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שבת שלום - פרשת כי תצא

Video Shiur

Click play to watch the video shiur by Rav Yosef Kaminetsky

News and Notes

The first full week of Elul zman is now complete, and the Yeshiva is off to a wonderful start. All of our talmidim - both shana alef and shana bet - have been working hard, and are getting used to the intensive Yeshiva schedule. Last Shabbat - the first in-Shabbat of the year - was hosted by Rabbi Wolicki and his family. Along with the delicious meals and inspiring davening (led on Friday night by our own Rav Moshe Lichtman), the Yeshiva had a beautiful, song-filled oneg on Friday night, and a meaningful seudah shlishit. Rabbi Wolicki also taught a shiur on, "The Issur of Returning to Egypt." This Shabbat is an out-Shabbat, and the students are making the most of their first opportunity to spend time with relatives and friends away from the Yeshiva. On Wednesday, the entire Yeshiva will be going on a tiyul around the Beit Shemesh area. The sites we will visit include Tel Azeka (near the site of David and Goliath's battle), the famous Stalactite Cave, the Bell Caves at Luzit, and the Bar Kochva caves.

Shiluach Haken and the Inappropriate Prayer
By Rabbi Scott Kahn

The mitzvah of shiluach haken, which mandates chasing away a mother bird before taking the eggs or chicks in her nest, (Devarim 22:6-7) appears to represent an act of chesed, kindness. Indeed, it would appear reasonable - even proper - to praise G-d's concern for these seemingly insignificant creatures such that He would prohibit our taking the eggs in front of the mother's eyes.

The Mishnah in Berachot, however, forbids such a prayer:

One who says, "Your mercy reaches to the nest of the bird," "Your name should be remembered for the good things," or "We acknowledge [You], We acknowledge [You]" is told to be silent. (Berachot 33b)

The Gemara explains that the prohibition of saying, "We acknowledge You, We acknowledge You," stems from the fact that it appears as though one is praying to two different divine authorities. The prohibition of saying, "Your name should be remembered for the good things," is predicated on the requirement to praise Hashem equally for the bad as well as the good. (Berachot 54a) What, however, is the problem with praising G-d for taking care of the mother bird?

Chazal offer two possible answers. The first is that such a prayer "places jealousy among the other creatures" - that is, the person who says this wrongly implies that G-d cares more about certain creatures than others. (See Rashi on Berachot 33b) The second possible answer is that the person reciting this prayer implies that G-d's commandments are based on His attribute of mercy, when they are actually Divine decrees that transcend human intellect and which demonstrate Am Yisrael's subservience to Hashem. We are not permitted to assume we know the ultimate reason for any commandment; as expressions of the Divine wisdom, the mitzvot can never be understood in full, and always contain greater meaning than that which we assign to them.

Although the Gemara explains why the three prayers mentioned in the Mishnah are inappropriate, it does not tell us why someone would say them in the first place. Of course, the statement, "Your mercy reaches to the nest of the bird," is understandable, for it is predicated on a mistaken understanding of the meaning of this mitzvah. Similarly, "Your name should be remembered for the good things," can be seen as a well-meaning - albeit mistaken - attempt to praise G-d for His abundant kindness. Why, however, would anyone say, "We acknowledge You, We acknowledge You"? The person clearly is not worshipping two authorities, for the Gemara says that the problem is only that it appears that he is praying to more than one god. Moreover, the Mishnah was not written for fools; if saying "We acknowledge You" twice is explicitly prohibited, there must be a good reason that an individual would want to say it in the first place.

I would suggest that the three misguided prayers mentioned in the Mishnah follow from one another - that is, each is a response to the problem represented by the prayer before. The first prayer - regarding G-d's mercy toward the mother bird - is based on an understandable misreading of the meaning of the mitzvah of shiluach haken. Regardless of whether the problem is that the prayer implies that G-d cares more about birds than other creatures, or that it implies that G-d's mitzvot are based on His mercy, the person offering such a prayer would be trying to praise G-d's goodness in an inappropriate way. Accordingly, the following prayer avoids the issues that follow from the first prayer, by offering a broader invocation of Hashem's kindness: "Your name should be remembered for the good things." This prayer, however, wrongly praises G-d only for the good things, when the Halachah demands that we praise Him equally for the bad. Accordingly, to avoid this problem, the person naturally says "We acknowledge You" twice - once for the good things, and once for the bad. Although this rectifies the above problems, it creates a new challenge by creating the appearance that the two prayers are directed toward two different gods.

The larger message of the Mishnah, of course, is that we must be very careful with every word that emits in prayer from our mouths. Prayer must be taken seriously, and any theological error that emerges from a hastily composed prayer is utterly unacceptable. Let us learn to successfully petition the Almighty through the realization that every word we say has tremendous import, and through the knowledge that each prayer matters more than we can ever imagine.