Letters of Strife and the Mechanism of Love

I Love You Because You are Beautiful, vs. You are Beautiful Because I Love You

Class Summary

Why can’t people get along today? What happened to relationships in our world? Why are so many couples struggling to find happiness together? A single commandment in the portion of Pinchas can give us at least part of the answer.

A debate between the Karaites and traditional Jews focused on the anomaly of the Rabbis calling the document of divorce a “get,” neglecting the biblical term for the writ of divorce.

The word “get” is spelled from two letters, Gimmel and Tes. The Vilna Gaon presented an ingenious insight about these two letters of the Hebrew alphabet, showing how they symbolize the reality of a divorce. Building on this idea, his student explained why these two letters were the only ones omitted from the portion in Pinchas dealing with the daily lamb offerings: this portion captures the essence of an enduring relationship hence it has no place for the letters of divorce.

This class presents an explanation why it is specifically the portion discussing the daily lamb sacrifices that conveys the essence of an enduring relationship.

There were two types of offerings brought in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. While most sacrifices were partially burnt and then partially eaten, ‘the burnt-offering,’ the Olah, had to be totally consumed by the flames of the altar. Nothing remained to be eaten. It was a sacrifice totally dedicated to G-d and the person who offered it derived no benefit from it. The daily lamb offering was an ‘Olah.’

From a spiritual and psychological perspective, these two types of offerings represent two types of sacrifice: Self-motivated sacrifice vs. complete sacrifice; conditional sacrifice vs. unconditional sacrifice.

You may love your spouse and make sacrifices for your spouse because of what you receive, what you expect to receive in return. You appreciate her physical and emotional qualities, you cherish your partner’s looks, wisdom, kindness or candidness, and you gain much from it. Essentially it is not the other person you love, rather it is yourself whom you love. You love that part of the other person which enriches your life.

Then there is another form of love and loyalty, in which you transcend yourself and ask not what your friend can do for you, but what you can do for your friend. Without personal gain and self interest. To paraphrase Kennedy: Ask not what your wife can do for you; ask what you can do for your wife! Ask not what your husband can do for you; ask what you can do for your husband!

It is this type of relationship that eliminates the possibility of divorce. Hence, it is from this offering that the Torah omits the two letters representing divorce.

The Western Light

It was revealed to the Baal Shem Tov that if the two great lights of the world were to meet, they together could bring Moshiach and the Final Redemption. From that time, the Baal Shem Tov desired greatly to go to Eretz Yisrael to meet the great Ohr HaChayim HaKodesh [Rabbi Chaim ben Atar].

In the year 5503, the Baal Shem Tov set out to travel to Eretz Yisrael to fulfill his long held desire to be in the Holy Land and to meet the great Ohr HaChayim HaKodesh. By Pesach, he arrived in Istanbul. There he prayed at the gravesite of Rav Naftali, a tzaddik who had attempted the same trip at an earlier time, but had only managed to reach this far.

That night, Rav Naftali appeared to the Baal Shem Tov in a dream. “Reb Yisrael, it has been decreed in Heaven that you are not destined to dwell in Eretz Yisrael. If you are stubborn and attempt to continue your journey, you will die here as I did. Return home.” The Baal Shem Tov accepted the decree and embarked upon a ship and headed homeward.

His ship was captured by pirates, who let him off at the port of Kilya, from where he continued his journey to Medzibush. Three months later, during the Seudah Shishlit meal on the Shabbat of Parshat Pinchas, immediately after washing his hands and eating a bite of challah, the Baal Shem Tov said with a sigh, “The Western Light has been extinguished.”

At the Melave Malkah (meal following the departure of the Shabbat Queen) on that Motzoei Shabbat, the chassidim gathered their courage and asked, “Rebbe, what did you mean when you said that ‘The Western Light has been extinguished?’” The Baal Shem Tov replied, “The Ohr HaChayim HaKodesh has died. He was known in Heavenly realms as the Western Light.” “How does the Rebbe know that?” one chassid boldly asked.

The Baal Shem Tov answered, “There is a particular kavanna (intention) for the recitation of the blessing for washing hands which I have always wanted to know. However, this kavanna was hidden from me since only one person in each generation can know it, and the Ohr HaChayim had preceded me. This afternoon, as I washed my hands for Seudah Shishlit, I suddenly became aware of a new kavanna. I immediately understood that the Ohr HaChayim had passed from this world and now I become the guardian of that kavanna.”

