R. Simlai said: Even as the formation of man took place after that of every cattle, beast and fowl when the world was created, so, too, the law regarding him is set forth after the law regarding cattle, beast and fowl (Leviticus Rabbah 14:1).
What are Rashi and Rabbi Simlai saying? Is he only saying that this is why the laws of childbirth and plagues are discussed in this location? This seems to be flat, Yasher Koach — meaning so what.!
Nechma Leibowitz brings down the Ibn Ezra and asks what is the difference between Rashi and the Ibn Ezra:
Ibn Ezra:
אשה כי תזריע. אחר שהשלים תורת הטהור והטמא בנאכלין הזכיר טמא אדם
On Rashi the Sifsei Chacomin brings in the Gemara in Sanhedrin 38A and answers our question:
במעשה בראשית. ואם תאמר והתם גופא מ”ט יצירתן של בהמה וחיה קודם ליצירתו של אדם. כבר תירצו בגמרא סנהדרין ל”ח מפני מה נברא אדם בע”ש, כדי שלא יהו אומרים שותף היה להקב”ה במעשה בראשית. ד”א שאם תזוח דעתו עליו אומרים לו יתוש קדמך. ד”א כדי שיכנס למצוה מיד. ד”א כדי שיכנס לסעודה מיד, משל למלך וכו’.
וא”ת ואם נתפרשה התורה כסדר הבריאה היה לו להקדים סדר מצורע לפרשת כי תזריע, דהא מצורע מדבר באיש, ותזריע מדבר באשה, ואדם נברא קודם חוה. וי”ל דיותר תדיר שאשה תלד ממה שאיש להיות מצורע. ועי”ל מש”ה הקדים תזריע למצורע, דעיקר הצרעת בא כשמשמש עם אשתו נדה, כדאמרינן בגמרא. ועי”ל דאשה היא כמו קרקע עולם שמצמחת מה שזורעים בה, והאדם מקרקע עולם נברא, לכן כתב באשה כי תזריע וילדה זכר, כלומר שהזכר נברא מן האשה שהיא קרקע עולם וק”ל:
קשה מאי נ”מ מהיקש זה? ותו הקשה הרא”ם דבפרק א’ דיני ממונות אמרינן דלכך אדם נברא באחרונה, שאם יתגאה אומרים לו יתוש קדמך במעשה בראשית, וכדי שימצא הכל מוכן לסעודה, וכולם אינם שייכים כאן?גם הקושיא למה כתב דין אדם כי יהיה בעור בשרו אחר הדין האשה כי תזריע, הא האשה נבראת באחרונה?ונ”ל לתרץ כל זה דכוונת ר’ שמלאי לומר דכשם שיש טעם לשבח בבריאת האדם באחרונה כדי שיבא האדם וימצא סעודה מוכנת, ה”נ בתורת האדם שנתפרש אחר תורת בהמות וחיות ועופות, פירוש לענין איסור והיתר, כדאיתא במדרש על זאת החיה, כל אמרת אלוה צרופה, לא ניתנו המצות לישראל פירוש מה איסור לאכילה, אינו אלא לצרף בהן את הבריות ובזה הוא אוהב אותנו. כדאיתא במדרש, שמי שאוהב את עבדו הוא מזהירו מאכילות רעות, ע”כ אמר שכשם בשעת בריאה נברא האדם באחרונה בשביל מעלתו שימצא מזון ערוך, ה”נ בתורה ומצות שנתן הקב”ה לישראל הוא בשביל טובתן לצרף אותם, ע”כ נזכר באחרונה שיהי’ לו צירוף מצות ע”י תורת בהמה חיה ועוף, ומש”ה לק”מ מאדם כי יהיה בעור בשרו, דשם אין שייך צירוף:
In the Work of Creation. You might ask: Why did the creation of animals and beasts precede the creation of man? The Sages already answered in Sanhedrin (38a): “Why was man created on Erev Shabbos? So that they [i.e., the heretics] would not say Hashem had a partner in the Work of Creation. Another explanation: Because if man would be haughty they can say to him: The mosquito preceded you. Another explanation: So that he would immediately become obligated in a mitzvah [Shabbos]. Another explanation: So that he would find everything immediately prepared for his meal. This can be compared to a king…”
You might ask: If the Torah explains according to the order of creation, then Parshas Metzora should come before Parshas Ki Tazria, because Metzora speaks of a man and Tazria speaks of a woman, and Adam was created before Chavah!
The answer is: It is more common for a woman to give birth than for a man to become afflicted with tzora’as. Furthermore, we can say: The reason Tazria comes before Metzoro is because the main reason a person is afflicted with tzora’as is because he has relations with his wife when she is a menstruant, as the Gemara says (Erachin 16a, and Tanchuma Tazria 11). Another answer: The woman is compared to the earth’s soil, which causes what is planted (שזורעים) in it to grow. Man, as well, was created from the earth’s soil. Therefore, it is written regarding a woman: “When [a woman] conceives (תזריע) and gives birth to a male child,” i.e., the male is created from the female who is likened to the earth’s soil.
Divrei Dovid:
This raises a difficulty: What practical difference does this comparison make? Furthermore, Re’m raised the difficulty that the Gemora says in Sanhedrin (38a) that the reason Adam was created last was so that if he would be haughty it can be said to him: The mosquito preceded you in the work of creation, and so that he would find everything prepared for his meal, [and more reasons,] all of which are not applicable here! He also asks: Why does it mention the law [of tzora’as]: “When a man will have in the skin of his flesh” after the law pertaining to a woman: “When [a woman] conceives”? The woman was created last!
It appears to me the answer is: All this is what R. Simlai [who is cited in Rashi] means to say: Just as there is a good reason why Adam was created last — so that he would come and find everything ready for his meal — so too, regarding the law of man: It was explained after the laws of animals, beasts and birds, i.e., with regard to what is forbidden and permitted [among them]. This follows what it says in the Midrash (Vayikro Rabboh 13:3) on the verse (11:2): “These are the living things” — “Every word of Hashem is refined” (Mishlei 30:5), “The mitzvos were given to Israel” — i.e., what is forbidden to be eaten — “only for the sake of refining the people with them.”
In this way Hashem demonstrates his love for us, as it says in the Midrash that someone who loves his servant cautions him from eating harmful food. Therefore, R. Simlai said that just as Adam was created last at the time of Creation for his advantage, so that he finds his provisions prepared, so too, regarding Torah and mitzvos, Hashem gave them to Israel for their benefit, to refine them. Therefore, mankind was mentioned last so that they would have the refinement of mitzvos by means of the laws pertaining to animals, beasts and birds. Therefore, there is no difficulty posed from: “When a man will have, in the skin of his flesh” [the law of tzora’as of a man is mentioned after the section dealing with a woman], for there [the concept of] refinement is not relevant (Divrei Dovid).
I initially did not understand the Divrie Dovid because the Medreh on Zos Hachaya says that all Mitzvos are a refinement, not just food products. However, as I thought about it, the Divrei Dovid makes sense. Just like God gave us the laws of Kashrus to refine us, so too all Mitzvos refine us. This is the reason why the laws of purity by man are after the laws of Kosher food. It is all to refine us.
Maybe the answer to Professor Nechama Leibowitz is that Rav Simali is telling us a great lesson and the Ibn Ezra is Pshut Peshat.
On another Drush level you can answer that Rav Simlai is telling us that man is the crown of creation of Hashem. Man who has free choice can choose to become great and become heavenly or choose to degrade himself and become like animals. The entire idea of Korbanos and the need to remain with ritual purity is that Mitzvos refines us and we always have to make choices to live a holy life both in terms of spirtuality but also in terms of life choices. We always have two roads before us and as the Torah says in Devorim 30:19 we have to choose life:
Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken” talks about choices in life, while not addressing directly choosing good and evil is about choices we make and ends the poem with the line “And that has made all the difference.”
This idea to live a heavenly life applies to every aspect of our lives, even on mundane matters. I was once at a Target in a foul mood and the sales person offered me a product that was priced too low that seemed to be a mistake. I took it and paid the low price, not creating a Kiddush Hashem, I was wearing a Yarmulke. To this young sales person with piercings, I behaved no different than a person on the take and to this day I think about my failure to rise above the mundane. I felt terrible afterwards and still feel the pain of failure.
Not only that, had I done the right thing Hashem would have placed crowns on my head. Just like with Reuven, Moshe, and Boaz — see the end of this Blog Post.
Rabbi Rakeffet’s Shiur on Sunday morning May 4th was about the life of Sugihara who saved thousands of Jews. He used the book, “In Search of Sugihara” by Hillel Levine. It was a great speech. I had correspondence with a historian who knows the entire story and this person texted me:
“Sugihara has gotten the lion share of interest & gratitude — much of it overblown in my view. Hillel Levine (whom I know well) broke fresh ground on Sugihara… but also fed the exaggerations of his role in saving Jews.”
This bothered me. The overall email to me was very positive, however what was said bothered me. As the days have passed, I think I understand her point, however, Sugihara’s action changed the world. As Rabbi Rakeffet has said that these Torah Scholars from Mir in Shanghai came to America in the late 1940s and changed Torah in America. Rabbi Rakeffet greatly benefited from them and they changed his trajectory in life. I think the opposite is true that we cannot give him enough credit for what he did to change the course of history.
We all have moments of time that if we understand and grasp the opportunity it will change the course of our lives or we can change the course of other people’s lives. Avrohom Stein, OBM, in a chance meeting in 1977 changed my life and through him I found my purpose in life. This led to my job as a banker and throughout many of the 33 years I worked at Peterson Bank and MB Financial I was able to do Chesed almost every day at work. People come over to me and remind me of favors I did for them. I feel that maybe, just maybe I changed lives. Towards the end of my career my authority was taken away and I did less Chesed but always looked for opportunities to help, to be there for people.
If I knew the future ramifications of what I did, I would have walked, dancing with my customers and we would have crowns on my head.
I am not sure what the historian meant and I assume she did not diminish from the role Sugihara played in the lives of the people he saved. I do know that he changed destiny. I do not know exactly what she meant.
I am fond of saying that just like a Rashi and other Rishonim are Diamonds that sparkle from every different direction you look at it and through various angles we see great sparks of wisdom, so too with people, we have to see the holy sparks that they do. We may not see it from one angle, but we have to go 365 degrees to find their greatness and crown them. While this is not a perfect match, the idea is that we have to probe and find greatness in Torah and in people.
There is a Medresh that says by three incidents in Tanach, had the person doing the action realized what the Torah said about them they would have danced:
1 – By Reuven trying to save Yoseph
Medresh Lakach Tiv 37:22:1
ויאמר אליהם ראובן אל תשפכו דם. כוונתו לשמים. שנאמר למען הציל אותו מידם. אלולי היה יודע ראובן שעתיד הכתוב להעיד עליו למען הציל אותו מידם להשיבו אל אביו. לא היה נפרד ממנו כלל.
תנחומא בובר, וישב י״ג:ט׳
ויאמר אליהם ראובן אל תשפכו דם. למה שרוח הקודש אומרת למען הציל אותו מידם וגו’, אילו היה ראובן יודע שהקב”ה כותב עליו הפסוק הזה, היה נוטלו על שכמו והיה מוליכו אל אביו.
2 – When Aharon greeted Moshe in the desert
3 – When Boaz measured six measures of grain to Rus (Rus 3:17)
The Almost Rabbinic Roots of the Gettysburg Address
Shem HaGedolim HaChadosh
Visit with Rebbetzin Chaya Small
Davening at Buckingham Pavilion
Sheldon Stern – Yizkor
Sunday Night, Shavuot Davened at Bais Mint. Serka served a great meal: eggplant parmesan, broccoli pasta, and tuna melt from Slices (formerly Tel Aviv Pizza). Shalom, Hudi, and Tzvi ate with us.
I wove into my speech excerpts from the Shem HaGedolim HaChadosh printed in 1864 by Rabbi Aaron Waldon. Rabbi Waldon was by the Kotzker and described being by the Kotzker beautifully. Rabbi Waldon’s sefer was a companion and successor to the Chida’s book Shem HaGedolim. The Shem HaGedolim came out on or around 1774 and was a compilation of the rabbis and leaders he encountered in his travels and in books he read in libraries in the various cities he traveled through.
The Chida was Rabbi Chaim Yosef David Azulai (1724–1806). Born in Chevron, he authored over 120 works, 50 of which he published during his lifetime. In 1755, due to his great scholarship and abilities, he was elected to represent the Yishuv of Eretz Yisrael. He traveled throughout Europe raising funds for the people of Israel.
Rabbi Aaron Waldon wrote his book to fill in the gaps and discussed tzadikim from areas the Chida did not visit. Rabbi Aaron Waldon also listed tzadikim who lived after the Chida passed away and others whom the Chida missed.
Look at page 10 of the introduction to the book.
I then discussed the great tzadikim who gave a haskama to the sefer.
Haskama (הַסְכָּמָה) – A rabbinic approval of a religious book concerning Judaism. It is written by a prominent rabbi in his own name, not in the name of a religious organization or hierarchy.
The Haskamos
1. Rabbi Shlomo Kluger (1785–1869). He writes that although he did not read the book, he saw who gave it haskamos and that when the book is published he will purchase it. Rabbi Shlomo Kluger learned in Zamosc at the yeshiva of Rabbi Yoseph Hocelanter in the early 1800s at the same time the Kotzker learned in the yeshiva. There was a two-year age difference. There was a yeshiva on the Lower East Side known as the Rabbi Shlomo Kluger Yeshiva.
2. Rabbi Yosef Shaul Halevi Nathanson (1808–1875), Rabbi of Lvov (Lemberg), known as the Shaul U’Meshiv. He was famously known for permitting machine matzah.
3. Rabbi Shimon Sofer, son of the Chasam Sofer.
4. Rabbi Eliezer HaKohen, rabbi of Pultusk and son-in-law of the Nesivos, Reb Yaakov of Lissa.
5. Yaakov Dovid Kalish of Amshinov.
He was the first Amshinover rebbe. Yaakov Dovid Kalish was a son of the first Vurker rebbe, Israel Yitzchak Kalish of Warka.
Kalish died in 1878 and was succeeded as Amshinover rebbe by one of his sons, Menachem Kalish.
When Menachem Kalish died in 1917, his son Yosef became the rebbe in Amshinov, and his other son, Shimon Sholom, became rebbe in Otwock. He famously was at the meeting with the German military and when asked why do the Germans hate the Jews, he answered, “Because we are oriental.”
