Nasso 

The sicha for parshas Nasso is in Vol. II of Likkutei Sichos.

The Rebbe begins with a quote from the maamar Bosi L’Gani, the last maamar that the previous Rebbe wrote in which the Rebbe refers to word shittim, coming from the word shtus, meaning folly or a form of insanity, and says there are two kinds. There is the shtus that is holy - when a person goes beyond the rational, beyond the call of duty and the shtus of the unholy when any time a person sins, or digresses from the path of holiness. As a proof-text that the word shtus means sinning, the Rebbe brings the verse “ki sisteh ishto”, if a woman goes astray, referring to a woman who is accused of adultery, has the same root word as shtus.

In Chassidus everything is carefully and scrupulously considered and all references must have a very meaningful relationship to the text, to the topic that is being discussed. So when we bring a proof-text from a verse in the Torah it is not simply to show that we are familiar with the verses, but rather that the text adds an insight and gives us a better understanding of the subject.

Concerning the verse “ki sisteh ishto”, by bringing a proof from the fact that if a woman is accused of committing adultery, the Torah describes that as sisteh, it is supposed to imply that any sin is an insanity or a folly, which is the folly of the unholy. This seems on the surface to be a valid proof-text because it tells us that a person does not sin unless there is a spirit of folly that takes over and confuses the person, enabling him to do something that is not permitted.

But as soon as we look a little bit deeper, we find that this proof-text is really not a very useful one because what the Rebbe is trying to say is that every sin, even the minor ones, is a spirit of folly. Even when we fail to sanctify ourselves with what is permissible, meaning that even if something is kosher and allowed, if we are careful not to indulge, that too is a mitzvah, sanctifying ourselves even with what is permissible. But all of that, if a person transgresses, is considered folly – it is coming from an insanity of sorts.

Now how do we know this from the proof-text that the Rebbe quotes? Committing adultery is one of the more serious sins. If a person commits adultery, or is even accused of committing adultery, if it comes as a result of insanity, it can be explained in that no one would commit such a serious sin were he or she not temporarily insane. But how does that prove that all sins, even the lesser sins, are also coming from a place of insanity or a spirit of folly? The proof-text falls short of proving that which it is supposed to prove.

So the Rebbe explains as follows:

The connection between a person sinning out of insanity and the immodesty of the accused woman is in two areas.

1) the law about the sotah refers only to a married woman because it is only a married woman whose indiscretion constitute adultery. There is the opinion of Reb Eliezer in the Gemarrah that says that a single person’s indiscretion is as serious as that of a married woman’s, but the halacha is that it only applies to a married woman. The reason the violation is such a grave sin is because of the sanctity of the married woman, and the sanctity of the marriage relationship.

The same is true of every sin. Every sin separates the Jew from G-d, damages the relationship between the neshama of the Jew and G-d. That is why what seems to be a small sin is very damaging, because the Jew is the married woman in the relationship with G-d, as we will explain later.

Now in says in the Zohar, that a philosopher once asked Reb Eliezer, since Jews are the chosen people, why is it in many ways Jews are weaker than any other nation, more delicate, more sensitive?

Reb Eliezer answered, it is precisely because we are the chosen people, that we are in some way more delicate and therefore weaker. We can’t tolerate the unholiness in the physical, because we can’t tolerate the unholiness in the spiritual. And so the world is very rough on the Jew, because the Jew is so sensitive. And although all other nations believe in G-d as well, and refer to G-d as the G-d of gods, and that for them is not considered idolatry, a breach or an infidelity in the relationship with their Creator but by Jews since we are more sensitive, therefore every sin causes a separation and damages the special relationship that we have with G-d, as it is with a married woman. Also Jews are compared to the heart, and being that the heart is more sensitive than other organs, even the slightest imperfection can cause terrible damage.

And with this we will understand the connection of the accused woman and other sins, in that they are all coming from a spirit of folly. Jews are in the relationship with G-d the married woman. G-d is the Husband and we are the wife. This is true in all times including in the times of golus. The difference is only that now in the time of golus, we refer to G-d as the baal, the husband, and in the future, after Moshiach, G-d will be referred to as ish, and as the novi says in response to the complaint of the Jews, when the Jews complained that G-d abandoned us in the time of golus, and that we are somehow no longer married, G-d’s response is, where is your document of divorce that I sent you? There is none, because I cannot exchange you for anyone and therefore being the wife at all times, being the married woman, the virtue of the married woman is that she is in touch with the desire and the needs of her husband, and so any time a Jew loses touch with what it is G-d wants, even if the sin that he is committed seems to be a minor sin, it affects the quality of the relationship.

Therefore when we want to explain how with every sin we become severed from G-d, , even when we indulge in what is permissible, that also damages our relationship, we bring proof from the case of the married woman, who has damaged her relationship with her husband.

This is not a proof-text alone but rather an insight and an explanation. Why is it that every sin damages the relationship? Because our relationship is one of marriage, it is an intimate relationship and it is easily damaged by the slightest indiscretion.

