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CHUMASH
Parshas Ki Seitzei - Rishon with Rashi
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In today’s Chumash, we learn about three dinim: The Aishes Yefas Toar, the Bechor Ben Hasnuah, and the Ben Sorer Umoreh.
Aishes Yefas Toar: When the Yidden went to fight against the Goyim, the Goyim would sometimes try to stop the Yidden from fighting, by getting them to think about what their Yetzer Hara wanted instead of about the job they needed to do!
One of the tricks they would use is to have beautiful women nearby, so the Yidden would want to get married instead of fighting.
Moshe Rabbeinu tells the Yidden what to do if this happens — and it is a trick that can work when our Yetzer Haras try to trick us too!
Instead of doing anything right away, the soldier needs to bring the woman home, and not give her anything to make her look beautiful — he needs to do things to make her look ugly! If he still wants to marry her after a month, he is allowed to. And if he changes his mind later, he can’t keep her as a maidservant — he needs to send her away to wherever she wants to go.
That’s a good trick for us too: We can have ISKAFYA — telling our Yetzer Hara to just wait a little bit! Sometimes that’s enough for us to realize that we don’t want that thing SO much. We can also remind ourselves that the things the Yetzer Hara wants aren’t really so special or beautiful!
Bechor Ben Hasnuah: When a person passes away, the din is that the oldest son (the bechor) gets double the amount of his father’s property. Even if the father had two wives, he can’t choose the one he likes better to be the bechor.
Rashi says that this should be a warning to a soldier: If he takes an Aishes Yefas To’ar home with him, he will start to hate her. His oldest child — even if he is the son of the Yefas Toar — will be his bechor according to Torah. He will need to give the bechor more money after he passes away, even if he doesn’t want to.
Ben Sorer Umoreh: Then we learn about the Ben Sorer Umoreh, a boy who does certain things like a Rasha. He steals money from his parents, and eats a lot of food in a grubbe (crass) way. His parents need to bring him to the Beis Din and the Beis Din will need to kill him, since if he acts this way now, he will be a big Rasha when he grows up.
It is possible that there never WAS a Ben Sorer Umoreh — since there are so many details for a person to become a Ben Sorer Umoreh. But this is still a part of Torah! First of all, it is to warn the soldiers that if they marry a Yefas To’ar, they might end up having a child that is like the Ben Sorer Umoreh, since they didn’t marry her for the right reasons.
It is also a part of Torah that is very special — we don’t learn Torah only because we need to USE what we learn, but also just because it is Hashem’s holy Torah.
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Today’s kapitelach of Tehillim are Lamed-Tes to Mem-Gimmel. We also say kapitelach Yud-Tes, Chof, and Chof-Alef.
In today’s Tehillim, it says “Haysa Li Dimasi Lechem Yomam Valayla, Be’emor Eilai Kol Hayom Ayei Elokecha.” “My tears were like my food all day and night, when they say to me all day ‘Where is Hashem?’”
The Rebbe explains that this posuk is saying that for a person to really be close to Hashem, we need to be crying for Hashem ALL the time, not just on Shabbos or only when we’re davening, but even when we’re eating or playing on a regular weekday.
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TANYA
Igeres Hakodesh Siman Yud-Alef
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Emunah needs to be SO strong, that a person won’t ever be sad about Gashmius. Since he knows that everything is from Hashem, and Hashem is good, nothing bad could be happening to him!
Hashem sometimes makes things LOOK not good to test us. When we get a test from Hashem, it makes us work hard so that our neshama shines very strong. We have to use ALL of the koach of our neshama to remember and to know that the most important thing is Emunah in Hashem. With that Emunah, we can be happy even when it’s hard.
When we are besimcha even when it’s hard, since we know that Hashem is good, we become very close to Hashem. Then we will be able to see things like Hashem sees them, and we’ll be able to see how everything is really good.
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Every word in the Torah is EXACT. We know all of the words and letters, and a sofer has to be very careful to write every single one perfectly!
There is only one letter in the Torah that we aren’t SURE about: That letter is in this week’s Chumash, Shlishi of Parshas Ki Seitzei, in the word “Daka.” There are two ways to write this word — with an Alef at the end, or a Hey at the end.
It says in today’s Hayom Yom that the Alter Rebbe says the word “Daka” should be with an Alef.
The Frierdiker Rebbe talks about Sifrei Torah he saw where the word “Daka” was written with an Alef! One of those Torahs was in Prague, where there was a Sefer Torah that the Yidden said was checked over by Ezra HaSofer! Another place was in Wurms, where there was a Torah written by R’ Meir M’Rotenburg, also with Daka spelled this way.
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Today in Sefer Hamitzvos, we learn the same mitzvah again (Mitzvas Asei #153): How the Beis Din needs to make a calendar and decide when the months and years start.
We learn this mitzvah from a posuk in Parshas Bo: הַחֹדֶשׁ הַזֶּה לָכֶם רֹאשׁ חֳדָשִׁים
The details are explained in Mesechta Sanhedrin perek Alef, Mesechta Rosh Hashana and Brachos.
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RAMBAM
Hilchos Kiddush Hachodesh
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In today’s Rambam, perakim Tes, Yud, and Yud-Alef, we finish learning about the calendar. Today we learn about when spring starts, which the Beis Din needed to know to decide when it would be a leap year to make sure Pesach is in the spring.
Today we also start to learn the really complicated part of Kiddush Hachodesh: How the Beis Din would know where the moon was and what it should look like, so they could make sure the witnesses were telling the truth.
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This perek has halachos about when we CAN trust an Am Ha’aretz. For example, even a simple Yid by nature will tell the truth on Shabbos. They are also afraid of eating dimua, food that has Terumas Maaser or Terumah mixed in. So if anyone, even an Am Ha’aretz, says about food on Shabbos that maaser was taken from it, or they tell us that something is not dimua, they can be trusted.
