Ki Tavo 1

Thank You:

This week's parsha starts off with the halacha of bekurim (first fruits). The halacha is that each person must bring the first fruit of his crop the the beit hamikdash and give it to the kohen. While doing this the person has to recite a few pasukim (26:5-10). These pasukim have basically nothing at all to do with fruit. These pasukim mention Lavan trying to trick Yaakov, the exile to Mitzriam, our geulah from Mitzriam, our entering of the land, and then finally about fruit from the land that Hashem gave us. Why do we need to mention all of this back story to bringing bekurim? What is even more weird is the fact that these are the pasukim quoted by the Haggadah. What is going on here?

I have previously explained (back on pesach) that Rav Brevda in his sefer Leil Shimurim breaks down the night of Pesach into two categories: 1) the fact that we went from being slaves to Paro to being Hashem's slaves and 2) that we must show hakarat hatov (recognizing the good) to Hashem for all the good He has done for us.

Imagine for a moment that you are a doctor. You have a patient who needs a quadruple bi-pass heart surgery and if it is not performed immediately the patient will die. You begin surgery and something goes wrong you think you are about to lose him but then you do some quick thinking and you fix the problem. After several hours of surgery and a few weeks recuperating the person is back on his feet. All you can think about is the fact that you saved this person's life. If not for you this person would be dead, look how great you are. Let us look at another example. You are a farmer. In the summer you come out and plow your field. After a few days of plowing your field is ready for planting. Now you take a few days and plant all of the seeds. Now there are many months of watering the fields as you wait for it to grow. Finally after almost a year of waiting your field begins to grow. Now who would say is the one who caused the fruit to grow. Most people would you did all the work so therefore you get the credit.

However this is not true. The mitzvah of bikurim is teaching us that as much work as we put in we are not the ones that cause anything to happen. As much effort as we put in all of the results come from Hashem. For this reason we must be thankful to Hashem for giving us everything we have, even if we think we deserve it because of all of the work we did. This is the reason why a person recites all of these pasukim about what Hashem did for us. We are showing Hashem that we realize that everything is from Him and we must thank Him for everything He did for us. This is also the reason why this parsha is read on the night of the seder. Because it shows all of the things that Hashem did for us and it is gives us more to thank Him for on the night of the seder. This may also be the reason why we read this parsha every year so close to the end of the year. It is to remind us that we must think about all of the good that we have had in the last year and we must thank Hashem for all of it.

Nature is Against Us:

When Hashem promised Avraham a son (through Sara) at the Brit Ben HaBitarim Avraham responded that he saw in the stars that he would not have a child with Sara. Hashem told him that Avraham was not like the rest of the nations, Avraham was above the stars. There is a chazal that says that from this moment on the angels were forever constantly against the Jews. The reason was because they were nature and the Jews were against nature. As I have explained earlier (again in the pesach email), when the Jews were in Mitzriam Bilam put a curse on them that they could never leave Mitzriam. Therefore, it was not possible by any natural means for the Jews to leave Mitzriam. This is why Hashem had to remove them with His own hand, because only He could fight against nature. So even though we have survived for thousands of years the angels still hate us for changing nature. Therefore, if there is ever a moment when we fall the angels will try to push nature upon us. The problem is that nature means our total destruction because we do not exist naturally. This is the meaning of the blessings and the curses in this week's parsha. When we follow the Torah Hashem will give us everything we need. He will feed us and protect us. But once we stop following Hashem we are letting the angels get power over us. Once they have that they will try anything they can to destroy us and this is the curses. Many people think that the blessings in this week's parsha are what is supposed to be nature and the curses are the extraordinary. Really it is the exact opposite, our everyday lives in this world is extraordinary and our complete destruction is natural. Therefore, our only way to protect ourselves is through following Hashem's ways.

The Guf's Rebellion:

If we remember back to last week (and the week before) we will remember that the Gra explains that man in the torah represents the neshama and the woman represents the guf. So in this week's parsha (28:56) the pasuk says "The tender and delicate woman among you, who had never tried to set the sole of her foot on the ground, because of delicacy and tenderness, will turn selfish against the husband of her bosom..." This pasuk is talking about one of the many curses in this week's parsha. But I think there may be a deeper meaning to it. I think it is talking about the fact that do to the fact that everyone is evil many bad things will happen to everyone. Even the righteous will stumble. This pasuk means that even the guf that has not touched the ground (gotten any pleasure from this world) will rebel against its neshama and look for pleasure. That the power of tumah will be so strong that the neshama will not be able to control the guf any longer.

Chativa V'Chatima Tova, Have a great Shabbat!

Ki Taitzai 1

Divorce:

This week's parsha (24:1-4) discusses the concept of divorce. The pasuk says (24:1) "If a man marries a woman and lives with her, and it will be that she will not find favor in his eyes, for he found in her a matter of immorality, and he wrote her a bill of divorce..." There are a few points I would like to focus on here.

The first point is "for he found in her a matter of immorality" this part of the pasuk is a little confusing. The first part said she did not find favor in his eyes now it says because she did something immoral. Well what if he just did not like her? Can a man just give his wife Get because he does not like the way she brushes her teeth or something like that?

