Author: Rabbi Milder

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Shemos – Not Fighting Violence with Violence


We begin this week the second book of the Torah with the portion of Shemos, in which we are introduced to Moshe Rabbeinu. Although Moshe grew up in Pharaoh’s palace, he knew he was a Jew and took care of his brethren in the slave pits. In one such episode the Torah relates, “Now it came to pass in those days that Moshe grew up and went out to his brothers and looked at their burdens, and he saw an Egyptian man striking a Hebrew man of his brothers. He turned this way and that way, and he saw that there was no man; so he struck the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. He went out on the second day, and behold, two Hebrew men were quarreling, and he said to the wicked one, ‘Why are you going to strike your friend’” (Shemos 2:11-13)? The Torah then tells us how Pharaoh eventually found out what happened and wanted to execute Moshe. The Medrish even relates how the executioner was about to chop off Moshe’s head, but his neck miraculously turned to stone, the blade broke, Moshe was able to free himself and flee.
There are many lessons to be learned from this episode. The Ralbag learns that it is appropriate for a person to watch over his brethren and fight as best as he possibly can against those who show acts of violence against them. By doing this the nation will be stronger and more protected when helped every little bit. We see this from Moshe Rabbeinu who had such an intense will to fight for the plight of the Jews. When he saw the violence perpetrated by the Egyptian, Moshe got up and smote him, placing himself in mortal danger and ultimately being forced to run away.

The Ralbag also learns that when a person sees two people fighting, he should put every effort into removing the arguments and fights from between them so that they won’t hurt each other. All the more so if the people fighting were your own brethren. We see this from the fact the when Moshe Rabbeinu saw two Jews fighting he put in the effort to rebuke them in order to diffuse the argument and fight from between them.

The Ralbag also learns a lesson that it is appropriate for a man of perfection to be emotionally enflamed by acts of violence no matter who it was against, and to put efforts into eliminating them. For this reason the Torah records this story, to show us the emotional charge Moshe had upon witnessing this violence and the power of his bravery in eradicating it, as well as his chivalrous heart. These qualities are what should be permeating a prophet. (Click here fore Hebrew text.)
Rashi speaks about how when Moshe saw the Egyptian taskmaster striking the Jew, he saw that there was no man destined to be descended from the Egyptian who would become a convert, and only then did he kill the Egyptian. This seems to imply that had Moshe seen through Divine Intervention that there would have been a convert in the future coming from this person he would not have killed the Egyptian though Jewish Law allows one to defend someone else from attack by another, even if it means killing the attacker. However, if the victim can be saved without killing anyone, he should try. Presumably here Moshe was the prince of Egypt and could have told the Egyptian to let the Jew go, or at least wounded the Egyptian without killing him. But because he saw that there was no worth to this person and the Jew’s life was being threatened, Moshe chose to kill the Egyptian. (Practically though people nowadays can’t really see into the future about a person’s lineage and cannot make the same type of decision as Moshe did unless he feels there is no other way to save the victim’s life). What the Egyptian did was called an act of violence, but Moshe’s response was not considered an act of violence, rather a show of force. We see from here that a person is allowed to use lethal force to defend others when need be, and to eradicate evil from our midst.

However, the next day Moshe saw two Jews fighting and Rashi, quoting a Medrish Rabbah (1:29) points out that these two Jews were Dasan and Aviram. They were the ones who would save save some of the manna [when they had been forbidden to leave it overnight, as in Shemos 16:19, 20]. They also complained a couple of times that it was better to go back to Egypt then to be in the desert, see Bamidbar 14:4, as well as at the Red Sea before it split. Ultimately, they were also part of the rebellion of Korach and were swallowed up with their families by the earth. The Medrish relates that at this time they were trying to kill each other and though it had not come to blows yet before Moshe stopped and reprimanded them. But as the Medrish, Rashi, and in fact the Ralbag both point out, based on a gemara in Sanhedrin 58b, that even just for the effort, i.e. just raising one’s hand to hit his friend, a person is considered wicked.

Why didn’t Moshe hand over the same fate to at least one of these people as he did the Egyptian taskmaster? He saw they were ready to kill each other, even catching one of them raising his hand to smite the other. If he was able to see into the future that nothing would be coming out of the Egyptian in terms of merit, surely he had the ability to see the trouble that Dasan and Aviram would cause amongst the Jews, or at least see that nothing meritorious would come out of them and their families. In fact, the Gur Aryeh says about Dasan and Aviram that they were proponents of evil, namely they were constantly argumentative. So why didn’t Moshe eliminate the problem from the start when he had the opportunity, as he did with the Egyptian? Then all the problems Dasan and Aviram caused in the desert would never have happened.

