5770 פרשת כי תבא

 In this week’s Parsha the Torah tells us about the Mitzvah of Bikurim. The Torah describes to us how when a person’s first fruit is ripe he must bring the first fruit to the Kohanim in the Beis Hamikdash and say over a specific Tefilah. Included in the Tefilah is the idea that God took us out of Mitzrayim and brought us into Eretz Yisroel and now I am coming to bring the first fruit to the Kohein.

 The Siforno explains that when a person brings Bikurim he is thanking God for three things. The first one is that God made us into a nation that was worthy to inherent Eretz Yisroel. The second idea was that God took us out slavery in a way that we could receive the wonderful gift of Eretz Yisroel. Thirdly, God gave us the most special place in the world to live which is Eretz Yisroel.

 If we look at this Siforno a little more closely we can ask the following question. Why is it so important for the Siforno to list the first 2 things that made us eligible to receive Eretz Yisroel, it should suffice that we have Eretz Yisroel to require us to give thanks to God.

 The answer could be that the Torah is telling us that in order to merit having and keeping Eretz Yisroel Bnei Yisroel had to be a special nation. They had to be a nation that was an incredibly moral people who would attach themselves to the Torah and Mitzvos. They had to be a nation whose belief and reliance on God is unshakeable as Bnei Yisroel was when they were taken out of Egypt with all those great miracles. Since all those requirements were necessary for Bnei Yisroel to receive Eretz Yisroel and those could only have been accomplished through the slavery in Egypt, the exodus and the receiving of the Torah, we must actually thank God for orchestrating all of that for us and not for some other nation.

 If this is the case then we can ask another question. If the vast majority of what we are thanking God for is for making us into a people spiritually worthy to receive Eretz Yisroel, why do we do this through an act that seems to put the emphasis on the physical or material aspect of our existence in Eretz Yisroel which is the act of bringing the first fruit (our livelihood) to the Kohein?

 The answer could be that there is no greater way to express our thanks to God for bringing us to this high spiritual level of trust in God than by showing Him that we understand that everything we have is from Him. It is this trust in God that inherently will lead us to the belief that our purpose in this world is only to serve Him to the best of our ability.

 Now that we are approaching the Yom Hadin, we must appreciate all the material good that God gives us and use that appreciation to help bring us closer to God and create in us a desire to keep the Torah and Mitzvos.

 5769פרשת כי תבא

In this week’s Parsha, the Torah describes to us how Moshe commanded Bnei Yisroel that when they entered Eretz Yisroel they should split up into two parts with half going to the top of Har Grizim and the other half to Har Eival with the tribe of Levi remaining in the valley below. At that time the tribe of Levi will call out that if Bnei Yisroel does not keep the Torah they are accepting upon themselves the punishments that come. This was done by the tribe of Levi calling out “whoever does such and such sin will be cursed” and Bnei Yisroel will answer Amen. The final sin that was called out was “whoever does not keep the Torah will be cursed”. However, up until the last sin, the Torah specified 11 sins that should be mentioned with the concept of causing a person to be cursed.

 The Ohr Hachayim asks why these specific 11 sins were singled out here and not any of the other 613.

 The Ohr Hachayim answers that these 11 Mitzvos were singled out since they are sins that are done in secret and they therefore necessitate being singled out for Bnei Yisroel to realize that even if they transgress a sin in private it will be punished by God.

 If we analyze this Ohr Hachayim more closely we can ask the following question. Why is it that sins done in secret need this special reminder? A person who transgresses a sin even in private knows he is doing something wrong so of course he knows he deserves punishment the same way someone who transgressed a sin while he was not hiding.

 In order to answer the question let us look at the first sin that the Torah lists which is worshipping idols in private. On that Pasuk, the Ohr Hachayim comments that if it was done in public all of Bnei Yisroel would be held responsible due to the concept of Arayvus which means every Jew is responsible for the actions of another.

