YWN Coffee Room Nightly D’Var Torah

An oldie but a goodie..

When the benei yisrael travelled, the mishkan was not re-assembled in the same place that it was dismantled.

Nevertheless there is an opinion in shabbos 31 that with regards to the melacha of soser (destroying a building), you are only chayav if it is soser al menos livnos bimekomo – you will rebuild the building in the same place.

Seeing as we learn the 39 melachos from the mishkan – and seeing that reagrding the mishkan, the structure was not rebuilt in the same place – how could this be a limitation in the melacha?

The answer is that seeing as the benei yisroel travelled with the shechina – they were always ‘in the same place’ – next to the shechina. Their physical location was inconsequential to them compared to their closeness to Hashem.

It just occurred to me to add the following:

We can now explain a well known portion of Tehilim (with a twist).

Here is a link to another thread with divrei torah on Ki Seitzei.

http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/%d7%a4%d7%a8%d7%a9%d7%aa-%d7%94%d7%a9%d7%91%d7%95%d7%a2#post-295551

My 6 yr old son told me a cute pshat in shofar during a Rosh Hashana seuda, one that I never heard before.

The Soton knows that when Moshiach comes, the great shofar will sound, and Hashem will ??? the Soton for good. So when it is Rosh Hashana, Hashem in His everlasting rachamim, commanded us to blow the shofar, this way the Soton shudders and runs and hides (thinking that perhaps Moshiach arrived), and now when Hashem sits to judge the soton is not around to prosecute!

maybe he does….

when someone pulls a trigger, even if you know that there are only blanks in the gun, there is still a natural tendency to cringe. no matter how many times it’s done. pshat is, that when someone’s life is on the line, you cringe/hide/shidder.

There was once a person who approached someone who raised turkeys and wished to purchase one. He agreed to sell him, but in 3 months time. After the time was up he purchased the nice large turkey, and the farmer pointed out, “remember the small turkeys 3 months ago? Look how nice and fat they are!”

The person said, “In all honesty they are really nice and big, but I was surprised at the amount of time. I mean 1-2 weeks okay, 3 weeks maybe, but what in the world takes 3 months??”

The farmer chuckled and with a wave of the hand said, “Mine aren’t raised like all the other turkeys you’ll find. Mine are the very best, the juciest, and delicious tasting turkeys. the other farmers out there just stuff the turkey with food for 2-3 weeks straight, and inject them with growth hormones etc. The way I raise them, is much differently! I starve them for 2 weeks, then stuff them for 2 weeks then starve them for 2 weeks and stuff them for 2 weeks. By the third month they have such an appetite, i let them eat themselves, and they eat so much, i don’t have to inject them or overstuff them, they do it themselves, and now are the most fattest and juciest turkeys.

The Nimshal

A person’s heart breaks on Y”K and he does teshuva for all the sins he committed, and promises never to do it again. The Yeitzer Hara says, great! let him starve for 2 weeks. Then about a couple of weeks after Sukkos, he goes back to his bad ways. Next Y”K comes and he starves himself. Eat Starve Eat Starve Eat Starve…..you see where this is going..

After 120 years we will get to the Bais Din shel maalah, they will find you to be the juciest turkey, steeped in cheit, and worse then we can ever imagine!

when one does teshuva you have to realize it is a loooong process and is imperative to erase all delights and pleasurable feelings from cheit from one’s heart so that we NEVER go back to the old ways. Otherwise we become one big fat turkey in the hands of the Yeitzer Hara to feast on.

see:

http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/yom-kippur-thoughts#post-407763

I think you can learn a mussar vort from the blackening of the aravos.

We see that someone without taste or smell (chochmah or yiras shomayim) as soon as he is cut off from the tree of life and not kept in water (Torah) he withers away.

Also the elongated aravos represent the mouth when it is closed the way it should be.

Also I was wondering how someone could have Torah and not maasim tovim or the reverse(???? ??????) if the Mishnah in Avos says “?? ??? ???? ??? ???? ??? ??? ???? ??? ????’

Here is a mix from my Rav, Guest speaker & Rebbe:

There are 2-4 mitzvos which you can do with your whole body: Succah, Yeshuv Eretz Yisroel (My Rav added Mikvah & Bias Bais Hamikdash because he is chassidish & these arent actually mitzvos but its the way to get to it-hechsher). The lowest part of the body is the foot. The malbish (ornament) of the foot is the shoes. One is not all allowed to wear shoes in the BH”M. The question is: how can you wear shoes in the succah if it’s on the same level of the BH”M, is the succah more kodesh? The answer is in a way it is. Hashem wants us to be m’taher the whole guf!

The gemara says: “Usid HB”H lasos machul (circle) l’tzadikim”. Why a circle? Because in a circle, nobody is ahead of each other, we’re all together as 1 unit (achdus). So there is no greater way of showing this greatness than by dancing with your feet which have shoes on them in a circle on Simchas Torah!!!

