maror: to warrant geulah, we need to first feel bitter about galus

Everything we do on Pesach night is about geulah -- this is the holiday of zman cheiruseinu.  The Sefas Emes quotes an amazing Chiddushei HaRI”M: even eating maror is not just a reminder of the pain galus, but is part of the mechanism that brings geulah.  In order to warrant redemption, a person needs to first feel bitter about being in galus. 

I know it’s hard when you are doing Pesach on the French Riviera, or some other such place, to feel that galus is really a bitter, bitter experience. But it is.  If we don’t think it is, Hashem has ways of reminding us [insert rant about President Husseim y’mach shemo here].

My daughter will IY”H be coming home from Eretz Yisrael next week, but I’m glad she at least had a hava amina of staying and did not take the first flight out once the seminary “zman” ended. In the end, the logistical complications of finding a place for her to spend Pesach in Israel and making arrangements would have been too much to manage, but at least she had to think about it.  Because of that, more than anything else, I consider her year a success.  People ask whether a year in seminary in Eretz Yisrael is really worth the thousands of dollars it costs.  Does it really make that much difference if a girl knows one more Ramban, a piece from Michtav, or another perek or sefer of Nach?  If you ask the question that way, you are missing the whole point of going for the year.  It’s not about learning another Ramban, or if you are a boy, another Tosfos, another R’ Chaim.  The point of going is to learn one thing: to love Eretz Yisrael. 

When a kid gets off the plane in JFK, whether for Pesach, whether in June, and is immediately surrounded by advertisements for all the nahrishkeit available in our society; when a kid comes home and has a choice of six or seven kosher pizza stores, deli, Chinese, and even kosher Mexican (welcome to the Five Towns); when a kid can go to the Yankee game and eat a hot dog like everyone else thanks to having a kosher concession stand, or has to choose whether to spend chol hamoed at Great Adventure or Hershey Park, and af al pi kein that kid gives a sigh because they recognize that nebach, all this is maror, this is galus, none of this compares to what they had while in Eretz Yisrael, can you please tell me how much that is worth, because I can’t put a price on it? 

My daughter spent time this past week shopping for gifts to bring home for her siblings.  She asked me if I wanted anything, so I told her she didn’t have to go far or spend much on my gift.   I asked her to just bring me a stone, any common stone, from the streets of Yerushalayim.  If I can’t be there yet in person, at least I can hold that rock in my hand, my little piece of Yerushalayim real estate, and think about the maror of galus, and dream...

eating maror as a kiyum of the mitzvah of haggadah

The gemara (Pesachim 115) has a machlokes what to do if you only have maror to eat on Peach night – what do you do for karpas?  Rav Huna holds you say “borei pri ha’adamah” on the maror and eat it for karpas and then you say a birchas hamitzvah on it and eat it again for maror.  Rav Chisda disagrees and argues that you can’t eat maror and only later say a birchas hamitzvah over eating the same food you’ve already had your fill of.  Rather, you should say the birchas hamitzvah on maror along with the "borei pri ha’adamah" at the time you eat karpas, and later in the seder eat maror with no bracha.  The sugya ends by paskening like Rav Chisda.

What is the machlokes all about?  You could learn that the debate revolves around the question of whether mitzvos tzrichos kavanah or not.  Rav Huna holds that since mitzvos tzrichos kavanah, even if you eat maror as karpas, it doesn’t matter, because you have no intent at that moment to fulfill the mitzvah of maror.  Later, when you intend to do the mitzvah, you recite the bracha.  Rav Chisda holds that mitzvos ain tzrichos kavanah and therefore whether you intend it or not, when you eat maror as karpas, you fulfill the mitzvah of maror and should say the birchas hamitzvah.

Tosfos rejects this interpretation.  If Rav Chisda’s point was that mitzvos ain tzrichos kavanah, he should have said explicitly that you were yotzei maror already at the time of karpas.  Tosfos writes that the machlokes here is about hilchos brachos – can you separate the birchas hamitzvah of maror from the kiyum mitzvah of maror that will take place later?  Rav Chisda’s chiddush is that even though you won’t fulfill the mitzvah of maror until later in the seder, you can still recite the birchas hamitzvah on maror earlier at the time of eating karpas.  Tosfos draws an analogy: just like we say the bracha on tekiyas shofar on the tekiyos d'meyushav done before musaf even though the main mitzvah is to hear tekiyos al seder habrachos in shmoneh esrei, so too, one can say the bracha on maror when eating karpas even though the mitzvah of maror will only be fulfilled later.

My friend Chaim Markowitz asked: Tosfos' analogy doesn’t match.  When you blow tekiyos d’meyushav before musaf, you are fulfilling the mitzvah of tekiyas shofar – the Chachamim told you to blow those extra tekiyos in order to mix up the satan (R”H 16).  The Chachamim didn’t tell you to eat maror at the time of karpas.  As Tosfos themselves explained, everyone agrees that you are not yotzei maror until you eat it later in the seder.  So why should you be allowed to say a birchas hamitzvah on maror if there is no kiyum hamitzvah at all involved?

The Chazon Ish (#124) already asked this question and has a different approach to the whole sugya because of it.  Let me share with you three possible solutions (of course, there may be more) in what I think is worst to best order:

1) Since Chazal instituted that the mitzvah of shofar should be done al seder habrachos, in the middle of shmoneh esrei, the blowing done before musaf does not count as a kiyum mitzvah of tekiyas shofar.  (In some old posts we discussed the chiddush of the PM”G in the Pesicha haKolleles that when the Chachamim tell you to do a mitzvah d’oraysa a certain way, you forfeit not just that kiyum derabbanan if you do it differently, but you also get no credit on a d’oraysa level.)  It may be a kiyum of this idea of mixing up the satan, but who says you should be reciting a bracha of tekiyas shofar on that?  

2) Even though there is no kiyum mitzvah of maror when you eat your maror for the sake of karpas, the ma’aseh mitzvah you are doing is identical to the ma’aseh mitzvah of achilas maror.  Tosfos perhaps holds that a bracha can be said on a ma’aseh mitzvah even absent a kiyum.

3) My son’s rebbe, R’ Moshe Brown, dug up a Shibolei haLeket (Hil Rosh haShana #302) that basically echoes Tosfos, but adds a few extra words of explanation: “tibul rishon l’tzorech tibul sheni hu l’heikeira d’tinokos d’kol chovas halayla l’mitzvas haggadah hu…”  Why can you say a bracha on maror when you eat karpas?  Because, answers the Shibolei haLeket, karpas serves as a means of arousing the kids curiosity and therefore, like everything else done Pesach night, is part of the mitzvah of haggadah.  How does the fact that karpas is a kiyum of haggdah help explain why it is a kiyum of maror?  It must be, suggests R’ Moshe Brown, that the Shibolei haLeket holds that eating maror itself is part and parcel of the mitzvah of haggadah.  By way of analogy, just like saying hallel (as we discussed yesterday) is not an independent mitzvah, but is part of the mitzvah of sipur yetziyas mitzrayim because the mitzvah is not just to tell the story but also to give thanks, so too, the mitzvah is not just to tell the story, but to do so using certain “props” like matzah and maror.  Since there is a shared kiyum of haggadah common to both karpas and maror, the birchas hamitzvah of maror is not out of place if said over the karpas.   

why are women obligated in the mitzvah of haggadah?

