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Living in the high energized Big Apple where there is so much to do in the course of the day we have to juggle a lot; therefore we have to allocate our time wisely. One meets many interesting people on the New York City subways (well not this past week because of Sandy). If I see a person on the subway who is somewhat knowledgeable in Torah, then I press him to say a good shmooze. Of course I too am more then happy to share something which I learned recently. Believe it or not, one can get some awesome Divrai Torahs. Such is the case many years ago with a nice guy and knowledgeable person by the name of Baruch. He told me a nice shmooze while standing on the F train and I would like to share it with you.
King Solomon (Shlomo) was considered the smartest man in the world. He had 1,000 wives. So you think us New Yorkers are busy. He was interested in marrying the Queen of Sheba. The queen was playing hard to get. She said to King Shlomo ” I’ll marry you under one condition – bring me all the birds in the world. Shlomo knew the languages of the animal kingdom so he dispatched a messenger to let all the birds know they should come. The Queen of Sheba counted all the birds and discovered one missing!! YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING!! Now that’s one meticulous young lady!! Shlomo, with his connections found the missing bird and asked him. ” Why didn’t you come? He answered ” I was counting all the Jewish males and females in the world”. Shlomo was puzzled. “What do you mean, isn’t it a 50/50 breakdown? Believe it or not, your majesty the king, it’s 70/30 female” the bird said. ” Some of the males don’t act like males. They don’t do the requirements which males are supposed to do, like putting on tefillin, going to minyan etc. This is the reason we say at a brit (circumcision ceremony) – BEN- ZACHAR; ben means son, zachor means male. Ever wonder why we say the double language? Why not just say one or the other? Because the new baby boy should be a ben and act like a zachar. He should do what a zachar is supposed to do.
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Tag Archive for Parshat Vayeira
Why Do We Say Ben Zahar at the Brit?
Altering Life in the Blink of an Eye
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There are times when it seems that all one’s effort is for naught. No matter how much one tries, it just doesn’t go. It’s similar to when one puts their car in neutral and presses the gas. The vehicle doesn’t move. It doesn’t help if one presses on the accelerator with more force. Absolutely nothing helps. This is how many of us feel sometimes. Does this sound familiar?
Rav Henoch Liebowitz z’l teaches us something very inspirational in this week’s parsha. When the two angels came to Lot’s house revealing that the city and all its inhabitants would be destroyed, Lot informed his household that they would have to leave quickly. However his future son-in-law laughed at him. “How can this city be destroyed? The economy is bustling” the son-in-law said. “The kids are playing in the street and there’s not a cloud in the sky; it doesn’t seem like anything is going to happen”. Boy, was he surprised; he and the entire city were destroyed. Interestingly, even though he ridiculed Lot, the son- in-law was a believer of G-d. So why didn’t he comply? Rav Henoch says, human nature is such that one doesn’t believe change will take place. Everything will remain the same. This is what the son-in-law believed. Perhaps that’s why a person never is able to comprehend that he will die one day. It could happen to my friend but it can never happen to me.
Just like change took place in a blink of an eye for destructive purposes, so too one can believe that changes can occur in the blink of an eye for the good. One can be single for twenty years and one day he dates a girl and in a couple of months is engaged to be married. The same goes with having children – one may think life follows a script however the captain of the football team doesn’t always get the head cheerleader. Life takes funny bounces and sometimes for the good.
Rav Henoch is trying to teach us one never knows. In the blink of an eye our prayers can be answered.
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The Battle Of Life
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You’re the General and have just conquered strategic point in the battle against the enemy. There is now a new front and you are dispatching the forces towards the target area. There are places that the enemy have fortified and there are places where you, as the commander, have a strong hold Then there are the grey areas, the places where you’re not sure who’ll win.
Kosher food, well that’s your stronghold. With all the kosher supermarkets. fancy restaurants, and fast food whole-in-the-wall take-out places which are open till 2:00am you definitely have no problem keeping kosher. However the grey area, the battle of keeping the laws of family purity (nida laws), well that’s sometimes more difficult to keep. Never-the-less though, sometimes you and your wife feel spiritual and wait the two weeks and then are mikva bound. You and your wife realize it’s a fierce battle. Who will persevere?…..and the war continues. Who’ll win?
