ראש השנה

ראש השנה

                 ראש השנהone of the most intense, scariest, and happiest times of the Jewish year.  It is during this time of the year where we are all judged, based on the things we have and done over the past year. As we all know if we are found to be a צדיק we are immediately written and sealed in the Book of Life. If we are found to be רשאים we are immediately written and sealed in the Book of Death. What about those of us who don’t really fit into either of those categories? Not all of us are great sages, and not all of us are evil people.  What happens to us?

                The גמרא in ראש השנה (ד' טז:, ע' ב) says that there is a third book which is left open until יום כיפור. This is called the Book of בינונים. When a person is written in ספר בינונים, they have ten days, the אשרת ימי תשובה to prove to ה' which Book they belong to. The גמרא says "זכו נכתבין לחיים לא זכו נכתבין למיתה" “If they merit life they are written for life, if they do not merit they are written for death. The רמב''ם translates the word זכו (Merits) to mean does “תשובה”. What does he mean by this? Wouldn’t it be just as good for the person to do a whole bunch of מצות in order to tip the scale in his favor?

                The answer to this question is a very meaningful one. What is the definition of a צדיק? Usually when we think of צדיקים as people with long white beards who sit and learn תורה all day, and we think, I can never be like that… We are being taught something different here. Yes, those people are definitely צדיקים, but it isn’t just because they sit and learn תורה all day, they are צדיקים because they define themselves as צדיקים. A צדיק is a person who defines himself by doing good in the eyes of ה', yes he may do עבירות sometimes, but those are accidents. They don’t make him who he is, therefore he is able to do תשובה for the wrong things that he may have done. A real רשה is the opposite. It is a person who is completely controlled by his want to do bad. He is so caught up in his evil ways that תשובה doesn’t even cross his mind. He doesn’t care. A בינוני is the middle ground. He is a person without a specific definition of himself. He does good things, and he does bad things, he doesn’t define himself as anything.

                זכו here means that we have the opportunity in the אשרת ימי תשובה to do תשובה and re-define ourselves for the next year. We get to make changes in ourselves, whether for the good or for the bad and make the choice whether we are going to be like צדיקים or רשאים.

                It is my ברכה that we all choose to make the good choices so that we can all live a happy, healthy, wealthy new year.

Have a כתיבה וכתימא טובה

Yoni Spigelman

                

פרשת נצבים וילך

פרשת נצבים וילך

...לא אוכל לצאת ולבוא...

… I am no longer able to go out and come in…

                This phrase at the beginning of the second portion of this week’s תורה reading is a very strange and interesting one. משה רבינו, the Jewish leader, tells בני ישראל that he is no longer going to be leading them, and that he will not be bringing them into ארץ ישראל. He says, “I am no longer ABLE…” The big question here is, what do you mean he was not able? The מפורשים say that משה was actually in great health, physically and mentally. He still had the ability to lead! If משה really wanted to, all he had to do was just walk in! What does he mean he is not ABLE to go in?

                רשי answers that, משה said this because he was unable to bring himself to go into the land against the will of ה'. משה could not bring himself to enter without ה'’s permission, even though he really could have. There is a strange thing that happens to us humans. Have you ever gotten so angry at someone all you wanted to do was slap them in the face? Now imagine that the person you want to hit is your father or mother. As angry as you may get, most of us realize that there is a line that we can’t cross. As much as we may want to hit them, as hurt, angry, or sad they have made us feel, we can’t physically bring ourselves to lift up our hands and hit them (which is a good thing by the way).

                משה realized this too. He knew that if he went into א"י it would be a major slap in the face to ה' his Father. For whatever reason ה' decided the משה was not allowed to go in to the land and for that reason משה physically could not make himself enter. He could not bring himself to “slap his father” in the face like that.

                This is a huge message that we should all keep in mind as we enter ראש השנה and יום כיפור. We need to learn from the strength of משה רבינו. There are so many times in our lives where we are tempted to go against the word of ה' and sin. We need to always remember that whenever we do this, it is a slap in the face of our creator. He created us to do good, and we are deliberately going the other way to do wrong by Him. When this happens, and these temptations come we need to say no, we need to lower that hand from His face and turn the other way.

Have Awesome Shabbos

Yoni Spigelman

פרשת כי תבוא

פרשת כי תבוא

ולקחת מראשית כל-פרי...

That you shall take the first of every fruit…

                The first מצוה that is talked about in this week’s פרשה is the מצוה of ביקורים (the bringing of the first fruits to the כהן as a tax to ה'). רשי points out that when a Jew brings the ביקורים, the need to do it בשמחה. We need to be happy when we are giving away the first of out fruits. 

