Skip to main content

Thought for the Day: Consistency is (Nearly) Everything in Torah

On Yom Tov there is a Torah obligation of שמחה/rejoicing. The mitvah of שמחה is strongly associated with meat and wine. On Shabbos the obligation is עונג/pleasure. Eat whatever you like best. You can even fast on Shabbos if you like that better than eating. Go figure.

The sefer מעדני השלחן is of the opinion that just as there is a mitzvah of שמחה on Yom Tov for שמחה, there is an equal obligation on Shabbos. We do not pasken that way. The מעדני השלחן points to three sources for his p'sak. One I already discussed in a previous TfdD. Another is a ספרי, the halachic medrash on Bamidbar on verse 10, chapter 10. The verse is talking about when to blow trumpets for the korbanos. It refers to festivals, rosh chodesh, and וּבְי֨וֹם שִׂמְחַתְכֶ֣ם/the day of your rejoicing. The ספרי says that י֨וֹם שִׂמְחַתְכֶ֣ם is referring to Shabbos, and R' Nosson says it refers to the korban tamid. The מעדני השלחן says that proves there is a mitzvah of שמחה on Shabbos just like Yom Tov. He is alone in that opinion and we don't pasken that way. (I think I may have mentioned that already 😉 )

But hang on here a minute... that medrash is a wonder! How do you put Shabbos and korban tamid together at all? I had that question hanging till I heard this year's shiur on Parahas Pinchus by R' Cziment, which you can find on TorahAnytime.com. Starting right from the beginning (ok, about 37 seconds into the shiur for the impatient among you), R' Cziment brings a medrash that brings three different opinions as to the one verse in the Torah around which everything else revolves and build on. The first candidate is Shma Yisrael. That seems pretty reasonable. Second candidate is "you shall love your fellow as yourself." Hard to argue on that one either. I don't know how you'd pick the most fundamental of those two. The third opinion is "bring a korban tamid morning and evening."

What's that you say? If you are my age, you are now hearing "one of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn't belong" playing on a continuous loop in your mind. The medrash is not finished; it ends by saying the halacha is like that third opinion. So now I understand how the ספרי can be up on the air about whether וּבְי֨וֹם שִׂמְחַתְכֶ֣ם of Bamidbar 10:10 refers to Shabbos or the korabn tamid. Well... more like: I see how these two midrashim go together. But what does it mean?

I would urge you to listen to R' Cziment's shiur, but the message is simply, to make progress in Torah, to perfect your neshama, you need to be consistent. As much as we like weddings, a marriage is built a day at a time. We experienced the most extravagant possible wedding more than 3000 years ago at Har Sinai when Klal Yisrael accepted that Torah as the marriage contract between us and HaShem. But the marriage, the perfection of the soul of each and every Jew is thrice daily davening, fixed times for learning, and those little challenges we face and overcome each minute of every day of our life.
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.  That is, even th
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 Aruch HaRav that referred to the noise of תקתוק
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 Shabbo
Post a Comment
Read more