A second point I want to talk about is a sefer kritut "bill of divorce." What exactly does the term mean. The torah never uses the word Get instead it uses the phrase "a book of separation." This word comes from the same root as the word karet. This is a punishment where your neshama is actually removed from Hashem's presence. When this happens you just stop existing. It is the worst possible thing that can happen to a person. While dying is not permanent your neshama being destroyed is not something that can be fixed. What does this word karet have to do with divorce?

There is a very interesting chazal on the subject. A rabbi comes to a few of his friends and tells them that he wants to get a divorce with his wife because he cannot even find one positive quality about her. So they ask if she is pretty, he says no. They ask if she is smart, he says no. They ask if she comes from a good family or if she is a good mother or if she can cook or... and at each question he answers that she cannot and is not any of those things. So they ask him what her name is he answers that her name is the Aramaic equivalent to the word 'dirt'. They say that is the perfect name for someone like her and for this reason he should not divorce her. This is quite a puzzling chazal. With all of those negative traits more men nowadays would not stay married to her for more than a week. The torah has a very different understanding about what marriage means that many people nowadays just do not get (no pun intended).

According to the torah marriage is more than just a physical and emotional connection between two people. Marriage is the connection of two parts into one whole. "It is not good that man be alone." (Bereishit 2:18) When a man marries a woman she becomes part of him. Now if someone's leg started hurting him he would never think to remove it he would go to the doctor to get it better so too if someone did not get along with his wife he should try to disconnect rather he should fix their relationship. Chazal say that a woman does not really have free will for the way she acts towards her husband and that everything that she does to him is from Hashem. Therefore if someone is in a fight with his wife he should not get angry at her instead he should figure out which sin he has committed and fix his relationship with Hashem. This is what this pasuk is trying to tell us. It is not enough for someone to not like his wife to give her a divorce, because any problem he sees in her is a problem with him. The only reason to get a divorce is because she did something immoral. Also this explains the second point, the sefer kritut. A Get is not just a separation between the two people it is literally a separation of an organ from the body. When Hashem created Chava from Adam's rib He was showing Adam that his wife is literally part of him. So a divorce is actually removing part of your body from you.

Now for a deeper meaning behind these pasukim. We have discussed earlier the idea that the Gra brings down that the man represents the neshama and the woman represents the guf. So now let us go through these four pasukim again with this in mind. Hashem places the neshama into the guf and the neshama is so disgusted by all of the bad things that the guf is doing that he wants out. So just like the story in Yonah the neshama leaves the guf (the boat). Now the guf leaves the neshama meaning that they get separated. The neshama goes to be judged while the guf gets buried in the ground. The Gra explains in Yonah that there is an angel named Dumah that is in charge of all of the bodies in the graveyard so this may be the man spoken about in pasuk two. Now the guf is in the ground being watched by Dumah and it is time for techiyat hamaitim "rising of the dead." So Dumah leaves all of the bodies. Now in pasuk four the guf wants to be connected to the neshama again but they can no longer be connected. The Gra explains that in the time of techiyat hamaitim not all of the bodies come back, only that guf which perfected itself will be able to come back but all other bodies are disconnected from their neshama forever. (Of course there are many who disagree with the Gra...) I do not know for sure how well this works but I think it fits pretty well.

Shoftim 1

Before the dvar torah I would just like to wish mazal tov to my brother and sister in law for having a baby boy this past Tuesday, Rosh Chodesh Elul, may he be zoche to Torah, Chupah and Ma'asim Tovim!

Cities of Refuge:

We all know the halacha of ir miklat (the city of refuge). The halacha is that if someone kills accidentally the family of the victim can kill the murderer until he gets to one of the six cities of refuge. The murderers must then spend all of their time until the death of the Kohen Gadol. If, before that time, the murderer takes even one step out of the city and the victim's family is there they can kill him. There is another halacha not as well known directly after this parsha. From perek 19 pasukim 11 and 12 in this week's parsha says "But if there is a man who hates his fellow... and strikes him mortally and he (the victim) dies and he (the murderer) flees to one of these cities... then the elders of his city shall send and take him from there and place him in the hand of the redeemer of the blood..." What?! They must remove the man from the city? Why can't they just kill him there why must he first be taken out of the ir miklat? I believe the answer to this question is quite revealing especially since we are in the month of Elul.

We all know the power of Teshuva. Someone can perform a sin and upon completing the requirements for teshuva not only will that sin be forgiven but it will actually be transformed into a mitzvah. When someone commits a sin he creates a chalal (vacuum) in the world. In this place Hashem's presence is removed. The whole purpose of Hashem creating the world was so that He can rest in it. But our sinning is removing His presence from the world. Now when we do teshuva the chalal is removed and the Shechina is returned there. This is the power of Teshuva.

