I can no longer go out and come in (Devarim 31:2)

Peninim on the Torah makes an interesting comment on the above verse. Moshe reached the end of his life and he was physically unable to come out and go in. This was not because of being weak as the Torah later explains he was physically strong. Peninim, therefore, suggests that a tzaddik is sometimes stopped from doing a certain activity.

The story is told that a great Rabbi was once traveling by train from one city to another. His hosts in the city of departure gave him a piece of chicken for him to eat while he was traveling. The Rabbi got onto the train and the journey began. After the train left, the host family realized that the chicken they gave the Rabbi was actually a traif piece. They didn’t know what to do. They sent a message to the arrival city to tell the Rabbi about what happened so he could at least do tshuvah.

After the train arrived, a message was sent to the Rabbi and the Rabbi stated there was no problem. When he opened the bag of chicken, an awful smell came from it and he knew something was wrong with it. He never ate it. The interesting thing was someone else smelled the bag of chicken and didn’t smell anything wrong with it. The Rabbi was given this extra sense because of his holiness that Hashem stopped him from eating traif.

Not only are we stopped from sins between man and G-d, but we should also strive to reach this level in our relationships between man and his fellow man. Peninim states that this is true also with not coveting what others have. If we work hard on this mitzvah, we can reach a level where things that are not ours will never fall into our hands. We won’t even have a desire for others’ possessions. We will stop having this normal desire. This is a high level, but if we work on ourselves each day, we can reach this level.

Good Shabbos!
-yes
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