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Parshas Re’eh-פרשת ראה

August 25, 2011 // Posted in Weekly Parsha Divrei Torah (Tags: ) |  No Comments

This weeks parsha discusses the mitzvah of tzedakah. It states that when someone will approach you and ask for tzedakah, you should give him. The pasuk concludes with a beracha ‘because of this mitzvah of tzedakah Hashem will bless you with all your endeavors and with anything that comes in contact with your hand.’

The gemarah in kesuvos (49) says that beis din may force a person to give tzedakah, just as they can force a person to do any mitzvah stated in the Torah.

There’s a rule that Tosfos brings down, quoting a gemarah in Chulin, which says any mitzvah that it states the reward for fulfilling it, beis din cannot force a person to do that mitzvah. Tosfos asks, that by the mitzvah of tzedakah, it states the reward for one who gives tzedakah. The pasuk clearly says that a person who gives tzedakah will have the hand of Hashem as his ‘partner’ in his dealings. So how can the gemarah say that beis din can force a person to give tzedakah?

The Avnei Miluim (siman 71) quotes from the sefer Ha’ikrim as follows.

The beginning of the aforementioned pasuk says ‘you shall give him money (tzedakah) but when you do so, do not give it with a heavy heart’. What is the reason for this? The pasuk ends off and says ‘because of this mitzvah of tzedakah Hashem will bless you with all your endeavors and with anything that comes in contact with your hand.’ The simple p’shat is that it’s referring to the giving of the tzedakah. When a person gives tzedakah he becomes the recipient of this beracha. Explains the sefer Ha’ikrim, the pasuk is advising us, that a person will only receive this beracha if he gives tzedakah in the proper way that the Torah says. First the Torah says one should give tzedakah. Then it says ‘give it with an open heart’. If one gives tzedakah with an open heart, they will then be zoche to this special beracha of Hashem’s partnership.

Says the Avnei Miluim, this is p’shat in the gemarah. If beis din is forcing him to give tzedakah then he is not giving it in the proper method that the Torah asks us to give it. It is therefore not considered as if the Torah states its reward and tosfos question is answered.

Which one of us would not want this incredible and special beracha of Hashem’s partnership in our business?  One should look at the way and the mode he gives tzedakah to someone who stretches their hand out towards you. Do we sigh and think to ourselves ‘again?’ Or do we smile and give the person money and say ‘tizku l’mitzvohs’. It’s something we should be conscious of, should we want to be the beneficiary of such a beracha.

I heard a nice anecdote from a young man who comes from a wealthy family. He believes that the reason his father was blessed with wealth was because the Satmer Rebbe told him, that when he gives tzedakah he shouldn’t give with a heavy heart. He should always try to give a little more than he planned on giving….to ‘feel it’. If you can only afford to give $100….give a drop more, maybe $150…by doing so and giving a little more than you can afford, you will feel it and will help you give tzedakah in the approach that the Torah wants everyone to give; in order to be the receiver of such a special beracha.

May we all be zoche to be diligent in the manner that we give tzedakah so that we all become beneficiaries of the beracha of ‘yivarechicha Hashem elokecha b’chal ma’asecha u’vichal mishlach yadecha’.

(Search by: parsha; re’eh; parshas re’eh; chumash; torah; avnei nezer; sefer ha’ikrim; tzedakah; giving to others; giving in the right mannerism; the beracha of tzedakah; having Hashem as a business partner; feeling the giving of tzedakah; giving tzedakah; the mitzvah of tzedakah; kesuvos; chulin)

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Parshas Eikev-פרשת עקב

August 18, 2011 // Posted in Weekly Parsha Divrei Torah (Tags: ) |  No Comments

(Reprinted)

And you should eat, be satisfied and bless Hashem your g-d. (8; 10)

The gemarah in berachos asks: how do we know that one makes a beracha before he eats and not just after he eats? The halacha is brought from the following kal vchomer: ‘k’shehu soveh mivarech-k’shehu ra’av lo kol shekein’? If one makes a beracha when satisfied should he not be logically obligated to do so, even more, when he is hungry?

This kal v’chomer needs explaining. Normally, it would seem just the opposite: The measuring standard should not be when a person is full, because it is not the way of a person to thank Hashem when he is full. He may have forgotten how he got the food altogether because he is already done with it. He is satisfied, and at times we are complacent when we are comfortable. Rather, it would seem more sensible that the psychology of a beracha acharona should be based on that of the beracha rishona.

