Respecting Our Tefillin
Respecting Our Tefillin
by R. Gidon Rothstein

Parshat VaYishlach: Treating Our Tefillin Properly

A fact Aruch HaShulchan will mention more than once in Orach Chayim 38: the mitzvah to wear tefillin applies all day. We currently restrict them to our morning prayers, for fear we cannot maintain proper bodily cleanliness and sanctity, an idea that shapes our current chapter.

When Our Stomachs Aren’t Good

The first five se’ifim of AH focus on someone with an intestinal illness. Tur and Shulchan Aruch exempted such a man, based on Chullin 110a, where a man told R. Chisda he wasn’t wearing tefillin because of his digestive issues. In contrast, Ketubbot 104a tells us Rebbe (R. Yehudah HaNasi, the Torah leader of his generation and the editor of the Mishnah) had stomach problems, needed to relieve himself frequently, would take his tefillin off each time, and then put them back on.

In se’if two, AH instinctively rejects the possibility Shulchan Aruch meant this to be a blanket exemption. In Chullin, for example, the conversation with R. Chisda happens in a non-prayer moment, at a time when Jews wore tefillin all day. Unfortunately for his claim, Tur and Shulchan Aruch had already written that we currently wear tefillin only for prayer; their then also exempting someone with a bad stomach sounds like they mean even then.

The Extent of the Exemption

Nor can he accept the possibility an illness makes it prohibited to wear tefillin, since Rebbe did. Granted, he was greater than us, but if it was forbidden, he wouldn’t have done it.

Adding to our problems, Rema cited Mordechai, someone who is ill in other ways is also exempt, if he cannot focus on tefillin. AH argues those people are supposed to put on tefillin at any points when they have a break in their symptoms. To AH’s mind, that’s not yet different from our intestinal sufferers, whom he thinks should wear tefillin for Shema and Shemoneh Esrei if they can.

In se’if four, he concedes Shulchan Aruch seems to disagree, that for most illnesses, the problem is only the symptoms, so such patients can and should put on tefillin when possible. People with stomach problems often have side effects arise at unexpected times, like expelling air and/or diarrhea, and cannot take off their tefillin as often or as quickly as necessary. And yet, AH thinks even such a person should wear tefillin for Shema and Shemoneh Esreh if he can do so without a problem (he includes the possibility of putting on tefillin after the blessing of ahavah rabbah, right before Shema, if the window is that small).

He adds (without a source I saw) the essential worry is tefillin of the head; if this man knows he can remove those should a sudden stomach issue arise, he should wear tefillin for prayers.

Type one of honor for tefillin: being sure not to wear it when bodily problems are likely to present.

Why Women Should Not Wear Tefillin

In se’if six, AH uses the discussion so far to answer a question I have heard more than once, why halachah objects to women wearing tefillin in particular, when there is no halachic resistance to their fulfilling other mitzvot from which they are exempt, like shofar, sukkah, and lulav.

The answer starts with our distrust of men to maintain the proper bodily cleanliness (not to expel air, burp, etc.), and therefore minimize the time they wear them to the extent possible. But men are obligated, so they have to do something. For women to decide to undertake what a high percentage of men will fail to handle well makes too little sense to allow.

However, AH throws a bit of a wrench into the works, because he raises Eruvin 96b, which says Michal the daughter of Shaul wore tefillin and no one objected. He suggests she was known to be righteous, someone who could be trusted to treat the tefillin properly.

Thoughts That Conflict with Wearing Tefillin

In se’if seven, AH notes Shulchan Aruch’s ruling that a man may not think about women while wearing tefillin, and if he is certain he will, better not to wear them. Rashi to Sukkah sounds like such thoughts do not prohibit the wearing, but AH thinks they are at least heseiach ha-da’at, losing sight of the fact one is wearing tefillin, which Shulchan Aruch linked to kalut rosh, inappropriate frivolity.

In se’if nine, AH brings that up in terms of weddings, if the festivities carry through until morning, where drunkenness and general frivolity might lead us to think the whole wedding party should not put on tefillin.

Rema, however, considers the very fact of stopping the party for davenen also snaps people out of their wedding mode, sufficiently reminds them of the proper mindset of prayer to also allow wearing tefillin. Except that other authorities thought the group should be exempt because they are involved in a mitzvah, an idea Rema is willing to accept particularly in the summer (shorter nights), if the groom is still present.

