5771 פרשת נח

 In this week’s Parsha the Torah describes to us the birth of Avraham Avinu and how he recognized God against the rest of the world. The Torah then describes how Avraham Avinu on the command of God left Ur Kasdim with his father Terach, his nephew Lot and his wife Sara to go to Eretz Yisroel. On the way to Eretz Yisroel they stopped off in Charan and stayed there. The Torah then continues to describe that Terach died in Charan.

 The commentaries ask, why did the Torah mention the fact that Terach died in Charan?

 Rashi explains that the reason the Torah said that was that even though Avraham had left Terach in Charan to go to Eretz Yisroel sixty years before Terach died, the Torah did not want to publicize the fact that Avraham had left Terach alone so they would not say he was lacking in his Kibbud Av.

 The Siforno has a totally different explanation. The Torah was telling us that Terach did not complete what he had originally planned when the left Ur Kasdim which was to go and live in Eretz Yisroel with his son Avraham Avinu.

 If we look at this Siforno a little more closely we can ask the following question.. Avraham Avinu had just had a tremendous miracle occur to him when he walked out of the burning furnace without being scathed at all. Furthermore, as the Torah tells us at the beginning of Parshas Lech Lecha, Avraham Avinu was very wealthy and had influenced many people to leave idol worship and serve God and they went with Avraham Avinu to Eretz Yisroel. If Terach saw all this, how could he not continue with Avraham Avinu to Eretz Yisroel and to follow God?

 The answer could be that there is a natural sense of inertia that causes people not to be able to change. This is what caused Terach no matter what he saw in his son Avraham to decide to keep his old life and stop and stay in Charan rather than continue on to Eretz Yisroel with his son Avraham Avinu.

 We have just completed the month of Tishrei when we have experienced tremendous spiritual growth both through the Teshuva we did during the Yamim Noraim and the closeness we felt to God during the time we were in the Sukkah and on Simchas Torah. Our goal now is to take that spiritual growth and use it to change our every day lives to serve God better. In order to do this we have to realize that the change will not be automatic as our natural state of inertia will prevent us from changing. However, if we recognize that we need to put in the effort we will be able to take the growth we experienced this last month and use it to change our every day lives.

 5770 פרשת נח

 At the end of this week’s Parsha the Torah describes to us the family of Avraham Avinu including his father Terach. The Torah then describes to us how Terach took his whole family and traveled from Ur Kasdim to go to Eretz Canaan and how they stopped off in Charan and remained there. After describing this trip, the Torah tells us that Terach died in Charan and that he lived for 205 years.

 The Ohr Hachayim notes a discrepancy between the way the Torah describes the years of the life of Terach and all of the other times in Parshas Beraishis where the years that a person lived was mentioned. In all the other places, the Torah said “all the days of his life were “X” years.” However, by Terach, the Pasuk did not use the word “All”, rather said “the days of his life was 205 years.” 

 The Ohr Hachayim explains that when the Torah uses the word “All” when describing the amount of years a person lived is telling us that he lived the exact amount of time that God had decreed for him when he was born. However, when the Torah does not use the word “All” it means that the person did not live the amount of years that God had proscribed for him when he was born. It could either be that through a particular action, he merited that God should add more years to his life or the opposite that due to a particular sin God took away some years from his life.

 The Ohr Hachayim explained how this idea applied to Terach in two different ways. I want to focus on the first idea which was that Terach actually merited a dramatic increase in his lifespan. We know that Chazal tell us that a person when he reaches within five years of the age of parents (both before and after that age) should worry as within that period of time is very likely to be the time he is destined to die. Terach’s father lived to the age of 148 while Terach himself lived to 205. This would come to over 50 years more than what would have been expected.

 The reason for this increase in years according to the Ohr Hachayim related to one specific action. Terach realized that his son Avraham did not merit having children. He also knew that there is a concept that if a person moves from one place to another it can change their Mazal. Due to this Terach moved his entire family out of Ur Kasdim just so Avraham would have a better chance of having a child.  It was this action alone through which Terach merited a much longer life than was originally decreed.

