They stood watching as the Yam Suf split. They journeyed after a pillar of fire surrounded by Clouds of Glory. They ate mahn each day and drank from a miraculous well. Their spiritual power is impossible to fathom.
Ramban explains that this pasuk is not referring to any mitzvos. The mitzvos were given later at Sinai. Rather Hashem taught them how to behave — to love their fellow men to seek counsel from their elders to be modest in their homes and to welcome peddlers who entered their camp. From the Ramban’s explanation we learn the priority the Torah gives to good middos and derech eretz (Rosh Amanah Rav Elazar Menachem Shach ztz”l).
Radin was Poland’s Noach’s ark — no foreign wind was capable of penetrating. But there was one boy who needed a place to stay and though he’d been poisoned by the spirit of Enlightenment he decided to go to Radin. He would hide among the bochurim and the shtenders he thought regaining his strength before moving on.
He arrived in the small town on a bitter winter night and he made his way to the warmest building in town — the beis medrash. But the Chofetz Chaim’s razor-sharp gaze bore into the young man’s soul. “No” he said “it’s forbidden to enter the Mishkan while one is tamei. Your place is not with us.”
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