- Contact Us
- Home
- About Us
- Media
- Tours
- Support Us
Parshat Nitzavim-Vayelech
By: Rabbi Moshe Goodman, Kollel Ohr Shlomo, Hebron
בס"ד
לשכנו תדרשו
Seeking the Holy Presence in Our Holy Land
"אתם ניצבים היום כולכם... לעברך בברית ה'"
"And so should Your Name HaShem our God be sanctified upon Israel Your people..." (Amida of Yomim Noraim)
One of the important messages of Hebron, City of the Patriarchs, is that because HaShem made a covenant with such holy and lofty figures, our Patriarchs and Matriarchs, to be the forerunners of His people, therefore their descendants, us included, continue their ingrained attributes of holiness, awakening each and every one of us to our great and holy potential.
Indeed, this message of Hebron, 'the key to Jerusalem' (as explained in previous issues), is taken into practice in Jerusalem in the mitzvah of Hakhel, mentioned in this week's parsha, in which the entire people are to unite around the reading of the Torah, as in a re-awakening to this covenant, at the culmination of the holy year of the Land - Shmita year. It seems that throughout Shmita year, 'the Sabbath of the Land - the Sabbath of HaShem', the people at large are raised to an accentuated awareness to the Holy Presence in our Land, and this gives meaning to the Torah's command to strengthen the people specifically at the culmination of this year as 'one is to strengthen only those who are originally strengthened' (Psikta Naso 85b).
In this way the holiness of the Land at large in Shmita year is linked to the holiness of Jerusalem and the Bais HaMikdash to which the people ascend at the end of this year for the Hakhel ceremony. The Land at large is clearly connected to Hebron according to the Zohar which determines: "at that time (the 'end of days') the three Patriarchs will adjoin with might, and Truah, Shvarim, Tkiah will be formed, and with them the 'the earth shall shake', and this will be in the 'end of days', and all these miracles will be in the Land of Israel, for located there is Hebron where the Patriarchs are buried." (Tikunei Zohar 13, 28b)
"You all stand upright before HaShem Your God" (title quote) - "'standing upright' refers to the Holy Presence as it says 'and HaShem stood upright and called' (Sam. I 3, 10) (Sotah 11a)" - "to enter the covenant of HaShem" - "one is obligated to mention the covenant [in context of the blessing upon the Land] (in Birkas HaMazon)". This covenant made with our Patriarchs of Hebron, roots of our People to the Holy Land, and thereby with us their descendants, ultimately awakens us, with the call of the shofar, Tkiah - Avraham, Shvarim - Yitzhak, Truah - Yakov, to return to the homeland of our souls, and ultimately to the Land of the Holy Presence.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Real Stories from the Holy Land #88:
"On my way to Hebron, I was waiting for the mini-van designated by the Jewish Community of Hebron to take me to my destination. However, meanwhile one person stopped especially for me even though I made no sign to seek a ride. In appreciation of this kind overture I felt I should not refuse even though I planned to take the designated ride straight to my destination. Afterwards I inquired why it seemed that the mini-van was late - it 'turns out' that the mini-van took an alternate route than usual that day and couldn't have taken me anyway..." (M.A)
Sources: Rambam Hagiga 3, Tikunei Zohar 13, 28b
.
Parshat Ki Tavo
By: Rabbi Moshe Goodman, Kollel Ohr Shlomo, Hebron
בס"ד
לשכנו תדרשו
Seeking the Holy Presence in Our Holy Land
"כי תכלה לעשר... בשנה השלישית... וענית ואמרת... ביערתי הקדש מן הבית"
"Look down from Your holy dwelling, from the heavens, and bless Your people Israel, and the ground which You have given to us, as You swore to our forefathers a land flowing with milk and honey."
This prayer, said at the end of the 'Declaration of Tithes' which begins with our title quote of this week's parsha, is said on Pesach of the fourth and seventh year (i.e Shmita year - this coming year) of the Shmita cyle. In this declaration one is to specify the proper observance of the mitzvot of the Land such as 'I did not transgress Your commandments', interpreted by our Sages to mean that one did not tithe one species for another species of produce.
