Parshas Matos-Maasei 5784
- Torah Tavlin
- Aug 2, 2024
- 1 min read
בארץ לא עבר בה איש ולא ישב אדם שם ... (ירמי' ב-ו)
In this week’s Haftorah, Yirmiyahu HaNavi relays Hashem’s message that Klal Yisroel had abandoned Him and went after other delusions. Yirmiyahu declares: “Who led us through the wilderness ... a land nobody had traversed, where no human being had dwelt?” The question is why in fact did Hashem bring Klal Yisroel into a desolate place like the desert before bringing them into Eretz Yisroel? Wouldn’t it have been better to bring the Jewish people to a place that already had basic amenities?
R’ Yonason Eibschutz zt”l (Ahavas Yonason) explains that Chazal teach us that it is forbidden to bring a korban on an altar outside of the Land of Israel since the land outside of Eretz Yisroel is inherently impure. This is because the waters of the mabul - the great flood, reached every corner of the globe except for Eretz Yisroel, and the land outside of Eretz Yisroel became permeated with the impurities of the time as well as littered with dead bodies.
Incredibly, the desert too retained its untainted status since no one lived there, and as such, the ground did not become permeated with impurities. Thus, Hashem specifically directed the Jewish people to sojourn in the desert - a place where they could perfect their level of holiness and purity as Hashem’s chosen nation. Great tzaddikim through the ages have always extolled the benefits of sometimes detaching oneself from the hustle of the day and “live in a desert” so that we can reconnect to our spiritual essence.