Ki Savo: Drasha for Sheva Brachos (#3)

In this week’s parsha, Ki Sovo, the passuk (26:16) says היום הזה ה' אלהיך מצוך.... On this day, your God is commanding you. Rashi says that this is the source for the famous expression בכל יום יהיו בעיניך חדשים, the Torah should feel fresh and new to you each and every day. The Netziv, on the other hand, says that pshuto shel mikra, the literal meaning of the passuk, is that it refers to that very day, the day that Hashem told them He was making a covenant with them, the covenant called the Bris of Arvos Mo’av.

But Eilu ve’Eilu--Both are true. It is easy to be enthusiastic and confident on the day that you sign a covenant. But as years pass, people change, and the enthusiasm wears off, and one day, people decide that the iron clad covenant needs to be renegotiated. The point of the passuk is that you, Klal Yisroel, know how excited you feel today. You are absolutely sure you are doing the right thing, you are determined and have no doubt. I want you to hold on to that feeling, to remember how you feel today, so that twenty years from now you will remember it and remind yourselves about the permanence and eternity of the covenant.

In fact, Rashi repeats this idea later in the Parsha, and emphasizes just this point. In 27:9, the Passuk says "היום הזה נהיית לעם...." Rashi says "בכל יום יהיו בעיניך כאילו היום באת עמו בברית." Every day let it be in your eyes as if it were today that you entered into the covenant with Him." We, Klal Yisroel, benefitted personally from this as well. Many years later, the Ribono Shel Olom said (Yirmiah 2:2), זכרתי לך חסד נעוריך אהבת כלולתיך לכתך אחרי במדבר בארץ לא זרועה. I remember the day that you said na’aseh ve’nishma, that you followed me into the dessert with love and faith. When I, Hashem, remember that moment, I am filled with love for you, Klal Yisroel.

Every chassan and kallah have a magical moment. Sometimes, the chassan needs to be dragged to the chuppah, and his (or her) tears are not tears of joy and awe and holiness but instead tears of holy terror and panic. But then he puts the ring on the kallah’s finger, and there it is, the magical moment. For some people, it’s the badehken. For some people, it’s when they’re in the yichud room and the Chassan gives the kallah something to eat before he takes a bite. Whatever that moment is, it needs to be remembered forever. The love that a couple has at the beginning of their marriage is a resource that must be tapped throughout their relationship, and when hard times come they need to remember and rekindle their romance.

This is the bracha of " וארשתיך לי לעולם," (from Hoshea 2:21) which we say every morning when we wrap the tefillin around our finger, like a ring on the finger of a Kallah. Eirusin is the temporary precursor to Nisu'in, and certainly does not last forever. But if a person is zocheh, the perfect joy and shleimus of eirusin, of the moment the Chassan puts the ring on the finger of the Kallah, can last forever, le'olam. We give the chassan and the kallah a bracha that "בכל יום יהיו בעיניך כחדשים," that you should always remember chesed ne’urayich, and ahavas ke’lulosayich.

Shlach: Drasha for Sheva Brachos (#2)

This is very, very succinct. You can use one part of it, adjust it to your needs, and have a perfectly useful Drasha.

The specific connection with this week's parsha is the fact that the din of Tzitzis is here, but it can be used any time. With a little effort on your part, it can be developed into an excellent Dvar Torah for a Sheva Brachot. Or Vort for a Sheva Brochos. As I've said before, the traffic on this site is pretty light, so if you use it without attribution, you probably can get away with it. Who would you attribute it to, anyway? Barzilai? That's just a pseudonym I took out of Tanach for reasons that are none of your business. Just don't use it before tonight, June 3 '07, because that's when it is going to debut in Lakewood.

First of all, we must remember that even after Hashem told the Jewish people how wonderful the land of Israel is, they insisted on checking it out themselves. Similarly, as soon as the chassan heard about how marvelous the kallah is, and what a yichus she has, and how brilliant and kind she is, it was clear that this was a great opportunity. Still, there was only one thing he had to verify for himself-- "Hashemeinah hee im Razah." (For the humorless among you, I need to identify that as a joke.)

Second, and more seriously: Building a Bayis Ne'eman requires three elements: A foundation, walls, and a roof.

