The parsha begins with the passuk ויבש תיבשו ךידיב ךיקלא 'ה ונתנו ךביוא לע המחלמל אצת יכ when you will go out to wage war with your enemies and Hashem will deliver them into your hands and you take captives etc. The meforshim ask what is this term of "going out" to wage war? The passuk should have simply said םחלת יכwhen you wage a war against your enemy such and such is the scenario? The Rambam in Hilchos Teshuva 3,4 writes that the blowing of the shofar alludes to sending to the sinner the message of teshuvah and spiritual awakening.
עורו ישנים משנתכם ונרדמים הקיצו מתרדמתכם וחפשו ולא םכארוב ורכזו הבושתב ורזחו םכישעמב וטיבה ליצי לאו ליעוי אל רשא קירו לבהב םתנש לכ םיגושו ןמזה ילבהב תמאה תא םיחכושה לנפשותיכם והטיבו דרכיכם ומעלליכם ויעזוב כל אחד מכם דרכו הרעה ומחשבתו אשר לא טובה
To paraphrase, the shofar is a wake - up call for people who are mentally and intellectually asleep in a deep slumber. Once one awakens he is then able to make a spiritual introspection and inventory of his life whether its compass is leading him in a morally correct pathway by connecting to Hashem and his Torah. With this he can discover shortcomings that he was unaware of and strive to fix them thereby aligning himself with the will of his creator. He is then able to recalibrate the world's preferred chosen route that he has been erroneously journeying on up until now which was only leading him to nowhere of essence, meaning, and self fulfillment. To put it bluntly the most travelled road of billions of people on earth is Route 114 gematriah .גיהנום
To really understand this self - imposed hypnotic lifestyle of induced "sleep" we must read the fiery words of a letter from Rav Yisrael Salantar on this topic. Rav Yisrael calls this sleep the most dangerous symptom of dysfunction ability. When one's feelings become numb and deprived of spiritual sensation similar to a patient who is under anesthesia, he is crippled from doing teshuvah and change. This state of losing sensitivity to spirituality is a product from preoccupation with lifestyle pressures and troublesomeness. It leaves no time to think or get off the merry go round and realize how lost one really is. Note that the word numb is pronounced exactly like the Lashon Hakodesh of נם to sleep. A person who is sleeping is numb to his surroundings.
I do not believe that it is a mere coincidence that the word number is rooted in the word numb. Numbers represent quantitative living. In most culture success in life is measured by numbers, salary amount, number of cars, yachts, houses, exotic vacations a year, sports averages, businesses, wardrobe, investments, friends, high IQ, newest technology etc. If one's focus and drive are on numbers, it usually follows that such a pursuit of higher numbers will cause numbness in the quality of your life, your relationship with Hashem and your family which all become sacrificed while attaining your goal. Slowly but surely your assemblage of objects and items will hijack your life and spiritual interest leaving in the dust a life of personal development, virtuousness, growth and tikkun hamidos.
Being constantly in a state of sleep, one forfeits to "be" and "become", but rather chooses the path to merely "exist" like an animal. Believe it or not this is also hinted in the word numb. What is the extra letter b doing in this word? It is conveying that the thing which becomes numb and desensitized at the expense when one is in the state of "sleep", is the silencing of the B function of becoming a more refined spiritual being the Tzelem Elokim.
Lehavdil Shakespeare in his book Hamlet writes a famous line starting the soliloquy of Hamlet "To be or not to be that is the question". Some interpret this to refer to the question to live or to die by committing suicide as an escape from deep pain. To Yidden, this question has a different interpretation and originates in the Torah (Devarim 30 19. םכינפל יתתנ תומהו םייחה הברכה והקללה ובחרת בחיים ) Hashem says that He placed before Yisrael the choice of life and death, beracha and curse, choose life. To be or not to be infers, is the choice whether to create yourself anew or just to remain frozen in time absent from moral challenges which transforms Man into the divine. The mere question alone is a spark displaying the sign of life that one is not in a deep slumber void of any sensitivities to Hashem, Torah, and neshama.