May we have this in mind during hakafos & at other simchos as well & serve Hashem with kol gufo! Gut Shabbos & Moed!

The Rambam in Hilchos Ishus Perek ?? Halacha ? discusses one who is so attached to the Torah like Ben Azzai that he is patur from getting married and having children. The Rambam says that if his Yetzer harah is overcoming him causing him to be attracted to women he must get married to subdue his desires. I considered this amazing that someone at such a madreigah can still have such problems. This is a chizuk to those who have done aveiros and feel that this makes them “nobodies”

P.S. Note even the Vilna Gaon got married.

P.S.S. I thought that love of Torah and physical desires contradict each other?

P.S.S. Note even Moshe Rabeinu got married and only separated because of his prophetic status.

Only koihanim are not allowed to wear shoes in beis hamikdosh when they do avoida. A regular person may.

Why on earth is the story of Avrom being thrown into the furnace by Nimrod, NOT in the parsha, whereas the test of Lech Lecha (a seemingly LESS of a nisayon) IS in the parsha?

So I heard from Rabbi Wallerstein (Torah Anytime.com) that the explanation is lke this. The torah is not a history book, to tell us stories stam azoy. If a story is brought down in the torah it is to teach us something, and if a story is NOT brought down it is because Hashem didn’t want it in the torah.

Pshat here can be explained via a beautiful phrase:

It is easier to GIVE UP one’s life ‘al kiddush Hashem’ then for one to LIVE ‘al kiddush Hashem’.

To die ‘al kiddush Hashem’ is a tremendous act of bravery, courage, and strenghth. However it is all over in 1 minute. Once the person is dead, the game is over. That’s all nice, no doubt, and he will get Olam Habbah for that. But Hashem is not interested in putting the whole episode of Uhr Kassdim in His torah JUST to teach us that yeharog v’al ya’avor for Avodah Zora. What Hashem IS interested in, is the ‘lech lecha me’artzecha’, the ‘U’mibeis avicha’, the daily struggles of LIVING al kiddush Hashem. THAT’S what is special in Hashem’s eyes! The davening 3 tefillos EVERY SINGLE DAY with minyon, the wearing tzniyosdik clothing- even on a hot summer’s day, the setting aside time every day for your daily shiur or chavrusa, the times we stop ourselves from speaking L”H, or taking revenge. It is the LIVING ‘al kuddush Hashem’, that takes center stage in the torah. And that’s the lesson of Lech Lecha.

Yasher koach, JayMatt19!! Very much appreciated, and if anybody else has a nice vort on the parsha, please feel free to share your thoughts here, we would be delighted to read them.

Parshas VaYeitzei

here’s a nice vort by Rabbi Frand from torah.org

Where did this Tzadik, Yaakov, go after he left Beer Sheva? Our Sages say that he went to study for 14 years in the Yeshiva of Shem and Ever. This is a strange thing. Until now, Yaakov has also been sitting and learning. Now it is time to go — time to go into exile. So what does he do? He goes and sits and learns literally day and night for another 14 years!

Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky says that Yaakov had something to learn, and that is why he had to go to the Yeshiva of Shem and Ever. We all know that the holy patriarchs had their own schools of learning. The Talmud [Yoma 28b] says that our patriarchs constantly had their own Yeshivas. But, nevertheless Yaakov had something specific to gain from the Yeshiva of Shem and Ever. What was it?

Shem was the one who withstood the Generation of the Flood. He had a “special Torah” to teach — the Torah of how to exist in a hostile society, one filled with theft and immorality and corruption. Ever was the one who withstood the heresy of the Generation of the Dispersion (at the Tower of Babel). He, too, had a special Torah to teach.

So now, when Yaakov knew that he was going into Exile, to live with the deceitful Lavan, he had to learn a “different Torah” than he had learned with his father and his grandfather. He had to learn how a Jew survives in Exile, outside the Land of Israel. That is why he had to go to the Yeshiva of Shem and Ever.

Rash”i cites that all that Yaakov learned in the Yeshiva of Shem and Ever he gave over to Yosef. It was this Torah of how a Jew exists in a hostile society, that Yaakov had to give to Yosef, specifically. For Yosef also went down to a hostile environment (Egypt). He, too, needed this “special Torah.”

The pasuk says that Yosef told his father the bad things that his brothers were doing. One of the examples that Rashi gives is that he claimed that the brothers were eating ??? ?? ??? (a limb torn off from a live animal) which is one of the seven mitzvos bnei noach. The question is why were the brothers doing this?

The Sifsei Chachamim brings an answer that they would remove a piece of meat from the animal after it was shechted, but still moving. This Yosef misunderstood as ??? ?? ??? because he didn’t see the shechitah.

My problem with this is that how could Yosef accuse his brothers of this aveirah without truly investigating the situation?