 With this we can understand what the Torah is telling us here by listing sins that no one but God has the ability to know. Even though a person intellectually knows that a sin is prohibited but since God created his world where there is punishment for transgressions through man when there was a Sanhedrin, through lashes and the ability of the Sanhedrin to put somebody to death for his sins. The fact that a person sees punishments coming from people can cause a person to feel that as long as other people don’t know about his sin there will be no consequence to his actions. This could be why the Torah reminds us in such a forceful way that we must constantly remember that even though God put it in the hands of man to effect some of the punishments the source of it all is only God and it doesn’t make a difference if the sin is done publicly or privately it is known and will be punished.

 Now that we are in the month of Elul and coming toward Rosh Hashanah when we are supposed to be involved in repentance we need to constantly remind ourselves that all the actions we did are known by God and can have a tremendous impact on our lives both for the good and Chas Veshalom the bad (if we don’t do Teshuva). This will help us increase the remorse in our hearts which will help us do proper Teshuva.

  5768 פרשת כי תבא 

In this week’s Parsha the Torah discusses the Mitzvah of Bikurim. Part of the Mitzvah of Bikurim relates to the prayer that each person who brings the Bikurim to the Kohein must say. He starts by recalling the great troubles that our ancestors had; starting with the dealings that Yaakov Avinu had with Lavan to the very difficult years that Bnei Yisroel suffered when they were slaves in Egypt. From there the Tefilah continues to describe how God took us out of Egypt with great miracles and brought us into Eretz Yisroel and gave us land that produces fruit. Now I am bringing the first fruit from the field that God gave me.

 The Rabbeinu Bechai explains why it is imperative to say this speech at the time of bringing the Bikurim and without the reading of these Pasukim a person does not actually fulfill the Mitzvah of Bikurim properly:

 The purpose of reading this Parsha at the time of bringing the Bikurim is that a person should internalize at the time of his plenty the times when he was without. This is done in order to enable a person to recognize the tremendous good that he has and thank God for bestowing upon him all the good.

 What it seems from this Rabbeinu Bechai is that the only way a person can really appreciate and thank God is by contrasting the times in his life where he had difficulties to the times when he has plenty. By contrasting the two, the person can appreciate how good the “good” he has really is and can then properly thank God.

 However, if we try to analyze this idea a little more the following question arises. The method that the Torah tells us to use is to contrast the plenty we have now to the suffering our forefathers had years before these people were ever even born. The person who is bringing the Bikurim may have never had any real suffering in his life but through reading about what happened to his ancestors hundreds of years earlier would enable him to do a contrast, how can that be? It would seem to be quite difficult for us to contrast our lives with those of our ancestors.

 In truth if we look at the Rabbeinu Bechai closely, we see that the purpose of the contrast to our ancestors’ suffering is to get us to look to contrast to our suffering. The question is how does this work? The answer could be that when things are going well people tend to forget about any of the difficult times they had. Most people just assume it is their actions that cause their good. We also know that there is no one in this world that has all good and no bad.

When a person reads about the suffering of his ancestors it reminds him that there were times that he also went through tribulations and therefore would make him appreciate the tremendous good that God had given him.

 Now that we are coming close to Rosh Hashanah and we want to do Teshuva for our sins and become closer to God we need to appreciate how much good we receive from God on a constant basis. There are times in all of our lives where God gives us some tribulations whether it is when we are sick or have a bad day at work. Instead of looking at those things as bad, we should look at those tribulations as an opportunity to fully appreciate the tremendous good we get from God on a daily basis when God lets everything work properly. If we can truly begin to appreciate the good God gives to us we should merit a year of total good where God will not need to give us trials to help us recognize his Hand in our lives.

פרשת כי תבא 5767   

At the end of this week’s Parsha after giving over the rebuke to Bnei Yisroel the Pasuk says the following:

And God did not give you a heart to know, and eyes to see and ears to hear until this day.

Rashi explains this Pasuk the following way:

 On the day that Moshe Rabbeinu gave the Torah to the Bnei Levi all of Bnei Yisroel came in front of Moshe and said even we stood at Har Sinai and accepted the Torah, why are you raising up the members of Shevet Levi above us that one day they will say to us that God only gave us the Torah and not you.  Upon hearing this Moshe was happy and he said on this day you will be a nation. I understand that you are attached and desire God.

 What it seems is that until Bnei Yisroel confronted Moshe Rabbeinu about giving the Torah to Shevet Levi, Moshe Rabbeinu did not know that Bnei Yisroel truly wanted to be attached to God.

