Parshat Re'eh
29 Menachem Av 5761
August 18, 2001
Daf Yomi: Baba Kama 22


Guest Rabbi:
Rabbi Yaakov Lerner
Young Israel of Great Neck, NY

The Permanent Address

The Parsha of Re'eh commands us (D'varim 12:5), "But only to the place that HaShem, your G-d, has chosen from all of your tribes to cause His Name to be there, seek out His Shechina and go to that place." The Rambam (Maimonides) sees in those words the source for one of the 248 positive commandments in the Torah. At the beginning of Hilchot Melachim, Rambam writes that Bnei Yisrael were commanded to observe three mitzvot upon their entry into Eretz Yisrael: to appoint a King, to do battle with Amalek and "to build the Beit HaMikdash as it says �seek out His Shechina and go to that place'."

As we know, the style of the Rambam in writing his Sefer Mishnah Torah was to be painstaking careful with his words and especially his formulation of the 613 mitzvot. Given this fact, there is an apparent contradiction between what the Rambam says in Hilchot Melachim and what he writes in another place in Mishnah Torah, his main section for the discussion of the laws governing the Beit HaMikdash, Hilchot Beit HaBechira. There he formulates the mitzvah "to construct the House of G-d where we can offer sacrifices to Him and celebrate with Him there three times a year." As the textual source for this commandment, the Rambam cites not the pasuk in Parshat Re'eh as we might have expected but rather a well known pasuk from Parshat Terumah. It says in Sh'mot (25:8) "Make a Sanctuary for Me that I might dwell in your midst." Why does the Rambam quote two different sources as the basis for a single mitzvah?

The Brisker Rav, Rav Velvel Soloveitchik, zt"l, responds to this problem by stating that there are two separate and distinct aspects regarding the mitzvah to build the Beit HaMikdash. The first relates to construction. We are commanded to build a Sanctuary for HaShem, an edifice that is worthy of being called a "House of G-d" and where He can take up residence in our lower world. This dimension of the mitzvah has nothing to do with what is today considered a prime factor in real estate and construction - location. The proof is that the mitzvah was first given when Bnai Yisrael were in the Sinai wilderness, wandering around from place to place. Still in all, they were commanded to erect the Mishkan at each of their stops and in all of these many different locations it served as a Beit HaShem.

According to the Brisker Rav, however, the time did come later on when location became not just important but critical. When HaShem, through the Prophet Gad, indicated to Dovid HaMelech that the threshing floor of Aravna in Yerushalayim was the chosen spot, that became the location to the exclusion of all other places. There and only there could the permanent Beit HaMikdash be erected. Furthermore, sacrifices could never again be offered on an altar constructed anywhere else but at that place. This is the reason why the Rambam cites the source from our Parsha of Re'eh in Hilchot Melachim - where he discusses not merely the mitzvah of constructing a Temple, but the permanent Temple in Eretz Yisrael. "Only in that place which HaShem has chosen to put His name there, seek His Shechina and go there."

There are indeed two aspects to the mitzvah of the Beit HaMikdash: building the structure and recognizing the Kedushat Makom - the holiness of the place upon which the edifice stands. For the past 2,000 years, since the destruction of the Second Beit HaMikdash, our enemies have been able to deny us the merit of fulfilling the aspect of building a House of G-d. How important it is, however, that we remain cognizant of the fact that the other aspect of this mitzvah remains viable for us even today. As the Rambam states in Hilchot Beit Habechira "the Shechina never leaves that place." Every time we daven at the Kotel, every time we talk about the everlasting holiness of Yerushalayim, we reaffirm this concept. The Shechina remains in our holy city of Jerusalem forever for that is HaShem's chosen place for His permanent address.