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This article was constructed with the help of either writings, lectures or shiurim of Rabbi’s Yissachar Frand, Berel Wein, Yossi Bilius, Akiva Tatz, Nosson Chaim Leff, Pinchas Winston and Dr. Abba Goldman, David Abraham esq
One can argue that man hasn’t changed in thousands of years, same jealousy, same rivalry; ego’s has to be stroked; bribes have to be slipped under the table. Speaking bad about each other is the social norm. Moreover a couple of shots of one’s favorite scotch has to be taken after a long hard day at the office in order to preserve some degree of sanity. Where have you gone HAKEREM wines!!! Yes, Yes the good old Torah is trying to change that however the evil in all of us is putting on a good fight. Perhaps, we have not envisioned things so clear. Perhaps we have to see beyond what is projected.
Avraham and Sarah, G-d’s favorite people, the ambassadors of the Almighty were having difficulty having kids. (In Vitro treatment was not yet available). Interesting, one method to become fertile is by being around children. Apparently Sarah gave over her own maidservant to Avraham which produced a son, Yishmael.
The scripture tells us that Hagar taunted and teased Sarah for not having children. The audacity one can display!! Seemingly we see the bad character trait at its height of the maidservant. Can one really be unappreciative ingratitude to someone, Sarah, who actually initiated and encouraged the Idea. of letting you have relations with her husband? This is how you pay someone back? This display led to a bad relation between the two women which escalated even after Sarah gave birth, to her own son Yitzchak, which she had with Avraham. The bitterness and hatred spilled over to the sons to a point that Sarah influenced Avraham, and rightfully so, to ask Hagar and Yishmael to leave.
Trouble loomed ahead for Hagar and her son Yishmael on their journey as their food suply and water dwindled and starvation and death seemed imminent. While she rested in the hot dessert G-d appeared to her in a dream and assured her not to worry “and your son will blossom into a great nation”. When Hagar awoke, something interesting occurred that perhaps wasn’t there before. A revelation!! She opened her eyes and saw a well of water. Was the well there before? Was it a miracle? How did many of G-d’s revelation throughout the Torah happen?
There was something about Haggar vision that changed the perceptional dynamics of the dessert and this is what the begining of this week’s parsha is trying to convey. “See, I give you today blessing and curse” (Devarim 11:26
The most important word in the above-quoted verse is the three letter verb that opens the sentence — and opens the Torah section of Re’eh, giving the parshah its name. The word “sees.”
“See” is a loaded word. The Torah demands of us more than simply eye vision. We are challenged to see the physically useable and to deal with abstractions of thought and policy and make them real.
So re’eih is as much a state of mind and contemplation as it is one of actual eyesight. That is why the Torah states that we should somehow see and behold possible blessings and curses in our future – successes and failures. The human eye cannot discern blessings or curses. What sometimes appears to be a wonderful idea, a great blessing, a most correct policy may, in fact, turn out to be a cursed disaster.
One should know a fundamental concept in the Torah. When a word appears for the first time in the Torah its content is its essence. The translation of the word “see” is Ra’ah”.In the onset of the parsha Bereshit 1:4 G-d created light and he saw that it was good. The association of “see” “light” and “good” are forever linked together. Latter on, the pasuk (Bereishis, 1:31): which concludes the Torah’s account of Creation. That is: “Vayahr HaShem es kohl asher asah, vehinei tov me’od.” (ArtScroll: “And God saw all that He had made; and behold, it was very good.”) The Sfat Emet adds that the gaze of G-d continues forever, giving life and vibrancy to the whole world. That’s a powerful look!! Thus, he tells us that all Creation is connected with G-d through that gaze. Therefore we have a unique new definition of what a look, a gaze can project Its best through light which represents clarity..
 What is this clarity? Seeing is not just a vision; seeing is a projection. We see examples of this throughout the Torah.
the people of S’dom were punished with blindness for seeing only with their eyes and not with their mind’s eye. They didn’t use clarity. For looking back towards S’dom while fleeing, Lot’s wife was turned into a pillar of salt. Furthermore Lot’s warning to his sons-in-law was “a joke in their eyes,” they suffered the same destruction as the rest of the people of S’dom.