We must say that Moshe saw that there was zero hope for this Egyptian, either for him to change his ways or his descendants to be better. However, Dasan and Aviram, as evil as they were, and in fact they were never to change, still in all Moshe felt that because they were part of his kinship, he had the potential to get through to them one day, and it was better just to rebuke them in order to dissipate the fight, rather then to get rid of the threat.

This, the Ralbag proves is a sign of a true prophet, one who can lead his people, who has the strength and drive to defend them against evil but also the heart and will to handle the threats from within with the patience to try to change and arouse them to repent.

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Sefer Chofetz Chaim chapter 7 halacha 3

There are two reasons why you can’t believe slander/lashon hara even if you hear two or more people saying the same thing.

1. Is that if it is said for no good reason then the speakers are bad people and how can you believe what a bad person said verses the person being spoken about who is assumed to be a kosher person.

2. Is that even if what they are saying is to warn others of impending danger that doesn’t give anyone the right to believe what they are saying as truth, only two witnesses in court who are official witnesses are believed unequivocally.

Any other time one can and should only be cautious take the proper precautions to protect yourself and research and investigate the matter to see if it is really true or not.

The Gemara in Pesachim 113b says that a rebbe if he feels he could trust his student as if he is two in order to stay away from someone who is doing inappropriate things according to the student. The Chofetz Chaim explains that this is a special circumstance where the relationship between rabbi and student is so close and trustworthy that this student is like two witnesses testifying in court and is therefore unequivocally believed but in general two people or more are not believed for what they say if it is lashon hara since slander usually leads to, comes with lies or at least leaving out information or exaggerating so in normal circumstances it cannot be believed no matter how many people say it it can only be taken into consideration as a concern, investigated and take proper precautions.

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Torah Riddles Test #163

2.       Question: The Shulchan Aruch (Even HaEzer 6:1) says that if a kohen marries a safek chalutza he does not have to divorce her. Why is she any better than a woman who was only given a divorce paper as a chumra (acting strictly) though there was only a rumor that she was even married to a previous guy who she was arranged to marry, even though it is evident that she was not really married, she is still forbidden now to marry a kohen, one is an actual doubt where there might be rabbinic prohibition but still permitted and the other is totally permissible but is forbidden?!

Background:

a.       A safek chalutza is a woman who is in doubt whether she needs to perform the act of chalitza to her brother-in-law after her husband died and the child she gave birth to died within thirty days of birth so there is a doubt if he would have lived or not.

b.       A kohen cannot marry a divorced woman and is forbidden to a chalutza on a rabbinic level because it looks like a divorce, so when in doubt rabbinically we are lenient, however if nothing really happened and the divorce is just a chumra then certainly a kohen should be able to marry her?!

 Answer: It’s all based on rumors. People will say the kohen married a safek chalutza therefore it is permitted because we are lenient when in doubt. But by the get lichumra people will say she was really married previously and this is actually a real divorce so the kohen should not be marrying her in order not to look like he is doing something wrong. Similarly in the next si’if it says that a girl before the age of 12 who was married off by her mother or siblings because her father died and she annulled her marriage before she was 12, can still marry a kohen when she gets older because people will say she did mi’un not divorce even if he did divorce her and she did mi’un afterwards then people will say she did mi’un and the marriage and divorce never counted.

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Torah Riddles Test #162

1.       Question: Why does the Pnei Yehoshua say that a person who is a mamzer (illegitimate) based on a majority is permitted because he is still only considered a questionable mamzer but though we say that orlah (a tree grown within the past 4 years) outside of Israel is permitted if we are in doubt about how old it is but if there is a majority, we treat the tree as definite orlah?

Background:

a.       The power of majority neither has the ability to make something considered definite nor is it just a doubt in reality since it seems to clarify the matter one way or because the Torah just says we rely on the majority.

b.      The halacha is that only a definite mamzer is forbidden but by orlah the halacha is that anything in doubt is permitted because it is a halacha liMoshe miSinai.

  Answer: By mamzer since the halacha is that a definite mamzer is forbidden and since a majority is not definite, the Pnei Yehoshua holds he is not a definite mamzer and is automatically permitted. But by orlah the halacha is that outside of Israel a doubt is permitted for the halacha liMoshe miSinai says that a doubt is permitted and definite is forbidden, which implies from the language that for the most part orlah in doubt is permissible, therefore since this case is a majority and not a doubt then automatically it is forbidden.

