(10) Let no one be found among you who consigns their son or daughter to the fire, or who is an augur, a soothsayer, a diviner, a sorcerer, (11) one who casts spells, or one who consults ghosts or familiar spirits, or one who inquires of the dead. (12) For anyone who does such things is abhorrent to the Eternal, and it is because of these abhorrent things that the Eternal your God is dispossessing them before you. (13) You must be tamim with the Eternal your God.
(1) תמים תהיה עם ה' אלהיך — walk before God with wholeness, and trust. Don't search after the future, but rather whatever comes upon you accept in wholeness, and then you will be with God and part of the divine portion.
(3) If the offering is a burnt offering from the herd, they shall make their offering a male which is tamim. They shall bring it to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, for acceptance on their behalf before the Eternal.
(9) This is the line of Noah.—Noah was a righteous man; he was tamim in his generation; Noah walked with God.—
(1) When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Eternal appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am El Shaddai. Walk in My ways and be tamim. (2) I will establish My covenant between Me and you, and I will make you exceedingly numerous.”
(4) The Rock!—whose deeds are perfect. All God's ways are just; A faithful God, never false, True and upright!
Matthew 5:48
Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.
The term rendered "perfect" in most English translations is τέλειοι (téleioi), the same word used in the Septuagint for תָּמִים (tamím) and meaning "brought to its end, finished; lacking nothing necessary to completeness."
(א) תָּמִים תִּהְיֶה עִם ה' אֱלֹהֶיךָ. דַּע, כִּי מִדַּת הַתְּמִימוּת הִיא מַעֲלָה הַמְעֻלָּה שֶׁבְּכָל הַמַּעֲלוֹת וּמִדּוֹת הַטּוֹבוֹת, שֶׁצָּרִיךְ לִהְיוֹת בִּבְנֵי אָדָם. וְלָכֵן כְּתִיב בְּאָבִינוּ יַעֲקֹב: וְיַעֲקֹב אִישׁ תָּם יוֹשֵׁב אֹהָלִים. יֵשׁ לְדַיֵּק: הֲלֹא בְּוַדַּאי כַּמָּה מַעֲלוֹת וּמִדּוֹת קְדוֹשׁוֹת הָיוּ בְּיַעֲקֹב אָבִינוּ, כְּגוֹן מִדּוֹת חֲסִידוּת וְיִרְאָה וַעֲנָוָה וּקְדֻשָּׁה וְטָהֳרָה, וְאֵין הַכָּתוּב מְיַחֵס אוֹתוֹ עַל מִדּוֹת הַלָּלוּ, כִּי אִם בַּמִּדָּה שֶׁל תְּמִימוּת, כְּדִכְתִיב: וְיַעֲקֹב אִישׁ תָּם. אֶלָּא מֻכְרָח לוֹמַר, כִּי תְּמִימוּת כּוֹלֵל כָּל הַמִּדּוֹת טוֹבוֹת הַקְּדוֹשׁוֹת. וְהָאֱמֶת הוּא כֵּן. מִי שֶׁהוּא עָנָו וְיֵשׁ לוֹ חִסָּרוֹן, שֶׁהוּא רוֹדֵף אַחַר הַמָּמוֹן אוֹ נַפְשׁוֹ חָשְׁקָה לַעֲשׂוֹת עֲבֵרָה אַחַת — הוּא אֵינוֹ אִישׁ תָּם בְּמַעֲשִׂים. וְאִישׁ כָּזֶה הוּא נִמְשָׁל לִכְלִי נָאֶה, שֶׁיֵּשׁ בּוֹ פְּגִימוּת וּשְׁבָרִים הַרְבֵּה וְכַיּוֹצֵא בָּזֶה. אָמְנָם מִי שֶׁהוּא תָּם וּמֻשְׁלָם בְּכָל מִדּוֹת הַכְּשֵׁרִים, וְהוּא יָרֵא, אָהוּב, רוֹדֵף צְדָקָה וְיוֹשֵׁב אֹהָלִים בְּאָהֳלֵי תּוֹרָה שֶׁל משֶׁה וְעוֹסֵק בַּתּוֹרָה בַּלַּיְלָה — אָז כְּשֶׁתֵּצֵא נִשְׁמָתוֹ, יִהְיֶה זוֹכֶה לֵישֵׁב בְּאֹהֶל שֶׁל מַעְלָה.
(1) “Be wholehearted with Hashem your God” (Devarim 18:13). You must know that the trait of wholeheartedness is the loftiest of all the praiseworthy qualities and traits that a person must acquire. Therefore it states regarding our forefather Yaakov, “And Yaakov was a wholehearted man, dwelling in tents” (Bereishis 25:27). Surely Yaakov possessed numerous holy qualities and traits, such as piety, awe, humility, holiness and purity. Nevertheless, Scripture does not identify him with any of these traits but only with that of wholeheartedness, as it is stated, “And Yaakov was a wholehearted man.” Clearly, then, wholeheartedness must encompass all the other praiseworthy and holy characteristics. And indeed this is so. For if a person is humble but has the flaw of pursuing wealth or if he yearns for a certain sin, he is not whole in his deeds. Such a person is likened to a beautiful vessel with many chips and cracks. But if a person is wholehearted and complete in every praiseworthy trait, and is God- fearing, beloved, charitable, dwelling in the earthly tents of Torah and toiling in Torah by night — then, when his soul expires, he will merit dwelling in the Heavenly “tent.”