Mourning and Tefillin

At the other end of the emotional spectrum, Amos 8;10 spoke of the first day of mourning as sad/bitter, leading the Gemara to exempt a mourner on that first day, because tefillin are a marker of pe’er, splendor, contraindicated on such a day. After the first day, the mourner does put them on, and would not take them off even if panim chadashot came, a new person with whom this mourner has not yet commiserated.

Normally, panim chadashot rejuvenate a lifecycle experience, the happiness of a wedding or the sadness of a loss. For tefillin, we apparently do not think the emotions raised by seeing the new person negate wearing tefillin. AH does think a mourner should wait until the panim chadashot person leaves before putting on tefillin, but I have not seen this done, perhaps because we have restricted tefillin so fully to the world of the ritual.

We might think a mourner counts as mitzta’er, someone in distress, for whom tefillin are an added bother. AH thinks mourning lasts long enough for it to be untenable to apply this status the whole time. Tisha B’Av morning, he says, we are too enveloped in our recalled national tragedy to don tefillin, but by Mincha the pain has worn off somewhat, and we put them on.

Se’if fourteen notes that mitzta’er includes all sorts of pain that disrupt full concentration. Theoretically, someone who is cold or has pain in their teeth would be exempt, although AH doesn’t think we act that way, for reasons he does not know.

Writing Sta”M, Studying Torah

Se’ifim 11-13 and 15 raise other possibilities for exemption from tefillin, such as a scribe who is writing a mezuzah, tefillin, or a Torah scroll. Usually we say that if a fleeting mitzvah comes along, we undertake that mitzvah rather than the one we could come back to later. If the person has already started, though, he is an osek, is involved with a mitzvah, and need not stop.

Two significant caveats: that halachah was formulated when people did not take money for writing such parchments, did it purely for the mitzvah; while there are reasonable justifications for taking money, AH sees no reason to time one’s writing to the time for prayers.

Similarly, in theory, Mechilta Bo exempts one studying Torah from wearing tefillin (because Torah study accomplishes what the tefillin were supposed to). Nonetheless, especially when we wear tefillin so briefly, AH thinks the person should clearly take the time to wear the tefillin and then get back to study.

The Last Note

If it were me, I’d have stopped the siman here. However, Shulchan Aruch added se’ifim 11-13, so AH includes them in one se’if, 16. A student should not remove his tefillin in front of his teacher, AH assumes because it means he will be bareheaded, however briefly

The rule does not include a father, for reasons AH finds unclear . And if one must choose between buying a mezuzah or tefillin, tefillin come first, although people obligated to show signs of mourning for other reasons—a menudeh, a person in the process of being disciplined by rabbinic authorities, or a metzora, someone suffering an isolating, Heaven-sent illness-- should not wear tefillin.

The siman teaches us about the frame of body and mind required for tefillin, all part of treating them with proper respect, some details of which appear in Scripture, some not.

Faithful Questions
By Tzvi Freeman

You don't learn by having faith. You learn by questioning, by challenging, by re-examining everything you've ever believed.

And yet, all this is a matter of faith
—the faith that there is a truth to be found.

It is another paradox: To truly question, you must truly have faith.

II SAMUEL CHAPTER 11


"AND IT WAS AT THE RETURN OF THE YEAR…" (v 1)

Unlike traditions whose saints are presented as totally flawless halo-wearing supermen, the Torah does not seek to hide the sins of even a Moses or a David. The Torah testifies that Moses sinned once – and once only – by striking the rock for water instead of speaking to it, for which he was strictly penalized by not being allowed to lead the Children of Israel into their land (Numbers 20:12; Deut. 32:51). Likewise the prophet does not spare even David, the Messianic king, who is not some kind of perfect angel having no connection with the material world but a real man of flesh and blood with very human desires and impulses. David is Messiah not because he never sinned but because having sinned, he acknowledged his wrong-doing and repented completely, and then went on to teach all mankind the path of true repentance.

If David sinned, it was not the kind of gross carnal sin that average people stumble into time and again. In the words of the rabbis, "Anyone who says that David sinned is simply mistaken" (Shabbos 56a). We cannot expect to understand the true nature of what for David on his level was a "sin", any more than we can clearly understand anything else about the fathomless depths of the soul of Messiah. It was in order for David to teach the world the path of repentance that there was some kind of heavenly necessity for David to sin. Before trying to get a glimpse of where his sin may have lain, let us first understand what it was NOT.

