Sunday, June 10, 2012

selfish suffering

Vayishma Moshe es ha'am bocheh l'mishpichosav ish l'pesach ohalo... (11:10)  

A really nice Chasam Sofer on this pasuk: When a Jew is in pain, he doesn't suffer alone.  His friends come to console him, his neighbors and family come to give comfort and share his suffering.  The sin of Bnei Yisrael here was that each person cried "l'pesach ohalo," sitting by his own doorway, concerned only "l'mishpichosav," for his own immediate family.  When Jews don't feel each others pain, when each person cries only for his own tzaros and his blind and deaf to his neighbor's situation, that's a real tragedy. 
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3 comments:

  1. Anonymous1:21 PM

    >>> The sin...here

    a really strange place to learn this out--
    if only Ploni would cry for his family & that of
    his neighbor Almoni, & vice-versa, & so double
    the crying, where NONE AT ALL should exist!

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  2. Steven2:05 PM

    Very nice chasam sofer, yashar koach for sharing it. This insight into the selfish nature of the mit'avim is consistent with the way they are depicted later in the story as each hoarding piles of as much meat as they could grab. Truly the opposite of *mann* style eating, and maybe a further reason why they so resented the *mann* -- it was necessarily all shared equally.

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  3. Netanel2:16 PM

    Maybe instead of "sin" it should say "tragedy"... But beautiful!

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