The ben sorer umoreh is judged al sheim sofo – because of where, on the evidence of the present, the youth’s life is headed. And his very existence, Chazal say, is the result of his mother’s having become “hated” by her husband. And that fact itself was born of the man having married an eishes yifas to’ar. And so, as the Midrash Tanchuma quoted by Rashi notes (Devarim, 21:11), the order of the topics in the parsha is meaningful.
The fact that “one small thing can lead to more significant ones” – as the old proverb has it, “For want of a nail… the kingdom was lost” – seems to be a theme here.
The idea is whimsically called “the butterfly effect” – evoking the fancy that the flutter of an insect’s wings could eventually affect the weather in a distant land. The idea is particularly operative at beginnings, at initial stages of development. And so, it is very much a Rosh Hashanah idea. Because each year itself unfolds from its beginnings, no less than a single fertilized cell evolves into a baby, and the baby, in turn, eventually, into an adult.
That metaphor is particularly apt, since Rosh Hashanah commemorates haras olam, the conception of the world (and, not coincidentally, is the day on which, Chazal say, childless women in the Torah conceived their first children).
The Shulchan Aruch tells us to conduct ourselves in a particularly exemplary manner at the start of a new Jewish year. We are cautioned to avoid anger on Rosh Hashanah itself. And for each year’s first ten days, we are encouraged to avoid eating even technically permitted foods (like pas palter, “baker’s bread,” kosher bread baked by a non-Jew), and to conduct ourselves, especially interpersonally, in a more careful manner than during the rest of the year.
What is the point, though, of pretending to a higher level of observance or refinement of personality when one may have no intention at all of maintaining those things beyond the week?
Might it be that things not greatly significant under other circumstances suddenly take on pointed importance during the year’s first week, because those days have their analog in the concept of gestation?
Might those days, in other words, be particularly sensitive to small influences because they are the days from which the coming year will evolve?
© 2024 Rabbi Avi Shafran