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Before Or After?
Biblically, the blessing on food is only made AFTER eating. The blessing on Torah is BEFORE study. Why are they different?
Food is enjoyed by the body upon taste, therefore the Bracha is made after eating. Torah, by contrast, is appreciated by the mind, and the pleasure can be more anticipated in advance. Therefore we make the Bracha beforehand. (Chinuch).
Another suggestion: The function of blessing before studying or doing a Mitzvah is 1. to ready us to perform the Mitzvah and 2. to announce and label this action as a Mitzvah. This, by definition, is best done beforehand. Blessing on food is thanksgiving, best done afterwards.
Perhaps that accounts for the difference in when to make the blessing.
Practical app: consider the dynamics of that blessing you’re saying!
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The Bigger Doctor
Dasan V’aviram were swallowed by the earth. This demonstrates Hashem’s power. (- Dvarim 11:6)
Korach and his family were also swallowed up. In fact they were the main figures in that drama. Why talk of Dasan and Aviram?
Two desperately sick men were carried in, each suffering from the same disease. One doctor walked over and with a complicated program of treatments and medicine succeeded in curing his patient. The other doctor walked to the foot of his patient’s bed, manipulated a limb or two, and presto, the patient sat up, completely cured!
Which doctor would you recommend? The first, with his extensive treatment, of the second, who did very little?
The second one is Boss: for he cured even without instruments!
Which shows Hashem’s power more: Dasan V’aviram being swallowed up or Korach being swallowed? Korach had brought k’tores, something dangerous and deadly if unlawful. His fate could be ascribed to the effect of k’tores. Dasan V’aviram did not do anything dangerous, yet were swallowed up too.
Now that really shows Hashem’s power!
The Netziv offers another thought; Korach was a great man, who made a terrible error. He was duly punished, but it made no one proud. It was a sad episode, one we’d rather forget. So too the 250 men who sacrificed ketores, who were heads of Sanhedrin. They erred; no one celebrated their demise.
Dasan and Aviram, on the other hand, were chronic troublemakers; their deaths were a great relief for the nation. Moshe mentioned only their deaths, because those were positive!
The moral here is that sometimes good man will sin. He may even need to be punished. But its something to be sad about….
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Still Burning?
The Torah points out that when Moshe descended Har Sinai it was still burning. What’s the significance in this?
The commentators explain: The sin of the Egel was compounded by the fact that the Jews rebelled in full view of the Sh’china, represented by the fire on the mountain. This was an added chutzpah – to rebel in Hashem’s presence. Moshe brought it to their attention.
Alternatively, the Jews ought to have seen the Sh’china atop the mountain and not created the Egel. They should have realized that things were okay. Therefore, Moshe suggested their mistake was unjustified. It was not an honest error, rather they ignored the signs they saw.
We suggested a different tack altogether: After Moshe saw the Egel, he returned and prayed for the Jews’ salvation. What gave him the confidence to do so?
It was that fire still burning atop the mountain. If indeed Hashem was through with the Jews, then why didn’t the Sh’china depart? Why did the fire yet burn? It must be that Hashem really wanted that Moshe pray for the Jews, and that Hashem would pardon them!
The lesson: He is our G-d, He is our Father, He is our King, and He is our Savior…always!
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Its All About Us!
The Torah says (Ekev 7:16) that we ought not to worship idols for they will be a pitfall to us. Really?? Isn’t it is forbidden to worship idols regardless of whether or not they are a pitfall?
The Torah is not discussing the prohibition on idol worship here. Rather, Moshe prescribed happiness. He says “Friends! Avoid idol worship, for it will bring curse upon you!” True, its forbidden besides, but not all that is forbidden rains down curse upon its doer. Idol worship does. And in this chapter Moshe is advocating toeing the line simply so that things go well for us, for our own sake.
We need to internalize; Mitzvos are not sacrifice. Rather, they are our treasure, bringing us success!
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First, Find Common Ground…
“…And you shall love the Ger, for you were slaves in Egypt”
It’s relatively easy to love your neighbor: he is so much like you. But a Ger is an outsider, someone different. Maybe even weird. What is the path to loving him?
The Torah focuses us that we share a bond with the Ger. We have a nomad’s kinship with him: we too were once strangers. That’s our common ground. Now go ahead and identify with him and love him. He is not so different after all.
This is the secret of loving others: view him as a brother and friend. How? By seeking and focusing on similarities.
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The Big Heels
Rashi comments that there is special importance in “Ekev”-mitzvos – those small mitzvos that people step on with their heels: Hashem’s blessing is specifically for those. Why indeed?
