One Hundred Words on the Parshah
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One Hundred Words on the Parshah
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After Shimon and Levi killed out the city of Shechem, Yaakov rebuked them for making the locals angry at him. Many years ago, I read an article about Israeli politics where the author was refuting Yaakov’s attitude to argue that Jews shouldn’t be fearful. He pointed out that nothing happened to Yaakov as a result of what Shimon and Levi did. The fallacy of this argument is that the Torah tells us that the יושבי הארץ didn’t run after Yaakov because Hashem put a special fear in them. In other words, Yaakov was correct in his assessment.
Bonus – Halacha Words
The Yidden don’t eat the גיד הנשה
תפילין can only be made out of kosher animals. Part of תפילין is the strings made out of animal veins. Is it permitted to use the vein called גיד הנשה? On the one hand, it is from a kosher animal, however, it itself is not kosher. This is actually a dispute among the Poskim.
After Shimon and Levi killed out the city of Shechem, Yaakov rebuked them for making the locals angry at him. Many years ago, I read an article about Israeli politics where the author was refuting Yaakov’s attitude to argue that Jews shouldn’t be fearful. He pointed out that nothing happened to Yaakov as a result of what Shimon and Levi did. The fallacy of this argument is that the Torah tells us that the יושבי הארץ didn’t run after Yaakov because Hashem put a special fear in them. In other words, Yaakov was correct in his assessment.
Bonus – Halacha Words
The Yidden don’t eat the גיד הנשה
תפילין can only be made out of kosher animals. Part of תפילין is the strings made out of animal veins. Is it permitted to use the vein called גיד הנשה? On the one hand, it is from a kosher animal, however, it itself is not kosher. This is actually a dispute among the Poskim.
If a tree is growing partially in ארץ ישראל and partially in חוץ לארץ and the trunk is in ארץ ישראל, then there is a requirement to give תרומות ומעשרות, even if the majority of the branches are outside of ארץ ישראל. Interestingly, the הלכה is different for taking ביכורים. It is not enough for the tree to be primarily in ארץ ישראל, rather, it must be completely in ארץ ישראל in order to require ביכורים. The difference would seem to be because of the word אדמתך that the תורה uses when talking about the requirement of ביכורים. “אדמתך” would seem to indicate land that is entirely yours.
The ספר החינוך explains the מצוה of writing a ספר תורה as follows. People need preparation in order to keep the מצוות and have יראת שמים. By having many ספרי תורה available, people will learn from them and be prepared to keep the מצוות properly. Similarly, סליחות and אלול are times of preparation. If someone comes into ראש השנה unprepared, he will not do as well.
May we be properly prepared and our תפילות and תשובה be accepted. כתיבה וחתימה טובה
All learning should be a zechus for a refuah shelaimah for Yosef Ezriel Ben Chaya Michal