Another time, the Baal Shem Tov told his Chassidim of another incident related to the Ohr HaChayim. On the Shabbat that the great Ohr HaChayim departed from this world, his friend in Tiberias, Reb Chayim Abulafia, mysteriously fainted, and remained unconscious for half an hour. When he finally was revived, he announced to his students "Today the Ohr HaChayim left this world. I accompanied him until the Gates of Gan Eden." “What Reb Chayim of Tiberias did not know,” the Baal Shem Tov told his chassidim, “was that the Ohr HaChayim’s saintly neshamah [soul] remained in Gan Eden only for the duration of Shabbat. The next day it descended once more to this world.

The souls of tzaddikim,” he explained, “receive greater satisfaction from being in this physical world than by being in Gan Eden. Here the soul can serve the Almighty on the lowest physical plane, through performing mitzvot and good deeds which brings far greater benefit to this world, and is far more pleasurable to the soul than being in Gan Eden. When Moshiach arrives, and Godliness will be seen and felt by even the most common man, we will yearn for the days previous when we were able to serve the Almighty on the lowest level of the physical.”

The death of the Ohr HaChayim occurred just two days before Reb Leib Sorahs’ Bar Mitzvah. It was years later however, that the chassidim understood that it was the Ohr HaChayim’s soul that he received at the time of his Bar Mitzvah, from the Rebbe Reb Dov Ber [The Mezritcher Maggid]. And so it was.

The Real Meaning of Peace

by Rabbi Chaim Ingram

The Amidah prayer, recited thrice daily, encompasses requests for the fulfilment of all our fondest hopes and aspirations. Yet not until the very last blessing do we ask G-D for peace (sim shalom). Indeed the word shalom appears nowhere else either in the weekday or in the Shabbat Amidah. It appears as though any sentiment expressing peace has been purposefully set aside until the very end. The burning question is – why?

Assuredly the reason cannot be that peace is unimportant in Judaism. To the contrary, it is one of the three pillars on which the world endures [Avot 1:18]. We may answer, on a straightforward level, that since peace is the ultimate blessing its request is reserved until last.

But there is assuredly a deeper idea here. Our sages wanted us to be aware of exactly to what type of peace our tradition aspires before we request it.

Is it a type of peace that transcends all rational thought, that supersedes all well-thought-out strategy? No! The first petition we utter every day in the Amidah is a plea to be granted “knowledge, understanding and seichel, wisdom (or common-sense)”. The peace for which we ask must be predicated on rational thinking.

May we ask for peace in the world arena if we have not yet striven for wholeness within ourselves? No! In the third request of the Amidah we ask for forgiveness for our sins. This obliges us to search out our faults and our failings from within ourselves before even imagining that we can seek the elusive goal of peace among ourselves and among the family of nations.

May we pray for peace which is not grounded in justice and righteousness? No! In the eighth request of the Amidah we cry “restore our judges and advisors”, let it be our religious leaders who stand at the helm and preach justice and truth – then we shall understand for what we pray when we ask for peace.

Can we request peace without acknowledging our right to the land of Israel? No! “Sound the great shofar for our freedom” we cry out in the tenth berakha “and gather us together from the four corners of the earth le-artseinu, to our land. When we realise that Erets Yisrael is our land the title-deeds to which rest in the Five Books of Moses, then we will know to what kind of peace we aspire.

Can we ask for peace without staking our eternal claim to Jerusalem? No! “Return in mercy to Jerusalem Your city and let your Shechina rest there as You have spoken” we pray in the fourteenth blessing. We ask for it to be rebuilt as a binyan olam, an eternal city with an eternal Temple in which the eternal people can worship the Eternal G-D. Only then can we begin to talk about shalom.

Perhaps most remarkably of all, even the penultimate blessing of thanksgiving for Heavenly grace, modim anakhnu lakh, precedes the ultimate blessing for peace.

I would venture to suggest that the reason might be: shalom is not something for which we either have to petition or to thank G-D. Rather shalom is an ineluctable consequence of all the other blessings falling into place. Being granted knowledge, understanding, wisdom, forgiveness, wellbeing, the wherewithal to aspire to a just society in our own land, and in Jerusalem, G-D’s capital city - for all these things we thank G-D “whose name is All-Good”. The corollary of the fulfilment of all these blessings will be the shalom to which Judaism aspires. The final piece of the jigsaw whose placing is inevitable. Shalom stems from a Hebrew root meaning ‘to be complete’. Shalom must therefore be founded on the complete realisation of all the blessings mentioned heretofore.