There is an awesome question asked by Rav Dessler. Avraham is known for his HACHNASAT ORCHIM hospitality and his nephew Lott’s claim to fame was that he didn’t spill the beans and disclosed, when Avraham, Sarah and himself, were in Egypt that Avraham and Sarah were not brother and sister but rather husband and wife. Interestingly Lott, living in a degenerate society, where kindness and hospitality are outlawed, went out on a limb for having guests. Lott put his life in danger having the two angels at his house while a lynch mob was waiting outside. He even offered his two daughters in order that his guest would not be harmed. For the most part his daughter inherited that character trait as well. She got killed doing a kindness with a passer-by. So it seems like Lott had a tougher time and more of a test to keep hospitality. Why wasn’t hospitality the famous virtue that Lott is known for?
The weakness Lott had was the desire for money. As a matter of fact, that is the reason why he chose Sedom as his residence after he and Avraham went there separate ways. Sedom’s economy was bustling and that attracted Lott to reside there event hough they were evil people.
When the three went down to Egypt Lot had a big opportunity to cash in by disclosing to Pharaoh about Sarah. Against all his desires he kept his mouth shut. That was his battle, his weakness, and he won.
Out of all the times Avraham did kindness, why does the incident with the angels stand out the most. All his life Avraham wanted to reach the height of spirituality. He examined the stars, the sun, anything that could have had a spiritual pulse. On the third day after his circumcision G-d , with all his glory, appeared to him. The ultimate spiritual quest finally arrived. This was the moment he was waiting for. Three men from afar, potential guests, arrived. Ever wonder why G-d had the three men come a few moments after he appeared to Avraham? This was Avraham’s test. This was the sacrifice that Avraham was faced with. The battle had sprung. What would Avraham choose?
He interrupted his meeting with G-d to attend to the guests. For this reason Avraham is known for his kindness and hospitality. He won the battle. |
Do We Really Understand Our Constitutional Rights?
New York in the 21st century should be more advanced than the 20th century, don’t you think? It’s disappointing and not to say, down right inconvenient of the instillation of the new municipal meters. Basically, it’s the new contraption that the City installed where one puts quarters in a slot and receives a slip with the date and time of expiration; one then places the slip on their dashboard.
When I left my job in midtown Manhattan, which required taking the subway as the main form of transportation, and began driving to work to my new job, I realized I would have to be more diligent and careful to the traffic laws (parking tickets in particular). This was very new to me; it’s hard enough to find a spot in crowded Queens, but to always have a supply of quarters was a new task that one has to remember. But the installation, these past few years, of these municipal meters, in which one has to walk, at times, a half a block to find them, and then return again back to the car where one has to open the vehicle a second time and then place it on the dashboard, is very time consuming. A simple quick task in going to the store is discouraged because this new system is very time consuming. It doesn’t pay to do quickies.
‘It is what it is’, a defeatist attitude individual proclaimed. ‘No!’ I retorted, ‘we can’t have our quality of life diminished like that. One should speak out and complain to the local district politicians. ‘Nah, you’re not going to get anywhere, you’re wasting your time’ he countered back.
It says in the Gemarah, a Jew living outside of Israel is obligated to follow the laws of his host country, ‘dina de-malchuta dina’ – the law of the land is the law. This means, if one violates the law of the land, then he violates the Torah. So if this were the law in which we Jews have to follow, it would have to be made comfortable to follow (temporarily, until we are able to return to our homeland, Israel).
Thank G-d, we live in a country, which gives people many rights (Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religion, to name a few.) As an American, we have to exercise our rights. This great country is kind to the Jews, and has been constructed in such a way to provide and help us with many benefits. But I think one of the crucial benefits that it provides to their citizens is the ability to change laws. Laws are made by the people whom we the people elected.
