5770 כי תצא

 In this week’s Parsha the Torah lists many Mitzvos both between man and man and man and God. One of the Mitzvos is the prohibition of loaning money to another Jew with interest. The prohibition actually applies both to the lender and the borrower – meaning that just like it is prohibited for someone to loan money with interest; it is also prohibited for a borrower to willingly pay interest to a lender. However, none of these prohibitions apply to a loan to or from a gentile.

 The Torah says that a person who keeps this Mitzvah will merit blessing from God.

 The commentaries explain that when a person gives up the interest he could have earned as a loan, it is an act of kindness to the borrower and when a person does acts of kindness God rewards them with blessings.

 However, the Siforno explains that the blessing relates not to the loan between a Jew and his fellow Jew but rather to a loan between a Jew and a non-Jew. The reason for a blessing is when a Jew keeps his word when he agreed to pay interest on a loan he took from a Non-Jew and does not cause a Chilul Hashem.

 If we look at this Siforno a little bit closer we can ask the following question. As a general rule, when we see the types of Mitzvos that a person does whose reward is material blessing, they mostly relate to acts of kindness (where he has a material loss or the loss of a profit) that one does to his fellow Jew, why would this particular act of not making a Chilul Hashem be worthy of material blessing?

 In order to answer this question, we should try to understand why, when someone does a particular kindness that causes him a financial loss he merits a material blessing. The answer might be that by being willing to do a Mitzvah that causes a financial loss, a person shows his faith in God that he will have all that he needs and that everything he has is from God and does not come only through his own effort.

 We can now use this idea to understand the Siforno. When a person keeps his word and pays the interest that he agreed to pay a non-Jew even though it is costing him money he is putting the honor of God before his financial well being. A person can only do this if he truly believes that everything he has is from God and he will not lose by doing the right thing.

 If we can ingrain this idea into our lives and truly believe that everything we have comes from God and that we will never lose by doing what the Torah commands us, it will make it much easier when we face those type of situations, many of them on a daily basis, to make the right choice.

 5769 פרשת כי תצא

 In this week’s Parsha, the Torah tells us that if a person makes a promise to God do something he should not delay in keeping his word (within the period of three regalim) because if he does he will have a sin. However, if he does not make a promise to do anything he will not have a sin.

 When the Torah discusses whether or not he will have a sin, it uses it says “there will be a sin in you”.

 The Ohr Hachayim asks why be this particular sin, the Torah says” there will be a sin in you” while by the other sins the Torah does not say the “sin will be in you.”

 The Ohr Hachayim explains that this Pasuk is discussing a very specific situation. A person naturally feels that his money is very dear to him and it is very hard for him to part from it and thereby difficult for him to give charity. On the other hand he knows that a person who gives Tzedakah will merit having money to continue to give Tzedakah while someone who does not give Tzedakah will not merit that benefit. He will then decide that in order to convince himself to give money to Tzedakah he will make a promise to give Tzedakah.

 The Ohr Hachayim continues and explains that the Torah is telling a person, that this is not the best path to take. This is because if a person doesn’t give Tzedakah then at worst he will lose his money but if a person makes a promise to God and doesn’t keep it the punishment can be the death of his wife and children. This is why when the Torah describes the sin as being “in you” it means it is warning a person that the potential punishment is not just losing your money but losing something that is part of you (i.e. your wife and children).

 If we look at the response the Torah give to this person, it does not say it is prohibited to make the neder it just reminds him what the punishment is for not giving Tzedakah and what the punishment is for not timely keeping his promise. We know that the Torah does not have even one extra letter, so why is the Torah going out of its way and adding an entire Pasuk just to tell us that there are different punishments for not timely keeping a promise and not giving Tzedakah?

 The answer could be that the Torah is trying to teach us to prioritize. We see from the Ohr Hachayim that the reason a person would make a neder to give Tzedakah is in order not to potentially lose his money but on the other hand he is putting his family at risk if he does not timely fulfill his neder.  That means that he is putting money as a higher priority in his life than his family.

 In our lives, we live in a very materialistic world where it is often very easy to lose focus on where our priorities should be. We must constantly look at our lives and check to make sure our priorities are in the proper order so we can serve God properly to the best of our abilities.

 5768 פרשת כי תצא

 In this week’s Parsha the Torah tells over many of the Mitzvos. In fact this Parsha has within it the most Mitzvos of any other Parsha in the Torah. When it comes to understanding the reasons behind the Mitzvos, we know that we can never fully understand the reasons for the Mitzvos, however Chazal do give us for many Mitzvos a partial understanding of the purpose of the Mitzvos. In this week’s Parsha for several Mitzvos the Rabbeinu Bechai gives us some very important insights into those Mitzvos which can teach us some very important lessons.

 There is one particular Mitzvah that I will discuss that can teach us a very important lesson. That Mitzvah is Shiluach Hakan – sending away the mother bird before taking its eggs or young.

 The Rabbeinu Bechai gives several possible reasons behind this Mitzvah and I want to concentrate on one of them.

 The first reason is:

 The reason for the Mitzvah is to teach us to be merciful and to keep us away from cruelty which is a very bad character trait.

Let us examine this idea a little more closely. We know that the Mitzvah of Shiluach Hakan has its reward clearly spelled out in the Torah which is long life in the World to Come and in the time of the resurrection of the dead. When a person has a chance to do this Mitzvah he is not concentrating on the fact that he has to be a more merciful person but rather is probably focusing on the reward that will come his way and to ensure that the Mitzvah is being done exactly right. If a person therefore is not concentrating on using the Mitzvah to ingrain in himself the trait of mercy, how will the trait get ingrained in him from just doing the action?

