LOOK OUT FOR THE LARGE LAMED!

BS”D


I'm in Portland, healing a sick Sefer Torah & staying with some very special people. I was on my way to shul this morning to give over this drush, but I fell down the stairs & the concensus between the adults in the household was that I should not walk on my injured leg. So I never had the opportunity to share this with the community I wrote it for, but you can read it below:

There is an enlarged letter Lamed in this week’s Parsha, Nitzavim, in Devarim/Deuteronomy 29:27.

וַיִּתְּשֵׁם יְהוָה מֵעַל אַדְמָתָם, בְּאַף וּבְחֵמָה וּבְקֶצֶף גָּדוֹל; וַיַּשְׁלִכֵם אֶל-אֶרֶץ אַחֶרֶת, כַּיּוֹם הַזֶּה.

“Vayit’sheym Y-H-V-H mey’al adematam b’af uv-cheymah uv-qetzef gadol va-yash’Likheym el-eretz acheret kayom hazeh:”

“So Y-H-V-H uprooted them from their soil in anger, & wrath, & great fury, and cast them into another land, as is to this day:”

The word in which this enlarged Lamed appears - “va-yash’Likheym” (& cast them) - is from the same shoresh/root as “tashlikh” - to throw out or away; exile. Like what we do with bread crumbs on the afternoon of first day Rosh Ha-Shanah (when it’s not Shabbes, like this year - then we save it for second day), & symbolically to our sins, contracted spaces & narrowness which needs healing.

Context: Devarim 29:21 reads, “A future generation, consisting of your descendants, who rise up after you, along with the foreigner from a distant land, shall see the punishment directed against that land (Israel), & the plague with which G@d has struck it… ”

Followed by 29:23, “All the nations will ask, ‘Why did G@d do this to the land? What was the reason for this great display of anger?’”

Then 29:24, “They shall answer, ‘It is because they (the Jews) abandoned the covenant that G@d, L@rd of their ancestors, made with them when He brought them out of Egypt.’”

The verse immediately following, 29:28, says,

הַנִּסְתָּרֹת–לַיהוָה, אֱלֹהֵינוּ; וְהַנִּגְלֹת לָנוּ וּלְבָנֵינוּ, עַד-עוֹלָם–לַעֲשׂוֹת, אֶת-כָּל-דִּבְרֵי הַתּוֹרָה הַזֹּאת.
“Ha-nistarot (Esther/Nestor/Nistar/Astoroth) la-Y-H-V-H Eloqeynu ve-ha-nig’lot lanu u-le-vaneynu ad-olam…”

“The concealed is for G@d our L@rd, & the revealed is for us & for our children forever. We must therefore keep all the words of this Torah.”
So… why the letter Lamed? The pictographic shape of Lamed is that of a goad - that’s an instrument with which we coax animals to go in the direction we want, rather than the direction that they want. Sort of a non-electric cattle prod.

The Shoresh/root is the same as that of talmud/limmud/learn/teach. So here we have “a big teaching”, as my friend Chaim Rothschild Lev yesterday said to me about this.

R’ Chayim Dovid Ha-Levy, z”l, the former Chief Sefardi Rabbi of Tel Aviv, was a great scholar, posek & Kabbalist. He said that anytime we see an enlarged letter in our writings, that is a place where G@d takes over the direction. That Ha-Shem steps out of the status quo & is proactive about something. Example: the enlarged letter Bet which begins the Torah. B’Reyshit bara Eloqim…

So here we see that Ha-Shem is goading us away from the direction we would choose to go & instead take the path which G@d wants for us.

Talmud Bavli Yoma 29a tells us that there are 22 saintly women in our history, each with a quality which represents a letter of the Hebrew alefbet. The letter Lamed is the symbol of Devorah (Haftarah Beshallach = Judges 4:4-5:31). Who was Devorah? She was named after Rivqah’s wet nurse, who died at the same time as Rivqa (B’reyshit/Genesis 35:8 Parshat Va-yishlakh) & was buried in that area. & what did Devorah do? She judged for us & decided questions of law for the whole nation - a posek, or poseket. She was considered to have been a vessel for the ru’ach nevu’ah/spirit of prophesy. She also goaded Baraq - who was commanded by G@d to go to war with Sisera. Ha-Shem guaranteed Baraq would be victorious & yet he, feeling unworthy of such a miracle, refused to go to war unless Devorah accompanied him. Baraq felt that only her merit would guarantee his success. Devorah’s response: “I will go with you, but the path you have chosen to go will not be for your glory. Ha-Shem will deliver Sisera into the hand of a woman.” In Devorah’s song, Judges 5:1 - 31, she sings of how when the people of Israel devote themselves to Ha-Shem, they travel safely, the land blossoms & there is no war made against us. But when we forget G@d, we experience calamity.

This enlarged Lamed prophesies the coming of Devorah ha-Neviyah. Just to remind us about being very careful of the path that we choose.

Shabbat Shalom

Cross-posted at Radical Torah.




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