Parshat Noach
By: Rabbi Moshe Goodman, Kollel Ohr Shlomo, Hebron
בס"ד
לשכנו תדרשו
Cleaving to the Holy Presence in Our Holy Land
"נח איש צדיק תמים היה בדורותיו את הא-הים התהלך נח"
"Our Father, Compassionate Father! Please have compassion upon us and instill within our hearts understanding to understand... to learn, to teach, to keep... all the words of Your Torah with love... and make our hearts cleave to Your commandments... Speedily bring upon us blessing and peace... and lead us upright quickly to our Land..."
This blessing, known as "the blessing of love" before reading the Shema shows us that to love God means not only to aspire to know and cleave to Him by learning the Torah but also, as seen at the end of this blessing, to cleave and aspire for His Holy Land.
The commandment of "cleaving to God" has additional meanings as well, such as incorporated in halacha, in the form of cleaving to the Godly righteous.[1] Our Sages ask: how can we be commanded to cleave to God, behold 'He is a Consuming Fire'? They answer: one can cleave to the Godly righteous and thereby cleave to God.[2]
This concept has special significance in this week's parsha, as we see that it is those who cleaved to Noah, "the righteous man" in our title quote, that were saved from the Flood in the beginning of this parsha, and it is also Lot who cleaved to Avraham, at the end of this parsha, who later merited to much blessing and salvation as we see later in the book of Breshit.
In a similar way, Kaleb cleaved to the righteous of Hebron and was thereby saved from the plot of the spies against the ascent to the Land of Israel. Indeed, according to the Arizal one of the main purposes of attending the tombs of the righteous is to "cleave spirit (the visitor) to spirit (the righteous deceased)".[3]
It is we too, by connecting to the righteous of Hebron that we merit much blessing and salvation. Although we have usually focused on connecting to our righteous Patriarchs, let us take a closer glimpse of the other righteous of Hebron.
One of these is Jesse father of David, buried next to the Tel Rumeida neighborhood of Hebron. About Jesse it is said that he is one of the only four righteous that died with no sin.[4] Therefore, it is no surprise that Mashiah is many times coined as "the son of Jesse". Next to him is buried Ruth, the exemplary figure for all converts, the
figure of exemplary devotion and courage, the "Mother of Royalty".
Real Stories from the Holy Land #38: "For Rosh HaShana I stayed at an apartment in Jerusalem my friend's parents rented. On Rosh HaShana I "happened" to meet neighbors of mine when I was living in New York. They later told me that they had come to be in Israel for two years and were living in the same building that I was staying for Rosh HaShana".
[1]Rambam Deot 6, 1
[2]Ketubot 111b
[3]See "Avnei Shoham", Shulhan Aruch of Arizal
[4]Shabat 55b