Rabbi Nachman of Breslov remarked that someone who does not understand why the Land of Israel had to be in the hands of the Canaanite nations before it came into the hands of the Children of Israel will also not be able to understand why Batsheva had to be married to Uriah the Hittite before she was married to David (Sichos HaRaN). From these words, we may infer that Batsheva was intended for David – for it had been prophesied to him already that he was destined to have a son who would build the Temple (II Samuel 7:12-13), and only a unique woman could mother the wisest man that ever lived. (Batsheva proved her strength of character in various ways, see I Kings 1:15ff; moreover, the Midrash says she had no compunction about chastising Solomon even after he became king.)

The greatness of the TIKKUNIM ("repairs") that were destined to result from the union of Batsheva with David was such that the two could only come together in a manner overshadowed with darkness and mystery. David's sin was not the common man's sin of going into a woman who is NIDDAH ("menstruant"), because Batsheva was purifying herself in the Mikveh ("ritual pool") at the very moment when David saw her (v 2). Nor does the fact that the text makes it appear she was married to Uriah the Hittite mean that she was simply in the category of EISHES ISH ("a man's wife"). Although on the surface it looks as if David was guilty of adultery, this is not so. In David's time it was the practice of all men prior to going out to war to give their wives a GET ("bill of divorce"). The purpose was to ensure that if the husband went missing in the war, his wife would not become an AGUNAH ("anchored women", unable to marry anyone else) and that if he was killed and left no children, she would not be subjected to the humiliation of YIBUM or HALITZAH (levirate marriage). Soldiers could thus wholly throw themselves into fighting the war without having to worry what might happen to their wives if they lost their lives. The formula of the GET followed the standard formula of a GET AL TENAI ("conditional divorce") that made the divorce retroactive to the time of the giving of the GET in the event that the husband died in the war (Rashi on v 4; Talmud Kesuvos 9b; Rambam, Laws of Divorce ch 8).

When Batsheva informed David that she had conceived, he sent for Uriah and ordered him to go into Batsheva (v 8) so that when the child was born Uriah would think it was his own, which would help cover up the scandal. It was only when Uriah refused to go into Batsheva while his brother Israelites were fighting a war that David contrived to have him killed. The death of Uriah in the war would cause his GET to Batsheva come into effect retroactively, as explained above, meaning that at the time of David's relations with her she was technically NOT a married woman.

If the sin was NOT that Batsheva was a Niddah or a married woman at the time of the relations, what was it??? Did David sin in ordering Joab to send Uriah to a battle-position in the continuing Ammonite war in which he would certainly be killed? Our rabbis teach that Uriah was indeed guilty of a capital offense in refusing to carry out David's order to go into Batsheva. This made him MOREID BE-MALCHUS ("a traitor to the kingship") the penalty for which is death.

Where David sinned was in contriving for Uriah to be killed in such a way as to make it seem that he was merely a war casualty, whereas in fact David should have taken Uriah before the Sanhedrin and had him publicly condemned to death (Shabbos 56a). However David did not want to do this as it would have drawn public attention to the questionable circumstances of his relations with Batsheva.

It was not that Batsheva was not meant for David and that he took what was not his. The sin was that having caught a glimpse from his roof-top of the mother of Solomon, he took her by force and tried to hide what he was doing instead of waiting for God to bring her to him in the course of time. In this respect there is a certain parallel between David's sin and that of Moses' impatiently striking the rock for water instead of speaking to it.

CHAPTER 12


The real meaning of Nathan's reproof for David personally is not even our business. The average individual cannot expect to grasp the exact nature of David's sin. The prophet's reproof to the saintly David is directed at US, the average readers, who are to learn from it how to recognize our own sins and how to repent in order to rectify them. From verse 4, which successively refers to the rich man's visitor as a HEILECH ("passer-by"), then an ORE'AH ("visitor") and finally an ISH ("man of stature"), the rabbis learned out that the nature of the evil inclination is first to drop in casually as a passer-by, then to install himself within us as a long-term guest, until he finally takes over the entire house and acts as the BAAL HABAYIS ("owner of the house"; Succah 52b).

