[00:00:00] Hello, my friends, and welcome to this week's episode of the Practical Parasha Podcast. This is Rabbi Shlomo Cohen, and I hope you are well before we begin this episode. As always, if you have any questions, comments, or just would like to reach out to say hello, please don't be shy. My email address is Rabbi Shlomo Kon K O h nmail dot com.
[00:00:26] I'd love to hear from you.
[00:00:28] This week's parsha is Parshas Toldos. Just to give a quick overview of the parsha. The parsha begins with Yitzchak and Rivkah, Isaac and Rebekah. The Torah tells us how Rebekah was barren.
[00:00:47] She didn't beard any children. Torah tells us how she davens to, uh, Hashem.
[00:00:53] And Yitzchak davens as well. And finally, Rivkah notices Rebecca. She notices that she is pregnant. But it's not just the usual pregnancy. She notices there's something strange about this pregnancy, that there seems to be two different forces at play within her, that when she passes a house of idol worship, the child inside bangs to try to get out.
[00:01:21] And at the same time, when she passes a place of Torah study, the child also bangs to try to get out.
[00:01:29] So she goes to shame the prophet, and he tells her that there are two nations inside of you, that you're going to have twins. And Rivkah gives birth to Yaakov. And Esav.
[00:01:42] Yaakov is Eishtam ah Yoshi vah olim um.
[00:01:46] He is someone who studies the Torah, and he sits in the tents, which means he's studying as a scholar. But Esav is Ishoedehatzaiyid. He's a hunter. He's a more rugged personality.
[00:02:01] And the Torah continues to tell the story of the birthright, where Yaakov is cooking up a stew for his father because of he's mourning for his grandfather, Avraham. And Esav demands to be fed.
[00:02:19] And Yaakov makes, um a deal with him. He says, if you will sell me your birthright, you know the firstborn, right?
[00:02:29] I'll give you this stew. And Esav, not realizing and not valuing the importance of the firstborn, sells his birthright for beans.
[00:02:40] And I believe in earlier episodes, earlier years, I've discussed the, uh, significance of this and why it was such a, uh, travesty.
[00:02:50] The parasha continues with Yitzchak picking up and moving to, um, the Eretz Plishtim.
[00:02:58] And it tells us the story in Yitzchak, in Gror Rivkah also being kidnapped, um, and finally her being released unharmed.
[00:03:10] The Torah also tells us the treaty between Avimelech and Yitzchak, as well as finally the end of the Parasha dealing with the, uh, Yitzchak, who is about to pass on blessing his children, and how Yaakov, quote, unquote, steals the blessings from Esav. Right? The blessing is supposed to go to the firstborn, and Yaakov steals those blessings.
[00:03:37] And it doesn't know, there's a lot of commentary on this. Doesn't mean that he, you know, uh, he actually bought them from Esav. But either way, Esav feels like it was stolen from him and resolves within his heart to try to kill Yaakov.
[00:03:52] The first idea I want to share with you today takes us to the beginning of the Parsha.
[00:03:58] Now, the beginning of the Parsha tells us about Yitzchak and Rivkah, how they didn't have children. And the Parsha begins.
[00:04:07] Veila told us Yitzchak bin Avraham, Avraham Hoyle Yitzchak.
[00:04:11] And these are the offspring of Isaac, son of Avraham, Avram Begot Isaac vayhi Yitzchakto es Rifka Basuel Aramim e Padan aram.
[00:04:30] Isaac was 40 years old when he took Rebekah, daughter of Bisuel the Arameim, from Paddan Aram, sister of Lavon the Aramean, as the wife for himself.
[00:04:42] Now, the question that's asked, and it's not my question, is it's Rashi's question, is why is it necessary for the Torah to repeat the ancestry and the place of birth of Rivkah?
[00:04:57] We know it already from last week's Parsha. The Torah spells it out clearly for us who Rivkah's father was, who her brother was, and where she was from.
[00:05:09] Why was it necessary again here in this week's Parsha, to repeat the lineage of Rivkah to tell us who her father was, where she's from?
[00:05:21] And really, all the more so than that, really, there's no reason for it here in the context of what the Torah is about to tell us. The Torah is about to tell us how they were barren and they didn't have children, and then finally Hashem, uh, answered their prayers.
[00:05:37] So why is it important for us to know who her parents were, who her sibling was?
[00:05:48] And we know it already.
[00:05:50] So let's see what Rashi has to say about this. So Rashi says, ashiadayin ah loy Nichta av Shahi Basuel. Va choslavan umi Padana Ram.
[00:06:02] He's asking a question. Was it not written already? Was it not written that Rivkah was the daughter of Bisuel, the sister of Lavan, and from Padamaram, from the city of Paddanaram Elah, rather, why is the Torah telling us here again, the lineage of Rivkah, the lineage of Rebekah Lahagid Shvacha, to tell us her praises?