I heard an explanation that this machlokes was based on a fundamental question whether the Avos and the Sh’vatim were jews or bnei noach. The brothers held that they were jews and for a jew once an animal is shechted it is considered dead but Yosef was of the belief that they were all bnei noach for which the gemara and poskim say that shechitah plays no roll and death of an animal is when it has stopped moving. We see Yosef’s shitah at the incident with Aishes Potifar where Yosef says “?????? ???????.” Rashi notes that this is because even bnei Noach are assur in ?????. We see that acc. to Rashi, Yosef’f shitah was that he was a ben noach.

With this idea I would like to explain more about the debate between Yosef and his brothers.

As explained before, one of the Mitzvos Bnei Noach is Arayos. However, it is muttar for a non-jew to marry two sisters. This particular Ervah isn’t included in the mitzvah for bnei noach. According to Yosef, the talmid muvhak of Yakov, it was permitted for his father to marry both Rachel and Leah. However, acc. to his brothers the marriage to Rachel, the second sister, was Assur and invalid thereby making Yosef a mamzer.

Also, according to the other Sh’vatim the children of Bilha and Zilpa were ?????. This is because when a jew(Yakov) marries a non-jew or shifchah the status of the child follows its mother. Yosef however held that since they were all Bnei Noach and there was no such thing as Kiddushin the child therefore follows the father (according to the rules of lineage explained in Kiddushin daf :??). Therefore, Yosef befriended them since they were children of Yakov, but the other brothers considered them avadim and Yosef to be a mamzer.

Wisey – Wondering how your dvar torah went. It definitely was a chiddush IMHO to suggest the brothers considered Yosef to be a mamzer- never saw that one brought down anywhere. Interesting theory though.

Anyone have a nice vort on Chanukah?

That is a gemara in megilla 14a. There are other explanations there as well. Interesting that the Rambam says that the reading of the megilla is the hallel, like another explanation in the gemara. Even more interesting is that based on that, the Meiri says that if one does not have a megilla he should recite hallel. We do not pasken like that.

I was looking at the Sifsei Chaim on Moadim (Chelek Beis) today, and I saw a vort which I’d like to share.

The following was quoted in the name of the Ponovicher Rov.

Why do we give “Chanukah Gelt”? Where does this Minhag come from?

After the Greeks were defeated, we were now able to resume Torah study. But how do you get children to study torah, especially after not have learned Torah for such time? How do you instill within them a desire to learn and show them the sweetness of Torah?

How did they do it? The bribed them with small amounts of money.

The Gra, quoting pirkei avos ???? ??? ???? ?? ????. Money was given to the children who learned, helping them develop a sweetness for Torah. Afterall, they were getting money for it!

Therefore the Chanukah Gelt is a remembrance of the money given to the children in an effort to get them to view learning Torah in a positive light.

@longarekel

You might not be sure that is how it was done 2200 years ago, but the Ponovicher Rov, as well as the Sifsei Chaim were, and therefore said the pshat and quoted the pshat.

Nice backhanded way of arguing on it, btw.

As for how I know that midrashim predate the gemarra, Midrashim are from tanaiim, The gem area was closed at the end of the amoraim period, generations later. The gemarra even discusses Midrashim and who authored them

????? ???? ???? ??????? ?? ??/?:

“??? ??? ????? ??? ??????? ??? ???? ??? ?????? ??? ????? ??? ???? ??? ????? ??? ???? ??? ????? ?????? ????? ???? ?????”.

I may have heard this from someone a long time ago but i think I just thought of it. The neiros of chanukah represent the ongoing attempts of the goyim to seperate us from our torah. Eventhough they are successful with many people, there is always a single “jug of oil” the members of klal yisroel that continue the transmission of torah. The neis is that eventhough this mesorah should have been extinguished long ago, the fickering ?? ????? lasts forever, until the arrival of new oil ????? ??????.

P.S. I’m curious if anyone knows a source for this.

Baal Habooze- I think it went well.

I left out one part in the previous vort. There is another “high” similarity between the two.

what happend to this thread??? i used to really enjoy it!!!

Midrashim bring down a pshat that the Arbeh would blind the Mitzriyim by shooting off stingers into their eyes. Others say that they literally ate and fed off the faces of the Mitzriyim (cooooooool!!!!). This shtims well with the Yalkut Reuveini who says the Arbeh had teeth that were an amoh and a half long!

You’re welcome, AbeF! Here’s for Beshalach:

Good Shabbos!

L’chaim yidden, l’chaim!

As usual a gr8 vort, BH. BH for BH! He keeps us full of torah!

Can I ask you to please always mention the actual parsha instead of only saying “in this weeks parsha” so that when I look thru the thread I know what parsha you are saying the vort on. Thanx

Parshas Mishpotim

Mechasheyfa Lo Sichayeh (22:17), A Witch shall not live.

And now you know what to do.?

(I think everyone will sleep better this shabbos knowing this vort! lol!!)

???