He was involved in the exodus of thousands of young men in Kletzk, Radin, Novhardok, and other yeshivas via Japan to Shanghai at the outbreak of World War II. By the time Shanghai came under Japanese control, it held 26,000 Jews.
Shimon Sholom’s son, Yerachmiel Yehuda Meyer Kalish (1901–1976) of Amshinov, was born in Przysucha, Poland. He studied Torah with his grandfather, Menachem Kalish.
After the war, Shimon moved to the United States. Upon his death in 1954 (י”ט אב תשי”ד), his son accompanied his body to Tiberias in Israel and remained there, later moving to Tel Aviv, and then to the Bayit V’Gan neighborhood of Jerusalem.
4:40 AM – Davened Vasikin 7:30 AM – Went to sleep 10:30 AM – Could not sleep and got up
11:45 AM – Went to visit Rebbetzin Chaya Small to discuss her book, In the Crook of the Rock. Great stories about her parents, Shanghai, and Professor Vera Schwarcz.
1:30 PM – On my walk home, I walked past Aaron Jacoby and his wife sitting on their stoop. His wife is a Bruer. Aaron Jacoby got his rabbinic ordination from Rebbetzin Chaya Small’s father, Rabbi Shmuel Dovid Walkin. Aaron Jacoby also wrote gittin for Rabbi Walkin’s beis din.
Rabbi Walkin lived in Crown Heights and was the rabbi of a shtiebel. He left in 1962 when Crown Heights became dangerous. He then moved to Kew Gardens Hills.
Chaya Small had 800 people at her wedding in New York.
Her husband, Michoel Small, studied in Lakewood for two years.
Her husband went to John Marshall Law School. The graduation was on Shabbos and the family stayed downtown for Shabbos. When he was given his diploma, a large cheer went up for him by all the Jews at the graduation.
3:00 PM – Started the lunch meal. Eli, Xi, and Ezra came over.
8:00 PM – Mincha 8:20 PM – Ben Adler spoke about the gerus of Rus. Why didn’t Tov want to marry Rus?
June 3, 2025
9:45 AM – Walked to Buckingham nursing home. I like to go there once every year as hakaras hatov to my friendship with the Stern–Kohn family. I love to schmooze with “Sushi” Stern. He seems to know everything—Torah, history, people, and books.
After davening, I sat with Sushi Stern and we schmoozed for an hour. I told him what I was working on. I was shocked to learn that he listened to shiurim and on occasion spoke to Rabbi Hershel Schachter. I was even more shocked when he knew Rabbi Aaron Rakeffet. He told me a story of when his sister, Leah Kazlow, married Rabbi Aaron Rakeffet’s student, Dr. Philip Kazlow. The mesader kiddushin at the wedding was both Rabbi Dovid Beirush Meisels and Rabbi Aaron Rakeffet. Rabbi Dovid Beirush Meisels is the Satmar Rav in Boro Park.
Sushi Stern spoke before Yizkor and his speech resonated with me. Unesana Tokef says that on Rosh Hashanah the books of life and death are open. What is the book of death? These are the people who have died. Sushi asked why our dead ancestors are coming back to be judged. Sushi answered that our merits, who are alive, can positively influence previously negative judgments against our ancestors. They can rise in levels of holiness based on our deeds, based on us who are saying Yizkor, and we have to uplift our dear ancestors.
This resonated with me. Saying Yizkor over the years never meant anything to me. I said the words but it did not bring up any feelings. I think about my grandparents, brother, and departed family at times and do not need Yizkor.
Sushi Stern’s words resonated with me mainly regarding my father. We were estranged. I really did not care that he spoke harshly with me and cursed me out because he is entitled to his feelings. However, I felt he did things in his lifetime that were beyond the pale—not to me but to others. This is the first time I had a positive emotional feeling towards my father.
The Kotzker said on the pasuk in Devarim 6:6, which is in the Shema prayer, that God’s words have to be on your heart so that when you are ready to open your heart, the words of God will be there to flow into your heart to be absorbed internally. At davening at Buckingham, because of Sushi Stern’s words, I was ready to open my heart and feel for my father.
My mother lives within me. She is buried at Har HaMenuchos; however, she is still alive in me. She is always in my subconscious and whenever I see something that she would appreciate, I smile, think about it, and call my sister.
I was visiting my son at his office. My son recently became a partner in a law firm. The law firm changed its name to Prero & Morgenstern and they finally changed the signage to reflect this change. I took a picture and sent it to my family, saying that my mother is looking at this and smiling—just like when my mother came to my office and the sign right outside my office read, “Mitchell A. Morgenstern – Senior Vice President – Division Manager.”
I saw “T” at davening. “T” is Mark Tenenbaum. He is a resident at Buckingham. He almost died. He now feels better; however, he has a hard time walking and needs therapy. He was in my elementary school class. It was nice seeing him. I remember his father. They lived across the street from Arie Crown on Kimball Avenue right off the alley. His father was a photographer, so I asked T what happened to all of his pictures. T said that he has to go through them. Sam Saleski came to visit him and it was nice seeing him.
Why Yizkor?
In 2022 we were in Toronto as my mother-in-law was not doing well. We were in Toronto for Yom Kippur and Sukkos. The Conservatory, for whatever reason, did not let me daven at their minyan in the building. It did bother me. However, it turned into a blessing for me. I davened at Netivot. They had a tent minyan which I davened at. Yom Kippur eve was a nice early fall day with a nice breeze. As the day turned to night, the lights of the tent minyan turned bright and the chazzan chanted Kol Nidrei. It was beautiful.
The next day Rabbi Yecheizkel Grysman spoke before Yizkor. He started by saying that his wife told him that she gets nothing out of Yizkor. It has no meaning to her. I understood her feelings because I also get nothing out of Yizkor. Rabbi Grysman talked about his own father. His father was a Holocaust survivor and did an interview with Spielberg’s Holocaust project. About a year earlier Rabbi Grysman’s son, who is in school to get a therapy degree, wanted to watch the Spielberg interview with his father. Rabbi Grysman said that although he was there when his father was interviewed, watching the interview 20 years later he saw new aspects of his father. I do not recall how Rabbi Grysman answered his wife’s question. I called Rabbi Grysman after Shavuos.
12:45 PM – Walked to Rivkie and Mordy’s house. They had company. I spoke for about 8 minutes about Sugihara and Abraham Setsuzo Kotsuji.
1:30 PM – Got home and had my Shavuos meal.
3:00 PM – Learned Rus. I learned the 4th perek. I learned a beautiful Rashi.
Rus 3:9, 4:9, and 4:10 state that Naomi and Rus wanted Boaz to purchase their land. Naomi and Rus had land from their husbands and they had to sell it. They could have sold it to anyone; however, Behar 25:25 says that when a person sells ancestral land, his closest relative is first in line and should redeem the land—how much more so before the land is sold. Rashi on 3:9 continues and says Rus was also telling Boaz to marry me, so that the name of the deceased be remembered. How? So that when I come to the field to work the land, people will say, “This is Machlon’s wife.”
Rashi says this twice, in Rus 3:9 and Rus 4:9. Amazing that the remembering is so that people will mention Machlon. Even though Elimelech, Machlon, and Kilyon abandoned the Jewish people in a time of great need, there was still a need to remember Machlon. Families do not forget their relatives. Everyone does something wrong and the family still wanted to remember Machlon. They remember the goodness, not the evil.
This is true in my own family. My mother’s first husband, Simcha Chase, divorced my mother in 1947 having produced two children. Eddie Chase was never at any celebrations and his name was rarely mentioned. He was completely forgotten. His memory stayed only in my brother’s memory. My uncle Yoseph Maza once told him, “Pesach, your father was a fine fellow.” This was very important to my brother. After having many grandsons, no one in the family would name a child after my brother’s father. Last year finally one of Pesach’s grandkids named their son after Simcha—Eddie Chase. Baby Simcha Chase is a fifth-generation child of the original Simcha Chase. He now has a name after him and will be remembered forever. This is the pshat in the Rashi in Rus. Despite the separation, Simcha–Eddie Chase is now again part of the family.
Pesukim
[Hebrew text and translations preserved as in original]
8:30 PM – Ne’ilas HaChag, the end of the holiday get-together. Yonatan Glenner spoke out a number of Chasam Sofers.
The first question is that in the previous sedra, Padan Aram is mentioned three times, but here it is changed to Charan. Maybe the Torah is telling us a premonition for the future that it will be an anger, a terrible place for Yakov.
As one reads this Pasuk, how would וַיֵּ֖לֶךְ חָרָֽנָה be translated? According to the Seifsei Chachomin and the Ibn Ezra, the translation is שבא לחרן, which means “that he came to Charan.” However Rashi says that the translation here is וילך חרנה. יָצָא לָלֶכֶת לְחָרָן. The Seifsei Chacomin explains why Rashi changed the translation.
There are two ways to translate וַיֵּ֖לֶךְ חָרָֽנָה and every time the Torah does not use a Lamid.
1 – Yakov left Be’er Sheva and he arrived at Charan.
2 – Yakov left Be’er Sheva and went toward Charan, meaning he started on his way to Charan.
Almost all the English translations use Rashi’s translation, option #2.
The issue is that the language the Torah uses is וַיֵּ֖לֶךְ חָרָֽנָה and not וַיֵּ֖לֶךְ לחרן. We know that at times Rashi says that for a word that requires a lamed at its start, a heh is placed at its end. So וַיֵּ֖לֶךְ חָרָֽנָה would mean וַיֵּ֖לֶךְ לחרן . The Medresh 68:8 on this Pasuk says this very thing and I quote חָרָנָה, תָּנָא בְּשֵׁם רַבִּי נְחֶמְיָה כָּל דָּבָר שֶׁהוּא צָרִיךְ למ”ד בִּתְחִלָּתוֹ נִתַּן לָהּ ה”א בְּסוֹפָהּ – translated “Ḥarana – it is taught in the name of Rabbi Neḥemya: Any word that requires a lamed at its start, a heh is placed at its end.” The Gemora in Yevamos 13b in the name of the same Amorah says the same thing as the Medresh.. Rashi does not bring down this Merdresh here but does translate חרנה seemingly based on this Medresh.
However, In next week’s Sedra, the first Pasuk, verse 32:4 – וַיִּשְׁלַ֨ח יַעֲקֹ֤ב מַלְאָכִים֙ לְפָנָ֔יו אֶל־עֵשָׂ֖ו אָחִ֑יו אַ֥רְצָה שֵׂעִ֖יר שְׂדֵ֥ה אֱדֽוֹם – and Rashi says ארצה שעיר. לְאֶרֶץ שֵׂעִיר כָּל תֵּבָה שֶׁצְּרִיכָה לָמֶ”ד בִּתְּחִלָּתָהּ הֵטִיל לָהּ הַכָּתוּב הֵ”א בְּסוֹפָהּ.
Why in our Parsha where the Medresh says the rule of “Any word that requires a lamed at its start, a heh is placed at its end”, Rashi does not say this rule, yet in Parshas VaYishlach Rashi says this rule?
Over the years, as I read Rashi, I thought Rashi is being consistent and that whenever this language is used, we have to put in a Lamid. That this Rash is the normative translation. However, this year I read the Sefsei Chachomin on this Rashi and I found that he explains why Rashi did not use “and he arrived at Charan”. Meaning the correct translation should be that he arrived at Charan but had a problem with this translation and said that it must be changed to “and he travelled towards Charan.”
If the Meresh indicates that it means וַיֵּ֖לֶךְ לחרן, then this translation is clear and definitive.
The Sefsie Chachomin
יצא ללכת לחרן. דק”ל וילך חרנה משמע שבא לחרן וזה א”א שהרי אח”כ כתיב ויפגע במקום וזה היה קודם ביאתו לחרן ודוחק לומר שיהיה וילך כמשמעו שבא לחרן ואח”כ שב לבאר מה שפגע לו בדרך כי אין זה דרך המקרא לכן פירש יצא ללכת:
The Sefsie Chachomin translated into english:
Rashi is answering the question: וילך חרנה seems to imply that he came to Charan. But how can this be? It is written after the verse, “He reached the place [of Mt. Moriah],” which occurred before he came to Charan! It is difficult to say that וילך means what it sounds like, that he got to Charan, and then Scripture goes back to explain the place he reached while traveling—this is not the norm of Scripture. Thus Rashi explains: “He left in order to go to Charan” [but he did not get there yet].
The Sefsei Chachomin says that it cannot be that Yakov arrived in Charan because the next Pasuk says that “He reached the place of Mt. Moriah.”
To answer the question of why Rashi does not quote the Medresh here, but in the next Sedra, I believe that both ways ot translate וַיֵּ֖לֶךְ חָרָֽנָה are correct. The Rashi in the first verse say he was travelling towards Charan is the plain meaning the the Pasuk and as he continued to the next Pasuk of ויפגע. כְּמוֹ וּפָגַע בִּירִיחוֹ וּפָגַע בְּדַבָּשֶׁת (יהושע ט”ז וי”ט)
However, based on the Gemora in Chullin that Yakov arrived in Charan on that very day but went back to Har Moriah to pray, the translation of the first Pasuk of וַיֵּצֵ֥א יַעֲקֹ֖ב מִבְּאֵ֣ר שָׁ֑בַע וַיֵּ֖לֶךְ חָרָֽנָה׃ means that he arrived in Charan. Rashi quotes this Medresh clearly in 28:17. Therefore why didn’t Rashi say both meanings to clarify. The answer is that both meanings are true. The Rashi we have is saying the plain meaning and he is consistent with the first Pshat in the next Rashi. However, based on the medresh rashi cited in the second verse, Rashi would agree that the Medresh would read the first verse as Yakov left Be’er Sheva and arrived at Charan. This is why he did not quote the rule of “Any word that requires a lamed at its start, a heh is placed at its end” because here it actually means both options. He does quote it in VaYishlach because there, the meaning is only that “he went towards”. This is similar to the orach Chaim Hakodesh I quote below.
The statement that רַבִּי נְחֶמְיָה אוֹמֵר: כׇּל תֵּיבָה שֶׁצְּרִיכָה לָמֶד בִּתְחִלָּתָהּ — הֵטִיל לָהּ הַכָּתוּב הֵא בְּסוֹפָהּ.
Does not mean that in every case this is true but only if the translation is that “he walked towards” does the Torah use a Hey at the end of the word. In our Pasuk it does mean both. According to the plain meaning that he walked towards Charan and based on the Medresh that he arrived at Charan.