Avraham stop over with the Philistines. When the people of the city asked about his wife Sarah, he told them that she was his sister, fearing that they would kill him to take her. The king, Avimelech, did take Sarah, and was therefore Divinely punished with a painful sickness. He was then told by G-d that Sarah was Avraham’s wife, not his sister. A harried and suffering Avimelech asked Avraham,
“What did you see that made you act this way, calling your wife Sarah your sister?”
Avraham answered, I saw that “there was no fear of G-d here.” Abrraham saw beyond the articulate polished, supposedly dignified soldiers of Avimelech. One can say he saw right through them..
In Hebrew, the word for fear is the same word as seeing. When you see with clarity one will come to the realization of G-d’s greatness and awe .and will elevate the person to a higher fearful spiritual realm.
How did Avraham see that they were lacking fear of G-d? Because, says Rashi, the Philistines were more interested in Sarah than in doing chesed for strangers. As Avraham understood only too well, one’s propensity for chesed is a clear measure of one’s understanding of human potential, and of the purpose of creation. A nation that does chesed-kindness is a nation that is connected to the deeper meaning in life, to G-dliness. This, Avraham saw, was not the Philistine people.
After all, why was Lot’s wife turned into a pillar of salt for looking back at S’dom? Answers Rashi, because when Lot was doing chesed for the three strangers (angels sent by G-d to overturn S’dom and save Lot, though he did not know this at the time), he asked his wife for some salt for them. She answered,
“Do you intend to introduce this evil custom here as well?”
The salt she detested sharing became the symbol of her own limited outlook on giving.
 Many who grew up in this country associate ‘SEE”, for a brief instinct, with national anthem of the United States.and Baseball. I personally wouldn’t know how to hum the tune of the antham if not for having to here it before every ball game. As children there was a popular joke which was not very funny at all. At best it received was a polite chuckle.if we liked the person who told it over. Interestingly there is a very deep message that fits in well with our topic.
A Mexican man sneaks across the border to watch his favorite Baseball team play…
…and makes it all the way to the stadium. He doesn’t have tickets so he finds a large pole to climb up on and jumps down into the top of the bleachers to get a bird-eye view of the game.
After the game was over and his buddies ask him how the game was back in Mexico he replies:
“I don’t know why you all don’t think Americans are nice. As soon as I sat down everyone turned around, looked at me, and started singing ‘Jose, can you see?'”
The national anthem starts “Oh say can you see” which rhymes with “Jose can you see” However the American establishment have a different vision of what Jose is seeing. The goal of “Jose can you see” is to influence or change the addressee; it looks like a question but it contains an implied command. Once a person is addressed as Jose a series of associations are brought up.. The flag of the US which is what Jose is to look at while singing the national anthem reflects and refract into Jose himself oh say can you see becomes Jose can you see to define and articulate a new identity for him and to remind him of his illegal alien status or second class citizen, a derogatory insult, which touches a cord and painful for many.. Do you see Jose who you really are, the joke implies. We want you to see yourself as we see you.
What was looked as a innocent joke as a child has far more implications as an adult
One has to always bring up the famous site of where Abraham brought his son Yitzchak to be slaughtered. When G-d tests Avraham the tenth and final time, He commands him to bring Yitzchak up as an offering. He tells him to bring Yitzchak to the place that will be revealed along the way. Sure enough, on the third day of his journey, Avraham “lifted his eyes” and saw the Divine sign: a mountain encompassed with fire from earth to heaven and the Clouds of Glory hovering above it.
The midrash says that when Avraham asked Yitzchak what he saw in the distance, he answered, “The Divine Presence.” However, when he asked Yishmael and Eliezer who accompanied them what they saw, they answered, “Nothing.” This, Avraham understood, was the Divine sign that only he and Yitzchak were to continue on from that point.
What about a person who lives with a lesser spiritual awareness? G-d communicates with him through more natural means (which makes belief in G-d more difficult and belief in nature more comfortable). When Eliezer and Yishmael were denied a direct vision of the Divine Presence, it was clear that they were not on a great enough spiritual level, and therefore Avraham had no choice but to leave them behind with the donkey.
