Who benefits from a mitzvah?

Hi,

"The benefit of mitzvot is not for Gd, but for people themselves, to avert harm or bad belief or a bad trait, or to remember miracles and wonders of Gd and to know Gd."

(Ramban to Devarim 22:6)

חג אורים שמח,
Mordechai

How did they live so long? Part 2

Hi,

Another explanation for the long lives of the biblical males from Adam to Abraham:

"The reason for their long lives was that Adam the First, creation of Gd, was formed with the greatest perfection in beauty, strength and size. Even after it was decreed that he would be mortal, his nature was to live a long time. When the Flood came over the land, the atmosphere was ruined for them and their lifespans shrank. Until then their lives were that long, some of them living even longer than Adam lived…"

(Ramban to Bereishit 5:4)

המצפה לישועה,

Mordechai

The right to eat animals

Hi,

"Moving, living spirits have a soul of some degree, in which regard they resemble thinking spirits. They can make choices to help themselves and to feed themselves, and they flee from pain and death… When they sinned, and all flesh warped its path on earth, it was decreed that the animals should die in the flood. For Noach's sake some of them were saved to maintain their species, and so Gd gave humanity permission to slaughter and eat animals; the animals were only maintained for Noach's sake."

(Ramban, Commentary to Bereishit 1:29)

Have a great day,

Mordechai

Why start with "I took you out of Egypt"? Part 2

Hi,

"And it said, 'I took you out of the land of Egypt,' for taking them out demonstrated His existence and His will, for we left there with Divine knowledge and supervision. It also demonstrated that the world is new, for were the world eternal, none of its nature could change. It also demonstrated Divine power, which in turn demonstrated the uniqueness of Gd, as Shemot 9:14 says, 'So that you will know that there is none like Me in the entire land.'

"And this is the reason for 'I took you out of the land of Egypt,' for they know and are witnesses to all of this."

ואמר אשר הוצאתיך מארץ מצרים, כי הוצאתם משם תורה על המציאות ועל החפץ, כי בידיעה ובהשגחה ממנו יצאנו משם. וגם תורה על החדוש, כי עם קדמות העולם לא ישתנה דבר מטבעו. ותורה על היכולת, והיכולת תורה על הייחוד, כמו שאמר (לעיל ט:יד) בעבור תדע כי אין כמוני בכל הארץ. וזה טעם אשר הוצאתיך, כי הם היודעים ועדים בכל אלה:

(Ramban to Shemot 20:2)

Have a great day,

Mordechai

Don't forget Sinai!

Hi,

"Before the Torah mentions the commandments stated [at Sinai], it prohibits us from forgetting anything of that gathering, from removing it from our hearts forever. It commands us to inform our children, generation to generation, of all that we saw and heard there.

"The benefit of this mitzvah is very great. Were the words of Torah to come to us from Moshe's mouth alone, then even though his prophecy was verified via signs and wonders, still, if a prophet or dreamer would arise and instruct us the opposite of the Torah, providing signs and wonders, doubt would enter people's hearts. However, when Torah reaches our ears from the mouth of Gd, and our eyes see without intermediary, we can counter any who would disagree or challenge, and give him the lie."

והנה קודם שיזכיר הדברות שנאמרו שם, הזהיר במצות לא תעשה שלא נשכח דבר מן המעמד ההוא ולא נסירהו מלבנו לעולם, וצוה במצות עשה שנודיע בו לכל זרענו מדור לדור כל מה שהיה שם בראיה ובשמיעה.

והתועלת במצוה הזאת גדולה מאד, שאם היו דברי התורה באים אלינו מפי משה בלבד, אף על פי שנבואתו נתאמתה באותות ובמופתים אם יקום בקרבנו נביא או חולם חלום ויצונו בהפך מן התורה ונתן אלינו אות או מופת יכנס ספק בלב האנשים. אבל כשתגיע אלינו התורה מפי הגבורה לאזנינו ועינינו הרואות אין שם אמצעי, נכחיש כל חולק וכל מספק, ונשקר אותו. 

(Ramban to Devarim 4:9)

Have a great day,

Mordechai

Yaakov and the Angel: A hint to the future

Hi,

"The entire event hinted to the generations of his descendants. There would be a generation among Yaakov's seed over whom Esav would triumph to the point of crushing their seed. There was such a generation in the days of the sages of the mishnah, like that of Rabbi Yehudah ben Bava and his peers… and there would be other generations when they would act thus to us, and even worse. We have suffered all of it, and it has passed over us, as is hinted in, 'And Yaakov emerged, complete.'"

המאורע כלו רמז לדורותיו שיהיה דור בזרעו של יעקב יתגבר עשו עליהם עד שיהיה קרוב לקעקע ביצתן, והיה זה דור אחד בימי חכמי המשנה כדור של רבי יהודה בן בבא וחביריו... ויש דורות אחרים שעשו עמנו כזה ויותר רע מזה, והכל סבלנו ועבר עלינו, כמו שרמז ויבא יעקב שלם:

(Ramban to Bereishit 32:26)

Have a great day,
Mordechai

Human authority

Hi,

"Gd gave them [Adam and Chavah] power and sovereignty over the land to do as they wished to the beasts, creeping creatures and those that crawl in the dust, to build, to uproot that which is planted, to mine copper from the hills, and so on."