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Sefer Chofetz Chaim chapter 7, halacha 2 continued

Even though there is compelling evidence that the lashon hara heard is definitely true you still can’t decide that it is for sure true without doing you own investigation even if the person being spoken about is right there in the room and stayed quiet. That is no indication whether what is said is true or not. Maybe the person decided it’s better to stay silent then to exacerbate a fight or he thought there is no point speaking up because no one will believe him anyway.

A proof to the ffact that silence is not an admission when it comes to lashon hara is from a halacha in Shulchan Aruch (Even HaEzer 178:9) that if one witness testifies in court that a woman was adulterous and the husband believes him as two witnesses then he should be concerned and divorce because he has a right to make himself forbidden to her. But we don’t absolutely believe this one witness to cause her to lose her kesuba even though a woman proven to be adulterous does lose her kesuba. Also, if he doesn’t trust what the one witness said he doesn’t have to divorce his wife, even if his wife was silent when the claims were laid out against her. Even according to the Maharshal brought down in the Beis Shmuel there who says her silence is an admission that’s only in this case where such a claim deserves an answer if not true since it has such severe repercussions but in general an insult or claim does not have to be answered, in fact the gemara in Chullin 89a says that the world is worth being in existence because of those who are quiet when an argument ensues.

So if a single person who testifies in court of such a serious matter as adultery, which if he is lying he is putting his whole integrity on the line, destroying the life of this woman, and having her husband divorce, and she was quiet but still the Shulchan Aruch says we can’t decisively believe what he said, all the more so anyone else who speaks lashon hara even if he has the Chutzpah to say it in front of the victim that still does not give the listeners a right to believe it. Why should you believe a bad person who does the sin if lashon hara over the assumed kosher status of the one spoken about?! Even if he had a right to speak to warn others of a possible threat still those listening must only be concerned and investigate.

Furthermore, even if the victim being spoken about is a person who always speaks up and defends himself against any attack, like for example someone like President Trump, but this time he is quiet still that is not an indication that what was said was true because there can be any number of reasons of why he was quiet as stated earlier. The Rema (Even HaEzer 2:4) says that if A person was called a mamzer/bastard to his face and was quiet that is not an admission and even if he was called a mamzer/bastard and he defended himself then right afterwards was called a challal/illegitimate kohen and was silent that still isn’t an admission. It makes no difference whether it was claimed in a heated argument or not, and if it wasn’t during an argument then the best people can do is just be suspicious and do research if need like for shidduch purposes, etc.

The Chofetz Chaim concludes in his footnote that all this is obvious but he feels he spell it out so that people won’t people tricked by their yetzer hara/evil inclination to believe any slander no matter how compelling the initial evidence is, without an investigation.

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Vayechi – Ben Porat Yosef

This dvar Torah is dedicated in memory of my rebbe, HaGaon HaRav Avraham ben Tzvi Mordechai Kanarek, zecher tzadik kadosh livracha who passed away this past week on the 14th of Teves. Yehi zichro baruch!

In Vayechi, the last Torah portion of the Book of Breishis, Yaakov gives each of his sons a blessing which, if you read them carefully, you will find that Yaakov really highlighted the unique traits that each brother was born with and developed as he grew up, as well as providing a peek into the future with specific prophecies for each brother.

About Yosef, Yaakov began by saying (Breishis 49:22):

A charming son is Yoseph, a son charming to the eye; [of the] women, [each one] strode along to see him. כבבֵּ֤ן פֹּרָת֙ יוֹסֵ֔ף בֵּ֥ן פֹּרָ֖ת עֲלֵי־עָ֑יִן בָּנ֕וֹת צָֽעֲדָ֖ה עֲלֵי־שֽׁוּר:

