Parashat Naso: Why All the Repetition

At the end of this week's parasha Naso , the Torah goes into great detail regarding the donations that the Nasi'im brought to inaugurate the Mishkan . And as we know, each Nasi brought the exact same donation and the Torah repeated each one of them, twelve times, one for each Nasi . Many mefarshim offer explanations as to why the Torah has all this repetition. The sefer Darkeh Musar brings from the Saba m'Kelm who explained, the Torah is teaching us here how Hashem relates to the individual. One should not think if a large group gets together to do a mitzvah that Hashem views it as if that group, so to speak, all got a check for their actions. The parasha of the Nasi'im teaches us, Hashem is happy with each individual separately. Although they all brought the same donations and collectively comprised a group of twelve, Hashem took delight in each one of them independently. Each one of them brought Hashem a different type of joy, depending on the person's background and what each of them had accomplished and experienced in their lives prior to this point. Everyone is always treated as if he is the only one in the world. And this does not only apply when a group of people get together to do a mitzvah. This is always the way it is. When something happens to a group of people, Hashem doesn't deal with them as a group, but rather every single person, with his own hashgacha . Whatever happens to him was decided solely based on what was supposed to happen to him. And the way a person reacts when things happen to him will show how much he really believes in Hashem's hashgacha . The Shomer Emunim writes, if we would know how valuable it is to honestly believe that every single thing that takes place in our lives comes directly from Hashem, our hearts would ignite with endless excitement. Furthermore, the pasuk says, ה' צילך – that Hashem is our shadow. And the Baal Shem Tov explained this to mean that Hashem acts towards us corresponding to the way we act towards Him. If a person says each time that something happens that it was from Hashem, then Hashem will deal with him with extra hashgacha pratit . He will be able to feel Hashem's presence more and he will get more Heavenly help. The pasuk says in Tehillim , ה' משמים השקיף על בני-אדם לראות היש משכיל דורש את אלוקים – Hashem is watching to see who is wise enough to seek Him out. The word אלוקים represents טבע which is nature. And as we know, הטבע is the same numerical value as אלוקים . So the pasuk is saying, Hashem is watching to see who will find Him inside of nature, who will attribute what seems to be natural occurrences, to Him. For this, a person must train himself until instinctively, he is able to say about everything, "That was m'et Hashem." When someone becomes a person who is fully ma'amin in Hashem's constant hashgacha , he will never get angry, he will never have animosity towards anyone, he will save himself from countless averot and he will get a mitzvah aseh each time he believes in Hashem's hashgacha , based on the pasuk, אנכי ה' אלוקיך אשר הוצאתיך מארץ מצרים. The Shomer Emunim gives the following words of chizuk to help strengthen us in this area. He writes, fortunate is the person who is constantly strengthening himself in the area of emunah called hashgacha pratit , because the reward for it in this world is that Hashem will show the person ניסים ונפלאות – miracles and wonders. And therefore, our job as religious Jews is to look at every single thing that takes place in our lives, whether it is obvious good or whether it seems to look bad, and attribute it to Hashem and know that it is absolute good and praise and thank Him for it. We constantly needed to be reminded about this great avodah . May Hashem help us to always see His hand in everything that takes place. Shabbat Shalom.