Hamaayan / The Torah Spring Edited by Shlomo Katz Toldot Volume 21, No. 6 4 Kislev 5767 November 25, 2006 Sponsored by the Marwick family in memory of Samuel Sklaroff a"h Robert and Hannah Klein on the yahrzeit of his mother Devorah bat Avraham a"h (Dorothy Jacobs Klein) Today's Learning: Ketubot 11:5-6 O.C. 671:7-672:1 Daf Yomi (Bavli): Beitzah 29 Daf Yomi (Yerushalmi): Shabbat 23 This week's parashah focuses on the life of our Patriarch Yitzchak. Like his father Avraham, Yitzchak experienced a famine. Unlike his father, Yitzchak was not permitted to leave Eretz Yisrael to avoid the famine. G-d told him (26:2-3), "Do not descend to Egypt; dwell in the land that I shall indicate to you. Sojourn in this land and I will be with you and bless you; for to you and your offspring I will give all these lands, and establish the oath that I swore to Avraham your father." Our Sages explain that Yitzchak had been set aside as a korban olah / burnt offering to Hashem. Just as no part of a korban olah may leave the Temple grounds, so Yitzchak could not leave Eretz Yisrael. Hashem said in the quoted verse, "To you and your offspring I will give all these lands, and establish the oath that I swore to Avraham your father." R' Zvi Yehuda Kook z"l (1891-1982; rosh yeshiva of Yeshivat Merkaz Harav in Yerushalayim) notes that Yitzchak was promised not only that his descendants would inherit the land but also that this was the fulfillment of the oath that Hashem had made to Avraham. Yitzchak was the chosen one. R' Kook notes further: Hashem said, "To you and your offspring I will give all these lands [i.e., plural]." Why not, "To you and your offspring I will give this land [i.e., singular]." This, R' Kook, explains alludes to the incredible variety of climates and sceneries that Eretz Yisrael offers. Virtually any setting that one could desire and find in another land, he could find in Eretz Yisrael as well. (Sichot Harav Zvi Yehuda) ******** "Might shall pass from one regime to the other." (Bereishit 25:23) Rashi z"l comments (based on Megillah 6a): "They will never be equally great at the same time; when one rises the other will fall. Thus it says, (Yechezkel 26:2) `Because Tyre says about Yerushalayim, "I shall be filled with her that is laid waste"'--Tyre became full only through the ruin of Jerusalem." [In other words, when Yisrael rises, it enemies must necessarily fall, and, G-d forbid, vice-versa.] R' Chaim Vital writes: The same phenomenon exists with respect to all forces of purity and impurity. They cannot coexist. This is why a person who refrains from transgressing a negative commandment--for example, not stealing, murdering or committing adultery--is rewarded as if he had performed an affirmative commandment. Any time one avoids forces of impurity, he is allowing forces of purity to enter his soul. Accordingly, R' Vital writes, whenever one performs a mitzvah, he should have in mind that he is purifying whichever of his 248 aivarim (limbs and organs) corresponds to that one of the 248 affirmative commandments. Likewise, when one refrains from committing one of the 365 negative commandments, he should have in mind that he is purifying whichever of his 365 gidim (tendons, nerves or muscles) corresponds to that sin. In this way, his soul will become a throne for the Shechinah, just as the Patriarchs are said to be Hashem's chariot. (Sha'arei Kedushah 1:1) ******** From the Haftarah . . . "The prophetic burden of the word of Hashem, through Malachi." (Malachi 1:1) R' Yitzchak Adribi z"l (Tzfat, Eretz Yisrael; died 1580) writes: One's actions may be attributed to one of three causes. Some people act for no reason at all. Such people lack intelligence and we have no need to talk about them. Other people act because the action they are taking will lead to their material or spiritual growth and improvement. Much human activity is of this type. Finally, an action can be taken by one who is already perfect and whose sole interest is to benefit others. Hashem's actions are, of course, all of the third type. Since He is perfect, he has no reason to do anything except to share of His goodness with His creations. Even creating the world was an act of pure altruism. The Torah commands (Devarim 28:9), "You shall go in His ways." But how can we act purely altruistically? The answer, writes R' Adribi, is found in a midrashic comment on our verse (among others). Midrash Rabbah states: Rabbi Yitzchak said, "Everything that the prophets in each generation were destined to say, they received at Har Sinai. Thus Moshe said to Bnei Yisrael (Devarim 29:13-14), `Not with you alone do I seal this covenant and this curse; but with whoever is here, standing with us today before Hashem, our G-d, and with whoever is not here with us today.' Note