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