She'elat Etgar

Question Imagine it's Erev Pesach. The house is clean. The shopping is done. The food is cooked. Biur chametz was last night. Everything is completely ready for the seder to start tonight. Suddenly, Abba comes running in to the main room. He dashes to the large case of wine - the special wine he bought to do the mitzvah of the 4 kosos - and scoops it up as he heads for the door. You watch as Abba runs out the door with all the wine in his arms. When he gets to the street, he puts the wine down and screams out "This wine is hefker! Anyone who wants should come and take!" Moments later, almost as quickly as he brought it out, Abba snatches the box of wine back up and runs inside with it. He puts it back on the shelf and continues with his day as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Why did Abba bring the wine out in the first place? Why did he snatch it back up and bring it back in? What was the plan if someone had taken the wine when he offered it for anyone who wa...

Question What were Bnei Yisroel allowed to do when we first entered Eretz Yisroel, but not after we finished settling it? Answer  Korbanos. Or more specifically, voluntary extra korbanos (נדרים ונדבות). Hashem commanded us several times throughout the chumash to only bring korbanos in the Beis Hamikdash. Think about that for a second. Has that always been true? What about the korbanos the Avos brought?  Or the korbanos Noach brought after the mabul? What about the korbanos Kayin and Hevel brought? Originally, Hashem allowed us to bring korbanos anywhere we wanted by building a temporary mizbeach called a "bamah" (במה). We were allowed to build bamos anywhere and offer korbanos to Hashem right there! When Hashem commanded us to build the Mishkan, he changed all of that. לא תעשון ככל אשר אנחנו עשים פה היום איש כל הישר בעיניו ... והיה המקום אשר יבחר ד' אלקיכם בו לשכן שמו שם שמה תביאו את כל אשר אנכי מצוה אתכם עולתיכם וזבחיכם You shall not do the same as we do here today, ever...

Question What does Moshe Rabeinu say Hashem expects from us and famously call "not a big deal"? Is it actually a big deal? Answer This question is perhaps one of the most essential questions for a thinking Yehudi to ask himself. In fact, the entire sefer Mesilas Yesharim is based on this single question! יסוד החסידות ושורש העבודה התמימה היא שיתברר ויתאמת אצל האדם מה חובתו בעולמו ולמה צריך שישים מבטו ומגמתו בכל אשר הוא עמל בו כל ימי חייו The foundation of chasidus and the root of complete service is to for a person to clarify and make real for himself what his duty is in the world and what he must set his sights and his goal in all of his labors all the days of his life Mesilas yesharim, Perek 1 A Yehudi must  ask himself "why am I here?" "What's my responsibility in this world and how can I fulfill it?" The mesilas yesharim quotes an answer from right here in our parsha  ועתה ישראל מה ד' אלוקיך שאל מעמך כי אם  ליראה  את ד' אלקיך  ללכת  בכל דרכי...

Question There are only two brachos that we're required to say d'oraysa. What are they? Which one is mentioned in the parsha?  Answer The answer is actually in the bracha itself  ואכלת ושבעת וברכת את ד' אלוקיך על הארץ הטובה אשר נתן לך And you will eat, and be satisfied, and you will bless Hashem your Gd for the good land which he has given you Devarim 8:10 In other words, when you eat, thank Hashem for the yummy food. That's the core of benching. So why is it so long? Why are there so many parts? Let's talk about the four brochos first. Chaza"l taught us the pasuk that teaches us to bench mentions a total of three amazing kindnesses Hashem did for us Providing us food and drink (ואכלת ושבעת) Giving us Eretz Yisroel (על הארץ) Giving us Yerushalayim and the Beis Hamikdash (הטוב) These kindnesses are all obviously important if Hashem went out of his way to mention them in the pasuk. Chaza"l dedicated an entire bracha to each one so we can have a chance to ref...

Question What words from the parsha do we say in davening every day? What's the meaning of those words? Why did Chazal fix those specific words into that tefilah?  Answer There's actually  a lot  of possible answers you could pick for this question. A lot of our daily tefillos come from the drashos Moshe Rabeinu said in Sefer Devarim. He gave us a lot of powerful musar and reminders about how to best serve Hashem. Chaza"l drew heavily from Moshe's words as they crafted our tefillos. You could have chosen shema. You have chosen ואתם הדבקים בד' אלוקיכם חיים כולכם היום. You could have chosen the words of the chacham from the Hagaddah. But the answer we're looking for is the words we say in עלינו וידעת היום והשבות אל לבבך כי ד' הוא האלוקים בשמיים ממעל ועל הארץ מתחת אין עוד מלבדו And you shall know today and you shall place it upon your heart that Hashem is Gd, in the Heavens above and on the Earth below, there is nothing apart from Him  Devarim 4:39 Moshe tells...

Question Who does Moshe Rabeinu call a "goy" in the parsha? Answer The answer might surprise you, but Moshe Rabeinu calls  us , klal yisroel, "goy" in the parsha! כי מי גוי גדול אשר לו אלקים קרבים אליו כד' אלקינו בכל קראנו אליו For who is a great goy  that has Gd close to him like Hashem our Gd is close to us whenever we call to him? Devarim 4:7 Why would Moshe Rabeinu call the Jewish nation goyim? The answer - because  goy  doesn't actually mean non Jew. In lashon hakodesh, the word "goy" means "nation". In wasn't until the times of the tenaim that the word started to exclusively refer to non Jews.       

Question  Moshe Rabeinu says B'nei Yisroel were "in the wilderness" (במדבר) when he spoke to them at the beginning of the parsha, but they were actually in the Plains of Moav (בערבות מואב). Why did Moshe say they were "in the wilderness" if they actually weren't? Why didn't Moshe just say what he meant? Answer Moshe wanted to remind B'nei Yisroel about the many times we had strayed from Hashem as a way to encourage us not to stray again. The words "in the wilderness" (במדבר) refer to how we complained that Hashem was going to starve us when we were in the wilderness. We didn't have emunah and bitachon that Hashem could feed the entire nation in the wilderness. If that was the message, why didn't Moshe just say so? Out of kavod for B'nei Yisroel. Moshe wanted to give us tochacha for our mistakes without embarassing us.

Question  What's the connection between "מודה אני" and Tisha b'Av? Answer The simple answer is that the words רבה אמונתך appear in מגילת איכה (ג:כג). The real question is, why? Why do we include words from איכה in our opening tefilah every morning? Let's start by understanding the words רבה אמונתך in איכה. Yirmiyahu spends the majority of איכה describing the terrible things that befell the nation before and after the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash. But, there's a strangely positive moment in the middle of the sefer. Starting in ג:כב Yirmiyahu says the words חסדי ד' כי לא תמנו כי לא כלו רחמיו. חדשים לבקרים רבה אמונתך. חלקי ד' אמרה נפשי על-כן אוחיל לו. It is the kindness of Hashem that we have not perished, for his mercy has not ended. It (Hashem's mercy) is new every morning, it is great faithfulness. My soul says "My portion is Hashem," and so I will rely upon Him. Megilas Eichah, 3:22  Yirmiyahu is referring to a seemingly paradoxical...