בס"ד
לשכנו תדרשו
Seeking the Holy Presence in Our Holy Land
"לא תבערו אש בכל מושבותיכם ביום השבת"
"Be pleased, and relieve us, HaShem our God, with your commandments and with the commandment of this Seventh Day, this great and holy Sabbath, for it is a great and holy day before You... and may there not be trouble or sorrow on the day of our rest, and show us the comforting of Zion speedily in our days..."
As we appreciate the Holy Presence on the holy Shabbos as a 'sanctuary of time', so too we hope, pray, and yearn for the comforting of our 'sanctuary of space', Zion, Land of the Holy Presence.
According to our Sages, our title quote of this week's parsha seems to be superfluous since the Torah already forbade all 39 types of labor, kindling fire being one of them, in the Ten Commandments. Therefore, our Sages learned from this verse a special law, that even a Torah court, bidden to carry out a final ruling immediately, nevertheless is forbidden to punish with the burning-death-penalty and all other punishments on Shabbat. Thus, according to Rambam this prohibition on punishing on Shabbat is one of the 613 commandments. Similarly, according to our aggadic sources, the heavenly courts cease to punish in Gehinom, etc. on the Sabbath.
Just as there is a period of clemency in time, so too there are locations of clemency, where sinners are not punished.
One example of this is the altar in the Bais HaMikdash, which grants clemency to one who killed another negligently. Similarly, the Cities of Refuge and the 42 Levite Cities in the Land of Israel grant clemency towards negligent murderers. Nevertheless, it should be noted that the level of clemency granted in each of these locations is not equal. The altar grants this clemency only to a cohen in the middle service. The Levite Cities grant clemency only to those who enter them knowingly, and not 'by-mistake', unlike the Cities of Refuge, which grant the greatest clemency of all.
Can we find a common characteristic of these Cities of Refuge, which have such great spiritual power to give hope even to murderers? According to our Sages, the most essential Cities of Refuge are those on the Western Bank of the Jordon, which give power for those on the Eastern Bank to operate. These cities are Hebron, Shechem, and Kedesh Naftali. In parshat Beshalah we discussed how Hebron and Shechem are sister -cities, as Shechem is the burial-site of Joseph, the primary continuation of Yakov and the Patriarchs of Hebron as in regard to firstborn (of Rachel) rights and more. However, according to Midrash Raba (Naso), Naftali was the closest to the Patriarchs on a practical level, for he constantly honored Yakov as his swift messenger, and for this reason he is singled out from all the tribes to give an offering to the Mishkan hinting to the lives of the Patriarchs.
Thus, all of these Cities of Refuge are ultimately rooted to the great spiritual power of our Avot of Hebron. (In this sense, Kedesh Naftali can mean the holiest place of Naftali.) This is Hebron, the beam of salvation for all, the hope of Zion for eternity.
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Real Stories fom the Holy Land #58: "A bit before Shabbos I went to dunk in a natural pool in the Jerusalem Forest. I put my eyeglasses next to the pool and 'dived in'. When I rose from the pool, I inadvertently flew my glasses into the pool. I could not see the glasses, because the pool was full of algae, so I tried to dive numbers of times to feel them at the bottom, but to no avail. I gave up, left the pool and dressed myself, and as a last attempt to find the glasses said the prayer for finding lost objects ('Amar R' Binyamin etc.) and asked someone in the pool to look for them. Immediately, the glasses were found."
Sources: Rambam Rotzeah 5, 12 and end of ch. 8, ibid Shabat 24, 7, BaMidbar Raba p. 14, Midrash Agada Breshit 2, 3, Chronicles I 5, 2
