פרשת חקת

וידבר ה' אל-משה ואל-אהרון לאמר. זאת חקת התורה...

ה' spoke to משה and אהרון saying. This is the statute of the תורה…

                  At the beginning of this week’s פרשה, we are told about the פרה אדומה (Red Cow). The מצוה of פרה אדומה is a מצוה that is done by the כהנים when they need to make someone who has touched a dead body and is טמא (impure), טהור (pure) again. The מצוה consists of burning the cow and then sprinkling the ashes on the person in need. The פסוק that introduces this חוק (unexplained law) says זאת חקת התורה... (This is the statute of the תורה…).

                Why is it written this way? It seems like the פסוק is saying that this is the only חוק in the תורה. However we know that there are more! What’s going on?!

                רש''י explains that the reason for the way it is phrased is, because the other nations of the world are going to bother בנ''י  by saying, “what is this commandment?” And “where does it come from?” Therefore, the פסוק wrote חקת, which implies that “it is a decree from before Me (ה')”.

                To the Jewish people, ה' is the ultimate father. When our fathers tell us to something, we (should) do it. We trust our fathers! We understand that when they tell us to do, or not to do something that they are really looking out for our good.

                According to רש''י, the same thing is happening here. ה' our ultimate Father, is telling us, it doesn’t matter what the other nations say or do. You are My are my children, I love you, and you know that everything I do is for your best. So what that you don’t understand what this specific מצוה is about?! You just need to know that I am looking out for you.

                This is really a very important message for us. There are going to be times where bad things are going to happen to us (sorry to say but that’s just a fact). We are going to get hurt, we are going to feel sad, and there are going to be times where we may feel that there is no way we can handle what’s going on in our lives. There is one thing we ALWAYS need to remember, our Father in Heaven IS LOOKING OUT FOR US. He knows us, and he hears us. We just need to talk to Him and ask Him for His help. We need to know that ה' is and always will be on our side, there is no challenge that He gives us we can’t overcome. He is always taking care of His children. 

Have an Great Shabbos

Yoni Spigelman

With Help from: Rav Moshe Beigelman

פרשת קרח

ויקח קרח בן יצהר בן קהת בן לוי ודתן  ואבירם בני אליאב ואון בן פלת בני ראובן
Korach the son of Yizhar, son of Kahas, son of Levi, separated himself with Dasan and Aviram, the sons of Eliav and Ohn son of Peles, the offspring of Reuven.

This weeks פרשה starts with the rebellion of קרח and his attempt to "overthrow" משה as the Jewish leader. In order to do this קרח gathered a group of 250 men (of stature) to help "stump" משה and prove that he really did not have help from ה׳.

רשי explains that the reason behind קרח's rebellion was jealousy. קרח felt cheated out of the position of נסי of his שבט because משה appointed his cousin, אליצפן בן עוזיאל, to the position (like ה׳ commanded him to). However קרח didn't believe that ה׳ told him to do this and thought that משה was just picking favorites. Therefore he set out to cause משה to be disproved. 

To show everyone that he was right about משה, Korach gathered the 250 men and gave each of then a טלית made completely out of תכלת. They proceeded to משה רבינו and asked "If someone has a garment made completely of תכלת, is he obligated to put ציצית on it? Of course משה quickly answered "he is obligated". קרח responded by saying "a garment that is made completely of wool requires only one strand of תכלת, and yet you say that a garment made completely of תכלת needs additional תכלת? Impossible!!". קרח and his followers laughed and started their rebellion.

The מדרש states that the קרח's strategy was to ask משה a question that he would not be able to answer. From his "stumping" of משה רבינו, he would prove that there was no way that he was getting his answers from ה׳. Now, the difficulty (with רשי) is that it doesn't seem that קרח's question was really such a powerful question. I mean, the rule is, ANY four cornered garment needs to have ציצית (with a string of  תכלת). So it really doesn't seem like the type of question that you would start a revolt off of. 