The Chinuch (# 21) writes that the mitzvah of hagadah applies to both men and women.  The Rambam, however, does not have this mitzvah on his list (Hil Aku”m ch 12) of mitzvos that women are obligated in, and the reason why would seem obvious: isn’t sipur yitzias mitzrayim a mitzvas aseh she’hazman gerama?

One possibile answer is that the chiyuv on women to recite the haggadah is really part and parcel of their mitzvah of eating matzah.  The gemara (Pesachim 36) darshens that matzah is called “lechem oni” because “onim alav devarim harbei” – we have to recite things over it to make it into “bread of afflication.”  What things?  Rashi explains that it means we recite hallel and the haggadah (I don’t know why does Rashi mention hallel first and then haggadah when we do it the other way around.)  The point may be valid, but it doesn’t really explain the Chinuch.  If this is what the Chinuch meant, he should mention this detail in the mitzvah of matzah, not include women in the separate mitzvah of haggadah.

Another possibility is that the Chinuch held like the view in Tosfos (Meg 4) that the sevara of “af hein hayu b’oso ha’nes” creates a chiyuv d’oraysa.  However, the dominant view in Tosfos (see also Tos Pesachim 108) and Rishonim is that “af hein” only creates a chiyuv derabbanan.  R’ Baruch Mordechai Ezrachi in his haggadah suggests that this machlokes may depend on how to understand “af hein:” is it a new chiyuv, or does it just remove the ptur of zman gerama?  Any new chiyuv would be derabbanan, but if “af hein” lifts the ptur of zman gerama, then that would mean if the chiyuv on men is d’oraysa, the same would apply to women. 

R’ Wahrman zt”l quotes a very interesting yesod from his rebbe, R’ Leizer Silver.  The source for the exemption of zman gerama is the mitzvah of tefillin.  Perhaps the ptur only applies to mitzvos like tefillin, which we would not know if not for a gezeiras hakasuv, but not to mitzvos sichliyos, mitzvos that we would do anyway because they make sense, even if G-d did not command us to do them.  If it makes sense to do something, what difference does it make if you are a man or a woman, if it is something you should do on one specific day or all year?  (By way of analogy, some Rishonim suggest that a mitzvah sichlis, e.g. tzedaka, does not require a bracha.  You don’t need to thank G-d “asher kidishanau b’mitzvosav v’tzivanu” for commanding you to do something that any moral person would do anyway, even without the commandment.)  The Rambam (Sefer haMitzvos #157) and Chinuch both write that part of the mitzvah of haggadah is to praise and thank Hashem for delivering us from Egypt.  Thanking someone for granting you freedom is an intuitive, rational response – not something that requires a Divine command. 

It’s a big chiddush, no?  Rav Wahrman asks: the gemara (Kid 34) says women are obligated in ma’akah because it is not zman gerama.  Even if it was zman gerama, why would women not be obligated because building a fence so people don’t fall off your roof is a rational thing to do?  I am bothered by the reduction the chiyuv of sipur to one of thanksgiving.  That’s certainly an element of the mitzvah, but is it *the* defining characteristic of the mitzvah?  Something to chew on…

delusions undone

I think it’s been close to four years since I’ve written anything about that world renowned genius Alan Dershowitz. I single him out but simply because he is a well known figure who does not shy away from making his positions known and therefore serves  as a convenient exemplar of the dumbness of the American Jewish liberal political establishment. Let’s revisit a few lines of Professor Dershowitz’s ringing op-ed endorsement of President Hussein y’mach shemo:

“The case for Barack Obama also includes his approach to foreign policy, which has improved the standing of America around the world… With regards to Iran, which poses the most immediate threat to the security of the United States and its allies, most especially Israel, the policy of the Obama administration is crystal clear: It has taken containment off the table and kept the military option on the table… President Obama has clearly stated that he is not bluffing when he says that his administration will never allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons.”

If that wasn’t clear enough, how about this quote from the great Professor: ““Obama will be better for Israel on Iran…”

It’s hard not to laugh at the man as you watch he delusions become undone. Breitbart reports that in his latest speech Dershowitz commented with regard to Obama’s negotiating skill, “I wouldn’t hire this administration to negotiate a one month lease for me.” He now calls Obama “undiplomatic,” “petulant,” “juvenile.” He recently said that Obama “totally misled the American people” by saying Netanyahu offered no new ideas in his speech to Congress. He’s written-op eds in the Wall Street Journal comparing his hero to Chamberlain.

Gee, who could have seen any of this coming?  You need a Harvard PhD to be clever enough to twist your brain into a pretzel and avoid seeing the obvious until it's too late.

transforming "hacheiresh haya libam" into "hachodesh ha'zeh lachem"

Parshas haChodesh, as we’ve discussed in the past, is really more about Pesach than Rosh Chodesh.  In fact, it’s only one pasuk in the whole parsha that speaks about Rosh Chodesh.  The Torah seems to present kiddush hachodesh as a prelude to the mitzvos of Pesach.  Why do these two parshiyos go hand in hand? 

There is a fundamental difference between Shabbos and Rosh Chodesh.  The mitzvah of Shabbos is preceded by “sheishes yamim ta’avod.”  There is a mitzvah of preparing for Shabbos.  Chazal say that only “mi she’tarach b’erev Shabbos yochal b’Shabbos.” Shabbos is the culmination of the cycle of the week.  Not so Rosh Chodesh.  Rosh Chodesh precedes the events that will occur in the upcoming month.  It sets the tone for what is to be, and does not depend on the energy and preparation of prior events.  It is an inauguration, not a conclusion.

Klal Yisrael had known of Shabbos even while in Mitzrayim, but until Pesach, they had not known of the concept of Rosh Chodesh.  They understood that for those who put in spiritual work and effort, G-d delivers rewards.  What Rosh Chodesh taught them is that G-d can deliver the rewards in advance, and the effort can come later.  This is the foundation upon which Pesach rests.  Klal Yisrael had little merit to speak of when they left Egypt; “ta’avdun es haElokim al ha’har hazeh” was an event that would occur in the future.  Nonetheless, G-d promised them deliverance based on what would be.

That’s why, explains the Shem m’Shmuel, the haggadah has a hava amina of “yachol mei’Rosh Chodesh,” that maybe we could do sipur yetzi’as Mitzrayim from Rosh Chodesh.  Rosh Chodesh is the precedent that gives rise to a Chag haPesach.

The gemara (Shabbos 147) tells a story about R’ Elazar ben Arach: there was a place that had great wine and bath houses and the ten tribes that were exiled there were drawn in by the pleasures and vanished.  R’ Elazar ben Arach decided he was going to go to that place and check it out.  After spending some time there, the gemara says that he got an aliyah (maybe it was parshas hachodesh) and instead of reading “hachodesh ha’zeh lachem” he read the words as “hacheiresh haya libam” – their heart was deaf.  The Chachamim davened that his learning should be restored, and learned a lesson that even a talmid chacham should be “goleh l’makom Torah” and not think he can live removed it.

