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CHUMASH

Parshas Emor - Sheini with Rashi

Today, Hashem tells Moshe more mitzvos that are just for Kohanim:

Any kohen who has a mum is not allowed to act as a kohen and bring korbanos in the Beis Hamikdash. What is a mum? Someone who has something wrong with his body, like someone who can’t see or can’t walk.

If he gets better from his problem, he can work in the Beis Hamikdash again.

This means that when Moshiach comes, ALL of the kohanim will be able to work in the Beis Hamikdash, because Hashem will give EVERYONE a Refuah Sheleima!

There are certain parts of korbanos that only a Kohen is allowed to eat. These pieces of korbanos can even be eaten from a kohen who has a mum.

If a kohen is tomei, he needs to be very careful not to touch any korbanos until he becomes tahor again.

What if a kohen has people working for him? Can they eat from the kohen’s food? No, they can’t. Only a kohen, a Kohen’s children, and a slave that he buys, are allowed to eat from these korbanos.

If a kohen has a daughter, and she marries someone who isn’t a kohen, she can’t eat from the holy food. (If she isn’t married anymore, and comes back to live with her parents, she can eat it again.)

What happens if someone eats from the holy food by mistake? He needs to pay back the kohen, plus a chomesh (1/5) extra.

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TEHILLIM

55- 59

Towards the end of every Yom Tov, Chassidim go on Tahalucha, to spread the joy of Yom Tov and teach some Chassidus to Yidden that daven in other shuls.

In the year Tof-Shin-Mem-Daled (1984) there was a terrible rainstorm on Shvi’i Shel Pesach in New York City. The rain was pouring down very heavily — but the Chassidim in Crown Heights went on Tahalucha anyway, to shuls all over the city!

Of course, they all came back to the farbrengen that night soaking wet.

At the farbrengen, the Rebbe gave a special thank you and bracha to all of the Chassidim that had gone on Tahalucha. The Rebbe quoted a posuk from today’s Tehillim, Kapitel Nun-Hey, to show how important it was for them to go even in such bad weather!

The posuk says, “Beveis Elokim Nehalech b’RAGESH” — “to the house of Hashem we will go with trembling.” The three letters of the word “Ragesh” (trembling) hint to three kinds of weather: The reish stands for Ruach (wind), the gimmel stands for Geshem (rain), and the shin stands for Sheleg (snow). This teaches us how no bad weather — wind, rain or snow — should stop us from doing a mitzvah!

The Rebbe finished off with a bracha that everyone who went on Tahalucha should be zoche to go on Tahalucha again the next year.

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TANYA

Likutei Amarim Perek Mem-Vov

Yesterday we learned a mashal that can help us love Hashem. The mashal is about a king coming to take someone out of a garbage dump, and bringing him into the palace and hugging him! That person would surely love the king very much!

When we heard that mashal, we thought, “OF COURSE we would love the king!”

Guess what? What Hashem does for us is even MORE than the king in the mashal! Because Hashem is not just a regular king, He is the king of the WHOLE world, including all of the malachim — and even they are like nothing compared to the greatness of Hashem!

Even though Hashem has so many malochim, who did Hashem choose as HIS special nation?

Hashem chose the Yidden, who were sitting in a “garbage dump” called Mitzrayim! Hashem came Himself and took the Yidden out of Mitzrayim, brought us to Har Sinai, and gave us the Torah and mitzvos, which are like a big hug! Shouldn’t that make us love Hashem very much?

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HAYOM YOM

Yud Iyar

Today is twenty-five days of the Omer!

First we learn a minhag about dipping our challah into salt: It is our minhag to DIP the challah in the salt 3 times, not to sprinkle salt on the challah.

Today we learn about a story that happened on Shavuos with the Rebbeim, but it teaches us about the avodah of Sefiras Ha’omer which we are in now.

One year on the second day of Shavuos, the Tzemach Tzedek told over a story that happened with the Alter Rebbe on Shavuos many years earlier:

On the second day of Shavuos during the seudah, the Alter Rebbe told over something that the Maggid said on Shavuos, years before that! “The Torah tells us to COUNT the days until Shavuos, ‘Usefartem Lachem’ — ‘you should count.’ The word ‘usefartem,’ the Maggid explained, can mean counting, but also SHINING! According to that, ‘usefartem lachem’ can mean ‘you should make yourselves shine’!”

