Today’s shiur is dedicated l’ilui nishmas isha hagedola, Sara Ita bas R’ Avraham Avigdor. Today was her yom hakvura. She was an outstanding person who lived day in and day out fulfilling her tafkid in life, working on her tafkid of being em b’yisroel.
Chazal say in masechta Eiruchin (8b), “Rav Papa says, it says, ‘Your benevolence is like the mighty mountains’ (Tehillim 36:7). Hashem’s tzedakos are like tall mountains. What does that refer to? The gemara says these are nega’im discussed in this parshah, that come upon people.” That’s amazing tzedakah. The end of the pasuk ends off with, “Your judgment is like the great deep.” The gemara says this refers to negei batim.
The foundation of being an ehrliche Yid and the foundation of somebody being a talmid of Avraham Avinu is based on having good middos (Avos 5:19). And if you lack those good middos, then you’re one of the talmidim of Bilaam Harasha. He’s your rosh yeshivah, he’s your rebbi, and that is what you are drawn to.
In this week’s parsha, we are told about an episode with a group of people who expressed their regret and pain over the fact that their impurity prevented them from bringing the korban pesach. Their sheila was that if there was some hope for them not be left out from Klal Yisroel (Bamidbar 9:6-14). The emes is that this is a really strange episode because they understood that they were tamei, and someone’s who’s tamei cannot bring a Korban Pesach, so what were they asking? Did they think that Moshe Rabbeinui could provide them with a “new” Torah? Why did they even bother to come?
In this week’s parshah the subject is Hashem telling Moshe to tell Klal Yisrael about the Yidden donating money and goods to the Mishkan. One of the keilim in the Mishkan was the Aron. It says regarding the Aron “you should make poles” that you put in the Aron (Shemos 25:13). Chazal say that refers to those who assist those who are involved in eisek haTorah.
We have previously discussed the sin of the dor hamabul and we showed you the words of Rabeinu Tam, who says that if a person starts with a little bit of ta’avah and he allows himself to do whatever he wants, there’s no end to it.
I wanted to just point out that this was clearly demonstrated in the generation of the mabul.
We learned about the koach habitachon that Yitzchak Avinu needed to have in order to daven to Hashem. We also mentioned a yesod from Rav Tzadok that a person could have bitachon for anything that’s al pi teva. That’s why even though Chana did not have children, she was able to daven to Hashem because beteva she could have had children.
