Parshat Toldot By: Rabbi Moshe Goodman

Parshat Toldot
By: Rabbi Moshe Goodman, Kollel Ohr Shlomo, Hebron
בס"ד
לשכנו תדרשו

Seeking the Holy Presence in Our Holy Land
"וירא אליו ה' ויאמר אל תרד מצרימה שכן בארץ אשר אומר אליך"

"And may our eyes see in Your return to Zion with compassion. Blessed are You HaShem who returns His Holy Presence to Zion." 

These words formulate in all our prayers the constant yearning our People have for the return of the Holy Presence to Zion, Jerusalem and our Holy Land. As we explained last year, our Sages interpret God's command (in our title quote) to Yitzhak to 'dwell - shechon
- in the Land' as a command 'to make the Shechina dwell in the Land'.[1]
 
Indeed, this imperative applies to all Israel as we say in Tehillim: "Trust in HaShem and do good; dwell in the land and be nourished by faith", on which are Sages remark, 'dwell - shechon - make the Shechina dwell in the Land'.[2]

As we have shown many times before, it is by having trust in HaShem especially in His Land of Providence and doing good therein that one 'dwells in the Land', makes the Shechina rest among us, leading to the real and palpable nourishment of faith in our lives. 

Similarly, just as Yitzhak was commanded not to leave the Holy Land, so too halacha bids us not to leave our Holy Land, save a few exceptional cases, as Rambam rules: "It is forbidden to leave Eretz Yisrael for the Diaspora at all times except: to study Torah; to marry; or to save one's property from the gentiles. After accomplishing these objectives, one must return to Eretz Yisrael. Similarly, one may leave Eretz Yisrael to conduct commercial enterprises. However, it is forbidden to leave with the intent of settling permanently in the Diaspora unless the famine in Eretz Yisrael is so severe that a dinar's
worth of wheat is sold at two dinarim ... Though it is permitted to leave
Eretz Yisrael under these circumstances, it is not pious behavior. Behold, Machlon and Kilyon were two of the great men of the generation and they left Eretz Yisrael only out of great distress. Nevertheless, they were found worthy of death by God". [3]

Simply, this does not mean that leaving the Land has liability of death, God forbid, but rather that Divine judgment was harsher on them because of their departure, especially in context of their high ('great men') position. Interestingly, we see that just as Machlon's downfall was in his departure from the Land of Israel, so too his widow Ruth's ascent to (solid) conversion, 'under the 'wings' of the Holy Presence', began with the ascent to the Land of Israel, as her first words of devotion prove, "where you go I shall go", simply referring to the Land of Israel. Therefore, it is not surprising that Ruth is buried in Hebron, the symbol of our people's age-old connection to our Holy Land, the Land of the Holy Presence.
 
Real Stories from the Holy Land #42: "My brother-in-law sent a set of seforim from Northern Israel with a messenger just before 'Shabbat Hebron' last week to Kiryat Arba. My brother-in-law does not know where I live in Kiryat Arba, so he definitely did not know where to direct his messenger. Suddenly, after not talking for several hours, while I was returning home from buying popsicles from the neighborhood's kiosk, my brother-in-law called to give me the messenger's cell-phone number. I called just then and it 'turns out' that out of the thousands of possible meters this messenger could have been in Kiryat Arba, he 'happened' to be next to the mikveh, at the same time I also "happened" to be there about 25 meters away."


[1]Breshit Raba 64, 3
[2]Tanhuma Reeh, 11
[3]Rambam, Melachim veMilchamot 5, 9- in the past we noted that there are poskim who permit more reasons to leave, but all opinions agree that to leave for mere leisure is forbidden. 