Nathan the prophet used the parable of the rich man's taking the poor man's lamb in order to prompt David to see for himself where his sin lay and how he should be punished. Had Nathan simply asked David to consider his behavior and ask himself if he had done anything wrong, the king may have tried to rationalize away his actions. Instead, Nathan told David a graphic story about somebody else's gross behavior and asked him to give a quite impartial evaluation of this kind of behavior that would not be colored by the need to justify himself. Rabbi Nachman (Likutey Moharan I, 113) teaches that this is the method whereby God consults sinners about how they should be punished. If He were to ask them directly about their own behavior, they would never give an impartial reply and would always judge themselves too leniently. He therefore shows them someone else's behavior which is parallel to their own and then asks them how they judge it. According to their evaluation of the other person's deeds and how they should be penalized, so God judges and penalizes their own, and this is the meaning of the rabbinic statement that "a person is punished with his knowledge (MI-DAATO) yet without his knowledge" (SHELO MI-DAATO)" (Avos 3:16). We should be very careful when looking at and judging the behavior of others in case we are unknowingly being invited to decide our own fate.

In angrily demanding that the rich man pay fourfold, David sealed his own fate: he suffered by losing four children – Batsheva's first baby, Amnon, Tamar and Absalom (Rashi on v 6).

"Why have you despised the word of God to do evil in His eye?" (v 9). As explained above, the evil was not that Batsheva was already married or that she was not intended for David. The evil was that while knowing Batsheva was intended for him, David still contrived to take her using subterfuge. If Batsheva had not been intended for David, why after punishing him with the death of the baby did God allow Batsheva to conceive and bear a child of whom our text states that "HaShem LOVED him" (v 24)? According to the Midrash based on the KSIV "HE called" and the KRI of "SHE called" in v 24, it was not Batsheva but God Himself who called the child's name SHLOMO, which is also the Name of God throughout Song of Songs. If David's relationship with Batsheva was inherently evil, how could it be that the one who built God's very Temple was born as a result?

David acknowledged that he sinned (v 13), and he fully repented: Psalm 51 is eloquent testimony to the depth and sincerity of David's repentance and his ability to turn the very sin into merit by using it to teach others the path of repentance. Whereas king Saul's sins led to his deposition from the kingship, David's kingship was not undermined by his sin, which indeed added a new dimension to David's Torah, showing that even a Tzaddik can sin and that even a Rasha (wicked person) can repent.

With the birth of Solomon (who does not enter the narrative again until the very end of David's life), the protracted war against the Ammonites came to an end with David's capture and destruction of the capital city and his cruel punishment of the Ammonites (v 31). This was particularly severe because the Ammonite god alluded to in verse 30 ("the crown of MALKOM") and in the KSIV of verse 31 (MALKON as opposed to the KRI of MALBEIN) is none other than MOLEKH, whose worship through passing children through the fire is strictly proscribed by the Torah (Leviticus 18:21, see RaDaK on II Samuel 12:1).

How David could have placed the crown of an idol on his own head when the appurtenances of idolatry are normally strictly forbidden is explained by the rabbis as having been made possible through the prior nullification of the Ammonite idol by a non-Israelite (Talmud Avodah Zarah 44a). How David could have balanced a such a heavy crown on his head (it weighed a talent of gold) is also discussed by the rabbis, some of whom say that it had a magnet in it that caused the crown to be self-suspended in the air! This is by no means the least of the weighty mysteries embedded within the fathomless allegory of these chapters.

The Eternal Hatred: Lessons from Yaakov and Esau
The Eternal Hatred: Lessons from Yaakov and Esau
by R. Eliezer Simcha Weisz
"And Esau ran to meet him, and he embraced him, and fell on his neck and kissed him, and they wept." (Bereshis 33:4)
וַיָּ֨רׇץ עֵשָׂ֤ו לִקְרָאתוֹ֙ וַֽיְחַבְּקֵ֔הוּ וַיִּפֹּ֥ל עַל־צַוָּארָ֖ו וַׄיִּׄשָּׁׄקֵ֑ׄהׄוּׄ וַיִּבְכּֽוּ׃
רשי "ויחבקהו. נִתְגַּלְגְּלוּ רַחֲמָיו, כְּשֶׁרָאָהוּ מִשְׁתַּחֲוֶה כָּל הִשְׁתַּחֲוָאוֹת הַלָּלוּ: וישקהו. נָקוּד עָלָיו; וְיֵשׁ חוֹלְקִין בַּדָּבָר הַזֶּה בַּבָּרַיְתָא דְּסִפְרֵי, יֵשׁ שֶׁדָּרְשׁוּ נְקֻדָּה זוֹ שֶׁלֹּא נְשָׁקוֹ בְּכָל לִבּוֹ, אָמַר רַבִּי שִׁמְעוֹן בֶּן יוֹחַאי, הֲלָכָה הִיא בְּיָדוּעַ שֶׁעֵשָׂו שׂוֹנֵא לְיַעֲקֹב, אֶלָּא שֶׁנִּכְמְרוּ רַחֲמָיו בְּאוֹתָהּ שָׁעָה וּנְשָׁקוֹ בְּכָל לִבּוֹ (ספרי במדבר):

