5771 פרשת וזאת הברכה

 In this week’s Parsha the Torah describes to us how right before Moshe Rabbeinu had died he gave  a  specific blessing to each of the tribes of Bnei Yisroel.

 The blessing that Moshe gave some of the tribes related not only to a blessing for the future but related those blessings to the prior actions of the individual tribe.

 One instance of this occurrence is found in the blessing that Moshe Rabbeinu gave to the tribe of Levi.

 The Siforno explains that before giving Levi the blessing for the future of which one aspect is that God should give them the necessary wisdom to teach Torah to Bnei Yisroel as they would be the future teachers of all of Bnei Yisroel. They merited this blessing and to be the teachers of Bnei Yisroel due to the following actions that Moshe lists as part of their blessing. They were that while all the rest of Bnei Yisroel did not circumcise their children in the desert due to the physical danger, the tribe of Levi did not hesitate to circumcise their sons even though many of them did die. Secondly, they stood up against all of Bnei Yisroel during the sin of the eigel and did not commit idol worship as well as having true faith in God and not being involved in any of the complaints Bnei Yisroel had against God during their tenure in the midbar.

 The question that can be asked on this Siforno is that this aspect of the worship of God should not be what makes them the teachers of Bnei Yisroel. The teacher should have been from the tribe that were the biggest experts in Torah study. This we know was not the tribe of Levi but rather the tribe of Yissachar. Furthermore, we see that Moshe had to request a special blessing from God that the tribe of Levi should have the necessary knowledge to be good teachers. Why not give the job of the teachers to the tribe who already had that expertise?

 The answer could be that Torah is different than all other types of study. Most other forms of study, the person that understands the subject matter the best and the clearest is usually would be the most qualified to give that material over. For example, if you are looking for someone to give a graduate level class in physics you would look for someone who has a mastery of the topic and not look for the person who is most committed to the study of  physics and hope that he will master the topics needed to  teach the course.

 However, when it comes to Torah it is not just knowledge that has to be imparted but also an understanding that Torah is life and a feeling that Torah is worth giving up everything for. This is something that only someone who lives that life to the fullest can truly give over that feeling to their students. This is why the tribe of Levi was chosen to be the teachers of all of Bnei Yisroel even though they didn’t necessarily have the knowledge that the tribe of Yissachar had.

 If when we learn Torah we realize that it is much more than knowledge and rather a way of life, it will help us continue the path of teshuvah that we began on Yom Kippur and continue to grow in service to God.

פרשת וזאת הברכה 5770

 In this week’s Parsha, the Torah describes to us the Bracha that Moshe gives to Bnei Yisroel on the day of his death. As an introduction to the Bracha the Torah says:

 “This is the bracha the Moshe the man of God blessed Bnei Yisroel before his death.”

 The Ohr Hachayim is bothered by why the Torah needed this introduction and what the Torah is teaching us from each seemingly extra word of the Pasuk.

 From the explanation of the Ohr Hachayim on two different phrases in the Pasuk we can learn a very important lesson coming out of Yom Kippur and heading into the New Year.

 On the words man of God, the Ohr Hachayim explains that the Torah is telling us that all of Moshe Rabbeinu’s perfect character traits were not part of his nature but rather he had worked on himself to perfect his character due to his fear of God.

 On the words Bnei Yisroel, the Ohr Hachayim writes that Moshe was only able to reach the spiritual heights because he was the leader and interacted with Bnei Yisroel.

 If we examine this Ohr Hachayim a little bit more closely there is a question that arises. Most people if asked, what path would lead a person to spiritual greatness, locking themselves in a room for hours each day just sitting and learning and working on his relationship with God or learning a couple hours in the evening and during the day having to go out and deal with people, hear there problems and complaints and deal with many daily life issues, would say lock me up in a room with my Sefarim. Logically then, the Ohr Hachayim should have said the opposite that if Moshe could have secluded himself and learned Torah all day he would have been even greater.