Sefer Chasiddim tells of a father who taught each of his daughters a trade. As a result, they easily found shidduchim. One daughter, however, was taught to sew shrouds. Although everyone eventually needs tachrichim, people avoid reminders of death. This poor girl received no suitors. With no recourse, her father decided to entice prospects by offering a huge dowry for this girl, more that any of her sisters received.
So too, when Hashem sees how unpopular certain mitzvos are, He doubles and triples their reward. Those stepped-on mitzvos have double reward.
Rav Chaim Mintz shlit”a offered another explanation: Rabbenu Yonah says in Avos that we do not do the mitzvos merely because of their reward and punishment, but out of regard for Hashem, who commanded them. Someone who does mitzvos out of reward and punishment is ultimately thinking about himself, while someone doing mitzvos because Hashem said so is serving Hashem.
People would bring Rav Moshe Feinstein z”l a drink or a chair, even when he did not need it, because they wanted to do something for the Gadol Hador.
We fulfill Hashem’s wishes just because He asked us to do it. We find the greatest meaning therein.
What separates the man doing mitzvos for his own benefit from the one doing Hashem’s will? It’s those “lightweight” mitzvos that people step on. Those mitzvos indeed don’t carry much reward. However if he wants nothing other than doing Hashem’s will then he will do those mitzvos with gusto. Mitzvos that people step on are the ones that indicates true service of Hashem.
That’s why – paradoxically – they are the real value. Because they determine the entire game, not just this act. No wonder they are so important!
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Bribing The Man Who Has It All
“And who takes no bribe” i.e. Hashem does not take a bribe.
What bribe might be contemplated? Rashi says that it refers to cash. He does not take money payoffs.
The Mizrachi asks what can money possibly mean to Hashem?!?
The Maharal says that money here refers to tzeddaka – Hashem considers money given to a needy person as though it were given to Him. The idea then is that Hashem does not accept bargaining.
What does that mean?
Normative human behavior is that when disaster strikes, – let’s say if someone is diagnosed with cancer, – they try to bargain with Hashem. They offer to do a big mitzvah in the hope that Hashem will trade for health. The message here is that Hashem doesn’t trade.
“Tzeddaka saves from death” we are told. How does that jive with this pasuk? Perhaps it works indirectly; Tzeddakah does not change Hashem’s decision, but it can add merit and tilt the scales in our favor.
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“The Land Hashem monitors from the beginning of the year to the end of the year”
Rashi explains that Hashem supervises all lands, but He supervises the others through Israel.
What’s the concept here?
Chazal say that Hashem has nothing in this world besides four ells -amos- of Halacha. The Rambam explains as follows: although there may be a vast world out there, He does not have value in it all. His goals for this world are only met through service of Hashem, the ‘four amos of Halacha’.
The man building the palace may party there for fifty years, but the house’s true purpose is so that a righteous man will one day pass by and rest in its shade for a few minutes. All else is fuzz.
Hashem tracks only righteousness. That’s what He focuses on. He watches Mitzvos in Eretz Yisroel, His goal. Anything else is judged by that standard.
It has meaning only inasmuch as it helps towards that goal, and He will act to make that goal happen. He watches other lands in relation to Eretz Yisroel.
When there is a water shortage in Africa and Israeli water experts are called in, He caused the shortage in order to give parnassah to yidden (doing the right thing, not ?”? corrupting the land!!) in Eretz Yisroel.
Not the other way around…
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“And I stayed in the mountain forty days and forty nights – bread I did not eat nor drink any water…”
The Midrash teaches that the Torah is called Toras Moshe because he self-sacrificed for it. When was this? When he stood 40 days without food or drink on Har Sinai.
We tend to think that Moshe was in a spiritual state, needing no food or drink. Not so, rather he suffered greatly for the Torah. That’s why Moshe said to the Jews – “I stood for all that time without food or drink…
…and then get an Egel??”
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The Dread Egel
Moshe reminded the people of the Egel, how they sinned at Har Sinai. The plain reading is that the Egel itself was a form of idol worship, creating and worshiping it was the sin. Yet years later, when Yeravam desired to seize power from Rechavam, son of Shlomo, he created two Egels and told the Jewish people; “These are your Gods, O Israel, who have taken you from Egypt” – an almost word-for-word repeat of what was said at the original Egel!
How could the Jewish People have swallowed that? Were they mad?
It would seem to indicate that the original Egel was a sin not in content, but in context. The Jews were promised that Moshe would return. To choose another leader was a betrayal. However when Yeravam reigned, there was no Moshe, and an Egel might be OK…