Verse 28:11
This works based on the first explanation in the Rashi, “ויפגע” in the next pasuk, as follows:
Rashi’s first Peshet which is also that of Onkelys:
And He Reached – similar are (Joshua 16:7) “and it reached (ופגע) unto Jericho”, and (Joshua 19:11) “and reached (ופגע) to Dabesheth.”
Second explanation:
Our Rabbis explained it in the sense of “praying”, just as (Jeremiah 7:16) “Neither make intercession (תפגע) to me”. The Gemora in Berachos says that from this Pasuk we may learn that Jacob originated the custom of Evening Prayer. Rashi continues and mentions the Gemora in Chulin 91b –
ויצא יעקב מבאר שבע וילך חרנה וכתיב ויפגע במקום כי מטא לחרן אמר אפשר עברתי על מקום שהתפללו אבותי ואני לא
. התפללתי כד יהיב דעתיה למיהדר קפצה ליה ארעא מיד ויפגע במקום. כד צלי בעי למיהדר אמר הקב”ה צדיק זה בא לבית מלוני ויפטר בלא לינה מיד בא השמש
Based on this the Gemora clearly says that Yakov went all the way to Charan and then doubled back and the land קָּפְצָה -shrunk. Using the explanation of the Rabosenui, we can go back to the first Pasuk of ויצא יעקב מבאר שבע וילך חרנה that he left Be’er Sheva and arrived in Charan. Why did Rashi and the Medrash have to say that we put a Lamid before חרנה
Rashi goes further and explains the Gemora. The word ויפגע was used instead that means “to hit upon a place unexpectedly,” based on the Gemora in Chullin 91b – Scripture purposely changed the usual word for “praying”, not writing יתפלל, “And he prayed” (which would have been the more appropriate word, but ויפגע which means to hit upon a place unexpectedly), to teach you also that the ground shrunk before him (the journey was miraculously shortened) as it is explained in the Chapter גיד הנשה (Chullin 91b).
It seems that the Gemara in Chullin that the first verse ויצא יעקב מבאר שבע וילך חרנה means that Yakov arrived to Charan and then ויפגע במקום that when he decided to go back to Mt. Moriah, he had a miraculous journey.
The Gemora in Chulin 91B clearly says that the shortened journey was from Charan to Har Hamoria
Was there also a shortened journey from Be’er Sheva to Charan. It seems like there was.
To explain Rashi is that both meanings are true. The Rashi on verse 28:10 is initially explaining that Yakov travelled towards Charan and in verse 28:11 tells us that he ended up at Mt. Morah. Is the simple meaning. This did happen but the real story is that it happened via a circuitous route. Based on the Rabosanu, we can then translate the Rashi in 28:10 that Yakov left Be’er Sheva and arrived at Charan. Then he doubled back and made it to Mt. Moriah. Both readings are correct. This is why Rashi did not say the rule of “Any word that requires a lamed at its start, a heh is placed at its end”. He did not want to say that absolutely this is the meaning because both usages are true. However in VaYishlach only one explanation is correct and that is with the Lamud, so Rashi there explained the rule.
What’s amazing is that the Sefsie Chacomin does not point this out.
While it is true as we learn from Bereshit Rabbah 68:8 that any word that requires a letter ל as a prefix may instead have the letter ה as a suffix, the Torah surely does not employ these variations arbitrarily!
Almost all of the English translations translate this pasuk as: Jacob left Beersheba and went toward Charan.
Targum Onkelys – וּנְפַק יַעֲקֹב מִבְּאֵרָא דְשָׁבַע וַאֲזַל לְחָרָן Yaakov left Beer Sheva and went toward Charan. This is the Sefaria Translation.
The Ibn Ezra translates like the first option above that Rashi seemingly rejected. The only English translation like the Ibn Ezra is Kehot as follows:
Jacob left Beersheba and went to Charan – Kehot.
Ibn Ezra:
אמר הגאון, כי וילך חרנה. ללכת, ואיננו רק כמשמעו ושב לבאר מה שפגע בדרך, ולא הלך ביום אחד, כי בדרך לן:
Saadiah Gaon is of the opinion that va-yelekh charanah is to be interpreted as, to go
However, this is not so. Va-yelekh charanah is to be interpreted literally. *That is, and he went to Haran. After telling us that Jacob left Beersheba and went to Haran, Scripture returns and tells us what he encountered on the way to Haran. *In other words, verse 10 is a general statement The particulars then follow. Jacob did not arrive in Haran on the day he left Beersheba, *Contrary to the Midrash Bereshit Rabbah 68:9 which states that Jacob arrived in Haran on the same day that he left Beersheba. because Scripture explicitly tells us that he spent a night on the way
Five miracles were wrought for our father Jakob at the time that he went forth from Beersheba. The first sign: the hours of the day were shortened, and the sun went down before his time, forasmuch as the Word had desired to speak with him. The second sign: the four stones which Jakob had set for his pillow he found in the morning, had become one stone. Sign the third: the Stone which, when all the flocks were assembled, they rolled from the mouth of the well, he rolled away with one of his arms. The fourth sign: the well overflowed, and the water rose to the edge of it, and continued to overflow all the days that he was in Haran. The fifth sign: the country was shortened before him, so that in one day he went forth and came to Haran.
Sforno is like Rashi, Onkelys, and Rav Saadia Goan
He reached the place and spent the night there because the sun had set. He took some of the stones of that place, and arranged them around his head, and lay down [to sleep] in that place.
Targum Yonasan Ben Uziel – like Rashi’s second explanation of the word V’Yidgah.
And he prayed in the place of the house of the sanctuary and lodged there, because the sun had gone down. And he took four stones of the holy place, and set his pillow, and slept in that place.
Gemora Chullin 91b
ויצא יעקב מבאר שבע וילך חרנה וכתיב ויפגע במקום כי מטא לחרן אמר אפשר עברתי על מקום שהתפללו אבותי ואני לא התפללתי כד יהיב דעתיה למיהדר קפצה ליה ארעא מיד ויפגע במקום
As it is written: “And Jacob went out from Beersheba and went toward Haran” (Genesis 28:10). And it is written thereafter: “And he encountered the place, and he slept there, because the sun had set” (Genesis 28:11). When Jacob arrived at Haran, he said: Is it possible that I passed a place where my fathers prayed and I did not pray there? When he set his mind to return, the land contracted for him. Immediately the verse states: “And he encountered the place,” indicating that he arrived there miraculously.
Rashi on the Gemora:
כתיב וילך חרנה – דמשמע דמטא לחרן והדר כתיב ויפגע במקום דהיינו בית אל דאכתי לא מטא לחרן:
שהתפללו בו אבותי – האי בית אל לא הסמוך לעי הוא אלא ירושלים ועל שם יהיה בית אלהים קראו בית אל והוא הר המוריה שהתפלל בו אברהם והוא שדה שהתפלל בו יצחק דכתיב (בראשית כד) לשוח בשדה דהכי אמרינן בפסחים (דף פח.) אל הר ה’ ואל בית אלהי יעקב מאי שנא יעקב אלא לא כאברהם שקראו הר דכתיב בהר ה’ ולא כיצחק שקראו שדה דכתיב לשוח בשדה אלא כיעקב שקראו בית:
קפצה – לשון (דברים ט״ו:ז׳) לא תקפוץ את ידך. נתקצרה ונתקמצה לו:
ויפגע במקום – כאדם הפוגע בחבירו שבא כנגדו ודרשינן ליה נמי לשון תפלה כדכתיב (רות א) אל תפגעי בי:
כד צלי בעי למיהדר אמר הקב”ה צדיק זה בא לבית מלוני ויפטר בלא לינה מיד בא השמש
When he had finished praying and he wanted to return to Haran, the Holy One, Blessed be He, said: This righteous man came to my lodging place and he will depart without remaining overnight? Immediately, the sun set before its proper time so that Jacob would stay overnight in that place.
Conclusion:
Are we to say that the plain meaning of the text and the Gemora contradict one another? As I am writing it is Monday December 1st. After thinking about it through the night I think the plain meaning just lays out for us the beginning and end. The Medresh lays out for us the background of the story. It could that Rashi also feels that “L’Charon” is the proper translation.
הסולם הזה עומד בבאר שבע ס”ל שיעקב בחברון נתברך ומ”ש ויצא יעקב מבאר שבע שהלך שם ליטול רשות והוא המקום שלן בו וראה מראות אלהים. והסולם שראה לדעת ריב”ז ראה שרגליו בבאר שבע במקום שהוא שוכב שם. וסוף שיפועו שהוא ראש הסולם הגיע עד כנגד ביהמ”ק נסמך בשמים. ולכן ידע שבאר שבע הוא שער השמים טוב לתפלה. וביהמ”ק בית אלהים
אמר ר”י ב”ס הסולם הזה עומד בבהמ”ק כו’. ס”ל כי ויפגע במקום הוא הר המוריה. וראה הסולם רגליו במקום ההוא ושיפועו שהוא ראשו מגיע עד כנגד בית אל וזה הוא עיר לוז. ואמר כי זה המקום בית אלהים. ושיפוע הסולם שער השמים. והנה הר המוריה טוב לתפלה. וגם בית אל מקום ראוי לעבוד שם אלהים. והקים מצבה בבית אל. כי לדעת כולם כנגד סוף שיפועו הקים אותה-רמב”ן:
Matnaos Kehuna:
ומה נורא וגו’. משמע שהיה מכוון נגד ב”ה שהוא בית אלהים וזה שער השמים מכוון כנגדו ור’ יהודה סבר מדקרא למקום לוז בית אל שמע מיניה ששער השמים ששם ראש הסולם מכוון כנגדו ומדייחד המורא למקום ב”ה ששם היה שוכב שמע מיניה שלפחות רגלי הסולם היה שמה אכן רש”י פי’ בפי’ החומש שיפועו אמצע שיפוע וראיתי למהר”ר אליהו המזרחי שגם הוא היה חוכך בו ונקיתי אך הפעם
כי אם בית אלהים THIS IS NONE OTHER THAN THE HOUSE OF GOD —R. Eleazar said in the name of R. José the son of Zimra: “This ladder stood in Beersheba and [the middle of]) its slope reached opposite the Temple” (Genesis Rabbah 69:7). For Beersheba is situated in the South of Judah, Jerusalem in the North of it on the boundary between Judah and Benjamin and Bethel in the North of Benjamin’s territory, on the border between the land of Benjamin and that of the children of Joseph. It follows, therefore, that a ladder whose foot is in Beersheba and whose top is in Bethel has the middle of its slope reaching opposite Jerusalem.
Now as regards what our Rabbis stated (Chullin 91b) that the Holy One, blessed be He, said, “This righteous man has come to the place where I dwell (i.e., the Temple at Jerusalem, whilst from here it is evident that he had come to Luz) and shall he depart without staying here overnight?” and with regard to what they also said (Pesachim 88a) “Jacob gave the name Bethel to Jerusalem”, whereas this place which he called Bethel was Luz and not Jerusalem, whence did they learn to make this statement (which implies that Luz is identical with Jerusalem)?
I say that Mount Moriah was forcibly removed from its locality and came hither (to Luz), and that this is what is meant by the “shrinking” of the ground that is mentioned in the Treatise (Chullin 91b) — that the site of the Temple came towards him (Jacob) as far as Bethel and this too is what is meant by ויפגע במקום, “he lighted upon the place” (i.e., he “met” the place, as two people meet who are moving towards each other; cf. Rashi on Genesis 5:11). Now, since Jacob’s route must have been from Beersheba to Jerusalem and thence to Luz and Haran and consequently when he reached Luz he had passed Jerusalem, if you should ask, “When Jacob passed the Temple, why did He not make him stop there?” — If it never entered his mind to pray at the spot where his fathers had prayed, should Heaven force him to stop there to do so?
Really he had reached as far as Haran, as we say in the Chapter גיד הנשה (Chullin 91b), and Scripture itself proves this since it states, “And he went to Haran.” When he arrived at Haran he said, “Is it possible that I have passed the place where my fathers prayed without myself praying there?” He decided to return and got as far as Bethel where the ground “shrank” for him.
This Bethel is not the Bethel that is near Ai (cf. Genesis 12:8) but that which is near Jerusalem, and because he said of it, “It shall be the House of God”, he called it Bethel. This, too, is Mount Moriah, where Abraham prayed, and it is also the field in which Isaac offered prayer as it is written, “[Isaac went out] to meditate (i. e., to pray; cf. Genesis 24:63) in the field”. Thus, too, do we read in the Treatise (Pesachim 88a) in a comment on the verse Micah 4:2: “[O come ye and let us go up] to the mountain of the Lord (i.e. the mountain upon which the Temple is built) and to the house of the God of Jacob”. What particular reason is there for mentioning Jacob? But the text calls the Temple not as Abraham did who called it a mount, and not as Isaac did, who called it a field, but as Jacob did who called it Beth[el]—the House of God. (To here from “This Bethel” is to be found in a certain correct Rashi-text)
THIS IS NONE OTHER THAN THE HOUSE OF G-D, AND THIS IS THE GATE OF HEAVEN. This refers to the Sanctuary which is the gate through which the prayers and sacrifices ascend to heaven.
Rashi comments, Rabbi Elazar the son of Rabbi Yosei the son of Zimra said, ‘This ladder stood in Beer-sheba and its slope reached unto the Sanctuary in Jerusalem. Beer-sheba is situated in the southern part of Judah, and Jerusalem is to its north on the boundary between Judah and Benjamin, and Beth-el was in the northern portion of Benjamin’s territory, on the boundary between Benjamin’s territory and that of the children of Joseph. It follows, therefore, that a ladder whose base is in Beer-sheba and whose top is in Beth-el has its slope reaching opposite Jerusalem. Now regarding the statement of our Rabbis that the Holy One, blessed be He, said, ‘This righteous man has come to the place where I dwell, [namely, the Sanctuary in Jerusalem, and shall he depart without spending the night?’], and with regard to what they also said, ‘Jacob gave the name Beth-el to Jerusalem’ this place which he called Beth-el was Luz and not Jerusalem! And whence did they learn to say so, [implying that Luz is identical with Jerusalem]? I therefore say that Mount Moriah [the Temple site in Jerusalem] was forcibly removed from its place and came here to Luz, and this movement of the Temple site is ‘the springing of the earth’ which is mentioned in Tractate Shechitath Chullin. It means that the site on which the Sanctuary was later to stand came towards Jacob to Beth-el. And this too is what is meant by vayiphga bamakom (and he met the place): [as two people meet, who are moving towards each other]. If you should ask, ‘When our father Jacob passed the site of the Sanctuary [on his way from Beer-sheba to Haran] why did He not detain him there?’ The answer is: If it never entered his mind to pray at the place where his fathers had prayed, should Heaven make him stop there? He had journeyed as far as Haran, as we say in the chapter of Gid Hanasheh, and Scripture itself helps us clarify this point by saying, And he went to Haran. When he arrived at Haran he said, ‘Is it possible that I have passed the place where my fathers prayed without praying there myself?’ He decided to return and had returned as far as Beth-el, whereupon the ground of the Temple site sprang for him until Beth-el.”
