"The congregation had no water, so they ganged up against Moshe and Aharon..." [Chukat 20:2]
Water assists the digestive system to break down food, and the water within the bloodstream carries those nutrients to all parts of the body. This represents the mission of all Jewish women: to bring the well of living water - Torah - to nourish all segments of the Jewish people, even those who totally lack knowledge of it. Thus we find that, while still in Egypt, Miriam devoted herself to small children, and her heroic efforts led to the annulment of Pharoah's decree against children. Consequently, it was in her merit that the well water came, since water represents the universal dissemination of Torah.
Thus, when a mother, sister or teacher educates a child, we witness the modern-day "living waters of Miriam" sustaining the Jewish people in exile, making it possible to go peacefully throughout our current "sojourn" in the "desert" of exile.
In addition to providing water to drink, Miriam's well also made it possible for the mitzvah of taharas hamishpachah [family purity] to be fulfilled. There was no other source of water in the desert, so Miriam's well served as a mikvah, enabling children to be born throughout the forty years.
The custom of drawing water on Motzei Shabbat [to draw from the well of Miriam] is cited in the Alter Rebbe's Shulchan Aruch. This appears to suggest that it is applicable today; however, this was not a custom practiced in the House of the Chabad Rebbeim. In any case, it certainly applies to all of us spiritually: studying this law about Miriam's well influences the whole week, that it may be a healthy week in both spiritual and physical terms.
Source: Gutnick Chumash: Based on various Sichos of the Lubavitcher Rebbe
8 comments:
So beautiful of the very holy Jewish women... as you teach us gentiles... we become your children as well... may we all merit seeing the Day HaShem brings Moshiach and we all become his children ... learning Truth that's been buried and hidden but not destroyed...in OUR day soon... amen amen amen
Thanks Angela
Wow, what a beautiful way to look at one the many roles of the Jewish woman!
Shalom Devorah,
This comment is not directly related with the subject of the post, thus you may not publish it if you prefer to do so, but anyway I'm trying to ask for your advice on the issue of Sin'at Chinam which is claimed to be one of the main obstacles for the final Geulah.
I've been listening to Rav Yossi Mizrachi's lectures for several years and learning from him a huge amount of top quality information about Torah. He's one of the main influences that brought about my Teshuvah process - which is naturally a never-ending task, but now at least I feel I'm on the right track...
Then I recently listened to some lectures by Rav Amnon Yitzchak where he made horrible comments about Rav Mizrachi, and even posted a record of a phone conversation which supposedly shows Rav Mizrachi's voice making negative comments about Rav Yitzchak.
I felt quite saddened, disappointed and confused to see 2 Chachamim I admire, saying bad things about one another.
In your opinion, what should I do? Just ignore the bad comments of both and keep listening to their lectures on other subjects? Investigate who's "right" and get involved in some way, so as to contribute towards a solution to this "Sin'at" which developed among them? Give credit to the information they exposed about one another - in which case, both would be guilty of severe Lashon Harah and therefore I should avoid giving ear to them?
I look forward to your help in order to clarify my thoughts, or else if you don't feel you could help me, perhaps you could suggest me to contact some Chacham that would do it.
Thanks in advance for your kind assistance & Shabbat Shalom.
R. Halevy
Mech. Engineer
Petach Tikvah.
I have personally never heard Rabbi Mizrachi even mention Rav Amnon Yitzchak, and I've also listened to lot of his shiurim. I have never listened to Rav Amnon so I can't comment on anything he may have said.
Hopefully someone will give you a good answer to your dilemma.
R. Halevy: I don't really have an answer for you, but I strongly recommend you and everyone else listen to the shiur by Rabbi Ofer Erez which you can find at the Emunaroma blog: The Missing Bit of the Geula Puzzle Although the title of the shiur does not seem to relate to this particular discussion either, you will soon realize that it does.
Shavua Tov Devorah,
Thanks for taking your time to answer my question.
Until a few days ago I had also never heard any of them saying bad things about the other, I just stumbled upon this matter on Rav Amnon Yitzchak's YouTube Channel, where he posted some short videos, including parts of public shiurim with huge presence of public, calling Rav Mizrachi horrible names etc.
Something has gone terribly wrong here, as both of them are respected Rabbis who work intensively with Kiruv (with great success as far as I know).
In summary, I'm not interested in throwing more fuel into this fire but just wish to keep on learning Torah from pure sources - and we know that someone who speaks bad things about anyone, more so before a potential audience of millions of listeners - wouldn't be considered a proper source for holy information.
As for your suggestion on Rav Ofer Erez's lecture, I had "coincidentally" (or not, as we all know...) started to listen to it last Friday, from the Shuvu Banim website. Then I stopped in the middle because of Shabbat, and today I'll try to listen up to the end.
I really hope to clarify this issue, as it makes me sad and depressed to witness such great Rabbis who I admire so much, supposedly contending each other.
All the best!
R. Halevy
P. Tikva.
Rav Ofer's video now has English subtitles to the half way mark (30 mins) - it's helping me so much to get a better grip on what Hashem is really expecting of us at this stage of the game. But it's still pretty hard to do!
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