[00:06:30] Shahisa Basrusha. She was the daughter of someone who was wicked, Va' achais Rosha, and the sister of someone who was wicked, Umekayma M anshe, Russia. And she came from a place that was inhabited by wicked people. Right? She had. All things were stacked against her. All. You know, she was in the worst situation in life. She came from a quote, unquote, bad family, bad father, bad brother, bad place.
[00:07:04] But yet, even despite all these negatives against her, all these things that should have held her back, prevented her from being who she became, she didn't learn from them.
[00:07:18] She became Rivkah. Rivka Imenu Rivkah, one of the matriarchs, who was the mother of Yaakov, who was the grandmother of the Shvatim um. Right. She's one of the matriarchs of our people.
[00:07:33] And there's a very important lesson which Rabbi Plissken brings down, that we can learn out from this Rashi from this week's Parasha.
[00:07:43] You know, a lot of times we look at our situations and maybe we use it for ourselves, you know, as an excuse to justify the actions we do or we don't do.
[00:08:00] We say that. Yeah. It's because of, uh, the way I was raised. That's why I act in this way or don't act in this way.
[00:08:08] It's because of the place that I live that I do the things that I do, or I am the person that I am, or it's because of the surroundings that, you know, I become who I become.
[00:08:23] And I think we see from this week's Parsha a very powerful lesson that when it comes to, you know, who we are and our responsibilities, uh, for our faults and for our actions or inactions, we could only look as far as ourselves.
[00:08:42] We can't blame others for who we should be or who we are.
[00:08:50] You know, there's no one who we could blame except for ourselves. We are responsible for our actions. Ultimately, fine. You might say someone might have a challenging situation because of the family. They're put in might be harder for that fellow to succeed.
[00:09:06] It might be, you know, more challenging for someone in a. In a place where the people are all evil or not good and doesn't have a good, good influence.
[00:09:16] But ultimately in life, we can only blame ourselves.
[00:09:22] Blaming others will not get us anywhere in life.
[00:09:28] It will keep us in the same place.
[00:09:32] So if we want to move forward in our lives and we want to become the people we want to become, we have to take the blame.
[00:09:41] And again, I'm not trying to put down people in hard situations. We all have hard situations. Some people have very hard situations.
[00:09:48] But I think if we ultimately want to move on to something better, to become someone we want to, you know, become. We want to be great people. We want to get to greatness. We want to leave the bad traits behind.
[00:10:01] We have to realize that it's up to us.
[00:10:04] No one else is going to do that. You know, even in a person who has all the perfect family and perfect environment and perfect situation, he also, he has to, you know, there's no guarantee that he's going to become great.
[00:10:21] And it's actually interesting because the Talmud tells us about the sons of poor people. You know, you think sometimes poor people have disadvantage. And it's true, people sometimes are disadvantaged.
[00:10:33] But the Talmud tells us his Haru bena anim, be careful with the sons of poor people. Kimeham Teitay Torah, I believe that's what the Talmud says. From them, Torah comes out. And we see that Torah scholars, tremendous Torah scholars have come out from people from very disadvantaged backgrounds. You know, there's the famous story of Hillel Hazukin, the great Hillel, where he was so poor he didn't have money even to gain entrance into the study hall. And he was so determined to learn to grow in Torah knowledge that he climbed up to the top of the. To the shul and he listened from the outside and snow covered him. And there was a whole. The Gemara goes to this famous story. It was very dark in the shul and they noticed that it was Hillel who was blocking the sunlight. And because of that, they instituted that people should come in for free. But the point is that we see many times in our history, people from disadvantaged situations have come to be the greatest of our nation. I think it's something for ourselves to just remember now. Sure, it could be challenging at times, it could be hard. But we have to remember that our destiny is, you know, we can't blame anyone else. Blaming is not going to get us anywhere in life. Blame people for our problems, blame people for our situations.
[00:11:50] We have to learn to take responsibility for our actions. And when we do that, God willing, we'll get to the places we want to be.
[00:11:59] Now, the second idea I wanted to share with you also really ties in this week on this story in the Torah about, um, Yitzchak and Rivkah.
[00:12:14] The Torah tells us that Rivkah was barren.
[00:12:20] Now, Rivkah was not the only one of the matriarchs that was barren.
[00:12:25] We see that Sarah was barren. She was not able to have children till finally she had Yitzchak.
[00:12:34] Rebecca. Rivkah. The Torah clearly tells us that she also did not have children until Yitzchak and Rivkah. They prayed and Hashem m listened to their prayers.
[00:12:44] And then she. She had children.
[00:12:47] Rachel. Rachel also.
[00:12:50] She was barren. She didn't have children until finally she daven.
[00:12:55] And finally she had children. Yosef and Binyamin. We see it repeating itself that the matriarchs, for some reason seem to be having an issue having children. The Torah doesn't. Torah tells us this issue, that they were barren. And I think, I believe that it's brought down in the commentary. Maybe it's the Talmud or the Midrashim, I don't remember offhand that the matriarchs were physically unable to have children. They were unable to conceive.
