Fins and Scales, In The Teachings of the Rebbe’s Father
by Rabbi Sholom DovBer Avtzon
I received a WhatsApp this week from Rabbi Dovid Dubov, with a teaching from the Rebbe’s father, Reb Levi Yitzchok, and I am positive that many of you will enjoy it, just as I did, so I decided to post it as well.
I did not add it to my weekly story (although it is connected to the second half, where we discussed the parsha of Shema), as it deserves its own space, or as we say koveah berochah bifnei atzmo.
The Torah teaches us that the signs to see if a fish is kosher are if it has both fins and scales. However, the sages teach us (Niddah 51b) that every fish that has scales definitely has fins, but not every fish that has fins have scales as well. So if you see a section of a fish that was cut up, and you noticed that it has scales on its skin, even though you don’t know the name of this fish, you may eat it, since it definitely has fins on the other part of the fish.
The gemorah then asks the obvious question, if so, why does the Torah give us two signs, when all we have to look for is one sign? And the answer they give is, you are correct, scales itself is the only sign you have to see, but the other sign of fins was written to enhance the glory of the Torah. Some explain this to mean that Hashem wanted to reward us for looking at both signs, even though we only have to look for one, or other explanations as what this answer implies.
The commentaries ask, I would understand that answer if fins are mentioned after scales, but every time they are mentioned together, fins are mentioned first and that demonstrates that fins are important. So what is fins teaching us, if all I need to find are the scales? Most of them remain puzzled, as to why.
Reb Levik explains: the fins enable a fish to navigate and swim in the water, while scales are like a garment covering the body. In kabbalah terminology a garment is a metaphor to the mitzvos one does in their lifetime, and the Torah is what guides us and helps us navigate what we should do in this world.
So now we can understand it very well. Our sages teach us whoever says I am only interested in learning Torah, however, I have no interest in fulfilling the mitzvos, that person doesn’t even have the Torah. As the purpose of the Torah is to teach us what we should do.
But if a person fulfills a mitzvah, he put on tefillin, is careful in what he eats etc., that itself demonstrates that he definitely learned something, he has some Torah knowledge, because if he didn’t have any Torah knowledge, how can he fulfill the mitzvah, if he didn’t learn that it is a mitzvah.
Therefore the Torah always writes fins first, as a Jew must learn in order to be able to fulfill. However, if one decides to learn and not fulfill the mitzvos, that is not kosher. If on the other hand the person for whatever reason did not learn too much, however, he fulfills the mitzvos, that is a “kosher” Jew, he definitely is learning to know what to do.
Do a mitzvah.
Your feedback is appreciated, Rabbi Sholom DovBer Avtzon can be contacted at avtzonbooks@gmail.com