The foundation is the history the couple brings to the marriage: their mesora from their families, their mesora from their teachers, and their achievements in Middos and Chessed.

The walls are the contribution of the Kallah. Under the Chupah, the Kallah walks around the Chassan seven times, as we did with the Aravah on Sukkos around the Mizbei'ach, to symbolize that it is the Akeres Habayis that creates the circumstances of kedushah that separate the home life from the influences of the secular world. As the Gemora (Yevamos 62b) says, "Hasharui be'lo ishah, sharui... be'lo Chomah." One who is without a wife, lacks a wall. The wife creates the walls that define and surround the Jewish home.
The Yerushalmi says that the hakafos of the mizbei'ach are a remembrance of Yericho. This is difficult - do we want the Earth to swallow up the Mizbei'ach? My wife answered that this is a misunderstanding of what happened at Yericho. The hakafos and tru'os were not destructive. They created an environment of Kedusha and Tahara. The walls of Yericho, walls that were built for tum'ah and issur, could not co-exist with the environment of kedusha. Of course, in the case of the Mizbei'ach, the kedusha enhanced the Mizbei'ach.
So, too, the Kallah weaves walls of kedusha around the chassan, and when they build a house, it is she that establishes what madreiga of kedusha the house will embody. As the Gemara in Yevamos 62נ darshans from נקבה תסובב גבר.  

 יגאמר רבי תנחום אמר רבי חנילאי: כל אדם שאין לו אשה — שרוי בלא שמחה, בלא ברכה, בלא טובה. בלא שמחה, דכתיב: ״ושמחת אתה וביתך״. בלא ברכה, דכתיב: ״להניח ברכה אל ביתך״. בלא טובה, דכתיב: ״לא טוב היות האדם לבדו״. ידבמערבא אמרי: בלא תורה, בלא חומה. בלא תורה, דכתיב: ״האם אין עזרתי בי ותושיה נדחה ממני״. בלא חומה, דכתיב: ״נקבה תסובב גבר״.

The roof is the contribution of the Chassan. In Megilas Rus (3:9), Boaz was asked "Ufarasta kenafecha ahl amasecha,"  ופרשת כנפיך על-אמתך-  spread the corner of your garment over your maidservant. Rashi says  וּפְָרַשְׂתָּ כְנָפֶךָ. כְּנַף בִּגְדְּךָ לְכַסּוֹתִי בְטַלִּיתְךָ וְהוּא לְשׁוֹן נִשּׂוּאִין.  The husband brings the Kallah to the chuppah that he creates, and that chuppah is the roof of the bayis ne'eman. What does the roof signify? The Gemora in Menachos says that Tzitzis, which are discussed at the end of this week's parsha, are a segula for two things: for Tznius and for a kosher Parnassah. It is when a person gets married that these two things acquire the greatest importance, when he becomes responsible for the wellfare of his wife and family. It is with the middah of Tznius, and the siyata dishmaya to ensure that the home is sustained with only koshereh parnassah, that the husband creates a roof of the bayis ne'eman.

It is with these three elements that a Bayis Ne'eman is created. With the foundation of experience and history and influence and family that the Chassan and Kallah bring with themselves; with the walls of kedusha that exclude the outside world and create within them an environment of kedusha; and the roof of tznius and ehrlichkeit that is symbolized in the Chuppah, the Tallis Gadol that the Chassan wears on his body and with which he provides shelter and safety for his Bayis Ne'eman.

A more effective way to arrange the vort is this:

Minhag among Eastern Europeans to not wear Tallis Gadol till married.

Maharil says because parsha of marriage is next to Parsha of Tzitzis, also we find in Megillas Rus (see Rashi on 3:9) the expression for marriage being uforasto kenofecha ahl amasecha.

But what’s the real underlying reason?

We find two segulos associated with wearing tzitzis; Tznius and Ehrlichkeit in Parnassah (Menachos 43 and 44).

Tznius is a way of life, and not at all limited to physical modesty. Modesty means that you don't show off your money, your holiness, or your shittos. Ehrlichkeit in parnassah means that you want every element that contributes to your lifestyle to be kosher in all ways.

The most important time to ask for siyata dishmaya in these two elements is when one gets married.

The Tallis, the Chupah, that represents these two elements, is only the ceiling.