All these are the words of the Rabbi. But I do not agree with them at all for ‘the springing of the earth’ which the Rabbis mention in connection with Jacob is like that which they have said happened to Eliezer, the servant of Abraham, namely, that he reached Haran in one day. As they have said in Tractate Sanhedrin, “The earth sprang for three persons: Eliezer, the servant of Abraham, our father Jacob, and Abishai the son of Zeruiah.” And the Rabbis explained: “Eliezer, the servant of Abraham — for it is written, And I came this day unto the fountain, which teaches that on that very day he embarked on his journey. Jacob — for it is written, And he met the place. When he arrived at Haran he said, ‘Is it possible that I have passed the place where my fathers prayed without praying there myself?’ As soon as the thought of returning occurred to him, the earth sprang for him, and immediately he met the place.” Thus the Rabbis explicitly say that as soon as the thought to return occurred to him in Haran, the earth sprang for him and he met the place where his fathers prayed, but not that he returned to Beth-el, nor that Mount Moriah sprang and came there to Beth-el. In Bereshith Rabbah the Rabbis further equated them both [Eliezer and Jacob] with respect to “the springing of the earth.” Thus they said: “And he arose, and went to Aram-naharaim — on the very same day. And I came this day unto the fountain — this day I embarked on the journey, and this day I arrived.” With respect to Jacob the Rabbis interpreted in a similar vein: “And he went to Haran — the Rabbis say on the very same day.” And furthermore, what reason is there for Mount Moriah to “spring” and come to Beth-el, as Rashi claims, after Jacob had troubled himself to return from Haran to Beth-el, a journey of many days? Moreover, Beth-el does not lie on the border of the Land of Israel which faces towards Haran for Haran is a land which lies to the east [of the Land of Israel while Beth-el lies in its western part]. Additionally, the middle part of a ladder is not referred to as its “slope.” And, finally, what reason is there for the middle of the ladder to be opposite Beth-el, [where, according to Rashi, the side of the Sanctuary had been transported], when the middle part of an object does not possess significance beyond that of its whole?
There is, however, another intent to these Midrashim. The Rabbis have said in Bereshith Rabbah, “Rabbi Hoshayah said, ‘It has already been stated, And Jacob hearkened to his father and his mother, and was gone to Paddan-aram. What then does Scripture teach by repeating, And Jacob went out from Beer-sheba? Rather, the redundancy teaches us that Jacob said, “When my father desired to leave the Land of Israel, at what location did he seek permission for it? Was it not in Beer-sheba? I, too, shall go to Beer-sheba to seek this permission. If He grants me permission, I shall leave, and if not, I shall not go.” Therefore Scripture found it necessary to state, And Jacob went out from Beer-sheba.’”
The intent of this Midrash is that the Rabbis were of the opinion that Jacob was blessed by his father in Hebron, the land of his father’s sojournings, and it was to Hebron that he came when he returned to his father from Paddan-aram, as it is said, And Jacob came unto Isaac his father to Mamre, to Kiriath-arba — the same is Hebron — where Abraham and Isaac sojourned. Now if so, the verse stating, And Jacob went out from Beer-sheba teaches that when his father commanded him to go to Laban he went to Beer-sheba to receive Divine permission, and that is the place wherein he spent the night and saw visions of G-d, and it was there that He gave him permission to exit from the Land of Israel, even as He said, And I will keep thee wherever thou goest and will bring thee back unto this land. And the ladder which he saw, in the opinion of Rabbi Yosei the son of Zimra, he saw with its feet in Beer-sheba, in the very place where he lay, and with the end of its slope which is the top of the ladder reaching to a point opposite the Sanctuary. It was supported by heaven at the gate through which the angels enter and exit. The revered G-d stood over him, and therefore he knew that Beer-sheba was the gate of heaven, suitable for prayer, and the Sanctuary was the house of G-d. And in the morning Jacob continued his journey from Beer-sheba and arrived at Haran on the same day, and this was “the springing of the earth” mentioned with respect to Jacob.
This is the opinion of Rabbi Yosei the son of Zimra who said in Bereshith Rabbah, “This ladder stood in Beer-sheba and its slope reached to the Sanctuary, as it is said, And Jacob went out from Beer-sheba;And he was afraid and said, How fearful is this place.” And the stone which he erected as a pillar he did not erect in the place where he slept, for Beer-sheba is not Beth-el and it was in Beth-el that he erected it, and there he went upon his return from Paddan-aram, as it is said, Arise, go up to Beth-el … and make there an altar unto G-d who appeared unto thee, etc. But he erected it [after carrying the stone from Beth-el to Jerusalem] opposite the slope, at the place where the head of the ladder stood, which he had called the house of G-d, and this is the city which had previously been called Luz.
Thus in the opinion of Rabbi Yosei the son of Zimra, Luz was Jerusalem which Jacob called Beth-el. Possibly this may be so, according to the verses in the book of Joshua. It is certainly true that it is not the Beth-el near Ai for that Beth-el was originally so named in the days of Abraham and prior to that.
But Rabbi Yehudah the son of Rabbi Shimon differs there with Rabbi Yosei the son of Zimra, and he says: “This ladder stood upon the Sanctuary site and its slope reached to Beth-el. What is his reason? And he was afraid, and said, etc. And he called the name of that place Beth-el.” Thus in the opinion of Rabbi Yehudah the son of Rabbi Shimon the verse stating, And he lighted upon the place, means Mount Moriah. And he tarried there all night, because the sun was set for him not at its proper time [so that he should spend the night there], for as our Rabbis have stated: “[The Holy One, blessed be He, said], ‘This righteous man has come to the place where I dwell. Shall he then depart without staying there over night?’” And so Jacob saw the ladder with its feet standing in that place, and its slope, which is its top, reached to a point which was opposite that particular Beth-el [which was mentioned in connection with Ai during Abraham’s era], and that was the city of Luz. And Jacob said that the very place where he spent the night was the house of G-d, and the slope of the ladder was the gate of heaven, thus Mount Moriah is excellent for prayer, and Beth-el also is a suitable place for the worship of G-d. And he erected the pillar in Beth-el, for in the opinion of all Rabbis he erected it opposite the slope of the ladder.
The opinion of Rabbi Yehudah the son of Rabbi Shimon, [i.e., that Jacob slept on Mount Moriah, and he erected the pillar in Beth-el], is in agreement with the Midrash in the Gemara of the chapter concerning Gid Hanasheh, and that of Chapter Cheleck, which states that Jacob left Beer-sheba and came to Haran, and when he reconsidered and decided to return and pray at Mount Moriah, the place where his fathers had prayed, then the earth “sprang” for him and he lighted immediately upon Mount Moriah. Perhaps it is the Rabbis’ opinion that the earth “sprang” for him both when going from Haran to Mount Moriah and when returning from Mount Moriah to Haran. This would be in agreement with the opinion of the Rabbi who says: “And he went to Haran — on the same day. And he lighted upon the place — at once, very suddenly.”
I found it more explicitly in Pirkei Rabbi Eliezer Hagadol: “Jacob was seventy-seven years of age when he left his father’s house, and he followed the well that travelled before him from Beer-sheba to Mount Moriah, a two-day journey, and he arrived there at midday, etc. The Holy One, blessed be He, said to him, ‘Jacob, you have bread in your travelling-bag, the well is before you, enabling you to eat and drink and lie down in this place.’ Jacob replied, ‘Master of all worlds, the sun has yet to descend fifty stages, and shall I lie down to sleep in this place?’ Prematurely, the sun then set in the west. Jacob looked and saw that the sun had set in the west, so he tarried there all night, because the sun was set. Jacob took twelve stones from the stones of the altar upon which his father Isaac had lain bound as a sacrifice and put them under his head. By the fact that his resting-place contained twelve stones, G-d informed him that twelve tribes were destined to be established from him. But then all twelve stones were transformed into one stone to inform him that all twelve tribes were destined to become one nation in the earth, as it is said, And who is like Thy people, like Israel, a nation one in the earth? In the morning Jacob awoke with great fright, and said, ‘The house of the Holy One, blessed be He, is in this place,’ as it is said, And he was afraid, and said: How fearful is this place! From here you learn that whosoever prays in Jerusalem is considered as if he prayed before the Throne of Glory, for the gate of heaven is open there to receive the prayer of Israel, as it is said, And this is the gate of heaven. Jacob then wanted to collect the stones [which he had used as a resting-place for his head in order to build an altar], but he found them all to be one stone, and so he set it up as a pillar in that place. Thereupon oil flowed down for him from heaven, and he poured it on top of the stone, as it is said, And he poured oil upon the top of it. What did the Holy One, blessed be He, do? With His right foot He sank the anointed stone unto the depths of the abyss to serve as the key-stone of the earth, just as one inserts a key-stone in an arch. It is for this reason that it is called Even Hashethiyah (The Foundation Stone), for there is the center of the earth, and from there the earth unfolded, and upon it stands the Temple of G-d, as it is said, And this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be G-d’s house. From there he [Jacob] went on his journey, and in the twinkling of an eye he arrived in Haran.” Thus far [extends the quotation from the Pirkei Rabbi Eliezer Hagadol].
Thus, all Midrashim — despite some minor differences among them — acknowledge that “the springing of the earth” occurred to Jacob through which he travelled a journey of many days in the twinkling of an eye. It is possible that all Midrashim concede to one another, and that on all these journeys of his — when going from Beer-sheba to Haran, when he desired to return to Mount Moriah, and when he left there to go to Haran — the earth “sprang” for him. But there is not one of all these Midrashim which says, as Rashi said, [that Mount Moriah was forcibly removed from its location and was transported to meet him in Beth-el].
This place was already known as Bethel, but in light of the revelation he had just received, Jacob ratified this name. He named that place again Bethel [“House of God”], although the original name of the town was Luz.
Since Har Hamoriah moved up to Luz, Yakov renamed the city Beth El, the house of God.
Today Helen called me to say that Linda Kahn died. The funeral will be in Milwaukee on Sunday, with Shiva at her brother’s house in Northbrook. Linda had a hard life. She was close to her siblings, cousins, and other family. She did have a close family in Anshei Sholom and Chabad of East Lakeview, and in the community of people who cared about her. She was part of the Chevra. At Shul she always wearing a nice hat. Whenever I brought her lunch and we ate together with her sister, Susan, Linda always seemed full of life. Linda’s cheeks were always rose colored.
Linda loved Torah. She enjoyed the Dr. Leonard Kranzler Shiur. She always asked questions and when she did not understand something, she stopped the Shiur until she understood. I was fortunate that when I visited, I brought her copies of the Torah and history classes I had given at Chabad of East Lakeview at the Dr. Leonard Kranzler Memorial Shiur led by Paul and Tamar. We would read it together and she really enjoyed it.
Both Helen and Paul mentioned that they told her she should not be eating certain things. At Shiur, Paul would bring the food, and Linda would say, “I should not be eating this.” and Paul would say, “Yes, Linda, you should not be eating it.” Helen told me that when she went shopping for Linda, she would not purchase the unhealthy items. Unlike Helen, the few times I went shopping for her, I bought the salami. Who can resist salami?
I did not realize that she was a successful schoolteacher. She loved kids. She had a gorgeous drawing from the kids in her class when she retired.
One Friday I brought two of my grandkids and she read a book to them. It was a great scene, with my grandson looking at the book, paying attention, answering her questions, and enjoying the time.
This is from Helen. “Linda’s former caregiver will now help Susan, who, according to their brother, will really miss Linda—while they bickered as siblings do, they really were together quite often.” I witnessed the bickering Helen mentioned . Linda insisted I bring food for Susan when I brought lunch.
The last time I spoke to her was one week before her death. I called her and asked her if she wanted lunch. She told me to get a hamburger from Great Chicago. Not just any hamburger but the Buddy Burger, a ½ pounder with fries and coleslaw. Normally, I bring it up to her condo; however, she told me to leave it in the lobby. She called me about two hours later and thanked me. She said she was not feeling well; however, her voice was strong.
She will be missed. May she be a Melitz Yosher for her family, our community, and Klal Yisroel.
I called Sara-Kates Potashnick, whose husband, Joel Potashnick, is a first cousin once removed to Linda.
Henry Kahn – Brother of Linda’s father
↓ ↓
Linda Kahn is a first cousin to – Daughter who married a Potashnick
Linda Kahn, age 79. Cherished daughter of the late Henry and Eva (nee Reinheimer) Kahn; dear sister of Susan Kahn and Sanford (Eliana) Kahn; fond aunt of Nathaniel and Ariel; dear niece of the late Anita and Kurt Wagner, the late Kurt Reinheimer, the late David and Rose Kahn, the late Norbert and Jean Kahn, the late Tekla and Ernst Taussig, the late Erna and Hans Seligman; loving cousin of many. Graveside service Sunday 26 th, 1 PM at Second Home Cemetery, 3705 S. 43rd Street, Milwaukee, WI 53220. Family and friends who cannot attend the funeral can watch the funeral on Linda’s webpage on http://www.mitzvahfunerals.com live or any time after the funeral. Arrangements entrusted to Mitzvah Memorial Funerals, 847-MITZVAH 847-648-9824.
From my Blog Post of Thanksgiving 2021 :
Shabbos Parshas VaYeshev / Thanksgiving 2021
On Thursday I called Linda Kahn to come to Chabad for Davening and for the Kiddush. She has rarely been out of her house due to covid. She came. I told her I would get her lean corned beef, her favorite, which the Rabbi made sure we had for the Kiddush.
I gave the Dr. Leonard Kranzler Memorial Shiur. In attendance were Linda Kahn, Peggy and Sid Kaz, Herb Eiseman, Ray Miller, Tamar Genin, Eli Morgenstern, and Xi. Paul was in Texas for Shabbos.
Emails I received after I sent out my thoughts about Linda:
Rabbi Dovid Kotlarsky:
beautiful tribute
special women!