 The answer is that the Ohr Hachayim is teaching us how to attain true spiritual greatness. The Torah has in it 613 mitzvos. Many of those Mitzvos relate to the way we act with other people. The Torah was not given for us just to learn it as an intellectual pursuit but rather it was given for us to live it and practice it. If a person will seclude himself from people, he will never face the situations and the tests that he needs to conquer in order to grow. He will never be able to do a large amount of the Mitzvos in the Torah as he would have no ability to interact with other people.

 In order to attain great heights in our spiritual growth we must do two things. The first is to learn Torah and especially Mussar which will help us to change our character traits and also we must involve ourselves with other people and put what we learned into action. It is only through putting our Torah learning into action will we grow to the highest levels of spiritual growth.

 5768 פרשת וזאת הברכה/סוכות/שמחת תורה

 The Parsha of Vzos Habracha is read every year on Simchas Torah; the day that we joyously celebrate the completion of a cycle of the Torah readings and the start of the next cycle.

 When discussing the holiday of Simchas Torah, we can ask the following two questions:

1. Why is it that we celebrate the completion of a cycle of the Torah reading specifically right after Sukkos? We can technically start and complete the Torah readings to coincide with any period during the year? Why not have Simchas Torah after Shavuot or any other time?
2. What is it that we are celebrating? We celebrate receiving the Torah on Shavuot?

We might be able to answer these questions using the following idea of Rabbeinu Bechai.

In this week’s Parsha the Torah describes to us the Berachos that Moshe Rabbeinu gave to Bnei Yisroel. When Moshe Rabbeinu gave the Berachos to the different tribes, he did not give them in age order as would be expected. The Rabbeinu Bechai explains why the Berachos were given out of order. When explaining why the tribe of Zevulun received the Beracha before the tribe of Yissachar he says the following:

The reason that the tribe of Zevulun received the Beracha before the tribe of Yissachar is that the tribe of Zevulun financially supported the tribe of Yissachar and made their Torah learning possible. The Rabbeinu Bechai continues and explains that this is the basis for the explanation of the words “Zevulun should be joyous in your going out”. These words are discussing the great joy of Torah in the next world which is set aside for Zevulun who financially supported Torah.

 We know that Chazal teach us that one of the reasons we are commanded to go into the Sukkah specifically at this time of year is that this is the time of the harvest when a person feels financially well off. When a person goes out of his house and into his Sukkah it is to remind him that everything he has is from God and not from his own efforts. Once a person comes to that realization, it will naturally become easier for him to do the proper things with his money (i.e. give charity, etc).   

 With these two ideas we can now answer both of our questions. Let us try to answer our second question first. We can now explain that the celebration of Simchas Torah relates to the fact that the Torah is something that was given for all members of Bnei Yisroel to be involved in. Not everyone is going to be the Gadol Hador and a great Talmudic Scholar but everyone has their portion in Torah. We see this idea from the tribes of Yissachar and Zevulun. Even though the members of the tribe of Yissachar were the greatest Talmudic scholars of their times, nevertheless the tribe of Zevulun who were business people merited such tremendous joy of Torah in Olam Habah since they were the supporters of Torah. There is no doubt that everybody must learn Torah, but not everyone has to be a Torah Scholar. The Torah is meant for everyone and each and every person has their share in it both in learning Torah and in supporting Torah.

 With this we can also explain why we end the cycle of reading the Torah specifically after Sukkos. It is on Sukkos where we learn that the money we are blessed with is from God and we should use it for doing Mitzvos. One of the things we should be doing with our money is supporting Torah which is one way we can acquire an incredible portion in Torah to go along with whatever learning we do ourselves. It is this idea of the Torah being for everyone that we are celebrating on Simchas Torah and that is why we celebrate it after Sukkos to remind us that God gave us physical plenty which can be used to help us acquire a special portion in the joy of Torah in Olam Habah that is reserved for those who support Torah.

Now that we are coming up to Simchas Torah, we should dedicate ourselves to acquiring our special portion in Torah. We should do it both through increasing our own learning so we can merit the special reward reserved for those who learn Torah and use our money to help support Torah so we can merit the special reward reserved for those who support Torah and merit a very special place in Olam Habah.

