Thursday, November 28, 2019

Thursday's Parsha Tidbits - Parshas Toldos

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.

R' Frand started the vort by quoting the Gemara in Makkos which interprets a pasuk in Tehillim as discussing Ya'akov who said in Bereishis 27:12 "אוּלַ֤י יְמֻשֵּׁ֨נִי֙ אָבִ֔י וְהָיִ֥יתִי בְעֵינָ֖יו כִּמְתַעְתֵּ֑עַ". As explained by Rashi, Ya'akov did not want to participate in the act, but was convinced by his mother to do so.

The Maharitz Chayos explains that we can see Ya'akov's unwillingness from the choice of the word Ulai instead of Pen. Although both words mean the same thing, the word Ulai implies that the person wants the event to take place, such as when Eliezer says that Ulai the girl (Rivka) will not want to return with him to Avraham. This is because Eliezer wanted her to to say no, so that he could have his own daughter marry Yitzchak. On the other hand, Pen is a word where the person indicates  that he does not want the event to occur. Here where Ya'akov says Ulai, he is showing that he hopes that his father will identify him because he does not want to participate in this.

R' Frand then quoted Emes L'Ya'akov wherein R' Kaminetsky asked - why did the berachos have to come through this scenario? He explained that each of the Avos had to endure a test by which they went against their nature. For Avraham whose middah was chessed, it involved leaving his father behind, send away Hagar and sacrifice Yitzchak. For Ya'akov who was emes, it involved participating in tricking his father. He passed this test in following what he was commanded to, but without it impacting him as he was honest when he worked for Lavan.

R' Frand then quoted the Gra who said that most people are gilgulim who are sent back to earth to repeat their lives in order to fix something which tripped them up in a prior existence. He further explains that the issue which is a major stumbling block for someone is probably what they needed to fix because they were nichshol it in their prior life.

R' Frand closed the vort by quoting the sefer Chikrei Lev who recited the Medrash which - notes that Rivka's father was a thief, her brother was a thief and she came from a city of thieves, yet she was a Tzadekes - like a rose among the thorns. So why should Yitzchak marry someone who came from this source? He answered that Hashem wanted the berachos to come to Ya'akov through this means, with Yitzchak believing that Esav was a Tzaddik and deserving of the berachos and Rivka seeing through the facade. Because Rivka grew up among thieves she was able to see through Esav, she was able to create the mechanism to bring the berachos to Ya'akov.

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