  Let us examine this answer a little more closely. Avraham was Terach’s son who he loved. The fact that he went out of his way to move his whole family to help his son would be logical and something that most parents would do to help their child who was suffering, so why was this action so special to warrant Terach having over 50 years added to his life?

 The answer can be seen from the words of the Ohr Hachayim in an earlier paragraph. He says that Avraham was so important in their eyes that he uprooted his entire household. What seems to be implied here is that in truth Terach could have given Avraham money and supplies and advised him to move to another place so he might merit having children. He did not do that rather he moved his entire family. He only did it because he appreciated how special Avraham was.

It was this appreciation of someone who served God properly that enabled him to merit all those extra years. This is a very important lesson for us also. In our lives there are many different people who we can emulate. There is a natural tendency to emulate people who have wealth and power but we must work on ourselves to respect and emulate the people who the Torah truly feels are important and special.

פרשת נח 5768

 In this week’s Parsha the Torah describes the occurrences relating to the Mabul. The Torah describes the building of the Teivah and the bringing of the different animals to the Teivah. There were two groups of animals that were brought to the Teivah. The first group was the ritually impure animals of which two of each species came to the Teivah and the second group were the ritually pure animals of which seven of each species were brought to the Teivah. Chazal tell us that the reason that Noach had to bring 7 of the ritually pure species was so he would be able to sacrifice Korbanos to God after the Mabul was over.

 When describing how the animals got to the Teivah, the Torah uses two different descriptions. Regarding the ritually impure animals, the Torah says:

Two at a time they came to Noach to the Teivah.

 On this Rashi explains that they came by themselves.

 However regarding the ritually pure animals, the Torah says:

 From each ritually pure species, you should take seven.

 The Rabbeinu Bechai explains that the pure species that were going to be used for the Korbanos Noach had to actively bring to the Teivah since they did not come by themselves.

 Rabbeinu Bechai explains why each group of animals came to the Teivah differently the following way:

 God, who is all merciful, did not want to decree that the animals who were going to be killed as sacrifices to come by themselves, rather God commanded Noach to bring them to the Teivah while the animals who would live God decreed that they should come by themselves.

 If we analyze the Rabbeinu Bechai more carefully the following question arises.

 It appears that it was the great mercy that God has for his creations that prevented Him from decreeing that the animals that were going to be used as Korbanos should come to the Teivah on their own. This is hard to understand for the following reason. If the animals would not be brought onto the Teivah they would have been killed in the Mabul. This way, even if they would be sacrificed after the Mabul, they would at least have an extra year to live unlike the other animals that died in the Mabul.

 The answer must be that decreeing on a creature that it should go to what will be its death, even in this case, would on some small level be considered an act lacking mercy if there was another option. From the fact that God decreed that the animals that would not be used for Korbanos should come to the Teivah themselves shows us that it was something that would be very difficult for Noach to do himself. Nevertheless, to prevent even a small amount of suffering, God gave Noach a special commandment to go out and round up all the animals and bring them to the Teivah.

 We see from here how careful we must be with our dealings with other people not to cause them even any minute suffering. Not only must we not actively cause someone to suffer, we must also go out of our way to prevent someone from suffering.  If we can work on this then God should deal with us with his infinite mercy and bring the final Geulah quickly in our times.  

 5767 פרשת נח

 In this week’s Parsha the Torah describes to us the flood and the actions of mankind that led up to them. The Gemara explains why the world was punished with destruction specifically through a flood, why not any other way? The Gemara says the following:

 The Rabbis learned, the generation of the flood only became boastful because of the good that God gave to them. They said we don’t need anything fromGod even a drop of rain we have all these rivers and wells. God said from the good that I gave them, and they used it to anger me so I will use those things to punish them.

We see from here that the reason God punished the generation of the flood with water is that they felt they didn’t need God since they had all the water they needed from the rivers.

However, if we look at this Gemara more closely we see a very interesting thing. We can understand that a person can feel   that things came through his efforts when he put effort in to get it, for example a person studies hard and gets good grades, or a person puts in a lot of effort at work and makes a lot of money, but in this case the generation of he flood didn’t do anything to get the water from the rivers, they were put there by God, so how could they possibly be boastful?