 If קרח really wanted to stump משה רבינו he could have asked a much harder question. What was so unthinkable about the answer of the תכלת that caused קרח and his 250 followers to laugh and try to start a revolution? 

To this, I have a two part answer.  The first, is the power of jealousy and how it overtook קרח. 

Here is an example, a person is sitting in their living room in a comfortable house; with a nice tv, great wife, nice car, anything a person can want. All of a sudden a commercial for the newest product comes on the tv screen. Of course what does the ad say, "if you don't have a (insert product name here) you can't be happy...". You know what happens, that person goes outside and all he can see are; people using that product, billboards advertising it, commercials showing people more using it, etc... And what begins to happen is, that person starts to become more and more jealous of everyone else who has it. The commercial ends up proving itself right, he can't mentally be happy until he has it. No matter how many friends tell him it is a waste of money, or time, he NEEDS it and nothing will stop him from getting it.

 In the case of קרח the product was the position of the נסי. As soon as he realized that he didn't have it, he started looking around at all the other נסיאם and all the power, respect, and קדושה that went along with the job and he became jealous. Therefore when he went to משה for the answer to the ציצית question, he wasn't really looking for the answer he would do anything to overthrow משה and gain the power he craved. Therefore the answer didn't matter.  

The second part of the answer has to with mob mentality. Take for example, the recent Canadian riots.  What was the real reason for these riots? Seemingly nothing, sorry to all the Canadians out there but losing a hockey game is not a good reason for riots. Now, do you think that as soon as the team lost, the entire city just got up and started rioting? No, granted people may have been really mad about their team losing, but it wasn't until people started to see other people breaking things, burning things, and beating people up did it click "well if they are doing it, it must be ok!" even though in the back of their minds they knew it wasn't.  Very often if you ask people who took part in riots or any violent or stupid act their response will be "yeah I know it was dumb, but I just got caught up in it". This is how the 250 scholars got caught up in the rebellion and laughed at משה. When they heard קרח's complaints against משה they began to realize that they wanted and needed that power. They, like the people who get caught in the moment in riots, were swept up into a frenzy about how they too felt cheated by משה רבינו.

Have a Great Shabbos
Yoni Spigelman
With Help From: The Shmuz on the Parsha- Rav Ben-Tzion Shafier   

פרשת שלך

פרשת שלך
...ויקרא משה להושע בן-נון יהושע
...and Moshe called Hoshea Ben-Nun Yehoshua

        This week's פרשה speaks about the sending of the מרגלם into ארץ ישראל and how they spied out the land for the rest of the Jews. There is an interesting question based on the פסוק above.  Why is it that משה רבינו changed יהושע's name? What is the significance?  רש׳׳י answers that משה changed his name because he wanted to protect יהושע from the influence of the others, therefore he added ה׳'s name to the beginning of הושא's name. Ok, but then why didn't משה daven for the rest of the men? Why was יהושע the only one? He could have at least, davened for כלב בן יפנה! 

       The מהר׳׳ל answers that the reason משה didn't daven for anyone else, was because יהושע was the main תלמיד of משב רבינו. If יהושע came back with a negative report of the land, like the others did, it would have made משה look like a liar, and that would not have gone over too well.

      Ok, so the first thing that comes to my mind after hearing that answer is... WHAT?! משה רבינו, our leader, the man who talked to ה׳ on a regular basis; the same משה who led us out of מצרים, was worried about his image?! I REALLY have a hard time with that answer!! We need to clear this up!

      Let's think about it for a minute. First of all there is absolutely no chance that משה was doing it for his own personal gain. The Jews were coming out of a monumental time period. They had just received the תורה.  The man who brought the תורה down from הר סיני was none other than משה. To the Jewish people, משה רבינו was the symbol of the תורה, therefore he was symbol of ה׳. The reason משה davened for יהושע and added part of ה׳'s name was because he knew that if יהושע would have come back and been like the other מרגלם, the people would have started to look badly upon the תורה and ה׳. 

