This Shabbos, because of it being a leap year, is uniquely called Shabbas Hafsaka. Simply understood, it’s a break between Parshas Shekalim and Parshas Zachor. In truth, Chazal teach us that the hafsakos, such as between parshiyos in the Torah were given to Moshe Rabbeinu to better analyze the words of the Torah. And certainly for us, this break is crucial to think and analyze the seemingly opposing themes of Shekalim and Zachor. The reason why I refer to them as opposing is because the giving of shekalim is about giving and unifying, things that are positive, while Parshas Zachor is about exciting within us the willingness to go and fight and destroy any remembrance of Amalek, negative activities.
There is an expression that a question of the wise is half the answer; this is certainly true here. Giving tzdaka can be referred to the middah of chesed, and killing Amalek is midas hagevurah. That is the reality today, and if a person doesn’t properly see the difference, it will be hard to make that change from chesed to gevurah. When a person isn’t conscious of the middah that is required to be used at the moment, it can end up hurting them if they don’t the right middah. And this is in fact what happen to Shaul Hamelech when he seemed to use the wrong middos in dealing with Amalek and with the people. Instead of using midas hagevurah, he lacked gevurah and yirah, that are directly connected to each other, and that cost him his kingdom and much more
Many times in life we are faced with a dilemma how to act, which middah to tap into. The key is to ask Hashem to help us to make the right choice, because not doing so can have tragic results.
There is one case where one can be certain: if someone uses the middah of vitur – which means being mevater in the interest of making shalom – he will not lose out. Doing so is not easy, but the rewards are infinite.
A great story is told of a family whose upstairs neighbor decided to do construction right above them. This meant that for months, workers would have to go through their apartment in order to work in the apartment above, and the work would start early in the morning and end late at night. Despite all the challenges, the family accepted the need to be patient. The family above was extremely impressed with their downstairs neighbors, and especially with their daughter, who needed a shidduch. It so happened that the family above had an eligible boy who was also in shidduchim, and the two families became mechutanim.
by Rabbi Daniel Coren
