בס״ד TORAH WEEKLYParshat Matot-Massei 8 - 14 July, 2018 PROHIBITED Suddenly the silence was begins with relating how a 25 Tammuz - 2 Av, 5778 broken. The kitchen door flew person will take a vow forbid- VS. open and a panic stricken chef ding himself from indulging Torah : ran into the room shouting, in a particular activity or Numbers 30:2 - 36:13 UNNECESSARY “Stop! Stop! Don’t eat the partaking of a specific food or Rabbi Shmuel Mun- stew!” Pausing for a second beverage. kis, a well known follower Haftorah: to catch his breath he explai- When a person feels of the first Rebbe of Chabad, Jeremiah 2:4 - 28; 4:1-2 ned, “There’s been a terrible he needs a safeguard, he was a Torah scholar and mixup and it’s non-kosher senses that his involvement in THREE WEEKS chassidic giant, and was well meat!” a given activity is becoming STUDY MATERIAL respected in the community. Bursting into tears, too difficult to control, he Please us or ask At the same time he had a he buried his face in his puts up a system of checks your Rabbi or Chaplain very playful and witty side to hands and cried out, “oh, how and balances that encourage to contact us for study him that made him even more will I ever be able to repent restraint. By declaring a parti- material relating to the beloved to those who knew for causing others to eat cular food or activity forbid- building of the Holy him. non-kosher meat?!” den, he all but ensures that he Temple, studied in the At one particular And then they told him the will not indulge in it. three weeks (July 1 – event, attended by many great good news. Anyone who has ever 21). and scholarly people, each Later on, one of developed a negative habit pious and wise in his own FAMILY Rabbi Shmuel’s colleagues knows that, “once you pop, right, several of the attendees PROGRAMS approached him with the que- you can’t stop.” Ask an ex-al- shared words of Torah and Do you have stion to which everyone was coholic if he can have just one words of inspiration with the family on the outside itching to know the answer. drink, or ask a person who assembled. who are struggling, How did he know? What did quit smoking if he can have Then all eyes turned please contact or have Reb Shmuel see that nobo- just one cigarette. They’ll tell toward a server who carried them contact our office dy else picked up on, that you that it’s virtually impos- in a large pot of meat stew. to learn more about our enabled him to save everyone sible. The only way, is to stay The aroma was mouthwate- family programs. You from inadvertantly sinning? away. ring. and they are not alone, Reb Shmuel explained that Theoretically, a per- Jumping up from his we are here to help. when he felt a strong craving son can have always control seat, Rabbi Shmuel starting GRAPE JUICE & for that particular dish, he himself, but practically spea- to sing and dance loudly. He MATZAH knew something was wrong. king, safeguards help. danced from his place and Aleph offers free He had trained himself over But simply avoiding snatched the stew from the Grape Juice and Matzoh many years not to get excited is not a solution. Why does hands of the server. for you to be able to over petty, mundane things a person become obsessed Still singing, he make the blessings every such as food. with a particular activity danced around and around the Shabbos. Please have When he noticed that to the extent that he cannot room. “Nu? Nu??” the others your chaplain / Rabbi the rest of the room was expe- control himself? Because he shouted, “what is the meaning contact us to enroll, it is riencing the same cravings all feels a need for happiness and of this!?” available to all prisons. doubts were erased. That food satisfaction that he hopes that Without paying them ALEPH INSTITUTE was no good. “It was only the particular activity will any attention, Rabbi Shmuel Hyman & Martha Rogal logical that the evil inclina- provide. He continues perfor- danced over to the open win- Center tion inside each one of us ming that activity in the hope dow and, to everyone’s shock, 5804 Beacon Street would work that hard to make of receiving that satisfaction. tossed the stew right out. Pittsburgh, PA 15217 us excited over this is if there Eventually, it becomes a Stunned silence filled the 412-421-0111 was something halachically habit. Once he has developed room. The people scratched Fax: 412-521-5948 wrong with it.” And indeed the habit, it is hard to overco- their heads in bewilderment. www.alephne.org there was. me it. What was he thinking? [email protected] Our Torah reading The true