Sometimes It's Good To Be Bad (Parashat VaYeira)

At the end of this week's parasha, Hashem instructs Avraham to take Yitzchak and sacrifice him.  Avraham obeys, wakes up early and takes Yitzchak, two servants, wood for the sacrifice, and saddles his donkey to travel to the place that Hashem showed him.  When they arrive, Avraham builds an altar, ties up Yitzchak and places him on the altar to be sacrificed.  He takes the knife in his hand and extends it at which point an angel calls out to him and instructs him not to kill Yitzchak.  As the pasuk states, the angel told Avraham "do not send forth a hand on the lad nor do anything to him."

Rashi explains that the reason the angel added not to do anything to Yitzchak is because, upon being told not to slaughter him, Avraham argued that he would have come for no reason and pleaded with Hashem to at least let Avraham cut Yitzchak and extract some blood as an offering.  Hashem's response was not to touch Yitzchak at all after which the angel states "now I know that you are G-d-fearing."

Why is it that when Avraham had the knife in his hand and was ready to kill his son who he loved so dearly, it wasn't clear that he was G-d-fearing, rather only after he didn't kill him??

I once heard a beautiful explanation as to why...

In actuality, the test of Akeidat Yitzchak was a two-part test.  Part one was a test to see if Avraham was willing to sacrifice his son.  Part two was a test to see if he was willing to not sacrifice him.  As is indicated by the Rashi quoted above, once Avraham was given a commandment by Hashem - he had difficulty with the idea of not completing it.  Therefore, it was only after he accepted the task of not fulfilling the commandment that Hashem knew how G-d-fearing he was.  Very often we get so caught up in our desire to keep Hashem's Torah that we fail to recognize the cases when Hashem doesn't want us to.

As a member of Hatzalah, I am sad to see that I have experienced far too many calls on a motzei-Shabbat where a person is experiencing chest pain or the like.  When we question the patient as to when the pain began, he states that it started on Shabbat.  When questioned further why he didn't call earlier, the patient responds he didn't want to desecrate Shabbat.

It was only after Avraham didn't slaughter Yitzchak that Hashem saw he was G-d-fearing!!  Sometimes, the test is not will we keep the commandment - rather, will we violate it!

May Hashem grant each of us the wisdom and understanding to differentiate between when we should do the right thing, and when the wrong thing IS the right thing.  With this wisdom, may we be zoche to always follow Hashem's commandments (even when He is commanding us to violate a previous one) and in this zechut may we see the coming of Mashiach speedily in our days...

Shabbat Shalom!

Nobody's Perfect (Parashat Lech Lecha)

In this week's parasha, we are introduced to the mitzvah of Brit Milah (circumcision).  The Torah teaches us that, at the ripe old age of 99, Avraham was circumcised.

Rabbi Dovid Orlofsky points out that, if you look at the mitzvah of Brit Milah - it seems rather pointless!  Medically speaking, the foreskin which we remove serves no positive purpose whatsoever and - in actuality - would only be detrimental to the person if left on.  That being the case, why does Hashem create us with it if we were then going to be commanded to remove it 8 days later?  Anyone who has had the z'chut of making a Brit Milah knows that it would save a lot of planning, pain (to the baby) and money if we could just forgo the entire process and be born without the foreskin!

Rabbi Orlofsky goes on to answer this question rather beautifully...  He explains that the purpose of Hashem creating us with a negative trait which we would be commanded to remove was to teach us that, just as He created us with negative physical traits, He also created us with negative characteristics - anger, jealousy, etc.  One might think to himself "if Hashem gave me a temper, that must be how He wants me" and therefore the person would not work on overcoming this characteristic.  Rather, look at the mitzvah of Brit Milah and see that - just because Hashem creates you with something, that doesn't mean he wants you to keep it!  Through this mitzvah Hashem is teaching us that he does not want us to keep the parts of us that are negative or detrimental - he wants us to remove them!!

May we all work on ourselves to overcome and "cut off" our negative characteristics just like we cut off the foreskin of a baby boy.  In doing so, may we merit to see the coming of Mashiach speedily in our days...

Shabbat Shalom!

When Opportunity Knocks... (Parashat Noach)

In this week's parasha, we are told that Noach was a tzaddik (righteous person) "in his generation."  Rashi explains that the term "in his generation" indicates that, had he lived in another generation, he would not have been so special.  The midrash expounds that the reason for this is because Noach was given 120 years to get people to do teshuva and yet he didn't even get one person to do it.

Later in the parasha, after the flood has subsided - Noach plants a vineyard, gets drunk and passes out naked in his tent.  The pasuk states that Ham (father of Canaan) finds Noach and runs to tell his two older brothers who deal with the matter.  When Noach awakens he says "Cursed is Canaan."  Why Canaan??  Rashi says that it was, in fact, Canaan who originally saw Noach.  Rather than tending to him, he ran and got someone else who then got someone else.  This is why Noach curses Canaan.

Based on these two Rashi's, Noach and Canaan seem to share a negative trait - both of them were slow to perform mitzvot.  Each was presented with an opportunity to do something positive - and, instead, they let the opportunity slip away.  This teaches us a wonderful lesson!

So often in life, Hashem presents us with opportunities to do something.  Though it may be easier to pas it up and let someone else do it instead - that is not what Hashem wants, and it is not what we should want!  Rather, we should jump at the chance to to the mitzvah!!  Noach was documented in the Torah as a "tzaddik in his generation" - but this is only because of who he is being compared to.  Perhaps, had Noach really tried to help others he could have gone down in history as tzaddik stamm!!

Baruch Hashem, last week my wife and I were blessed with the birth of another son whom we named Yitzchak after my father a"h.  My father, a retired Senior Center director, devoted his life to helping and doing for others.  He never passed up the opportunity to lend a helping hand.

Anyone who knows my wife knows that she never makes it to the 40th week of her pregnancy - each of our children have been born before their due date.  Yitzchak, however, chose to break that mold.

This past Succot, as we sat in the succah, we were all discussing how crazy it was that my wife was still pregnant - upon which someone at the meal commented "the baby isn't finished learning Torah yet."  We know that while a child is developing in his mother's womb, an angel sits with him and teaches him the entire Torah.  In fact, the Rambam explains that the reason a bris is done on the 8th day is because we take 7 days to mourn the loss of Torah. 

Noach and Canan were similar in their slowness to perform mitzvot.  My father and son are similar in their desire to do mitzvot!!  It is my greatest beracha to Yitzchak that he never lose that desire and that he continue to follow in the footsteps of his namesake.

As for the rest of us, may we take heed to the lesson of Noach and Canaan and may we never pass up on the opportunity to do a mitzvah.  Rather, may we run to do it "b'simcha."  In this zechut, may we merit to see the coming of Mashiach speedily in our days!

Shabbat Shalom!