Feb 19, 2015 | Torat Devorah
The poles should be in the rings of the Ark. They should not be removed. (Shemot 25:15)
A ring was attached to each corner of the Ark. Poles were passed through these rings. These poles were used to carry the Aron – the Ark. The Torah commands us that the poles must remain in the rings at all times. Even when the Mishcan is erected and the Aron is at rest the poles are to remain attached. The poles were designed for the transport of the Ark. When the Aron was to be moved, the poles were needed. However, when the Ark was at rest, the poles did not have any apparent function. Why should they not be removed at such times?
Gershonides discusses this issue. He explains that the Ark represented the Torah. The Torah is perfect. Therefore, the Ark must always be perfect. With the removal of the poles, the Ark would no longer be complete. An incomplete Aron is unfit to represent the Torah. Gershonides’ explanation seems difficult to understand. In order for an object to be perfect, it must be complete. However, perfection also requires that the object have no extra, or meaningless, components. Imagine the perfect machine. Every part would serve a purpose; no needed component would be absent. No component would lack purpose.
When the Ark was at rest the poles had no purpose. They were extra, or unneeded, components. It seems the Aron would have better represented the perfection of the Torah without this superfluous component! Rabbi Bernie Fox explains: Gershonides is providing us with an important insight into the nature of the Aron. The Ark was constructed in the wilderness and was transported as the nation traveled. Therefore, the Aron was constructed so that it could be carried. However, this design was not merely a practical necessity. The portability of the Ark was essential to its very definition. In other words, the Ark was defined as a “portable” item. The Aron could only be considered perfect when it expressed this definition. Even at rest the Ark was required to conform to this definition. It must remain completely portable. For this reason, the Aron of the permanent Bait HaMikdash remained unchanged in design. The poles were part of the design and could not be removed. Perhaps, this provides a message regarding the perfection of the Torah. This perfection, in part, lies in the portability of Torah. Torah is a way of life that applies to all times and places. Even when Bnai Yisrael are dispersed throughout the world, Torah is still to be the guide.
Prepared by Devorah Abenhaim
Feb 10, 2015 | Torat Devorah
Six days shall you accomplish your activities, and on the seventh day you shall desist… and your maidservant’s son and the sojourner may be refreshed.” (23:12)
Possibly one of the least understood areas of Shabbat observance is amira l’akum — hinting to a non-Jew to do something for a Jew that the Jew him or herself cannot do because of Shabbat. The basic premise of this prohibition is to preserve the other-worldly quality of Shabbat, for it would be all too easy to employ a non-Jew to continue one’s weekday activities without contravening a single Torah law. In other words, you could turn Shabbat into Saturday. For example, many people assume that if the circuit breaker trips and the lights go out at the Shabbat night meal one could hint to a non-Jew to turn them on again. This is not true. Except in certain specific cases, a Jew on Shabbat may not receive any direct benefit from the melacha (forbidden Shabbat action) of a non-Jew. There are many people who would never dream of allowing a cheeseburger to cross the portals of their dwelling (let alone the portals of their lips) but would cheerfully hint to the maid to turn the lights on Shabbat Ignoring this prohibition, however, can lead to dire consequences — and not just in the world-to-come.
Rabbi David Ribiat relates the following story: Around the year 1800, there was a large fire in the city of Maerkisch-Friedland. Much of the Jewish quarter was destroyed and many homes had to be rebuilt. Rabbi Akiva Eiger, the rabbi of the city, issued a proclamation advising those rebuilding their homes to stipulate in their contracts with the builders that no work should be done on Shabbat or Yom Tov. The community was united in its observance of Rabbi Akiva Eiger’s degree, with one exception. The president of the community, who was extremely wealthy, wanted his house rebuilt as quickly as possible, and instructed his workers to work non-stop through Shabbat and Yom Tov. The protestations of the community and even the Rabbi himself fell on deaf ears, and the work proceeded unabated. Shocked by this flagrant breach of Halacha, Rabbi Akiva Eiger was heard to say that he did not expect the house to last very long.
Not only was the president’s house the first to be completed; it was undoubtedly the finest of the new homes.
Not long afterwards, and without any previous warning, one of the beams of the president’s mansion suddenly crashed to the ground. A subsequent investigation revealed that the beam was riddled with timber decay. Not only this, but the wooden frame of the mansion was similarly affected and the entire structure had to be demolished. A check was made of all the other re-built buildings, but not one of them showed the slightest inclination to dry rot. The engineers were at a loss to explain why only this particular house, built at the same time and from the same timber supply, was affected. The Jews of Maerkisch-Friedland, however, were in no doubt about the answer to this puzzling enigma.
Prepared by Devorah Abenhaim
Feb 5, 2015 | Torat Devorah
And G-d came down on Mount Sinai… and G-d called to Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up (19:20)
The Midrash Tanchuma relates the following: Once there was a king who decreed: “The people of Rome are forbidden to go down to Syria, and the people of Syria are forbidden to go up to Rome.” Likewise, when G-d created the world, He decreed and said: “The heavens are G-ds, and the earth is given to man” (Psalms 115:16). But when He wished to give the Torah to Israel, He rescinded His original decree, and declared: “The lower realms may ascend to the higher realms, and the higher realms may descend to the lower realms. And I,Myself, will begin” as it is written, “And G-d descended on Mount Sinai,” and then it says, “And to Moses He said: Go up to G-d.”