Parshat Vayera By: Rabbi Moshe Goodman

Parshat Vayera
By: Rabbi Moshe Goodman, Kollel Ohr Shlomo, Hebron
בס"ד
לשכנו תדרשו

Yearning for the Holy Presence in Our Holy Land

וַיִּשְׁמַע אַבְרָהָם אֶל עֶפְרוֹן וַיִּשְׁקֹל אַבְרָהָם לְעֶפְרֹן אֶת הַכֶּסֶף אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר בְּאָזְנֵי בְנֵי חֵת אַרְבַּע מֵאוֹת שֶׁקֶל כֶּסֶף עֹבֵר לַסֹּחֵר:

Enduring One, may Your mercy be aroused and please take pity on the son of Your beloved because it is so very long that I have yearned intensely, to see speedily the splendour of Your strength..."[1] 
The words for "yearning intensely" - "nichsof nicsafti" - are a clear allusion to Laban's description of Yakov's flee stemming from intensive yearning - "nichsof nichsafta" to the Holy Land in general, and Hebron, "the abode of your father" (Isaac), in specific.[2] 

Indeed, the yearning for Hebron can be traced even further back to the purchase of Maarat HaMachpela by Avraham in our title quote from our parsha in the form of the same word root - k.s.f, here used to mean money, but also extrapolated in the Zohar to allude to the 400 spiritual worlds of pleasure yearned for and achieved by the righteous.[3] 

We can understand that the usage of the root k.s.f. both for yearning and money is not simply a play on words: money and where one puts it is a product of one's yearning for a particular matter or thing. Last year on this week's parsha we discussed the great halachic importance attached to purchasing land from gentiles in the Land of Israel, as a type of regaining and/or re-conquering of the Holy Land for the People of Israel, so important that it can override Rabbinic prohibition on Shabbat in an unprecedented level.[4] 

In parshat Balak this past year we discussed how this re-ownership and re-unity with the land is compared to the unity of husband and wife by Isaiah, which also begins with yearning, kisufin, and money, kesef, of kidushin (betrothal).[5] In both cases, marriage and purchase of the Land of Israel, the Holy Presence rests between husband and wife and between the People and the Holy Land.[6]

  It is therefore no surprise that adjacent to the story of the purchase of Maarat HaMachpela appears the story of the marriage of Rivka to Yitzhak. The telling of the story of the purchase of the Machpela Cave is not only important history giving our people a deeper claim to our Holy Land - the very methods of marriage and of ownership in general in halacha are extrapolated by our sages from the story of Avraham's purchase of the Machpela Cave in this week's parsha.[7] 

Our sages teach us that in truth HaShem first 'looked' at the supernal Torah and thereby created the world.[8]This means that, if the halachic source of marriage, all ownership and monetary possession stems from this 'story', then that means that all marriage and possession in the world over stem from the lessons and secrets imbibed and hidden in the story of the purchase of 
Maaras HaMachpela.
 
Real stories from the Holy Land #41: "My name is Moshe. I once came across a book titled "Maarat Sdeh HaMahpela", which was called such partially because its author, a famous kabbalist, was named Moshe, coming out of the acrostic of this title. This past Shabbat I was honored with hagba (raising the Torah scroll for all to see), and as I lifted the Torah I wanted to look for the letter mem on the scroll, as there is a custom to look for the first letter of one's name on the Torah scroll when lifted. Without any effort, the first words my eyes centered on, among hundreds of words before me, were no other than "Maarat Sdeh HaMachpela".

[1]Yedid Nefesh
[2]Gen. 31, 30
[3]Zohar 1, 123b
[4]Rambam Shabbat 6, 11 and Orah Haim 306, 11
[5]Isaiah 62, 5
[6]Sotah 17a and Yalkut Shimoni Tehilim 863 and much more
[7]Beginning of tract. Kidushin at length
[8]Zohar 2, 161a

Parshat Vayera By: Rabbi Moshe Goodman

Parshat Vayera
By: Rabbi Moshe Goodman, Kollel Ohr Shlomo, Hebron
בס"ד
לשכנו תדרשו

Re-discovering the Holy Presence in Our Holy Land
"וירא אליו ה' באלוני ממרא"

"From Your place, our King, may You appear and rule upon us, for we are awaiting You. When will You rule in Zion? Speedily in our days forever You shall dwell among us..." [1]

Our hearts and the hearts of all Israel yearn for the return and re-discovery of God's Kingship, the return and re-discovery of the Holy Presence, in Zion, in our Holy Land. The time has come to follow in the footsteps of Avraham our father, who searched all places on the globe for the Holy Presence and found it in our Holy Land, even before being commanded by HaShem to go to this Land in the beginning of last week's parsha.[2] 