You can't just float a roof on nothing. There have to be walls that hold it up. In fact, to build a Bayis Ne’emon you need three things: Foundation, Walls, and Roof.

Roof– Tallis. Husband’s. (INSERT NICE THINGS ABOUT THE GOOD CHARACTER OF THE CHASSAN.)

Walls– kedushoh created by the Akkeres Habyis, as it says, hashorui belo isho shorui belo chomoh. (INSERT NICE THINGS ABOUT THE KALLAH, and her good sense of knowing what to allow and what to exclude from a good Jewish home, about what to encourage and what to discourage, about inculcating in herself and in others everything the Mesilas Yeshorim, or her favorite sefer, discusses.)

Foundation– parents, chinuch, middos. (INSERT NICE THINGS ABOUT THE FAMILIES AND YESHIVOS AND RABBEIM AND RABBONIM that guided the Chassan and Kallah to this point.)

Drasha for Sheva Brachos (#1)

Are you in the market for a drasha for a Sheva Brochos? This Dvar Torah is presented as a public service to the unprepared, to the ditherers and the feckless, prepackaged for your Sheva Brachos convenience. Or Sheva Brachot. It is free of charge, and guaranteed original with this author. It is, in my humble opinion, of reasonably good quality, and in field trials has been shown to be effective. No animals were harmed in these tests. It is not tied to any one parsha, and can be used at any time. (For other Divrei Torah for Sheva Brachos and for other life-cycle events, you may click on the relevant label in the column on the right.  As of July '11, we've posted eight divrei torah for Sheva Brachos.)

Traffic on this site is pretty light, so you probably could plagiarize my divrei Torah with confidence. There's always the small risk that someone in the audience spends time on the net and will recognize the theme. But that risk is unavoidable for any dvar Torah you say, so good luck.

This dvar Torah seems long, but it can be broken into several divrei Torah, or boiled down by skipping some tangential discussions.

The first part of this drasha is based on Rabbi Lau’s autobiography, “Ahl Tishlach Yodcho Ehl Hana’ar.” He is a great man and widely respected, so you can mention his name in most places. If you are speaking to an ultra-black or fringed audience, just say "I saw this maiseh in the name of an odom godol," as my Rosh Yeshiva used to say when he was quoting the Satmerer Rov.

R’ Lau was proposed as a shidduch to the daughter of the Rav HaRashi of Tel Aviv, R’ Yitzchak Frankel, who had known the young Rabbi Lau's father. Rav Frankel called him over to talk. He said, in Breishis 2:24, when the Torah is talking about the first zivug, between Adam and Chava, it is strange that the first thing that is said is a negative, that the person will leave his parents. It says “Ahl kein ya’azov ish es oviv v’es imo v’dovak b’ishto v’hoyu l’bosor echod," "and so a man will leave his father and his mother and cleave to his wife". The Torah could have first said that purpose of the right zivug is to create shleimus, love and dveikus to each other, to do something positive. Why begin with a shlilus, a negative? That after the parents put a life of hard work and worry and hope into a child, the child would abandon his parents? That is not a pleasant thing to hear.

Rav Lau was caught off guard by the question. He thought hard, and admitted that in all the sheva brochos that he had attended, nobody addressed that question, and he had nothing to say.

R Frankel said that in all the years he was m’sader kiddushin, at every wedding he looked at the young couple and wondered, how can these two very different people make a kesher shel kayama, they are so young and inexperienced, they have such different ideas. But then he looked at the parents of the young couple standing at the side, and he remembered that twenty five years before, he was mesader kiddushin at the parents' weddings, and they looked exactly like the new couple, and somehow they had managed to create a home that produced this new generation. The young couple will have observed their parents’ behavior, and they will have learned, without words, the skills that go into building a bayis shel kayomo. And he realized that this is what the passuk is teaching. ‘Ya’azov’ means ‘leave,’ but is also can be read as a form of the word ‘Izavon,’ which means ‘heritage.’ (Note: in Mishpatim, Shmos 23:5, in the parshah of prikah, it says the word ‘azove.’ There, Rashi explains that the word means ‘help.’)