If we look at the language of the Gemara we see that their problem was that they were boastful that they didn’t need God since they had the rivers. What we see from here is that the natural tendency of a person is to believe that they really do everything themselves and more importantly that they don’t need anyone else.. It can even enable them to believe that even things that are so obviously only from God are their own doing.

The question then becomes, if this tendency is so strong in people, how can we ensure that we realize that God is really the one that gives us everything we have?

The answer is that when we go through our every day lives, we must constantly make ourselves aware that whatever we have comes from God. How can we do that? One way is that when we daven Shemoneh Esrei, we should concentrate when we say the Berachos that we are asking God for our health and our livelihood,  etc since it all only comes from God and without God we would have nothing.

 If we can do this, we will begin to appreciate that everything we have is from God which will help bring us closer to God.

 5766 פרשת נח

There are 2 ways to look at any commentary of the Rishonim on Chumash or Gemara. The first thing we do is look at the language of the commentary to see if we can understand from there what he is trying to tell us. However, there are some times that the explanation that seems to come from the language of the commentary does not seem to make sense. In that case you have to use a combination of the language with a  Sevara that makes more sense. The following Ramban  is a prime example of this situation:

In this week’s Parsha, there is a very interesting and very important Ramban. The Torah describes the commandment of God to Noach to bring the animals to the ark, the Torah  says the following:

 Two of each should come to the ark to live.

However, when the Pasuk is describing the commandment to take seven of each pure animal, the Pasuk  uses the following language:

From each pure animal you should take 7 pairs of  a male and female.

The Ramban points out that there is a distinct difference between the two commandments. When God was discussing the pairs of animals the Torah says  they will come to you themselves, however when it discusses the extra pure animals the Torah says that Noach should take them – meaning they would not come themselves. The Ramban explains the difference by saying the following:

 The animals that were being brought to save themselves and to continue their lines, God made them come themselves but the animals that were to be used for sacrifices were not.

 What the Ramban appears to be teaching us is a lesson in mercy. God did not want the animals that were going to be coming specifically to be brought as a sacrifice to have to come by themselves since they were coming to be killed. This would be cruel to make an animal come by itself to die. All creatures have a natural inclination to live.

 This would be the infrence from the words at the end “God did not decree them to come by themselves to be sacrificed.

 However, logically this doesn’t make sense for the following reasons:

1. The question here is obvious, let us say that Noach would not bring them to the ark, they would be drowned with all the rest of the living creatures in the flood, so at least now the animals get to live for another year before becoming sacrifices.
2. All of the creation was created for the purpose of fulfilling the will of God. If that is the case then these animals would be doing the will of God, so why would that be cruel?

 Therefore, we are forced to say a different explanation in the Ramban which is the following. Regarding the animals that were coming to save themselves and to further propagate the world, God did not need Noach to go collect the animals. However, regarding the animals that were going to be sacrifices there was a reason for Noach to work to bring them. The reason is as follows. When a person brings a sacrifice, they are bringing it in order to become closer to God. What the Ramban is teaching us is that there are two possible ways to bring a sacrifice. One is a person can go to the neighborhood cow salesman and pick out a cow from what they have in stock whether it be the best cow or not, or a person can go looking far and wide for a really nice cow for the sacrifice. What is the difference between them? The difference is the level of closeness they are feeling to God at the time of the bringing of the sacrifice. The person who is willing to do anything and go anywhere to find a really good cow understands on a higher level what the purpose of the sacrifice is and emotionally that will cause him to grow closer to God. This is because a person who realizes he is coming to communicate with God will not come with just a regular cow. This is why God wanted Noach to physically collect all the animals he was going to bring as sacrifices. This was done to enable Noach to appreciate more fully the purpose of the sacrifices he will be bringing to God and in order to help him get closer to God.

 What are our sacrifices today? The answer is our prayers. When we go to daven everyday, the extra effort we make to go to a slower minyan or to stay until after the last kadish even though we have to make the train; or try to make mincha and maariv with a minyan even though we are in the middle of work or really tired will help us appreciate more that Tefillah is truly a conversation with God. If we put in the extra efforts, we will God willing  merit  a closer relationship with God and that all our prayers will be answered for good.