Helen Bloch:
Beautiful tribute & nice picture. Thank you so much for sharing. I forwarded it to my family.
Ron Lev and I made a shiva call Sunday to the brother. Susan was still in the hospital recovering from hip surgery when Linda passed. Linda’s former caregiver will now help Susan, who according to their brother, will really miss Linda- while they bickered as siblings do, they really were together quite often.
All the best.
Marilyn – Menucha Rest:
Baruch Dayan HaEmes.
This was a shock when I received this email this afternoon. I spoke to Linda last Tuesday. Her voice sounded strong.
Linda suffered a lot in the last few years. She’s in a better place now.
Susan had fractured her hip & her wrist & had surgery. She was scheduled to be released from the hospital yesterday. When I spoke to Linda last Tuesday, she told me that they didn’t know where Susan would be going; whether it would be home or to a rehab facility.
If anyone is going to the Shiva in Northbrook, let me know. I don’t drive.
Second email:
Hi Mitch,
Thank you for sending this to us. It was a beautiful tribute to Linda (Z”L). May her memory be a blessing for us all.
Anna Freedman, Markowitz, Odedah Saunders, & I went to the Shiva in Northbrook last night. Anna had been there with her husband Sunday night. Anna was so gracious in making a second trip so Odedah & I could get there, since neither of us drives.
Marilyn
Paul Freund:
Beautiful. Good job, I am sure everybody will enjoy reading and reminiscing.
Sandy Hasson:
Very beautiful sharing and memories. How nice of you to drive from Skokie to Linda to bring a burger buddy. I’m sure that gave her much pleasure!
I read the article in the link and forwarded it to my friend Mimi Kates, granddaughter of Rabbi Goldman. You have a good memory!
It will be a loss without Linda
Tamar Genin:
Beautiful and very touching!
Professor Jack Kugelmass:
Thinking about Linda and her connection to Anshei Sholom and Chabad of East Lakeview I have to mention something that Professor Jack Kugalmass wrote in his 1980 book, Miracle on Intervale Avenue. It is his story of a small, impoverished synagogue in the South Bronx. His words below sum up what the Shuls represented to Linda. Not only in the comradery and support, but in her connection to eternity.
Professor Jack Kugelmass in the book discusses why these elderly Jews stayed in the South Bronx and attended the Intervale Jewish Center.. Towards the end of the book, Jack Kugelmass comes to realize something important about the Shul to its members and why they stayed in the South Bronx. He writes, “For congregants concerned about their legacy and needing the reassurance that they will be remembered, the Intervale Jewish Center has come to serve as a communal kaddish, guaranteeing to each member the recitation of the memorial prayers.” and “For some congregants yorsayt is a major reason for attending.”
Then Professor Jack Kugelmass sums this up with a powerful, powerful conclusion. He writes, “Ultimately, only the knowledge that one is part of something greater than familial bonds and obligations, something that reasserts the existence of a higher order of things, gives man the sense that death and life are linked, that they are both part of a divine plan, and that one gives meaning and purpose to the other. The communal rites of the shul provide that sense of order if only because they tie congregants to the world of their fathers and even, as I argued in an earlier chapter, to the world of their biblical forefathers.”
Add for Sheloshim:
Vort on Yishmael that he rejoined his family at the time of the Aveda at age 50. He was one of the two people who accompanied Avrohom and Yitzchok to the Akeda.
Eight children are mentioned for Nachor. Why by קְמוּאֵ֖ל does in mention that he is the father of Aram? By none of the other children does it mention a son. Aram became the arch enemy of the Jewish people during the first temple period. Is there a significance? I can only speculate.
From AI
“Aram” is an ancient name for what is now Syria, or a large part of it. The terms “Aram” and “Syria” can be used interchangeably, with “Aram” being the Hebrew designation and “Syria” the Greek one. The area referred to as Aram in biblical times is roughly the same region that makes up modern Syria.
Yes, there were alliances between Aram and kings of Israel and Judah, though these relationships were often marked by conflict. A notable alliance was forged between King Asa of Judah and Ben-Hadad I of Aram to counter a threat from Baasha, king of Israel. Another significant alliance occurred when King Ahab of Israel allied with Ben-Hadad II of Aram against a common enemy, the Assyrians.
King Asa and Ben-Hadad I: Faced with aggression from the king of Israel, Asa paid tribute to Ben-Hadad I to form a treaty, which successfully pressured Israel to withdraw.
King Ahab and Ben-Hadad II: Ahab allied with Ben-Hadad II, king of Aram, to fight against the Assyrian threat, demonstrating a shift in strategy to create a balance of power in the region.
Rezin of Aram and Pekah of Israel: In a later period, Rezin of Aram and Pekah, king of Israel, formed an alliance to wage war against Judah under King Ahaz. However, this alliance ultimately failed to capture Jerusalem
Comment 2:
Of the eight children, two have names ending with an Aleph and a Lamid, which is the name of Hashem. These two letters on a standalone basis mean “God.” They are קְמוּאֵ֖ל and בְּתוּאֵֽל. Translated, these two names mean “arise God” and “the daughter of God”. Is there anything to this? The Torah lists progeny for both of these children. בְּתוּאֵֽל’s daughter did become the daughter of God when she married Yitzchok. Maybe קְמוּאֵ֖ל himself was God-fearing and maybe this is why his progeny did have the potential to be a righteous nation but failed and turned into sworn enemies of Israel. We know that the northern kingdom, who became idol worshippers, became mortal enemies of the southern kingdom.
ופילגשו ותלד גם היא. והגיד המגיד שגם פילגשו ילדה את מעכה שהיתה כמו כן ראויה לבנו אם לא יבחר ברבקה ולא יצטרך לזרע כנען
What is the Sforno coming to add? Where did he get this from? What is the point that if Rivka would be unwilling to marry Yitzchok, then he could have married מַעֲכָֽה. מַעֲכָֽה was a female and the Sforno must have thought; why, among all the children of Nachor, is a female mentioned? Normally only males are mentioned in terms of the descendants of people in the Bible. Perhaps all the Sferno is telling us is that people have many potential partners to marry, and they all would work. There may be one perfect person, but there are many people whom they can marry and have a great life with.
How did the Sforno know that מַעֲכָֽה was a female? Perhaps there is a midrash. Perhaps it is the Kometz-Hey at the end of the name that turns Hebrew words into a feminine word.
The Sefer Hayasher does not mention this chapter of the birth of Rivkah.
The basic understanding of בַּכֹּֽל is that Hashem gave Avrohom everything one desires in life. As the Ibn Ezra says, with length of days, wealth, honor, and sons, these being all the things that men desire to have. Rashi seemingly wants to fit the בַּכֹּֽל׃ with the theme of this chapter. Rashi is not arguing with the Ibn Ezra but is adding to it. One could even argue that the Gemara, which mentions that Rashi had a daughter, also aligns with the Ibn Ezra’s interpretation. Avrohom had everything, including a daughter.
I want to add that Avrohom had a great life. There is no question that his life was not smooth. Things did happen; however, this is life. You live your life, and life happens; it gets in the way. There is no way Avrohom was exempt from that. Even Sarah’s death is part of life. God did bless Avrohom with everything, but he had a blessed life. Every morning he woke up on top of the world. He knew that he would succeed and almost always make the right decision. He did not feel incompetent, like a failure, like an idiot. He almost always had the right words to say. So the blessing of Bakol was not only with a long life, with riches, and with honor but also with emotional stability and knowledge that he was exceptionally competent.
What the Reshonim say:
Rashi says – ברך את אברהם בכל. בַּכֹּל עוֹלֶה בְּגִימַטְרִיָּא בֵּן, וּמֵאַחַר שֶׁהָיָה לוֹ בֵּן הָיָה צָרִיךְ לְהַשִּׂיאוֹ אִשָּׁה:
Ibn Ezra – וד’ ברך את אברהם בכל. באורך ימים ועושר וכבוד ובנים, וזו כל חמדת האדם ודרש שבתו היתה שמה בכל צריך להוסיף בי”ת משרת:
AND THE LORD HAD BLESSED ABRAHAM IN ALL THINGS. With length of days, wealth, honor, and sons, these being all the things that men desire to have. If the interpretation that Abraham had a daughter named Bakkol were correct, then Scripture should have read: and the Lord blessed Abraham “with” Bakkol. *If ba-kol is a proper noun then the preposition “with” is missing. Rather than reading ba-kol, the verse should have read, be-Bakol (with Bakol).
Da’as Zekanim – ברך את אברהם בכל, “He blessed Avraham in all respects.” This was due to the merit he had acquired when tithing the loot of the war against the Kings with Kedorleomer and giving it to the “priest,” who was the King of Shalem. (Genesis 14,20)
Interesting Rashbam:
וה’ ברך את אברהם [בכל] – להודיע האמור לפנינו שלא שלח עבדו לקחת אשה ממשפחתו מחמת חוסר נשים בארץ כנען, שלא היו רוצים להזדווג לו, שהרי נתברך בכל וכל העולם מתאווים להזדווג לו, אבל הוא לא רצה כי אם ממשפחתו. וזהו שאמר העבד: וה’ ברך את אדני מאד ויגדל ולכך הוצרך לפרש תחלה ברך את אברהם בכל. כמו: וחם הוא אבי כנען.
And God blessed Abraham [with everything] – this is to inform/explain to us about what is said in [the text in] front of us, that Abraham did not send his servant to take a wife [for Isaac] on account of lack of women in the Land of Canaan or because no one wanted to mate with him, because Abraham had been blessed with everything and the entire world desired to mate with Isaac, but because he only wanted a spouse for Isaac from his family. This is why Abraham’s servant said: “And Adonai blessed my master very much and he has become wealthy.” And it is for this reason that the text needed to explain first that God had blessed Abraham “with everything,” as in a similar instance: “And Ham was the father of Canaan.”
On Motzai Shabbos I was walking home with Michoel Lawrence, Chani Janowski’s brother-in-law’s twin brother. Chani Janowski’s sister is married to Dovid Lawrence who lives in Toronto. Michoel lives here in Boynton Beach in the same complex where I live. Michael Schwartz whose daughter goes to Florida Atlantic University also was with us. Michoel Lawrence said over a Rashi on Bereshis verse 22:3:
So early next morning, Abraham saddled his donkey and took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. He split the wood for the burnt offering, and he set out for the place of which God had told him.
I realized something at that moment. We know that Yishmaiel was kicked out of the house when he was 13. The Chumosh also tells us based on Rashi and the Medresh twice that Yishmael repented and became a tzaddik. Once at Avrohom’s death when Yishmael was 89 and again at Yishmael’s death 48 years later when Yishmael was 137. When did Yishmael first repent? It occurred to me that if Yishmael accompanied Avrohom and Yitzchok with Eliezer to the Akedah, it must have been that Yishmael was reconciled with the family at this time, when Yishmael was 50 and still had most of his life to live. Maybe he had not done full repentance but he was close enough to Avrohom and Sarah that he was around and accompanied both Avrohom and Yitzchok to their greatest test. Yishmael fulfilled by honoring one’s parents and also serving a Talmud Chachom. True,that Yishmael did not know the purpose of the trip, but he was there. Thus, the process of Yishmael returning occurred much earlier than Avrohom’s death, 38 years earlier. From the age of 50 until he died 87 years later there was rapprochement, and Yishmael worked on himself to become a Tzaddick.
Perhaps this could also be the meaning of verse וְאַבְרָהָ֣ם זָקֵ֔ן בָּ֖א בַּיָּמִ֑ים וַֽיהֹוָ֛ה בֵּרַ֥ךְ אֶת־אַבְרָהָ֖ם בַּכֹּֽל׃. The blessing is that his family was also complete with the return of Yishmael into the family dynamic.
Hagar was to return later through the efforts of Yitzchok. Perhaps also at this time Hagar also was not estranged from the family.
When families get together there has to be a sense of togetherness, of camaraderie, of joy of being in each other’s company. I would like to propose that this is what happened with Avrohom and his family.
Friday night I davened by Sidney Glenner at the Base Ment Minyan. I wore my light blue jacket I purchased from the Brown Elephant for $14. I love the jacket and how it looks on me. I also wore my rose gold Fossil watch also purchased from the Brown Elephant.
Shabbos morning davened with Mayer Chase at the Adas. Simi Mandelbaum made a Bar Mitzvah for his son. Cholent was great. Simi’s father TZL was a well-known Rebi in Philadelphia for years, loved by everyone. I wanted to get a bracha from Simi’s mother, but she was not yet at the simcha. Spoke to Simi’s brothers, especially Shmuel. I saw Avi Goldfeder, who was MC at Keshet dinners for many years. I described my granddaughter, Tiferet, who is autistic and the need to give her respect and told him of my dialogue with Michelle.
Caption for picture – Tammy took Tiferet for a waxing and out to lunch.
My response – Being clean and neat and sitting with her drink at a restaurant speaks to me.
Michelle’s Answer – I know. She has a lot in her if she’s just respected.
My response – I sent $100
Michelle’s response – Thanks. She looks like such a beautiful young lady. She loves doing this stuff.
At the Bar Mitzvah I met many friends.
I worked on the Sedra and saw beautiful Torah. I always recall that Rabbi Shmuel Bowman of Efrat said that at CUFI events there are signs that say Genesis 12:3, which is the Pasuk וַאֲבָֽרְכָה֙ מְבָ֣רְכֶ֔יךָ – I will bless those that bless you.
I saw the Or Hachaim on Lot and the fight between the shepherds of Lot and the shepherds of Avrohom. I also saw a Pshet that Hashem did not want Lot to go with Avrohom, but that Lot attached himself to Avrohom. I also saw the Orach Chaim on Avrohom going down to Egypt. I saw beautiful Torah from Rabbi Riskin.
This is from Anshei Sholem:
We regret to inform you of the passing of Debra Tillinger, sister of Sara Wolkenfeld. (My cousin’s daughter, Amy Gross-Tarnor, went to school with Sara Wolkenfeld through high school and college at Penn. The funeral will take place this Monday, at 11 AM EST at Gutteran & Musicant Funeral Home (402 Park Street in Hackensack, NJ), followed by burial at Beth El Cemetery (735 Forest Avenue in Paramus, NJ).
Shiva will be observed at the Wolkenfeld home in Chicago (745 W. Buckingham Place) Wednesday 4:00 – 8:00 PM (Mincha/Ma’ariv at 4:20 PM); Thursday 9:00 – 11:00 AM & 4:00 – 8:00 PM (Mincha/Ma’ariv at 4:20 PM); and Friday 9:00 – 11:00 AM.
