Answers to this Week’s Riddles

(For the riddles, please see back page)

1. The Shu”t HaRashbah (1:18) writes, they never made a berachah on this mitzvah, as they weren’t giving anything from themselves, as everything ultimately belongs to the Ribbono Shel Olam. Like it says in Divrei HaYomim (1 29:114), “Everything is from you, and from Your hand (i.e. Hashem’s hand) we give.”
2. Rashi (32:5) explains that Aharon saw that the golden calf was alive, as Dovid writes in Tehillim (106:20), “They exchanged their glory for the likeness of an ox eating grass,” indicating that the golden calf grazed before its destruction. The Oznayim L’Torah questions why a calf was made instead of one of the other images on Hashem’s Divine chariot: lion, eagle, and man. He notes that the other three all eat meat, and suggests that the Erev Rav specifically chose the ox for its vegetarian, grass-eating nature. (R’ Ozer Alport, Parsha Potpourri)
3. Tosfos in Maseches Shabbos (113b) quotes a Medrash Rabbah (34:16) which relates: R’ Shimon bar Yochei had an elderly mother, and she liked to talk a lot on Shabbos. R’ Shimon told his mother, “It’s Shabbos” and immediately she stopped talking. Tosfos says: We learn from here, that one shouldn’t talk on Shabbos like he does in the week. The Be’er Heitev (Orach Chaim 307:2) quotes the Zohar, who learns from the pasuk in this week’s parsha: ושמרתם את השבת כי קדש הוא לכם מחלליה מות יומת – “You shall guard the Shabbos for it is holy for you, those who profane it shall surely die” (31:14), that the punishment of death applies even to those who talk devorim betalim, idle chatter on Shabbos, rachomah litzlon. The above is brought down l’halachah. The Shulchan Aruch (307:1) writes: “We learn from the pasuk, ודבר דבר, that the way one speaks om Shabbos should be different to the week etc. one shouldn’t even speak idle chatter, as it is forbidden to talk excessively.”
4. The Ibn Ezra writes: There is a certain material that can be put in fire together with gold, and it immediately burns and turns the gold into black, and it can no longer be returned to gold. The Ibn Ezra concludes: “It has been tried and tested and is true.”