                Now, this is an interesting idea. Not only do we need to give our hard work away but we need to be happy about it. It seems kind of strange. Why do we NEED to be happy? Another question is, why is this פרשה of being בשמחה during one of the scariest parts of the Jewish year? This is the time of year where the Jewish people as a whole and each individual is judged and written in either the Book of Life or the Book of Death. This period should be (and hopefully is) full of תשובה and fear. So why is there a פרשה talking about being happy?

                I believe that these two questions are connected. We need to realize that whenever we are judged by ה', it is His ULTIMATE KINDNESS.ה' created us, we are His servants. When a slave does something wrong the master doesn’t need to forgive him, he can punish him any way he wants. However when the master does forgive, and doesn’t punish the slave, that slave is eternally grateful. ה' is our master, not only that, He is the only master who knows everything that we do, everything we think, even everything we may do in the future. ה' could easily say, “well he is behaving badly, you know what, his time is up”, and guess what… Game over, that’s it. However, He doesn’t do this. Not only does He not do that, but ה' doesn’t even judge us with everything He knows about us. He judges only with what the מלחים bring against us. I would say that is pretty kind. Therefore as afraid as we are during this period we are also very happy.

                There is a similar situation when it comes to ביקורים. ה' controls our farming. He could very easily watch us do all of our hard work and toil away for nothing. We may pour our blood sweat and tears into our farms, and not grow any produce. However, ה' doesn’t do this. The only way we CAN bring ביקורים is if our produce grows. When it grows, we are בשמחה because we know that at least this year we have a way of making our money, and we have food to survive on. What do we have to pay for that? Basically nothing, all we need to do is bring the first fruits to the כהן.  We need to and even choose to do this because it is the small price that we need to pay for our success.

                אי''ה all of us will be able to be successful in our lives and be able to happily pay our small debt to ה' no matter what we do.

Have an Amazing Shabbos

Yoni Spigelman

פרשת כי תצה

In this week’s פרשה we are introduced to the מצוה of שלוח הקן, sending away the mother bird.  This is מצוה of shooing away the mother bird before taking away the eggs from the nest. What is the reason behind this מצוה? Why do we need to send the mother away?

The answer to this question is a מחלוקת between רמב"ם and the רמב"ן. The רמב"ם says, the reason for this מצוה is because, just like humans animals have feelings towards their children. Within every animal there is a certain amount of love that they have for their offspring. Therefore in order to not cause pain and suffering to the mother bird we send her away so that she does not have to see the eggs being taken. The רמב"ן gives a different answer. He says that it is all about psychology, if you are cruel to animals it may lead you to become cruel in regards to human beings.

We see this example very often (at least on CSI) by serial killers. What is one of the first questions they ask about the killer? They ask about his childhood. Did he ever have a traumatic experience etc… They also ask whether he ever used to experiment on animals and kill them. They ask this because they are trying to understand his psychology. When you hurt an animal it is only a step away from hurting humans.

The רמב''ן is telling us that this מצוה is for our wellbeing. It is for our protection. It is protecting us from ח''ו becoming desensitized to ה'’s creatures, and rationalizing the bad treatment of them. There is more than just that however. What the רמב''ן is really saying is even more than becoming desensitized, this מצוה is making us “sensitized” to all of ה'’s creations. Just like with the מצות of צדקה and חסד, we are not doing it because we want to. We don’t give צדקה because we feel bad for the poor guy. We aren’t doing חסד because we like the person we are doing it for. ה' is actually teaching us to act in His image. ה' is the ultimate definition of רחמנות, in all of these מצות we are being trained to be a person of רחם. ה' doesn’t need our help to take care of His children.

This is why we do the מצוה of שלוח הקן, when we learn how to treat even some of the smallest of ה'’s creatures with compassion, we will learn how to become a person of mercy.

Have an Awesome Shabbos

Yoni Spigelman

With Help From- Rav Moshe Beigelman and Rav Shaya Greenberg

פרשת שופטים

In this week’s פרשה the תורה tells us about the command ה' gave to בני''י of choosing a king over the nation. In פסוק טו it says "שום תשים עליך מלך...", “place upon yourself a king…”. The next פסוק warns that the king should not take too many of the worldly things; horses, wives, silver, etc…

                The Da’as Zikainim comes and explains that the reason that each one of these specific excesses is mentioned is because we want to be careful that the king will not even have the chance to become arrogant.

                This Da’as Zikainim is difficult to understand. The Jewish people were OBLIGATED to treat the king with great honor. In order for a king to be effective in leading his nation, he needs to be respected and honored. It doesn’t matter what your status in the nation is, from peasant to the richest man, from simpleton to the biggest Talmud Chacham, EVERYONE needed to treat the king, well, like a king. They needed to bow down to the full extent when he was near; whenever they entered his chambers they needed to stand for the entire duration of their meeting. The king wasn’t even allowed to stand up for anyone in public. If someone disobeys they king’s wishes, even if he asks them to leave the room, the king could have them killed.