that Moshe did not say `whoever is not here standing with us' as he did about those who were present. That is because the covenant was made with the souls of those who were not yet born, and they, of course, were not physically standing there. This is why our verse says, "The prophetic burden of the word of Hashem, through Malachi." It does not say, "in the days of Malachi," but only "through Malachi" because the prophecy was conveyed to Malachi's soul at Sinai, not in the actual lifetime of Malachi. [The midrash then demonstrates that the same is true of the prophet Yishayah. The midrash continues:] Likewise, any novel Torah interpretation that a person `discovers' actually was taught to him at Sinai." It turns out, writes R' Adribi, that with regard to one's Torah knowledge and his performance of mitzvot he is already complete, for his potential to exercise his intellect and perform good deeds is already within him. Man's task is merely to lift the curtain which separates between his intellect and his deeds. It follows that one's study of Torah and performance of mitzvot should not be viewed as acts that lead a person to growth and improvement. Rather, they should be viewed as the altruistic act of a complete being which bring goodness to the rest of the world, for if not for the study of Torah and performance of mitzvot, the world could not exist. (Divrei Shalom: Drush Rishon) ******** Diaries R' Yaakov Emden (1697-1776) is well-known for his notes on the Talmud, his halachic writings, and his siddur commentary. One of his lesser known works is his autobiography, Megilat Sefer, from which we present an excerpt this week. In this excerpt, R' Emden describes his grandparents' experience during the Chmielnicki massacres of 1648-49. This is what happened to my grandfather [and namesake] R' Yaakov z"l, who was then a young man. In the hurry to escape for their lives "from before the sword of the oppressor" [quoting Yirmiyah 46:16], he became separated from his brothers and his young wife. She was left with her father, who had fled to another country with his own son and wife. Those murderers, who had already killed many and uprooted numerous Jewish communities, leaving nothing behind, encountered my grandfather. They had killed innocent tzaddikim, loyal to G-d, by the thousands and myriads. When they met this tzaddik [R' Yaakov], the jailer ordered him to kneel down and be beheaded. And so he did; he stretched out his neck to be slaughtered and he accepted upon himself the fate of death for the sanctification of G-d's Name. While he was yet on his knees and his soul had almost left him, "Behold! an angel of G-d was touching him" [quoting Melachim I 19:5], for Hashem had put mercy into the heart of the oppressor who was oppressing him, and he had pity on R' Yaakov due to R' Yaakov's youth. Accordingly, rather than cutting him with the sharp side of the blade, the executioner merely pushed him aside in a degrading way with the blunt edge and said to him, "Get up, young dog! Get out of here!" Thus Hashem saved him from the sword of the wicked one in a most wondrous manner, and it was a great miracle. Thereafter, he hid amongst the corpses and passers-by did not detect that he was alive. . . Meanwhile, other Jews who were hiding at some distance saw how my grandfather had knelt on the ground in front of the executioner. They assumed that he had already been decapitated since they saw the sword placed on his neck, especially when they saw him fall to the ground. They did not know that he had been pushed, but not killed. Therefore, when these people escaped from the oppressor through the kindness of Hashem and they came to the safety and peace of Trebi..., Moravia, home of the sage, the author of Sha'ar Ephraim [father-in-law of R' Yaakov], they said, "Yaakov has died! We saw with our own eyes that he knelt down and was decapitated." This is what these refuges said--kosher individuals speaking innocently. They testified about that which they had not seen correctly and, based upon their words, the famous sage of that generation, R' Yehoshua Heschel [of Krakow; died 1663], permitted R' Yaakov's wife, Nechama, to remarry. It was a simple straightforward ruling in accordance with the law of the Torah that the testimony of two eyewitnesses is acceptable. However, R' Yaakov's wife, despite her youth, refused to be consoled for one who was still living, the husband of her youth. . . Half-a-year later, the deceased arrived under his own power ("ba he'harug be'raglav"), and it was a wonder in Yisrael. From that time onward, the aforementioned sage [R' Yehoshua Heschel] was unwilling to rule that another agunah in that generation could remarry, saying that in those confused times, even two "eyewitnesses" could not be relied upon.