When a young couple gets married, they bring with them the heritage that they acquired as they grew up watching their own parents, and they bring with them the spiritual bequest that their parents have passed on to them. This is what builds a bayis shel kayama, when the azivah, the leaving to build their own home, is accompanied with a spiritual izavon.

R Frankel continued that he had heard about R Lau from many people, and he listed them, and he knew R Lau’s father and heard Torah from him, but he wondered, what izavon, what heritage of family life will this orphan bring to his marriage? He grew up in dormitories, in other peoples’ houses, by his rabbeim, what understanding and foundation is he going to bring to his marriage? At this point, Rav Lau started wondering if this was Rav Frankel’s way of telling him that he had decided to decline the proposed match.

But R Frankel continued, and said that when he saw that R Lau had a brother who had come with him through the war, and who had gone to work in Eretz Yisroel and was a shomer torah umitzvos, he was confident that R Lau had learned from his brother what was entailed in bringing a spiritual izavon to his own marriage. And, of course, Rav Lau and Rav Frankel’s daughter did get married and have lived happily ever after.

Now, let us look at the same question from a very different perspective.

Yosef HaTzadik named his first child Menashe, ki nashani Elokim es kol amoli v’es kol beis ovi, for God has allowed me to forget all my father's house. This choice of name for a child is puzzling. Obviously, Yosef did not forget his home; his father’s image was his conscience. And I don’t believe it means that he was grateful that Hashem helped him to overcome the paralyzing grief and homesickness so that they wouldn’t interfere with his ability to live a normal life, because that‘s not a reason to give that name to a son-- "Thank God I have gotten over my grief and longing to be reunited with my father". Anyway, more interesting than whatever the pshat in the pasuk is, is the teretz I saw in the Shai Latorah Vol. I. He brings a strange and thought- provoking teretz from R’ SZ Broide from Chevron, as follows.

Bava Metzia 85a: R’ Zeira was mispallel to forget toras chutz la’aretz before going to Eretz Yisroel. Obviously, he did not want to revert to am’oratzus. He wanted to push aside the primacy of what he had learned, the entrenched attitude which his learning in Bovel had engendered, so that he wouldn’t have a hard time adjusting to the new approach and svaros of Eretz Yisroel.

Shabbos 88b:

 ואמר רבי יהושע בן לוי מאי דכתיב לחיו כערוגת הבשם כל דיבור ודיבור שיצא מפי הקדוש ברוך הוא נתמלא כל העולם כולו בשמים וכיון שמדיבור ראשון נתמלא דיבור שני להיכן הלך הוציא הקדוש ברוך הוא הרוח מאוצרותיו והיה מעביר ראשון ראשון.” 

With every pronouncement of a Command from Har Sinai, the world filled with fragrance. And if the world was full of fragrance, where did the next Command go? God brought out a great wind and blew away each fragrance so that the next Command could fill the world once again.

What’s pshat? What’s so shver about the residual fragrance from the previous dibur? Why was it necessary to dissipate the residual fragrance from each of the Aseres Hadibros before beginning the next dibur?

We see from the Gemora that so long as the world was full of the fragrance of the first dibbur, Hashem did not want to say another dibur, and found it necessary to dissipate the remaining fragrance. If the first smell was still there, Klal Yisroel wouldn’t be able to absorb the rei’ach habesomim of the next dibur. In the broadest conceptual terms, one might say that the lesson of this Chazal is that a preoccupation with the past interferes with the march toward the future.

Yosef Hatzadik, who grew to greatness in the House of Yakov, if he didn’t have the tremendous power, the indomitable inner strength, to put aside his past in his father’s house, could never have been able to lead the house of Pharaoh, which was opposed in every way to his father’s house. It was with Hashem’s help that he was able to forget, in a sense, his past, that he was able to become the de facto ruler of Mitzrayim. A Yeshiva Bochur cannot be the head of Mitzrayim; the character of Mitzrayim was totally opposed to that of the household of Yaakov.

In Yeshivishe jargon, we would say that a person has to be able to shtell tzu one hundred percent in order to accomplish great things, and if Yosef was still holding in the matzev of being a talmid of Yakov and a talmid of the limudim of Shem v’Eiver, he couldn’t have shtelled tzu to become the ruler of Mitzrayim. A person has to be where he is, and not where he was. Once you decide you are going to do something important, then, even if you have to put aside being a yeshiva bochur and don the garb of secular, foreign potentate, you have to find a way to do so. It was this skill that Yosef was grateful for: for the ability to function as a Mitzri king-- to out-Mitzri the Mitzrim-- while remaining, inside, a student of the Yeshiva of Shem and Eiver and a member of Yakov's household.