Perhaps now we can understand why Hagar saw the well of water after the dream where G-d appeared as apose to not seeing it before.. She saw with a different perspective. The vision wasn’t on just the surface.
 A great example is after forty years or so I have access to see some of my childhood TV shows. When seeing them, it wasn’t just the show that was remembered it was all the thoughts and feelings that I had at the time that resurfaced when I was watching. Amazingly we all can be watching the same thing however every one of us is seeing it differently. A prime example is a period in time about a hundred and fifty years ago where artistic world was going through a major transformation. The artist had to recreate themselves because of the invention of photography. Before, if one wants to recreate an image of himself he would go to an artist where then the artist would paint as accurate of a life size image as possible. Not anymore for one dollar he now is able to take a photo. So the artist is competing now with a real image. The new artist now was impressionist. They would draw a lady, with a blue dress sitting on a chair the way they perceived they saw. A lady with a red dress and an apple on her head. That is the impression they saw.
 Parshas Tazriah dealing with “Garment Leprosy” (tzaraas haBeged). The pasukim tell us that if the affliction remains the same size after one week’s time, the Kohen must wash the garment and isolate if for another seven days. [Vayikra 13:53-54]
The next pasuk continues: “The Kohen shall look after the affliction has been washed, and behold! The affliction has not changed “et aino”… According to the simple interpretation of the pasuk (p’shuto shel mikra), the words “et Aino” mean “its appearance”. But one can homiletically interpret (and this is said by the Imrei Shammai) that the meaning is the affliction did not change “et eino” – the eye = perception of the person who owns the afflicted garment. It was his negative perception that got him into the problem in the first place and as long as the “evil eye” persists, the problem of tzaraat will remain and as the Torah proclaims: Tameh hu – It shall be impure. It is all a matter of perception.
The Sefat Emet points out that the word Nega (which the Torah uses interchangeably with tzaraat), spelled nun gimmel ayin, has the exact same letters as the word oneg- enjoyment, spelled ayin nun gimmel. The only difference between them is where the letter ayin (which also means ‘eye’) is placed. Is the ‘ayin’ placed at the end of the word? Then it is Nega [affliction]! If the ‘ayin’ is placed at the beginning of the word, then it is Oneg [enjoyment]! If the ‘eye’ = ayin is in the right place, then Nega can turn into Oneg. It is all a matter of perception. Lashon Harah is not a disease of the mouth or tongue. It is a disease of the eye.
This is why the prophets describe the messianic era as a time of seeing: “Your eyes will see your Master” (Isaiah 30:20); “All flesh will together see that the mouth of G-d has spoken” (ibid. 40:5). To “see” is to inhabit a world in its ultimate state of perfection, a world which has realized its Divine purpose and attained a total and absolute knowledge of its Creator
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Tag Archive for Yishmael
A vision beyond sight
Making Limitations is Essential
Excerpts from the shiurim of Rabbi’s Isaac Oelbaum, Baruch Dopelt and Dr. Robert Goldman
also excerpts taken from the book by Rabbi Eliyahu Dessler “Michtav Eliyahu”
I was invited to a yartzheit dinner the other night and, Baruch Hashem, they had a lot of food. America is beautifull!! However, those days of feasting without thinking are unfortunately behind me. Today there are limitations on what yours truly can eat. Yes, yes. We don’t have to indulge. There is something called will power. We have to be strong and not give in to temptation. WE CAN DO IT!! Nevertheless, even with all the RA RA RA pep talk and the encouraging pat on the back, it felt like a war zone at the yartzheit dinner table. It seems, at times one is walking on the mine field; the chicken dish is mixed with french fries. If one is on a low carb diet, he has to separate the two. Besides the fact that its fried food. BUT WAIT!! HOW CAN YOU EAT THE CHICKEN WITHOUT THE FRIES (CHIPS! KARTOSHKA)?! That’s like separating Abbot and Costello. However, ya gotta do it. But wait, there’s more. There is the sour-salted tomatoes….which is bad for high blood pressure. And when we finally reach the end, at about 10:00 o’clock, the crowning devil-in-disguise, the famous rice-meat-carrot dish, makes an appearence. Nutritionist will tell you ” can’t eat carbs after 8-9:00 o’clock”. It’s terribly tempting for someone who is diabetic. One can only eat fruit. With all those distractions, who can concentrate on the speeches…let alone ask, “did someone die?”. Its apparent, one has to draw the line and set limitations or else he’ll be the star of the next yartzheit dinner.
