Thursday, May 23, 2024

Thursday's Parsha Tidbits - Parshas Behar

The following is a brief summary of some of thoughts said over by R' Frand on the parsha this evening. I have attempted to reproduce these vorts to the best of my ability. Any perceived inconsistency is the result of my efforts to transcribe the shiur and should not be attributed to R' Frand.

In Vayikra 25:31, the Torah gives the proscription against collecting interest as the Torah states אַל־תִּקַּ֤ח מֵֽאִתּוֹ֙ נֶ֣שֶׁךְ וְתַרְבִּ֔ית. The Gemara in Bava Metzia (which we recently covered in Daf Yomi) quotes R' Shimon who states that more than a person gains from collecting the interest, he loses.

The meforshim struggle with how to understand R' Shimon. How is this different than violating any other negative commandment? 

R' Frand quoted the Klei Yakar who explains that Ribbis was banned because it causes a person to lose Bitachon in Hashem. When a person is involved in business, he recognizes that it is dependent on Hashem. He can buy a product with the hope that he can resell it for a profit, but there is no guaranty. However, someone who lends money on interest (provided that there is a co-signer on the loan or that it is secured by collateral) will sleep well as he knows that he will always have money coming in.

This is R' Shimon's lesson - a person needs to have faith in Hashem even in a time of difficulty. If this person loses his ability to have faith in Hashem that Hashem will provide for him financially, when that person has other trouble he will have lost his feeling of serenity - of knowing that Hashem will be there for him.

R' Frand tied this into a story about R' Dovid Bleisher (sp?) who was the Rosh Yeshiva of the Yeshiva in Navardok. He had raised money to buy flour to bake matza and had stored it in a building. One night there was a significant storm that tore the roof off the building and the flour was then soaked with rain - thus no longer could it be used to bake matza. 

R' Dovid brought the students together and asked 4 questions - who told us that we need to eat matza? And who arranged that we would have flour? And who caused the roof to be ripped off the building? And lastly, who caused the rain to fall? If Hashem wants us to eat matza we will, and if not then we wont. 

Shortly before Pesach a check came into the Yeshiva which allowed them to buy more flour to make matza for Pesach. But the lesson was the serenity to accept that it all came from Hashem. 

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