Interestingly, at the end of this declaration one is to declare the final condition of observance, 'I have done all that You have commanded me', interpreted by our Sages as declaring 'I have been glad, and gladdened others with it (the produce)'. Similarly, we see the same emphasis on the necessity of joy in regard to the Holy Land echoed once again later in this parsha, when the Torah tells us that the reason for the curses in Israel's exile from the Land is because 'you did not serve HaShem with joy and goodness of heart with plentitude'.
If so, why is gladness of the heart such a necessary component of the mitzvot of the Land and living in this Land in general? As we have shown before, this Land is the Land of the Revelation of HaShem's Holy Presence. If we are to examine the nature of happiness we find that true happiness is the revelation of the soul in one's being to an extent that one feels a 'fullness' with this 'revelation'. The soul, as brought much in Torah literature, is a 'spark from the Holy Presence'. Therefore, when one is in happiness in regard to the Holy Land one connects to the source of happiness, the revelation of the Holy Presence through one's soul.
In this way we can explain why our Sages explain David's yearning for 'the joy of Your salvation' (Ps. 51) as a yearning for the revelation of the Holy Presence to him. Now we can understand more fully why the holy Or Hahaim explains the first words of our parsha 'Vehaya ('vehaya is only a term of of joy' - Tanhuma Shmini 9) -when you come to the Land' as conveying the message that 'true joy can only be in the Land of Israel'.
Once one can declare such joy with the Land and its mitzvoth, one can continue to the prayer in the following verse -"Look down from Your holy dwelling from the heavens" - as HaShem's heavenly dwelling corresponds to His earthly 'dwelling' in the Holy Land and the Bais HaMikdash (see end of intro. to Tikunei Zohar) - "and bless Your people Israel, and the ground which You have given to us" - as Israel express their joy with this Land - "as You swore to our forefathers" of Hebron - roots of our People's connection to this Land through the oath of God to them and through their purchase and settlement of the Land beginning with Hebron - "a land flowing with milk and honey" - "to give taste in the produce" (Sifri), so we may find joy in our Holy Land - 'the joy of our salvation' - this is the revelation of the Holy Presence.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Real Stories from the Holy Land #87:
"My wife was fired from her job teaching, but she managed to find new work by replacing two teachers who had decided to leave their schools because of their move from Kiryat Arba. However, one of the teachers decided to stay in Kiryat Arba, and, seeing this, my wife decided to forfeit her new job in favor of this previous teacher. Just then, she was offered another job that earns the same as she just forfeited, and I was offered a stipend amounting to the same amount my wife lost in her dismissal." (A.S)
Sources: Rambam Maaser Sheni 11, 15, Yalkut Shimoni Shmuel I 121, Sifri on parsha
.
Parshat Shoftim
By: Rabbi Moshe Goodman, Kollel Ohr Shlomo, Hebron
בס"ד
לשכנו תדרשו
Seeking the Holy Presence in Our Holy Land
"שופטים ושוטרים תתן לך בכל שעריך אשר ה' א-היך נותן לך לשבטך"
"Comfort HaShem our God the mourners of Zion and the mourners of Jerusalem... for You HaShem have ignited her with fire, and with fire You will build her, as it says 'and I shall be unto her, says HaShem, a wall of fire around and to honor I shall be within her'. Blessed are You HaShem , Comforter of Zion with the building of Jerusalem." (Nahem of Tisha Bav)
Since Tisha Bav the theme of comforting Zion and Jerusalem becomes ever-more pronounced throughout the '7 weeks of comforting' leading to Rosh HaShana, the day upon it is said in the Torah 'the eyes of HaShem Your God are upon it (the Land Zion) from the beginning of the Year (Rosh HaShana) till its end (Rosh HaShana)'. At the beginning of Elul already 'three weeks of comfort' are behind us, three begin the building blocks of a common theme known as 'hazaka', thereby giving the following weeks a more established nature of comfort in regard to Zion.
