Parsha Post: Nesivos Shalom

 There are three times that G-d told Avraham Avinu to walk.  1- Walk away, for your own good, to yourself, from your land, town, home 2- Walk before me and be tamim - whole/good/pure  3 - Walk to Moriah to do Akeidat Yitzchak. These three commands to walk happened at three times in Avraham's life, the early years, midlife, and his older years.  And they each fit with the time when they happened. When he was young he was told to go from his surroundings and become himself. When a bit older he was told to build on that, not just to focus on what he needed to go away from, but to keep refining and purifying himself.  And in his later years he faced a major transformative test and reached his highest level yet. These three commands go out to each one of us: to leave childhood behind and grown up into opurselves, to build on that as we age, and to pass the hard tests that come our way and continue to grow in our old age. Rabbi Levi in the medrash questions which was harder, the test of

 The Torah is an instruction book for life.  So why does it start with stories of major mistakes? The Cheit Eitz HaDaat makes sense to be included because it is something that all mankind yearns to see rectified. But what about the other stories? The way G-d created the world is that there was darkness for 2000 years before there was the era of light.  This is how it is, erev-night and then from it boker-morning light, the peel and then the fruit, sur mirah - keep from the bad and then asei tov - do good. Avraham with his chesed - kindness, Yitzchak with his gevurah - strength, and Yaakov with his tiferet - balance, began the tikun-correction of the world.  Before that tikun came about there was darkness.  The three things the world cannot tolerate were being done, as we're told by Chazal: Kin'ah - jealousy, ta'avah - desire, and kavod - honor, remove a person from this world.  Kin'ah - Mishlei says that jealousy rots a person's bones.  Kayin fell down far and hard

The Nesivos Shalom cites the Ran who rejects the myriad explanations of the cheit/mistake of the people who built the tower of Babel. The Nesivos Shalom builds on the explanation of the Ran: They didn't do anything wrong. What they did was they gathered together. G-d decided that it would be better for them to be spread apart. The Rabbis teach us that the ingathering of negative people is bad for them and bad for the world (I only see the reverse of tis, which implies it: פיזור לרשעים הנייה להם והנייה לעולם ולצדיקים רע להם ורעה לעולם - Scattering of Resha'im is good for them, and this is good for the world as they cannot conspire together). It is bad for Tzadikim, and bad for the world Yerushalmi - Sanhedrin 43b: Halacha 7). This is because negative energy gets strengthened when negative people join together. The Nesivos Shalom says that the power of good is stronger than the opposite, how much more-so then that it's good when good people unite, citing the verse that 2 is b

How do we see in the pesukim-text itself that what Hevel brought was superior to what Kayin offered? How do we see that what Kayin brought was inferior to what Kayin brought.? We're told that "Hevel brought from his sheep."  This might seem redundant.  But what it means is that he brought from the ones he was most invested in, the ones he was attached to, the best. We are also told that "Hevel, he also brought."  This also seems to have extra wording. What it's telling us on a deep level is that besides the sheep, Hevel also brought himself. This made his sacrifice superior. We're told that "Kayin brought from the fruit of the land." It doesn't say he brought from his land.  He didn't bring crop that was special to him, that he felt connected to.  By definition, since he didn't choose to give of what he felt was his, didn't choose to give himself, whatever he offered was inferior.  The lesson for us is to give of ourselves in ou

 Rashi cites Rabbi Yitzchak giving a reason for why the Torah doesn't start with the first mitzvah given to the Jewish People.  He says that the Torah starts where it does so that we can tell other nations who call us thieves that G-d created the world and gave them The Land.  He then took it from them and gave it to us. But this only explains the need for the start of the book.  The Nesivos Shalom says that the reason for starting with the book of Breishit is because it is, as Chazal say, Sefer haYashar - the book that teaches us how to be refined in character.  He cites Rav Chaim Vital who says that our midot are the foundation of our Torah, and - in a way - are more important than the rest of the Torah.   Rav Chaim Vital says that the midot are not in the Torah itself because they are the prerequisite to Torah.  The Nesivos Shaom teaches us that everything is in the Torah, and it must be that midot are in the Torah too.  How could it be that Hashem expects us to get midot, but t