With Rav Broyde’s observation, perhaps we can see a different answer to the question we began with. Perhaps this is why the first thing we learn about marriage is that “ahl kein yaa’zov ish es oviv v’es imo v’dovak b’ishto.” When a person leaves home to make his own family, he certainly needs to keep in mind everything that he learned at home. But he has to remember that his new home is not simply an extension of the home he grew up in. His wife is a different person with a different past, and his children will be the sum of new factors and experiences. He has to focus on his new situation and realize that the approaches of the past may not apply now. No matter how illustrious and beautiful his familial home was, one must not insist on blind loyalty to the past, but rather must focus on his and his wife’s new situation, and see what is best and most effective for them now. The reason we don’t marry our siblings is because we need to create something new, and not unthinkingly recreate the past.

Now we can see the deep meaning the Torah embedded in the word ‘ya’azov.’ In the simplest words, to encapsulate all that has been discussed above: the phrase first used in the Torah to describe marriage is “Ahl kein ya’azov ish es aviv v’es imo v’davak b’ishto.” It is surprising that this seemingly negative term is what the Torah considers the most essential description of marriage. The answer is that the word ‘azav’ has two meanings, and both are vital parts of a successful marriage. One is ‘izavon,’ a heritage. One must bring into his marriage a heritage of spiritual growth and the knowledge of how to make the home into a beis hamikdash m’aht. The other meaning is ‘azav,’ to forsake. A marriage is the combination of two different people from different homes, of different genders and emotional and intellectual natures. One must abandon the attempt to slavishly recreate the home he or she grew up in to the last iota. The new couple must learn to compromise and to create a new and unique home that combines elements of both families. Bring your heritage; it is priceless and essential. But be prepared to adjust and modify what you have learned as you build your new and unique bayis ne’eman b’yisrael.

Shemos. Moshe Rabbeinu's Shidduch.

Rabbeinu Bachay asks, why did Moshe want to marry a daughter of a priest of avodah zora, and why specifically Yisro? He explains that Moshe was a hunted man. There was a warrant out for his arrest for the murder of a government official. Moshe Rabbeinu knew that Pharaoh would arrest and imprison him at the first opportunity. Therefore he sought out a ‘kohen’, a priest. The priests, who owned their own property, as it says in the end of the previous parshah, were, to some degree, autonomous, less subject to royal threats and pressure. This made a marriage to a kohen's daughter a wise choice. Among Kohanim, he specifically chose Yisro because Yisro had seven daughters. A man that has seven daughters to marry off will not be too particular about scrutinizing a suitor's credentials or protesting a shidduch because the potential chassan has a tiny little legal problem in his background.

Vayishlach, 32:26. Drasha for Sheva Brachos (#6) The Gid Hanasheh.

The Sh’lah in Parshas Vayeishev (not Vayishlach, Vayeishev) in the Drush “Tzon Yosef,”section 12, d’h “ve’inyan vateikah,” says: the malach of Eisav injured Ya’akov by overturning his kaf hayarech. The letters chaf and phei can be open or closed. The letters chaf and phei symbolize the hand and the mouth, and the hand and mouth, too, can either be open or closed. An open chaph is better, because it symbolizes a hand, a caph, that is open and gives tzdaka— paso’ach tiftach es yadcha, that is ready to help others. A closed phei is better, because the greatest maileh is shtikah. In other words, the Gid Hanasheh symbolizes the danger of “loose lips and a tight fist,” being loose lipped and tight fisted. The better way is keeping you hand open in generosity and assistance, and your lips tight, avoiding criticism. The malach touched the kaph yerech to put in place a klalah that when the children of Ya’akov are oiver on the chaph and phei that onshim will result.

So when Yosef brought dibbah ra’ah to Ya’akov, and opened his mouth, and when the brothers took money for selling him— mah betzah...nimkerenu le’yishme’eilim... the result was the suffering of Ya’akov and the golus Mitzrayim.