Rashi, of blessed memory, wrote regarding the verse "And he kissed him" that there are dots above the word in the Torah text, and the dots teaches that Esau did not kiss Yaakov with his whole heart, and Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai said, "It is a well-known (Halacha ) law that Esau hated Yaakov, but his mercy was aroused at that moment and he kissed him with his whole heart."

The question is asked: Why did Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai say הלכה היא בידוע "It is a law" that Esau hated Yaakov? Why not say "It is a fact" or "reality" that Esau hated Yaakov? What does the term הלכה "law" signify here?

Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai teaches that Esau's hatred for Yaakov is not something fleeting or situational; it is inherent and unchanging. He did not say "fact" or "reality" because facts and realities can transform and become altered over time. Yet a "law" is constant—unmoving. This hatred is not a temporary phenomenon but rather an eternal law, like the immutability of the Torah.

That is why Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai says it is a "well-known law"—to stress that this hatred is the underlying and genuine law. The image that Esau did not hate Yaakov wholeheartedly is false. The genuine underlying law and convention is that Esau hates Yaakov.

Rabbi Menachem Zemba Hy"d explained that while Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai as a principle sought rationale behind Torah verses (דורש טעם דקרא), here he says there is none. Esau's hatred is a law—an inexplicable phenomenon not contingent on circumstances. Like antisemitism, which adheres to no reason—arising alternately when Jews are powerful or marginalized and in all situations.

This ancient hatred between Yaakov and Esau persists today in the relationship between the descendants of Yaakov and Esau. The Simchat Torah/October Hamas pogrom's battle cry was "Slaughter the Jews!" Though the world saw, hardly any Christian leaders clearly condemned it. A tide of antisemitism has risen in Europe, the USA, Australia and beyond. And to our disappointment, it deeply affects even the Church.

Although there were a number of priests who spoke up against the antisemitism of the Shoah, the Church as a body failed to defend the Jews of Europe adequately at the time. In the 1960’s they made some amends via the Second Vatican Council, which rejected their false basis for antisemitism. However problematic equivocations persist, evinced by the need for Italian rabbis to pen a recent letter decrying false equivalences between Hamas victims and jailed terrorists. They claim that decades of dialogue crumble when Jews face attack, slaughter and pogrom, and this is met, not with solidarity but a ridiculous cacophony of diplomatic ‘acrobatics’.

Herewith is a translated copy of The letter (dated 23.11) of the Italian Rabbinical Council:
Dear Rabbis,
A few minutes ago we sent a press release on what happened yesterday with the Pope and more generally on the relationship with the Church. We send it to you for your information.

Yesterday, the Pope's meeting with the relatives of the hostages abducted by Hamas, which had been requested for some time and always postponed, was finally possible because it was followed by a meeting with relatives of Palestinian prisoners in Israel, as reported by the Pope, putting on the same level innocent people torn from families with people often detained for very serious acts of terrorism. And immediately afterward the Pope publicly accused both sides of terrorism. These high-level positions follow problematic statements by illustrious representatives of the Church in which there is no trace of a condemnation of Hamas' aggression or, in the name of supposed impartiality, the aggressor and the attacked are put on the same level.
We wonder what decades of Jewish-Christian dialogue have been used for, talking about friendship and fraternity, if then, in reality, when there is someone who tries to exterminate the Jews, instead of receiving expressions of closeness and understanding, the response is that of diplomatic acrobatics, balancing acts and icy equidistance which is certainly equidistance but is not fair.

However, Jewish history also saw peaceful eras, not only in Yaakov's time as Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai says here Esau's compassion swelled, leading to sincere fraternal reconciliation, but also in other golden eras when Jews have lived in peace with their neighbors.

So we retain hope but we are constantly mindful and wherever we live however comfortable we are in our surroundings, we must never never forget this particular Halacha.

Three Loves
By Tzvi Freeman

When the Rebbe accepted the mantle of leadership, this was his “acceptance speech”:

There are three loves: Love of G-d. Love of Torah. Love of your people, Israel, and your fellow Jew.

