Matos: 5786 - "V'haya eikev tishme'un" – why does the Torah specifically emphasize the mitzvos that a person tramples with his heels, and how can a seemingly minor transgression turn into a process of decline? Also:…

00:03 “And it will be, because you listen to these ordinances.” The Torah uses an unusual expression here. Earlier it says, “And it will be, if you diligently listen.” So what does “because you listen” mean here? What is the word “because” doing? The Torah changes its wording to tell us something special. There are many, many explanations, and all the Torah commentators address it. So let’s touch on a few of them. Rashi gives one explanation. Rashi says: What does eikev mean? It means those transgressions that a person tramples with his heels. What does “tramples with his heels” mean? That people treat them lightly. The Torah says, “And it will be, because you listen”: If a person is careful to observe even these mitzvos, the seemingly minor ones that people trample underfoot, the Torah promises to keep the covenant and the kindness for you, along with all its other promises. Why does it single out those transgressions? Because a person doesn’t attach importance to these seemingly minor things. He thinks, “It’s not so terrible,” even though they may actually be among the most serious. Take lashon hara, for example. It says that lashon hara is equivalent to idolatry, forbidden relations, and murder, yet people still treat it lightly. Or take anger: It says that anyone who becomes angry is as though he worships idols. So although these things are very, very serious, people treat them lightly because they don’t think or feel that they’re committing a transgression. That is why the Torah says, “And it will be, because you listen.” We need to pay attention to the heel—to those seemingly minor transgressions. The Rebbe explains the saying of our Sages: “This is the way of the yetzer hara: Today it tells him, ‘Do this,’ and tomorrow it tells him, ‘Do this,’ until it tells him, ‘Go worship—go

02:22 worship idols.’” The Rebbe explains: What does it mean that today it tells him, “Do this”? It doesn’t tell him to go commit a transgression. A Jew is naturally afraid to go against the will of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. It tells him, “Do this”—do a mitzvah. “This” means a mitzvah, but do it because I’m telling you to. So he does the mitzvah because the yetzer hara told him to, and he is listening to the yetzer hara. Tomorrow it tells him, “Do this,” until eventually it tells him, “Go worship—worship idols.” It’s a process. They tell a story about someone who came to the Rebbe Maharash and asked: Why do we have to be strict about everything? Can’t we be a little lenient? Do we always have to take the strictest position? Can’t we be a little lenient? The Rebbe Maharash told him: If we are lenient even about the smallest thing, in the end we can slip away entirely. We can reach the point of “Go worship idols.” Why? Because when a person goes against the will of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, even in a small matter, he has crossed that line. If he can do that, then little by little the process continues, and he deteriorates until, G-d forbid, he can reach the most serious transgressions. That is what the Torah means by “And it will be, because you listen.” That is Rashi’s explanation. There is another explanation of “And it will be, because you listen.” One of the great figures of Chassidus, Rabbi Yehuda ben Yisrael[?], said this: Eikev refers to ikvesa diMeshicha, the final period of exile. He explained: “And it will be, at the end”—when ikvesa diMeshicha comes—“you will listen.” In the end, you will listen. As the Rambam says, at the end of their exile the Jewish people are destined to return in teshuvah,

04:18 and “we compel him until he says, ‘I want to.’” So in the end, you will listen. Why put it off? In the end you will observe it. “And it will be, because you listen”—you will listen eventually in any case. So why put it off until tomorrow? You can do it now. That is one explanation from a great figure of Chassidus. There is also a Chassidic explanation: What does “And it will be, because you listen” mean? Eikev refers to the heel of the foot, the lowest part of the human body. The heel is called the angel of death within a person—the very lowest part. Usually, when a person does a mitzvah, it is because he understands that it is the right thing to do, or because he feels love and a connection to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. But the mitzvos—the observance of the mitzvos—need to permeate the whole person, right down to his heels, to the very lowest part. That is what it says about Avraham Avinu: “Because Avraham listened to My voice.” With Avraham Avinu, even his heels were permeated with love for Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That is the meaning of “And it will be, because you listen”: Even the heels, the lowest part of a person, must observe, guard, and love Hakadosh Boruch Hu. We have just passed Tu B’Av, and the Gemara at the end of Tractate Taanis says that there were no days as joyous for the Jewish people as Tu B’Av and Yom Kippur—the very best days. The Gemara lists a series of things that happened on Tu B’Av: the deaths of the generation of the desert ceased, the tribes were permitted to marry into one another, and various other things. One of the things the Gemara lists there, at the end of Tractate Taanis, is that they stopped bringing wood for the altar arrangement. Until Tu B’Av, people could bring and donate wood, because wood was constantly needed for the altar and the offerings. After Tu B’Av, they stopped

06:35 bringing wood for the altar arrangement. Why? It says that the sun’s strength had weakened. The wood no longer dried properly, so they no longer accepted or brought wood for the altar arrangement, because it had to be dry. One of the Amoraim there says that they called this day “the day of breaking the axe.” What does that mean? They would break the axes. They had been chopping wood with an axe called a magal. Since they could no longer bring or donate wood for the altar arrangement, they would break the axes. That is why the day was called “the day of breaking the axe.” The Rebbe explains this at length. Why did they need to break the axe? Isn’t that needless destruction? They could save it for the next year. Why break the axes? The Rebbe explains at length that, concerning iron, it says that if iron touched a stone of the altar, the stone became disqualified and could not be used for the altar. Why? Because they are opposites: The altar prolongs a person’s life, while iron shortens a person’s life. So if iron touched the altar, it disqualified the altar stone it touched. In other words, iron is the very opposite of the altar’s purpose. As long as we can use it to prepare for a mitzvah—to chop wood so it can be brought—we use it. But once we can no longer use it, because wood can no longer be brought for the altar arrangement, we break the axe. All that remains in the iron is its negative aspect, that it shortens a person’s life. That is why they would break the axes. The day of breaking the axe is one of the reasons there were no days as joyous for the Jewish people as Tu

08:56 B’Av. It went so far that they would break the magal. I thought we could also explain it this way: Earlier we spoke about eikev referring to seemingly minor transgressions. A person gets caught in a cycle of such transgressions without noticing, and the process continues as he deteriorates. So the day of breaking the magal is a day to break that cycle. A person needs to break it. In other words, this day has a special power and gives us the strength: On Tu B’Av, we can break the cycle. We need to break out of it, and then Hakadosh Boruch Hu promises, “He will keep the covenant for you.” All the promises are fulfilled, all the very best things, up to and including the true and complete Geulah, may it come soon. Amen and amen.