Taken at face value, it’s an incredible story.  This is the same R’ Elazar ben Arach about whom R’ Yochanan ben Zakai said that if all the other Chachamim were placed on one side of a scale and R’ Elazar on the other, he would outweigh them all.  How can this same R’ Elazar ben Arach go so far astray as to not even be able to read a pasuk in chumash correctly?!  From a mussar perspective, I guess you would say that that’s exactly the point – even someone so great can fall to the lowest depths.  But maybe there is more to it than that.

If you’ve ever davened mincha in, for example, a ba’al teshuvah yeshiva, you can find people focusing on every word of davening like it’s Yom Kippur. Meanwhile, the guy who has been davening mincha for the past 30 years knocks off his shmoneh esrei in three minutes flat.  The thrill is gone; the newness, the freshness is gone.  We don’t remember what it’s like to daven for the first time.  R’ Elazar ben Arach could have been one of the biggest Roshei Yeshiva and said shiur on the same cycle of 7 masechtos again and again for decades, but he knew that if that’s what he chose to do, he risked losing that freshness and newness that comes with seeing things the first time.  So he sought out people who could see things for the first time – he went out to the boondocks and started a kiruv movement in a place where there was nothing left of Judaism and where the lure of hedonism drew everyone in.  He went out and lived among people who, when they discovered Judaism, saw it as new and fresh.  R’ Elazar knew that in order to experience “hachodesh hazeh lachem,” hachodesh = chadash, newness, freshness, you need to first have “hacheiresh haya libam.”  Sure, putting himself in that situation was a challenge and a step down from the amazing shiurim R’ Elazar might have been saying, but it ultimately was a step up, because the vitality of those around him would rub off and R’ Elazar himself benefit from that constant rejuvenation.

That’s the upshot of the gemara, explains the Chernobeler in his Ma’or Eynaim.  “Havei goleh l’makom Torah” – you have to sometimes go out, go into galus, go to the boondocks, and there you will find Torah as it should be experienced, as new, as fresh, as filled with vitality.  The truth is that you don’t have to travel too far. There are plenty of souls that are deaf to Torah all around us because no one has come along to open their ears.  The truth is that we each have a little bit of “hacheiresh haya libam” in us, but if we help each other out we can transform it into “hachodesh (=hischadshus) hazeh lachem.”

the individual "adam ki yakriv" inspires the "takrivu es korbanchem" of the many

It seems like only yesterday that I was sitting shiva, yet the reality is that shloshim is ending already. I'm feel somewhat uncomfortable with the idea of a seudah and a siyum to commemorate the date -- it just seems too festive, too celebratory. The Rambam describes aveilus like this:

 

כל מי שלא מתאבל כמו שציוו חכמים, הרי זה אכזרי; אלא יפחד וידאג ויפשפש במעשיו, ויחזור בתשובה. ואחד מבני חבורה שמת, תדאג כל החבורה כולה
 כל שלושה ימים הראשונים, יראה את עצמו כאילו חרב מונחת לו על כתפו; משלושה ועד שבעה, מונחת בקרן זווית; מכאן ואילך, עוברת כנגדו בשוק. כל זה כדי להכין עצמו לחזור, וייעור משינתו, והרי הוא אומר "הכית אותם ולא חלו" (ירמיהו ה,ג), מכלל שצריך להקיץ ולחול

Pretty serious stuff. The Nitei Gavriel (here) quotes a view that even if a siyum is done as a zechus for the niftar, if the aveil did not participate in the learning (let's say the siyum was done right after shiva), the aveil should serve as a waiter (to diminish his simcha) in order to be able to participate in the meal. Yes, that's probably a chumra, but it reflects the mindset of what aveilus is all about.  That being said, l'ma'aseh people do mark the date of shloshim with a seudah, just like many, if not most people these days, celebrate a yahrzeit with food and drink, not by fasting. Introspection and reflection are hard to do; having a sip of schnaps and a piece of cake is so much easier and so much more enjoyable.

Our parsha tells us, "Adam ki yakriv...," speaking of an individual who chooses to offer a korban, yet that same pasuk ends with the words, "takrivu es korbanchen," speaking in the plural tense about those who come to offer korbanos. Why the switch from singular to plural? The Ishbitzer in Mei haShiloach explains that when an individual chooses to make a sacrifice, that act has an impact and makes an impression and causes others to be inspired and follow suit.

The purpose of making a siyum, of saying kaddish, is to show that the sacrifices of a parent, the "adam ki yakriv," inspire a "takrivu es korbanchem" -- children, grandchildren, neighbors, friends learning more mishnayos, davening better, being becoming better people.

Ending shiva or ending shloshim is not about "letting go." Aderaba, it's about showing that the niftar continues to be with us and inspire us. The Kozhiglover, in explaining why chassidim celebrate and do not mourn or fast on a yahrzeit, quotes a Midrash on Ya'akov's words, "Ani ne'esaf el ami": Ya'akov told his children that "im z'chisem lachem - z'chisem b'tazmi," but if not, when I leave this world I will just return to my fathers.  When we do good, it's "b'atzmi z'chisem" -- the spiritual presnce, the "atzmiyus" of that person, is still there with us, expressing itself though the mitzvos and Torah we engage in.  

In giving an accounting of the money and gifts donated to the Mishkan, last week's parsha tells us that there was "dayam v'hoseir," enough plus leftover. The Ohr haChaim famously asks how these two descriptions can simultaneously be true -- if there was enough, it means there wasn't any leftovers; if there was leftovers, then there was more than enough, not "dayam." 

In one of the hespeidim given for my father, the speaker compared life to building a Mishkan. The Torah speaks of "v'shachanti b'socham," inside the people, not inside the building -- we are the Mishkan.  I would like to suggest an answer to the Ohr haChaim's question that fits that context.   An individual is given just enough time in this world to accomplish whatever they are supposed to accomplish -- it's "dayam," no more and no less. But even after the person is gone, there is a "hoseir," there are the leftover memories and thoughts of the person that continue to be with us.

where did Haman get the zechus to have great...grandchildren sitting and learning?

Freilichin post Purim!  While you digest your delicious seudah, here is an amazing Sefas Emes [with a small editorial edition of my own] to take away from the chag with you:

 ונראה כי נס דפּורים הי׳ הכנה לבית שׁני כי הי׳ צריך להיות כח ועוז לבני ישראל וע״י הנס נגבה לבם ויכלו לחזור לבית המקדשׁ וכן אפשׁר שׁיהי׳ לעתיד נס כּזה קודם הגאולה כּמ״שׁ חז״ל מעמיד עליהם מלך כּהמן כו׳ [הנקרא אובּמא] שׁנס זה הכנה לגאולה

We know from the gemara in Gittin that Haman's great-great...grandchildren ended up learning Torah in Bnei Brak.  Where did a guy like Haman such zechuyos from to have descendants sitting and learning?  That's a zechus that many of us would be glad to have in our back pocket!  The Radomsker in Tiferes Shlomo answers that the megillah tells us that after Haman went to the first party with Esther he walked out "sameiach v'tov leiv."  Why does the megillah preserve for prosperity this moment of happiness of that rasha?  Because it was that simcha and "tov leiv" from sitting at the tisch of the tzadekes Esther that generations later led to Haman's kids sitting in the beis medrash and learning.  