They are all one. And since they are one, it is impossible to make distinctions between them.

They are a singularity, an essence-point. When you grab any part of a singularity, you have all of it. In any of these forms of love, you have all three.

So if you see a Jew who has love of G‑d, but lacks love of his people and love of Torah, tell that Jew that this love is incomplete and cannot last.

And, on the other hand, if you see a Jew who has love of his people, but lacks love of G‑d and love of Torah, work with that Jew to complete this love with love of G-d and love of Torah. Show this Jew that it is not enough to provide bread for the hungry and water for the thirsty, that if you truly love a Jew, you must bring that Jew to love Torah and to love G-d.

And then, with all three loves complete, they join in one tight knot that can never be untied.

We will be liberated. We were exiled because that love for our people and our fellow Jew was lacking. By healing it, we will bring Moshiach very soon in our days.

Torat Menachem, Hitvaduot, vol. 2, pp.210-211

II SAMUEL CHAPTER 9


The rabbis advised to "be careful of the government, because they only reach out to a person to serve their own need and appear to show him love only so long as they have benefit from him but do not stand up for him in his hour of hardship" (Avos 2:3). King David showed himself a notable exception to this mode of government, displaying his truly royal nature in searching for any surviving members of the House of Saul that he might be able to help despite the fact that he had nothing whatever to gain from showing them favor.

David remained loyal to the covenant he had struck with Jonathan at the very beginning of their acquaintance (I Samuel 18:1-3) and which had been renewed several times with both Jonathan (I Samuel 23:18) and Saul himself, to whom David had promised that he would never cut off his seed (I Samuel 24:21-2).

Tzeeva, the "servant of the House of Saul" whom David called for information about surviving members of Saul's family, evidently had the status of EVED KENA'ANI, a "Canaanite slave", who according to the law of the Torah remains a slave unless his master frees him and who is part of his master's estate, passing on his death into the possession of his inheritors (see Leviticus 25:44-6 and RaDaK on II Samuel 9:2). Unless he or she is freed, the Canaanite slave is not permitted to marry a free Israelite and enter the Kahal ("Assembly"), but is nevertheless a member of the Covenant and is bound by all of the commandments that Israelite women are obliged to fulfill. (Thus the Canaanite slave must observe Shabbos, eat kosher, share in the Paschal lamb, etc. but does not wear Tefilin or pray the set daily prayer services etc.)

With the death of Saul and his three sons in the war against the Philistines and the subsequent assassination of his fourth son, Ish-bosheth, the only male survivor of Saul's house was the son of his first-born Jonathan – Mephibosheth -- who had been a small child at the time of the Philistine war and who while being evacuated by his nursemaid had fallen and injured both legs, leaving him permanently lame (II Samuel 4:4, see RaDaK there). His lameness is symbolic of the collapse of Saul's house.

It appears that Saul's family estate now legally belonged to king David because Saul's son Ish-bosheth was MOREID BE-MALCHUS, a "traitor against the kingship", since with Avner's encouragement he had acted as king despite the fact that all Israel knew that Samuel had anointed David to be king after Saul. Under Torah law, the estate of a traitor falls to the crown, and thus David's kindness to Mephibosheth lay in returning the estate to the family, which he was not legally obliged to do (see RaDaK on v 7). David thus appointed Tzeeva as APOTROPUS ("adult executor" or "guardian") over Saul's estate for the benefit of the young Mephibosheth. Tzeeva and Mephibosheth will enter the narrative again in II Samuel ch 16.

CHAPTER 10


After the death of Nahash king of Ammon, David wanted to "practice kindness" with his son Hanoon – i.e. to send a delegation to comfort him in his mourning – because "his father practiced kindness with me" (v 2). Nahash's "kindness" to David lay in taking in the one member of his family who survived when the king of Moab killed all the others after David had taken them there when he fled from Saul (I Samuel 22:1-6; see Rashi on II Samuel 10:2).

The Torah commands Israel not to seek out the peace and goodness of the Ammonites or Moabites "all your days forever" (Deut. 23:7) because far from hospitably coming out with bread and water to help their Israelite cousins in their journey from Egypt through the wilderness to their land, they even hired the Aramean Bilaam to come and curse them.

