Friday, January 29, 2016

Dvar Torah for Parshas Yisro

       In Parshas Yisro, we are finally given the Torah. The promise made to Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov was finally fulfilled; by accepting the Torah, we became the nation of Hashem. In preparation for receiving the Torah, Hashem gave Moshe instructions telling the Bnei Yisrael what they should do.
       In the back and forth between Hashem and Moshe written over in the Torah, there appears to be one step which is out of order. “…וַיֹּאמְרוּ כֹּל אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר יְהוָה נַעֲשֶׂה וַיָּשֶׁב מֹשֶׁה אֶת דִּבְרֵי הָעָם אֶל יְהוָה. וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֶל מֹשֶׁה הִנֵּה אָנֹכִי בָּא אֵלֶיךָ בְּעַב הֶעָנָן בַּעֲבוּר יִשְׁמַע הָעָם בְּדַבְּרִי עִמָּךְ וְגַם בְּךָ יַאֲמִינוּ לְעוֹלָם וַיַּגֵּד מֹשֶׁה אֶת דִּבְרֵי הָעָם אֶל יְהוָה“…And they (Bnei Yisrael) said, ‘Everything that Hashem says we will do.’ And Moshe brought the words of the nation to Hashem. And Hashem said to Moshe, ‘Behold, I am coming to you in the thick cloud in order that the nation should hear when I speak to you and they will believe in you forever.’ And Moshe told the words of the Nation to Hashem.” (Shemos 19:8-9). If you follow the flow of the pesukim, first the People speak and Moshe passes their message along, then Hashem speaks to Moshe, and immediately afterwards Moshe passes along another message from the Nation to Hashem. Which message is that? There was no further message to pass along according to what is written in the pesukim!
       The answer, explains the Kli Yakar, lies in the pesukim beforehand. In pasuk 7, Moshe goes to the Elders and tells them a message from Hashem; yet, in pasuk 8, it says that the entire nation responded to Moshe! He explains that the chain of communication was supposed to be that Hashem would communicate to Moshe who would pass the message to the Elders who would give it over to the entire nation. When the People realized this, they immediately rejected this by coming to Moshe directly. They couldn’t stand to have another link separating them from Hashem; one middle man, Moshe, was enough![1]
       Therefore, the first time Moshe passed along their message was to tell Hashem that Bnei Yisrael were ready to accept the Torah with full hearts. The second time he passed a message was to tell Hashem that Bnei Yisrael wanted to hear the Torah directly from Him as much as possible. Therefore, in pasuk 9, Hashem tells Moshe that He will appear in a cloud and speak only to Moshe while allowing the Nation to overhear their conversation, and in pasuk 10-11, He tells Moshe to tell Bnei Yisrael to prepare for a full-blown revelation.
       The same is true nowadays. While we may not experience a complete revelation like there was at Har Sinai, we can also cry directly to Hashem, “Na’aseh V’Nishma! We want to experience You! We want to hear from You!” And with that cry, there is no way Hashem can deny us.
Shabbat Shalom!
      

[1] The Kli Yakar also explains that Hashem intended Moshe to go directly to Bnei Yisrael without going through the Elders. But Moshe felt this was necessary; in my opinion, in order to give respect to the Elders.



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Thursday, January 21, 2016

Dvar Torah for Parshas Beshalach

       Parshas Beshalach contains one of the most incredible events in the history of the world, the Splitting of the Red Sea. For the first time since the creation of the world, Hashem bent the rules of nature to allow Bnei Yisrael to escape from the Egyptians. In fact, the entire world was included in this miracle; Chazal teach us that at the time that the Red Sea split, every body of water in the world split as well. This let the whole world know what was happening; how powerful Hashem is and how far He is willing to go for His nation.
       When Bnei Yisrael arrived at the sea, things did not look so rosy. With the sea in front of them and the Egyptian army coming from behind, the only thing left for the nation to do was daven to Hashem. But Hashem sends back an interesting response. “וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֶל מֹשֶׁה מַה תִּצְעַק אֵלָי "דַּבֵּר אֶל בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וְיִסָּעוּ. וְאַתָּה הָרֵם אֶת מַטְּךָ וּנְטֵה אֶת יָדְךָ עַל הַיָּם וּבְקָעֵהוּ וְיָבֹאוּ בְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל בְּתוֹךְ הַיָּם בַּיַּבָּשָׁה “And Hashem said to Moshe, ‘why are you crying out to me? Speak to the Children of Israel and let them travel. And you raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea and it will split, and the children of Israel will travel in the middle of the sea on dry land” (Shemos 14:15-16).
       Hashem tells Moshe that they should stop davening! We see in numerous places that as long as He has not answered us, Hashem always wants us to daven; how could He say now, at a moment of dire need, that they should stop davening? Furthermore, when Hashem tells Moshe to stretch his staff over the water, it seems like He’s saying that their tefillos were answered; so how come He has to tell Moshe to stop davening? Why be snide, just say he’s been answered! Lastly, why did Hashem tell the Bnei Yisrael to start traveling before telling Moshe to split the sea? It should be the other way around.
       The Ohr HaChaim explains that when a person is facing peril, he is being judged. Hashem takes into account all of their actions and decides if they are worthy of being saved. The way to awaken the mercy of Hashem is to do good deeds down here. However, at this point in time, Bnei Yisrael had very few good deeds that made them worthy of being saved. Therefore, something else needed to be done to make them deserving of mercy.
       Hashem tells Moshe, ‘there is no point in crying out to me, based on My own system, as much as I want to make a miracle, I can’t save you. The only thing Bnei Yisrael could do was perform an act of belief and faith in God so great, that it would automatically cause the Hashem’s mercy to overpower His judgement. Therefore, Hashem tells them to stop davening! Head straight into the sea even though it’s not even split yet! Through this act of faith, you will deserve a great miracle; and as they travel into the sea, He tells Moshe to hold out his staff and split it.
       While this story took place thousands of years ago, the same principle applies nowadays. We may find ourselves stuck between a rock and a hard place, but if we commit ourselves to Hashem, if we strengthen our faith in Him, He will provide for us no matter the circumstances.