My Vort I want to take from this week’s Sedra.
In this week’s Parsha the Torah says in Verse 17:20:
Rashi does not say anything on Verse 20 and is rather disparaging that Yishmael’s princes will amount to nothing. We do know that the descendants of Yishmael will be a thorn in Israel’s side. I do not know if Avrohom knew this, but in regard to Yishmael, Avrohom in Verse 20 is given a blessing for Yishmael that Yishmael will have a large family, will have 12 princes, and will be a great nation. If Hashem is giving Yishmael a blessing because Hashem listened to Avorhom, it has to be beneficial. The Or Hachaim explains this beautifully.
ולישמעאל שמעתיך וגו’. הכונה להיות שאברהם לא התפלל על ישמעאל אלא לצד שהוא לבדו זרעו מה שאין כן אחר שנתן לו ה’ זרע משרה אז לא יבקש עוד על ישמעאל לזה אמר לו הקב”ה ולישמעאל שמעתיך פי’ קבלתי דבריך והוא על דרך אומרם ז”ל (מכות יא.) קללת חכם אפילו על תנאי מתקיימת ומרובה מדה טובה ממדת וכו’ ולפי מה שפירשתי שתפלת אברהם על ישמעאל היתה שיהיה צדיק רמז לו ה’ שיחזור בתשובה כאומרו הנה ברכתי אותו שיחזור בתשובה שהברכה הוא שיהיה נכלל בברוך וברוך הוא מקור הקדושה. ואמר לשון עבר ברכתי וגו’ הוא מה שרמז באומרו (טו) תקבר בשיבה טובה, וכן היה כאומרם ז”ל (ב”ר 59:7) שעשה תשובה:
Look at Artscroll’s translation on שהברכה הוא שיהיה נכלל בברוך וברוך הוא מקור הקדושה.
The Torah tells us twice that Yishmael was circumcised, even telling us that it was on his Bar Mitzvah day. Looking at this Pasuk and projecting what a father feels when his son puts on Tefillin at his bar Mitzvah and is called up to theTorah, Avrohom must have felt great pride in his son and rejoiced. Avrohom’s joy was complete. This Is the image that Avrohom had of his son Yismael always, the image of Yishmael willingly going through a painful circumcision at the request of Hashem.
Every Pasuk in the Torah is be interpreted in 3D and in “living color”.
We know that Avrohom loved Yishmael. He never gave up on him. I heard a speech on this from Rabbi Zecharya Wallerstein, ZL, who mentioned a magnificent Midrash Tanchuma, which I subsequently saw, that Avrohom went to visit Yishmael twice. This love from Avrohom was felt by Yishmael and was one of the catalysts bringing Yishmael back to Avodas Hashem. The Torah testifies (per Rashi) to us twice; once when Avrohom died and a second time when Yishmael himself died that Yishmael was a Tzadick. Not only that but Avrohom never gave up on Yismael. Perhaps he became a student of Yitzchok in the later part of their lives. Not only that but in this week’s sedra which was during the Bris Bein Habesarim the Pasuk 15:15 says:
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks TZL explains that after Sarah’s death, Yitzchok went and brought Hagar back. Not only did he bring Hagar back but he brought Yishmael back.
Based on a Vort I said that Yismael not only did Tshuva and was a Tzadick, but during his lifetime, his influence impacted his entire family and they were likewise good people.
To answer the question that Yishmael descendents were destructive to the Jews, all I can answer is what Hashem told Chizkiyahu when Chizkiyahu prophesied that his son would be very evil and bring idol worship to Yehuda. Chizkiyahu refused to have children. Hashem told Chiziyahu, you do what you have to do, do not worry about heavenly matters.
Perhaps this can be a hopeful sign that ultimately the children of Yishmael will again become partners with the Jewish people to bring good into this world.
I am writing a book on the history of the Kotzker Rebbe. The main book I am using is
הרבי מקאצק וששים גבּורים סביב לו. The book published in 1959 is a Hebrew translation of the 1938 Yiddish book, Der Kotzker Rebbe, authored by Pinchos Glicksman. In it he states that there were five core beliefs of Kotzker Chassidim. These practices are attributed to the Rov of Stashov; however, the text does not mention his name. Who was this anonymous Rabbi of Stashov? On Friday night, November 8, 2025, I visited my daughter, Dr. Shoshana Bracha Levy and asked her for a book to read for Shabbos. She gave me The Golden Thread, written by Professor Lucy Davidowicz. The Golden Thread profiles about 60 people who lived in Eastern Europe before the Holocaust, going back 200 years of history. She has a section on the Kotzker Rebbe. She quotes the five core beliefs of Kotzker Chassidium from the Yiddish book, Der Kotzker Rebbe. Although Pinchos Glicksman in his book Der Kotzker Rebbe does not say who this anonymous Stashaver Rabbi was, Professor Lucy Davidowicz, who was a phenomenal historian, researched this person and said it was Rabbi Yehuda Leib Graubart. I subsequently looked up the books attributed to the Rov in Stashov and she is correct. I danced with joy at this discovery. Rabbi Yehuda Leib Graubart was the chief Rabbi of Toronto and my wife’s grandfather, Rabbi Yehuda Leib Noble, was his Chassid. Read the following about Rabbi Graubart and my wife’s grandfather, Rabbi Yehuda Leibush Noble.
The following is from my October 24, 2020 blog post
I got up around 2:00 AM and I took my mother-in-law’s father’s Malbim on Chumosh Bereshis. He was Rabbi Yehuda Leibush Noble and was a founder of the Eitz Chaim day school in Toronto. My mother-in-law, Blanche Noble-Janowski, kept the Seforim of her father. The Malbim was published in 1892. He learned Malbim on a regular basis. He held it in his holy hands, learning from it. My grandfather, Reb Sholem Sklar, Bubi Jean’s father, praised his father, Reb Avrohom Shmuel Sklar of Krinki, saying that his father knew all the laws of Shabbos, was an expert in טומא וטהרה, and knew every Malbim by heart. This shows how precious the Malbim was to the Jews of Eastern Europe and that the Malbim was Rabbi Leibush Noble’s go-to Chumash.
I opened it to Sefer Noah and found the following picture tucked into the first page of the Parshas Noah:
Rabbi Graubart, known as the Mahril Graubart, was the Rebbe of our grandfather, Rabbi Yehuda Leibush Noble.
Rabbi Yehuda Leibush Noble wrote on the top of the picture, ה נח ב בחודש חשון תרצח translated as “Thursday, of the week that Noah is read, on the second day of the month of Cheshvan, 1937.” At the bottom of the picture, Rabbi Yehuda Leibush Noble wrote נפטר, which means “passed away.”
This year, Rabbi Graubart’s Yahrzeit was on Tuesday, October 20, 2020. My guess is that Rabbi Noble did not want to forget the Yahrzeit of his Rebbe.
I contacted Bill Gladstone who has a website dedicated to his family’s history and the history of Toronto.
I also contacted Professor Nancy Sinkoff of Rutgers to share with them my joy of discovery. I have exchanged a number of emails with her, including my meeting Professor Jack Kugelmass, whom she met in the early 1980s. Professor Sinkoff wrote the following study of Professor Lucy Davidowicz:
From Left to Right: Lucy S. Dawidowicz, the New York Intellectuals, and the Politics of Jewish History
David Sokoloff’s portrait of the animals and the ark.
This is a little raw but I am still posting it.
Davened at Anshei Chesed and Rabbi Billet spoke many times about Noah. It was all excellent and I thought and thought about his Torah. The below is inspired by Rabbi Avi Billet.
“Noah, man of the soil, began [vayaḥel]” – he became profaned and unholy [ḥulin]. Why? “And he planted a vineyard.” Should he not have planted something else, that was constructive, a fig tree branch or an olive tree branch? Instead, “he planted a vineyard.”
Notice that the Medresh does not say he degraded himself by being an ugly drunk but by planting a vineyard and not figs or dates or even wheat which makes the most sense.
Why did Noah then plant a vineyard? I did not see anyone explain this. Perhaps after leaving the ark and seeing a desolate world, he felt the world needed wine to overcome the harshness of their experience and a destroyed world that needed rebuilding. After all, wine is poured on the Mizbach as a wine offering to God. The Medresh still criticized him. However, when you think about it, let us say that Noah planted wheat or a fig and date orchards, he would have planted a vineyard and gotten drunk. The Medrash says that the Torah still criticized him.
Sefaria translates as – And Noah began to be a righteous man, and he planted a vineyard.
The word לְמֶהֱוֵי should probably be before גַבְרָא and it should read – וּשְׁרֵי נחַ “לְמֶהֱוֵי” גַבְרָא צַדִיקַיָא וּנְצִיב כַּרְמָא
What is the Yershalmi saying?
We can say two explanations:
1 – Noah even after leaving the ark remained a Tzadick. What about after getting drunk?
2 – We know that the beginning of the Parsha says Noah was a Tzadick. The Maharsha says that the reason why Yosef was called Yosef HaTzadick, Yosef the righteous one, was that Yosef was the משביר of the world, he fed the world. Anyone who has a major hand in feeding the world is called a Tzadick. Perhaps this is what the Yerushalmi is alluding to. Noah walked out of the ark and faced a barren world, He had to feed the world. He had to recreate agriculture and had to grow a food supply. He had to plant fields of wheat, barley, and other crops. He had to plant trees. This is why the Yershalmi called Noah a Tzadick because he fed the world.
Why does the Yershalmi say that he began to be a righteous man, when he was a righteous man well before this time. Additionally he fed his family and the animals on the ark and if my theory is true, he was a Tzadick on the ark and it continued after he walked out of the ark. Perhaps the Yershalmi meant that he was a Tzadick before and continued to be a Tzadick, not that he began now. He began to grow food and continued to be a Tzadick.
And Noah began to be a man working in the earth. And he found a vine which the river had brought away from the garden of Eden; and he planted it in a vineyard, and it flourished in a day; and its grapes became ripe, and he pressed them out.
I always had a different interpretation the this verse as follows:
“And Noah began” to create a new world, the “man of the earth” Noah was an expert in agriculture, having created the plow and made farming much easier, “and he planted a vineyard”.
No one says this explanation. You still can criticize him for first choosing to plant a vineyard.
Listened to Rabbi Breitowitz on Parshas Noah from 2023. Got the following Torah from him.
Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz’s Torah provides insight into the Kotzker’s years of seclusion. (10/17/2023 lecture – time stamp 44:48).
Rabbi Beitowitz mentioned Rav Hutner. Rav Hutner says that in the Torah there are two architectural structures that are considered structures of holiness. We have the תֵּבָ֗ה – Noah’s ark and we have the Miskan, the Tabernacle. The difference between Noah’s ark and the Tabernacle is that Noah’s ark creates a protective wall so that the destruction of the flood should not enter. Keep the floodwaters out. The Mishkan which radiates the light of God into the world is premised on the opposite assumption. Let the light of God radiate outwards. Noah contained his holiness in a walled area so it should not be destroyed by negativities. Mishkan – let your holiness radiates outwards. Rav Hutner says just as we find in the Torah itself that first there was a Noah who needed to protect himself from the environment and then there was an Avrohom who could go out and conquer that environment. First there is an ark and then there is a Miskan.
My addition. Within the Mishkan there contained the Kodesh Hakedoshim which was sealed and expresses the concept of the Tevah – Noah’s ark and then you had the Kodesh, the Azrah which was open to the world. To be able to radiate holiness to the world there has to be a core that is separated from the world, a place of pure holiness.
The Kotzker secluded himself in a room off the Bais Medresh, which was referred to as the Kodesh HaKedoshim, the holy of the holies. The Bais Medresh was where the students and the world inhabited. This is very symbolic of the Mishkan, having the core of holiness that then radiates to the world. People did enter the Kotzker’s Kodesh Hakedoshim and it was a pure space of Torah and Hashem.
I sent this Torah to Rabbi Yitzchok Breitowitz via email, and he said that I accurately reflected Rav Hutner and that he liked my addition to the Kotzker and to Rav Hutner’s Torah. I am truly honored.
Rabbi Breiowitz continued in his Shiur:
This is a model for our own life. A person needs a place where they separate from the world, they distance themselves from immorality, they focus on spirituality and purity to get the proper perspective. We can say that the purpose of a person’s yeshiva years is to place themselves in an ark, where they can protect themselves from turbulent waters by severing ties with the world; however, this is not the ultimate goal. You have to graduate from the ark, which shuts out the bad influences, to the concept of the Mishkan, where your holiness radiates outward. To transform others, to help others, to elevate others. The challenge arises if you attempt to leave the Mishkan prematurely, before fully developing your Torah values; in that case, rather than radiating outward, your light may be extinguished by the negative influences you encounter.
The ark of Noach and the Mishkan represent two states of holiness. Going back to describing Noah as a Tzadik and a תמים – Tamin. “Tzadick” is translated as a righteous person and “תמים” (Tamin) is translated as a perfect person, a person without a blemish. A Tzadick is Bein Adam L’Moakom (between man and God) and a תמים – Tamin is Bein Adam L’Chavero (between man and man). Before the flood, Noah was only a righteous person between man and God but not a תמים – Tamin. Only after the flood did he graduate into a Tamin between man and man. The turning point occurred during the year in the Ark. Noah and his family had to constantly care for the animals both day and night and have compassion for them, which he translated into caring for humans. Once he was late giving the lion food, and the lion took off Noach’s arm. Noah started off life as a righteous person but was not invested in caring for others. This is based on a Zohar. This explains verse 7:1 differently than Rashi. At the time Noah went into the ark he was only a Tzadik and not a Tamin and God says ot Noah in this verse—וַיֹּ֤אמֶרוְ כׇל־בֵּיתְךָ֖ אֶל־הַתֵּבָ֑ה כִּֽי־אֹתְךָ֥ רָאִ֛יתִי צַדִּ֥יק לְפָנַ֖י בַּדּ֥וֹר הַזֶּֽה׃ – a Tzadkik and not a Tamin. That is why verse 6:9 says that Noah was a Tzadikk and a Tamin in his generations. This is the sum total of Noah’s life. Noah was a Tzadik before the flood and became a Tamin after it.
It is not a right versus wrong. It was what each one needed and was able to accomplish. The right path for Noah was an ark. The world was so destructive that Noah would not have been able to withstand its forces without the protection of the ark. He needed to shut himself off from the world, both before and in the ark. Avrohom lived in a different world and also was a stronger personality and was able to build a Mishkan, a holy place that radiated holiness into the world. This kind of says it differently than the above. But maybe not so. Noah had to become an Avrohom and then even in the time of the pre-flood period, he could have stood up to the evil.
