פרשת תולדוס

פרשת תולדוס

'And Yitzchok said about his wife, "She is my sister"' (*Bereishis 26.7)

               There are two types of love between two people. The first is that which one has for someone from whom he receives some enjoyment or other favor. The love comes because this person is of good character and acts towards him based on that. The love that he has is based on this good character.  This is the love that a man normally has for his wife because he has enjoyment from her.  In order for there to be this type of love there has to be a secession of this enjoyment, for if it was continual, he would have no enjoyment from it. (As *Chazal say, an enjoyment that is continual is not really enjoyment.)

               There is another type of love, which is that of a brother for a sister. He loves her for herself and not because any type of enjoyment she gives him. In this love there is no secession. If she would also have good *midos, he would have enjoyment from these midos also [but they are secondary to his love of her.] From this we see that his love is greater then the enjoyment he has from her since from his love comes his enjoyment [and not vis versa].

               In the first type of love, however, this is not the case. The enjoyment is greater then the love since the love comes from the enjoyment that she brings him. And this is why Yitzchok said about his wife 'She is my sister', since that was the level his love for her was on. (p. 108 Toras HaMaggid teachings of the *Rebbe Reb Ber, the *Maggid of Mizretch)

Have an Awesome Shabbos

Yoni Spigelman

פרשת חיי שרה

פרשת חיי שרה

ואשאל אתה ואמר בת מי את ותאמר בת בתואל בן נחור אשר ילדה לו מלכה ואשם הנזם על אפה והצמידים על אפה ידיה:

“And I asked her and said: ‘who is your father?’ and she said, ‘I am the daughter of Bisuel…’ and I placed a bracelet on her hands.

                In this week’s parsha, Eliezer, Avraham’s faithful servant was sent on a very important mission. He was sent away to find a wife for Avraham’s son, Yitzchak. Before he left on this journey Avraham stressed that when he goes he needs to find a girl from his family, from his father’s house. Eliezer, a little overwhelmed asked Hashem for a sign to help him make the right choice. He asked that Hashem should send a girl that offers him and his camels something to drink from the well. That would be the sign that the girl is the one Hashem chose for Yitchak.

                No sooner did he say those words Rivka appeared and “passed the test”. Eliezer was so sure that she was the right girl that he gave her the symbolic bracelets that engaged her to Yitzchak. He then asked who she was, and found out that indeed she was from the house of Avraham.

                When Eliezer went to meet Lavan and Bisuel (her father and brother), something interesting happens. He tells the story almost exactly how it happened, he just mixes a few things up, he changed the order of how it happened. He said, “first I asked her name and then I gave her the bracelets”.

                Rashi explains that this was because he was afraid that Lavan would never believe it if he said the way it really happened. He would assume that Eliezer was lying. Therefore he changed the order.

                Well this is really strange, because moments before Eliezer was telling Lavan how God had shortened the way for him in order to get to Charan faster. Obviously Lavan didn’t have a hard time believing in miracles, so why over here was Eliezer afraid. It must have been that Lavan had a problem in the idea of trust itself.

                We see throughout the next few weeks that Lavan lived a very selfish and untrustworthy life. He believed that since nobody could trust him, that he could not trust anyone. He assumed he was too smart to trust, anyone with a brain would not be stupid enough to trust. Therefore he could never accept that someone would let his guard down and actually trust. Therefore Eliezer was afraid to mention his complete trust in Hashem, he knew Lavan wouldn’t believe him and assume he was lying.

                This is a very important message for our personal relationships and our relationship with God. Lavan looked at life as always trying to outdo the other person, and making sure that whatever they can do to me I do to them first. He never “believed in people”. Even the nicest actions of a person would be translated into a hidden agenda. When we deal with other people, we need not to think like that. We need to realize that there are good people who are interested just in helping and doing the right thing. We need to know that even though we don’t know why things happen, God knows what he is doing. Simply we need to trust…

Have an Awesome Shabbos

Yoni Spigelman

Adapted From the Shmuz