Shabbat Shalom!


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Thursday, January 14, 2016

Dvar Torah for Parshas Bo

       Parshas Bo contains the final three makkos as well as Bnei Yisrael finally leaving Mitzrayim. In between, Moshe and Aharon receive the first mitzvos given to us as a nation, Kiddush HaChodesh and Korban Pesach. All in all, this is a very important parsha in Jewish history.
       The final plague given to Mitzrayim is the Death of the Firstborn. Moshe warns Paroh about this makkah and adds a very dramatic detail. “כֹּ֖ה אָמַ֣ר יְהֹוָ֑ה כַּֽחֲצֹ֣ת הַלַּ֔יְלָה אֲנִ֥י יוֹצֵ֖א בְּת֥וֹךְ מִצְרָֽיִם“So said Hashem: ‘At the dividing point of the night (midnight), I will go out in the midst of Egypt” (Shemos 11:4). Moshe tells Paroh that at exactly midnight, the plague will start. However, even though Moshe meant midnight, the grammar is slightly off. If Moshe wanted to say exactly midnight, he should have used the prefix “בּ”, meaning “at”, instead of “כַּֽ”, which means an approximation. Moshe wanted to make an impact on Paroh, so why didn’t he say that Hashem would come exactly at midnight instead of giving an approximation? It’s not like Hashem doesn’t know exactly when midnight is!
       The classic answer given by Chazal is that while Hashem knew exactly when midnight was, Paroh and his advisors could make just a small mistake in their calculations and be off by just a second. Since they were looking for any excuse not to believe in Hashem, they would have ignored even the slightest difference and taken it as a proof against God. Therefore, Moshe protected the validity of the miracle and told them the plague would start at approximately midnight.
       The Kli Yakar offers a different explanation. Chazal teach us that each one of the makkos was given “middah k’neged middah”, measure for measure, corresponding to a torturous act the Egyptians had done to the Jews. (We have discussed this in previous years on this forum.) Says the Kli Yakar, not only was the actual makkah a punishment, but even the timing of this particular makkah was calculated.
       Back in Parshas Shemos, Moshe witnessed an Egyptian hitting a Jew and killed him. Rashi explains (2:11) that this happened when the first rooster crowed, which was the sign for the Jews to come out and work. How did Rashi know the timing of this event? There is no hint to it in the pesukim. The Kli Yakar explains that we learn it from here.
       There is no particular reason why the plague had to start at exactly midnight, and no clear reason why Moshe used that particular prefix (“כַּֽ). The reason is in order to punish the Egyptians for further torturing the Jews by making them start working at midnight, the time the first rooster crowed. Moshe used this prefix even though it denotes an approximation and not a certainty, in order to remind the Egyptians of how they made the Jews get up by the crowing of the rooster, which happened approximately at midnight.
       With everything that has happened to us throughout history and continues today, Hashem has and will always have our backs. We can rest assured that everyone and everything will get what is coming to them sooner or later. As we see from this week’s parsha, even the smallest detail can be used to perform justice. B’ezrat Hashem, the day will come when we will clearly see the hand of Hashem protecting us and lifting us up from everything that surrounds us, and He will once again take us out from shibud l'geulah!


Shabbat Shalom!



My book, "Reality Check: A Handbook of Hashkafa", is now available on Amazon Kindle! Click here to purchase. And don't forget to check out hashkafahandbook.com!


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Thursday, January 7, 2016

No New Dvar Torah This Week

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

Shabbat Shalom!

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