My father, Yisroel Yaakov ben Avrohom Meir’s, 23rd Yahrzeit on
11 Tammus, July 7, 2025
Dr. Leonard Kranzler’s 6th Yahrzeit on 18 Tammuz, July 14, 2025
Torah from Shabbos and Sunday
אֶ֥רֶץ בְּנֵי־עַמּ֖וֹ
The Importance of Money
How to Explain Bilaam’s Actions
My Charity
Torah Lecture from Anshei Sholem by Joshua Stadian
I davened at Chabad on Monday, July 7, 2025 and purchased bagels, Lox spread, and American Cheese.
Last Friday, July 4th, I went to Waldheim cemetery to help make a Minyan for Anshei Kranczer’s mother’s Yahrzeit. He did not need me and I debated whether to go or not. I decided to go anyway because I knew his mother, Leah Kranczer. She had a watch repair shop at the Chicago Diamond Center at 5 S. Wabash. I banked her and was able to do some favors for her. At the cemetery, I decided to go to Dr. Leonard Kranzler’s grave. I could not find it as he is not buried near his father. I used Find a Grave. Boruch Hashem I found the grave and discovered that Dr. Leonard Kranzler’s Yahrzeit is the 18th of Tammuz, in a week. Siatta Dishmaya.
I arranged for the Shabbos Kiddush at Chabad in memory of Dr. Leonard Kranzler. A number of people spoke. A lady – I do not know her name, Peggy Kaz, Tamar Genin, Paul, and I spoke about Dr. Kranzler. It was very respectful and we really honored him. Peggy Kaz’s son is an Orthopedic doctor and did a rotation at St. Francis hospital. One day he walks into the break room and there is a man with a Yarmulka learning Gemora. It was Dr. Leonard Kranzler. The future doctor was very impressed.
I left my house for Anshei Sholem at 8:05 AM. I felt great and did not have any heart issues. I made the 5.5 mile trek in 95 minutes, a great time for me. I arrived right after Borchu. The Rabbi is at a Rabbinic retreat so Josh Stadlan spoke and it was an excellent speech. I went to the Kiddush which was good, much better than the previous week. At 12:30 PM I went with Dr. Isaac Kalimi to Chabad. The Chabad Kiddush was great, with the Cholent being as good as always. They make a Pesach Cholent which is perfect.
I led the Shiur. It was pretty good. Professor Kalimi argued with me on the definition of אֶ֥רֶץ בְּנֵי־עַמּ֖וֹ In Verse 22:5. Rashi and all the Reshonim say it is referring to either Balak’s city or Bilaam’s city. Professor Kalimi said they are all wrong and it is the name of a city called Bnei Amo. After Shabbos I looked into it and I am not sure if he is correct.
As I was explaining the Parsha, I kept getting interrupted. Ray hates the interruptions and looks at me with his eyes, saying, what is going on, why do people have to keep interrupting, just say the Pshet. He expressed this concern and people in the Shiur said they are important interruptions. I agree with Ray that I want to get through the understanding before I have to answer questions.
Professor Kalimi, who knows more than anyone in the Shiur, listened to me Darshan. He argued with me on the explanation of Ben Amo in verse 22:5. I am very honored.
Shiur was over at 3:10. It was too hot to walk the six miles back home so I went to Eli’s house. I played with Ezra, my grandchild. It is great because Eli’s in-laws are there and they are always there to take the baby. When I finished playing, I gave Ezra to them. I had a delicious peach and diet coke. I tried to learn but dozed off for an hour. I felt refreshed when awakening and walked to Anshei Sholom for afternoon and evening services. Eli walked me part of the way and we talked.
After Shabbos while waiting to be picked up by my son, Isaac Faier, a teenager from Anshei Sholem who goes to Walter Payton Prep, known as the best high school in Chicago, rode up to me on his bicycle and asked if he could take a haircut tonight, the eve of the fast of the 17th of Tammus. Rabbi Dovid Kotlarski said you cannot as the three weeks actually start the night before the fast. I called Reb Moshe Soloveichik and he told me that per Reb Moshe Feinstein, one can take a haircut and per his Uncle, the Rov, one cannot. I texted this information to Isaac.
Sholem picked me up at 9:45 PM and handed me a cold bottle of diet coke. Living is good.
Isaac, Professor Dr. Kalimi
Sun, Jul 13, 9:40 AM (2 days ago)
to me
Hi Mitch,
It is always nice to hear from you!
I really admire and appreciate your passionate for Torah study, and it was great to talk and hear from you yesterday.
Looking forward…
Isaac
On Sun, Jul 13, 2025 at 8:47 AM Mitchell Morgenstern <mitchellamorgenstern@gmail.com> wrote:
Professor:
I looked to see where Bnei Amo is located and could not find mention of the city.
Rabbi Charles Kahana in Toras Yesharah translates. He sent messengers to Balaam the son of Beor, to the city of Pethor, which is situated on the Euphrates River, Balak’s native land, inviting him with the following message: “Masses of people have come out of Egypt, and they are so numerous that they cover the face of the earth, and they are stationed opposite me.
אֶ֥רֶץ בְּנֵי־עַמּ֖וֹ – Rabbi Charles Kahana tranlslates אֶ֥רֶץ בְּנֵי־עַמּ֖וֹ as Balak’s native land. This Rashi. Others say it is Balaam’s native land.
Professor Kalmi said that they are all wrong. Bnei Amo is a place in the near east.
Where was this city of Pethor? It was along the Euphrates River. Devorim Pasuk 23:5 additionally identifies it as follows:
because they did not meet you with food and water on your journey after you left Egypt, and because they hired Bilaam son of Beor,from Pethor of Aram-Naharaim, to curse you.—
Pethor was in the region of Aram-Neharaim. Where is Aram-Neharim? Wikipedia says it is interchangeable with Paddan-Aram. Paddan Aram is generally known as Aleppo, Syria. However, Aleppo is 60 miles from the Euphrates River. It could be that Aram-Neharim is a general location which encompassed Aleppo, Syria.
The term appears in Genesis, where it’s associated with Abraham’s family’s origins and the search for wives for Isaac and Jacob. It’s also mentioned in other books like Deuteronomy, Judges, and 1 Chronicles, describing events involving figures like Balaam, Cushan-rishathaim, and the Ammonites.
While the precise boundaries are debated, it generally encompasses the region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, with some interpretations extending it to include the area between the Euphrates and the Orontes or the Chaboras (Habur).
The command of the Almighty came to Bilaam at night, saying to him: “If these men came toyou for consultation only, arise and go with them, but only the word which I will speak to you, that alone must you do.”
Rashi focuses on the word לְךָ֙ in the Pasuk and says:
If the call is for you, (for your benefit), and you think to take payment for it, arise and go with them.
Rashi, I think links the word לך to Parshas לֶךְ־לְךָ֛ where Hashem says לֶךְ־לְךָ֛ and Rashi explains the word לך to go לַהֲנָאָתְךָ וּלְטוֹבָתְךָ – for your own benefit, for your own good.
Fascinating Rashi. God is telling Bilaam, if you can make money going with Balak, go ahead. Huh! What!
Two answers:
First Answer:
On Friday, July 18, 2025 I was editing this blog post and came up with the answer. Hashem is initially telling Bilaam that you will not be effective and there is no reason to go, in essence telling Bilaam not to go, Hashem is now giving him a reason to go, to make money. This ultimately led to Bilaam blessing the Jewish people. Additionally, Hashem was giving Bilaam the rope to hang himself. However, as I discuss later this led to the tribe of Shimon sinning and losing 24,000 men.
Second Answer:
My initial understanding when I said this at the Shiur was that: “I think Rashi is saying, yes, Hashem wants the world to have money. Going out on a limb, perhaps you can say that making money is Godly, when you do it with honesty and according to Jewish law. All the good we can do with money.”
This is a lesson for capitalism. You need a profit motive for things to be successful. If there is no profit motive, then the project will stagnate, deteriorate, and have terrible customer service. This is why in Communist and socialist countries services are terrible.
Other Torah:
As I am writing this on Sunday, the 13th, which is the fast of the 17th of Tammuz, a number of questions opened up to me.
Question 1 – Why did Hashem initially not give Bilaam permission to go, if he ultimately told him he could go? The answer probably is to tell Billam do not go because you will not be successful, implying also it will not be good for you. Bilaam insisted so Hashem relented based on the concept that Hashem lets people go the way they want to go, even if it is detrimental for them.
Question 2 – Balak asked Bilaam to curse the Jews. Why did Bilaam ask God for permission? Bilaam should have told Balak that I will curse them and not ask God. He knew that God would not give him permission. Just curse them or use black magic.
It seems that Bilaam wanted God to curse the Jews. What arrogance. God told him that the Jews are blessed, what did he hope to accomplish? How could he expect to succeed? It may be just as the Medrash says that God gets angry every day for a split second and Bilaam knew the time. Amazing Medresh. However, it can better be said on a simpler level. We know that at least in the first two years of the 40 years and last year, many times God got angry at the Jewish people. Maybe Bilaam knew this and due to his hatred for the Jews, Bilaam thought he would ask God what to say and it may be that he is asking God at a time of anger against the Jewish people and God will instruct Bilaam to curse the Jewish people.
Question 3 – Why did Hashem let Bilaam go with Balak to curse the Jewish people, even if God was not going to let him curse the Jews. It ended up bad for the Israelites. He unleashed a Hitler, a Stalin on the Israelites. Bilaam gave Balak counsel on how to damage the Jewish people and tear them away from God. That is through promiscuity. Promiscuity is a huge test for people. Bilaam is evil and evil people think about evil all the time. It exists in their subconscious. A thief thinks how to steal 24/7, not consciously but subconsciously. When a thief says good morning to a person, the thief is thinking, how can I steal our money.
Perhaps you can answer. Cursing the Jewish people is not dependent on man’s free will. God will not allow the Jewish people to be cursed. They are blessed. However, when they sin and because they have free will and decide to do a bad thing, they are punished and are cursed.
Bilaam’s advice was a strategy that depended on the free will of the Jewish people. I admit it hardly seems fair, but we have to always have the inner strength to do good. When Bilaam asked for God to curse the Jewish people, God said that cannot be done. However, testing the Jewish people happens all the time and as hard as it was the Jewish people, they should not have succumbed to their passions. We see all the time that evil people are allowed to hurt Jews. We know that this is when they sin, however, it still still seems unfair to release a Bilaam, a HItler, a Stalin on the Jewish people
Hatred disrupts the correct order of things- מִכָּאן שֶׁהַשִּׂנְאָה מְקַלְקֶלֶת אֶת הַשּׁוּרָה
My Charity
I want to record for posterity the charity I did the last two weeks.
1) Paid my bill at Slices Tel Aviv in the amount of $2,500. I have an open account for Meshulchim and others who need a good meal. I think Slices is the best restaurant in Chicago. The owner is a good friend and a good person.
A Meshulach told Meyer Chase that he had a meal on my account and he felt good and it gave him the strength to continue collecting money that day.
Label Polsky called and asked if a family driving back to Cleveland could have a meal. I said of course and thanked him for bringing them to Slices for a delicious meal. He asked me if he could also have a meal and I said of course. I love Label Polsky, a good guy.
2) July 2, 2025 – Gave my cousin $300
3) July 4, 2025 – Going to the cemetery as mentioned above. I was rewarded for this by finding Dr. Leonard Kranzler’s gravesite and realizing that his Yahrzeit is the following week. Perfect timing, almost as if Dr. Kranzler was reaching from the grave for me to find his gravesite, so the Shiur can honor him.
4) I purchased books from the Professor. I had previously purchased books from him which cost $300.00. This new set is costing me $460.00. He did not remember but he had already sold me two of the books. I decided to purchase them anyhow and gave them to Reznick, who davens at Reb Moshe Soloveichik’s Shul. Reznick expressed interest in the Professor’s books as he has one of them. I did this for altruistic reasons. I felt the Professor needed the money and since the books were already out of his house, he would feel let down if I gave them back to him.
5) July 7, 2025 – Gave $150 to David Sokoloff for his brother
6) July 7, 2025 – Purchased bagels and lox cream cheese for my father’s Yahrzeit.
7) July 9, 2025 – I sponsored the ending Zman barbecue at the Mesivta of Chicago. Sidney and Lisa attended. I spoke about my father. I did speak well.
8) July 10, 2025 – Gave Chabad $200 for the Doctor’s Kiddush and for my father’s Yahrzeit.
9) Drove Howard home a few times.
10) Put two Yahrzeit messages for my father and Dr Leonard Kranzler in the Shabbos weekly of Anshei Sholem. Refer to Anshei Sholem weekly.
11) Called Linda Kahn and I will be going to bring her lunch next Tuesday, the 15th. I purchased six Buddy Bergers from Great Chicago and cole slaw.
12) Naftali Gleener came to my house a few times/
Parashat Balak 5785
Talking Donkeys, Stochastic Parrots, and Irrational Hu
Joshua Stadlan
This week, Grok, the Artificial Intelligence chatbot on X (formerly Twitter), started making antisemitic comments. The company has since taken down the hateful posts, but as far as I’ve heard, Grok has yet to apologize. That said, as an Al model, could Grok truthfully say the usual “I didn’t mean it,” “I wasn’t thinking through my actions” or “these don’t represent who I am and what I actually think?” Does an Al model even “think” in the first place?
Grok, like more familiar Al chatbots ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude, is a Large Language Model, or LLM: a model with billions of digital knobs that are fine-tuned to store patterns from processing trillions of words from human writing. A debate rages over whether LLMs are reaching human intelligence and even consciousness.
One camp, including the likes of the “Godfather of Al” scientist Geoff Hinton and the chief scientist of Open Al Ilya Sutskever, believes that current LLMs exhibit deep reasoning, as evidenced by the sophistication of their output: LLMs can perform complex logic, identify connections across concepts, synthesize knowledge into coherent essays, reflect on their answers, and work toward goals. They’ve reached human intelligence and might even reach consciousness.
The other camp, including the likes of linguist Emily Bender and Meta’s chief Al scientist Yann LeCun, is unimpressed with the ability of “large language models” to “reason.” They call these Al models “stochastic parrots,” where “stochastic” means random but in a pattern predictable with statistics. These researchers emphasize that the model is just parroting information from existing human texts, spitting out phrases based on the probability the phrase is connected to the question being asked.