                However, our king, the Jewish king is expected to be a humble person, and to remain humble. The Torah does not worry about him becoming arrogant because of all the situations I stated before. So, why is the Torah afraid that here, when it comes to wealth he will become arrogant. It seems to be saying that honor; the king is able to handle, but wealth? Forget it. Why?

                One possible answer comes from the understanding of the human being. When someone is honored because of a position they hold above someone it is natural for them to feel different and above others.  When someone feels that they are above the rest of the world they may begin to feel self-important, and may forget that everything they have is from ה'. However, all of that is something that man can fight by working on themselves. They can work on being humble and realizing that the only reason they have all that is honor is because ה'.

                Wealth on the other hand is very different.  Wealth brings a person to a much more dangerous sense of himself. It gives the person a sense of independence that he doesn’t need anyone else anymore. My wife, she didn’t do anything for me, I don’t need her. I don’t need my children; all they want is my money. I don’t even need ה', I have enough money to do whatever I want.

                This seems to answer the question of the Da’as Zikainim. Because of the sense of independence is a natural outgrowth of wealth and power, the Torah warns a king of Israel not to amass to much of it. However great of a man he is, however he is able to keep his ego in check when it comes to honor, with wealth it is different. Even a man as great as the king of Israel is, wealth can destroy him.

                This is a great lesson to all of us. Whether we are considered wealthy or not, we are blessed with living in the 21^st century. We have wealth nowadays that cannot even compare with the wealthiest people in previous generations. We need to remember that everything we have comes from ה', and that ה' has a reason for giving us what we have. WE COULD NOT DO IT WITHOUT HIM. We need to be humble and remember where we come from.

Have an Amazing Shabbos

Yoni Spigelman

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

פרשת מטות

פרשת מטות

            In this week's Parsha the Children of Reuven and of Gad wanted to stay in the land outside of Eretz Yisroel. The reason for this was because the land that was outside was better for them to feed their cattle on. They approached Moshe and said “pens for our flock shall we build here for our flocks and for our small children”. A few pasukim later Moshe agrees to let them live there and says to them “The land will be for your small children and for your cattle”. Rashi says that when the children of Reuven and Gad originally came to Moshe to ask about the land they were wrong about the order.

            This looks pretty bad on their part. Can it be that they cared more about the money than they did of their children?

            Honestly I don’t believe that. Let's try to look at this in a positive way. The parents who went to talk to Moshe were not just worried about the money. Of course they care about their families, but in order to be able to take care of them, they needed to be able to make the money for them. However, over here, that was a mistake. They wanted this land in order to set up a living for themselves so that they could provide for their families.

By Moshe flipping around the order, he was telling them “even though you may have your priorities correct, right now, you need to be more concerned for your family. You need to build up the land for your families first and then, when you are finished with that, you can set up your business.

            We should all keep this in mind during this period of the three weeks. As much as we need to work in order to make money and provide for our families. We also need to work on caring for our families as a nation. Hopefully with our work we will be able to bring the geula soon!

Have an Amazing Shabbos

Yoni Spigelman

פרשת פינחס

בס''ד

והיתה לו ולזרעו אחריו ברית כהנת עולם...

And it shall be onto him, his children, and to his grandchildren a covenant of an everlasting priesthood…

            In this week’s Parsha, Pinchas kills Zimri and Cuspi. When he did this a vicious plague that was wiping out Bnai Yisroel was halted and things went back to normal. One of the rewards of Pinchas’s actions led to his receiving the Kahuna. The question is, why did Pinchas need to “earn” the Kahuna? Wasn’t he the son of Elazar HaKohen? And the grandson of Aharon HaKohen!

            Rashi answers, that the reason is because by the time Aharon was given the kahuna, Pinchas was already born, therefore, he was not included in it.

            There is another answer I would like to suggest. Aharon was one of the biggest tzadikkim the world has ever known. He was also the world’s biggest Rodef Shalom. He would do anything to keep the peace. Unfortunately, this personality of wanting to keep peace caused him to make a mistake. During the time of the Egel Hazahav, the nation came and asked him if they could do it. His answer was, “If I say yes, they will kill me, but if I say no I may be able to make peace with them and make sure that they don’t do it”. Unfortunately they listened to him, and they did the sin.

            This was not the way Pinchas thought. Pinchas knew that sometimes in order to get to peace, there needs to be war. Look at what happened in World War Two, the American’s didn’t want to join because they wanted to “keep the peace”. However, the peace didn’t come until they helped to defeat the Nazi’s.

            By killing Zimri and Cuspi, Pinchas was able to stop the plague, and quell Hashem’s anger towards the Jews. He knew that sometimes it is appropriate to fight to defend the name of Hashem.

Have a Great Shabbos

Yoni Spigelman

Adapted from: Rabbi Shimon Schwabb and Moshe Hammelman