The rabbis criticized David for showing kindness to those who were intrinsically unkind, pointing out that it led only to a humiliation for David and his delegation that escalated into a full scale war (see RaDaK on ch 10 v 2). [Similarly, contemporary attempts to appease angry terrorists and their supporters have only led to escalating terror and violence.]

The new Ammonite king's advisors convinced him that David – whom they presumably perceived as a menacing expansionist – was seeking to spy on them in order to prepare to incorporate them into his growing empire.

In view of the history of Jewish costume in the last few hundred years, it is interesting to note that the humiliation which the Ammonites chose to inflict on the Israelite delegation was to shave off their beards and cut their garments in half over the buttocks. Similarly, in 19th century Germany, the first acts carried out by Jews wanting to dissociate themselves from traditional European Jewish culture were the removal of their beards and the drastic shortening of their coats, turning them into jackets that barely covered their buttocks, earning for Jews of German origin until today the nickname of YEKERS ("short jackets").

Realizing that their blatant provocation of David was likely to elicit a very firm-handed military response, the Ammonites repeated their ancestral ploy of calling in help from Aram. Since the times of Bilaam, the Aramean clans had spread westwards from Mesopotamia into the territories of modern-day Syria and Lebanon, and the Ammonites summoned Aramean mercenaries from there to attack David's forces from the rear when they advanced against the capital city of Ammon.

HOW DAVID'S MEN MADE WAR

The serious military crisis in which David's commander-in-chief Joab found himself in the war with the Arameans and Israel's other enemies is reflected in Psalm 60. The Ammonites intended to coordinate with the Arameans in order to stage a pincer attack on the Israelite forces, who saw the war closing in on them "from in front and from behind" (v 9). It is noteworthy that Joab did not merely raise his hands to God and hope for the best: first he carried out his HISHTADLUS ("effort in the world of practical action"), dividing the Israelite forces into two, sending his brother Avishai against Ammon while he himself marched against the Arameans, who because of their numbers and training were the more serious threat. Only after making a pact of mutual support with Avishai (v 11) and giving him a powerful "pep talk" on being courageous "for the sake of our people" (that they should not be captured) and "for the sake of the cities of our God" (that they should not be sacked) did Joab then entrust the outcome of their efforts into the hands of God (v 12).

This trusting believer's way of making war met with a positive outcome, and the Arameans fled from Joab while the Ammonites fled from Avishai (v 13-14). Hadad-ezer, the king of Aram Tzova (in the BIK'A of Lebanon) now sent for Aramean reinforcements from east of the Euphrates, but David went out against them with the entire Israelite army and forced the Arameans into submission (v 19). This gave David's kingdom supremacy in the entire region, opening the way for the conditions of peace in which the future builder of God's Temple in Jerusalem could be born through the mysterious chain of events that is the subject of the ensuing chapters.

LET US GO UP TO THE HOUSE OF G-D

The significance of the section of the parshah describing Jacob's "pilgrimage" with his family to Beth El, the HOUSE of G-d, has been discussed above. At Beth El, Jacob's acquisition of the birthright and the Promised Land was sealed, and he attained his name of greatness -- Israel -- from the mouth of G-d.

The House of Jacob was completed by the birth of Benjamin, who was the only one of Jacob's twelve sons to be born in the Land of Israel and who founded the tribe that was to contribute the first king of Israel, Saul, who was "head and shoulders above all the men of Israel" in his outstanding modesty and righteousness. Shamai, the Mishnaic Tanna and Av Beis Din ("father of the court") in the time of Hillel the Elder, was a descendant of King Saul, while Hillel, who was the Nasi or Prince (and as such, the highest in rank) was a descendant of King David. Thus the MACHLOKES (controversy) throughout the SHAS (6 orders of Mishneh), between BEIS SHAMAI and BEIS HILLEL is bound up with the struggle between Judah (son of Leah) and Benjamin (son of Rachel). This struggle is resolved through the process of clarifying the halachah, which practically always follows the opinion of Beis Hillel.

Conflict and its resolution is the theme of all the remaining parshiyos in the book of Genesis from next week (VAYESHEV) until the end of Genesis (VAYECHI). This is the story of the rectification of the world, which comes about through Mashiach son of David (who is from the tribe of Judah, son of Leah) and Mashiach son of Joseph (son of Rachel). In order to clear the way for the story of rectification, namely the story of Joseph and his brothers (in which the bond between Judah and Benjamin plays a central part), the Torah concludes our parshah of VAYISHLACH with an account of the generations of Esau. The theme of sexual immorality recurs in this account, for several of Esau's children and grandchildren were MAMZERIM (bastards -- see Rashi on Gen. 36:2 and 36:12 etc.)