2) The notion “ki sifteh ishto” applies to a woman who has not in fact committed any sin. She is merely suspected of having sinned because she behaved in a manner that raised suspicions. It is very likely however that in fact she is innocent and has not sinned at all. And even that which the Torah describes as “folly” comes from a place of insanity. Because the behavior that caused the suspicion is so low that it is on the level of the animal rather than the human, that is why the accused woman brings a sacrifice made out of animal fodder.

So we need to understand this. Since in fact she has not sinned, why don’t we simply assume that she is innocent, as are most people, and why does she have to bring the sacrifice of the animal fodder? The reason is that the very fact that a person can bring suspicion to himself or herself, a suspicion of misbehavior, for that alone the person has to bring a sacrifice.

But in fact, even after she brings a sacrifice, and it turns that her innocence is established, and the misbehavior that brought the suspicion was only a temporary, momentary one, in the end she is blessed and healed by the whole experience, as the Gemarrah says that if she had borne children in pain, she would now bear them with less pain, or if she didn’t have any children, she would now have them and so on.

The same is also when a Jew sins. Every sin is an insanity but in fact it is not an actual violation of the relationship, of the marriage between the Jew and G-d, because G-d will never divorce the Jews and the essence of the Jewish soul cannot be given away inappropriately, it belongs only to G-d and is given only to G-d, so that the sinful behavior is only on the surface, but when we look deeper beyond the surface, we find that there really was no violation of the marriage.

And that is why when speaking about the folly of unholiness, the insanity of unholiness, we bring the proof from “ki sifteh ishto” from a case of a woman who is accused of misbehavior, but has in fact not done so. This tells us that in every sin the Jew’s misbehavior is only on the surface but beyond the surface the Jew remains loyal and innocent and the relationship and the marriage with G-d remains intact.

Since a person who gives credence to anything other than G-d, who attributes reality and substance to anything that is not G-dly, anything outside of G-d, is denying G-d’s oneness, and particularly if this finds expression in a violation of a mitzvah, even if it is a rabbinic one, and certainly if it is a more serious violation, all of that is only a spirit of folly and a temporary insanity, a person could think that for this kind of behavior, for this kind of insanity, G-d has in fact abandoned us and forgotten us.

In response the Rebbe brings the quote from Torah, “ki sifteh ishto” if a woman is accused of misbehavior, and for the moment the suspicion of her misbehavior causes her to separate from her husband, the truth is that there was no real violation of the marriage and in a short time she will once again be reunited with him. And not only to go back to as good as it was before, but better than before because she is healed from whatever problems she had before the suspicion and before she went through the whole process of the sotah.

And the same is true also with our relationship with G-d, every person knows within himself where he has failed and where the insanity or the folly of his thinking lies, yet the person should not become discouraged – every Jew has to know that there is never a time when there is a true violation or separation between the Jewish soul and G-d, and there cannot, G-d forbid, be the loss or the permanent damage to the soul because the divine spark in the soul can never be given away and the loyalty of that core of the Jewish neshama is never squandered nor misdirected away from G-d to anything else.

The insanity and the folly are only momentary, in which the person looses his bearings and behaves in a manner not befitting a Jew nor not befitting a human being. But immediately after that folly is cleared away, and the innocence and the permanence of a Jew’s connection to G-d is re-established, as the Alter Rebbe brings in Tanya, that even the lowest of the low, who sins and neglects his Yiddishkeit, even in some very serious violations, yet when it comes to the very relationship with G-d, to the marriage that exists between the Jew and G-d, here the loyalty and the devotion is exclusively to G-d and even the lowest of the low will give up his life rather than deny that essential relationship.

So the core of the neshama is not affected by this insanity. The insanity can reach only so deep. The core of the neshama remains loyal, as the Megillah says concerning Esther as she was taken to Achashverosh, and Esther here being an expression of the neshama as it comes down into the body, and is dragged away into the concerns and needs of the body, and so on, so Esther being the neshama in the body, the Megillah tells us that after Esther was taken to the palace, Esther remained loyal to Mordechai. Mordechai here refers to that part of the neshama that doesn’t come into the body, but stays above, beyond the affects of the body. And so the Megillah says that even after she was taken to Achashverosh, she continued to follow the instructions of Mordechai, just as it was when she was still with Mordechai.

Even after the neshama comes down into the body, and is invariably affected by the body, yet the core of the neshama, the Esther of the neshama remains loyal to the part of the neshama that is above the body, which never gets separated from its G-dliness, because it isn’t affected by the world around it. Like Mordechai who would not bow, who would not submit to the unholiness in the world, so it is with every neshama, the core of the neshama remains loyal, even when on the surface there seems to be insanity or folly and misbehavior.

And through this we are assured that as soon as the insanity clears away, we find ourselves connected to G-d with love and fear, with the Shechina still experienced and revealed in the neshama, and that is when the inner part, the pnimiyus of the neshama is revealed to us so that it removes any possibility of forgetfulness or insanity or folly. And that is described when we say the days of Moshiach, the coming of Moshiach for each individual, when each individual is totally in touch with his neshama and therefore not vulnerable to the distractions of the world. And when each person in his own life experiences the coming of Moshiach of his neshama then together we prepare the world for the complete and total redemption – Moshiach b’klalus.

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