From HaGaon Rav Yaakov Sasson Sh’lit”a a grandson of Maran ztvk”l, head of the Yeshiva for Rabbanim Tiferet Rashbi and Rosh Kollel Birkat Avraham
(translated by our dear friend Rav Daniel Levy Sh’lit”a, UK)
Wake Up Before It’s Too Late!
It is stated in the Parashah, “’Cursed is he who misdirects the blind on the way.’ All the people shall say, ‘Amen’” (Devarim 27:18). This means that a person who misdirects a blind person and causes them to make a mistake in their path is cursed. On the face of it one ought to consider that in our Parashat HaShavuah the mitzvot aren’t expressed like this one, rather they are general mitzvot. So why did Hashem Yitbarach see it necessary to warn such a specific issue as this, regarding the deception of a blind person on their way?
The answer to this is explained by our Chachamim. They say in the Midrash Tehillim (Mizmor 146), there is no greater pain and no greater and harsher affliction than blindless of the eyes. To what is it comparable? To a person who was ferrying camels and donkeys full or burdens. They placed on one of them a load equivalent to the loads of all the others and they further loaded the provisions of all of them on that same camel. The leader of the caravan warned about that camel, “Be careful with him! For he is not carrying merely straw and chaff; I know we have loaded a very heavy burden upon him.”
They entered the city and came to untie the burdens. The leader said to them, “Untie this camel first! As I placed upon him the heaviest burden of them all!” Likewise HKB”H commands not to cause harm to the blind, as there are no afflictions greater than a person who is blind. Therefore it states, “Cursed is he who misdirects the blind on the way.” Likewise in the future, when HKB”H will come to heal all the ill people in the world, He will first heal blind, as it states, “Hashem gives sight to the blind” (Tehillim 146:8).
However, the Midrash continues, Who are the blind, these are the later generations who follow the Torah as if they are blind, as it states, “We grope the wall like the blind” (Yeshayahu 59:10), that all the people in our generation, read the Torah but don’t know what they are reading. But in the future the pasuk will be fulfilled, “The eyes of the blind will be opened” (ibid. 35:5).
It turns out that in our generation, we are considered like blind people groping in the dark. However, in the sefarim (most notably the work Vayomer Avraham, by Rav Avraham Fattal z”l (1890-1981), Maran’s father-in-law) he brings a parable. A person was travelling and was slightly delayed. He had a valuable pearl which fell from his hand and was lost. He just couldn’t find it as it had become dark. He decided to sleep by the roadside and in the morning he will search for the pearl. As it happened, another man was walking in that same place; he, too, had lost his way and a precious object, and he, too, decided to sleep in a nearby tree.
At night the relatives of the first person came and began searching with a lamp and until they found him. They called him but he didn’t answer because he was fast asleep.
In the morning, he began to cry out that he was cold, and his flesh was covered in goosebumps from the chill. The other man said to him, “Look, you brought this trouble upon yourself; had you woken up during the night at the sound of your relatives calling out, you wouldn’t have caught a chill, and with the help of their lanterns, we would have found our belongings!”
The analogy is that many times Hashem sends his prophets and messengers to arouse Am Yisrael from their slumber, because Hashem visited us long ago anticipating our return to him, as they say the Hebrew word for the month “Ellul” stands for “Ani ledodi v’dodi li” – “I am for my beloved and my beloved is for me” [see Shir HaShirim 6:3]. But we haven’t paid attention to awaken and we have remained blind as it were. Regarding this the prophet said, “Arise! Shine! For your time has arrived” (Yeshayahu 60:1). For the time of the redemption has arrived! Yet we are still asleep and not waking up! “A sound! My Beloved knocks! He said, ‘Open your heart to Me, My sister!...My dove!’” (Shir HaShirim 5:2). However, we answer regarding the laziness, “I have doffed my robe of devotion; how can I don it?” (ibid.). “…my Beloved sent forth His hand from the portal” (ibid.), attempting to open the door, but again, until we remember, the time of teshuvah has passed, “…my Beloved had turned His back on my plea and was gone” (ibid.).
We must reflect! We are slumbering in the deep sleep of this world! The prophet cries out, saying, “For, behold, darkness may cover the earth and a thick cloud [may cover] the kingdom,” (Yeshayahu 60:2), this is true of the Gentiles, they dwell in darkness, but concerning Am Yisrael it states, (in the continuation of the pasuk), “but upon you Hashem will shine, and His glory will be seen upon you.”
And if we awaken to repentance, then the remainder of the pasuk will also be fulfilled in us, “Nations will walk by your light and kings by the brilliance of your shine” (Yeshayahu 60:3), meaning that the nations, too, will walk by our light, for they also need to be rectified through Am Yisrael.
I heard from Maran HaSaba tz”l, in the year 5762 that he saw a vision in his dream that he was standing at the Kotel HaMa’aravi and there he met the Melech HaMashiach, and he asked him, “Why don’t you come to dream Am Yisrael?” The Mashiach replied, “There are another million children who still don’t know Shema Yisrael! Let more and more repent, and then I will be able to come!”
If so, we are poised on the threshold of the light of the world, and we must return in repentance, “Let us search and examine our ways and return to Hashem!” (Echa 3:40).
Shabbat Shalom!