This account ends with the account of the Seven Kings who ruled over Edom -- and died -- before there was a king in Israel. It is well known that these Seven Kings allude to the seven "fallen" Sefiros of the World of TOHU (devastation), while the last-mentioned king -- the eighth, of whom it does not say "and he died" -- is Hadar = Abraham, father of the World of Rectification.

This throws light on the meaning of Rashi's first comment on next week's parshah (on Gen. 37:1): "After the Torah writes for you the dwellings of Esau and his generations in brief, since they were not sufficiently important to tell in detail... the Torah now comes to the dwellings of Jacob and his generations at length and all the cycles (GILGULIM) of causes, for they are important before G-d... It can be compared to a jewel that fell in the sand. A person feels through and sieves all the sand until he finds the jewel. And when he finds the jewel, he throws away the pebbles and takes the jewel."

THE SIN OF THE MEN OF SHECHEM

The integrity of the House -- the family -- of Jacob depends upon family PURITY, observance of the laws of sexual decency and restraint. "Shall our sister be treated like a prostitute?" (Gen. 34:31). Moral purity is the very foundation of the Covenant of Abraham, which is sealed in the flesh of the male Children of Israel on the organ of procreation, indicating the need to restrain animal lust and elevate it in the service of G-d in order to breed righteous children to "guard the way of HaShem" (Gen. 18:19).

The rape of Dinah was a violation of this integrity by Shechem the son of Hamor (= donkey, physical animality) the Chivi (Chivia in Aramaic is "serpent" see Targum on Gen. 3:1). Shechem is the opposite of Joseph "the Tzaddik", the archetype of sexual discipline, who restrains himself with Potiphar's wife and eventually receives SheKheM (the three worlds, the lowly world, that of the stars and that of the angels, as discussed above) as well as -- according to the midrash -- marrying Dinah's daughter = Osnath.

Dinah's urge to go out and about "to see the daughters of the land" (a trait unbefitting the daughter of Jacob) exposed her to danger in a world that was still untamed. Abraham and Isaac had both faced trials because of the fallen morality of the Egyptians and the Philistines. Now Jacob's own daughter is raped by Shechem the Hittite, descendant of the accursed Canaan, son of Ham.

According to Torah law, Dinah, as a PENUYAH, "unmarried", was not forbidden to Shechem. What was forbidden was the manner in which he "saw her... and he TOOK her and lay with her": Shechem kidnapped Dinah. His crime was the violation of the Noachide Law against stealing, which prohibits the unlawful taking not only of goods but of people. The crime of the men of Shechem who were sitting "in the gate of their city" (Gen. 34:20) -- i.e. they were the judges of the city -- was that they watched this violation of Noachide law and did nothing.

In the words of Rambam (Maimonides) Laws of Kings 9:14: "In what way are they (the Children of Noah) commanded with regard to the rule of law? They are obliged to establish judges and magistrates in every region to judge cases relating to the other six commandments, and to warn the population. And any of the Children of Noah who violates one of these seven commandments is to be killed by the sword. AND FOR THIS REASON THE RULERS OF SHECHEM WERE LIABLE TO EXECUTION, for Shechem STOLE and they saw and they knew and they did not bring him to justice..."

The zeal of Levy and Shimon in perpetrating justice did not escape Jacob's censure, both in our parshah (Gen. 34:30) and in his blessings to his sons before his death (Gen. 49:5, "Shimon and Levi are brothers, weapons of might are their swords... Accursed is their anger... I will divide them among Jacob and scatter them among Israel...") Zeal is necessary yet dangerous. It is controlled when the zealots are divided and scattered. Levi was "scattered" by having to go around to all the farms to collect the Levitical tithes. This honorable scattering was the reward for the zeal showed by the tribe later on, at the time of the sin of the golden calf. However, Shimon's zeal was not so pure, and led to excess, as when the Zimri, Prince of the tribe of Shimon, took Kozbi the Midianite and challenged Moses. (Zimri was killed by Pinchas, son of Aaron from the tribe of Levi, exemplar of Holy Zeal). To rectify the challenge to Moses by the Prince of the House of Shimon, members of the tribe of Shimon were "scattered" by having to become scribes and teachers of Moses' Torah (see Rashi on Gen. 49:7).