In the closing chapters of Sefer Bemidbar, the Book of Numbers, we read about Pinchas. Zealously he defends the honour of G-D by slaying the two ringleaders in the unprecedented orgy that was taking place between the Israelite men and the Moabite women. He consults no sage, not even Moses. Instead he acts unilaterally. His drastic action was not something anyone could contemplate in any normal situation. Yet in this abnormal situation, Pinchas’s zeal calls forth this response from G-D: “Behold I am giving him b’riti shalom, my complete covenant, my covenant of Peace!”

Pinchas, the ultimate zealot, is acclaimed by G-D as a man of shalom. Indeed our sages declare Pinchas zu Eliahu, the same soul that animated Pinchas is present in Elijah the prophet who will announce the final and complete Redemption.

Grocery List

This is just one of those chain emails someone sent me, but this one is worth reading.

---------- Forwarded message ----------

Louise Redden, a poorly dressed lady with a look of defeat on her face, walked into a grocery store.

She approached the owner of the store in a most humble manner and asked if he would let her charge a few groceries.

She softly explained that her husband was very ill and unable to work, they had seven children and they needed food.

John Longhouse, the grocer, scoffed at her and requested that she leave his store at once.

Visualizing the family needs, she said: 'Please, sir! I will bring you the money just as soon as I can.'

John told her he could not give her credit, since she did not have a charge account at his store.

Standing beside the counter was a customer who overheard the conversation between the two. The customer walked forward and told the grocer that he would stand good for whatever she needed for her family. The grocer said in a very reluctant voice, 'Do you have a grocery list?'

Louise replied, 'Yes sir.' 'O.K' he said, 'put your grocery list on the scales and whatever your grocery list weighs, I will give you that amount in groceries.'

Louise hesitated a moment with a bowed head, then she reached into her purse and took out a piece of paper and scribbled something on it. She then laid the piece of paper on the scale carefully with her head still bowed.

The eyes of the grocer and the customer showed amazement when the scales went down and stayed down..

The grocer, staring at the scales, turned slowly to the customer and said begrudgingly, 'I can't believe it.'

The customer smiled and the grocer started putting the groceries on the other side of the scales. The scale did not balance so he continued to put more and more groceries on them until the scales would hold no more.

The grocer stood there in utter disgust. Finally, he grabbed the piece of paper from the scales and looked at it with greater amazement.

It was not a grocery list, it was a prayer, which said:

'Dear Hashem, you know my needs and I am leaving this in your hands.'

The grocer gave her the groceries that he had gathered and stood in stunned silence.

Louise thanked him and left the store. The other customer handed a fifty-dollar bill to the grocer and said; 'It was worth every penny of it. Only God knows how much a prayer weighs.'

THE POWER: When you receive this, say a prayer. That's all you have to do.

Just stop right now, and say a prayer of thanks for your own good fortune..... Then please send this to all your friends and relatives..

I believe if you will send this testimony out with prayer in faith, you will receive what you need Hashem to do in your and your families' life ..

So dear heart, trust Hashem to heal the sick, provide food for the hungry, clothes and shelter for those that don't have as we do.

Don't break this, please! Prayer is one of the best free gifts we receive.

There is no cost but a lot of rewards.

I AM CLAIMING THIS FOR YOU Three things will happen to you this coming week: bli neder!

(1) You will find favor with someone you don't expect;

(2) You will be too relevant to be ignored;

(3) You will encounter God and you will never remain the same, (?)

May you never be 'wanting' Amen.

My prayer for you today:

The eyes beholding this message shall not behold evil, the hands that will send this message to others shall not labor in vain, the mouth saying Amen to this prayer shall laugh forever. (Beholding the ingathering of the Diaspora to her Homeland, Israel).

Have a lovely journey of life!

Trust in Hashem with all your heart and He will never fail you because He is Awesome!

TAKE 60 SECONDS and send this on quickly and within hours, you will have caused a multitude of people to daven to Hashem for each other.

The Yud and The Hei

The Zohar teaches that the letter yud was added to Pinchas' name and the letter hei was added to Yosef's name [see Psalms 81:6] because they were both zealous about the prohibition of cohabiting with a non-Jewish woman.  Pinchas killed Zimri and Yosef resisted the persistent attempts of Potifar's wife.