      Now we still wonder why he didn't daven for the other spies. In this world there is only one thing that is not from שמים, that is ׳יראת שמים׳. There is no point in davening for someone to do the right thing or to make the right choices, because EVERYONE has free will. We can choose how we want to act and live. At the end of the day it is up to each individual person to choose if they are going to right or wrong. We choose whether we act according to the תורה or not. Even if משה would have davened for everyone else it would have not changed THEIR minds, only they could do that.

Have a Great Shabbos
Yoni Spigelman
With Help From: Rav Moshe Beigelman


      

פרשת בהעלותך

פרשת בהעלותך

ויהי בנסך הערנו ויאמר משה קומה ה׳ ויפוצו איבך וינסו משנאיך מפניך

When the Holy Ark would travel, משה would say, "Arise ה׳ and let Your foes be scattered. Let those who hate You flee from before You."

In this פסוק, Moshe Rabbeinu states, anyone who hates the Jews hates ה׳.

Rashi is bothered by this comparison, and asks, why is משה calling the enemies of Jews enemies of God? Can't it be that they really just are enemies of the Jewish people? רשי answers that anyone who hates ישראל hates ה׳. It seems that רשי is saying that the root of anti-Semitism is hatred of God.

This whole concept seems a little hard to grasp. Take a look through history. It seems that there are many nations who have hated the Jews but did not hate God. We see even today that there are nations who may believe in the "same God" but want to see all Jews destroyed.

One commonly used reason for anti-Semitism is... Jealousy. "The Jews have all the money", "The Jews own all the banks", "The Jews run Hollywood"... Sound familiar? Throughout history the Jews have been very "well off" in their financial situations, regardless of what country they were in. It was always  the Jews who became close advisers to the kings, always the Jews who were making the biggest strides in science, media, etc... The Jewish people have had an extraordinary influence on human progress. Interestingly, from 1901-1990 over 22% of Nobel Prize winners WORLDWIDE have been Jewish, and Jews don't even make up a quarter of the world's population.

This by itself would seem to be a logical reason for anti-Semitism. However there are even more!

Another cause is called the "Scapegoat Theory". In the past, in order to gain power or to distract people from their own suffering, a monarch would look to place the blame somewhere. Who better than the eternally despised Jews! By arousing the masses into Jew-hatred a person would easily be able to gain the power he needed.

Another theory for anti-Semitism is, "we killed their their God". This is a great reason to hate someone, I mean, that doesn't sound to friendly to me.

Finally there is the "chosen nation theory". This theory is one that is quoted the most often. We make no secret of the fact that we are ה׳'s chosen people. As clearly written in the תורה, the Jewish people have the most unique role amongst all the other nations. Our "job" is to serve as a light and a guide to the other nations. 

The truth is, there really is NO ANSWER FOR WHY PEOPLE HATE THE JEWS. This is what רשי is teaching us. Anti-Semitism can't be explained because it makes no sense!

The pattern that emerges is that there really IS NO logical reason for anti-Semitism until you focus on the real cause- the Jew represents  ה׳. WE ARE ה׳'S PEOPLE. When a Gentile looks at a Jew, he sees ה׳! And he may not always like what he sees!

This concept carries a huge lesson for us. We may forget our own holiness and the destiny that comes with being a Jew. The Gentiles however will always be there to remind us that we ARE different, and our role is unique. As is quoted from Rav Chaim Volozhin, "if the Jew doesn't make קידוש, the goy will make הבדלה".

If we recognize our greatness and live up to our title of the chosen people, we are then exalted, revered, and respected. When we fail to recognize our unique destiny and absorb the cultures of the times, then we are sent reminder after reminder of our role amongst the nations- ה׳'s chosen people.

