MUSSAR D’ORAISA

 

Parshas Matos-Masei 5764

 

איש כי ידר נדר לה' או השבע שבעה לאסר אסר על נפשו לא יחל דברו ככל היצא מפיו יעשה. (במדבר ל:ג)

If a man takes a vow (neder) to Hashem or swears an oath to establish a prohibition upon himself, he shall not desecrate his word; according to whatever comes from his mouth shall he do. (Bamidbar 30:3)

 

לא יחל דברו- כמו לא יחלל דברו, לא יעשה דברו חולין. (רש"י שם)

He shall not desecrate his word; he shall not make his word mundane. (Rashi ibid.)

 

The Torah prefaces this charge not to desecrate one's word with a profound lesson in the power of speech, further elaborated later in this parsha. When a person makes a vow (neder, only loosely translated as "vow", as there is no English equivalent to such a pledge) or an oath, it is not simply a pledge or promise to do something or to refrain from something. By making that vow or oath, a person actually makes for himself or for a particular object a new halachic status.

He can obligate himself to bring a sacrifice or perform some other action, and can make forbidden that which was previously permitted by the Torah. Furthermore, that which he prohibits to himself with a vow now carries the weight of a Torah prohibition and violating this vow or oath can incur the Torah punishment of lashes.

It is with this idea as a foundation that the Torah charges us not to desecrate our words. The Torah provides an easy appraisal of the importance and power that speech has. A closer look at Rashi teaches us something fundamental about words and the power of speech. Rashi renders לא יחל as a prohibition of desecrating one's words. One can only desecrate that which is holy or sanctified already, so speech is innately a holy action and should be elevated and used for lofty purposes. With speech we have the ability to sanctify Hashem's Name, perform certain positive and negative mitzvos, and even "create" new mitzvos with oaths and vows.

Making speech mundane means using it for something antithetical to its purpose. It is making that which is holy into that which is profane, which is antithetical to a Jew's role in this world—to elevate the physical aspects of this world to the spiritual service of Hashem. Desecrating speech is a direct contradiction to our natural spiritual role in the world.

As with every other implement of Avodas Hashem, the yetzer hara attempts to make us misuse our words, or to use them flippantly without thinking, defusing them of all spiritual worth and leaving them in contradiction to their true role. If we each accept upon ourselves to improve one aspect of our speech, to elevate it from mundane to its inherent level of holiness, or to choose a short amount of time every day in which we think about the holiness of our words before we speak, we will find, with the help of Hashem, that the yetzer hara in this area will not have what to say.

 

Yitzchok Pinkus

Yeshivas Mir Yerushalayim