This sheds light on Rashi's explanation why each of the family names included in the census consisted of their paternal father's names with a hei added at the front and a yud at the end:  ''The nation would taunt [Israel] saying ''Why do they trace their lineage by tribe? Do they really think that the Egyptians did not have their way with their mothers?''... So God placed His Name upon them, hei at one end and yud at the other, as if to say ''I testify that these people are indeed the sons of their fathers'' [Rashi to Pinchas 26:5].  Thus we see here that the same letters, yud and hei, were added to show that the Jewish people had been moral, like Pinchas and Yosef.

Why is this vigilance attested to by these two particular letters?  Our Sages noted that the Hebrew words for ''man'' אישׁ and ''woman'' אשׁה only differ in the letters yud and hei, which spell God's Name.*  On this, they remarked ''If a couple is found worthy, the Divine Presence will be with them''.  [Sotah 17a]  Here we see the Talmudic source that the letters yud and hei testify that God's people are pure and holy.

*When the letters yud and hei are removed, both words spell אשׁ - fire - showing that when God is not present in a marriage, there is fire.

Based on Likutei Sichos Lubavitcher Rebbe

The Three Weeks

Written by Rabbi Benzion Milecki

This Shabbat, the 17th of Tammuz, marks the beginning of The Three Weeks period of mourning which culminates on the 9th of Av. It commemorates the conquest of Jerusalem, the destruction of the Holy Temple and the dispersion of the Jewish people. Because it is Shabbat, the fast of the Seventeenth of Tammuz is postponed until Sunday.

The 17th of Tammuz marks the beginning of The Three Weeks period of mourning which culminates on the 9th of Av. It commemorates the conquest of Jerusalem, the destruction of the Holy Temple and the dispersion of the Jewish people.

This 21 day period is also referred to as bein ha- metzarim - "within the straits," based on the verse [Eichah 1:3] which states: All of her pursuers overtook her within the straits. The Sages [Eichah Rabbah 1] explained that "within the straits" refers to the days of affliction between the two straights, the seventeenth of Tammuz, when the walls of Jerusalem were breached, and the Ninth of Av, when the Temples were destroyed.

During this period, we lessen the extent of our rejoicing. Marriages are not held, we refrain from listening to music, dancing, taking pleasure trips, and from taking haircuts or shaving.

The Lubavitcher Rebbe also urged that the Three Weeks should be a time of increased giving of charity and Torah study (in keeping with the verse [Isaiah 1:27], "Zion shall be redeemed by law, and her returnees by charity"), particularly the study of those portions of Torah that deal with the laws and the deeper significance of the Holy Temple.

During this period, when writing a letter it is customary to insert the following words under the date: "May these days be transformed into days of gladness and rejoicing". This is based on the biblical verses which prophecy that upon Moshiach's coming, these will become the greatest festivals.

May it occur very soon!

Perek Shira: Be Smart Like A Donkey

Avrohom went to the Akeida on a Chamor [donkey], Yisachar is compared to a Chamor, Moshe took his family on Chamor to Mitzrayim, Bilam got blasted by his Chamor, Pinchos ben Yair's Chamor wouldn't eat Tevel, and Moshiach will arrive on a Chamor. What is it with the Chamor?

There is no harder working, obedient, and modest animal like a Donkey. It carries its load without fuss with its great strength. Even when it lies down it doesn't throw off its load. It never uses this strength to fight or rebel against the wishes of a human. This is its nature. It never worries about its food because it always knows it will be rewarded by its owner who needs to keep his trusty friend nice and strong.

The K'naf Renanim says that the Chamor is a reminder to us to put aside our own desires and subjugate ours wishes to that of our Master. "Bitul" was Avrohom's reaction to Hashem's command to slaughter his son. Yisachar is completely devoted to Torah. Bilam had to be told off by a Donkey who was practicing Bitul, because he didn't know how to be "Mivatel" himself. Moshiach will arrive when Klal Yisroel understands that we need to be Mivatel ourselves to Hashem and he will take care of us.

The Donkey sings: "Licha Hashem HaGedula, V'Hagevura, V'Hatiferes..." To you Hashem are all the virtues and powers. We look to you and are Mivatel ourselves.

Source: Revach.net

Will the Real Moshiach Stand Up ?