Bamidbar 1

I have recently heard that Rav Brevda is currently undergoing treatments every Wednesday for the next six weeks (except on Shavuot where it will be on the Friday of that week). It is very important that everyone daven for him Shlomo Leib ben Miriam, especially on Wednesdays. May this dvar torah be for a refuah shelaima for him! For anyone who does not know who Rav Brevda is it should be enough to say that he is one of the biggest gedolim around today (not that he needs my haskama). He learned by the Chazon Ish, the Brisker Rav, Rav Yichezkel, etc. and for this reason alone it should be enough but he is also one of the most knowledgeable, if not the most, in the torah of the Vilna Goan.

Zuhama:
In 1:49 the pasuk says "But you shall not count the tribe of Levi, and you shall not take a census of them among the Children of Israel." Rashi explains that Hashem say that He would in the future make a gezaira against all of the men above twenty that they should die in the midbar, so He said that they Leviim should not be counted among them, because they are His since they did not sin in the (sin of the) eigel. Then later 3:12 the pasuk says "And I have taken the Leviim out from among the children of Israel..." Rashi explains on this pasuk that when the firstborn males sinned with the eigel they lost their right to be taken but the Leviim since they did not worship avoda zara they will replace the firstborn. Rashi compare the eigel to avoda zara. But we all knew this already what is the chidush?!
Well, gemara Shabbat daf 146 amud alef on the very top says that when Chava ate from the Pri Eitz Hadas the nachas had relations with her and left inside her zuhama. The gemara then asks when this zuhama was removed. Two opinions are presented in the gemara: 1) At Har Sinia the zuhama was removed from all of the Jews, 2) After three generations of purity the zuhama is removed so after Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov the zuhama was removed. So how is the machloket resolved? The answer is that really the zuhama was removed both times but returned after certain actions happened. Know lets take a moment to explain zuhama. Before the sin with the Pri Eitz Hadas man had two forces, a force to do good and a force to do bad, much like nowadays. The difference was that the force to do bad was an external force, represented by the nachash. After the sin the force became an internal force now known as the Yetzer Hara, this is the zuhama. It is known that in the times of Mashiach, there will be a great war and at the end there will be two big deaths, the Mashiach of the line of Yosef and the Yetzer Hara, who will be in an external force at that time. This means that our mission now is to get the yetzer hara from an internal force into an external one that it can be destroyed once and for all. How is this done? The answer is obvious the complete acceptance of Hashem as our God and the doing of mitzvot, that is how the gemara explains it was removed the other times. But what causes the zuhama to stay in our bodies? The doing of sins! But there are certain sins that are in a separate category than the others: 1) Avodah Zara 2) Immorality 3) Murder. These three do not just keep the zuhama in the body but they cause the zuhama to return to a body that it has left and it causes the zuhama to root itself deeper into a body that does those sins. Therefore, throughout history there were many times that the zuhama could have been removed but someone messed up. There were other times where the zuhama was removed but it was replaced do to the fact that one of these sins were performed and this is a sod gadol (a big secret). This not only explains many very confusing pieces of history but also many many gemaras. Let me list a few of the times that this changed history (I am well aware that the mefarshim explain many of these cases a different way but since they are described as they are whatever sin was done is comparable to the sin that was said):
1) The zuhama first entered Chava by her having relations with the nachash, immorality.
2) It continued to the next generation but was not removed because Kian killed Hevel, murder.
3) After the world was destroyed by the mabul Noach had the chance to bring it all back to gan eiden but he slept with his son, immorality.
4) Avraham destroyed a warehouse of his fathers idols and then was thrown into a pit because he was unwilling to serve Nimrod's idols and saved, since he refrained from avodah zara.
5) After Yaakov had successfully removed the zuhama as it is explains in the gemara he fought the angel of Eisav, the Yetzer Hara, after removing his zuhama the exact thing that we plan to do in the times of Mashiach was attempted by Yaakov.
6) Reuven lost his right as the firstborn because he had relations with his mother, immorality.
7) Yosef could have been removed from the shefatim but he did not have relations with Potiphar's wife.
8) One of the things that the Jews were saved from destruction from in the Yam Suf was because they had gone the entire had not had relations with the Mitzrim.
9) After Har Sinai the Jews removed their zuhama but it came back after the sin with the eigel, avodah zara. (This is the reason why the tribe of Levi was different because they did not get the zuhama back.)
The list goes on and on...
The gemara explains that there is a part of the male's body that when it is left hungry it is full but when it is fed it will always be hungry. This makes a lot of sense now, the reason is because as someone does more of these three sins the zuhama gets stronger inside him.

Have a great Shabbat!