Of course it's great if you were able to share chiddushei Torah at the seudah and appreciated the day of Purim as a day of kabbalas haTorah, but even without that, look at what you can get just from walking away from a seudas mitzvah "sameich v'tov leiv."  If we walk out of Purim with just that alone, it's no small thing.

a few quick thoughts

My head is not in blogging right now, but I wanted to throw out a few scattered quick thoughts:

1) I regret not getting around to posting this last week, but better late than never: one of my father’s neighbors has a daughter who needs a refu’ah for issues with her eyes, so they started a project called “Ayin Tovah” in which you pledge to speak only positive things during whatever block of time you take on as a zechus for this individual.  If you are interested in participating, please e-mail me privately. 

2) The gemara (Meg 7) suggests that one can do mishloach manos and matanos l’evyonim in one shot by giving a gift to one person.  Question: why is this not a problem of doing mitzvos chavilos chavilos? 

3) In hil aveilus there are Rishonim who hold that the issue talmud torah applies only on the first day so as to not disrupt the mitzvah of learning for a full week.  Ramban disagrees and says that talmud torah is not suspended – you read kri’as shema every morning and are yotzei talmud torah that way.  Why do the other views argue?  Reviewing mes megillah brought to mind the gemara of “mevatlin talmud torah” for the sake of mikra megillah.  Even though you are reading pesukim, it’s still called “bitul torah” and not learning.  You still need to explain why this should be true – I’m just doing a superficial job of lining up the ducks in a row since I happen to be in both sugyos.  

Why can you not be yotzei talmud torah in aveilus by learning bad things like Iyov or hil aveilus itself?  It could be that the heter of learning devarim ra'im applies only to 9 Av, but in aveilus, where  the issur of talmud torah stems from the pasuk of "ha'aneik dom" and is related to sitting silently, there is no such heter.  Or it could be that the heter to learn devarim ra'im is simply so that you are not sitting and doing nothing, but is not a kiyum of t"t.  (This would relate to the machokes in the Geonim whether you need to recite a birchas haTorah on 9 Av.) 

4) The Yalkut gives a mashal to explain the mitzvah of remembering Amalek: one day the king’s son snuck into the king’s vineyard to steal some grapes and the vicious dog that the king used to guard the vineyard attacked him.  The king wanted his son to remember what he did wrong, but he didn’t want to label him a thief and embarrass him.  Therefore, instead of telling his son to remember that he tried to steal the grapes, the king told his son to remember how the dog attacked him.

The premise of the Midrash seems to be that the Torah does not want to call out the Jewish people and remind them of their errors, so instead it uses remembering Amalek as a trigger.  It’s a nice thought, but we know the premise is not true.  The Torah tells us, “Do not test G-d like you tested him in Massah” (Devarim 6:16).  The Torah in many other places does not hesitate to remind us of mistakes.  So why does the Torah here not address our behavior directly?

The Sefas Emes explains that what the Midrash is teaching us is that the zecher of Amalek remains only because we need it as a reminder.  If not for the fact that the king suspects that his son might steal again there would be no need for that vicious dog.  We need to eliminate the need for reminders.

5) I'm not in the mood to discuss politics, but I can't help but take note of the fact that I'm writing this before what I think will be a historic speech by Netanyahu at a historic moment.  Of course we need to make whatever hishtadlus – political or other means – to deter Iran, but let’s be clear about one thing: Iran does not pose an existential threat to Israel.  Israel will continue to exist because that is the ratzon Hashem.  Let’s not get carried away and lose sight of bitachon.

For the Chuck Schumer’s and Diane Feinstein’s (yes, I know she doesn’t really count) out there and others like them, come or don’t come to the speech, it’s your choice, but at the end of the day, “Mi yodei im l’eis ka’zos higa’at l’malchus?”  Life will go on for us, and “Revach v’hatzalah ya’amod la’yehudim m’makom achier.”  We read the megillah ever year and we are reminded that we've been through this before -- and we always come out on top.

the beauty of the zayis

1. The Midrash opens our parsha by explaining why Hashem chose to call Bnei Yisrael specifically a zayis, an olive, when there are so many other beautiful plants that the Jewish people are compared to in Tanach:

 ואתה תצוה הה"ד (ירמיה יא) זית רענן יפה פרי תואר קרא ה' שמך וכי לא נקראו ישראל אלא כזית הזה בלבד והלא בכל מיני אילנות נאים ומשובחים נקראו ישראל בגפן ותאנה שנאמר (תהלים פ) גפן ממצרים תסיע תאנה שנאמר (הושע ט) כבכורה בתאנה בראשיתה כתמר שנא' (שיר ז) זאת קומתך דמתה לתמר כארז שנא' (תהלים צב) כארז בלבנון ישגה כאגוז שנאמר (שיר ז) אל גנת אגוז ירדתי וקראן בכל מיני שלחים שנאמר (שם ד) שלחיך פרדס רמונים ובא ירמיה לומר זית רענן יפה פרי תואר אלא מה הזית הזה עד שהוא באילנו מגרגרין אותו ואח"כ מורידין אותו מן הזית ונחבט ומשחובטין אותו מעלין אותו לגת ונותנין אותן במטחן ואח"כ טוחנין אותן ואח"כ מקיפין אותן בחבלים ומביאין אבנים ואח"כ נותנין את שומנן כך ישראל באין עובדי כוכבים וחובטין אותם ממקום למקום וחובשים אותן וכופתין אותם בקולרין ומקיפין אותן טרטיוטין ואח"כ עושין תשובה והקב"ה עונה להם מנין שנא' (שמות ב) ויאנחו בני ישראל וכן (דברים ד) בצר לך ומצאוך כי אל רחום ה' אלהיך הוי זית רענן יפה פרי תואר

Just as the zayis is pounded and crushed and beaten until it finally produces a drop of precious oil, so too, Bnei Yisrael are sometimes beaten and oppressed by our enemies until we finally cry out a precious cry to G-d and he answers us.

How does that answer the question?  Why not compare us to the grape or the fig or some other fruit that doesn’t require pounding and beating to bring out its beauty? 

The Sefas Emes (5639) explains that it’s no chiddush to say you are wonderful and beautiful when everything is perfect and life and smooth.  What Chazal are telling us is that even when we need a little pounding, even when Hashem is forced to bring suffering on us, when we are not looking so good, it doesn’t mean he loves us any less or wants to hurt us.  Even when we are being punished, that punishment is like the crushing of the zayis – it removes the outer chaff and reveals the wonderful oil that is stored inside (see this previous post for a different approach).

2. There is an interesting Midrash in the middle of the parsha that says that when Hashem told Moshe, “V’atah hakreiv eilecha es Aharon achicha v’es banav…” Moshe was angry and upset.  Hashem consoled him by noting that Moshe was the one who delivered the Torah to Klal Yisrael and therefore has that merit.

Is it possible that Moshe was jealous of Aharon being selected instead of him?  The same Moshe Rabeinu who pleaded with G-d to select Aharon to be the go’el of Klal Yisrael instead of him?

