caring for his own family. Another example is that a ‘chesed’ person may have a difficulty with making appropriate boundaries for himself in various aspects of life; he may find it hard to be punctual or reliable because he finds it difficult to set limits on his time. Further if a person does not have well-defined boundaries then he may have a nisayon of avoiding sheker because honesty requires the ability to adhere to the boundaries of truth.

The epitome of the correct balance of chesed is Avraham Avinu. He certainly had a natural propensity for chesed, however he did not merely allow his natural inclinations lead him blindly, rather he harnessed and even negated his chesed when necessary. On many occasions throughout the Torah, Avraham was placed in situations where he was forced to curtail his chesed . Avraham succeeded in these difficult nisyonos, thereby showing that his chesed was not directed by natural inclinations but by Yiras Hashem and Avodas HaMidos.

Another common failing of a person naturally endowed with doing chesed is that he expects people that he helps to be equally giving to him. Consequently he may not hesitate to request that others do significant favors for him because he would do the same for them. However, whilst demanding that we give in great abundance, the Torah requires that we strive not to rely on the kindness of others. This is demonstrated in Shlomo HaMelech’s assertion that “one who hates gifts will live. ” Our Gedolim were overflowing with chesed and yet they often refused to take anything from anyone else. A striking example of this is the Brisker Rav. When he was the Rav of Brisk, there were a number of children whose father’s identities were unknown and whose mother were unable to raise them. No one wanted to assume the tremendous responsibility of caring for these children. What did the poor mothers do? They would come in the middle of the night and place their children on the Brisker Rav’s doorstep. When morning came and the Rav found a crying child outside his door, he brought him inside. He took upon himself the task of finding someone to take care of the child. If he was unsuccessful, then he himself took care of all the child’s needs.

Whilst he was overflowing in helping others the Brisker Rav was extremely careful never to accept gifts of any kind, even under the most difficult of circumstances. When he first arrived in Palestine in 1941, along with the Mirrer Rosh Yeshivah, Rav Eliezer Yehuda Finkel, they were detained in the passport control offices. The delegation awaiting the two Gedolim was told that they did not have the money with which to pay the poll tax of one-half to a full-lira (approximately 80 shekels) and it was forbidden to allow entry to anyone who had not paid. One of the heads of the Jewish Agency offered to pay the tax for the Brisker Rav, but he staunchly refused, saying, “Never in my life did I take money from anyone.” After much deliberation, an old resident of Brisk had an idea - he entered the office and approached the Brisker Rav, “The members of the Brisker Community who have come to Eretz Yisroel want the Rav to continue serving as our Rav. We will pay the Rav a salary just as we did in Brisk. Therefore, I want to either give or lend the Rav the money to pay the tax, which will then be deducted from his salary.” “That’s an offer I can accept,” agreed the Brisker Rav and he accepted the money . The Brisker Rav may or may not have been naturally endowed with the mida of chesed. Regardless of his natural inclinations he excelled in the correct form of chesed and simultaneously avoided its negative aspects.

We have seen that chesed does not simply mean kindness, rather it represents the propensity for overflowing and lack of boundaries, and this can be utilized for the good or bad. Moreover, there is a striking difference between a person who has the mida of chesed through genetics or habit, as opposed to someone who develops his chesed within the lens of the Torah. May we all use the mida of chesed only for the good.

NOACH AND AVRAHAM - PARSHAS NOACH

“These are the offspring of Noach, Noach was a righteous man, perfect in his generations; Noach walked with G-d.” Noach was the greatest person in his time, the only one who deserved to be spared from the flood. And yet Noach is unfavorably compared to Avraham Avinu by the Rabbis in a number of places. What is the difference between these two great men?

Rashi brings a Midrash that contrasts Avraham and Noach. With regard to Noach, the Torah says “Noach walked with G-d.” This means that he needed help in his Avodas Hashem. But to Avraham, HaShem says “Walk before me.” This means that Avraham could strengthen himself on his own. The commentaries explain that Avraham was pro-active and self-motivated. He did not need external events to stimulate him to serve HaShem and do kindness. Noach needed external circumstances to push him forward in his righteousness.

Rav Eliyahu Dessler zt"l expands on this idea. He writes that Noach is called “ish tzaddik" (man of righteousness), whilst Avraham is “ish chessed" (man of kindness). Noach performed incredible acts of kindness in the ark, feeding hundreds of animals for several months. However, says Rav Dessler that this was only tzedek,(the right thing to do), meaning that he fulfilled his obligation. It did not stem from an overflowing desire to give, but was rather a reaction to the needs of others. Avraham, in contrast, did not perform kindness out of obligation, but because of a burning desire to give. This divergence between Noach and Avraham is not restricted to kindness in the physical realm, but also extends into the spiritual realm. The Seforno writes that Noach did rebuke the people in his generation but he did not go any further. “He did not teach them to know G-d and how to go in his ways.” Consequently, he did not possess enough merit to save the generation. In contrast Avraham went far beyond the call of duty to teach the world to know Hashem.