Yoni Spigelman

Adapted From: The Shmuz on the Parsha- Rav Ben Tzion Shafier

שבואת

                We have finally arrived at one of the most important חגים of the year! That is the חג of שבואת. On this day we received the greatest “gift” (מתנה טובה) that we EVER have and will receive! This gift is the תורה.

                That being said, there is one question that has been bothering me about this. The question is; why is the תורה called (or considered) a gift? Wouldn’t it be better it was considered a payment or a “perk” for all of the work that it took us (Jews) to get to the highest level of קדושה?

                Here is an example of what I mean. A guy works in sales for a company. Being that he is a salesman he needs to drive around all day from prospective client to prospective client, day in and day out. Would his company make him drive his personal car for this? No, they would give him the company car. Now is this considered to be a gift? Again, no, it comes with the job, its part of the deal. So to here by the receiving of the תורה, the בני''י worked very hard to build themselves up to that 49^th level of קדושה. All of their hard work in מצרים and all the work they have done so far in the desert was building them up to receive the תורה. They “deserved" the bonus or “company car”

                There is an answer that I would like to suggest. There really is no amount of work a person can do that would ever earn them the תורה. The תורה really is something that ה' granted to His nation. The תורה is even more than just a gift. The Jewish people could not, and would not exist if we did not have the תורה. The real gift that we get is unlike ANY other nation; WE have the opportunity and the ability to live a REAL life of meaning and growth. We have the ability to gain real fulfillment and purpose in this world!

                There is a common reality in American society called the “midlife crisis”. A midlife crisis is when one day a guy, usually in his late 30’s or 40’s wakes up and realizes, “whoa where has all the time gone? I really have not done anything with my life!!”. So what does he do? He starts going golfing, buys a sports car, drinks more with his buddies, yeah… he’s living the life man!! The truth is, usually he is still not satisfied. It is all so meaningless.

                In TRUE Judaism, you won’t find this emptiness. We are always working on ourselves trying more and more to connect with ה' and the תורה. If you are constantly working on and bettering yourself, the truth is, you don’t have time to find that emptiness.

                It is my ברכה that we all have the strength to keep working on ourselves as Jews and as people so that we may one day is able to feel that we really have lived our lives to the fullest! And become the best we could be!

Have a Great Yom Tov

Yoni Spigelman

פרשת נשא

 דבר אל בני ישראל ואמרת אלהם איש איש...


Speak to the children of Israel and say to them, any man...

This week's פרשה speaks about the sin of סוטה. A סוטה is a woman who is suspected of being "disloyal" to her husband, was then brought to בית דין, where they tell her to drink a special formula of water; made of many different items including the שם ה׳. If she survives the drink then she is free to go, if she is guilty however she dies from the drink.

The פסוק above is the פסוק that talks about סוטה. However the פסוק is phrased strangely. It looks like there was an extra word added, it says איש twice. רשי asks why it is phrased this way? What is with the extra word? His answer is that it is because it is not that she is desecrating her earthly husband, she is also destroying her relationship with her "heavenly" husband. When a person gets married they are not only marrying their husbands, they are forming a new type of relationship with ה׳.

Here is another question to think about. What about when someone does another אבירה, like stealing from your friend, or anything like that. Doesn't that destroy their relationship with ה׳? (question of Rav Moshe Beigelman).

I believe there is a deep answer to this question. Any other אבירה that a person may do is a desacration of ה׳ but not in the same way. When you act out against your fellow man you are desecrating ה׳ because He doesn't want you to hurt your fellows. However by our case it is as if you are pushing ה׳ out of this world and out of your life. The action of זנות (the relations) is the complete opposite of קדושה, and if a person immerses themselves in this type of activity they are showing a complete lack of belief in ה׳ and don't care that they are pushing Him away.

Have a Great Shabbos

Yoni Spigelman

פרשת במדבר

משפחת בני קהת יתנו על ירך המשכן תימנה

The families of the Children of קהת would encamp on the side of the משכן, to the south.