In the past we have pointed out the fact that the term 'Zion' includes both the Land of Israel at large and Jerusalem, as can be seen for example in a halachic ruling which maintains that the establishment of the Jewish calendar by the Beit Din (Jewish Court) may only take place in the Land of Israel (in addition to Jerusalem). The prooftext given for this ruling is, 'from Zion Torah shall be delivered, and the word of HaShem from Jerusalem.' Similarly, this relationship between the Land of Israel at large and Jerusalem can also be seen in context of our title quote, which our Sages interpret as a command to institute courts specifically in the Land of Israel as seen by the words in 'your gates that HaShemYour God gives to your tribes'.
Even though the courts in the Land of Israel in general have judicial power, the supreme judicial power is given to the Sanhedrin on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem to rule on cases that are beyond the scope of the regular courts. With the same token we can also say that Hebron, the roots of our People to Zion has a uniquely close relationship to Jerusalem, as can also be seen from King David's initial reign in Hebron and afterwards in Jerusalem.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Real Stories from the Holy Land #85:
"I was on my way to errands travelling from Kiryat Arba to Jerusalem. When I finally reached Jerusalem my wife suddenly called me to come back to Kiryat Arba because of an urgent medical issue. Since it was close to sunset I decided to daven Minha at the nearby hospital. There I 'happened' to meet three friends (visitors) who learn with me on a constant basis in Kiryat Arba, and there 'happened' to be there a Rabbi (a patient) who, just a few days before, I had talked about in length, after not doing so for about seven years."
Sources: Rambam Kidush Hahodesh 1, 8, ibid Sanhedrin 1, 2
.
Parshat Ki Teitzei
By: Rabbi Moshe Goodman, Kollel Ohr Shlomo, Hebron
בס"ד
לשכנו תדרשו
Seeking the Holy Presence in Our Holy Land
"כי תצא למלחמה על אויבך"
"Speedily cause the shoot of Your servant David to grow... Blessed are You HaShem Who causes the glory of salvation to grow."
'Growing', the gradual process, is one of the more dominant themes of our future redemption. Indeed, so do our Sages teach us that 'the redemption of Israel will be this - little by little at first, but as it continues it gradually increases.' In a process it is crucial to know the goal one aspires to and with the same token to be aware of where one is situated in the process, and thereby plan detailed and practical steps towards reaching the ultimate goal. Thus, when we set our goal as the 'glory of salvation' of God through the 'shoot of Your servant David', i.e the Mashiah, we need to clarify what is the detailed and practical meaning of 'Mashiah'.
At the end of the 'Mishneh Torah' Rambam defines 'Mashiah' as a king who will return the royalty to the house of David, will build the Bais HaMikdash, and will ingather the exiles. Defining Mashiah as a king requires us to seek the halachic definition of a king. Halacha defines that if this leader is a descendant of David and is righteous he may automatically be king. If this leader is not a descendant of David but is ordained by a prophet 'and goes in the ways of the Written and Oral Torah and fights the wars of HaShem' then he is also rendered a king. The latter two conditions of a king, i.e. going in the ways of the Torah and fighting the wars of God, are echoed again in Rambam as being the only motives in appointing a king in Israel - 1. justice, i.e. the enforcement of the ways and laws of the Torah 2. fighting the wars of God. What are 'the wars of God'?
Rambam codifies these wars into 4 types, 3 mandatory and the latter optional: 1. 'the war on the [Land of] (compare to 4 and see Sifri end of Ekev and Taanit 44b) the 7 [Canaanite] nations', 2. 'the war on Amalek', 3. 'war to save Israel from foes', 4. 'the war on other nations to extend the Land of Israel etc.' It is clear from our Sages that even the last optional type of war is also 'the war of God', for halacha stipulates that even in this war a Jewish soldier is uniquely permitted, as in 'the laws of war', to marry a non-Jewish woman for a limited period of time, as we are told in the beginning of this week's parsha, a matter that is usually considered one of the highest offences against God in the Torah.
