Shlach Lecha
Speak to the children
of
15:38-39
Regarding this Mitzvah the sages make the
astonishing statement that “the Mitzvah of Tzitzit is
equivalent to all the other Mitzvot together.”
There are more than half a dozen – I believe seven or eight – mitzvot about which our Sages used the eloquent and
hyperbolic statement that “this Mitzvah is equivalent to all the other mitzvot together.”
We are not surprised that this statement is used in regard to the
Mitzvah of circumcision, which is the token of the Covenant; nor that it is
stated about Shabbat, which is also a sign, or on the duty of Talmud Torah,
which is the Jew’s participation in the Torah; but it is surprising that this
statement is made about the relatively minor Mitzvah of Tzitzit.
Yeshayau Leibovitz (20th Century)
The remembrance of the commandments is through the
blue thread…Because blue resembles the sea, the sea resembles heaven, and
heaven resembles the Throne of Glory…
Ramban (13th Century)
This pre
cept applies to everyone who has a four cornered
garment, that he should wear it continually and not take it off, in order to
remember. Those who wear a tallit during prayers, do so
because they (are required to). But, in
my opinion, it is much more necessary to wear tzitzit
during the rest of the day and not merely during prayers, in order to remember
not to err and commit a sin at all times, since during prayers he will in any
case do no sin.
Ibn Ezra (11th Century)
The chief purpose of the precept, would therefore,
seem to be, to act as a device for aiding the memory, just as a person ties a
knot on his garment to remember something.
Nechama Leibovitz (20th Century)
The end of the parsha details a different approach
to affecting the behavior of the Israelites.
Perhaps these overwhelming feats are too powerful, too remote to compel
them. Perhaps the Israelites don’t know
how to make the connection between their fear and their awe and their own daily
habits. Perhaps they need small,
concrete actions which they themselves can perform…When the spies looked at the
Promised Land, they did not know how to see God’s plan for them there. By looking at their Tzitzit
every day, they could learn to see God’s plan in their daily lives. They needed to build their own pathway to God
through deeds – they couldn’t just “be holy.”
Rachel Cowan (Contemporary)
The earliest rabbinic sources taught that the Tzitzit should be Sha’atnez, a
mixture of wool and linen. Tzitzit found in Bar Kochba caves
showed that white cords were linen, but dyed cords were wool. And yet, wearing sha’atnez
was prohibited by the Torah? Why? Perhaps because it would have looked like
some of the garments of the Kohanim made from this blend and bound by a blue
woolen cord. Thus sha’atnez
was prohibited to non Kohanim because it was part of the trappings of
holiness…The lesson is clear:
Israelites, excluded form being Kohanim…were still to strive for a life
of holiness…We veer from this when we make people representatives of Judaism –
people like rabbis, cantors and Torah readers…
David Vorspan
(Contemporary)