                The idea I would like to bring out in this week’s דבר תורה is the idea of neighbors and friends, and how they affect us. In רשי based on פסוק כט says that יששכר and זבולון became great scholars in תורה because they lived in tents neighboring משה and אהרון and his sons. It also says that 250 men followed the ways of קורח (in his rebellion), followed him because they were his neighbors (based on a מדרש).

                It seems that the מדרש here is attributing both the success in תורה of יששכר and זבולון and the destruction of קורח’s followers to the influence of their neighbors.

                I believe that this brings out a BIG idea here, unfortunately/fortunately we see this all too often in modern society. Take a look around you and tell me what you see. Well I’ll tell you at least what I see (being that I live in Miami). When we go outside we see everybody out there has to be driving the fancy cars, with the fancy clothes, the expensive watches, and all of that kind of stuff. Why do people do these things? The answer is because that is what we are surrounded by in modern western society. Almost everyone is so worried about what their friends are going to think that they make decisions based on that. The same could be same for teens and starting to smoke and do drugs, they do it because the want to be cool and be able to be “down” with everyone else.

                However there is also a positive side to this. When we see people who work hard (whether it is in school or in תורה learning), we begin to say “hey I want to try to be like this guy, or those people. We want to show that we can fit in with these people too.

                Why is this? Why do we always need to prove ourselves? The answer seems to be, because human beings are SOCIAL BEINGS and are influenced by people around them. People need friendships, communities; we need to identify ourselves with a group. Our friends and neighbors affect our values, the way we view ourselves and our roles in all we do. However this can be dangerous as well as helpful…

                Because 250 men who rebelled lived in קורח’s vicinity, it became their community and who they identified with them. It created their social environment. The people were so inspired by קורח that they allowed themselves to be led to destruction. However the people who lived near משה and אהרון were affected by their influence. The group formed ideas and a way of life based on the תורה values given over by both of these תורה giants. It affected יששכר and זבולון for generations.

                Chazal are teaching us that the destruction of one group and greatness of the other was because of…. Peer pressure.

                The men who followed קורח were not stupid. We see that they were all great people who were singled out at the beginning of the פרשה, yet they were influenced to rebel against ה'. So to the men from יששכר and זבולון were smart people, yet they too were influenced by others and became great תורה leaders.

                All of this shows us that we need to be very careful with the people who we surround ourselves with, because they can literally make us or break us.

Have a Great Shabbos

Yoni Spigelman

Adapted From- The Shmuz on The Parsha- Rabbi Benzion Shafier

פרשת בחקתי

If you will do my decrees and, observe my commandments and perform them…

            This week’s פרשה starts off by telling us that if we follow (go) in ה'’s ways we will be זוכה to all the rewards in the upcoming פסוקים. רשי translates the phrases בחקתי תלכו as meaning אמילים בתורה, people who toil in תורה. Why are we describing studying תורה as studying the laws of חוקים? חוקים are not well known and have lots of hidden meanings, shouldn’t we be describing תורה by the מצות that we are able to understand?

            One answer to the questions above may be because we can work our entire lives studying the תורה and trying to figure out all the intricacies and secrets that are hidden and NEVER come close to understanding it fully.

            To clear this up I want to bring a “modern” example. Take ourselves. We live in this world, go to school, and do all the things that we do in our daily lives without even really thinking about it. To be honest most of us take these for granted. We ASSUME that when we wake up in the morning we are going to have breakfast in our cabinets. We ASSUME that when we go to school, we are going to have competent teachers (for the most part). There are all these things in our lives that we have gotten used to having. Let me ask you a question, where do all of these things come from? In short the answer is, we REALLY have no idea. We have no idea what it takes to make the cars that we drive, the roads that we drive on, even the food that we eat. But if we learn how to do some of these things, we take on planting a garden, we learn mechanics, we start to become more able to understand the things around us and how they run.

