My bar mitzvah parashah Shelakh Lekha penultimate topic is featured at
the end of yesterday’s daf and in the beginning of today’s daf TB Shabbat 97. The
incident concerns a premeditated violation of Shabbat. An anonymous man was a
mekoshesh etzim, מקשש עצים. Three suggestions of the specific av
melakhah he violated are put forward. 1, he carried the wood four amot in the
public domain; 2, he detached the tree from the ground; 3 he gathered the wood together.
Rabbi Akiva’s identification of this anonymous person as Zelophehad (see how
his famous daughters challenged the patriarchy and won in (Numbers 27:1-11) is
troublesome. Rabbi Yehuda ben Beteira
chastises him for this identification.
“Rabbi Yehuda
ben Beteira said to him: Akiva, in either case you will be judged in the future for this teaching. If the truth is in
accordance with your statement that the wood gatherer was Zelophehad, the
Torah concealed his identity, and you reveal it. And if it the truth
is not in accordance with your statement, you are unjustly slandering
that righteous man.” (Sefaria.org translation)
In conjunction with Rabbi Reish Lakish Rabbi Yehuda
ben Beteira chastisement, he teaches a very important and needed moral lesson
for our time as well. One should never suspect the innocent of indiscretion, חשש בכשרים, and falsely accuse him. Speak to anybody
who has been suspected falsely of indiscretion and he or she will tell you that
it is almost impossible to regain completely his/her good name.
“Reish
Lakish said: One who suspects the innocent of indiscretion is afflicted in his body, as it is written:
“And Moses answered and said: But they will not believe me and will not
hearken to my voice, for they will say, God did not appear to you” (Exodus 4:1), and it is revealed
before the Holy One, Blessed be He, that the Jewish people would believe.
The Holy One, Blessed be He, said to Moses: They are believers, the
children of believers; and ultimately, you will not believe. They are
believers, as it is written: “And the people believed once they heard that
God had remembered the children of Israel, and that He saw their affliction,
and they bowed and they prostrated” (Exodus 4:31). The children of believers, as
it says with regard to Abraham our Patriarch: “And he believed in God,
and He counted it for him as righteousness” (Genesis 15:6). Ultimately, you will not believe,
as it is stated: “And God said to Moses and to Aaron: Because you did
not believe in Me to sanctify Me in the eyes of the children of Israel” (Numbers 20:12)” (Sefaria.org translation)
Why
are we more willing to believe a person misbehaving than giving him the benefit
of the doubt? Why do people accept as true undeniably false conspiracy
theories? Rabbi Zelig Pliskin in his book Begin Again Now provides a
method to “focus on the virtues of all the people you meet and honor them for
those virtues. Master the habit of speaking well of everyone and everything you
can. Train yourself to notice even the slightest good qualities and virtues.
Keep asking yourself, ‘What positive qualities do I see in this person?’
“The
classic work, Duties of the Hearts, sites the story of a wise educator
was walking with his students. They passed a dead dog that gave off a very bad odor.
A student commented, ‘That animal smells awful.’ The wise man, however,
observed, ‘Its teeth are so white.’ When they heard this remark, the students
regretted having spoken negatively about what they saw. The teacher wanted to
train his students so that it became their very nature to focus on the positive
and not to speak negatively.” (Page 279)
Don’t
accept at face value all the rumors swirling around an innocent person. Until
proven guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt, continue to look for the good in the
person.
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