THE OHR SOMAYACH TORAH MAGAZINE ON THE INTERNET • WWW.OHR.EDU SHABBAT PARSHAT VAYECHI • 14 TEVET 5776 - DEC. 26, 2015 • VOL. 23 NO. 12 PARSHA INSIGHTS THE MORAL OF THE TALE O H“G-d spoke Rto Yisrael in visionsN of the night…” (46:2E) T s every amateur sleuth knows, 221B Baker Street created the world. is the London address of the world’s greatest The Torah is the “grandchildren”. The world is the detective, Sherlock Holmes. “photograph”. The Torah is the Moral. The world is the AWhen Conan Doyle wrote the Holmes stories there Parable. was no 221 Baker Street. Addresses in Baker Street did On one level this was the ideological battle between not go that high. Baker Street was later extended, and in the Greeks and the Jews that we commemorate on the 1932 the Abbey National Building Society moved into festival of Chanukah. The Greeks believed that “Truth is premises at 219–229 Baker Street. The thousands of let - Beauty, Beauty Truth,” as John Keats put it. In other ters addressed to the Conan Doyle’s fantasy now found words, the Moral and the Parable are interchangeable. their way to the desk of a full-time secretary employed to The Jew says that what is true is beautiful, but what is answer them. In 1990 a blue plaque was put up to signify beautiful may not necessarily be true. The Parable only 221B Baker Street as the home of Sherlock Holmes. has value to the extent that is serves the Moral. If the And typically, when a soap-opera hero is “killed off” Parable serves nothing but itself it inevitably leads to deca - and written out of a TV series, the relatives of the still- dence and moral decay. very-much-alive actor who played the hero receive thou - Drive down an avenue in any major city and you’ll see sands of letters of condolence. how successful the Greeks were: An eight story-high bill - We live in a world where the parable has become the board with a male model with carefully crafted biceps moral of the tale. Or as it’s called in Hebrew — the bulging from a designer T-shirt. Eight stories of T-shirt. mashal has become the nimshal . The wellspring of the art of Greece comes from a In Pirkei Avot, Rabbi Yehuda says that someone walk - verse in the Torah: “May G-d broaden Yafet, but he will ing along the road whose mind is focused on learning dwell in the tents of Shem.” Thus it was that Noach Torah, and who willinglly breaks off from his learning to blessed Yafet, his eldest son. However, the blessing of remark on a beautiful tree or a beautiful field, is consid - beauty comes with a condition: that Yafet will “dwell in ered guilty of a capital offense. the tents of Shem.” What is so terrible about enjoying the natural beauty of Yafet comes from the same root in Hebrew as yaffe, the world that it merits such a drastic response? “beauty.” Yafet’s fourth son was Yavan . Yavan is the Let’s understand this with a parable: Hebrew name for Greece. The Jewish People are the Imagine two Jewish grandmothers sitting in the park, descendants of Shem. Shem mean “name.” In the Holy watching their grandchildren playing in front of them on Tongue the name of something defines its essence. In all the grass. One says to the other, “Sadie. K’neine hora , other languages a name is conventional but does not your grandchildren are gorgeous!” Says the other, “That’s define essence. In the Holy Tongue the name of some - nothing — you should see the photographs!” thing expresses its essence, its connection to its spiritual The Zohar teaches that G-d looked into the Torah and root. Yafet, Beauty, Art — the ultimate Parable — finds its Continued on page nine www. ohr.edu 1 TALMUD Tips ADVICE FOR LIFE Based on the Talmudic Sages found in the seven pages of the Talmud studied each week in the Daf Yomi cycle GITTIN 16 - 22 “A get may be written on anything: on an olive leaf; on the horn of a cow, and then he must give her the cow (for the divorce to be valid)…” This teaching in the mishna does not mention that he must give his wife the entire olive tree, despite it teaching immedi - ately afterwards that he must give her the entire cow, even though he wrote the get only on its horn. This seems to imply that he wrote the get on the leaf after it was detached from the tree, and not while it was still connected, which is consistent with the Rashi’s commentary. One reason offered by the commentaries is that the get must be written on an object that