There are a bunch of meforshim who all take basically the same approach, but I’m going to use a Ksav Sofer because he puts the answer in the context of a vort from his father the Chasam Sofer that at least for me, given the events I’ve been dealing with, had a little more meaning.  The Navi (Melachim I 2:1-3) writes that when David haMelech grew old and was about to die, he commanded his son saying as follows:

וַיִּקְרְבוּ יְמֵי דָוִד לָמוּת וַיְצַו אֶת שְׁלֹמֹה בְנוֹ לֵאמֹר
אָנֹכִי הֹלֵךְ בְּדֶרֶךְ כָּל הָאָרֶץ וְחָזַקְתָּ וְהָיִיתָ לְאִישׁ:
He then goes on with additional instructions about being a mentch and keeping Torah, etc.  There is one phrase that doesn’t fit.  “Anochi holeich b’derech kol ha’aretz” is not, as the rest of what David goes on to say is, an exhortation to Shlomo to do anything.  It’s a description of David’s condition, a recognition that he is about to die.  Shouldn’t it therefore come before the word, “Vayitzav…,” before David starts giving Shlomo a final charge?

The Chasam Sofer answers that once a person passes on, they are no longer a “holeich.”  Their situation is static – they cannot “go” anywhere.  They are spiritually fixed in place.  But there is an exception.  If a person has decedents who take inspiration from his life and therefore dedicate themselves to doing more mitzvos and learn Torah, that person’s spiritual “stock” (so to speak) continues to rise even after death -- they continue to be a "holeich."  David exhorted Shlomo to first and foremost make him a “holeich,”make him someone who will continue to grow and not remain static after death.

When Moshe heard that not only Aharon, but also his children as well, were called to be kohanim, he was jealous of that spiritual legacy that Aharon would be able to pass on to his children.  Moshe Rabeinu did not have children who were like him, but he desired to be a "holeich" even after death as well.  Hashem consoled Moshe with the observation that he, Moshe, gave us Torah, and through our learning, we, all of Klal Yisrael, not just Moshe’s children, in effect carry on his legacy. 

on the loss of my father

No matter how stupid anything I write here is, I could always count on the fact that I would have at least one reader – my father.  I could say the same about life in general.  Even when I did something stupid, even if he disagreed with me, even when he might have been critical, my father said his piece but was always there for me to rely on.  Unfortunately, last Monday on 27 Shevat my father passed away.

I started my hesped last week with an anecdote, thinking that even if I choke up and don’t make it through the whole thing, this one story alone would be enough to sum up my father: last Sunday I was out somewhere with my wife and kids, and on the way back one of my girls wanted to stop and go shopping.  Now, my wife and I regard shopping with teenagers as a form of torture, so we went home instead. After we got home, my daughter resumed pleading her case, and this time she played her trump card – “Grandpa takes me shopping.”   What my daughter did not take into account was that there is nothing that my father would not do, no place he would not go, no errand he would not run, no matter how time consuming, boring, or burdensome – even going shopping with teenage girls – if it was for the sake of his grandchildren.  Grandpa was willing to endure what even a parent would not.  My brother mentioned that one of his kids once called home to say that she was getting out of school two periods earlier than usual and she knew she would be told to sit and wait for the bus, so she was just calling to let them know that she called Grandpa first and he was already on the way to get her.  There are many such examples I could go on and write about.

And as I learned during shiva, it wasn’t even just his own grandchildren that my father did these things for.  There was the neighbor’s twins who don’t have grandparents that he took out for ice cream every year on their birthday.   There was another neighbor’s son that he took to a baseball game.  And again, there are many similar stories we heard that I could relate.

My father was born in 1933.  Like so many others in his time, his education consisted of public school and a smattering of Hebrew school classes afterwards.  He attended college only to get an Associate’s degree, and then he went out and joined the workforce to make a living.  He for years worked in someone else’s business, only later in life owning a share and managing it on his own.  Yet my father made sure that his own children did attend yeshiva, even if he had to struggle very hard to make tuition payments and scrimp and save to do it.  He made sure that I was able to go to college, graduate school, learn for smicha and in kollel.  He pushed for Marine Park Jewish Center to move beyond being the typical “traditional” synagogue that once was so common in America and become a place that the new orthodox families in his neighborhood would feel comfortable attending – and today that shul is bursting with mispallelim.    He worked with my brother and helped him when he started his own business at a very young age.   “Ashrei mi she’ba l’kan v’talmudo b’yado” – my father may not have been able to learn up a blatt gemara, but he had “talmudo b’yado,” a life of actions and good works that helped better his family, his neighbors, and his community.

There is more that could be said and should be said, but the past week has been very difficult, and it will take some time to get back into the swing of things.  I just wanted to share the news with those who may not have heard. 

civil law and the source of human rights

1) Why does the Torah place open its discussion of civil law with the idea of eved ivri?  Why not talk about theft, propertly law, shomrim, etc,. all of which seem more common and more basic to establishing a just society than the laws of someone sold into slavery as a result of not being able to pay his debts?  And then there is the term “eved ivri” itself: Rashi already notes that it’s a confusing phrase – does it mean a slave (even non-Jewish) owned by a Jewish master, or does it mean the slave himself is Jewish?  Rashi has to connect the pasuk of “ki tikneh eved ivri” to another pasuk in Devarim of “ki yimacheir lecha achicha ha’ivri” to clarify and derive that it is in fact talking about a slave who is Jewish.  I was studying Chumash (a different parsha) with my youngest daughter a week or so ago and she asked a great question: if the Torah means what Rashi says, why doesn’t the Torah itself say so clearly?  We could ask the same question here: why does the Torah opt for the longer, more ambiguous phrase of “eved ivri” that requires a peirush Rashi to unravel instead of just simply saying “ivri,” which is both shorter and leaves no doubt that it means someone who is Jewish?  Lastly, the introduction of “ki tikneh eved ivri,” “When you acquire a Jewish slave…” seems unnecessary.  We are not discussing the laws of kinyanim here; we are discussing when and how the slave goes free.  The fact that the slave had to have been bought seems redundant and irrelevant to the main point of the parsha.  Why does the Torah bother to mention it?

When we hear the word “slavery” we immediately think of whippings, discrimination, perhaps even torture.  But this is not the concept of slavery the Torah speaks about in our parsha.  I would bet that if people went through the laws of avadim they might even find that they would be willing to trade their jobs with the job of being an eved because of the protections and security built into the system.  Why is the Torah’s concept of slavery so different than the concept we think of?  “Ki li Bnei Yisrael avadim” – Hashem has declared that we are his servants.  A Jew is not hefker.  We are responsible to Hashem, but by the same token, Hashem as our master looks after our interests as well. The Alshich explains that this is the meaning behind the phrase “eved ivri.”  Torah tells the potential slave master up front that when he buys a slave, what he is buying is an someone who already is indentured, someone who is already an “eved” and belongs to a Higher authority than their own.  There are limits to what can be done to the Jewish slave because ownership is not absolute – it must answer to a prior claim, to the real “owner” of every ivri, namely G-d.  Without that extra phrase “eved,” the entire moral thrust of the parsha is missing. 

It’s this concept of “ki li Bnei Yisrael avadim” which is the backbone for the entire parsha of Mishpatim and therefore serves as its first chapter.  Just this past week a news anchor declared that “our rights do not come from G-d,” something that would have been news to the founding fathers of the USA.  More importantly for us, it is a mistake the reveals the chasm between the Torah’s idea of rights, which do stem from G-d, from “ki li Bnei Yisrael avadim,” and the idea of rights in other cultures and societies. 