Habit and robot behavior is also a type of sleeping. We get accustomed to do things without any feeling or sensitivity. Any mitzvah that we do as a second nature, places us in a danger that we might soon stop doing the mitzvah altogether. It is the sound of the Shofar which instills fear to the listener to wake up from his sleep and reevaluate one's unawareness to his unrealized fulfillment of his mission on earth. One must remember his creator as the Rambam says. A creator has purpose and meaning invested in His creation. For the Sleeper this concept hasn't entered his consciousness for a while. When we hear the shofar Hashem is asking us איכה where are you, just as he asked Adam Harishon after the chait.
Because we were walking, talking, eating, making a parnassa etc. in our sleep, we let ourselves become what Shlomo Hamelech calls פתים וכסילים gullible and fools. Mishlei 1,32 כי משובת פ םיתתהרגם םדבאת םיליסכ תולשו the Vilna Gaon explains that an individual who is a פתי lacks yiras shamayim and he allows himself to be seduced by the yetzer hara which is a terrorist out to kill him. He is called a ובל ךרדב בבוש wayward without accepting the yoke of shamayim thereby turning to every whim his heart desires without fearing future consequences because of his actions. םכח והזיא .הרואה את הנולד מפני יראת שמים שבו
The blowing of the shofar arouses a fear in the listener, enough to wake him from his sleeping on the job in order to reassess his life and how he is drowning in this world of temptation and momentary pleasures.
We can now answer our original question which was the Torah's usage of כי תצא למלחמה and not םחלת יכ. The passuk does not only concern a real physical enemy but also a spiritual one who is constantly in battle mode with you to control your head and heart. The first step in the teshuva process is to wake up from one's anesthesia sleep and start to feel again. This can be done by hearing the sound of the shofar as it naturally is an alarm and an infusion of fear of Hashem in the being of a Yid. Once a person hears the wake up call he can then begin a self - introspection and assessment of the degree his waywardness removed him from the goal of life and his final destiny. This concept is alluded to in the word תצא when it is spelled with its inner letters תיו צדיק אלף which adds to 731 and equals בקול השופר with the two words! Our first step in teshuva which is the state of תצא למלחמה is hearing the sound of the shofar the waking up from our sleep and spiritual neuropathy. It is then that Hashem promises that He will give you the Siyatah Dishmaya to finish the teshuvah process הפושט יד לשבים to the point that the end of the passuk says ונתנו ה' אלקיך בידיך ושבית שביו that He will give over to you the enemy to take him as a prisoner under your control.
The words ושבית שביו can now be understood in a deeper level. During one's self induced sleep, his ruchniyus compromised state is called שובב בדרך לבו . The "Sleeper" himself was a prisoner שביו because he was שובב בדרך לבו . However now since he woke up, Hashem will bestow him with ס"ד a reversal of roles that he will take now his rebellion of Sleeping against Hashem as his prisoner under his control.
Every Shabbos is also a mini shofar blowing experience by receiving the neshamah yesairah which bestows us with daas and clarity of purpose. Chazal in the Talmud Yerushalmi tells us that an Am Haaretz would never lie concerning the Maaser tithes taken off produce so long as he is asked on Shabbos and not during the week. The reason given is because the fear of Shabbos is upon him. On Shabbos like the shofar blowing, we are stirred with fear of Hashem. That is why on Friday Night we daven דובענ וינפלביראה ופחד . On Shabbos we are not בבוש ובל ךרדב as the gematriah of בל לכב הבהאאהבה בכל נפש אהבה בכל מאד equals שבת. The Shabbos rids one of being פתים and כסילים which is also gematriah with its two words . תבש Shabbos like the shofar stirs us to be awakened from our "sleep" התעוררי התעוררי כי בא ירוא ימוק ךרוא
In the ןיקילדמ המב that minhag Ashkanaz recites before Maariv we say the obligation שמשמל בבגדיו to check one's clothing lest he unknowingly might be carrying something in his pocket. Our sefarim tell us that the word בגד can also be interpreted to mean traitor. Thus Chazal are alluding to us that with the koach of Shabbos we can be awakened from our spiritual sleep and start the teshuvah process, and continue with fixing our shortcomings.
Gut Shabbos,
Rav Brazil