After saying this, the Alter Rebbe sang the special Niggun called the Daled Bavos with great deveikus, leaning on his hands.

After the niggun, the Alter Rebbe lifted up his head and said, in a tune of a question: “How do we make ourselves shine?” He then immediately answered: “With ‘Sheva Shabbasos Temimos,’ ‘seven complete weeks.’

These are the words of the posuk, speaking about how long we count Sefiras Ha’omer. The Alter Rebbe explained this posuk with a deeper meaning:

We work on our midos for seven weeks, making sure that each midah is complete and it includes in it all of the other midos. Then our midos need to be like Shabbos, which is a perfect day that doesn’t need to be corrected.”

When we work on our midos properly and completely, that will make us able to shine!

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SEFER HAMITZVOS

Shiur #9 - Mitzvas Asei #207, Lo Saasei #302, Asei #205, Lo Saasei #303

In today’s Sefer Hamitzvos, we learn 4 mitzvos about Ahavas Yisroel:

1) (Mitzvas Asei #207) We have an extra mitzvah to love a Ger Tzedek, someone who became a Yid.

We learn this mitzvah from a posuk in Parshas Eikev: וַאֲהַבְתֶּם אֶת הַגֵּר

These next three mitzvos all come from the same posuk — that we shouldn’t hate someone, instead we should tell them that they did something wrong, but we can’t embarrass them when we do it!

2) (Mitzvas Lo Saasei #302) We are not allowed to hate someone. If someone did something that makes us upset, we can’t be angry at them inside, instead we need to talk to them about it so we can become friends again.

We learn this mitzvah from a posuk in Parshas Kedoshim: לֹא תִשְׂנָא אֶת אָחִיךָ בִּלְבָבֶךָ

3) (Mitzvas Asei #205) We need to say something if we see that someone did or wants to do an aveira.

We shouldn’t say, “I will mind my own business. I’m not doing an aveira; if he is doing an aveira it is between him and Hashem!” This is against the Torah.

We need to make sure we don’t do aveiros ourselves, and we are ALSO responsible to help make sure others don’t do aveiros either, as much as possible.

Included in this mitzvah is also if someone did something to hurt us, we shouldn’t just be angry inside, we should let them know that we were hurt.

There are many details and conditions of how to do this mitzvah; like to make sure that we do it in a way that doesn’t embarrass the other person.

We learn this mitzvah from the same posuk in Parshas Kedoshim: הוֹכֵחַ תּוֹכִיחַ אֶת עֲמִיתֶךָ

4) (Mitzvas Lo Saasei #303) It is an aveira to embarrass another Yid.

We learn this mitzvah from the same posuk in Parshas Kedoshim: וְלֹא תִשָּׂא עָלָיו חֵטְא

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RAMBAM

Hilchos Deios

Perek Gimmel: In this perek, we learn that a person should make sure that the things they do are so they can do what Hashem wants. Instead of playing outside just because it’s fun, or eating healthy food because we don’t like going to the doctor, or sleeping because we like to — we should do these things because when we take care of ourselves, our neshama has a strong body to use to do lots of mitzvos!

In Perek Daled, the Rambam teaches which foods to eat to stay healthy. The Rambam also says that it is very important to exercise to be healthy. So go run around outside!

In Perek Hey, we learn how a Talmud Chochom should act, in a mentchlich, tznius’dike way, different from most of the world. For example, he should always have clean clothes, and not scream when he’s talking!

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RAMBAM PEREK ECHOD

Mitzvos Lo Saasei - Part 2

Today we finish counting 365 Mitzvos Lo Saasei, the mitzvos about things that we are not allowed to do. The last mitzvah is that a king is not allowed to have too much gold and silver for himself.

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INYANA D'YOMA

Tzivos Hashem

In a sicha to children, the Rebbe explains a plan we can use to win over our Yetzer Hara.

We are soldiers in Hashem’s army! We are fighting against the Yetzer Hara by acting the way Hashem wants us to!

In every army, there are “Tachsisei Milchama” — tricks to fight better. We can learn from their ideas how to fight our own Yetzer Hara!

Imagine an army trying to capture another country. One way is for the soldiers to spread out and try to capture the whole thing at once! But then it’s also easier for the enemy to fight back, and they might not be successful.

Another way to do it is that they can send all of the soldiers to capture one city. With all of them working together on a smaller piece of land, they will for sure be able to win over it! Then they can move on to the next city, and then the next, until they have captured the entire country!