2) In an earlier post I wrote that the eved ivri is pierced only if he chooses to stay on with his master and not at the time that he chooses to sell himself because at the time he made the choice to become an eved he may not have known what he is getting himself into.  If after experiencing avdus he still hasn’t learned the lesson, then he deserves to be punished.  The Sefas Emes raises an objection: shouldn’t the choice to remain an eved be a less serious offense considering that the eved has gotten used to the situation and become habituated to it?  “Ahavti es adoni v’es ishti v’es banay…”  For better or worse, the slave is comfortable where he is and doesn’t welcome change. 

The answer is that it’s this habituation to being a slave that is exactly what we are punishing!  To say that one is comfortable being an eved only proves how low and degraded the individual has allowed himself to become. 

3) Let me end off with something about shekalim.  I don’t think there is a charity in the world that would turn away donations, yet that’s exactly what the Torah seems to suggest: “he’ashir lo yarbeh v’ha’dal lo yamit,” the rich can’t give more than a half a shekel and the poor can’t give less.  Shouldn’t the person who wants to give be encouraged, not turned away?

Some organizations send letters where you can just check a box to confirm the amount you want to give.  What’s interesting is the scale of the donations you can choose from on these letters: you have your organizations where the lowest amount is something like $18, but then you have the organizations where the lowest amount is $100 and it goes up exponentially from there.  It’s either a deliberate ploy to try to get a higher amount or it just doesn’t occur to them that some people may not have $100 to plunk down.  In either case, when you get that letter, you feel what’s the point of checking the box that says “other” and sending in your $18 – that’s clearly not what they are interested in.  The same idea holds true for shekalim. Imagine if when the shekalim were collected the first gut stepped forward with a huge  sack of money, the next guy has an even bigger sack, and then along comes a guy like me with a half shekel – I would just turn around and go home.  Why bother when clearly it’s the big rollers who are managing the whole show?  So the Torah says there is one box to check here: half a shekel.  Everyone can pitch in equally.

But what about the guy who is so motivated, who wants to give more?  The Sefas Emes says a brilliant answer: that individual is giving, and what he is giving is worth more than his dollars – he is giving others the opportunity to have a share and participate. He is giving part of “his” mitzvah to the tzibur so that everyone can have a chance.  That’s no less a form of generosity than writing a bigger check, and sometimes it's an even harder mitzvah to do.

is there a makeup if you miss reading parshas shekalim?

What’s the din if b’dieved a tzibur was not able to read parshas shekalim on the appropriate Shabbos – can they do a makeup next Shabbos or some other time? 

At first glance one would think that the 4 parshiyos are just like the special readings done on any Yom Tov. If, for example, you don’t do the correct Torah reading on the first day of Pesach, you can’t make it up the week after Pesach. So too, if you miss reading shekalim on the appropriate week, there is no makeup.

R’ Akiva Eiger paskens this way, but the Eishel Avraham and Maharam Shi”k disagree. The gemara (Meg 29b) compares the takanah to read shekalim to the din of learning hilchos yom tov 30 days before a chag. Since the new shekalim had to be brought by Rosh Chodesh Nisan, the reading was done 30 days earlier to give people advance notice to prepare. Obviously if you don’t start learning hilchos Yom Tov exactly 30 days before a chag, that doesn’t mean you should give up – aderaba, start the next day or as soon as possible (Shu”T Maharam Shi”K 365).

It sounds like the machlokes revolves around the classic issue of whether the reason behind a takanah impacts the din’s parameters. According to R’ Akiva Eiger, there was a takanah to read shekalim on a specific shabbos – the reason behind the takanah does not change anything. According to the Maharam Shi”k, we take the reason into account.

If you want to go a step further, perhaps the Maharam Shi”k would say that if indeed the reading of shekalim belonged on the list of takanos of special Torah readings for special days, then R’ Akiva Eiger would be right. But it doesn’t belong on that list. The takanah is not a din in kri’as haTorah – it’s simply a reminder. It’s the equivalent of the gabai giving a klap on the bimah and yelling out “Don’t forget whatever.” There is no halachic structure called “give a klap on the bimah,” so Chazal used the structure of kri’as haTorah instead to accomplish the same goal. The gemara’s comparison to the din of learning hilchos hachag before Yom Tov is not just a superficial analogy to make the point of when shekalim should be read -- it's telling us that the two halachos are fundametally similar.  Just like learning hilchos ha'chag is just a means of getting us in the mindset for Yom Tov, so too, reading shekalim is just a means to an end, a utilitarian reminder.  Not so the kri'ah on Yom Tov, which is an expression of and helps establish the underlying kedushas hayom (for more on that, see this post).

why the eved is punished only after the fact

Our parsha teaches us that if an eved ivri chooses to remain with his master instead of seizing the opportunity to go free at the end of his servitude, his ear is pierced as a punishment and he remains enslaved until yoveil.  Why pierce the ear?  Rashi quotes from Chazal that the ear that heard on Sinai that ‘Bnei Yisrael are servants [only] to me [G-d]’ and ignored that message and took a human master deserves to be punished with piercing.    

Everyone asks: if that’s the reason for piercing the ear, shouldn’t it be done when the individual first gets himself sold into slavery?  Why wait until the sentence is over and he chooses to opt for an extension?

R’ Shmuel Ya’akov Rubenstein in his sefer She’eiris Menachem answers that when a slave is first sold, he may not realize what he is getting himself into.  The full force of what slavery means may hit a person only after he experiences it, after he tastes what life is like under else’s thumb, and after he has suffered a bit.  If after all that the person still prefers slavery to living as a free man, then the Torah says this person deserves the punishment of piercing.  

The Shem m’Shmuel explains that the eved ivri suffers from delusional thinking.  He comes to his master and claims that he prefers to remain enslaved because he loves his wife and his children, “ahavti es ishti v’es banay…”  He does not realize that “his” wife and “his” children are merely chattel, property of his master.  He entered slavery perhaps not realizing fully what he was getting into, and after spending time as slave he is no wiser to his circumstance than he was before. 

A person sometimes cannot be blamed for making a wrong decision.  The full import of choices are sometimes realized and felt only after the fact.  But a person can be blamed for ignoring reality and not learning from his circumstances. 

where's the outrage?

I could do multiple posts a day every day for reasons to be disgusted with President Hussein and the Democrat party, but there are other blogs to read for that (not that the Republicans are much better…) Killing of Jews by an Islamic terrorist is now just some random act of violence (link)? This takes the cake. But what is more disturbing than President Hussein, from whom I do not expect better, is the lack of reaction to any of what is going on by many of our communal organizations. Where’s the outrage? Where are the marches? Where are the full page-ads? Where are the rallies and sit-in? The laissez faire attitude of American Jewry is incredible.  

Here is the reality we face: Iran is going to get the ability to make a nuclear bomb because this President has no interest in stopping them (link). The EU is going to pressure Israel to pull back to pre-1967 borders (link). European Jewry is under attack (link) and vanishing (link).

