Paradox of Wheat

Ki Teitzei

According to the Kli Yakar on the first pasuk in our parsha, "When you go out to wage war with your enemies, etc." (Devarim 21:10), the Torah is referring to our battle with the yetzer hara.

In the Gemara (Berachot 61a) Rav likens the yetzer hara to a fly and Shmuel likens it to wheat. What does the yetzer hara have to do with wheat?

The first obvious association that comes to mind is the "first sin" – that of Adam HaRishon, which according to R' Yehuda (Berachot 40a) - was eating wheat from the Tree of Knowledge. However, why directly blame the wheat? Wouldn't it be better to say the yetzer hara is like a snake? The cause of the sin of Adam HaRishon is primarily because of the snake – the wheat was just the medium. By using the comparison to wheat Shmuel is giving us a novel insight to the essence of the yetzer hara.

Wheat, the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge is a paradox.

Sefer Meir Panim says that the "wheat tree" was the only tree in Gan Eden whose fruit could not be eaten as-is. It was the product of a sin of the tree itself, which defied HaKadosh Baruch Hu's directive to manifest in a way that the fruit and the wood of the tree both taste the same. The Tree of Knowledge bore more than one type of fruit – five in fact, of which wheat was just the primary fruit (wheat, barley, spelt, rye and oats).

This is why HaKadosh Baruch Hu forbade Adam and Chava to eat from this tree on the 6^th day, because in order to be able to eat from it, they would first have to do tikkun to the tree, i.e. process the fruit into a different, edible form – bread. In order to be allowed to bake bread, Adam and Chava required the halachot of baking bread, which they did not yet possess. If they would have waited until Shabbat (Ari, z"l), HaKadosh Baruch Hu would have given them the halachot of baking bread and then after Shabbat they would be permitted to take the wheat, make it into bread and eat it.

The essence of the sin was not baking bread and eating it, it was baking bread before they had been taught the halachot of Kashrut. Instead of waiting until Shabbat to be taught the halachot of baking bread from HaKadosh Baruch Hu, Chava followed a different set of "halachot" – those given by the yetzer hara, the snake.

In this lies the paradox. The wheat is the same wheat, the same fruit on the tree. The operations are almost identical – those in HaKadosh Baruch Hu's halachot and those in the instructions of the snake – pick the wheat from the tree, grind the wheat into flour, mix it with water, knead it into a dough, let the snake inflate it and bake it over the fire (provided by the snake, who was an angel surrounded by fire).

If Chava would have waited for HaKadosh Baruch Hu's halachot, the process would have been – pick the wheat from the tree, take Ma'aser and Trumah tithes from the wheat, grind the wheat into flour, mix it with water, knead it into a dough, take Hafrashat Challah from the dough, allow HaKadosh Baruch Hu to inflate it with the spirit of life, and bake it over the fire (given to Adam HaRishon on Motzei Shabbat).

What essentially is the difference between the two operations? Simple – the first bread is Kosher and the second isn't! Not because the ingredients are different, but because one is prepared according to the halacha and the other is not.

Same wheat – two different results. In this lies the paradox. Wheat has the potential for both types of bread – kosher and treif! It all depends on how you use the wheat! If you use it according to the halacha – you do tikkun for the wheat and the Tree of Knowledge. If you do not use it according to the halacha – you perpetuate the sin of the Tree of Knowledge (before Adam, when the tree manifested contrary to HaKadosh Baruch Hu's directive).

By comparing the yetzer hara to wheat, Shmuel seems to be inferring that the yetzer hara is also a paradox, it has the potential for good and also bad, depending on how we interact with it.

At the end of Creation on the sixth day, the pasuk says "G-d looked on all He had made and it was very good" (Bereishit 1:31). One of the creations was the yetzer hara, how can that be good? The yetzer hara has an important role to play in this world. By virtue of the yetzer hara, we get reward and merit for our actions in this world, it is not a "freebie," or in the words of the Ramchal (Daat Tevunot 18) "unearned (wheat) bread." Without the yetzer hara, there would be no procreation and the world would cease to exist. We have to use the yetzer hara to our benefit by us controlling our yetzer hara and not the other way round.

In our Gemara above, Rav likens the yetzer hara to a fly, the kind that buzz around you endlessly and no matter how much you shush them away, they keep coming back. The yetzer hara, if not being used for good, is exactly like that. It plagues you endlessly and when you try to "shush" it away, it keeps returning, often in different guises to confuse you.

Not only is the yetzer hara compared to a fly, Amalek, mentioned at the end of our parsha is also likened to a fly. The Ba'al HaTurim, on the pasuk "Ktov zot zikaron ba'sefer ve'sim be'oznei Yehoshua, etc." (Shemot 17:14), says that the rashei teivot (first letter of each word) of "zikaron ba'sefer ve'sim be'oznei" (zayin, bet, vav, bet) makes up the word zvuv (Hebrew for fly).

Just like a fly keeps coming back again and again, the spirit of Amalek and antisemitism keeps returning and rearing its ugly head. How do we deal with this? We all need to do our own part by fighting our own yetzer hara on an individual level. HaKadosh Baruch Hu does not ask us to defeat our yetzer hara, this is an impossibility – we are mere humans battling against an angel. All HaKadosh Baruch Hu asks is that we actively wage war with our yetzer hara. When HaKadosh Baruch Hu sees sincere effort on our part, then HaKadosh Baruch Hu will step in and help us defeat our yetzer hara (and Amalek) for good.

Parshat HaShavua Trivia Question: How many mitzvot are mentioned in this week's parsha?

Answer to Last Shiur’s Trivia Question: What is a Yid'oni (Devarim 18:11)? Rashi (ibid.) says it is a type of witchcraft of placing the bone of a certain animal in your mouth and the bone begins to speak.