Parshas Ki Seitzei 5784
The Novardhok yeshiva, one of the largest and most prestigious of pre-war Europe, was known for it’s serious and unrelenting approach to mussar. In addition to the rigorous study of mussar texts, the talmidim of the yeshiva would often concoct experiments in which they served as self-appointed lab rats, attempting to forge their own character in the crucible of uncomfortable experiences.
One such experience nearly scared Rav Yaakov Galinsky to death.
As a young student in Novardhok, Rav Galinksy was part of a group attempting to train themselves in courage and bravery. Some would crash communist meetings in order to proudly deliver divrei Torah. Rav Galinsky set a different test for himself: he was to go to the Jewish cemetery in the middle of the night, and dunk in the mikvah reserved for taharos—for the preparation of corpses for burial. Legend had it that the spirits of the deceased would themselves rise from their graves and use the mikvah each night.
Just as he was easing into the frigid water, he touched what he was certain was a human head. Surely the head of a spirit! He raced back to yeshiva, heart pounding, and later that night met up with a fellow student who looked equally shaken, as though he likewise had seen a ghost.
“What happened to you?” Rav Galinsky asked his friend.
“I dunked in the mikvah in the cemetery tonight. I wanted to build courage, my bravery! But when I was in the water, I felt the hand of a spirit on my head!”
Rav Galinsky was engulfed by a feeling of utter foolishness. “Did I really think I was the only one to have this brilliant idea? That no one else would have been so bold and daring to have considered pulling the exact same stunt?”
In relating the episode to his students later in life, Rav Galinsky commented, “I planned to teach myself bravery, but ended up learning a lesson in humility.”
At the end of Parshas Ki Seitzei, the encounter with the dreaded Amalek is revisited. In one small skirmish, this nation shows itself to be the most despicable of any foe the Jewish People will ever know. And why? Because of one key description: “אשר קרך בדרך—Who happened upon you on the road (Devarim 25:18).”
Amalek is unplanned, its movements are haphazard. Which is unconscionable. Life is a Divine gift, one that deserves to be respected with planning and consciousness. What am I seeking to accomplish? What are my goals? Amalek is bereft of such forethought and consideration. They are a people of קרי, of happenstance, of responding to impulse, who act on a whim. “Why should we attack these Jews? Why not? They’re here.”
Amalek and all they represent must be completely anathema to the Jewish People. Wipe them out without a trace, we are commanded in the very next pasuk. And yet our very parsha actually seems somewhat ambivalent on the issue of careful planning and strategizing in our religious undertakings.
Earlier in the parsha, we are instructed in the mitzvah of Shiluach Hakan, of sending away the mother bird in order to take the eggs from the nest. And we are given an interesting prerequisite: “כי יקרא קן צפור לפניך—When you happen upon a bird’s nest before you.” Rashi explains, “פרט למזומן—to the exclusion of one that is intentionally prepared.”
If I am a person of spiritual ambition, if I create a schedule and a plan for how I will spend my day and how it will revolve around mitzvos and serving Hashem, if I take seriously the lesson of destroying Amalek and all they stand for, if I commit to weeding haphazard whim-following from my life, and I therefore set up a nest right in the chicken coop in my yard so that I can perform the mitzvah during my lunch break, I’ve somehow botched it! There can be no mitzvah with careful planning, preparation, and forethought. The mitzvah is only a mitzvah if you chance upon the nest, not if it’s knowingly planted.
If Amalek and all its impulsivity is the great evil of the parsha, how can the very same parsha strip me of my ability to prepare?
The answer is that we must plan to work on courage, but accept that we may actually learn a lesson in humility. We must plan to dunk in the mikvah in the dead of night, but embrace the reality that Hashem may intend for us something very different than what we planned.
We cannot live life with the blasé attitude of Amalek. The notion that we act simply because we can, because there’s an opportunity, because we feel the impulse, is antithetical to the lifestyle of a Jew. Life—Hashem’s most precious gift to us—must be respected with forethought, cunning, and intention. We must consider how we’ll spend our days, what we wish to accomplish, how we intend to use the gift of life itself.
But the flip side that life is a gift from a Higher Power, is that that same Higher Power understands life and how it should be lived better than we do. We must be responsible enough to devise plans and strategies for success, but fully conscious of Hashem’s role in leading us elsewhere, to achieve goals we wouldn’t have thought to set for ourselves.
The nest must be chanced upon because not everything can be planned. Latent in the eggs that lay in that nest is a reminder that not every opportunity for meaning and spiritual elevation can be devised and plotted in advance. We do our best, but recognize Hashem’s hand in bringing us to places we’d never think to go on our own, that don’t align with our plans. And that is a blessing.
As the old expression goes, “Man plans, G-d laughs”. Not a maniacal laugh, but the knowing chuckle of a parent who gently guides their child in the direction they need to go. Amalek doesn’t plan; the Jew does. But even as he does, he keeps an ear out for G-d’s laugh, directing him elsewhere.
We may plan for a frigid dunk in a spooky mikvah, and Hashem is preparing a completely different encounter. It is good to plan an exercise that will teach us bravery. But we should be receptive to Hashem’s resolution to teach us humility instead.