The time has come to follow in our father Avraham's footsteps, who ran after his bull, in this week's parsha, from his tent in Hebron to close-by Ma'arat HaMachpela, 'discovered' the Holy Presence there, and thereafter continued to make a pilgrimage of prayer every day to that spot.[3] The time has come to recognize and re-discover the Godly significance of location in our thoughts, speech, and daily lives

In halacha we find many references to the exact definitions of location designated for the 'dwelling' of the Holy Presence among us, from the measurements of the Temple Mount, via exact measurements of the Land of Israel, to even the measurements of an ad-hoc minyan in arbitrary rooms in the Diaspora. After all this is said, what sources do we have as to the spiritual dimensions in regard to Hebron and Ma'arat HaMachpela

As we see from Avraham's close-by pilgrimage within Hebron to Ma'arat HaMachpela, we learn that even several meters can make a difference in the spiritual intensity of location, even outside of the Temple Mount. Nevertheless, there are sources that point to the Torah's saying that Kaleb 'reached Hebron', without saying 'Ma'arat HaMachpela', showing that all of greater Hebron has spiritual power like Ma'arat HaMachpela, sufficient to save Kaleb from the scheme of the spies. [4]

There is yet another source suggesting a distance of three parasangs (6 km or 4 miles) as being at-least the extent of spiritual intensity stemming from Ma'arat HaMachpela, causing the nations 'to lick the dust of the earth' there in honor of the [5] tomb of Yaakov.  That said, however, if we take into consideration the other holy places of Hebron, such as the Tomb of Jesse and Ruth, the ancient cemetery full of saints, and the many yeshivas and Kollelim spread across Hebron-Kiryat Arba, every meter we walk is a spiritual journey, spanning past, present, and future, into connecting to the Holy Presence in our Holy Land.
 
Real Stories from the Holy Land #40: "It was about  22:00 on Hoshana Raba night and I had still not davened Maariv. Even though I live in a neighborhood of Kiryat Arba several miles away from Ma'arat HaMachpela, I had a special 'hankering' to pray specifically at Ma'arat HaMachpela on this special night, even though finding a minyan there at such a late hour was close to impossible, especially since most people would begin the tikun of Hoshana Raba by then. I hitchhiked to Ma'arat HaMachpela, and just as I arrived, a goup of soldiers, well over enough for a minyan, 'happened' to come then and began to pray Maariv."

[1]Kedusha of Amida Shabbat
[2]Zohar 1, 78a
[3]Ibid, 127b
[4]Shaar Hahatzer 380
[5]Zohar Shmot 1

Parshat Lech-Lecha By: Rabbi Moshe Goodman

Parshat Lech-Lecha
By: Rabbi Moshe Goodman, Kollel Ohr Shlomo, Hebron
בס"ד
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Venturing for the Holy Presence in Our Holy Land
"והקמתי את בריתי ביני ובינך... ונתתי לך ולזרעך אחריך את ארץ מגורך את כל ארץ כנען"
"Blessed are You HaShem our God King of the World that has sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us to place him (the baby) in the covenant of Avraham our father." 

This blessing, said at a baby boy's first mitzvah, circumcision, highlights the centrality of Avraham our father at the very onset of our lives, and with them highlight how central are our roots stemming from our three Patriarchs in general as the forerunners of our sacred covenant with God. 

Indeed, this week's parsha begins the core topic of our first book in the Torah, Breshit - the story of our holy Patriarchs. As Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook zt"l noted numbers of times,[1] the first two parshios of Breshit are basically a kind of 'pre-history' till we reach parshat Lech Lecha which begins, with our Patriarchs, the main history that concerns most of the Torah. 

It is also this mitzvah of circumcision that, as our title quote teaches us, that connects us, via our covenant with God, to our Holy Land. The connection between bris mila and our Holy Land is actually so great that the Zohar explains the reason that the descendants of Ishmael have had such a strong grip on the Land of Israel for such a long time is because of the merit of the brit done on Ishmael in this week's parsha. 

However, the Zohar continues and says that because this circumcision was done at a later age and other factors, unlike Isaac and his decendants, Ishmael's circumcision is 'imperfect', and thus his descendants will not merit to hold the Land forever.[2] As we have shown many times, Hebron is key in the connection of our People to our Holy Land. It is therefore no wonder that the place of the first circumcision of Avraham occurs in Elonei Mamre, i.e. Hebron, as we see in the beginning of next week's parsha. 