Now there is another way for us to be forgiven for our sins. This is not as powerful as Teshuva but it does remove the sin that would otherwise stay with us for all of eternity and damaging us in Gehenom. This process is called Isurim (pains). If someone gets hurt that pain reduces his pain after he dies. One such pain is Galut (exile). Many gedolim throughout history put themselves into galut to atone for their sins. The idea of the accidental murderer running to the ir miklat is that he is putting himself into galut and as long as he remains in galut it is as if he as no sin. So too, a murderer who killed on purpose. Even though he killed on purpose the moment he steps into the ir miklat he is sin free. The judges cannot touch this man because according to halacha he is sin free. The murderer cannot be touched. Only if the elders of the city remove him from ir miklat can he be put to death.

This idea teaches us a very important lesson for this time of year. We all know that we will be judged for all of our sins in just a couple of weeks. We all know how important the next month is, but if we take a step back and realize how far our teshuva can go. Every little act that we do can get us out of countless bad things that we deserve. If a murderer walks into an ir miklat he is forgiven for his sins. But we must also realize the other side. That these small steps must get us somewhere. If after the month of Elul, Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur we remain unchanged then we have wasted our time. It is just like the murderer that goes to the ir miklat and then after a few days decides to leave. He worked so hard to be free but in the end it was all for nothing because he did not stay in the city. This is even more true for the person who killed on purpose. He would be forgiven if he would remain in the city but once he leaves the city he is the same murderer when he came in. If someone sins and then does the teshuva he is like this murderer who walked into the ir miklat. The real question is will he remain in the ir miklat?

Rav Pincus gives an interesting mashul in the introduction to one of his seforim. He says there are two types of people that go to the airport. One type who goes to the airport goes on line and gets through to the plane. Then the plane takes off and he leaves to a new place. The second person walks into the airport and walks through security he gets to the gate where the airplane is and watches all of his friends get on the plane. The man watches as the plane leaves the terminal and takes off. After a couple of minutes he turns around and heads home. He went to the airport but never went anywhere. Are we going to go through the entire month of Elul, Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur all just to watch the planes take off or are we going to get on the planes and go somewhere?

May we all be zoche to have a month of extreme spiritual growth and may we all get on the planes in the end.

Re'eh 1

Prophecy for the Future:

The Jews have just spent the last 40 years in the desert. The majority of the people where under 20 years old when they left Mitzriam and have spent the large majority of their lives in the midbar. Now Moshe is telling them about what they should do when they enter Eretz Yisrael. The first thing he tells them to do when they get there is destroy all traces of Avodah Zara that exists in the country even the names of the Avodah Zara should be destroyed (12:3). The reason is because if they do not they will be effected by their neighbors and it will lead them to do Avodah Zara (12:30). This seems pretty far fetched, the nation who has spent the last 40 years surrounded by Hashem is going to be so effected by their neighbors that even if just the name of the Avodah Zara still exists they will still sin. As the people are hearing this they are probably thinking that there is no way this is going to happen, even if they leave a small group of survives nothing will go wrong. So what does Hashem do? He says not only will this happen but I will show you the step by step process that leads you to worshiping them. First, you leave some remnant of the Avodah Zara and you do not think that is a problem. Then as time goes on prophets begin to come saying that Hashem sent them, then later these false prophets will not even say they are from Hashem they will say they had a prophecy from an angel. Then, others will be lead off the derech by these prophets which will lead to them trying to get you to sin. Then tons and tons of people are worshiping this idol to the point where they are now in the majority. This is exactly how Hashem lays out the Halachot in this week's parsha. First the command to destroy the idols then to stop false prophets. After that to stop others from leading others to sin and finally to the halacha of Ir Hanidachat (The Wayward City). All of this is in perek 13. Then Hashem gives us advice, do you want to know how to keep away from doing all of these things? It is very simple, 1) do not cut yourself 2) do not cut your payot 3) do not eat non kosher food. These three things will remind you that you are different than the nations that surround you. Imagine you work in a big company. The company is going to eat out at some fancy restaurant and all the big wigs will be there. You get there and everyone is eating delicious looking non kosher food. These are your friends, the people you spend most of your day with but you feel removed from them because you cannot eat with them. This is how we remain separate from the other nations. Hashem has warned us in this week's parsha, if we get to close we will get burned, we must keep our distance. Of course to live in this world we must live among non Jews but we must always remember that however close we get we are different then them, we are Hashem's nation.

Many times when people see a list of Halachot, much like this week's parsha they begin to remove the Godly aspect from the mitzvot. They just become things that must get done. We wake up in the morning and daven, not because we love Hashem and want to shout it on the rooftops rather because it is our obligation to daven. If we stop considering mitzvot as obligations and start realizing that Hashem did not just give us 613 mitzvot because He wanted to make your lives miserable, rather He knows what is best for us and we must do everything necessary to stay away from everything else in the world. If we can see halachot as a way to help us live happy lives then we will live happy lives, if we chase after pleasure of this world we will not get anywhere. This is the message that Moshe is telling us before he dies, if you truly want to live a spiritual life you must completely remove everything else from your life. If you leave anything of it, even just its name, eventually you will return to those things you were trying to get away from. That is what this week's parsha is trying to teach us.