Friday, October 30, 2015

Dvar Torah for Parshas Vayeira

       Parshas Vayeira begins with Avraham Avinu welcoming guests into his tent. While Avraham’s propensity for chessed and Hachnasas Orchim is well-documented in Chazal, this is the only occurrence in the Torah where his kindness is extensively detailed. The situation at the time, Avraham was recovering from surgery and it was an extremely hot day, make it the best example to demonstrate this great middah of his.
       The three “guests”, actually angels in disguise, were ערביים, Arabs. When Avraham goes to greet them and invite them inside, he makes a strange request. “יֻקַּח־נָ֣א מְעַט־מַ֔יִם וְרַֽחֲצ֖וּ רַגְלֵיכֶ֑ם“Please take a little bit of water and wash your feet” (Bereishis 18:4). Rashi explains that Arabs would worship the dust, so in order to make sure no Avoda Zara was brought into his house, Avraham made them wash the dust off their feet.
       It is difficult for us to understand the draw of Avoda Zara today, but some are easier to understand than others. To worship the sun or the moon might make sense; they ‘rule’ the sky and they might be the symbols that most represent day to day life. An argument could be made for certain majestic animals or scenery. But why dust? What is so amazing about it that would lead someone to worship it as a god?
       I heard an explanation in the name of the Maharal that provides us with an explanation as well as an important lesson.
       The ancient Arabs (and their modern-day descendants) were extremely dedicated to ‘god’, so much so that they wanted to make everything they did a holy experience. However, they wouldn’t try to find out what god wanted from them, they simply decided that whatever they were doing at the time, regardless of what it was, was what he wanted from them. Therefore, they were always doing exactly what god wanted from them! And they would do it 110%.
       Therefore, even the dust under their feet was holy; since the journey they were on was a ‘mission’ from god, the dust on their feet was a part of this holy mission and connected them to their gods. So Avraham made them wash off even the dust to remove any potential connection to their worship.
       It is this idea of complete dedication that has made them such a dangerous enemy throughout time. They are completely dedicated to their idea of god, and they are in complete harmony with ‘him’. Their fight is with man, and specifically, us. The only way to counteract this mindset is to counter it with complete dedication of our own.
       In this week’s parsha, we see Avraham recovering from his bris milah, we see him desperately looking for guests, we see him praying to Hashem to save the city of Sedom and the surrounding area- a place where there was not even one righteous individual, and finally, we see Avraham willing to sacrifice his only and beloved son, Yitzchak. All this in the name of serving Hashem. This is complete dedication; this is what it takes to be 100% committed to being a true servant of Hashem.
       If we hope to defeat our enemies, we must look to Avraham Avinu and commit ourselves 100% to serving Hashem, and even better for us, we know how He should be served! With this, we should all have a tremendous zchus to see true bracha and yeshua!


Shabbat Shalom!


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Friday, October 23, 2015

No Dvar Torah this Week

Due to unforeseen circumstances, there is no new Dvar Torah this week. Please click here for last year's Dvar Torah for Parshas Lech Lecha. We will, b'ezrat Hashem, return next week with a new Dvar Torah.
Shabbat Shalom!

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Thursday, October 15, 2015

No New Dvar Torah this Week

Due to unforeseen circumstances, there is no new Dvar Torah this week. Please click here for last year's Dvar Torah for Parshas Noach. We will, b'ezrat Hashem, return next week with a brand new Dvar Torah.

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Friday, October 9, 2015

Dvar Torah for Parshas Bereishis

       Parshas Bereishis is not only the beginning of the Torah, it is where we begin to piece together our understanding of the world and how it works. By reading the pesukim and observing the order and style of how everything was created and designed, we can derive some understanding of how the world is supposed to function. For this reason, Bereishis is the most difficult parsha to understand in the Torah while also being perhaps the most important one.
       After six days of creation, the Seventh Day arrived. The pasuk says, “וַיְכַל אֱלֹהִים בַּיּוֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִי מְלַאכְתּוֹ אֲשֶׁר עָשָׂה“And Hashem completed on the seventh day His work that He did” (Bereishis 2:2). We know that Hashem didn’t ‘work’ on the seventh day because it was Shabbos, so how does the pasuk say that He completed His work on that day? Rashi explains with a medrash that the concept of ‘rest’ was missing from the world until Shabbos when Hashem ‘rested’, so Hashem really didn’t finish creating everything until Shabbos. (Exactly what is the concept of ‘rest’ is discussed in various commentaries.)
       Two questions emerge from this explanation:
       Perek 2 Pasuk 1 says that on the seventh day, the heavens and earth had been finished, meaning that with the creation of rest, the physical world was finally complete. but while rest is integral to our day-to-day lives, why is it integral to the world itself? Can’t it survive without us resting? Why is rest so integral that it is considered a foundation of the world?
       The Sifsei Chachamim answers using a Rashi from the first pasuk in the Torah. The commentaries ask why the Torah starts with the word בְּרֵאשִׁית, which is translated as “in the beginning”, but is not the standard word the Torah uses when describing the beginning of something. It is more correctly translated as “the first” rather than “the beginning”. The medrash answers that this word shows that the world was created primarily for the Jewish People and the Torah, which are both called ראשית (in reference to Hashem’s preference for them).
       Without the ability for Jews to study the Torah, there would be no purpose for the world’s creation and subsequently, the world would fall apart at its foundations. During the week, everyone is hard at work trying to make a living for themselves and their families. As a result, there is little time and energy available to study Torah. However, there is one day each week that is dedicated to rest, a day when no constructive work may be done (by Jews). On this day, we are free to dedicate ourselves to Torah study, thereby insuring the survival of the world through the strengthening of its foundations, the heaven and earth, which are built on Torah. So we see that the creation of rest is vital to the creation of the world.
       The second question is: resting is not an active activity, it is a passive activity; so why is its’ creation called so? Hashem didn’t actually do anything, He just didn’t do anything!
       The Sifsei Chachamim answers that question as well. While the answer to the first question dealt with the spiritual side of creation, this one focuses more on the physical side. Without setting up a plan of rest, where people would work for a certain amount of time before taking time to recharge, eventually people would completely break down physically, leading to the destruction of the human race and subsequently the world. (We are not discussing resting as the need to sleep, that was always necessary. We are discussing more the idea of taking a day off or taking vacation; the need for rest from daily routine for an amount of time after working for a while.) By placing this concept of rest into the fabric of the physical world, Hashem made it normal for people to rest up from time to time and recharge their batteries. And so it is in reality; though Shabbos is a Jewish idea, the concept of a weekend and vacation has developed into a big part of the secular world has well (it was not always that way). Every culture has an idea of using time to recharge their bodies and minds in order to remain productive and healthy.
       Rest is not only helpful for physical exhaustion, but for spiritual needs too. Being physically and mentally tired drains our spiritual resources as well. So while Shabbos is a time to recharge physically, we should use it as a time to recharge spiritually too.
       This is just one example of how studying Parshas Bereishis gives us an insight to the inner workings of the world. In this case, we hopefully have gained a better understanding of Shabbos. As we go through the sefer and study the different stories of our ancestors, let’s keep this idea in mind and hopefully learn more about Hashem’s plans for the world and for us.

Shabbat Shalom!

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