Shelach: String Theory

I guess it's a question I've always had.

Something tugging at the recesses of my thoughts.

You know those questions that live right on the periphery of your mind, never demanding too much of an answer because, well, you just don't know enough about it for it to matter.

Tzitzis is a little like this for me.

The mitzvah itself is clear.

The halachos, the Torah reason why we do it, are based on the pesukim at the end of Parshas Shelach.

וּרְאִיתֶ֣ם אֹת֗וֹ וּזְכַרְתֶּם֙ אֶת־כׇּל־מִצְוֺ֣ת יְהֹוָ֔ה וַעֲשִׂיתֶ֖ם אֹתָ֑ם וְלֹֽא־תָת֜וּרוּ אַחֲרֵ֤י לְבַבְכֶם֙ וְאַחֲרֵ֣י עֵֽינֵיכֶ֔ם אֲשֶׁר־אַתֶּ֥ם זֹנִ֖ים אַחֲרֵיהֶֽם

I wear mine out.

Because that seems like the right thing to do.

To see it, as the pasuk says.

I’m not knocking those who wear it in; I'm just saying that it makes sense it should be something you see.

Before I get to my mysterious question about tzitzis, I wanted to also let the chevra know that this parsha, Parshas Shelach, is my Bar Mitzvah parsha, and I was thinking of going a different direction than I usually do.

Maybe more personal, less of a gut punch.

Shelach is a hard parsha to do that in. It's a hard parsha in general for Klal Yisroel.

And I sometimes think it's quite appropriate for it to be my Bar Mitzvah parsha.

It's kind of like a biography of my life, all the steps going the wrong way.

But we end with tzitzis.

Even when things go wrong, we still have tzitzis at the end.

I think tzitzis means more to me because of that.

Perhaps that is why I even have this peripheral question about it at all.

So here goes.

The strings, the fringes, they signify tying yourself to Hashem, right? The name, each corner of strings, and knots all together add up to six thirteen.

And if I had techeiles, I would also be reminded of the sea, then the sky, and then, of course, of Hashem, who sits on His Kisei HaKavod over it all.

Even today with no actual techeiles, I know the vort, and I remember it without the blue string to remind me.

But still, the image isn't right.

Something is missing there.

When you put on tefillin, that is also tying yourself to Hashem.

You’re tying your actions, your thoughts, and your heart.

And the straps have a place to be, tucked away or resting against you.

The tzitzis just kind of hang there, one edge tied to you and the other swaying in the wind, getting stuck in my pocket when I try to pull out my keys.

It gets bunched up and caught on things and stuck in the seatbelt buckle.

So the idea is that you tie yourself to Hashem with your tzitzis, but it doesn't look tied.

I know it's silly.

It's not a real question, probably.

Well, I learned a fire Torah from the Rebbe Reb Meilech, and for the first time, I think maybe there is something to my question.

A thread to pull on, if you will.

The Noam Elimelech says that the word ציצית is a lashon of looking, like מציץ מן החרכים, peering through the cracks.

The first avodah of tzitzis is not that I feel tied, but that I learn how to look.

The detached man does not begin with deveikus.

He needs to begin with his eyes.

He begins by noticing the thing hanging at the edge of his body.

The Noam Elimelech says we are supposed to look at the כנפי בגדיהם, the corners of our garments.

שהמצוות נקראים "כנפי"... וגם שהיא פורחת לעילא

“The mitzvos are called wings… and also because they fly upward above.”

That is beautiful, but also strange.

Because my tzitzis do not look like wings.

They look like loose strings.

And maybe that is the point.

A wing lifts you.

A string asks you to look.

You are not there yet, but you can begin from here.

And maybe that is why the techeiles does not take you straight to Hashem.

The Gemara says in Menachos:

תכלת דומה לים וים דומה לרקיע ורקיע דומה לכסא הכבוד

“Techeiles resembles the sea, and the sea resembles the sky, and the sky resembles the Throne of Glory.”

Why not go straight there?

Why not say techeiles reminds you of the Kisei HaKavod?

Maybe because most of us cannot go straight there.

Maybe because if you tell a detached man, “Look at Hashem,” he does not know where to look.

So Hashem gives him baby steps.

Look at the string.

Now look at the color.

Now think of the sea.

Now lift your eyes to the sky.

Now remember there is something above the sky.

Now remember there is a King.

Hashem does not demand that the unfinished man fake it. He gives him a string and teaches him how to begin.

Shelach is the parsha where we did not know how to look.

The meraglim looked at Eretz Yisroel and saw giants, fear, and death.

They talked themselves into seeing themselves as small.

“We were in our own eyes as grasshoppers, and so we were in their eyes.”

Their eyes betrayed them.

Then the parsha ends with tzitzis.

וּרְאִיתֶם אֹתוֹ

“And you shall see it.”

It is almost as if the Torah says, “You fell because you did not know how to look, so here is a mitzvah that will train your eyes.”

Here is something at the edge of your garment, small enough to hold.

Now my young grasshopper, listen close.

That is what a Gibor is.

Not the man who always feels attached.

A Gibor is the man who knows he is not fully attached yet, but he still looks.

He looks at the string.

He looks at the corner.

He looks at the loose edges of his own avodah.

He learns to notice where he is distracted, where he is small, and where he is lazy.

But he does not stop there.

He follows the thread upward.

The Noam Elimelech says that when a man sees what is missing in his mitzvah, his heart trembles, and he cries out to Hashem, and then Hashem, in His great mercy and kindness, considers it as if he had done the mitzvah without anything missing.

Hashem gives you a way to begin from the place where you actually are.

A way for the loose, unfinished, distracted, half-attached Yid to begin climbing from string to sea to sky to the Kisei HaKavod.

And there’s my answer to a silly question I had at the back of my mind.

The strings are this way because that is the avodah.

To take the part of me that still hangs in the wind and teach it how to see and reach upward.