Rabbi Yoshiyahu Pinto’s talks are known throughout the Jewish world. They combine chassidic teachings and philosophy, along with tips for a better life. We have collected pearls from his teachings that are relevant to our daily lives. This week he comments on the Torah section of Ki Tovo.
"And you shall take from the first of all the fruits of the earth that you bring from your land." (Deut. 26:2)
The power of the High Holidays is so great that it can change a person's whole life. Therefore we get up early for the Selichot prayers because now the Almighty is close to everyone, as the verse says, "Seek God when He is around, call upon him when He is near" (Isaiah 6:6). The sources state that at this time, the Almighty is present in our world and it is a time of favor. If a person wants to meet a great king, he does everything he can to get a personal meeting with the king because it is far better than to meet with his ministers. The great King is in the world at the crack of dawn and is looking around the world. A person who repents and surrenders his heart and does his best to get close to God, can utilize this special time and potential to ask for everything he wants, for forgiveness for the past and to become better for the future.
God is waiting for the prayer of each and every Jew. He is waiting for every Jew to request mercy from Him. God is waiting for us to pray and ask Him for forgiveness for the past and make our requests for the future.
But a person can only do this if he has a clean mouth, if he didn’t defile and profane his mouth with nonsense and bad things. About the commandment of bringing the first fruits to God which appears in this week's Torah section, "And take from the first fruits that you will bring from your land," the holy Ropshitzer rebbe says: The initials of the phrase pri ha’adama (“the fruit of the land”) are pei - heh, which spells the word peh, mouth. God wants a person's mouth to be holy and pure and free of nonsense and bad words. If a person dirties his mouth and utters wrongful words, how can he then go and ask God for holy and spiritual things?!
"According to whatever came out of his mouth, he shall do." (Num. 30:3) A person should be very careful that whatever comes out of his mouth should be holy and pure. How can he speak to the King of kings with a mouth that spoke worthless and nonsensical things, that spoke slander, that ate forbidden foods or ate from theft? The very conduit by which he did these sins will now make his entreaties to God? If the conduit is defective, how does he expect God to answer him? One should exercise the greatest caution with every word that comes out of his mouth.
We should engrave in the minds of each of us this important lesson for the rest of our lives. King David says (Psalms 89:49) "Who is the man who will live and not see death, who will rescue his soul from the grasp of the grave forever?" What does this verse mean? Death is not “seen”, death is felt when the soul of the person leaves his body. So what is meant by "who will live and not see death"?
We can explain the verse according to the holy Zohar (Eicha 111a) and the Yalkut Reuveni’s dire metaphorical account of how death came into the world. The Zohar explains that when the serpent saw Adam and Eve, it was jealous of Adam. The Mishnah (Avot 4:21) says that jealousy, lust and honor-seeking causes a person to lose his world. Jealousy was the root of the first corruption in the world. The serpent was jealous of Adam for having Eve.
The snake wanted to cause death to Adam and looked for an opportunity how to do it. The snake began a conversation with Eve in which Eve told the snake, "We may eat from the garden’s fruit trees." (Genesis 3:2)
Our sages say that as soon as she said mipri (“from the fruit”), she took out the letter mem, and the snake took the mem and lifted it up with his left arm and waited for Eve to say the two letters of vuv and tof, with which mem spells mavet - “death”. The Torah verses continue, "And the woman saw [|vateireh begins with vuv and tof] that the tree was good for food." The snake immediately took the vuv and tof from that word and connected it with the mem to form mavet. But the serpent still could not bring death.
The Torah continues "And she took [vatikach] of its fruit and she ate [vatochal], and she also gave [vatitain] it to her husband with her, and he ate." - The Satan took the letters vuv and tof from the word vatikach and the letters vuv and tof from the word vatochal and the letters vuv and tof from the word vatitain and kept all of them. The Torah continues, "and the eyes of both of them were opened" [vatipakachnah]. Again he took the letters vuv and tof for the fourth time and this time he brought death to the world. This is the Zohar’s interpretation.
So long as Eve did not iterate with her mouth the letters that combined to form the word 'death', it was not possible to bring death into the world. Only after she annunciated the letters that formed the word “death” was the Satan able to take it and bring death into the world. The tongue has the power of life and death. All the difficult things that a person undergoes in life, are brought about by his mouth and caused by a person himself.
In these days of the month of Elul, every person should examine his actions and prepare himself for the exalted Judgment Day. But in order to achieve this preparation, a person needs a clean, pure and holy mouth in order to ask God for forgiveness and clemency and atonement. If the mouth was defiled with forbidden words and forbidden foods and theft, how can this mouth request things of God and now utter good words? A person’s essence is based on his mouth. If the mouth is good, then everything is good. If the mouth is not good, life and death are controlled by the tongue, and the mouth can bring death and terrible destruction to man.
Therefore, a person should be careful with all his might to guard his mouth, and then he can ask in holiness and purity that God will give him great abundance and that the King of kings should bless him with mercy, salvation and success.
Wishing you all a happy and sweet New Year.
This article was written in cooperation with Shuva Israel