The commentaries also discuss why Noach’s great descendants, Shem and Ever, did not merit to attain Avraham’s greatness. The Rambam describes how Avraham fought against the idolatry prevalent in his times. “He began to call out in a loud voice to the whole world and taught them that there is one G-d in the world and it is He that one should serve… He would continually call out and gather the people from city to city and from kingdom to kingdom until he reached there, as it says, “and he called out in the name of Hashem the eternal G-d. And when the people would gather and ask him what he was preaching, he would teach to every one of them, each according to his ability, until he would bring them to the true way, until tens of thousands of people gathered to follow him.” The Raavad writes on this Rambam, “I am astonished, for Shem and ever were there at this time. how could they not protest [against the idolatry that surrounded them. The Kesef Mishnah answers, “Shem and Ever were teaching the way of Hashem to their students, but they did not rouse themselves to call and teach in the way that Avraham did. Because of this he rose to a higher level than they did.”

This seems difficult to understand. We know that Shem and Ever had a yeshivah in which they taught Torah for a very long time. Why then are they considered on a lower level than Avraham Avinu, to the extent that he is the spiritual father of the Jewish people, but they are not? We can answer this question with Rav Dessler’s principle. There are two ways to give. A person can be re-active, waiting for people who want to learn Torah and grow in their Yiddishkeit, or one can be pro-active, seeking out people who would not otherwise want to learn Torah or develop any kind of relationship with Hashem. Noach, Shem and Ever were limited to the first type of giving. This is a high level, but, as Rav Dessler explains, it does not qualify as true kindness. Avraham, however, was pro-active. He did not wait for people to come to him. He sought out people who did not even know that they were lacking anything and taught them about Hashem. This is true chessed. This is what caused Avraham to rise to a higher level than Noach, Shem and Ever.

Why would a person reach the level of reactive kindness but fail to progress to the higher level of giving pro-actively? The clue to this can be found in Noach’s name. We know that a person’s name teaches us about his essence. The word, 'noach' means 'comfortable'. It is not easy to take responsibility for something without first being called upon to do it. The negative inclination (yetser hara) will find numerous excuses to avoid taking on a challenging endeavor when the genuine reason for doing so is desire for comfort.

The great author of The Chovos Levavos reveals to us that he was subject to this very challenge. He writes in the introduction that after planning to write the sefer he changed his mind, citing a number of reasons. “I thought my powers too limited and my mind too weak to grasp the ideas. Furthermore, I do not possess an elegant style in Arabic, in which the book would have been written… I feared that I would be undertaking a task which would succeed [only] in exposing my shortcomings…Therefore I decided to drop my plans and revoke my decision.” However, he recognized that perhaps his motives were not completely pure. “I began to suspect that I had chosen the comfortable option, looking for peace and quiet. I feared that what had motivated the cancellation of the project had been the desire for self-gratification, which had driven me to seek ease and comfort, to opt for inactivity and sit idly by.” To the eternal benefit of Klal Yisroel he decided to write the Sefer and it is difficult to imagine Klal Yisroel being bereft of its spiritual guidance. The reasons that he initially cited in support of his decision not to write the sefer seem fair and logical. But he recognized that, on his level, they were tainted by a desire for comfort. We too have plausible reasons why we choose to ignore opportunities to help Klal Yisroel. But we must be extremely careful to make sure that we are not in fact just being lazy. Imagine how many great works or bold initiatives may never have reached fruition because of this yetser hara.

Another hindrance to pro-activity is misplaced bitachon. A person may have the hashkafa that Hashem will send him his tachlis on a plate. History proves that the great builders in Torah did not have this attitude. They looked at the problems in the world and decided to take action to rectify them without waiting to be told to do so. People such as Rav Aharon Kotler, the Ponevezher Rav and Rebbetsin Sarah Shenirer emulated Avraham Avinu and took the initiave to build Torah institutions. These institutions reinforced Torah, and enabled us to survive the spitirual onslaught of the Enlightenment and the physical onslaught of the Holocaust.

A less well-known example of a proactive builder is Joseph Rosenberg. He lived in the post- -Holocaust generation. He saw a world in which one particular mitzvo was largely ignored - the mitzvo of Shatnes. He single-handedly created Shatnes checking observatories and for several decades checked hundreds of thousands of garments for Shatnes. What was the key to his greatness? It was not necessarily his knowledge of Torah but it was his willingness to pro-actively go out and fix a problem he saw in Klal Yisroel .

In our generation, one does not have to look far to find opportunities to improve the word in some form. But he must not wait to be asked to step forward. If he does wait, the opportunity may never materialize. Hashem may want us to open our eyes and take action without being prompted to do so. As we have seen, there are people who have already done so, showing us that it is possible.

Noach was a great man but he is not the progenitor of the Chosen People. He did kindness, but only after he was instructed to. He rebuked the people, but only after Hashem had told him to do soas a reactive person, who needed external circumstance to arouse him to action. By contrast, Avraham Avinu did not need to be motivated to serve Hashem. He did not wait for people to come to him in order to teach them Torah. He reached the level of true chessed through great effort. It is incumbent upon us, his descendants, to emulate him and seek and pursue opportunities to make a difference to Klal Yisroel.