When we, as the people of our future king, take strides, as little as they may seem, towards the keeping and enforcement of the laws of the Torah and towards 'fighting the wars of God' (as in settling the Land (compared to war - see our first issue Hayei Sara) and supporting the security of Israel), we give power to our future king, the Mashiah, upon who it is said (Isaiah 11): 'and a sprout shall grow out of the trunk of Jesse'. This is the spirit of Hebron, burial place of Jesse, the sprouting place of Mashiah.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Real Stories from the Holy Land #86:
"Last Motzei Shabbos I travelled from Northern Israel about 4 hours so I could be ready to teach children Torah, when almost all schools are on vacation, at 8:20 in Kiryat Arba, but I got detained in Jerusalem and slept there. I tried to reach the principal of the Talmud Torah to tell him I would be late in order to find a substitute, but my phone's battery power was exhausted. I asked for help to make the call, but was not successful in reaching the principal. When I got off a bus to switch to the next bus on the way to Kiryat Arba, one person told me that he found 200 NIS last night and asked HaShem to help him know what to do with it, and now he decided to give it to me, subsequently giving me the cash. Without hesitation I took a cab for 200 NIS from Jerusalem to the area of Kiryat Arba and arrived for the first hour in the Talmud Torah." (M.A.Y)
Sources: Rambam Mlachim veMilchamot ch. 1 and ch. 5 also ch. 4, 10, first Rashi of parsha
.
Parshat Re'eh
By: Rabbi Moshe Goodman, Kollel Ohr Shlomo, Hebron
בס"ד
לשכנו תדרשו
Seeking the Holy Presence in Our Holy Land
"קרבה שנת השבע שנת השמיטה... נתן תתן לו ולא ירע לבבך בתתך לו"
"...On the contrary, instill in our hearts that each one of us should see the virtue of our fellowman and not their flaws..." (Prayer of R. Elimelech of Lizansk)
One of the important messages of Hebron that we have mentioned time and time again is the unity of our People, realizing that we are all brothers from the same parents. When one realizes that his fellowman is ultimately the same as his own flesh, he almost automatically sees primarily the virtues of the other and not his flaws.
This message is one of the messages delivered to us in this week's parsha when the Torah commands us not harden our hearts in giving charity or lending money to our fellow Jew, 'for a pauper shall not cease from the earth'.
Our Sages explain this phrase saying that poverty is like a revolving wheel in the world, sometimes affecting one and sometimes affecting the other, regardless of their human efforts. Therefore, we should have compassion on the poor, and not blame them for their poverty, especially knowing that poverty could even strike ourselves, God forbid. This conceptualization is not only taken in theory, but the Torah asks us to act on this ideal.
The Torah commands us to lend money to the poor and allow this loan to be absolved at the end of Shmita year, without fretting before or avoiding this loan because of this absolvement. Rather, we are asked to have trust in HaShem that He will bless us for our support of the needy.
Although this is the ideal, Hillel saw in his generation that people stopped giving loans in fear that they would be absolved in Shmita, and therefore he enacted Prozbul, a document that states that the lender hands over all his loans over to the Jewish court (beit din) and as such they are no longer private loans which Shmita absolves, but rather public loans (of beit din) that Shmita does not absolve. This halachic 'invention' applies only when Shmita is of Rabbinic level, as it is today when the majority of Israel has still not settled in the Land, and when Israel has still not been divided into tribal territories.
We should also mention that the absolvement of loans at the end of Shmita applies even in the Diaspora, although the condition of it applying on a Biblical level in the Diaspora is the existence of Shmita of the Land, which, of course, is unique to the Land of Israel and applies Biblically only when the majority of Israel has settled in the Land etc. As Shmita approaches this is the time to prepare ourselves for this holy year.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Real Stories from the Holy Land #84:
"One evening, one of my household electric fans stopped working. I tried connecting it to different (operating) sockets, but to no avail, so my wife asked me to bring the fan to the store I had bought it, try to print out the receipt again, and make the case to return the fan. On the way to the store (with the fan) I went to Maariv and davened that HaShem fix the fan. Just after, I tried the fan in the synagogue, and lo and behold - it worked! The next evening however the fan stopped working again. This time I sung 'shir hammalot' out loud that HaShem fix it, and just then it worked, and continues to work!" (M.A.I)
Sources: Rambam Shmita 10, 16
.
THE HEBRON FUND
1760 Ocean Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11230
P: 718.677.6886
F: 718.677.6883
E: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
