MUSSAR D’ORAISA
Parshas Yisro 5764
"ולא תעלה במעלות אל מזבחי
אשר לא תגלה ערותך עליו". (שמות כ:כ"ג)
“You shall not ascend with steps
upon My Altar, so that your nakedness will not be uncovered upon it.” (Shemos 20:23)
This parsha includes the single greatest event in the
history of the world. When Hashem gave us the Torah, Klal Yisroel stood
together as a unified nation ready to accept the Torah and serve Hashem
forever. This event was the purpose of creation and if we had not accepted the
Torah, the world would have reverted to barren emptiness. But the parsha does
not end with this climax. Fittingly, following the Aseres HaDibros, the
Torah describes some of the laws connected to building an altar and bringing korbonos
to Hashem, Klal Yisroel’s way of becoming close to Him. But how does this last
verse connect to the giving of the Torah? How does it capture the essence of
the rest of the parsha?
Rashi explains the pasuk as follows:
לא
תעלה במעלות- כשאתה בונה כבש למזבח לא תעשהו מעלות... אלא חלק יהיה ומשופע. אשר לא תגלה ערותך- שעל ידי המעלות אתה צריך להרחיק פסיעותיך ואע"פ שאינו גילוי ערוה ממש
שהרי כתיב ועשה להם מכנסי בד מ"מ הרחבת הפסיעות קרוב לגילוי ערוה הוא ואתה
נוהג בהם מנהג בזיון והרי דברים קל וחומר ומה אבנים הללו שאין בהם דעת להקפיד על
הבזיון אמרה תורה הואיל ויש בהם צורך לא תנהג בהם מנהג בזיון חברך שהוא בדמות
יוצרך ויקפיד על בזיונו על אחת כמה וכמה. (רש"י שם)
You shall not ascend with steps- When you build a ramp for the
Altar, do not make it of ascending levels (steps). Rather it should be smooth
and inclined. So that your nakedness will not be uncovered- Because the steps require you to
take wide steps. Although this is not actual exposure of nakedness, for it is
written ‘And make for them linen pants,’ nonetheless taking wide steps is close
to exposing nakedness, treating the [stones of the Altar] in a humiliating
manner. The Torah says, ‘since there is need for them, do not treat them in a
humiliating manner. In the case of your fellow man who is in the image of your
Creator- and cares about his humiliation, how much more so must you treat him
with respect.’ (Rashi
on Shemos 20:23)
The
parsha in which Hashem gave us the Torah ends with the ultimate mussar of how a
person should act, especially one who just accepted the Torah. Do not humiliate people. Do not do unto
others as you would not want them to do to you. And to what extent? The Gemara
(Kesubos 67b) says that it is better for a person to pass himself through a
pillar of fire rather than embarrass his friend in public. This is a famous
ma’amar Chazal, but how do we relate to that? Do we really recognize how much
our words and actions can affect someone?
The
Gemara (Sotah 8b) explains the pasuk of “You shall love your neighbor as
yourself”(Vayikra 19) to mean ברור לו מיתה יפה, Ensure for him a “nice” death. This means
that when Sanhedrin carries out the death penalty, they still have to make sure
it is a “nice” death, limiting the pain. There is a dispute there as to what a
nice death means. One side holds that when Beis Din stones someone, the person
should be naked and the other holds that he should be dressed. This dispute is
based on which is a “nice” death. The one who holds that we stone a person
naked holds that physical pain is greater than the pain of embarrassment so we
ensure a quicker death and save him the extra physical pain. The one who holds
that we stone him clothed holds that the pain of embarrassment is greater than
physical pain, so he is clothed, which prolongs the stoning process, causing
him probably immeasurable extra physical pain, but salvaging some sort of
dignity.
I
had a thought on this Gemara, in particular on this second opinion of stoning
clothed. It is very difficult to be sentenced to death in Sanhedrin. These are
not everyday criminals. To receive the death penalty in a Beis Din, one has to
commit one of the worst possible crimes imaginable, and even that is not
enough. There need to be witnesses present and a warning given shortly
beforehand. A person has to come just short of announcing, “I am about to do
this horrific sin against Hashem’s Word, I am aware of the penalty, and I am
doing it anyway” in order to be put to death. So these people are among the
worst of the worst, yet we are commanded not to give them even one bit more
pain than necessary. According to this opinion that says clothed, stoning them
naked would do just that. This means that a person, even a person with such
depraved moral character, would prefer to have a terrible death prolonged
rather than suffer the pain of embarrassment in front of people he will never
see again! Sometimes we can say things that are disrespectful or that could
humiliate someone and we don’t even realize it. Before we say something that
could potentially embarrass someone, we should think to ourselves how it could
affect that person. If the pain of humiliation is so great that a person would
actually choose a prolonged painful death in its place, we should not disregard
it so flippantly.
This
last pasuk in the parsha of Matan Torah is a warning to be extra careful
about humiliating people, about not doing to others that which we would not
want done to us. Even if we don’t think of a specific situation as being so
serious, we nevertheless need to be cautious, as Rashi says, “close to
exposure”- speaking flippantly and disrespectfully, even if it doesn’t totally
humiliate a person is like “treating the stones in a humiliating manner”. We
should take this to heart and realize before we possibly humiliate someone,
chas v’shalom, that this person would rather suffer a prolonged painful death
rather than have us say whatever just came to mind and embarrass him. The Torah
in this pasuk tells us that this keen awareness of the severity of disrespect
and the caution taken in avoiding embarrassing people by speaking or acting in
a disrespectful manner should be a central character trait in everyone,
especially someone who just accepted the Torah.
Yitzchok Pinkus
Yeshivas Mir Yerushalayim