This week we Bentch Rosh Chodesh Sivan. The Moled will be Thursday night 25 minutes and 9 Chalakim after 12. Rosh Chodesh is Friday.
The Parasha opens with the lesson of toiling in Torah, as the essence of success in learning. Our job is to put in the effort and Hashem puts in the success and clarity of understanding in a miraculous way. Here is a story that illustrates this success from a famous gadol of Israel.
Morocco was the home of many gedolim from the time of the Rishonim until the latter day Achronim. One of the famous gedolim was the Ohr Hachaim Hakadosh who at a very young age reached great heights in Torah. He worked as a master goldsmith to support himself, and studied Torah the rest of the time. One of his minhagim as a wealthy man was to slaughter a cow every Thursday and give out the meat to talmidei chachamim for Shabbat. One week it happened that from all the animals that were slaughtered lichvod Shabbat, only the one belonging to the Ohr Hachaim came out to be glatt kosher. A wealthy man approached him and offered to pay a high price for a piece of meat lichvod Shabbat. The Ohr Hachaim told him the meat was all called for. The wealthy man insisted and asked, “this piece here, whom is it intended for?” The O.H. responded, “Chacham so and so.” The wealthy man shouted, “He is not a talmid chacham, he doesn’t deserve the meat instead of me!” and stamped out angrily. The Ohr Hachaim did not respond. That night he dreamed that he had sinned seriously by not defending the honor of that talmid chacham, and a proper kaparah would be for him to go into self-imposed exile, so he immediately hit the road and began to roam.
On Friday afternoon, the O.H. reached a farming community and he saw a man chopping wood. with each swing, the man said “lichvod Shabbat kodesh.” He understood this was a holy man, and approached him and asked to join him for Shabbat. The man gladly invited him, and they both prepared for Shabbat. After a beautiful meal, the host invited his guest to join him as he went to a class from the local Rav. The Rav spoke beautiful words of Torah, and said that 14 insights from the Ohr Hachaim Hakadosh on this week’s Parasha had been revealed to him from heaven. The Rav proceeded to explain the insights, to which the guest replied “it’s true, Chaim did say that insight.” The community was enraged by this lack of respect, but the Rav calmed them down. The next day the Rav quoted another 14 insights, and again the guest said “it’s true, Chaim said that.” Once again the crowd was furious at the guest, and only with great difficulty the Rav calmed them down.
During seudah shlishist, the Rav repeated another 14 insights that heaven had revealed to him, and once again the guest said “it’s true, Chaim said that.” The community grabbed the O.H and put him in jail until the Bait Din would judge him. While he was in jail, a terrible storm broke out, because the Ohr Hachaim did not say Havdalah on time, and entire town was in danger. The Rav understood something was amiss, and had the guest released. When the Ohr Hachaim recited havdalah, the storm subsided. That’s when everyone understood that this guest was a holy man, and his name is Chaim.
All this took place on this week’s Parasha, and we see the greatness of the Ohr Hachaim, who even while he was in self-imposed exile, still toiled in Torah, and came up with 42 interpretations of what is an ameil in Torah.
Shabbat Shalom
Diligence in Torah Study
The opening of Parshas Bechukosai is certainly a great pathway to properly prepare for Chag Shavuos. As Rashi tells us, the key for success both physically and spiritually is ,עמילות בתורה toiling in Torah, working hard and trying to understand and internalize Hashem’s message to us.
I learnt an amazing lesson from my new found Israeli soldier Eden who spent a transformational Shabbos with us here in Monsey. In one of the conversations with Eden I mentioned the idea that Judaism is not all or nothing. This is a great misconception. I learnt years back from Rav Noach Weinberg z”l that people think it’s all or nothing and many times that is what stops them from becoming Shomrei Torah and mitzvos. An example that I gave him was when a person who hasn’t kept Shabbos wants to keep Shabbos sometimes it means just lighting candles and saying “good Shabbos.” Every person is at a different rung on the spiritual ladder. For some people not checking the phone on Shabbos is a great struggle, and for others it’s such an easy task that they don’t need to even think about it.
This week, when we were learning, Eden told me that this message – which he translates into Hebrew זה לא שחור או לבן it’s not black and white – had a great impact on him and his kallah.
For the past few weeks Eden, and I have been learning a mishna a day. I told him that the midrash says something very profound about learning a mishna a day. The midrash is in Devarim and it compares a fool to a wise man. It says that a fool looks at the vast amount of information that the Torah includes and says “this is impossible to learn” and so he never starts. The wise man says ”I will learn a little bit each day” and this is what he does. Eventually, he becomes a great Talmid Chacham.
The Midrash gives a mashal to a mountain that had to be dug up and moved to another area. The first person who sees the mountain says “it’s impossible,” and so he doesn’t even try. The second person says “I’ll try” and he starts digging. Not long after he begins, he reaches the bottom, and because the mountain was positioned near water, suddenly the whole mountain moves.
I think the idea of the Midrash is that if we look at it from a natural level, then it’s impossible to learn everything, but if we understand that when we are learning Torah, it’s really above nature, and the whole process of understanding and retaining Torah is based on עמילות which results in Hashem giving us the gift of Torah, then our approach will be completely different.
May we merit to properly appreciate the gift of Torah, and learn what we are supposed to learn each day.
by Rabbi Daniel Coren