 5767 וזאת הברכה 

In this week’s Parsha the Torah gives over the Berachos that Moshe Rabbeinu gave to the different shevatim before he died. When we look at the order the shevatim received the berachos, we see that the order does not seem to follow any particular order unlike the berachos that Yaakov gave to the shevatim before he died which were in age order.

One of the discrepancies relates to the fact that Yehudah received his bracha before Levi who was older.

We can answer this question by looking at the Rashi on the words “Vzos L’yehudah”  who says the following:

The Rabbis explained that all the 40 years that Bnei Yisroel were in the desert the bones of Yehuda were rolling in the casket because of the cherem that he accepted upon himself. Moshe said who was the one who caused Reuvein to admit his sins.

Rashi was explaining that Yehudah had promised Yaakov Avinu that if he did not bring Binyamin back to Eretz Yisroel then he will have given up his portion in olam haba.

Moshe Rabbeinu was davening  to God to let Yehudah into olam haba. Moshe based himself on the merit of Yehudah which was that when he publicly admitted his sin with Tamar caused Reuvein to publicly admit his sin. This is why his Bracha was put next to the bracha of Reuvein.

If we examine this Rashi on the surface it doesn’t seem to make sense. When looking for a merit for Yehudah, why wouldn’t Moshe mention the fact that Yehudah admitted his sin in public rather than the indirect ramification of Reuvein admitting his sin?

It seems from this that helping someone else to do a mitzvah even indirectly can sometimes have a greater merit for the person that actually doing the equivalent mitzvah themselves.

We obviously have to do all the mitzvos, however we should also realize that the merit of getting someone else to do mitzvos is very great. This type of impact can even be indirect, so if someone sees us davening with kavanah and it has an impact on their davening we never know what kind of merit it can bring us. We should be careful about all our actions since we never know what kind of impact we can have on another person and what kind of impact those results can have on our own lives.

פרשת וזאת הברכה  5766

There is a very interesting midrash that asks what did Moshe Rabbeinu do to deserve that God himself dealt with his burial. The midrash relates the following incident:

 When Bnei Yisroel was about to be redeemed from Egypt, all of Bnei Yisroel were going around getting the gold and silver from Egypt and Moshe Rabbeinu was searching for three days and three nights for the Aron of Yosef. He could not find it until Serach bas Asher showed him where the Aron was hidden. She told him that the magicians of Pharoh sunk the Aron of Yosef and told Pharoh that if you want Bnei Yisroel to ever leave then hide the bones of Yosef  because if they can’t find the bones they can’t leave. This is because Yosef made Bnei Yisroel swear that when they left Egypt they should take his bones with him.

The end of the Midrash says the following:

God sayid to Moshe Rabbeinu you said you were doing a small chesed but I consider it to be a great chesed that you did by finding the bones of Yosef instead of caring about the gold and silver and therefore I will deal with your burial.

There is a question that can be asked on this midrash:

Moshe Rabbeinu was totally spiritual. To him gold and silver were meaningless. So what is so special about him forgoing gold and silver and finding the bones of Yosef?

What we see from here are two very important ideas:

1. First of all we don’t understand the way God judges our actions. Even something that we consider to be a small thing, God can consider it to be such a big action whose reward can be unimaginable.
2. Secondly, it would appear that even though Moshe Rabbeinu was totally spiritual, when he was born he still had desires like everyone else. However Moshe Rabbeinu perfected himself to reach the level to someone the midrash describes as “from halfway and down he is like a man and from halfway and up he is like a spiritual being” . Even though, at this time Moshe Rabbeinu was totally spiritual since Moshe Rabbeinu worked on himself to be totally spiritual, he still gets reward as if he was still not totally spiritual.

Now that we are entering the long winter zeman between sukkos and pesach where the inspiration we received from the yamim noraim will begin to wane, we should try to keep these 2 lessons in mind. When things get difficult and it is hard to get to minyan in the morning or to learn that extra seder, don’t think what is the big deal if I don’t do it?  First, you never know how God views every action we do even if we think it is something really small. Also, it is worthwhile for us to work on specific traits that we are weak in since if we improve we still get reward as if we were still fighting our strong desires when they now are for us much weaker.

We should only have a good zeman and grow in all our service of God.