Shelach

Shelach - Michael J. Broyde 

Michael Broyde is a law professor at Emory University and the rabbi of the Young Israel Congregation in Atlanta.

Parshat Shelach concludes with the instruction to attach tzitzit (fringes) to a four-cornered garment. The Talmud (Menahot 41a) recounts that there is no obligation to wear tzitzit unless one happens to be wearing a four-cornered garment. Nonetheless, the Talmud recommends that people wear tzitzit all the time by intentionally donning a four-cornered garment, thereby creating a daily obligation to wear tzitizit.

But why? Why should a person knowingly create an obligation upon oneself to wear tzitzit? Perhaps it would be better if a person were never to wear a four-cornered garment, never be obligated in tzitzit, and thus never fear that his tzitzit might rip (and he would be left wearing a four-cornered garment without tzitzit, in violation of the law).

The Talmud provides a non-legal answer, one which is somewhat mysterious. The Talmud (ibid., 43b) answers that God watches over us when we wear tzitzit, and thus we want to wear tzitzit all the time in order to ensure Divine Providence.

Although there are some who think that the Divine Providence provided by the tzitzit is mainly of the miraculous kind (the Zohar (classic mystical text) explains this at great length) and that God genuinely does gratuitous favors because one wears tzitzit, others advance a more rational explanation.

People continuously need to be reminded who they are and why they need to conduct themselves properly. One of the basic purposes of mitzvot is to increase the sanctity of a person. Sometimes people find sanctity to be uncomfortable. They prefer instead to blend into the crowd and not embody the kedushah of being Jewish all the time. Anonymity, though, is the prerequisite for innocuous sin and a necessary step before a person can succumb to his or her own temptations.

The Jewish faith frequently surrounds people with symbols and signs not because God needs to be reminded who is Jewish and who is not, but because people need to remind themselves of who they are and who they are not.  Just like the blood on the doorposts wasn't needed by God to discern between Jew and Egyptian, but served instead to force individual Jews to identify with the Jewish people in a time of difficulty.

Mezuzot serve a similar function as well, as do kippot (in the realm of custom), and at an even more basic level, brit milah (circumcision). Indeed, one can find many mitzvot whose purpose can be understood as of benefit to the performer of the mitzvah by reminding that person of who he or she is and the responsibilities he or she bears.

Tzitzit serve this purpose, too. As most know, there has been a dispute for 1,000 years as to whether it is better to wear one's tzitzit out or in. Notwithstanding the explanatory verse which states, "And you shall see them and remember God's commandments" (Num. 15:39), most Jewish law authorities have steadfastly maintained that one need not wear one's tzitzit out, and some even insist that is not preferred to do so. Why not? According to their understanding, the viewer of the tzitzit, the one who should see them, is none other than the wearer himself. Indeed, the wearer "sees" them just fine by feeling they are there and knowing they are present.

The commandment of tzitzit is thus a prototype for a certain type of mitzvah: one which talks to God by talking to ourselves. When we identify, even externally, as a people who wish to acknowledge to ourselves that we are obligated in God's commandments, God rewards us with the promise that we can watch over ourselves successfully.