This concept can be explained as follows. The loshon of ‘hoda’a’, thanks, is explained to mean that one is grateful for a past event.  But the loshon of ‘beracha’ implies that one is praising Hashem for constantly bestowing good upon you, in the past present and future. When one makes a beracha one should believe that the beracha is applicable to the ‘current good’, the ‘tov b’shaas ma’aseh’. Giving thanks for something after it already happened is not the level we aspire to, because all the other nations do the same.  As soon as something good is needed most people, of any language, religion or origin, say ‘please god…help me. ..make it happen.’ After it happens, they forget all about it. As the chosen nation, however, we thank Hashem on everything that he does, in the past, present and future.  And that’s pshat in the pasuk in tehilim that says, ‘yoducha Hashem kol ma’asecha’, speaking of everyone (even the other nations) that thanks Hashem for all that he did for them (past tense). However, as the pasuk continues it shows how we differ from the other nations, as it says ‘vachasidecha yivurchucha’, the chesed that Hashem constantly does for us is blessed by his nation.  We bless Hashem for the good he continuously does for us.

In bentching it would’ve made more sense to say ‘v’achalta, v’savata, v’hodaat Hashem’. We ate, we are satisfied and we thank Hashem. Why does it say ‘uveirachta’, and we bless Hashem? The Torah uses a language that’s more specific, to encompass all the good Hashem did, does, and will do for us, not just the meal we finished eating. This is the beauty of the nusach of bentching. We say ‘lo chaser lanu, v’al yechsar lanu mazon l’olam va’ed’. Meaning-we are not missing anything and we won’t be missing any food forever!!

Let us try to remember to thank Hashem not only what he did for us but for what he constantly does for us on a daily basis. Many people are healthy, have children, have parnassah, etc…. we don’t need a ‘wake up call’, chas v’shalom, in order for us to start davening with more kavanah. We’re able to use the bathroom by ourselves? Let’s thank Hashem…how many people unfortunately can’t? We have food to eat? Let’s thank Hashem…how many people don’t? A job? Children? Let us daven and thank Hashem right now for the good that he bestowed on us, right here right now; today.

With this in mind may Hashem accept and answer our tefillohs and may we continue to be showered with Hashems chesed up until, and even after, the coming of Moshiach b’karov.

(parsha; chumash; eikev; ekev; parshas ekev; parshas eikev; thanking Hashem; hakaras hatov; bentching; making brachos; berachos; thanking Hashem before eating; thanking Hashem after eating; gemarah in Berachos)

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Parshas Va’eschanan-פרשת ואתחנן ושבת נחמו

August 11, 2011 // Posted in Weekly Parsha Divrei Torah (Tags: ) |  No Comments

The Haftorah of this week’s Parsha begins with the legendary words of solace, ‘Console, console my people,” says Hashem. Speak to the heart of Jerusalem and call to her, for she has become full [from] her host, for her iniquity has been appeased, for she has taken from the hand of Hashem double for all her sins.’ Hashem is telling klal Yisroel that he will comfort us doubly for we have sinned and were duly punished doubly. However, we were taught and believe that there is no such thing as a person getting punished double. Everything that occurs to a person happens because he deserves it, and Hashem planned it that way. How can we explain the pasuk when it says that we are being comforted twice because we were punished double for our actions?

To put this question in perspective-Harav Meir Hershokowitz, Rosh HaYeshiva of Stamford, CT had recently lost a daughter. This was a few months after the untimely passing of a son and now a few months later he was undergoing a very serious surgery.  After surgery, he is lying in his hospital bed when one of the people by his side remarked ‘wow, what a year you had; too many tzares.’ Usually a soft spoken man, Reb Meir got very annoyed and rebuked the person by saying ‘you think it without a calculation? Hashem wanted it specifically to be this way!’ So here too, there’s no such thing as double punishment without a chesbon?

The gemara in chagiga (5b) says that ‘Rebbi was once reading from a kinus: when he came to the verse, ‘He hath cast down from heaven unto the earth’, whereas, the kinus he was holding fell from his hands. Rebbi said: From a roof so high to a pit as deep!’ Meaning that in addition to the churban Beis Hamikdash, the bnei Yisroel lost their elite status that they had over the rest of the world. Certain things that klal Yisroel did, weren’t in line with how we normally acted and thus our splendor was gone. That, Rebbi couldn’t deal with. Besides the churban and everything that happened to us and to top it all off we also lost our elite status. It was these two elements that we were punished with ‘doubly’.

In 1911-1912, there was the famous trial in Warsaw known as the Mendel Beilus trial. A Jew was wrongly accused of murdering a gentile. One day in middle of the trial, his lawyer comes in to court with a huge book. When asked what it was he replied, it’s a Polish history book of the last 900 years and in it you will not find that a Jew ever murdered anyone. Therefore it is impossible that my client committed this act; and that’s how he won the case for Mendel. He proved to judge that frum Jews do not kill and the evidence, and the facts, were convincing.