Our Sages tell us that the Patriarchs studied the Torah and fulfilled its precepts many centuries before the Torah was “officially” given at Sinai. Since no “new information” was revealed on the sixth of Sivan, what is the significance of the “giving of the Torah” on that occasion?
The answer lies in the above-quoted Midrash: at Sinai G-d abolished the decree which had consigned the physical and the spiritual to two separate domains. Thus, at Sinai was introduced a new phenomenon–the cheftza shel kedushah or “holy object.” After Sinai, when physical man takes a physical coin, earned by his physical toil and talents, and gives it to charity; or when he forms a piece of leather to a specified shape and dimensions and binds them to his head and arm as tefillin—the object with which he has performed his “mitzvah” is transformed. A finite, physical thing becomes “holy,” as its very substance and form become the actualization of a divine desire and command.
The Lubavitcher Rebber comments: “The mitzvot could be, and were, performed before the revelation at Sinai, and had the power to achieve great things within the spiritual realm (by elevating the soul of the one who performed them and effecting “unions” (yichudim) and “revelations” (giluyim) in the supernal worlds) and within the physical realm (by refining the object with which it was performed, within the limits of its natural potential). But because the mitzvot had not yet beencommanded by G-d, they lacked the power to bridge the great divide between matter and spirit. Only as a command of G-d, creator and delineator of both the spiritual and the physical, could the mitzvah supersede the natural definitions of these two realms. Only after Sinai could the mitzvah actualize the spiritual and sanctify the material.”
One of the ten commandment we read about is: “Honor your father and your mother” (20:12) And in Leviticus 19:3 it says, “Every man, his mother and father should fear.” What is the significance of the change in order? Talmud, Kiddushin 31a explains: “For it is revealed and known to G-d that a person adores his mother more than his father, and that he fears his father more than his mother. G-d therefore set the honor of one’s father first, and the fear of one’s mother first, to emphasize that one must honor and fear them both equally.”
Prepared by Devorah Abenhaim
Jan 29, 2015 | Torat Devorah
“G-d did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, because it was near” (13:17)
When G-d took the Bnei Yisrael out of Egypt, He did not take them the quickest and easiest and most direct route from Egypt to Eretz Yisrael: northeast along the coast of the Mediterranean through what is today Gaza. Rather, He took them a long, difficult, and tortuous path across a sea and through a major desert. Why? As the saying goes, easy come, easy go. When the Jewish People left Egypt they had not entirely freed themselves from the clutches of the negative drive, the yetzer hara. If G-d had brought them the easy way, they would have been in danger of being lured back to the constricting but comfortable life of slavery in the fleshpots of Egypt. G-d, as it were, burned their bridges. He made it virtually impossible to return to Egypt. Which was just as well. For, as we see, when the going got tough in the wilderness, the Jewish People were more than willing to return to Egypt. Had that been an easy option, the history of the Jewish people might have been very different.
Rabbi E.E Dessler comments: “Ostensibly, then, when faced with trying to escape the clutches of our negative drive, we must burn our bridges. If we want to separate from bad company, we must be prepared to leave and move to a different neighborhood. If we have a serious weight problem, we must put a lock on the fridge and entrust the key to our spouse (unless hes/shes trying to lose weight as well). However, in Parshat Vaera (8:23), the Torah itself presents a contradiction to this logic. When Moshe tells Pharaoh that the Jewish People are leaving, he talks of “only a three-day journey.” Moshe knew full well that once they were out, they weren’t coming back, so why did he tell Pharaoh it was for only three days? Part of Moshe’s intention was to appease the latent negative drive still lingering in the hearts of the Jewish People. Leaving for three days is a far less daunting prospect than leaving forever. The Jewish People thus felt they had a get-out clause, if they needed it, and were prepared to go along with Moshe. For three days at least. But was this bridge-burning? The Exodus was effected then both though a bribe to the negative drive, the lure of a three-day round-trip ticket on the one hand, and on the other, an iron-fisted scorched earth policy of no return. When we wish to leave our own personal Egypts, our personal prisons that the negative drive constructs for us, which is the correct course to follow? The answer is we need both. For someone who smokes 40 cigarettes a day, the idea of going cold turkey is pretty horrendous. But tell him that if after two weeks and he’s not happy he can go back to smoking like a chimney, you’ll see a different picture. Seduction and bribery are our opening guns against the negative drive. Afterwards we have to follow up by burning our bridges. It was the lure of a round-trip ticket that got the Jewish People as far as the edge of the water, but it was only Nachson ben Amiadav who jumped headlong into the sea and showed that there was no turning back that made the waters divide.”
