Shaaalooommm sweeeetest friends!!!!!
A huuuuuuge mazel tov to Eitan Ross and Dana Galeid on their engagement!!!
May they merit to build a beautiful home that reflects all of the holy values they treasure so much and that will bring so much goodness to the world.
This Dvar Torah should be li-lui nishmas Rav Hutner ztz"l, Rosh Yeshivas Chaim Berlin whose yahrtzeit is RIGHT NOW. He changed my life forever. See here, here, here, and here. [Just a sample but there is so much more].
L'rfuas my beloved friends R' Yehoshua Meir ben Rochel Soroh and Eliyahu Aharon ben Yocheved Yuta Etel.
Li-zchus my most beloved friend Moshe Yehuda ben Pesha Dina!! Only brachos forever!!!
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Sometimes you read the parsha and you can think "Is this current events or did this happen 5,000 years ago?" The answer is BOTH.
The wife of Potiphar tries to seduce Yosef. He resists her and as Shakespere might have said "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned" and she accuses him of rape and he is jailed. His explanation as to why he can't be with her is
וַיְמָאֵ֓ן | וַיֹּ֨אמֶר֙ אֶל־אֵ֣שֶׁת אֲדֹנָ֔יו הֵ֣ן אֲדֹנִ֔י לֹֽא־יָדַ֥ע אִתִּ֖י מַה־בַּבָּ֑יִת וְכֹ֥ל אֲשֶׁר־יֶשׁ־ל֖וֹ נָתַ֥ן בְּיָדִֽי:
אֵינֶ֨נּוּ גָד֜וֹל בַּבַּ֣יִת הַזֶּה֘ מִמֶּ֒נִּי֒ וְלֹֽא־חָשַׂ֤ךְ מִמֶּ֨נִּי֙ מְא֔וּמָה כִּ֥י אִם־אוֹתָ֖ךְ בַּֽאֲשֶׁ֣ר אַתְּ־אִשְׁתּ֑וֹ וְאֵ֨יךְ אֶֽעֱשֶׂ֜ה הָֽרָעָ֤ה הַגְּדֹלָה֙ הַזֹּ֔את וְחָטָ֖אתִי לֵֽאלֹהִֽים:
"But he refused, and he said to his master's wife, "Behold, with me my master knows nothing about anything in the house, and all he has he has given into my hand. In this house, there is no one greater than I, and he has not withheld anything from me except you, insofar as you are his wife. Now how can I commit this great evil, and sin against God?"
This is odd. He starts by talking about his gratitude to his master and that it would be a gross act of ingratitude against him to sleep with his wife. Then, in a classic non-sequiter, he concludes וחטאתי לאלקים - and sin to G-d. His whole point was seemingly that that he is sinning against his master, a humanistic rationale that even a denier of spirituality and Jewish-centered Divine truths could understand. He was speaking to the wife of Potiphar in a way that would convince her without using Jewish-religious arguments. So why does he end by throwing the "it's a sin against Hashem", the "frum" argument? Like, use that one in Yeshiva but not in Ancient Egypt, known as ערות הארץ - the nakedness of the land [since supplanted by Western culture where one can't even watch the news with seeing and hearing about some nakedness].
Here is a big lesson, for בימים ההם בזמן הזה: Everything we do in life must be designed in order to get close to Hashem and with Him in the center. We are not humanists. Humanist ethics are contrived and change every time the wind blows or every time Trump tweets. If there is no G-d in the conversation then ultimately people will do whatever they want. As one recent book says so powerfully:
“What Hitler did not believe and what Stalin did not believe and what Mao did not believe and what the SS did not believe and what the Gestapo did not believe and what the NKVD did not believe and what the commissars, functionaries, swaggering executioners, Nazi doctors, Communist Party theoreticians, intellectuals, Brown Shirts, Black Shirts, gauleiters, and a thousand party hacks did not believe was that God was watching what they were doing. And as far as we can tell, very few of those carrying out the horrors of the twentieth century worried overmuch that God was watching what they were doing either. That is, after all, the meaning of a secular society".
Yosef was saying, that not only is this a disgusting thing to do to my master, but more than that - it is a sin against G-D!!!! If it is just a matter of betraying his master, then maybe we can argue. But it is a matter of betraying HASHEM!!! That is where we draw the line. When one's yetzer hara is in full force, then master-shmaster. Who cares. Do what feels good. Lets the cards fall where they may. But there is a G-D!!!!
IF people would be cognizant of this reality and lived according to it - then most of our society's ills would be healed.
Chanukah, which is at our doorstep [pun-intended], commemorates a cultural war. The Greeks decreed that we write on the horn of an ox [which used to be used as a baby bottle] אין לכם חלק באלקי ישראל - You have no portion in the G-d of Israel. Learn Torah if you want. Be an ethical personality - but without being part of G-d. אין לנו חלק באלקי ישראל. And teach that to your kids, too! People until this day pride themselves on being secular intellectuals with a strong sense of morals. But without G-d there is no true wisdom. ראשית חכמה יראת השם - The beginning of wisdom is fear of G-d. Secular morality lasts only as long as the temptations aren't too strong. When they are - "Bye bye morals. Hello flesh!
May we merit to live with Hashem's presence as part of everything we do and all of our decisions!!!
Have a delicious Shabbos
Love
Me:-)