I think back to the 30,000 or so Jews who gathered in the streets of NY to say tehillin (read: protest) not because of all of the above – no! They gathered to say tehillim because yeshiva students would have to register for the draft in order to defend our country, our State of Israel (link). This is the only thing that is worth staging a protest for, worth gathering in the streets to be noticed when davening for?! I give up – I have no clue what most of the folks in our community are thinking. 

It is absolutely depressing.  People such as myself have very little power to do anything. I don’t run an organization, I don’t have funds to get the word out, I don’t have political power of influence. I wonder if the little I can do actually makes any difference, but even if it's just a blog post, even if it's just an e-mail to a Senator, it's better than doing nothing. 

One thing we can do that I know does make a difference is to daven -- daven that Hashem overlooks our own stupidity and shortcomings and gives us the help that we may not deserve, but that we sorely need.

a seudah on the first Yom Kippur?

The Torah introduces the parsha relating Yisro’s suggestion to appoint judges by telling us that the episode occurred, “mi’macharas…,” (18:13) “It was on the day after….”  The obvious question: the day after what?  Had you asked me, I would have said it means the day after the immediately preceding episode of Yisro coming, offering korbanos, and sharing a meal with Moshe, Aharon, and the elders.  The Mechilta, however, comments that “mi’macharas” means the day after Yom Kippur. It could be that there is no contradiction between the Mechilta and the simple pshat – it could be that the day after Yiso’s arrival also happened to be the day after Yom Kippur.  Ramban, however, rejects that possibility out of hand.  If “mi’macharas” means the day after the seudah, it cannot also be the day after Yom Kippur, because that would mean the seudah was eaten on Yom Kippur!

Ramban put’s it like this:

  כי לא אכלו ביום הכפורים, אם היה להם יום הכפורים בשנה ראשונה קודם שנצטוו בו

The Ramban’s language seems to give away a weakness in his argument that Maharal picks up on.  What does the Ramban mean when he says they could not have eaten *if* there was a Yom Kippur?  Apparently there is room for doubt, or room to argue that there was not a Yom Kippur in the year that Yisro came.  We only find the commandment of how to celebrate Yom Kippur later, in Parshas Acharei Mos.  Maybe Yom Kippur was not celebrated until the second year in the desert, after the construction and dedication of the Mishkan, but not that first year when Yisro came.  Perhaps in that first year it was still permissible to eat on Yom Kippur.

The Maharal understood that Ramban was using the word “if” as a hypothetical, like the word “if” in this sentence: if you had studied for your test, you would have gotten a better grade.  But the word “if” can also be used as a conditional statement, like in this sentence: you can’t have desert if you don’t finish your food.  The Taz in Divrei David suggests that this is what the Ramban meant – the day of Yom Kippur is conditional on fasting.  You can’t have a Yom Kippur and eat your cake too.  The Ramban was not implying the possibility that Yom Kippur was not celebrated – he was saying that it would be impossible to have a Yom Kippur absent fasting.

The Taz is telling us a chiddush: the kedushas ha’yom of Yom Kippur goes hand in hand with it being a day of fasting.  In other words, fasting is not just something you do on Yom Kippur -- fasting is part of the definition of the day of Yom Kippur.  To use the term Yom Kippur, as the Mechilta does, to describe a day in which a festive seudah was eaten, is an oxymoron.  (What about a choleh who must eat on Yom Kippur – do other aspects of the same kedushas hayom remain intact or is the whole kedushas hayom diminished in some way?  Something to think about…)

There is another reason Ramban might find the Maharal’s position unpersuasive.  Ramban in many places (see the notes in the Chavel edition for a list) holds that regardless of where a mitzvah appears in the text of Torah, the command to observe that mitzvah was been given at Sinai.  The fact that Yom Kippur is first described in Parshas Acharei Mos does not mean that before that point in time there was no mitzvas ha’yom of Yom Kippur.  Rashi offers a different reason for not reading “mi’macharas” as the day after Yisro shared a seudah with Moshe and Aharon, so it could very well be that Rashi does not accept this position of the Ramban.  Something to look into…

breaking boundaries

According to some views (see Ramban), the parsha of Yisro’s coming to join Klal Yisrael is out of place.  Chronologically, the story took place after mattan Torah, yet it appears here in Parshas Yisro before mattan Torah.  Why? 

The Ishbitzer in Mei haShiloach explains that this parsha is an introduction to what Torah is all about.  Yisro worshipped every avodah zarah in the world -- he was a priest to avodah zarah!  And still, Yisro was drawn to Torah.  There is no tumah that is so strong that it can prevent a kabbalas haTorah if a person wants to receive it.

Those last words are key -- a person has to want to make a kabbalah.  The gemara says that when Moshe went up to get the Torah the angels put up a protest and did not want Torah to be given to mankind.  Hashem told Moshe that he should answer them.  The Maharal (Derush al haTorah) asks why Hashem told Moshe to answer the angels – why didn’t Hashem himself intervene and give them an answer?  After all, it was Hashem who decided that he was going to give his Torah to the Jewish people!  The Maharal answers (and this is a good vort to keep in mind for Shavuos) that G-d’s giving the Torah to mankind instead of angels is predicated on mankind wanting the Torah.  The desire for Torah has to come from within us and be expressed by us – it has to be our answer, not something G-d can thrust upon us.

According to one view in Chazal it was hearing about the splitting of Yam Suf that drew Yisro to Klal Yisrael.  What was it about this event in particular that caught Yisro’s attention?  The Beis Ya’akov explains that kri’as Yam Suf revealed something significant.  Hashem created the world with boundaries.  We read in Parshas Braishis how Hashem divided the land from the sea so that the oceans stay in their place and the land exists in its place.  There are boundaries as well between people and between nations.  Klal Yisrael is distinct from the rest of the world and has a relationship with Hashem like no other people.  Kri’as Yam Suf revealed that those boundaries are not absolute -- what was once a sea can become dry land.  If so, reasoned Yisro, the boundary between himself – an outsider, a foreigner -- and Klal Yisrael could be overcome as well. 

This same message is also reflected in the other view that holds that Yisro came because he heard about the battle with Amalek.  As we discussed last week, when Moshe lifted his hands and caused Bnei Yisrael to look up in tefillah, the tide of battle turned in their favor.  Picture the two armies of Bnei Yisrael and Amalek deadlocked in battle, each bound by the limits of their own efforts and own strength.  Suddenly, the people see Moshe’s hands raised, they turn to Hashem, and they break through the enemy lines.  The boundaries that had been there before, whether the boundaries of the enemy lines, whether the limits of their own ability, were no more. Again, boundaries are not absolute.  With enough will and enough tefilah, they can be broken.

I didn’t see it in the Beis Ya’akov (I didn’t go through all the pieces), but perhaps this is why the Torah prefaces mattan Torah with the story of Yisro. What greater boundary exists than the boundary between heaven and earth?  This was the angels complaint – how could a heavenly Torah be sent down to earth?  And irony of ironies, the parsha of mattan Torah itself stresses that the people had to remain in the boundaries set aside for them, distant from the mountain, to obey the mitzvah of hagbalah.  We therefore need to first read about kri’as Yam Suf, the battle with Amalek, the coming of Yisro, to appreciate that not all boundaries are absolute – moral Moshe can go up to shamayim, Hashem can come down to har Sinai, and human beings, with all our frailties, can receive a Torah as well.

kafah aleihem har k'gigis: is a coerced agreement valid?

