Friday, April 22, 2016

Dvar Torah for Pesach 5776-2016

       Pesach is here once again! One of the most important and anticipated holidays of the year, as well as one of the most fun! Tonight at the Seder, we will discuss in-depth the story of how we left Mitzrayim through the reading of the Hagadah. The Hagadah is one of my favorite books to study, and as we do every year, let’s take a look at a piece of the Hagadah and see what deeper meanings we can uncover.  
       We open Maggid with the paragraph of “Ha Lachma Anya.” It consists of us pointing out the matzah as the bread our forefathers ate while they were in Mitzrayim and inviting others to join in the Seder with us. A question struck me this year: Why do we open the Seder by pointing out the matzah? By placing it first, we are labeling it as the main idea for the remainder of the Seder; but what about the Korban Pesach, the Makkos, the Splitting of the Sea, the Marror? The matzah doesn’t have a greater place in the story of leaving Mitzrayim or in the Hagadah than these other items; how come it gets a more prominent place in the ceremony?
       The commentaries all discuss this idea of formally inviting people to the Seder, something not done by any other holiday. While we invite people all the time, it is not a formal part of the holiday (or Shabbos) ceremony. Why do we do this on Pesach? They explain that on the holiday of Pesach there is a special focus on tzedakah.
       The Chasam Sofer has his own explanation for this idea. He asks why do we make a big deal out of leaving Mitzrayim? While we may have been free then, nowadays we are still in Galus; why should we make a big deal out of once having been free if we are no longer so?
       He explains that there is a fundamental difference between the galus in Mitzrayim and our galus nowadays. By Mitzrayim, Hashem made a deal with Avraham that his children would go into exile and upon leaving they would become the Chosen People. The deal was that they would be in exile for 400 years and there was nothing they could do to change it. Only Hashem could take us out earlier than that (and he did; we were only in Mitzrayim for 210 years). Also, the limit was set at 400 years; it wouldn’t have gone on any longer.
       The galus we currently struggle with is the exact opposite. There is no limit on this galus; it’s been going on for 2000 years and it could go on for many more, chas v’shalom. But at the same time, it can end today! It’s entirely up to us! How can we make it come sooner? By doing Torah and mitzvos; however, certain mitzvos can bring the geulah faster than others. According to the gemarah in Bava Basra (10a), one of these mitzvos is tzedakah.
       Says the Chasam Sofer, this is what we are doing at the Seder. We hold up the matzah, the symbol of our galus, and invite others to join us, we do tzedakah. We tell each other, “Yes, we may be in galus, but by joining together we can bring the geulah very soon!” This is why we focus on the matzah, we want to point out that we may still be in galus, but by inviting others to join us we can change that very quickly. And this is why we can make a big deal about leaving Mitzrayim even though today we remain in galus, because we have the power to change this galus into geulah.
       Even though we only have one Seder (or two), the entire week of Pesach is the holiday of geulah. Let’s keep this message in mind over the entire holiday, and who knows, by the end of the week we could be celebrating in the Beis Hamikdash!


Chag Kosher V’Sameach! 


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Thursday, April 14, 2016

Dvar Torah for Parshas Metzora

       While we began the discussion of tzara’as in last week’s parsha, this week’s parsha, Parshas Metzora, is where the main discussion takes place. Tzara’as is a type of lesion, typically translated as leprosy, which comes as a result of speaking lashon hara. It can appear on a person’s skin, clothing, or house.
       The medrash tells a story of a peddler who was going through the streets shouting, “Who wants to buy the elixir of life!” Rav Yanai, an amora, asked him for the secret. The peddler replied, “מי האיש החפץ חיים נצר לשונך מרע “Who is the man who desires life...stop your tongue from speaking evil” (Tehillim 34:13-14). Rav Yanai replied that he never understood the simple explanation of the pasuk until the peddler explained it to him. There’s a second gemarah where Rav Alexandri went around asking the public, “Who wants life?” He then said over the same pasuk and added the end of the next pasuk as well, “סור מרע ועשה טוב “Stay away from evil and do good” (34:15), in order to clarify that simply not speaking lashon hara is not enough to merit long life.
       The Kli Yakar asks several questions about these two stories. Among them are why do we need to know specifically that it was a peddler who was spreading the secret of life, and how come the peddler was selling an elixir while Rav Alexandri was giving for free and was not offering an ‘elixir’?
       He explains that there was a question if you can fix the effects of speaking lashon hara. According to Rav Alexandri, you cannot; therefore, he was going around as a preventative measure to teach people not to speak lashon hara. He didn’t offer an elixir because he wasn’t curing anything. He couldn’t ask for money because he was only teaching, not curing. The peddler, on the other hand, held that you could fix the aftereffects of speaking lashon hara. He knew this because he himself had used to be someone who spoke lashon hara! (The word for peddler, “רוכל” is the same root as the word for someone who speaks lashon hara.) After he did teshuvah, he used to travel the world helping people with this same problem.    
       Lashon Hara is a topic that Chazal stress a lot throughout the Oral Torah. One of the reasons Bnei Yisrael merited leaving Mitzrayim was in fact because they did not speak lashon hara! The period before Pesach can be stressful for many people. Let us use this time to work on ourselves and discover this elixir of life!

Shabbat Shalom!


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Friday, April 8, 2016

No New Dvar Torah This Week

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

Shabbat Shalom!


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