We can use that same idea in our Avodas Hashem.

We might have many parts of our Avodah that need to be better. But instead of trying to fix everything all at once, we can use all of our kochos to fix up one thing at a time. If we’re using all of our kochos in one part of our Avodas Hashem, we will definitely be able to correct it! Then we can move on to another thing, and another — until everything we do is the way Hashem wants us to do it!

See Der Rebbe Redt Tzu Kinder (second edition), volume 1, p. 26

▼ Jump to Coloring Books & Downloads ▼

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TEFILLAH

Ketores

Since davening today is instead of the Avodah of the Beis Hamikdash, we say the words from Torah that speak about the Avodah every day in davening.

In the Beis Hamikdash, after bringing the Korban Tomid, they would bring the Ketores. So after reading the part of Torah speaking about the Korban Tomid, we read about the Ketores.

We say a short paragraph as an introduction, and then read the parsha of Ketores from the Chumash. Afterwards we say the words of the Mishna that explain the details of the mixture of spices.

The Arizal writes that speaking about the details of the Ketores is very special. It is connected with birurim, taking sparks of kedusha that are stuck in kelipah and elevating them again.

The Zohar in Parshas Vayakhel speaks at length about the special rewards we get for saying the Ketores every day, especially when we say it with kavana!

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HALACHOS HATZRICHOS

Taanis BaHaB

Today (Monday) is the first fast of Taanis BaHaB.

What is BaHaB? “BaHaB” is made of three letters in Hebrew, Beis, Hey, Beis. The letter beis is two, which stands for Monday (the second day of the week), hey is the fifth letter, meaning Thursday (the fifth day of the week), and again Monday (beis). There is a minhag brought in Shulchan Aruch to fast on Monday, Thursday and Monday in the month after Pesach and Sukkos, which should be a kapara in case something not appropriate was done with the simcha of Yom Tov. (We only are starting now, because we wait for the first Shabbos after Rosh Chodesh before counting Monday, Thursday, and Monday.)

In Tof-Shin-Mem-Ches, the Rebbe said a sicha on each day of Pesach, and also on each day of Taanis BaHaB after Yom Tov. In one of these sichos, the Rebbe explained why the minhag is that many Yidden, and even Chassidim, who are usually extra-careful with mitzvos, don’t actually fast on these days.

Still, the Rebbe said that since every fast day is an Eis Ratzon, a special time to connect to Hashem, even if a person is not fasting, the day should still be used to add in inyonim of Torah and mitzvos!

Here is a story that happened during one of those sichos:

Many bochurim, out of love for the Rebbe, would try to copy things that the Rebbe would do. Some of the bochurim who knew that the Rebbe himself did fast BaHaB, would also copy the Rebbe and fast this taanis.

One of these bochurim was there as the Rebbe said this sicha, and heard that the Rebbe said Chassidim should not actually fast on these days. He was sadly thinking, “Now I will have to stop keeping BaHaB like the Rebbe does.”

As he was thinking this, the Rebbe added, “But those who already started keeping this fast should continue, and it will bring them brachos for health and good things.”

To this day, this bochur still fasts BaHaB like the Rebbe said to!

For the rest of us, though, we have a hora’ah from the Rebbe not to fast. But we still need to make sure to use the Eis Ratzon of this day, to add in giving tzedakah, and other inyonim of Yiddishkeit, more than usual!

See sichos of BaHaB, Toras Menachem Tof-Shin-Mem-Ches vol. 3, p. 257

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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GEULAH U'MOSHIACH

The Light of Hashem Will Shine on Everyone

When Moshiach comes, the light of Hashem will shine on the Yidden the way it did at Matan Torah!

Through the Yidden, this light will shine to the goyim too! We see this in the pesukim from Yeshaya which we have been learning. The Navi tells us that the goyim will want to come learn how to live according to Hashem’s way, telling the Yidden, “Beis Yaakov, Lechu Venelcha Be’or Hashem!” The Navi also tells us how the goyim will feel so embarrassed, that they will throw away their Avodah Zarah and run to hide in the rocks and the cliffs.

We see from here that even the goyim will see the light of Hashem!

This was the way it was for a short time at Matan Torah, when the WHOLE world heard the Aseres Hadibros and there was no echo, because it was felt in the entire world! When Moshiach comes, it will stay this way forever.

See Tanya, end of perek Lamed-Vov

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