Chazal tell us that Hashem held Har Sinai over the heads of Klal Yisrael to force them to accept the Torah or else…  It sounds like they were strong-armed into the agreement. 

Is an agreement arrived at through coercion valid?  The gemara in Baba Basra has a rule that “talu’hu v’zavin – zvini zevini,” that if a person is coerced into making a sale, the sale is considered valid.  The reason people sell things is because they need cash – every sale is to some degree something the seller would prefer not to do, but which he must do.  Coercion is just an explicit form of pressure instead of the usual implicit form.

The Ba’al haIttur, however, holds that while someone can be forced to sell, he/she cannot be forced to buy (see Rama C.M. 205:12).  Bnei Yisrael were in effect buyers of the Torah, not sellers.  They were being forced to agree to accept something, not to give something away.  So what good was their coerced agreement?

Lots of answers, but I won't spoil the fun of working it out yourself.

Parshas Beshlach: "machoh emcheh es ZEICHER Amalek" or "ZECHER Amalek"?

I don't know about you, but in my part of the world the ba'al koreh read the pasuk at the end of Beshalach as "machoeh emcheh es zeicher Amalek..." with a tzeirei under the letter zayin, and not "zecher Amalek" with a segol under the zayin. I've leined this parsha myself a number of times and have done the same thing. Yet, in many of not most shuls, when parshas zachor is read, the ba'al korei reads "timcheh as zeicher Amalek" with a tzeiri and then rereads the same phrase again as "zecher Amalek" with a segol to cover both possibilities. Why don't we do that here?

My initial thought was that the only reason we bother to read it both ways for parshas zachor is because the reading of zachor is a din d'oraysa, so we want to cover all our bases. For the regular kri'as haTorah of Shabbos which is “only” a din derabbanan, we don't worry if we are off a little bit. If this sevara is correct, then were one were to rely on the MG"A to be yotzei zachor by hearing the kri'ah on Purim morning that comes from the pesukim at the end of Beshalach, then perhaps one should read zeicher/zecher in that context both ways. I've never heard anyone do so.

I found a different explanation in the back of the Mahari"l Diskin al haTorah. The Mahari"l quotes the minhag brought in the name of the GR"A (which we will get back to shortly) to read the word in Parshas Ki Teitzei as "zecher" with a segol, and wonders why no one reads it that way here in Beshalach. He suggests that the word "zecher" with a segol has a stronger connotation and implies that men, women, children, and even animals of Amalek must be killed. The word "zeicher," with a tzeirei, has a weaker connotation and does not make that implication clear.  In Parshas Ki Teizeti where the Torah is commanding us what to do with Amalek, we spell out clearly the full parameters of the mitzvah, which is to destroy the “zecher” (with a segol) of Amalek, every remnant of them. In Beshalach where the Tora is speaking about what G-d will do to Amalek, "machoh emcheh...," even if the implication is not 100% clear, k'lapei shemaya galya anyway what will happen to them.

A few issues: 1) I don’t know a source for there being a difference in meaning (or at least implication/emphasis) between saying zecher and zeicher (this could just be my own ignorance); 2) In Ma’aseh Rav #28 it is brought down that the GR”A read the pasuk in Ashrei as zecher (with a segol), which suggests that he read ever z-ch-reish word with a segol, including the pasuk at the end of Beshalach; 3) R’ Chaim Volozhiner claimed that he heard the GR”A lein parshas zachor (it is brought down in Ma’aseh Rav that the GR”A would get the aliya and read the parsha himself) and heard the GR”A say zeicher (with a tzeireh).  If this is correct, the whole premis behind the Maharil’s observation is moot.    

Adding up the Ma’aseh Rav, the Mahari”l Diskin, what R’ Chaim Volozhiner reported, it seems that we have different traditions as to what the GR”A said and why he did or didn’t change his reading in different places.  How do we make sense of all this?  In the footnotes to the new edition of Ma’aseh Rav there is  brilliant chiddush suggested by R’ Meshulam Roth that I am going to put together with a GR”A in Kol Eliyahu:

Why was Moshe told specifically in connection with Amalek “sim b’oznei Yehoshua?”  Since Moshe had to write the parsha, “..ksov zos zikaron ba’sefer,” wouldn’t that have been enough for Yehoshua to get the message?

The GR”A quotes the gemara (Baba Basra 21) that tells us that when David sent Yoav to do battle with Amalek, Yoav killed all the males and reported back, “Mission accomplished.”  David was not happy and told Yoav he had only done half the job.  He told Yoav she should have killed everyone -- why did do only half the job?  Yoav answered that when he was in school, his teacher taught him that the pasuk reads “timcheh es zachar Amalek,” to blot out the males of Amalek, and so he did.  What a mistake that teacher made!  David corrected Yoav and explained that the pasuk is “timcheh es zeicher Amalek” and everyone must be killed. 

Explains the GR”A, this is why the Torah stresses “sim b’oznei Yehoshua,” to, literally translated, “put the [parsha] in Yehoshua’s ear.”  Since the Torah has no vowels, without an oral tradition, who knows if the word is zachar (like Yoav misread it) or zeicher?  Yehoshua had to hear the words, otherwise he wouldn’t know how to fulfill the mitzvah.

Now for the fancy part.  When you have a word that has a double kamatz and you put it b’smichut to make a conjunction with another word, the double kamatz changes to a double segol.  Take the word “ashan.”  If you want to say “smoke of the furnace,” you say “k’eshen hakivshan,” with a double segol, not “k’ashan”.  Yoav’s rebbe was not a simpleton who made an obvious error and read “zeicher” as “zachar.”  Do you think the rebbe never hear kri’as haTorah or parshas zachor?  The mistake was that he heard the ba’al koreh read “zecher” Amalek with a double-segol, instead of “zeicher” with a tzeireh!  The rebbe assumed that “zecher Amalek” is b’smichut, and therefore it’s like eshen and ashan, so zecher=zachar, and the mitzvah is to kill only the males.

Based on this, we can explain both mesoros of what the GR”A did, albeit exactly the opposite of how the Mahari”l Diskin thought the GR”A read the parshiyos.  When the GR”A read parshas zachor, he read “zeicher” with a tzeireh – not like Yoav’s rebbe’s mistaken reading.  This fits with R’ Chaim Volozhiner report of what the GR”A did.  However, when the GR”A read the pesukim at the end of Beshalach, where the Torah is reporting, not commanding us what to do, he read it as “zecher,” with a segol. 

You can nitpick at the loose ends that remain: 1) we still have the Ma’aseh Rav #28 that suggests that the GR”A read everything as zecher and not zeicher; and 2) “Ksov zos zikaron b’sefer v’sim b’oznei Yehoshua” seems to be referring to the parsha of Beshalach, not the pesukim at the end of Ki Teitzeih.  Also, based on this there is no reason to reread the word  at the end of Ki Teitzeh as “zecher” just to be yotzei the GR”A. 

Despite the loose ends, the chiddush gave me a lot of oneg Shabbos.  For those reading this, it’s like leftover cholent on Wednesday, but it’s the best I can do.