            This, I believe is similar to what the פסוק and the רשי are saying. In order to get the rewards that are in store for us we need to work to understand the תורה. We as Jewish people are never stagnant, we are either growing towards ה' or falling away. As long as we are working on finding these treasures we will be זוכה to live the lives that we were promised.

Have a Great Shabbos

Yoni Spigelman

פרשת בהר

This week’s פרשה speaks about the מצוה of observing the שמיטה (sabbatical) year. The שמיטה year is according to the תורה, every seventh year Jewish farmers need to halt production on their fields and vineyards and leave it bare for one year.

Just imagine, your boss comes up to you and tells you that he has noticed you are the hardest and most reliable worker in the company and he has chosen you to head up the company’s newest department. Obviously you would be ecstatic (as you should be, this position is giving you a giant pay raise and you have the ability to create it the way you want it). So you come to your first day of work and you begin to create it. You have to work really hard, work the long hours, and give up your free time in order to get it off the ground.

Fast forward a few years and you are doing great. Business is going extremely well, you are raking in the money and you are doing great work and putting out incredible products.

One day, your boss (the CEO) comes over to you at the annual meeting and says “I have decided that I want to test your loyalty to me and the rest of the company so I want you to shut down your branch for the next year, I mean I want it COMPLETELY CLOSED.” I don’t know about you, but I would not be too thrilled about it, but he is the boss so, what can you do.

A year later you come back to the office and find out that since you shut down business a year ago, not only is demand off the charts, but your boss gives you a raise for the sole reason of you trusting him.

This is exactly what happens to the Jews during שמיטה. ה' tells us that we need to stop production on our fields and let them lay barren the whole year. Now why would a God want us to do this? One answer that I can think of is that, ה' is not doing it for himself. He knows that if we work the land year in and year out like the goyim that somewhere down the line we are going to forget that he is the “CEO” and the land is NOT really ours and that everything is a gift from God. Without ה' we would have nothing, therefore ה' gives us this ability to remind ourselves every seven that he is the ultimate owner of everything and if we “follow his lead”, we will be successful whether it be in farming or in any aspect of life.

Have a Great Shabbos

Yoni Spigelman

פרשת אמור

... אמר אל הכהנים...

… Say to the Kohanim…

            Throughout the תורה we (the readers) see ה' talks to the משה who in turn relays the message to the בני ישראל, however in this week’s פרשה the לשון that He uses is a little strange. Instead of saying דבר, which is that way that ה' usually speaks to us, He says אמר. What is the reason for this? It seems that ה' is speaking to the כהנים in a “softer” tone than usual. WHAT IS THE DEAL?

            To answer this I will bring a “modern” example that we may see in our everyday lives. Take a career like construction (or any job for that matter). On One side we have the older more experienced workers. These are the guys who have been on the job for a few years; they have been around the block a few times and really know what they are expected to do. On the other side we have the new guys (the “Fresh Meat”). These kids arrive on the job-site with their brand new tools that have never been used, their new construction belts and most of the time DO NOT KNOW WHAT THEY ARE IN FOR. When the boss shows up he the more he goes to both groups and tells them what to do. The older guys listen to their specific job and are on their way. The new boys however have to be told “this is what I need you to do, at this specific time, with this tool, in this way” he needs to “impose his will” and maybe be a little harsher with them, because he needs to make sure that they are ready to not slack off and take responsibility for their work.

            Now, you may ask, how am I going to connect this fine little example to this week’s פרשה? Well, it goes a little something like this. We see that the כהנים are very similar to the older construction workers. They are on a much higher level than the rest of בני''י, and they already have accepted the many “regular” מצות. Therefore ה' doesn’t have to worry about all the specifics of the other מצות. That is why He is able to speak to them in that “softer” manner here.

Have a Great Shabbos

Yoni Spigelman