We can ask the following question on this Rashi:

Moshe Rabbeinu had already seen Bnei Yisroel accept the Torah with a full heart on Har Sinai when they said “Naaseh vnishmah”, what did they add now, and furthermore if the original acceptance of the Torah did not convince Moshe Rabbeinuwhat did they say now to change his mind?

 If we are look closely at the words of Rashi we can see that what convinced Moshe Rabbeinu was when Bnei Yisroel said “we are afraid that maybe one day Shevet Levi will say the Torah was given only to them and not the rest of “Bnei Yisroel”.

What was so special about that feeling that convinced Moshe Rabbeinu that Bnei Yisroel really wanted to be attached to God?

The answer can be that for the first time Bnei Yisroel showed that they were afraid of losing the Torah. Only when something means a lot to you are you afraid to lose it.

Now when Bnei Yisroel first accepted the Torah and said ”Naaseh Vnishma” they were on an incredibly high spiritual level and as Chazal tell us they knew that God  would not give them something that was bad for them, so they accepted the Torah with love and with a full heart. However, it would appear from Rashi that at the time of the giving of the Torah they did not yet fully understand that the Torah was an integral part of their lives that they could not be separated from.

Moshe Rabbeinu first saw this trait later on when Bnei Yisroel showed that they were afraid of losing the Torah.

 Now that we are getting closer to Rosh Hashanah and we are preparing ourselves to do Teshuvah, we are all looking for ways to change ourselves for the better. One of the ways we can help ourselves change is to consider the great loss we suffer every time we don’t do a Mitzvah properly or when we do a sin. This concept is not only seen from the Rashi we just discussed but it is also brought down byRabbeinu Yonah in his Sefer Shaarei Teshuvah where he compares doing sins to the pain a wealthy man feels if he would lose all his money. Just think how it must feel for a wealthy person whose money was an integral part of his life to suddenly lose it all. This is how we must feel when we aren’t keeping the Mitzvos properly that we are losing out on something that is such an integral part of our lives that we can’t live without. If we can try to at least feel that sense of loss a little bit, God should give us the heavenly assistance to truly change and  merit a good year.

 5766 פרשת כי תבא

Parshas Ki Tavoh discusses one of the Mitzvos that is only able to be done in the times of the Beis Hamikdash. This Mitzvah is that of Viduy Maaser. The Pesukim say as follows:

 When the person completed tithing all their wheat and gave the required tithes to the levi and the convert, etc you should state in front of God I removed all the Maaser from my house.

From the Pasuk we see what appears to be a very strange Mitzvah. At the end of the third year after a person gave all the tithes that he was supposed to give including Maaser Rishon to the Levi and Maaser Ani to the poor people and ate the Maaser Sheni in Yerushalayim, he has to say that he did all these things.

Once someone did the Mitzvah ,what is the purpose of saying that he did the Mitzvah?

 The Sefer Hacinuch in his explanation on the Mitzvos gives us insights into the reasons behind the Mitzvos. He explains this Mitzvah by saying the following:

 The reason that the Torah gave Bnei Yisroel the Mitzvah of Viduy Maaser is to ensure that people keep the Mitzvos of Maaser properly. How does the Viduy Maaser help? According to the Sefer Hachinuch the reason is that a person would sooner do a sin through an action than through speech. This is because one of the major physical qualities that make people different from animals is the power of speech. People understand this and would be very wary of doing a sin with one of the physical attributes that makes human beings so special. Therefore, even if a person would not want to give all the money to Maaser and to keep some for himself, if he has to say the Viduy and say that he gave it all away he will not be able to lie and therefore will make sure to do the Mitzvah properly.

 As we get closer to the Yom Hadin, and we are looking for areas in our service of God to try to improve, we should look at our speech. This very special gift that God gave us to be able to express and relate intellectual ideas from one person to the other through speech should be guarded as the treasure it is.

There are so many aspects of service of God that relate to speech. From staying away from speaking falsehoods or trying not to speak Lashon Hara or saying the words of davening with more concentration we should focus constantly on the words that come out of our mouth.  If we fully appreciate the special gift we have and use it properlyGod should merit  us with a true good year.