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CHUMASH
Parshas Kedoshim - Sheini with Rashi
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Today we learn MORE mitzvos! (This parsha has the most mitzvos of all the parshios in the Torah!)
- A Beis Din needs to be fair — not to make a person win or lose a court case just because of how much money they have!
- Rechilus — don’t go around talking about other people.
- If you can save somebody’s life, you have to!
- Don’t hate someone, even just inside your heart.
- If you see someone doing something wrong, you should tell him — but not in a way that will make him embarrassed.
- Nekamah — don’t take revenge against someone — like if someone did something not nice to you, don’t do it back to him.
- Netirah — don’t stay angry at someone — if they did something wrong before, don’t say “I’m nice, not like you!”
- Ve’ahavta Le’reiacha Kamocha! (Rashi says on this posuk, “Rabbi Akiva says — ‘zeh klal gadol baTorah!’” Rabbi Akiva says that this is a big rule for the whole Torah!)
- Don’t have different kinds of animals marry each other — they need to stay married to their own kind.
- Don’t plant a field with lots of plants mixed together — the same kinds of plants should be grouped together, not all mixed up.
- Don’t wear Shatnez — clothes made with wool and linen together.
- We learn what the Beis Din does if a maid who was engaged married someone else before she became free.
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Today, we are starting Sefer Tehillim again from the very beginning! IY”H we will finish the whole thing before Rosh Chodesh Sivan!
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In Kapitel Alef, the first Kapitel of Tehillim, we say the following posuk: “Ki Im BeSoras Hashem Cheftzo, UveSoraso Yehege Yomam VaLayla.” “Hashem’s Torah is all he wants, and he is busy with his Torah all day and night.”
How come it first says HASHEM’S Torah, and then it says HIS Torah (that it belongs to the person learning it)?
Chassidus explains that when a person first starts learning Torah, it feels like it’s something that’s not part of him.
But when he understands properly what he learned, then the Torah becomes HIS, it becomes a part of him! Naturally a person has his own way of looking at the world. But when a person learns Torah, he sees the way HASHEM wants us to look at the world. When he learns and understands enough Torah, he starts to change his way of thinking to the Torah way of thinking — and this Torah way of thinking BECOMES his own way of thinking too!
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TANYA
Likutei Amarim Perek Mem-Daled
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In Tanya, the Alter Rebbe is teaching us how every Yid is able, with the koach of Moach Shalit Al Halev, to win over his Yetzer Hara and make his mitzvos more pure and Ruchnius’dik!
First we learned how to win over the Yetzer Hara by bringing out the koach of Mesiras Nefesh we have inside of ourselves.
Now we are learning how to use our mind to think about our connection with Hashem, which will help us have Yiras Hashem and Ahavas Hashem to make our mitzvos more pure and Ruchnius’dik.
First we learned what to think so we will have Yiras Hashem. Then we learned two ways of thinking to help us feel Ahavas Hashem, that can work for everyone!
If we think about these two things, we can feel our ahava for Hashem:
1) To love Hashem because He is our neshama and our chayus
2) To love Hashem because He is our true Tatte.
These two kinds of love for Hashem really also have Yiras Hashem together with them:
1) We are afraid to do an aveira which will separate us from our true chayus
2) We are afraid to do an aveira which will take us away from our true Tatte, Hashem.
When we remind ourselves about this, we wake up the love for Hashem we have inside of ourselves. This makes our mitzvos more Ruchnius’dik, and able to go up to Olam HaYetzirah, the olam of feeling!
But if we think even more about how we love Hashem in this way, and how we are afraid to become separate from Hashem chas veshalom, then we are using our own minds, not just the love that’s hidden inside of us. Since it comes from our understanding, our mitzvos can go even HIGHER! They go up to the olam of Beriyah, the olam of understanding!
In fact, this ahava also includes Ahava Rabbah, a level of ahava which connects our mitzvos even with the world of Atzilus!
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Today is sixteen days of the Omer! It is also Rosh Chodesh.
Iyar is a very special month. Each day is a mitzvah, a day to be counted in Sefiras Ha’omer! In Nissan we count Sefirah only at the end of the month, and in Sivan we only count in the beginning of the month. But in Iyar, EVERY day is a mitzvah!
In today’s Hayom Yom, Rosh Chodesh Iyar, the Rebbe teaches us the lesson we learn from counting, the special mitzvah of Chodesh Iyar.
Once, at a farbrengen during Sefiras Haomer, someone said to the Rebbe Rashab, “The Alter Rebbe’s Chassidim were always counting!” (“Dem Alten Rebben’s Chassidim flegen alemol tzeilen.”)
The Rebbe Rashab liked this vort very much!
The Rebbe Rashab explained:
This is what avodah is all about! The hours need to be counted. If we count every hour, we are making sure that we used all of our time for serving Hashem. Then, we can count our day, because we know that the whole day was used for the right things.
When a day passes, we need to know what we accomplished that day, and what we still need to accomplish tomorrow. We need to make sure that tomorrow’s day is more beautiful than today!
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In today’s Sefer Hamitzvos, we learn the mitzvah (Mitzvas Lo Saasei #291) that a witness can’t say if he thinks someone is wrong or right in Beis Din if the person might be chayav misa. They are only allowed to say what they heard or saw, not their opinion.
We learn this mitzvah from a posuk in Parshas Masei: וְעֵד אֶחָד לֹא יַעֲנֶה בְנֶפֶשׁ לָמוּת
This mitzvah is repeated in Parshas Shoftim: לֹא יוּמַת עַל פִּי עֵד אֶחָד
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In today’s Rambam, we learn many more halachos about witnesses.
