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שבת שלום - פרשת ויקרא - זכר
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Video Shiur
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Click play to watch the
video shiur by Rav Meir Goldvitch
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News and Notes
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We congratulate our student, Avi Weinstein, on his completion of Seder Nezikin this past Wednesday at the yeshiva. His achievement was celebrated with a siyum in the Beit Midrash following mincha. Mazal tov!
Purim preparations are currently underway for what promises to be a very enjoyable chag. After Keriat haMegilah, our annual Purim Bash will take place, including food, dancing to the music of the yeshiva band, and numerous shpiels - some live, some on video - performed by both the students and the rabbeim. The following day, students will eat their seudot at the homes of their morning seder rabbeim, and the whole yeshiva will reconvene afterward at the home of Rabbi Wolicki for dessert. Purim will be followed by an in-Shabbat, hosted by Rabbi Moshe Lichtman and his family.
Be sure to check out numerous new shiurim, added this week to our video library. They can be found at http://www.yesodei.org/videos
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Parsha Insights
By Rabbi Scott Kahn
G-d is present everywhere in the world - even in the smallest details that we might try to ignore.
The mitzvah of remembering the unprovoked attack of Amalek against Am Yisrael is preceded in the Torah by the mitzvah mandating the proper use of weights and measures. Rashi notes that the juxtaposition is significant: "If you are untruthful in your use of measurements and weights, you should worry about the attack of the enemy." (Rashi on Devarim 25:17) What is the connection between the crime of false measures and the attack of Amalek? Indeed, Amalek's attack could not have been the result of improper use of measurements, as Bnei Yisrael were clearly not involved in business during their desert sojourn!
The Netziv explains that the three cardinal sins - idol worship, sexual immorality, and murder - are representative of the three classic motivations to sin. Idol worship is the ultimate expression of a lack of belief; sexual immorality is symbolic of physical desires and cravings; and murder is representative of anger and poor character traits. Every other sin will fall under one or more of these categories, and is, in a sense, a "branch" of the cardinal sin which symbolizes each group. And because idol worship - the denial of G-d - is the most serious breach of the three, we can extrapolate that a lack of belief is the most inappropriate of the three categories of motivation, as well. Accordingly, every transgression which is an expression of one's disbelief is, in a sense, more serious than any transgression in one of the other two categories.
Whereas typical theft is an expression of physical desire, the improper use of weights and measures is more likely a demonstration of a lack of belief. The ill-gotten gains of such practices are not the result of a vast desire for wealth, but rather the natural outcome of simply trying to get away with whatever is possible; thus it is a very clear manifestation of disbelief in Divine justice. This explains the statement of Rabbi Levi that, "The punishment for measures is worse than the punishment for sexual immorality." (Baba Batra 88b) While at first glance this seems unlikely, it is quite logical given the categorization presented above.
Amalek's attack on Bnei Yisrael was precipitated by Israel's question, "Is G-d among us, or not?" (Shmot 17:7) The People of Israel clearly knew that Hashem was among them, for they had left Egypt only several weeks earlier; but they questioned whether G-d would protect them once Moshe died, and the overt miracles were over. They were afraid that G-d can either demonstrate His presence in overwhelming fashion, or remove His presence altogether. But the notion that G-d can work within nature while not obliterating the natural order was foreign to them. Similarly, says the Netziv, Amalek's national mission was to demonstrate that G-d cannot exist within nature. (See the Yesodei HaTorah newsletter for Parashat Beshalach - Shevat 5768.) Bnei Yisrael's Amalek-like unbelief precipitated Amalek's attack. This unbelief, as stated above, was an offshoot of idol worship; and the inability to see G-d even within the mundane manifests itself in falsifying weights and measures, as well. The shopkeeper who tries to procure a few extra pennies with his unfair measurements believes that Hashem is not concerned with small things, just as Bnei Yisrael suggested that G-d is not present in the small details of everyday life. This is Amalek-like thinking, and it leads to Amalek-like consequences.
This idea that G-d is present throughout nature, and not merely in the overwhelmingly spiritual, can be seen in an apparent incongruity noted in Masechet Berachot (35a-b): "Rabbi Levi demonstrated a contradiction: one verse states, 'The Earth and all that is in it is Hashem's' (Tehilim 24:1), whereas another verse states, 'The Heavens belong to Hashem, while He gave the Earth to men!' (Tehilim 115:16) This is not a difficulty: the former verse is before [one recites] a beracha, and the latter verse is after [one recites] a beracha." The Gemara also explains there that eating without reciting a beracha is equivalent to inappropriately using property designated as hekdesh (sanctified) - a very serious transgression. These statements demonstrate that a beracha does not make the food holy; in fact, it removes its natural holiness, and thereby allows man to partake of it. Although the concept appears counterintuitive, Chazal clearly state that the blessing actually makes the food less sanctified than before!
The Gemara's message, however, is that G-d is found not only in the overwhelming holiness of hekdesh, but also in that which we consider devoid of holiness. Had Chazal told us that a beracha increases the food's holiness, we would have assumed that the beracha had somehow allowed the food to enter a new domain of Godliness. The reality is, however, that the Divine presence exists everywhere, at every time. Our beracha is an acknowledgement that the food does not need to be sanctified before we eat it, for it is already sanctified. By discovering that everything belongs to G-d, that everything is holy, that only through a beracha do we obtain permission to use that which would otherwise belong to Hashem - we gain a new appreciation of Hashem's presence in every aspect of our lives. G-d is as present in the mundane as He is in the miracle.
G-d is present everywhere in the world - even in the smallest details that we might try to ignore.
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