Finding Wholeheartedness in Your Life
BY: RABBI STEPHEN S. PEARCE, PH.D.
Rabbi Jacob Isaac Horowitz, the Seer of Lublin, once asked: “Should a person strive for greatness or wholeness?” He explained using the example of two challot, one large but sliced and one small but whole. It is customary to bless the whole one because wholeness is more valuable than greatness. By extension, Rabbi Yitzhak Elchanan of Kovno cited the familiar verse from Psalms (19:8), Torat Adonai t’mimah, “The Torah of God is perfect,” whole, or complete, to explain that a Torah missing even one letter is pasul, “flawed,” and cannot be used because the missing letter destroys its t’mimut, its “wholeness.” Furthermore, so important was tamim, “integrity in Jewish law,” that an entire proceeding was debarred if one witness was disqualified. Similarly, when an individual misses one opportunity to sanctify life, one act that strays from the highest ideals of the Torah, then something is lacking in that person.
For Hannah, Shoftim 5771
by Rabbi Gail Labovitz, PhD
The key here in this verse is the word translated as "whole-hearted," tamim. In context, it has the primary sense of loyalty, a steadfast commitment to the one God of the universe to the exclusion of any other form of worship; many of the classical commentators take this approach when addressing this verse. But the significance of the word goes deeper, a point that can be demonstrated by its many appearances throughout biblical literature, where it is used to describe an important personal quality and element of one's stance in relationship to God and other people.
Thus, in thinking about the questions I have raised above, I would like to highlight just a few additional examples of the word, and some commentary related to those verses.
1) The use of this word in Deut. is certainly meant to echo God's speech to our forefather Abraham in Gen. 17:1:
Walk in My ways [literally, "before Me"] and be blameless [tamim].
Etz Hayim makes these comments to this verse from Gen. (p. 89):
"In the Bible, to 'walk before God' means to condition one's entire range of experience by the awareness of God's presence." And: "In the King James translation, the word translated here as 'blameless' (tamim) is rendered 'be perfect,' an unrealistic demand. We might understand it to mean 'be whole,' 'come before Me with your whole self: the parts of yourself you are proud of, and the parts you are ashamed of and wish were different.'"
2) From Psalm 15:1-2:
Lord, who may sojourn in Your tent, who may dwell on Your Holy mountain? The one who lives without blame (tamim), who does what is right, and in his heart acknowledges the truth.
The great Bible commentator, Nehama Leibowitz begins her discussion of the Deut. verse (Deuteronomy, pp. 181-2) by noting that the medieval ethicist Bahya ibn Pakuda used both of these verses to introduce his work "Hovot ha-Levavot" ("Duties of the Heart"). As he writes:
"the precepts of the heart imply a complete harmony between our inner and outward actions, as regards the service of the Lord, till the heart and tongue and other limbs will be at one with each other...neither contradicting nor belying the other. This is what Holy Writ refers to in the term "whole-hearted"...
As Leibowitz summarizes, "The opposite of 'whole-hearted' is disharmony between the inner and outer man, between words and deeds."
3. Psalm 119:1 opens as follows:
Happy are those whose way is blameless (tamim), who follow the teachings of the Lord.
Midrash Tehillim, the anthology of comments on the Psalms, connects this verse to a number of other usages of tamim, including our verse from Deut., about which it says: "'Before the Lord your God' is not written here, but 'with the Lord your God.'" If you are whole(-hearted), you will be with the Lord your God, for God too is 'whole,' as it is said of God, 'The Rock, Whose deeds are perfect (tamim)' (Deut. 32:4). And Israel are whole(-hearted) and the Torah is whole, as it is said, 'The teaching of the Lord is perfect t'mima), [renewing life]' (Psalm 19:8).
To be tamim, then, is to have a sense of identity and self-knowledge. It demands introspection and integrity. And finally, to be tamim is to engage in imitatio dei, the attempt to emulate the ways of God, and to be tamim is to embody Torah and its teachings.
Our daughter cannot stay in the bubble forever, and the Children of Israel cannot stay in the wilderness. Many people go off to a new stage of life and think that what they want to do, or are supposed to do, is reinvent themselves. The desire to be something entirely different than you were, though, it seems to me, cannot come from a place in which one is tamim. The person who is tamim is not perfect, because perfection is not a human possibility. The person who is tamimstill has room to grow. But the person who strives to be tamim begins from a place of self-knowledge and self-acceptance and a desire to grow and develop rather than be changed whole cloth.