solution is to have an alternate source of satisfaction. Indeed, Torah Perhaps each day brings something new, a new tradition provides such a resource. By truly understand and hurdle, a new challenge, but ultimately we should always taking to heart the relationship which every Jew has with stay focused on the goal. We should always keep our eyes God, he derives satisfaction and pleasure from his spiritual on what we are trying to achieve, without allowing our activities. Truly feeling needed and necessary in God’s surroundings and the influences of societle norms to move world will give him that “high,” that feeling of satisfaction. us in the wrong direction. When his spiritual activity fills him with energy and vitali- This life is a long journey out of our own personal ty, that will become his focus and then he will be able to re- “Egypts.” Let us remain steadfast until we reach the promi- gard material things from an elevated perspective. He need sed Land, with the coming of our righteous redeemer. May not reject the material, nor will he be over-excited about it. he arrive speedily in our days. He will be able to see it with the proper perspective and use By Rabbi Nissan Aizek it for G-d’s purposes and not his own indulgence. In Jewish History LOST IN FIRST CLASS Wednesday, 28 Tammuz, 5778 - July 11, 2018 A well known Torah scholar had a childhood friend Passing of “Yismach Moshe” (1841) who strayed from the path of Torah and Mitzvot. He atten- Tammuz 28 is the yahrzeit of Rabbi Moshe ded college, earned his degree and went on to live a very Teitelbaum (1759-1841) of Uhely, Hungary, author of comfortable life. Yismach Moshe and patriarch of the Hungarian Chassidic Once, while visiting his friend, the businessman dynasties. quipped with a sigh, “you really should have joined me in Passing of Rabbi Shlomo Ganzfried (1886) college. With your intelligence, you’d be a master by now Rabbi Shlomo Ganzfried (1804-1886) was born and living a much fancier life...” in Uzhhorod (Ungvar) in the Carpathian region of the The wise scholar smiled silently. At the end of Habsburg Empire (now Ukraine). When he was eight the visit, he accompanied his guest to the train station. As years old, Shlomo’s father, Rabbi Yosef, passed way, and the man was about to board his train home, the rabbi said, Ungvar’s chief rabbi, Rabbi Tzvi Hirsh Heller, assumed “Wait a minute, why don’t you take that other train across legal guardianship of Shlomo. In 1830, he abandoned the platform? It’s much nicer...” his work as a wine merchant and accepted the position His friend explained patiently that the other train of Rabbi of Brezovica (Brezevitz). In 1849, he returned was traveling in the wrong direction. to Ungvar to serve as a rabbinical judge. Realizing that “Yes,” replied that rabbi, “but it’s much nicer.” All the average Jew required a basic knowledge of practical at once, the man understood what his friend was insinua- halachah, Rabbi Ganzfried compiled the Kitzur Shulchan ting. The message penetrated his heart and soul, and he Aruch, an abbreviated digest of Jewish law. To this day, slowly began rediscovering his eternal bond with God and the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch remains a classic halachic His Torah. work, and it has been translated into many languages. The opening verse of this week’s Torah Portion re- In addition to the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, he au- ads, “these are the journeys of the Children of Israel, which thored many works including Kesset HaSofer, a halachic they journeyed out of Egypt...” Now, if the forty nine stops primer for scribes, and Pnei Shlomo, a commentary on which the Jewish people made in the desert are to be consi- the Talmud. dered forty nine separate journeys, only one of them would Thursday, 29 Tammuz, 5778 - July 12, 2018 really be the one with which they left Egypt - the first one! Passing of Rashi (1105) Why are all of the journeys called “leaving Egypt?” Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, known as “Rashi”, Our sages draw a wonderful lesson from this. The Hebrew passed away on the 29th of Tammuz of the year 4865 word for Egypt, Mitzrayim, stems from the same root word from creation (1105 CE). as the word for constraints, Maytzarim. Whenever Torah Rashi was born in Troyes, France, in 1040. discusses the exodus from Egypt, metaphorically it also His commentaries on the Torah, Prophets and Talmud referrs to an exodus from our personal limitations and are universally accepted as the most basic tool for the shortcomings.