 The answer is that just doing a merciful act has the ability to ingrain in us the trait of mercy. This is the idea brought down by the Baalei Mussar of what is called Ma’aseh Hamussar – the action of Mussar. One of the ways to ingrain Mussar ideas in our heart is by doing actions that are based on that idea. For example, a person who wants to become a charitable person should give even small amounts of charity every day which through the repetition of the action will help the person become more charitable. Obviously, the repetition alone will not get a person over the top but in conjunction with understanding a particular character trait the actions themselves can help concretize these ideas in our hearts.  

  5767 פרשת כי תצא 

In this week’s Parsha the Torah describes to us the laws that relate to many Mitzvos. One of the laws relates to the punishment of a woman who was not faithful while she was betrothed.

The Pasuk says the following:

And the woman was taken to the door of her father’s house and stoned and killed.

 The Gemara is bothered by why the punishment takes place specifically at the door of her father’s house. The Gemara says the following:

 As if to say see the people who raised her.

Rashi explains these words the following way:

 As if to say from this house came this person who was not faithful in this house.

 What Rashi seems to be saying is that we are saying look at the house (parents) who raised this child who did this big sin.

 The Torah is obviously trying to teach us a very important idea regarding our responsibility in raising our children. The question is what is the overriding ideas that we should be giving over to our children which along with our constant prayers will help us raise them to be God fearing?

 In order to answer this question, we need to look at another place where this idea is brought down.

 There is a Mishnah that says the following:

 The Mishnah when describing the division of the Lechem Hapanim says that the watch that was coming to work in the Beis  Hamikdash divides their portion on the north side while the watch who had just completed the Avodah divides their portion on the south side. However, the family of “Bigla” was punished and even when they are coming to do the Avodah divide the Lechem Hapanim on the south side. In a similar vain, they had 2 other punishments which were the inability to use their families ring to hold the animal’s neck during Shechitah and having their family’s locker which would normally have held their Shechita  knives locked.

The Gemara asks what did the family of ”Bilga” do that they received their punishments. The Gemara gives 2 answers but we will concentrate on the first one.

The Gemara brings down the story of Miriam the daughter of Bilga who left the ways of the Torah and went and married one of the Greek officers and when the greeks entered the Beis Hamikdash in the time of Matisyahu she kicked the Mizbayach and said wolf,wolf until when will you use up the money of Bnei Yisroel and not stand up to help them in their time of need”.

The Gemara then asks, why should Bilga be punished for the actions of his daughter? The Gemara answers as follows:

Like people say the speech of a child in the market are either from what they heard from their father or mother.

Rashi explains this is follows:

 If she did not hear her father putting down the Avodah she would never have said it.

 What we see from this Gemara is that our children are tremendously influenced by our words and consequently our actions.

 However, it is not only that we shouldn’t  talk badly about God and our Torah but the opposite must be done. We must show our children how special and how wonderful it is to be a Frum Jew. We must give over to our children the beauty of Torah and Mitzvos.

 If we can constantly remind ourselves how special Torah is, we will not only be able to raise our children to go in the way of God, we will ourselves grow in our service of God and merit a good year.

פרשת כי תצא  5766

In Parshas Ki Teitzei the Torah tells us the laws of which nations can marry into Bnei Yisroel. The Torah tells us that the men of Amon and Moav can’t marry into Bnei Yisroel ever. The Torah gives the following reason:

 That you did not bring food and water to Bnei Yisroel when they were on the road after they left Egypt and that you hired Bilam to curse Bnei Yisroel.

The Torah seems to be saying that the reason is twofold; first that they didn’t bring you food and second that they hired Bilam to curse Bnei Yisroel.

 However, we now from Parshas Balak that only Moav hired Bilam not Amon, so why does the Torah  lump them both together with the same 2 reasons? The Sipurno is bothered by this question and therefore explains the Pasuk slightly differently. The Sipurno says:

Neither of them brought food to Bnei Yisroel but Moav sold food to Bnei Yisroel and they also added another sin  since they also hired Bilam.

What the Sipurno is saying is that Amon was the worst since they didn’t even sell food to Bnei Yisroel so they certainly could not marry into Bnei Yisroel, however even Moav whose sin was not as bad since they at least sold us food also can’t join Bnei Yisroel since they hired Bilam.

 Let us examine this Sipurno. It seems that the fact that Moav sold Bnei Yisroel food was a lower level sin than that of not giving  Bnei Yisroel food at all.

The question arises, Moav wanted to kill Bnei Yisroel which we see from the fact that they hired Bilam, so we can naturally assume that the reason they came to sell Bnei Yisroel food was not for the benefit of Bnei Yisroel, but rather so they could make money, so why is this any better than not bringing food at all, They were both not  acts of kindness.

 What we see from here is a very important idea relating to the Mitzvah  of Chesed. The difference between the 2 acts is that Amon who did not bring food at all did not even realize that Bnei Yisroel were needing anything. That is the epitome of the lack of kindness. Moav  on the other hand, realized the need and they might not have been on the highest level of chesed to give  Bnei Yisroel the food but at least they sold it to Bnei Yisroel .

Bnei Yisroel is a nation of people who do chesed and Amon who did not even have the basic level of understanding and realizing other people’s needs could not join Bnei Yisroel.

 This is a very important idea for us now that we are preparing for the Yom Hadin since in order to do Teshuvah we have to at least be minimally aware of the world around us both in terms of our actions between man and God and man and our fellow man.  Only when we realize our friends feelings and needs and how our actions might impact them will we truly able to work on the mitzvos between man and his fellow man. The same applies to being able to do Teshuvah for the sins between man and God we must first be able to realize what we have been doing wrong.