But Klal Yisroel rectified these sins in the time of the Chashmono’im, as the Sh’loh brings from Yosephos, and this rectification was shown by giving the spoils of war to the poor and killing the malshinim, the result was a geulah. This is symbolized by the emblematic Pach Hashemen of Chanukah, which is composed of the same letters as kaph, but in this case the peh is closed and the coph is open.

In a marriage relationship, in particular, one should work to see that his mouth is closed to criticism and his hand is open to give and to receive.

When I said this in Shul, someone pointed out another interesting connection: Chazal say that Yaakov had left the family encampment and gone back to retrieve “Pachim K’tanim.” So there you have pachim again. With the Sh’lah in mind, we gain a remarkable insight in what Chazal wanted to say with the term pachim k’tanim, and the connection to the event and din of Gid Hanosheh.

Here is the Shelah.

תורה שבכתב פרשיות וישב מקץ ויגש, תורה אור בדפו"ח אות י"ב ד"ה וענין ותקע (בראשית לב, כו) וירא כי לא יכול לו ויגע בכף ירכו, 

ששרו של עשו בהאבקו עם יעקב אבינו ע"ה רצה להתגבר ולשלוט עליו בעיקר על שני ענינים בעבודת בני ישראל שעובדים בהם את השי"ת, ולכן נגע בכ"ף ירכו, שתיבת כ"ף רומזת על אלו שני הענינים, דהנה האות כ' שהמילוי שלה הוא כ"ף מרמז על כ"ף היד, וזה מורה שצריכים בני ישראל לעבוד את השי"ת במדת החסד, בכף היד, לפרוש הכף בכדי לעמוד לימין אביון ולעזור להזולת בכל מה דאפשר, ולכן הכף צריך שיהא פשוטה, וזאת היא אות ך' פשוטה ולא כ' כפופה. והאות פ' שהמילוי שלה הוא פ"ה, מורה על קדושת הפה, שצריכים לשמור את הפה שלא יהיה הפקר לדבר בו דברי הבל, אלא שיהא פיו שמור בשמירה מעולה, וזאת היא אות פ' כפופה וסתומה ולא ף' פשוטה. אולם שרו של עשו שהוא הס"מ רצה דייקא להפוך את הענינים, דהיינו שיהא הכף כפופה, שלא לפשוט יד להזולת, והפה פשוטה ופתוחה, לדבר ככל העולה על הלב, וזהו ויגע בכ"ף. ומבואר (בר"ר עז, ד) שאף על פי שעל יעקב אבינו בעצמו לא היה יכול לו, אבל דבר זה גרם שהדורות היוצאים מירך יעקב יעמדו תמיד בנסיונות על ענינים אלו, ויצטרכו תמיד להתחזק במדת החסד, ובשמירת הדיבור וקדושת הפה

Another place in the Shelah:

ועתה ארמוז ענין כף ופך. כי האותיות שוין, רק כף כ"ף כפופה, ופ"א פתוחה. ופך הוא להיפוך, פ"א כפופה, וכף פתוחה. וכף היא גריעותא כי כ"ף רומז לכף יד. ופ"א רומז לפה ומעלה גדולה היא שתהיה כף של אדם פתוחה לצדקה כמו שכתוב (דברים טו, ח) פתוח תפתח את ידך. ואח"כ מעלה גדולה שפה של אדם יהיה כפוף ולא פתוח, כי אין מעלה בעולם ממעלת השתיקה. ובכף שגגו השבטים, ויוסף בפה, (בראשית לז, ב) ויבא יוסף את דבתם הרעה אל אביהם. השבטים התאוו לכסף נמאס למכור את יוסף בעשרים כסף:

ונמצא בספר יוסיפון בן גוריון כשנצחו חשמונאי מלחמות גדולות אז חלקו הרבה מהשלל להעניים, הרי כף שלהם היתה פתוחה. אח"כ הרגו מלשיני ישראל שהיו מלשינים על היהודים למסיתי מלכי יון והרג אותם יהודא מכבי כאשר סיפר היוסיפון, הרי תקנו פ"א שהוא פה להיות כפו"ף, זהו סוד פ"ך שמצאו שהוא היפך מן כף: