Baruch Moshe Aryeh ben Harav Zev Yehuda, Zev Yehuda ben Rav Shmuel
Mordechai, Avraham ben R' Yitzchok Zev, R' Dovid Meir ben Rav Shmuel,
Daniel Feivish ben R' Yaakov Yitzchak, Eliyahu ben R, Mordechai
Haleivi,
In perek lamud hei posuk chaf beis the posuk says "Vayihi bishkon Yisrael ba'aretz hahi vayeilech Reuven vayishkav es Bilha pilegesh aviv vayishma Yisrael." "And it came to pass While Yisrael dwelt in the land, Reuven went and lay with Bilha his fathers concubine, and Yisrael heard." Rachel passed away and Yaakov moved his bed into Bilha's tent. Reuven feeling that Yaakov's bed should have been put in his mothers tent went and moved it. The Torah considered the aveira so wrong that he is considered as if he lay with his father's concubine. The Ramban says on this incident that it shows the "anava", humility, of yaakov avinu. He heard about what Reuven did and did not command him to leave his house and kick him out of the family and the shvatim. Rather he counted him as one of the shvatim, and counted him as the first one as the shvatim, his true spot.
The Torah is complimenting Yaakov on his great humility for not kicking Reuven out of his house. Its obvious that the Torah is not praising Yaakov for not having a wrong amount of "gaivah" because it is no "chidush" that Yaakov did not attain a level of "gaivah" that would be totally incorrect. Rather the Torah must be praising Yaakov for being totally void of "gaivah" and on a tremendous level of "anava", and is saying that without this he would have thrown Reuven out.
The Rosh Yeshiva ztl asks, "mima nafshach", if the right thing was for Yaakov to throw Reuven out then why is he praised for not throwing him out, and if the right thing to do was not throw him out, then why such praise for doing what he was supposed to? The Rosh yeshiva explains that the right thing to do was what Yaakov actually did do, however even a drop of "gaivah" would have changed his decision and caused him to believe that the right thing to do was to throw him out. The fact that he was on that level deserves recognition. The Rosh Yeshiva explains that there is still a question begging to be asked. Lets say Yaakov wasn't a full fledged "anav", and maybe he had a little bit of a negia to want to throw Reuven out, but we know the draw that Yaakov had to the truth "Titein emes l"Yaakov", shouldn't his desire for the truth overcome everything else? He explains that obviously from the Ramban we see that even with his tremendous draw toward "emes", just a drop of "gaivah" would have skewed his decision. We see from here the extremely negative effect that even a tiny dose of gaiva has on a person. We should be zoche to work on our gaiva and be able to make the right decisions in everything in our lives. Good Shabbos
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