Shoftim
In Parashat Shoftim, in the 20th Perek in Sefer Devarim, the Torah tells us how the Jewish people in the olden days used to go out to battle. The Torah tells us how the Kohen would stand in front of the people and talk to them, inspire and encourage them. He talked that they were now about to go and fight a war and that their heart should not be faint, and they should not be afraid, and they shouldn’t panic. He told them they should not break down in front of the enemy. He told them that G-d will accompany them to war to fight the enemies and save the Jews. The Perek then goes on and gives exemptions to some people from going to battle. The first exemption mentioned was for those who built a new house and who had not yet inaugurated it. The pasuk says to let them return to their new house, since he might die in the war whereby another would come and inaugurate it.
Rashi says that those words ‘another will inaugurate it’, is a sorrowful thought for the soldier who just built a house. The simple explanation is that it is a troubling thing to a soldier that not only might he not be able live in his new house, but that another fellow might end up living in the house that he built. Such a thought can depress a person, and can adversely affect his ability to be a soldier when he is thinking about that potential situation. Their minds would be on their house, and thus they would lack the will to fight in battle.
But there is another explanation that the Rabbi of Gur wants to convey. He explains Rashi’s interpretation in a different light. He questions the man who is in war and his life is on the line in a life and death situation, and what’s occupying his mind is not that he might die, but that he might die and that somebody else might live in the house that he built. The Rabbi of Gur explains that Rashi is saying that for somebody to think like that is warp thinking. It’s a sorrowful matter that people could put their physical needs before their existence itself. Meaning that such a person is more worried not that he is going to die, but rather he is only concerned that he might not be able to live in his house. Additionally, he is even more concerned that somebody else might live in his house. Is that what you should be concerned when on the battlefield when you might be dead in 2 minutes? The Rabbi of Gur explains that Rashi is saying that this is a pitiful situation, and that it is a sorrowful matter when a person’s priorities are so skewed that he’s more worried about his physical possessions than he is worried about his life itself.
We unfortunately might be guilty in different ways of the same pitiful situation, when we over prioritize our physical needs and deprive our spiritual needs. Of course, the spiritual needs are of eternal importance while our physical needs are temporary. How much concern and how much priority do we give for eating, and for sleeping, and for enjoying, and for vacationing, and for buying, and for all the other consuming and all the other physical pleasures? We do this all this and we deny the true purpose, and the true existence which is the spirit of the Neshama. So Rashi would then say the same thing about many of us who run after the pleasures of this world and do not seek the spiritual existence that is necessary.
Rashi might have commented on many of us and our existence, and say that our way of life and our priorities are in deed a sorrowful matter. The soldier in the war used to think on the battlefields that somebody else is going to live in house. What a pitiful thinking that he was worried about his house instead of his body. How pitiful it is that we think about our physical needs and not more about our spiritual growth?