Prepared by Devorah Abenhaim
Jan 22, 2015 | Torat Devorah
It is appropriate and necessary to shed light on the plague of darkness. Its place in the order of the plagues as next to last is indicative of its having been a very harsh plague. This is surprising since, as opposed to the rest of the plagues, the plague of darkness did not cause anyone any physical harm. Moreover, this plague did not cause any damage to infrastructure (such as the plague of blood), did not harm any animals (murrain, dever), did not destroy any crops (locusts), did not cause sickness (boils), and was not even itchy or bothersome (lice). What, then, was so terrible about the darkness? It appears that precisely this question was what brought to Sages to identify certain tasks in connection with the preparation for the exodus from Egypt that were to be completed during the time of darkness. One Rabbi explained that the darkness provided cover for the death and burial of all of the Jews who did not merit redemption from Egypt. Another explanation is that the darkness afforded the Jews the opportunity to discover where their Egyptian neighbors hid their gold and silver vessels so that they could not deny their existence when the Jews came to ask to borrow them in anticipation of their exodus from Egypt. Rabbi Ronen Lubitz suggesst another explanation for the purpose and meaning of the plague of darkness. This explanation is rooted it the fact that darkness creates loneliness. Man is a social creature. “Diplomatic by nature,” in the words of Maimonides, and in those of our Sages: “Either a partner to study with or death.” A stirring example of this appears in a passage in the Talmud that tells of Rabbi Yochanan, who, after hearing of the death of Reish Lakish, his friend and student, was not able to continue to exist in solitude and ultimately lost his mind and passed away. The plague of darkness in Egypt created complete social quarantine and isolated every man from his neighbor. The darkness forced the Egyptians into immobility and stripped them of their freedom, just as they had done to the Jews, and caused each and every one of them to contemplate his own conduct and past deeds. According to the Sages, a two phased process took place during the darkness: during the first three days “they did not see each other,” while during the subsequent three days there was “thick darkness,” the darkness intensified and “and no one rose from his place,” so that, in Rashi’s words, “if he was sitting, he was unable to stand, and if he was standing, he was unable to sit.” The rabbis of the mussar movement (Jewish ethics) explained the connection between the two phases and added that when a person does not see his neighbor, no one is capable of rising from his place. In other words, when a person cannot see anyone else, no person or project can get off the ground. A healthy society requires that each of its members pay attention to those around them, to take note of their problems and troubles, and only then can people rise and cause their society to be vigorous and uplifted. Lubitz suggests that the Egyptians’ suffering during the darkness was of a similar nature to that which they had imposed on the Jews. In the initial phase they sinned by “not seeing each other,” as they did not take heed of the suffering and pain that the slavery caused the Jews, and as an extension they reached the subsequent state of “no one rose from his place,” resulting in the downfall of Egyptian society in its entirety.
Jan 15, 2015 | Torat Devorah
The Torah states, “Hashem said to Moshe, “…I shall harden the heart of Pharaoh so that I may multiply My signs and My wonders upon Egypt…Pharaoh will not heed you, and I shall put My hand upon Egypt.” Rashi cites Chazal who explain that G’d hardened the heart of Pharaoh in order to bring about a situation in which He could increase the miracles and wonders to bring about the redemption.
Egypt was not only the “breadbasket” of the world, it was the height of civilization. As a global power, the Egyptian culture/civilization influenced all existence. The plagues brought upon Egypt served a dual purpose. Firstly, they were intended to be a punishment for the Egyptians and secondly, so that as a result of witnessing these revealed miracles, the Egyptians should come to the realization “that I am G’d.” They would become monotheists by understanding that there is nothing in existence that occurs without G’d’s direct involvement. Reb Meir Simcha of Dvinsk Z”L explains that G’d hardened the heart of Pharaoh in order to create a setting in which the world would come to the realization that G’d is the Omnipotent Being. Since Egypt was a global power with far-reaching influence, when they were to be affected by the miracles/plagues then their newfound belief would have a ripple effect throughout the world.
It is interesting to note that the reason the Egyptians chose to kill the newborn Jewish males by drowning them in the Nile was that they believed that G’d could not destroy them through water. Since G’d metes out justice measure for measure, the means through which the Egyptians would be punished. However G’d had made a covenant with existence after the Great Flood that He would never again destroy the world through water, the Egyptians believed that G’d had no recourse against them. Why would the Egyptians believe that they were immune to retribution through water? The covenant that was made by G’d was that He would not destroy the world through water. Egypt was not the entire world. Since G’d in fact did not destroy Egypt through water because of the covenant that He had made with existence, it is eviden that Egypt was considered the equivalent of the entire world. This demonstrates further that if G’d impacted upon Egypt it would ultimately affect all existence. It is true that the Egyptian army was destroyed through water/the Sea, but in that circumstance G’d did not bring the water upon them, but rather, they were lured to the water and thus destroyed.
Reb Yonasan Eibschitz Z”L explains why G’d elevates the nations that afflict the Jewish people. As the Master of the Universe, G’d’ is interested in interacting with existence in a manner that will have the greatest level of impact/impression and so the world should come to the realization that He is the Omnipotent Being. Thus, in order to bring this about, He first elevates the person or nation to a level of prominence and power only to ultimately destroy them. These individuals or nations are seen by the world as invincible and only then does G’d destroy them to demonstrate His power.
Prepared by Devorah Abenhaim
