YWN Coffee Room Nightly D’Var Torah

I like 🙂 thanks for sharing

~~~~~~~Tuesday’s D’Var Torah – Parshas Behar~~~~~~~

And My Sanctuary shall you revere (26:2). The Bais HaMikdash, standing as a beacon for our people in Yerusalem, was revered-something that is respected & given reverence by all, near and far. Our wondrous Sanctuary was destroyed by the Romans two thousand years ago. How can we now fulfill this commandment if there is no sanctuary to revere? The Sforno answers that this now applies to all the Shuls and Yeshivos. There was a certain Shul in the Catskill Region of New York that closed down in the 1950’s. In the mid 1970’s, a Jewish summer camp chose to hold a Shacharis at the building which was vacant for years but still standing. Upon entering the site they were amazed to see that the interior was in working order, there was not a speck of dust on the furniture even though it had been out of use for over 20 years. More amazing, there was a shul calender which was up to date. How could this be? They inquired and finally found a man who told them the following: “My father, may he rest in peace, was one of the founders of this shul. He was a carpenter and literally built much of the building with his own hands. After WWII, many young people either moved out or were killed in the war. The membership dwindled till it closed. I came in once a month since then to dust the place, update the calender, and do whatever else was necessary.” One of the camp counselors asked him, “Why did you bother doing all that?” He replied with complete simplicity, “I figured this is G-d’s house and I have to take care of it.” This simple man understood the holiness of a shul and we must have the same respect and reverence for any shul or yeshiva today, as we would for the great Bais HaMikdash itself.

jax, beautiful, thank you. I really like the story.

~a~

Jax, very nice!

*kapusta*

Nice to see you did not read the last one i posted. You’ll note i offered to do one on ??????? tonight

I don’t submit in an effort to have it approved. I submit so that people can see divrei torah. Its insulting my work does not get seen by the higher ups of the coffee room

mod72- you can email me for the answer 😉

thanks JayMatt- I like the implications of that vort

give me one reason I should do you a favor 😉

because I answer your emails

do I have to start assigning mights again? do me a favor and leave that to G-d… 😉

JayMatt, nice!

*kapusta*

thanks – fixed

Nobody is stepping up, so here goes another from JayMatt19:

I saw this a number of years back in a sefer, might have been the Mayana shel Torah, but I am not certain.

???? ??? ??????, ????? ????-??? ????

Why is this a curse? What does it mean that we will be chased and we will notice that we are not being chased by anyone?

When someone is undergoing tzaros, one should train themselves to view it as a kapara. Suffering serves a purpose. The curse here, that we will need to flee without anyone running after us. Normally, when we see people chasing us we can say, “The fact that people are chasing us is a kapara!”

However, the klalla here is that we will have the optimum suffering with the minimum kapara! (i.e. needing to run as if being chased without actually being chased)

That is a true klalla from the tochacha!

A person runs differently when someone is chasing them. The klalla here is that we will need to run as if we are being chased without someone actually chasing us.

The obvious question then becomes: Wouldn’t it be a relief to realize that no one was in fact chasing us?

That was what I was answering. It will not be a relief. The klalla is that you will get maximum suffering (running as if we were being chased) with minimum kapara (since we were not actually being chased).

Hope that makes it clear.

>>How do we bring this down to the day to day living in golus? <<

1. Try to spin difficulties and suffering into kaparas

2. View that any little thing can be suffering and as such a kapara (pulling out the wrong coin from your pocket, turning on cold water and getting a little spritz from the hot water from the person before you.

3. This and the rest of the tochacha falls into the lesson that we must be Amol B’Torah. And failure to do so can bring maximum suffering with minimal reward for the suffering endured.

4. >>but what’s the l’maasah here<< Despite what I have said above, who needs one? This is what the passuk says. There was an obvious question which got answered. Does there need to be a l’maasah here on top of the word of Hashem?

Maybe that is the lesson here. We need to focus on the entire Torah as a whole. Kodshim is not less important because we don’t have a “l’maasah” at this time.

areivimzehlazeh what happened?? was it soo hard to copy and paste?? or was google down? 🙂

I have been know to take a talmid as a chavrusa. It helps me work on my clarity, both in my understanding of pshat, the clarity of my thoughts, and most importantly, the ability to clearly articulate how I understand something.

There is a powerful and frightening Meshech Chochmo on the Tochocho which I remember every year. I encourage anyone who can to learn it. For those who won’t be able to, below I have copied a short blurb of what he wrote (which I found on shemayisrael.com):

The Meshech Chochma (a commentary on the Torah written about 1870) wrote on the tochacha in Leviticus that German unreligious Jewry was making Germany and its culture their idolatry, and it was making Berlin for them what Jerusalem is to Torah Jewry, and that the punishments written in the Torah will come against them from Berlin for their defection from Torah and its commandments. The unreligious German Jew stood by his belief in the culture, civilization and alleged progress of Germans. Hashem cut them down and cast their carcasses on the idolatry which they left Hashem for!

WWII and the Holocaust came not much later. Hashem yiracheim aleinu.

It is an offer, on condition that you are male.

With Shavuos rapidly approaching, and also due to the 1st Rashi in Bechukosai. I thought I’d give a dvar torah about Torah.

During sefira, we are supposed to work on the kinyanei torah. The 48 ways one an acquire torah. What is unique about these 48 kinyanim is that one should strive to use all 48 in order to truly acquire torah. The 48 kinyanim is not a list of which we pick only one.

The Vilna Gaon says that the 1st word of the Torah, ??????, shows us how one must ready themselves in order to learn correctly.

?

Bitachon

?

Ratzon

?

Ahavas Hashem

?

Shtika

?

Yiras Hashem

?

Torah

First and foremost, a person needs to work on their Bitachon. When they complete that, then they can reach a level of Ratzon, where their will is pushed aside for Hashem’s will. Once a person turns Hashem’s will into their will, they can serve Hashem with true love. Nevertheless, pain and punishment will still arrive, one must handle this with Shtika, not asking why Hashem chose to do what he did. This lead one to a level of Yiras Hashem and now one is finally able to be mekabel the Torah.

May we all be zoche to using this zman of sfira and kaballas hatorah to properly accept the torah from Hashem

Mazeltov to Jaymatt as well!

I’ll take Thursday night this week (so therefore, my post should be up sometime between 7:30-8:30pm GMT)

Sorry I wasn’t around before Shabbos post this. Better late than never.

[in the way of]

Jaymatt: congrats on post 1,000-i recall you hit it on the new members thread too! such mazel you have! & great vortlach a always!

chofetzchaim: very nice peice!

whoops, I completely forgot! thanx for the reminder 39, I have to find one.

*kapusta*