In this week’s Torah portion, we read about, arguably, the most famous man that ever lived, Abraham. The Sages describe our forefather as a charismatic, towering figure who was always ready to lend a helping hand. The hospitality he provided was second to none. His Shabbat table was always filled with guests. Although he was a loner in his monotheistic beliefs, he had backbone and was not afraid to share and spread the word of G-d. By the end of his life he had everything – children, wealth and a good name. Smart, intelligent, cynical individuals like ourselves know reward doesn’t come easy….So how did he do it?
G-d says, in verse 29 chapter 28 in parshat Vayeira, that He loves Abraham. One has to ask what did He love about him? Perhaps His love was the result that Avraham passed all the tests, including the biggy of attempting to sacrifice his son Yitzchak as commanded by G-d. Maybe it was his chessed (kindness) to other people.
We, as diligent followers of the Torah as well as opportunists, have to be sensitive enough to discover clues in the Torah that will help us in life. In this case when G-d says that He loves Abraham, we have to emulate those deeds that led G-d to proclaim this strong positive feeling. Perhaps He will love us as well and shower us with goodness both in this world and the next, AMEN!! Hey! Let’s spread the wealth. We have to sieze the opportunity!!
Rashi (one of the major commentaries of the Torah) explaining the verse above, says that Avraham was able to pass down to his children, especially his son and heir-apparent Yitchak, and many of his students, the message of G-d. This is something that Noach was unable to accomplish to the full extent.
How was Avraham able to spread the word?
Rashi expands on the word “Veh-Shamru”-if you watch. Avraham was able to master that. He was able to set limits. This was an important virtue in Avraham and an important principle to apply in life.
Let’s give a number of examples throughout Avrahams life on how he was able to skillfully use this power of setting limits and drawing the line, (AD KAN).
Avraham had a nephew Lot, who needed guidance. Of course Abraham was there to give a helping hand. Mr. kindness. The helping hand, though, was serviced for many years. In fact, Lot was the third wheel behind Avraham and his wife Sarah. Avraham was faced with a dilemma. Should he break off ties with Lot? Rav dessler indicates that G-d didn’t speak to Avraham until he pried himself away from his nephew. Apparently his association with Lot was the reason for G-d’s disassociation. Lot was preventing Avraham from reaching a higher spiritual level.
However Abraham had, without a doubt, a tremendous positive influence on Lot as we will see in parshat Vayeira.
Therefore he was faced with a difficult decision:
1) to keep his association with Lot at the expense of his own growth…. or 2) leave him cold turkey and live up to his potential.
Avraham made the decision to leave.
CIRCUMCISION-BRIT MILAH.
Another example is at the end of this weeks parsha which introduces us to the concept of brit milah – circumcision. One may ask why was it introduced to Avraham? Why not introduce it at Mount Sinai, many years later, like all the other commandments? Why wasn’t introduced to his son Yitzchak? We can start fresh when he reached eight days old.
To get a clearer picture of why Avraham was chosen to be the representative of this commandment we have to explore deeper into the trait of kindness, the trait that Avraham embodied. The Zohar says the “giving” trait found in cheesed-kindness, if taken to an extreme, would inevitably cause one to succumb to illicit relations. Anyone with that super kindness trait is susceptible. As of matter of fact, Yishmael, Avrahams other son, inherited that trait from his father but was not able to control it.
The Sages say Avraham was shalom (perfect/full/complete.) He perfected all his traits except this one. As one naturally realizes, concentration can be most difficult. By commanding Avraham to perform Brit Milah it now made him perfect. Limitation was set on this organ. There is a certain segula, or spiritual merit, found with the ceremony of brit milan, where one’s understanding of Jewish wisdom is increased. Everytime Avraham looked at his circumcision he would realize the limitation on the trait of chessed. It was not only a sign, a covenant with G-d, but a deterent. This courageous act led to having his one true heir, Yitzchak.