In the past, the turn of the 20th century, the Jews were instrumental in instituting the 40-hour workweek, abolishing the horrendous sweatshops. This made the working conditions better and safer. Jews also benefited by the new law because now they’re able to keep Shabbat without any hassles. A number of years ago, Sheldon Silver, a Jewish New York politician, was instrumental in allowing Hatzolah volunteer Jewish ambulance corp. to operate even though there was much opposition. Do you know how many Jewish lives were saved through Hatzolah?
When a politician visits a community (his district where he wants to get elected), the people voice their needs, where he then tries to accommodate the voters and if need be, tries to change the laws. This is a tremendous benefit we have in this democratic country.
We are obligated by the Torah to be fine, upstanding citizens, and as citizens we have to utilize what this country stands for, ‘For the People’, to make us better, more efficient (parking solution), and constructive. We should also utilize these rights to make us – let’s not forget – the primary goal, of being better Jews. |
Peace & Harmony
In this week’s parsha, we learn a very valuable lesson on how to maintain peace and harmony among married couples. Both G-d and the angels give us a mind- boggling crash course.
We find the three angels coming to Abraham with a number of tasks, one of which is to tell Sarah that she will have a baby. The angels made a point of inquiring about Sarah, ‘Where is your wife, Sarah?’ so as to endear her to her husband’ (Bava Metzia 87a). The question that the angels asked, set up a response by Abraham (she’s in the tent) and through those words that he uttered, made him realize the exceptional modesty his wife possessed. Therefore, she would become even dearer to him.
We find something interesting in the Gemara in Ketubot in which we see that it is permissible to lie to a groom and tell him ‘your wife is such a beautiful Kallah (bride)’, even though she’s not. But for the sake of endearing the wife in the groom’s eyes, a little white lie is permissible. Commentaries on this Gemarah extend this idea. For example, if one purchases an item, lets say a tie, and you meet him for coffee, even though the tie is not nice, one should lie in order not to make him feel bad; (If there is no refund policy.)
Furthermore in the parsha, we find Sarah could not believe the good news of her upcoming pregnancy. But she had an interesting response about her husband, ‘How can we have kids? My master is old’. But G-d misquoted her to Abraham, saying only about her ‘I have aged’ (not mentioning Abraham). G-d lied for the sake of shalom (peace), so that her words should not offend Abraham. This, despite the fact that Abraham was indeed old (he was 99) and would certainly have realized that she had no ill intentions when she had said it. Yet to avoid that tiniest possibility of friction, to refrain from diminishing somewhat the peace and harmony (shalom bayit), G-d altered her words.
The master of creating peace and harmony was Aharon (Moshe’s brother). He would fabricate a story and tell Joe, who is fighting with Jack, that Jack has tremendous regret about the disagreement between the two of you and is devastated by losing such a wonderful friend; then he would go to Jack and similarly fabricate a story that Joe feels the same way. This is how he would successfully bring Jack and Joe together. Each one thinks the other is caring and wants to make up.
Dr. Goldman, the Psychologist at Yeshiva Chofetz Chaim, once was in the crossroad between a major feud of two individuals. Both claimed the rights to Dr. Goldman’s seat in the study hall. On Shabbat, the good doctor stayed home in Kew Gardens, therefore the seat is vacant. Remembering the famous Medrash (commentary) of Aharon, the good doctor said, ‘let me try it’. He proceeded to tell one of the fellows that the other is ashamed and regrets that it has escalated to such an extent and is willing to give up the silly spot. He then, similarly fabricated the same story to the other. So I asked him what happened. Dr. Goldman answered back ‘it worked!’ ‘So who sits there now?’ I asked. ‘It’s vacant’! He responded, ‘out of respect to each other’.
Aharon was especially successful with married couples. People in general have tremendous sensitivities and get hurt too quickly, especially couples. One has to be super sensitive to his or her spouse. In this highly pressurized society that we live in, it’s easy to get busy and ignore the other’s needs. We therefore have to make an effort to spend quality time with the ones we love.We learn how careful one must be when speaking about one spouse to the other. If one promotes bad feelings, it’s a terrible sin.
The discovery in this week’s parsha that even G-d would lie to preserve the peace between a couple, should make us realize the importance of the matter. |