In Perek Hey the Rambam tells us a few more details about today’s mitzvah: If the witness starts to explain why he thinks the person is wrong or right, the Beis Din makes him be quiet! We also learn halachos about tomorrow’s mitzvah in Sefer Hamitzvos, not to listen to one witness in court.
In Perek Vov and Zayin, we learn how the Beis Din can accept information from a shtar (a document) without the eidim being there. Why are they allowed to do that? We learned the reason yesterday — the Beis Din wants to make sure that people are comfortable giving loans, so they don’t make it too hard to get money back in Beis Din.
So in a case where someone is trying to get back money that another person owes him, he can bring a proof from something the eidim wrote, even if they aren’t there! Of course there are many halachos explaining just how this is done, and we learn them in these two perakim (and also in the first perek of tomorrow’s Rambam).
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This perek speaks about different gezeiros which the Chachomim made about tumah. One place where the Chachomim did NOT make a gezeira is if someone finds a Shechitah knife in Yerushalayim on Erev Pesach — we say that you can use it to shecht a korban, and we are not afraid that it might be tomei!
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The month of Iyar has many special things. Here are three of them which we find often in the sichos and letters of the Rebbe for this month:
1) Every day of the whole month there is a mitzvah (Sefiras HaOmer)
2) This month is also called Chodesh Ziv (the month of light), because the Avos, who lit up the world, were born in Nisan, so their first month of life was Iyar! The word Iyar also is the first letters of the names of the Avos — Avraham, Yitzchak, Yaakov, and Rochel!
א — אברהם
י — יצחק
י — יעקב
ר — רחל
We need to use the special kochos of Iyar to make the world even BRIGHTER!
3) The month of Iyar is the Roshei Teivos of a powerful posuk which speaks about healing! The Torah says, “Ani Hashem Rofecha,” “I am Hashem Who heals you.” This posuk speaks about the sicknesses of Mitzrayim, showing that one of the ways Hashem heals us is not to make us sick at all!
In letters, the Rebbe says that this month is a special time for health, as explained in seforim. (See for example Igros Kodesh chelek Tes-Vov, p. 100)
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The second posuk of the Twelve Pesukim starts with the words Shema Yisroel.
This is a posuk we all know, and we say it in davening and before we go to sleep!
The posuk Shema Yisroel has a very important message for us:
When the Yidden were in the Midbar, Hashem took care of everything for them. They had mahn to eat, their clothes grew with them, and the clouds washed their clothes! It was easy for them to see that Hashem is in charge!
When they came close to Eretz Yisroel, Moshe Rabbeinu spoke to the Yidden to get them ready for the new Avodah in Eretz Yisroel.
In Eretz Yisroel, there would be no more mahn. The clouds would not wash their clothes or smooth the way for them. They would see many new things — fields, wheat to grow, and animals to work with. It would be harder to remember who is in charge of the whole world!
So Moshe Rabbeinu reminded them:
Shema Yisroel! Listen, Yidden!
Hashem Elokeinu, Hashem Echod — Hashem, Who took care of us in the Midbar, is the same ONE Hashem Who takes care of every thing that happens in Eretz Yisroel!
We are not in the Midbar now, but the same message is still important!
Shema Yisroel — listen, Yidden!
Hashem Elokeinu, Hashem Echod — there is only One Hashem, and the whole world belongs to Hashem! Everything we see, and everything that happens, is all from Hashem.
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In the Midbar, a group of Yidden did a terrible aveira — the Cheit Ha’egel. Unfortunately, many of the Yidden ended up serving this Avodah Zarah.
The women in the Midbar did NOT do the Cheit Ha’egel. They didn’t want to be a part of it at all.
Because of this, Hashem rewarded them with an extra Yom Tov — Rosh Chodesh!
It is a minhag that women don’t do certain kinds of melacha on their Yom Tov, like doing laundry or sewing.
Chassidus explains how specifically the women were able to overcome this very hard nisayon because of the special koach of emunah Hashem created them with, which helped keep them from Avodah Zarah. On Rosh Chodesh, women celebrate this special neshama-koach which was given to them as a special gift from Hashem.
See here for details about the halachos
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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 Yeshaya says that when Moshiach comes, we won’t only come to see Hashem in the Beis Hamikdash three times a year, we will come to see Hashem every Shabbos, and Rosh Chodesh too!
Chassidus explains why we will come so much more often:
The reason why Yidden always went to the Beis Hamikdash on the Shalosh Regalim is because these are times of simcha. These Yomim Tovim weren’t just a time of simcha for Yidden, but a time of simcha for Hashem! When a person is happy, they don’t hide things so much, they want to share their simcha with others! The same is true with Hashem: At a time of simcha for Hashem, Hashem doesn’t hide so much in the world! Yidden would come to the Beis Hamikdash to be able to feel this simcha of Hashem, when Hashem was much more revealed.
When Moshiach comes, Hashem’s simcha will be complete! (This is even hinted to in the word Moshiach — the letters can be put in a different order to spell Yismach, that Hashem will be happy!) Hashem won’t only be revealed during the Shalosh Regalim, we will be able to feel it every Shabbos and Rosh Chodesh! That’s why we will come then to the Beis Hamikdash, to feel that special closeness to Hashem!
See Migola L’Geulah p. 254, from Sefer Hamaamarim of the Rebbe Maharash, Tof-Reish-Lamed
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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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