Indeed the very name, 'Elonei Mamre' is, according to the Midrash, based on the figure of Avraham's colleague, Mamre, who advised Avraham to commit the commandment of circumcision, despite numbers of adversaries. The reason he was called 'Mamre', our sages add, is because he advised despite - 'lamrot' (verb root same as 'mamre') - adversaries who advised Avraham not to commit circumcision for numbers of reasons. 

In this sense, Hebron, Elonei Mamre, today continues this legacy of Mamre.[3] Hebron stands in the leadership of "fighting the case" for the Holy Presence in our Holy Land, thus continuing the legacy of our ancestors and patriarchs and keeping the covenant with God and His Holy Land.

Real Stories from the Holy Land #39: "It was almost 22:30, last time in Kiryat Arba one can find a minyan for Maariv. I was in a different neighborhood of Kiryat Arba from this minyan and needed to hitch a ride to make it in time for the minyan, which was about half-an-hour walk away. I saw about 6-8 people waiting to hitch a ride, which would normally mean I had no chance. With confidence in God I decided to proceed several meters away from the group of hitchhikers, saying to myself 'I'm going to do a mitzvah, I trust in HaShem to help me". Just then a car stopped and took me straight to the minyan on time."    

[1]See 'Sichot Rav Tzi Yehuda'
[2]Zohar 2, 32a
[3]Breshit Raba Lech Lecha 42, 8

Parshat Noach By: Rabbi Moshe Goodman

Parshat Noach
By: Rabbi Moshe Goodman, Kollel Ohr Shlomo, Hebron
בס"ד
לשכנו תדרשו
Cleaving to the Holy Presence in Our Holy Land
"נח איש צדיק תמים היה בדורותיו את הא-הים התהלך נח"
"Our Father, Compassionate Father! Please have compassion upon us and instill within our hearts understanding to understand... to learn, to teach, to keep... all the words of Your Torah with love... and make our hearts cleave to Your commandments... Speedily bring upon us blessing and peace... and lead us upright quickly to our Land..." 

This blessing, known as "the blessing of love" before reading the Shema shows us that to love God means not only to aspire to know and cleave to Him by learning the Torah but also, as seen at the end of this blessing, to cleave and aspire for His Holy Land.  

The commandment of "cleaving to God" has additional meanings as well, such as incorporated in halacha, in the form of cleaving to the Godly righteous.[1] Our Sages ask: how can we be commanded to cleave to God, behold 'He is a Consuming Fire'? They answer: one can cleave to the Godly righteous and thereby cleave to God.[2] 

This concept has special significance in this week's parsha, as we see that it is those who cleaved to Noah, "the righteous man" in our title quote, that were saved from the Flood in the beginning of this parsha, and it is also Lot who cleaved to Avraham, at the end of this parsha, who later merited to much blessing and salvation as we see later in the book of Breshit. 

In a similar way, Kaleb cleaved to the righteous of Hebron and was thereby saved from the plot of the spies against the ascent to the Land of Israel. Indeed, according to the Arizal one of the main purposes of attending the tombs of the righteous is to "cleave spirit (the visitor) to spirit (the righteous deceased)".[3] 

It is we too, by connecting to the righteous of Hebron that we merit much blessing and salvation. Although we have usually focused on connecting to our righteous Patriarchs, let us take a closer glimpse of the other righteous of Hebron. 

One of these is Jesse father of David, buried next to the Tel Rumeida neighborhood of Hebron. About Jesse it is said that he is one of the only four righteous that died with no sin.[4] Therefore, it is no surprise that Mashiah is many times coined as "the son of Jesse". Next to him is buried Ruth, the exemplary figure for all converts, the 
figure of exemplary devotion and courage, the "Mother of Royalty".

Real Stories from the Holy Land #38: "For Rosh HaShana I stayed at an apartment in Jerusalem my friend's parents rented. On Rosh HaShana I "happened" to meet neighbors of mine when I was living in New York. They later told me that they had come to be in Israel for two years and were living in the same building that I was staying for Rosh HaShana".

[1]Rambam Deot 6, 1
[2]Ketubot 111b
[3]See "Avnei Shoham", Shulhan Aruch of Arizal
[4]Shabat 55b

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