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We learned a lot of pesukim that start with the letters of Elul! Today, let’s learn another one. The sefer Megaleh Amukos writes that the letters of Elul also stand for the words of the Chachomim, “Oy LeRasha, V’Oy LeShcheino” — “Oy! for a Rasha, and oy! for his neighbor!”
These words explain that things don’t go so good for a Rasha — and someone who lives near him can also end up with problems because he spends so much time with a Rasha.
So why would we want to say that this Maamar Razal is the letters of Elul!? It doesn’t sound like a good thing!
The Rebbe explains this, and the connection between Chodesh Elul and Chodesh Av, the month before. According to what the Rebbe explains, we can understand that this IS a good thing! When a person does Teshuvah, he says “OY!” When a person says “OY!” and does teshuvah for something he did that was like a Rasha, it makes the people near him (his neighbors) want to do Teshuvah too — “OY!”
So really, this Maamar Razal is a very good one! When we use the month of Elul to do teshuvah, it helps others do teshuvah too!
See Shaarei Hamoadim Chodesh Elul, p. 46
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At the beginning of Pesukei Dezimra we say a bracha, the bracha of Boruch She’amar. This way we start (and later end) Pesukei Dezimra with a bracha.
The main part of Pesukei Dezimra (as the Chachomim set it up) is the last six kapitelach of Tehillim. These kapitelach are the main praise of Hashem which prepare us for speaking to Hashem in Shemoneh Esrei!
The Chachomim also added later some other paragraphs to Pesukei Dezimra.
One of them is the paragraph after Boruch She’amar, which starts with the posuk “Yehi Chevod.”
Yehi Chevod has 18 sentences, mainly pesukim from Tehillim. In Yehi Chevod, we speak about how we should have bitachon in Hashem, who will save us from whatever is bothering us. Yehi Chevod helps put us into a good mood, so that we are happy and free of worries! This way we will be able to praise Hashem with our whole heart!
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If we are about to eat a bunch of different foods, we need to figure out which foods to make a bracha on first!
Before we start, we make sure that we don’t have any fruits from the Shivas Haminim. There are special halachos with the Shivas Haminim, which often change the order. We will IY”H learn their special halachos later.
The first thing we do is to figure out if we have foods that are more than one bracha. If we do, we start going through each bracha in order: Mezonos, Hagafen, Ha’eitz and Ha’adamah (these two brachos are together for the order of brachos), and then Shehakol.
Then after we know which bracha comes first, we look at the foods that have the same bracha. One bracha at a time, we figure out which food we should choose to make the bracha on. We try to make the bracha on the most important food of each bracha:
1) Whole — We look to see if we have a food that is WHOLE, not cut up or broken. That is considered the most important food, and we make a bracha on that food.
What if we don’t have anything that is whole, or we have more than one whole food to choose between? Then we go on to the next question:
2) Choviv — Which of these foods with the same bracha is most important to US? Which do we like more in general, or want to eat more now? We choose this food to say a bracha on.
For the order of brachos, we put Ha’eitz and Ha’adamah together, even though Ha’eitz is more specific. If the food is whole or more important to us, we make that bracha first.
But if none of the food is more Choviv to us, we say Ha’eitz before Ha’adamah.
See Birchos Hanehenin Perek Yud
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לעילוי נשמת הרה״ח ר׳ דניאל יצחק ע״ה בן ר׳ אפרים שי׳ מאסקאוויץ
שליח כ"ק אדמו"ר נשיא דורנו למדינת אילינוי
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The Navi Micha lived at the same time as the Navi Yeshaya, before the Churban of the first Beis Hamikdash.
When Hashem sends a message through a Navi, the Navi tells the Yidden what he saw. Sometimes, Hashem showed the same thing to both Yeshaya and Micha! When we look at these pesukim, we see that each Navi used almost exactly the same words to tell the Yidden what Hashem showed them.
Here is a nevuah about the Geulah that we learned from Yeshaya, this time the way Micha saw it:
וְשָׁפַט בֵּין עַמִּים רַבִּים וְהוֹכִיחַ לְגוֹיִם עֲצֻמִים עַד רָחוֹק וְכִתְּתוּ חַרְבֹתֵיהֶם לְאִתִּים וַחֲנִיתֹתֵיהֶם לְמַזְמֵרוֹת לֹא יִשְׂאוּ גּוֹי אֶל גּוֹי חֶרֶב וְלֹא יִלְמְדוּן עוֹד מִלְחָמָה
Veshafat Bein Amim Rabim — Moshiach will judge any arguments between the many nations of the world
Vehochiach LeGoyim Atzumim Ad Rachok — And will tell the strong and the faraway nations to change the way they are acting.
Now the nations won’t have any reason to fight with each other anymore, since Moshiach will have told them what is right and what is wrong! Now what will they do with their weapons?
Vechitsu Charvoseihem Le’itim — They will bend their swords into plows for their fields
Vechanisoseihem Lemazmeiros — And they will bend their spears into pruning hooks!
(Pruning hooks are poles with a curved knife at the end, to cut off extra branches from trees so they will grow better.)
Lo Yis’u Goy El Goy Cherev — No nation will lift up their swords to fight with each other anymore,
Velo Yilmedun Od Milchama — And they won’t even learn about or practice fighting, since they will all know that there will NEVER be another war!
See Micha perek Daled posuk Gimmel
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לע"נ התינוק זאב ארי' ע"ה בן יבלט"א הרה"ח ר' שניאור זלמן שי' גליק
נפטר ב' מנחם אב ה'תשע"ג
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