Rabbi Roodyn

Shabbat Parshas Ki Seitsei

This weeks parsha discusses, amongst many other topics, the Torah’s approach to warfare and the various diverse mitzvos that apply on the battlefield.

One of the more unusual ones is found in the following verses

דברים פרק כ”ג

(יג) וְיָד תִּהְיֶה לְךָ מִחוּץ לַמַּחֲנֶה וְיָצָאתָ שָׁמָּה חוּץ: (יד) וְיָתֵד תִּהְיֶה לְךָ עַל אֲזֵנֶךָ וְהָיָה בְּשִׁבְתְּךָ חוּץ וְחָפַרְתָּה בָהּ וְשַׁבְתָּ וְכִסִּיתָ אֶת צֵאָתֶךָ: (טו) כִּי ה’ אֱלֹקֶיךָ מִתְהַלֵּךְ בְּקֶרֶב מַחֲנֶךָ לְהַצִּילְךָ וְלָתֵת אֹיְבֶיךָ לְפָנֶיךָ וְהָיָה מַחֲנֶיךָ קָדוֹשׁ וְלֹא יִרְאֶה בְךָ עֶרְוַת דָּבָר וְשָׁב מֵאַחֲרֶיךָ:

13 And you shall have a designated place outside the camp, so that you can go out there [to use it as a privy]. 14 And you shall keep a stake in addition to your weapons; and it shall be, when you sit down outside [to relieve yourself], you shall dig with it, and you shall return and cover your excrement. 15 For Hashem, your G-d, goes along in the midst of your camp, to rescue you and to deliver your enemies before you. [Therefore,] your camp shall be holy, so that He should not see anything unseemly among you and would turn away from you.

There is a special mitzvah for the soldier to take a shovel out to battle, should be have to answer the call of nature in the middle of it all.

Whilst it is understandable that the Torah would view holiness as paramount importance, the thought of a soldier going out to fight armed to the hilt in full battle gear together with a shovel seems quiet strange.

We are all aware of the statement ‘cleanliness is next to G-dliness’, but what is the idea here, and more importantly how is this obscure mitzvah relevant to our lives?

The Torah consistently uses extreme scenarios to teach us lessons for our day to day lives. For example we learn to be efficient with our resources from the prohibition against chopping down a fruit bearing tree during a siege. Similarly we learn of a man’s marital  obligations to his wife from his hebrew maidservant.

The Sefer Mitzvos Hakatan (Smak) is quoted by the be’ur Halacha as counting the mitzvah of tznius as being min hatorah. This is quite strange as there doesn’t seem to be any explicit reference to a mitzvah of tznius in the Torah itself. Of course there is the famous posuk in Micha of והצנע לכת עם אלקיך, but obviously that wont be min hatorah.

Surprisingly, the source of this mitzvah according to the smak is our pasuk here. In fact the gemara in brachos makes a shocking statement אין קראין צנוע אלא למי שצנוע בבית הכסא, a person is not considered to be tzanua unless they are tzanua in the bathroom. The idea here is that tznius is a requirement even in a place where a person is by themselves.

This idea is brought as a Halacha in the shulchan aruch

שו”ע אורח חיים סימן ג

(ב) יהא צנוע בבית הכסא ולא יגלה עצמו עד שישב:

A person should behave with tznius in the bathroom and not uncover himself until he sits down.

In the previous siman of Shulchan Aruch, the mechaber says

שו”ע אורח חיים סימן ב

(ב) אל יאמר הנני בחדרי חדרים מי רואני כי הקב”ה מלא כל הארץ כבודו:

A person should not say, behold I am in a private room, who can see me? Because Hashem’s glory fills the world.

Tznius is firstly not a just a mitzvah that is limited to women, it is far more than that. It is about developing an attitude of self respect. Of seeing ourselves and others as being בצלם אלקים.

The way that a person should respond to their awareness of being in the presence of Hashem is by conducting themselves in a noble and refined fashion. Of course that is realtively easy to do when in public, we all want to appear respectable and dignified. The real measure of this is therefore how we behave when we are in private, are we conscious of being in Hashem’s presence or do we ignore His existence.

Perhaps that is why the pasuk in Micha says והצנע לכת עם אלקיך, that once should walk modestly with Hashem. If we see ourselves as walking in His presence, then we should do so in a modest rather than arrogant fashion.