In this view, when you give ChatGPT a math problem, it doesn’t think, “oh this question needs arithmetic, let me apply rules I learned from elementary school math.” It just has seen enough arithmetic problems to say, “this output number usually goes with these math words and these input numbers.”
A useful tool, this camp believes, but not a path to real “thinking.”
I personally think, in determining the moral status of Al, that its level of advanced reasoning is beside the point. After all, as humans, we use shoddy reasoning all the time! And our parsha, with the help of chazal, highlights plenty of examples of the flaws of typical human thinking.
Far from a stochastic parrot, the character with the most logical argument in the parsha is a talking donkey.
To remind you of the scene we read this morning:
Midianite prophet Bilaam is riding his donkey on the way to curse Bnei Yisrael on behalf of Balak, king of Moav. Unbeknownst to Bilaam the prophet, an angel with an outstretched sword stands in their way, to deter Bilaam from carrying out his plan. The donkey turns off course to save her rider; as the angel approaches, she tries to squeeze by the wall, squishing Bilaam’s foot in the process, and she eventually halts completely. Bilaam, still oblivious to the angel, beats his donkey upon each deviation. The donkey speaks up, what have I done to you to deserve this treatment?” And Bilaam replies, “You’ve been mocking me!” To which the donkey argues along the lines of, ‘if I’ve been your reliable donkey all these years, isn’t it more likely that something external is obstructing me than that all of a sudden I am intending to mock you?’ A solid inference-based argument!
Bilaam had assumed the donkey all of sudden harbored ill-will towards him, contrary to all prior evidence. He’s committing what psychologists call the Fundamental Attribution Error. The Fundamental Attribution Error describes the cognitive bias that, when we see behavior we don’t like, we generally assume bad intentions and personality flaws behind it- except of course when we do the same behavior, we tell ourselves it’s due to the external environment; not our fault.
When YOU fall asleep during the guest drasha, it’s because you don’t like me and you’re disrespectful people; but when I, myself, fall asleep during someone else’s drasha, I tell myself it’s not my fault, it’s because I didn’t get enough sleep last night and the sound is not carrying well in this oversized sanctuary. Prophet Bilaam’s biased thinking isn’t the only flawed human reasoning in the parsha. In fact, the whole parsha is premised on King Balak’s confusion of correlation with causation.
King Balak hired prophet Bilaam, in the first place, to curse the people;e of Israel because
“For I know that whomever you bless is blessed indeed, and whomever you curse is cursed.”
King Balak mistakenly believes that prophet Bilaam can induce God to curse a nation, but as we find out by the end of the story, prophet Bilaam can only curse nations that God has already cursed! Just because the subjects of Bilaam’s curses appear cursed does not prove that Bilaam is the one who causes the curse – this is the logical fallacy of “cum hoc ergo propter hoc.
Had King Balak been a more careful thinker, he might have avoided this whole embarrassing episode. Instead, King Balak ends up facilitating prophet Bilaam blessing his enemies- not only once, but three times, as King Balak repeatedly insists that prophet Bilaam try to curse again, and again. What a great example of the adage, the definition of foolishness is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. . .
The Rabbinic interpretations of the thinking and actions in this parsha shed light on other human biases, too.
In Sanhedrin 105, we learn that our decisions are not only prone to flaws in logic, but also to the influence of our emotions and attitudes. Rabbi Shimon ben Elazar teaches that Love and Hatred break the consistency of our behavior, citing two people of prominence – Avraham and Bilaam whose proper standard is to have servants saddle their donkeys for them. Yet, Avraham saddles his own donkey when on a mission for God, out of love for his Creator. On prophet Bilaam’s journey to curse the people of Israel, hatred compels him to saddle his own donkey as well.
Clearly, we humans are not consistent, rational beings. An artificial intelligence with flawless logical processing, unaffected by feelings, would not be thinking like a human at all! But perhaps, in aspiring to become more God-like, we should be trying to adopt more superreasoning, and strive to overcome the dependence on our emotional and mental states?
But would that be God-like?
While we can’t really know what this means, the same Talmudic passage in Sanhedrin teaches that God actually gets angry – for a brief moment, but every day. And, like the humans made in God’s image, God acts differently during those moments of anger compared to the rest of the day.
This fact about God, according to the Talmud, is central to Bilaam’s evil plan. Bilaam planned to exploit God’s daily moment of anger. Bilaam knew he didn’t have any power, independent of God, to successfully curse anyone. Rather, his great prophetic power was in knowing exactly what time of day.
God is angry, when God would be open to facilitating a curse of Bnei Yisrael.
And, it should’ve worked. Rather, a different “attitude” saved Bnei Israel-God’s compassion displaced the anger. The gemara continues, “The Holy One, Blessed be He, said to Israel: Know how many acts of kindness I performed on your behalf, that I did not become angry during all the days of Bilaam the wicked, as had I become angry during all those days, no remnant or refugee would have remained…”.
Bilaam didn’t succeed in exploiting God’s kiveyachol mental state, to harm Bnei Yisrael, but he did manage to exploit the mental states of the men of Israel. The Talmud provides the backstory to the sinning Bnai Yisrael, in engaging in impropriety with the Moabite women and performing 3 idolatry, right after the story of prophet Bilaam’s attempted curse. According to the Talmud (Sanhedrin 106), Bilaam employed Moabite prostitutes to entice the men of Israel into secluded quarters under the guise of selling linens at an excellent price; lure them into a false sense of comfort, push them to drink wine, exploit them and their desires while they drank, and trick them into idolatry. God finally becomes angry and sends a plague on the people.
Had the men of Israel replaced their human minds with logic machines, would the tragedy have been avoided? Maybe. However, the response to our impaired thinking doesn’t have to be the pursuit of cold rationality, as even God, kivyachol, is described as “feeling.” Instead, we can try to channel our feelings, attitudes, and motivations into pursuit of mitzvot and living out our values.
After all, Rav Yehuda teaches based on this parsha, that
שֶׁמִּתּוֹךְ שֶׁלֹא לִשְׁמָהּ בָּא לִשְׁמָהּ
A person should always engage in Torah study and performance of a mitzva even if he does not do so for their own sake, as through engaging in them not for their own sake, he will ultimately come to engage in them for their own sake.
Rav Yehuda’s proof is that King Balak gets rewarded for offering forty-two sacrifices to God, even though he was doing so under the instruction of Prophet Bilaam, with evil intentions to support the cursing of Bnei Yisrael. Through the ill-intended but positive action of sacrificing to God, King Balak merits to be an ancestor of Ruth, who demonstrates one of the most intense and intentional devotion to God and Bnei Israel in Tanakh.
Indeed, we can lean into our current emotions and motivations, and channel them for Torah and mitzvot. If you’re feeling angry – attend a protest for a cause you care about
Feeling grief for a lost loved one? Adopt a positive practice of theirs, or dedicate Torah learning in their memory.
Feeling lonely? Attend a minyan or shiva or perform Bikkur Cholim.
Feeling undervalued at work? Spend an afternoon supporting a neighbor.
Looking for social attention? Invite a bunch of newcomers to a shabbat meal. If you’re stuck on coming up with a menu, an Al ChatBot can think about it for you. Or can it?
Eruv Shabbos. I learned with Tzvi Morgenstern, my son, Chapter 2 from the book, הרבי מקאצק וששים גבּורים סביב לו. Tzvi is an intellectual and he pushes me to think and express my thoughts clearly.
Davened by Base Ment and Naftali Glenner ate over Friday night.
June 14, 2025
Shabbos morning walked to Chabad. Got to Shul at 11:05 AM, during Chazaras Hashatz. Kiddush was sponsored by Beryl – Bernie and Chanah – Anne Green for their son’s birthday. They lived in Lakeview and moved to Houston. Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky is their spiritual father. He did their conversion and their marriage was at Chabad. Rabbi Moshe was their spiritual father.
Shiur had Paul, Tamar, Avigail, Peggy, Henry, Marcel, and Professor Isaac Kalimi. Professor Kalimi argued with my explanation of Rasi on Verse 8:2 and called himself the מהרי׳ק, an abbreviation of his name. Is he a descendent of the first מהרי׳ק was Rabbi Yosef Karo, the author of the Shulchan Aruch, the Torah’s law book. From a Shulchn Aruch printed in 1722
Torah from Shabbos:
Torah 1:
The question I dealt with over Shabbas is the translation of the wordבְּהַעֲלֹֽתְךָ֙ in the second verse of this week’s Parsha. The verse states –
When one looks at the word בְּהַעֲלֹֽתְךָ֙ and contemplates its meaning, how would it be translated? בְּהַעֲלֹֽתְךָ֙ should mean to lift up. Lift up the lamps, go up to the lamps or when you arrange the lamps. The word for lighting a lamp, a candle is להדלק. Comes along Onkleys and tells us that the translation for בְּהַעֲלֹֽתְךָ֙ is to light. Indeed most English translations use “to light” – “when you go up to light the lamps”.
Some English translations use the word “kindle” like Artscroll and Silverstein. Not sure why they use kindle. Does it mean something different than light or is this just stylistic? Is it that a person sounds more intellectual using the word kindle?
Kindle meaning per AI
In the Bible, “kindle” generally means to ignite or set something on fire, both literally and metaphorically. This can refer to the physical act of starting a fire, but more often it’s used to describe the stirring up or arousing of emotions, particularly anger or wrath. It can also refer to the kindling of faith or other spiritual qualities within a person.
Rashi starts out by translating the word בהעלתך. What does בהעלתך mean. Normally it means to lift and in this context it means to light. In this first line of Rashi, Rashi is telling us why is it appropriate to use the word בהעלתך to light. This is because a flame goes up so when you light the fire ascends.
Rashi continues in statement #2 – ( כָּתוּב בְּהַדְלָקָתָן לְשׁוֹן עֲלִיָּה שֶׁצָּרִיךְ לְהַדְלִיק עַד שֶׁתְּהֵא שַׁלְהֶבֶת עוֹלָה מֵאֵלֶיהָ (שבת כ”א, – and explains why does the Torah use בהעלתך instead of בְּהַדְלָקָתָן? To teach us the need to properly light the Menorah. Light it so that the lamp fire will not go out. Do not hold it at the top and just light the tip and expect the flame to grow as it engulfs the wick. Do it properly. Hold the kindling flame by the new wick until there is a strong fire so that it will not flicker and/or go out. Having the lamps go out and relighting is not proper.
In statement #3 Rashi based on the Sefri says that there is a second meaning in this usage of בהעלתך that there should be steps in front of the Menorah. I assume that this is also for decorum. Properly arrange and be able to properly light the candles. Stand over it so that you do not drip it on his sleeves, you will not make a mess, and that he can light the candles. Make sure you stand well above the lamps.
Rashi agrees with Onkelys that the basic meaning of בְּהַעֲלֹֽתְךָ֙ is to light. This is how to translate the word. Rashi then tells us what we learn from the usage of this word. One is based on a Gemara in Shabbos and the second is a Sifrei. Kehot – Lubavitch indprates all there into their English translation. JPS 2014 says when you climb up the steps and the Septangunat says and the S
In conclusion Rashi is not saying three explanations of the word בהעלתך. Rather, Rashi is translating the word as “to light” and then says two lessons we learn out front the Torah’s choice of this word and not then normal word for to light which is להדלק. These two are not part of the 613 Mitzvos but rather a procedure to be followed in the Mishkan and tempe.
Speak to Aharon, and say to him; When you light the lamps towards the face of the Menorah shall the seven lamps cast [their] light.
Artscroll – When you kindle the lamps, toward the face of the Menorah shall you light seven candles.
Silberstein translation
Speak to Aaron and say to him: When you kindle the lamps (of the menorah), towards the face [the central shaft] of the menorah shall the seven lamps light [i.e., shall their light (by manipulation of the wicks) be directed (so that people not say that He needs the menorah for its light)].
Mesudah translation
Speak to Aharon, and say to him; When you light the lamps towards the face of the Menorah shall the seven lamps cast [their] light.
GOD spoke to Moses, saying: “Speak to Aaron and say to him: ‘The spouts of the Candelabrum’s lamps face its central shaft. When you ascend the steps in front of the Candelabrum in order to kindle the lamps, be sure to place the wicks in these spouts so the seven lamps shine toward the central shaft of the Candelabrum. Also, be sure to hold the fire to the wick until it burns by itself.’”
Kehot incorporates Rashi into the flow of the translation of the Pasuk.
JPS 2014
Speak to Aaron and say to him, “When you mount the lamps, let the seven lamps give light at the front of the lampstand.” This mirrors the Septuagint.
Sferno
בהעלתך את הנרות. כשתדליק את שש הנרות:
Rav Bartunara
בהעלותך על שם שהלהב עולה וכו’ ועוד דרשו רז”ל שמעלה היתה לפני המנורה שעליה כהן עומד ומטיב קשה מה ענין הטבה לכאן המקרא מדבר בהדלקה ורש”י מפרש בהטבה וי”ל דהואיל וכתב בסוף המקרא יאירו שבעת הנרות הרי ההדלקה אמורה ואם כן זה שכתוב כאן בהעלותך לא הוצרך ליכתב כי היה די לומ’ ואמרת אליו אל מול פני המנורה יאירו שבעת הנרות ואם אינו עניין [להדלקה] תנהו עניין להטבה ולכך תפס רש”י לשון זה דעומד ומטיב:
Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman he had taken [into his household as his wife]: “He took a Cushite woman!”
Who is this Cushite woman? Almost all explain it was Tzipora. Rashi explains that the Torah is saying she was beautiful both in terms of physical beauty and she was beautiful in her actions. Means she had all the right qualities. This adds to Miriam’s complaint against Moshe that he divorced his wife even though she is a perfect wife.
Targum Yerushalmi says what Rashi says and my be the source of Rashi:
However, Targum Yonasan ben Uziel says it refers to the queen Moshe had to marry when he became king of the land of Cush which occurred after Moshe had to flee Egypt. I do not know exactly what was Miriam’s complaint? Was this Cushite wife with Moshe in the desert at this time? The Tarbum
And Miriam and Aharon spake against Mosheh words that were not becoming with respect to the Kushaitha whom the Kushaee had caused Mosheh to take when he had fled from Pharaoh, but whom he had sent away because they had given him the queen of Kush, and he had sent her away.
According to Targum Yonasan Ben Uziel, when did he send her away? Is it now in the desert? Tzippora had died and Moshe’s only wife was his original Cushite wife.
Exploring Kotzk 