is fit to be given to her “from hand to hand”. The basis for this is in understanding the wording of the verse in the Torah that mandates the procedure for divorce: “and he writes for her a bill of divorce and places it into her hand” (Devarim 24”). This wording implies that the get be an object that can be transferred from his hand to her hand, excluding a tree that is con - nected to the ground. (See the notes of the Rashash who suggests this explanation, and then proceeds to question it on the basis of other teachings, leaving the topic open for further study.) • Gittin 19a Shmuel said. “If a man gave his wife a blank paper for divorce, she is divorced — since he may have written the get on the paper with (an ‘invisible ink’) called mei millin.” The gemara challenges this halachic statement of Shmuel from a tosefta that teaches that the get must have writing on it for it to be valid. The answer provided by the gemara on behalf of Shmuel is that the “blank” paper was in fact checked with a certain substance (called maya d’nara) , and the text of the get appeared. (This substance is a type of dye that is put on the paper and causes the “invisible” letters that were written and absorbed into the paper to now come to the surface and appear to the eye — Rashi. Tosefot cites Rabbeinu Chananel and the Aruch as teaching that this substance is made from the peel of a pomegranate.) Even if the text appears in this manner, asks the gemara , it was not apparent when the get was given to the wife — so why should Shmuel say she is indeed divorced? The gemara clarifies and concludes that Shmuel really meant that she is in a state called “doubtfully divorced”, and may not marry a kohen . The doubt is regarding how well the letters written there were absorbed into the paper, and, depending on this factor, whether or not to consider it a kosher get . This halacha is cod - ified in Shulchan Aruch Even Ha’ezer 135:4. Tosefot adds a novel twist. According to this conclusion that the divorce is only doubtful, this doubt exists even if the paper was not checked with the “litmus test”. We still have a concern that he wrote the get with an ink that was absorbed into the paper. However, Tosefot adds, if the paper is indeed checked and no text is found, it can clearly be concluded that the get is not valid beyond any shadow of a doubt. • Gittin 19b Selections from classical Torah sources which express the special LOVE OF THE LAND relationship between the People of Israel and Eretz Yisrael NECHEMIAH ’S WALL emnants of a wall dating back to the time of This part of the two and a half millennia-old wall Nechemiah have apparently been discovered in an is located outside Sha’ar Ha’ashpatot (Dung Gate) archeological dig in Jerusalem’s ancient City of David. and the Old City walls facing the Mount of Olives. RIn the Book of Nechemiah (6:16) it is recorded that Based on rich pottery found during a dig under a pre - this wall around the city to which Jews had returned viously uncovered tower, which had hitherto been from Babylonian captivity was completed in only 52 assumed to date back to the Hasmonean period, it is days despite the threats of hostile neighbors who had now assumed that the tower was part of the wall built occupied the area around Jerusalem. centuries before by Nechemiah. www. 2 ohr.edu PARSHA Q&A ? 1. Why is kindness towards the dead called “ chesed shel 10. What privileges did Reuven lose due to his rash actions? emet ” — kindness of truth? 11. What congregation from Yaakov’s offspring did Yaakov 2. Give three reasons Yaakov didn’t want to be buried in not want to be associated with? Egypt. 12. What did Yehuda do after he heard Yaakov rebuke 3. How do you treat a “fox in his time” (i.e., a commoner Reuven, Shimon and Levi? Why? who rules)? 13. What does milk do to teeth? 4. “When I was coming from Padan, Rachel died on me... I 14. Why is Yissachar like a “strong-boned donkey”? buried her there on the way to Efrat...” Why did Yaakov 15. With what resource did both Yaakov and Moshe bless say all this to Yosef? Asher? 5. Initially, why was Yaakov unable to bless Efraim and 16. In Yosef’s blessing Yaakov said, “They embittered Menashe? him...” Who are “they”? 6. What does pillalti mean? 17. Which descendants of Binyamin “will divide the spoils in 7. What does “ Shechem ” mean as used in this week’s par - the evening”? sha? (two answers) 18.