The Medrish Rabba, as explained by the Matnas Kehuna, gives an eye opening  depiction behind the beginning of Yaakov’s blessing to Yosef. With a “play on words” of פֹּרָת֙  the Medrish says that this word describes 6 things about Yosef: (1) Yosef broke the brotherly pact he had with his brothers by telling his father bad news about them. (2)  The brothers violated their side of the deal by selling him to Yishmaelim (Arab merchants). (3) Yosef broke away from his master’s wife by not listening to her. (4) She betrayed Yosef by sending him to jail. Rebbe Abin said  that he acquired a great and exulted position through the dreams of the (5) fruit, i.e. grain, and the (6) cows that he interpreted for Pharaoh. About all these things it writes, “And the maidservants… drew near” (Breishis 33:6). This thing He said to him, ‘it is upon Me to pay you for that eye.’ “[Each one] strode along to see him.” It happened that when Yosef went out to rule over Egypt the princesses were staring at him from between the lattices and they threw rings, bracelets, and necklaces at him in order to get him to look up and stare at them, nevertheless, he did not stare at them. Hashem said to Yosef, ‘You did not lift your eyes and stare at them, I swear that I will give your daughters an amount in the Torah, referring to a measure of a parsha. The section that talked about the laws of a daughter inheriting where there is no son was said because of the daughters of Tzelaphchad, the son of Chefer, from the tribe of Yosef. (Click here for Hebrew text.)

The Medrish describes in brief all the trials and tribulations Yosef went through with the quarrels between him and his brothers, ultimately being sold into slavery and then being betrayed by his master’s wife and thrown in jail. He had every excuse to draw attention to himself in order to boost his confidence. Besides, he knew he was good looking as the pasuk and Rashi recounts, “’And Joseph had handsome features’: As soon as Joseph found himself [in the position of] ruler, he began eating and drinking and curling his hair” (Breishis 39:6). Still in all, he did not give in to the temptation of the Egyptian princesses who were trying to entice him to notice them.

But if you think about it, what was the big deal? Yosef was known as Yosef Hatzadik, the righteous one, for overcoming the temptations presented by Potiphar’s wife. He had his father’s face embedded in his mind to do no evil. He remembered all of his father’s teachings and lived by them day in and day out, never forgetting that Hashem runs the world. So what was the big deal about Yosef not looking up when these ladies were trying to get his attention?

We see from here how powerful the drive to be noticed is. The temptation to be seen and acknowledged is so great that even someone on the level of Yosef Hatzadik, could have fallen to temptation and therefore Hashem rewarded him measure for measure for ignoring the attention the princesses were trying to give him instead his great granddaughters got eternal attention from the Torah as a whole section of the Torah was learnt because of them, all in the merit of Yosef staying focused on task and not giving into the temptation of being noticed by the Egyptian princesses.

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Sefer Chofetz Chaim chapter 7 halacha 1 and part of 2

We can’t be duped into believing that lashon hara is believable just because it was said in a group or in front of the victim’s face, or if a person claims he would say it in the victim’s face. This gain of trust is the trick of trust is the trick of the yetzer hara, evil inclination because why should the speaker of lashon hara be more trusted and believed just because it seems like it makes sense since why would he stick out his neck and claim something in a group or in the guy’s face if it is not true, but on the other hand this guy being talked about was assumed to be a good upstanding, trusted character until now so how can we decide he isn’t just based on word of mouth of someone else. Even testimony of one witness in court, which is a stronger reason to trust his word is only believable to cause the litigant to swear for some monetary matters, nothing more than that. You are only allowed to be concerned and investigate the matter there is no reason to believe what is heard no matter how believable it sounds and seems to be until you investigate and know for sure it is true. Even if the person who says it can make an excuse that of course what I am saying must be true because why would I say it to his face or in a crowd, even though that isn’t a good excuse to speak lashon hara but it is certainly not a good excuse to accept lashon hara because the people listening still don’t really know if it is true or not.

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Vayigash – Career of the Righteous


After Yosef revealed himself to his brothers, he brought them down with their father and rest of the family to sojourn in Egypt, specifically in the land of Goshen. “Yosef said to his brothers and to his father’s household, ‘I will go up and tell Pharaoh, and I will say to him, my brothers and my father’s household who were in the land of Canaan have come to me. The men are shepherds, for they were [always] owners of livestock, and their flocks and their cattle and all they have they have brought’” (Breishis 46:31, 32).

Why were the brothers shepherds and why does it seem that many of the major Jewish leaders throughout Tanach were shepherds at some point in time?

Rabbeinu Bachye enlightens us with a fascinating answer. He begins by saying that Yosef was emphasizing that the brothers were shepherds of their own flock so that it would not be misunderstood and thought that they tended others’ sheep, being in the business of investments. That is why Yosef added: “for they were [always] owners of livestock;” to inform everyone that the sheep did not belong to others, but were their own, for they were very wealthy. The reason why the brothers chose this profession, which was also the profession of their forefathers, was twofold:

  1. There was tremendous profit in wool, milk, and offspring. It also doesn’t require a lot of great toil, and is without sin. About this King Shlomo said, “Know well the condition of your flocks; give your attention to the herds” (Mishlei 27:23).
  2. The brothers knew that they and their offspring would be exiled to Egypt and because the Egyptians worshiped the form of a sheep, the brothers therefore took upon this profession so that their descendants would accustom themselves to it and the worshiping of sheep would be foreign to them.

