9 Elul 5780
[22:12]
תצא-פרשת כי ה׳תש׳׳פ
Issue No: 455
זכור ושמור בדבור אחד נאמרו
סוּתָך אֲ ֶשׁר ְתּכַסֶּ ה־בָּ הּ ְ ְֲשׂה־לָּ ְך עַ ל־אַ ְרבַּ ע כַּנְ פוֹת כּ ֶ גְּ ִד ִלים ַתּע
You shall make for yourself twisted threads on the four corners of your garment in which you cloak yourself The sefer Toras Shimon recounts a story told of the holy Rebbe Menachem Mendel of Rimanov. The Rebbe once saw one of his chassidim pacing back and forth, clearly lost in seemingly agitated thought. The Rebbe approached the chossid to ascertain the reason for his conduct and the source of the inner conflict that he seemed to be experiencing. The chossid replied saying, “I am seeking ways to achieve humility and lowliness”. Much unimpressed by this response, the Rebbe reprimanded the chossid. “You are foolish, because your response reveals you to be a man of conceit”, chided the Rebbe. “Otherwise, you would have no need to seek humility. I ask for the very opposite. I ask that I should be able to acquire a modicum of self-importance, as I only see within myself the lowliness that is caused by my sins. I am afraid that the yetzer horo will take advantage of this and persuade me that I have no right to raise up my head before the Holy One. This is why I must gird my strength and seek out some measure of greatness and self-worth in order that I might be able to continue to serve my Creator”. Our possuk can be interpreted with this account in mind, explain the Toras Shimon. We should fashion for ourselves a little self-importance (גדלים, in the sense of גדלותor stature) so that we will have the confidence to approach Hashem in divine service. Further we should do this by attaching ourselves to the tzaddikim (righteous men) of the generation, whose merit sustains the four corners of the world and in whose light we should envelop ourselves in order to receive the necessary strength to be successful. We can glean from here that even pride has a role to play in serving Hashem, because a person should view himself as important to Hashem and that everything he does counts for something.
[21:10]
שׁ ְבּשׁוֹר־וּבַ חֲ מ ֹר י ְַח ָדו ֹ ֹא־תחֲ ר ַ ל
You shall not plough with an ox and a donkey together This possuk describes one of several forms of the prohibition of kilayim – the mixing of species. There is the manifestation of this prohibition that relates to grains and seeds (kilai zeraim). There is the variety of this proscription that relates to garments (better known as shatnez). Finally, our possuk prohibits the yoking together of different species of animals. The Da’as Zekeinim mi’Ba'alei ha’Tosfos provide an interesting reason for this issur (prohibition). A donkey does not chew its cud. An ox, on the other hand, does chew its cud. Thus the donkey and the ox would be proceeding along, yoked together, and the donkey would see the ox chewing and think that it was eating something. The donkey would then become first upset, believing that it had missed a feeding slot. The next stage would be for the donkey to become jealous of the ox, because…page2 We hope that these Divrei Torah, which are designed especially for use during the seudos, will בע״הenhance your Shabbos and may they hasten refuos and yeshuos to all who need.
The Levush writes that on Shabbos we can attain higher levels of wisdom as it is a day especially designated for this purpose. Therefore, we should seek ways to increase the amount of Torah that we discuss on this holy day. שבת שלום/ גוט שבתand כתיבה וחתימה טובה ms
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[21:20]
סוֹרר וּמ ֶֹרה אֵ ינֶנּוּ ֵ ְבּנֵנוּ זֶה שׁ ֵֹמעַ ְבּקֹ לֵ נוּ
This son of ours is wayward and rebellious; he does not listen to our voice With these words, the parents of the rebellious son complained to the judges about his conduct. The word – קלנוour voice – is written here in the singular. This suggests that both parents were speaking with a single voice; they were unanimously of the opinion that their child’s conduct was wrong. Of course, a similar phraseology is used earlier in possuk 18. However, there the possuk speaks of “the voice of his father and the voice of his mother”. The clear implication of mentioning the parents’ voices separately is that there was discord and division as between the parents’ respective views. The sefer Kol Dodi points out that the sequence of these pesukim needs to be seen within the overall context of the narrative. The lesson that we should derive from this scenario (not forgetting that Chazal tell us that such a situation never occurred in reality) is that a child is more likely to be ruled by his own desires, when his parents disagree about how to deal with him. In fact, this evident lack of unity may have been the very catalyst for the child’s problems in the first place. Even though they have realised their mistake, by the time they present their son to the judges and are now ‘singing from the same hymn sheet’, so to speak, it is already too late for the damage to be reversed as the son will not listen even to their joint exhortations. Once again, the Torah demonstrates its timelessness. The message that, whatever the extent of their private squabbles, parents must always present harmoniously and with unanimity to their children, is as relevant and important nowadays as it ever was. We know only too well the potential fallout if the Torah’s sage advice goes unheeded.
השבת-ישראל את-ושמרו בני השבת-לעשות את The Chofetz Chayim once asked a Jewish man if he learns Torah on Shabbos. The man replied that he learns a little. The Chofetz Chayim pointed out that when the man will be asked in Heaven, after 120 years, why he did not learn Torah throughout the week, he will surely reply that it was due to his being busy earning his livelihood. He advised the man, “If you learn Torah on Shabbos it will prove to the Heavenly Court that when you had time, you did indeed learn. Yet, if you do not learn Torah on Shabbos, the Court will see that even when you had some spare time, you did not spend it in learning. Then, you will have no answer for your failure to learn during the week”. HaShabbos Betifarto
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… it would now think that the ox had been fed whilst it had been passed over. In fact, of course, both animals had received the same feed, but since the ox chews its cud, it gives the appearance of continuously eating, thereby causing the donkey the misapprehension that it has been cheated out of its nourishment. According to the Daas Zekeinim, the Torah is concerned to avoid this psychological pain that the donkey would experience. Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz expounds that one can see from here how the Torah is worried about the feelings of an animal; how much more so must this be the case for those of a human being. One can also derive from here that the Torah is troubled by the feelings of one who made an honest mistake (the donkey here only thought that the ox received more), all the more so must one be mindful of the feelings of another, who has genuinely been wronged. [Once again, we see that our holy Torah has recognised and sought to obviate psychological harm to animals, long before it was ever acknowledged in people by secular authorities. Moreover, Rav Chaim’s explanation means that the suggestion that shechitah is anything other than completely humane is rather difficult to reconcile with this example – one amongst many – of the Torah’s unstinting concern for the full gamut of aspects of animal welfare.]