Shabbos Parashas Nasso - 5776

Shabbos Parashas Nasso - 5776

Rabbi Hal Miller

A man or woman who commits any of a person's sins by committing treachery toward

Hashem, and that person shall become guilty; [Bamidbar 5:6]

A few weeks ago we read something very similar. In Vayikra 5:20-26, G-d told Moshe,

"If a person will sin and commit a trespass against Hashem". Why is this repeated here?

What new are we to learn from our verse? What does "any of a person's sins" mean?

Nechama Leibowitz notes that these four verses in Bamidbar, 5:5-8, are known as the

"parashat asharat geirim (chapter protecting the interests of proselytes)". But, as she also

notes, nowhere does it say anything directly about converts. She says that our verses here are

merely a condensed version of what came before. Rashi looks at the differences, and sees in

verse 5:8 the phrase, "if a man has no kinsman". We know that all Jews are considered to be

family, all of us have kinsmen. Who, then, would this verse refer to? Rashi tells us it means

converts, who are considered to have no family upon conversion. The repetition of these

verses is meant to apply to born-Jews in Vayikra, and a special case adding converts here.

So what is it that a person is guilty of? The verse after ours, [5:7] continues: "They shall

confess their sin that they committed; he shall make restitution for his guilt in its principal

amount and add its fifth to it, and give it to the one to whom he is indebted." This tells us

how a person gets over the sin, which may help us pin it down. The verses in Vayikra also

refer to the principal plus a fifth, in the context of stealing. Our verse then is telling us that

in addition to not being allowed to rob from a born Jew, we are not allowed to rob from a

convert.

But we could have understood that, merely from the verses in Vayikra as they were written.

Why do we need this a second time? There must be something new. Does this apply only

to robbery? Rav Hirsch tells us "Any dishonesty in affairs between man and man is considered

as a breach of faith towards G-d."

Sforno ties it all together when he writes, "The robber had committed an act of desecrating

the name of G-d in the eyes of a proselyte, who must be appalled that a natural-born Jew

could be guilty of such a deed. This is why the sin of the robber in this verse is described as

a transgression against something sacred." In other words, our verse set is separated

out from that of Vayikra to teach the seriousness of desecrating the name of G-d in the

eyes of people who were not born Jewish.