We also find that most of the righteous and prophets were shepherds. We find by Hevel, “Behold Hevel was a shepherd of sheep” (Breishis 4:2). So too Moshe: “And Moshe was a shepherd” (Shemos 3:1). So was the prophet Shmuel, as well as King Shaul, and King Dovid; they were all shepherds. The reason they chose to be shepherds were in order to stay away from populated areas since many sins stem from being among people. For example: lashon hara and rechilus (slander and gossiping), swearing falsely, inappropriate relationships, stealing, and extortion. The more one stays away from people, the easier he escapes the trap of sin. (Click here for Hebrew text.)
It would seem that besides being an easy and affluent job, being a shepherd seems to be an honest job that can keep one out of trouble. The brothers had the impeccable idea and deep insight into human dynamic that by going into this profession they would create a habit inside their family of treating sheep as mere animals that can be controlled and manipulated for business purposes. By accustoming themselves to treating them as their own flock, which is guided by them, it created a sense of reality which made it virtually impossible for their descendants to be lured into the idolatrous tendencies of the Egyptians that viewed sheep as gods.

It would also seem that other righteous people and prophets used this profession to create a habit in order to distance oneself from sin, for it surely wasn’t something that they did their entire lives. For Moshe Rabbeinu, the prophet Shmuel, King Shaul, and King Dovid  weren’t shepherds, away from civilization, their entire lives since each of them was a leader in their generation! It would seem that by just going into this profession, it puts one in a position to avoid all these sins, as it will accustom a person to stay distant from those sins even when they are forced to go into public office and handle a wide array of people. Those years of being a shepherd built up the fortitude and habit in each one of them to appreciate and imbibe the sense to stay away from those sins so that when they came into the public spotlight, they were sensitive to these issues and knew how to act accordingly for the most part.

We see from here how important it is to choose a clean and honest profession because it can make such an impact on a person which will create habits and have ramifications on how he and even his future descendants will act, and G-D forbid the opposite could be true as well, that choosing a dishonest and sleezy profession might have a very negative impact on you and your family.

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Torah Riddles Test #161

2.       Question: Whether it is on a Torah level or Rabbinic level why is it absolutely permitted to nullify a prohibition by accident though on purpose it is forbidden since either way it is inevitable (psik reisha) that it is nullified and a psik reisha is forbidden even if done without intent?

Background:

A.      The issue with nullifying a prohibition is not taking the prohibition seriously.

 Answer: If not taking the prohibition seriously is the problem then if you nullify it by accident then the problem doesn’t apply even if the results are inevitable since the intent was never to make light of the prohibition.

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Torah Riddles Test #160

1.       Question: Why is it forbidden to stoke the coals under the fire of a pot of food that belongs to a non-Jew lest it might have meat and milk mixed in the walls of the pot which you would inadvertently be cooking but you are able to close a chest on Shabbos which might have flies in it and inadvertently trap them on Shabbos which is normally forbidden?

Background:

A.      Rebbe Akiva Aiger on the Rema in Yoreh Deah 87:6 says that though normally doing something without intent is permissible but that’s only if there is a doubt of whether something will go wrong in the future but in this case the doubt of whether there is meat and milk mixed in the walls of the pot is a question of what happened in the past so if the mixture of meat and milk is there then it is inevitable (psik reisha) that a prohibition of cooking meat and milk together would happen.

B.      However, the same holds true for the flies in the chest. If they are there, then it happened already, so it is inevitable that if you lock the chest on Shabbos you will be trapping them, though that is not your intent.

C.      Shabbos requires a meleches machsheves, and act of craftmanship, or thought put into it, in order for it to be prohibited.

Answer: If one does not know whether the flies are really in the chest or not then he is lacking meleches machsheves, so even if it is a psik reisha, inevitable, that if the flies would be there, they would be trapped but since you don’t know if they are there and all you are doing is locking the chest then you really aren’t trapping. But whether you intend to cook milk and meat or not by stoking the coals, it is a psik reisha that forbidden cooking would happen if the prohibition is therefore you can’t do it.