Amidst the warning against copying the pagan practices of divination and superstition and the order to listen to our nation’s prophets comes a most bizarre command: Tamim Tihiyeh Im Hashem Elokechah. Moshe Rabbeinu tells us to be whole in our partnership with Hashem. What does this peculiarly vague pasuk mean? Rashi offers an explanation:
Walk with [Hashem] in wholeness and look towards Him, and don’t investigate matters pertaining to the future; rather, anything that comes upon you accept with wholeness. And then you shall be with [Hashem] and part of His portion.
Rashi, Devarim 18:13
Not only does Rashi’s interpretation fail to insert much meaning in the pasuk – he still has not explained to us how our “wholeness” connects to and furthers our relationship with Hashem – but nothing could be further from the truth! Take the story of Shaul and his father’s donkeys, for instance. Shaul travels all across his Shevet’s land in search for his father’s donkeys, and he eventually gives up hope of ever finding them. His servant, however, suggests that he asks a local Navi for help; perhaps the Navi can tell him where his father’s donkeys ran away to. And Shaul takes this lad’s advice. What ever happened to accepting whatever fate Hashem brings your way? What happened to not trying to control one’s future fate or fortune through spiritual intervention?
On one hand, Hashem provides a Navi for us; as Rashi points out, the reason we may not listen to Mi’onenim, diviners, is because Hashem has appointed Klal Yisrael with Navi’im instead. On the other hand, Hashem warns us not to rely on divination altogether. How?
More to the point, we know there is nothing wrong with being a Navi, but then is there anything wrong with being a Mi’onein? The pasukim send mixed messages. Rashi claims that Goyim may listen to Mi’onenim – though we may not – because they do not have Navi’im as we do. This implies that there’s nothing inherently wrong with Mi’onenim; one simply cannot consult them once they have been replaced by Navi’im. But didn’t Hashem just say two pasukim eariler that the Goyim are kicked out of Eretz Yisrael because they had Mi’onenim and practiced divination?! Then there is something inherently wrong about divination.
Before we can address the root of these contradictions, perhaps we should ask ourselves what difference exists between Mi’onenim and Navi’im. What makes Navi’im more acceptable in Hashem’s eyes, especially if both seem to undermine Tamim Tihiyeh Im Hashem Elokechah.
The Navi, at first glance, seems to act for our nation in the Mi’onein’s stead; perhaps we first should question the Navi’s ability to sufficiently replace the Mi’onein. The Navi can only offer a response when Hashem relays a message to him, but the diviner knows no such limitations. Rashi seems well aware of this fact. The pasuk says we will always have a Navi MiKirbechah Kamoni, a Navi from within your midst like [Moshe]; Rashi, pointing out the explicit comparison between the Navi and Moshe, explains that what they share in common is that they are MiKirbechah, that they are Jewish. But the Navi is otherwise not like Moshe; whereas Moshe was able to communicate with HaKadosh Baruch Hu at whatever time he pleased, the future Navi’im are in fact held to a severe limitation.
Perhaps, we could speculate, the very quality of the Navi is that he cannot control whether his customer receives an answer or not. In the case of the Mi’onein, one is guaranteed an answer, guaranteed a prediction of his future or fate, thus remove all reliance upon G-d. However, the Navi cannot always communicate with Hashem, and so there are still times that one must be acceptant of his fate and leave without a prediction.
We now see that there is nothing inherently wrong with inquiring about one’s fate or future. Am Yisrael would always consult the Urim ViTumim before going to battle, but a response was never a guarantee. If a Kohein Gadol did not receive a response, he could actually stand to be replaced in favor of a more qualified Kohein (in hopes of evoking a response from the Urim ViTumim). Shaul too was correct to consult a Navi as to the whereabouts of his father’s donkey. If Hashem truly wanted him to find the donkeys, then Hashem would provide the Navi with the appropriate insight. But if Hashem did not wish Shaul to find the donkeys, then Hashem could simply withhold the information.
Perhaps we can distinguish between being a Mi’onein and listening to Mi’onenim. The Goyim are only kicked out of Eretz Yisrael because they practiced divination; the acts themselves are repulsive to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, but only as a repulsive means, not ends. The actual investigation into one’s future is by no means looked down upon, so long as performed in a respectable manner, to the exclusion of human skulls and armpits for instance.
But for us, the Jews, Navi’im replace Mi’onenim. In other words, the presence of the Navi serves as a clear indication of Hashem’s desire to connect to us. The presence of the Navi removes our right to investigate into our fates without Hashem’s permission. Such is the very idea of Tamim Tihiyeh Im Hashem Elokechah. The Mitzvah no longer seemingly interrupts the Dinim of the Navi and Mi’onein, but rather serves as the contrast between the two paradigms, the shift on our relationship with Hashem that forbids one former of diviner as we are granted access to the other.
Looking back at Rashi’s words, we are told not only to “walk with Hashem in wholeness” but also to “look towards Him.” What does Rashi mean Titzapeh Bo? One might think the very idea of walking with Hashem in wholeness is to not look towards Him, to never ask for intervention, and to never demand an answer or explanation. But Rashi teaches us exactly the opposite; we are supposed to pray to Hashem, to beg for his intervention, and demand answers and explanations. The Navi is the medium by which we establish this otherwise impossible communication. The Navi allows for even the most mundane matters of life, like finding a herd of lost animals, to warrant communication with G-d, the act of “Titzapeh Bo” and the constant fulfillment of Tamim Tihiyeh Im Hashem Elokechah.
No comments:
Post a Comment