Beshalach 5782 – Hishtadlus & Parnasah
Sponsored Anonymously l’zchus Refuah Shleimah. Shiur presented in 5778.
Sponsored Anonymously l’zchus Refuah Shleimah. Shiur presented in 5778.
At the end of Parshas Bo, there’s a very, very important and fundamental Ramban that describes how the principle beliefs of our emunah were revealed at the time of Yetzias Mitzrayim. Every single Yid must know what are the yesodos of our emunah. The term we as a yeshiva developed to remember what we believe in is: ח.י.ה.
I hope all of you had a wonderful summer and you’re ready now to take on the climb of Chodesh Elul; to gain from it, and not to allow it to pass by in a blur. You have to realize that the shpitz, the end of the journey that begins in Chodesh Elul ends with the conclusion of Yom Hakippurim and hopefully we’ll be zocheh to selichah and mechilah along this journey.
Pinchas rose to the occasion and performed an act of zealotry to stand up for the honor of Hashem. Because of this great action of his, he was zocheh to be gebentched with the greatest of brachos. The passuk says: “behold, I have given him a covenant of peace”. The Seforno explains that since Pinchas struggled My struggle in that zechus, he received bris shalom. What is bris shalom? I will save him from all antagonism to his way of life. Pinchas will be saved from all antagonism toward him and he will be a man who will live in peace.
There is an interesting Ibn Ezra on the pasuk in our parsha: “This shall be the law for a metzora at the time of being purified, when he’s brought to the Kohen” (Vayikra 14:2). This is the law of the metzora and how he goes through his taharah ceremony…It’s a process. There’s a very interesting Ibn Ezra over here.
Our parshah depicts a well-known historical figure who represented ideals that weren’t nice. Bilam is considered the father of all bad middos and he’s the counterweight to the father of all good middos, Avraham Avinu. There’s a mishnah in Avos where our Tana’im make this contrast.
We speak about the greatness of the Chashmonaim. But any time you talk about the greatness of someone, you always have to know, how do you translate that to your life? We talk about the Chafetz Chaim or the Vilna Gaon, and I can tell you how superb and how great they were and how committed they were. But then the question is, “How do I plug into that?”