נתן להם כח וממשלה בארץ לעשות כרצונם בבהמות ובשרצים וכל זוחלי עפר, ולבנות, ולעקור נטוע, ומהרריה לחצוב נחשת, וכיו' בזה. 

(Ramban to Bereishit 1:28)

Have a great day,

Mordechai

Complete trust in Gd

Hi,

"The meaning of 'You shall be complete with HaShem your Gd' is that we are to dedicate our hearts to Gd alone, and to trust that Gd alone engineers all and knows the truth of all future events. From Gd alone we should seek the future, from His prophets or from His pious ones, meaning the urim v'tumim."

וטעם "תמים תהיה עם ד' אלקיך" שנייחד לבבנו אליו לבדו, ונאמין שהוא לבדו עושה כל והוא היודע אמתת כל עתיד, וממנו לבדו נדרוש העתידות, מנביאיו או מאנשי חסידיו רצוני לומר אורים ותומים. 

(Ramban to Devarim 38:13)

Have a great day,
Mordechai

Instruction: It's our job, apparently

Hi,

"'Instruct your peer (Vayikra 19:17)' – This is another mitzvah, to teach him ethical instruction, 'and you shall not bear sin for him,' for should he sin and should you fail to instruct him, you would bear guilt."

"הוכח תוכיח את עמיתך" - מצוה אחרת, ללמדו תוכחת מוסר, "ולא תשא עליו חטא" שיהיה עליך אשם כאשר יחטא ולא הוכחת אותו. 

(Nachmanides to Vayikra 19:17)

Have a great day,

Mordechai

Why did the Torah begin with Creation? Part 3 of 3

Hi,

(continued from yesterday)

"R' Yitzchak explained that the Torah began with "In the beginning, Gd created," and the story of Creation until the creation of Man.

"Gd gave him control of His creations and put everything under his feet, and the Garden of Eden, the choicest of places created in this world, was the place Man would rest until his sin chased him out. The generation of the Flood was chased out of the world entirely due to their sins, and the righteous one among them escaped with his children. The sins of their descendants caused Gd to scatter them, and they took places for their families and nations as occurred for them.

"If so, then it is appropriate that a nation which continues to sin should lose its place, and another nation should come to take its land, for this has been the law of Gd in the land, forever…

"And their language in Bereishit Rabbah provides this explanation…"

(Ramban to Bereishit 1:1)

Have a great day,
Mordechai

Don't expect miracles

Hi,

"G-d will not perform signs and wonders in every generation before the eyes of every wicked person and denier, and so He instructed us to make a perpetual memorial and a sign for that which we saw, and to convey it to our children, and their children to their children, and their children to the final generation."

(Ramban to Shemot 13:16)

Have a great day,
Mordechai

Accepting scientific observation

Hi,

"We must believe the words of the Greeks, that the rainbow is created by the shining of the sun through moist air, for in a vessel of water set out in the sun one may observe a sort of rainbow."

(Ramban to Bereishit 9:12, regarding the biblical significance of the rainbow)

Have a great day,
Mordechai

Teaching our children, Part II

Hi,

"'And you shall repeat [or: teach] it to your children' - These explicit mitzvot have already been hinted. Since He instructed us in the mitzvot, 'An eternal law for your generations,' 'Between Me and the Jewish people, an eternal sign,' 'This is My covenant you shall guard, between Me and you and your children after you,' we are instructed that our children should know the mitzvot.

"And how will they know the mitzvot, if we don't teach them?"

(Ramban to Devarim 6:7)

Have a great day,
Mordechai

The magic number 49

Hi,

"The number of days from the omer elevation until the sacred day [Shavuot] is the same as the number of years of shemitah cycles until the yovel [Jubilee] year; they share the same source."

(Ramban to Vayyikra 23:15)

Have a great day,
Mordechai

Trusting Gd and reading the horoscope

Hi,

"We are to dedicate our hearts to Gd alone, and trust that Gd alone engineers all and knows the truth of all future events, and from Gd alone we should seek the future, from His prophets or His pious ones, meaning the urim v’tumim [the breastplate of the kohen gadol, which was used for prophecy]."

(Ramban to Devarim 8:13)

Have a great day,
Mordechai

The Meaning of Matzah

Hi,

Matzah plays an odd role at our Seder.

On the one hand, it represents affliction, poverty and slavery, and so it has no sweetening ingredients - it's just flour and water.

On the other hand, we carried the matzah on our shoulders as we left Egypt, and it didn't rise because our redemption was so quick. In this sense, matzah is about redemption.

In fact, Ramban wrote that matzah is meant to play both roles, symbolic of both slavery and redemption. On the other hand, Maharal wrote that matzah is primarily an instrument of redemption. True, matzah incorporates the symbols of poverty, but only in order to highlight and accentuate the strength of HaShem's redemption.

Therefore, Ramban translates the Torah's term for Matzah, לחם עוני, as "bread of affliction," but Maharal renders it as "bread of poverty," because a pauper is free and unencumbered by property - just like the Jews, on their way out of Egypt.

(Ramban to Parshat Reeh, Maharal's Haggadah shel Pesach)

Have a great day,
Mordechai