Skip to main content

Thought for the Day: Choosing a Proper Wife for Yitzchak

The Magid of Dubno was once asked how he always had a ready mashal for any situation.  He answered with a mashal.
A man was walking through the forest and saw several targets with arrows dead center.  Some were in very tricky spots, and so he wanted to find this expert archer.  He finally found the archer and asked how he had been able to hone his skills to such a high degree.  The archer answered that he simply shot the arrow first, then drew the target around the arrow.
I do something similar.  I have a huge backlog of questions for which I don't have a good answer.  Some are my own, many are from shiurim and talks that posed questions that were much better than the answer.  In any case, whenever I hear a new idea I look to see if it helps with any of those question.  I heard nice vort at a sheva brachos last night that made a nice bull's eye to a big arrow of a question.

Avraham Avinu sent Eliezer off to his birthplace to find an appropriate shidduch for Yitzchak (who was being groomed to be the next Av and needed an appropriate eizer k'negdo).  The first question is: why?  The old homestead was not overflowing with tzadikim; in fact, it was reeking with r'sha'im.  Second question: Eliezer looks for a ba'alas chesed, yet Yitzchak's mida is din.  Moreover, the main stories we have of Rivka -- her difficult pregnancy and ensuring that Yaakov got the brachos -- are about din and not chesed.  Moreover, Avraham explains to Eliezer's that own daughter is not appropriate because she is from arur (cursed) and Yitchak is from baruch (blessed).  (Isn't that sensitive?)  Instead of being insulted, Eliezer seems to accept that as a good explanation of why he needs to go so far to find a wife for Yitzchak.  So what's going on here?

The vort I heard was from R' Ephraim Twerksi in the name of his father, R' Michel.  When Avraham dispatches Eliezer, he tells him not to take a wife from the k'na'ani "asher anochi yoshev b'kirbo" -- in whose midst I reside.  Later, Eliezer tells B'su'el that Avraham commanded him not to take a wife from the k'na'ani "asher anochi yoshev b'artzo" -- in whose land I reside.  It is so important to re-iterate Avraham's address and using the uncommon "anochi"?

Says HaRav Twerski, don't translate the word "anochi" as "I", but as "the mida of me; first and last".  So Avraham is explaining that the people of k'na'an are focused only on their own needs; they are inner focused, bounded, static; which is the real meaning of arur.  "Baruch" means looking outside oneself, unlimited, always growing.  That means chesed.  Yitchak was not simply midas ha'din -- he was midas ha'din built from and nourished by chesed.  Eliezer had to be certain that he wife he found was completely devoid of selfishness.

Chesed is not only Avraham's mida... it is rather the mida that serve as the foundation of every one of the Avos and Ima'hos in order to build the nation for whom the world -- which is itself built on chesed -- was created.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thought for the Day: Pizza, Uncrustables, and Stuff -- What Bracha?

Many years ago (in fact, more than two decades ago), I called R' Fuerst from my desk at work as I sat down to lunch.  I had a piece of (quite delicious) homemade pizza for lunch.  I nearly always eat at my desk as I am working (or writing TftD...), so my lunch at work cannot in any way be considered as sitting down to a formal meal; aka קביעת סעודה.  That being the case, I wasn't sure whether to wash, say ha'motzi, and bentch; or was the pizza downgraded to a m'zonos.  He told if it was a snack, then it's m'zonos; if a meal the ha'motzi.  Which what I have always done since then.  I recently found out how/why that works. The Shulchan Aruch, 168:17 discusses פשטיד''א, which is describes as a baked dough with meat or fish or cheese.  In other words: pizza.  Note: while the dough doesn't not need to be baked together with the meat/fish/cheese, it is  required that they dough was baked with the intention of making this concoction. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Thought for the Day: What Category of Muktzeh are Our Candles?

As discussed in a recent TftD , a p'sak halacha quite surprising to many, that one may -- even לכתחילה -- decorate a birthday cake with (unlit, obviously) birthday candles on Shabbos. That p'sak is predicated on another p'sak halacha; namely, that our candles are muktzeh because they are a כלי שמלאכתו לאיסור and not  מוקצה מחמת גופו/intrinsically set aside from any use on Shabbos. They point there was that using the candle as a decoration qualifies as a need that allows one to utilize a כלי שמלאכתו לאיסור. Today we will discuss the issue of concluding that our candles are , in fact, a כלי שמלאכתו לאיסור and not מוקצה מחמת גופו. Along the way we'll also (again) how important it is to have personal relationship with your rav/posek, the importance of precision in vocabulary, and how to interpret the Mishna Brura.  Buckle up. After reviewing siman 308 and the Mishna Brura there, I concluded that it should be permissible to use birthday candles to decorate a cake on Sha...
Post a Comment
Read more

Thought for the Day: אוושא מילתא Debases Yours Shabbos

My granddaughter came home with a list the girls and phone numbers in her first grade class.  It was cute because they had made it an arts and crafts project by pasting the list to piece of construction paper cut out to look like an old desk phone and a receiver attached by a pipe cleaner.  I realized, though, that the cuteness was entirely lost on her.  She, of course, has never seen a desk phone with a receiver.  When they pretend to talk on the phone, it is on any relatively flat, rectangular object they find.  (In fact, her 18 month old brother turns every  relatively flat, rectangular object into a phone and walks around babbling into it.  Not much different than the rest of us, except his train of thought is not interrupted by someone else babbling into his ear.) I was reminded of that when my chavrusa (who has children my grandchildrens age) and I were learning about אוושא מילתא.  It came up because of a quote from the Shulchan Aru...
Post a Comment
Read more