Bnei Yisroel as a whole has an elite status. When something does happen, lo aleinu, and a Jew does something erroneous, even though it’s individuals, our image is altered and tarnished. We lose our shine. We’re all obligated to uplift and restore our glory we once had. We just finished a meaningful Tisha B’av and we all yearned for the rebuilding of the Beis Hamikdash when the 9th of Av will be a yom tov. Don’t let that yearning fade. Let it continue and advance it towards yearning for the day when Hashem will re-instate that special glory we once had-which we are all waiting for.

(Search by: va’eschanan; nachamu; mendel beilis trial; rav meir hershkowitz; nachamu nachamu ami; chagiga; bnei yisroels elite status; Hashem re-instating our status; bnei yisroel getting punished double)

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Parshas Devarim/Chazon-פרשת דברים ושבת חזון

August 4, 2011 // Posted in Weekly Parsha Divrei Torah (Tags: ) |  No Comments

As we know, chumash Devarim is referred to as Mishna Torah, because it is a review of the entire Torah. One goal of this sefer is to review all of the mitzvos that Hashem has given us, for the sake of chazara.

The mitzvah of Shabbos is mentioned nearly twenty times throughout the torah, and is one of the most fundamental mitzvos. However, in Mishna Torah it is mentioned only once, in the recital of the Aseres haDibros. It’s glaring omission is a bit puzzling. How can it be that one of the most important mitzvos in the Torah is barely mentioned in Mishna Torah? We know that nothing in the Torah is a coincidence; therefore the intentional lack of chazarah of Shabbos begs further iyun and explanation.

The Meshech Chochma explains that we learn the importance of Shabbos from the mikoshesh eitzim. When Moshe asked Hashem what the appropriate punishment for the mikoshesh eitzim was, Hashem responded that he should be taken out and stoned in front of the whole congregation to show the rest of klal Yisroel how severe chillul Shabbos is. The public stoning left such a lasting impression on klal Yisroel that there was no need to mention an ahzara (a warning) for Shabbos anymore. They saw how choshov and heilige Shabbos is from the parasha of the mekoshesh, leaving no need to mention it again in arvos moav.

Similarly, the Ramban writes in his introduction to sefer Devarim that mishna Torah is a chazarah. He continues to explain this, saying that there’s no need to mention the mitzvos that pertain to Kohanim a second time because ‘kohanim zerizus heim’. Since the Kohanim were midakdek in their mitzvos there was no need to review the laws pertaining to them.  We see the same concept with klal Yisroel and Shabbos. Only the mitzvos that needed chizuk were repeated; the mitzvos that didn’t need chizuk due to the nation’s extra commitment, such as Shabbos, were not repeated.

There’s a story brought down with Reb Yitzchok Sheiner, the current Rosh Hayeshiva of Kaminetz in eretz Yisroel.  When he was younger he attended college in Pittsburgh. His professor was Jewish but unfortunately not frum.  One day his professor came in and announced his engagement to a non-Jew. The wedding date was set and he wanted to share the good news with his class.  As the wedding date approached closer and closer he kept on pushing it off.  He pushed it off once, and then again, and then again.  After the third time he broke the ‘shidduch’. A short while after that Reb Yitzchok built up enough courage to ask the professor why he had broken his engagement.  His professor replied with the following: ‘when I was a young child I had the opportunity to visit the Chofetz Chaim just once, even sleeping in his house for a night.  His image left such a strong impression on me that I just couldn’t bring myself to marry a shiksa no matter how much I wanted to.’

This story teaches us that all a person needs in order to achieve a level of greatness is to see one incident, big or small, that leaves a lasting impression. The vision bnei Yisrael had of the painful stoning of the mikoshesh eitzim stayed with them forever, instilling within them the importance of shmiras Shabbos. If a person witnesses something positive and he internalizes it and keeps it with him, it can change his life forever.  We have to also be careful for the opposite, chas v’shalom. Negative impressions can also, god forbid, change our outlooks or attitudes forever.

Hashem should give us the siyata d’shmaya to witness only good things which will help us change our lives for the better to help us witness the coming of Moshiach in our days.

(Search by: chumash; parsha; parshas devarim; devarim; chazon; Shabbos chazon; mishna torah; reb yitzchok sheiner; meshech chochma; mikoshesh eitzim; mitzvah of Shabbos; a lasting impression; the importance of Shabbos; leaving a lasting impression)

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