[00:13:27] And through. That's how Hashem made them. And through their prayers and through their davening, Hashem made a miracle that they're able to have children.
[00:13:36] The question is that why was God doing this to them?
[00:13:40] Why is he playing games, uh, with the matriarchs? They are holy people.
[00:13:45] Why is he making it that they are not able to have children? And they have to beg and to daven. And finally, after they daven and daven and daven and Daven, Hashem gives in to their tila and grants their prayer and gives them a child.
[00:13:59] The Talmud tells us that the reason why Hashem made our matriarchs barren was because Hashem, ah, desires the prayers of the righteous.
[00:14:13] He wants to hear the prayers of his holy people.
[00:14:17] He desires it. And the way he gets them to do that is by making something challenging in their life so that they turn to him and pour out their heart.
[00:14:30] And there's no bigger request that a person can have in their life than to have children.
[00:14:36] So Hashem, uh, made them barren. So they had to turn to him with all their heart and all their soul to Daven to have children.
[00:14:46] The Question is, why is this so why does, you know, why does G D work like this, that he wants to hear the prayers of the righteous by making them, you know, barren? You would think just the opposite. I mean, you know, let them have. They're the righteous ones. They're the matriarchs of our people.
[00:15:05] Why does Hashem have to make it hard for them that they're not able to have children, only have to daven, daven, daven. And because God wants to hear their prayer. Like, what does this mean exactly? And what can we learn from this?
[00:15:18] There's an idea I saw from Ravi, uh, Twersky, and he says that Tefillah, uh, you know, is not just about asking for the things we need. And actually, in fact, this idea is brought down in the commentaries. I believe I've seen a piece in the Beis Elokim where he says that prayer is not just about asking for what we need and for what we want to have. And for God granting our prayers, it's really more than that.
[00:15:47] And even if God never answers our prayers, which he does answer our prayers, but let's say he didn't, there would still be a tremendous purpose of davening. That's the purpose of davening is not about being answered or not being answered. It's about the connection that we have to Hashem. It's about the bond we have to God. And he brings down Rabbi Torsky that actually another meaning of the word tefillah means bond, means connection.
[00:16:17] And he says that in order for the matriarchs to raise their children who are going to be leaders of the Jewish people, for Sarah to have a Yitzchak and to raise him for Rivkah to have a Yaakov and to raise him for Rachel to have a Yosef and to raise him in the proper way, that they're going to be the leaders and really the fathers of our people.
[00:16:40] And like we know from past episodes where I've talked about the spiritual DNA, they had to have a tremendous bond to Hashem, this tremendous connection to Hashem, Um, and the only way they were able to get that, the highest level of reaching that is through Tefillah, is through prayer.
[00:17:04] And that's why that's what it means. Hashem desires the prayers of the righteous.
[00:17:08] He wants the righteous.
[00:17:11] He wants them to be connected to him in the highest way possible.
[00:17:16] So therefore, sometimes he makes it hard for them so that they connect in the best way possible. And that's what happened with the matriarchs, that in Order to raise the fathers of our people to have a Yitzchak, to have a, uh, Yaakov. Right.
[00:17:34] They needed to be on that level, to be connected to Hashem in that level. And therefore it was necessary for them to be barren and to daven with all their heart to connect to G D, to get to that highest level, to be who they could be, to raise the great Yitzchak, Avinu, Isaac, our Father.
[00:17:58] And, um, similarly for um, for Yaakov, that they had to be in the level. And I think the lesson for us is that this is a very powerful idea when it comes to Tefillah as well.
[00:18:12] You know, we daven and, you know, we sort of expect right away that, you know, we think that davening is just for getting what we want and, uh, that things should work out the way that we think that they should work out.
[00:18:28] Really, prayer is really much higher than that.
[00:18:32] It's about connection to Hashem. Um, and maybe this outlook can help us now that when things aren't going our way and we really cry out to Hashem from the bottom of our heart, that there is a reason why Hashem is doing that to us.
[00:18:51] He wants to connect us.
[00:18:54] He wants us to reach, to be connected to him in the highest way so that we can be the best people that we can be.
[00:19:02] And sometimes, probably most of the time for us, when things are going well, it's harder to get that connection.
[00:19:10] But when things are challenging and when they're hard and we have to Dave, and there's no one else we could turn to except for Hashem, um, we feel that sense of connection, a sense of bonding that really, you can't feel any other way. And I'm sure that each and every one of you thinks of time in your life where it was hard and you poured your heart out to Hashem and you feel that connection. I certainly could say I feel that way sometimes. At times that are challenging. You feel connected the most. The most intimate way and the most connected way. And I think our job is not that it should always be hard. I hope not. But is that we should take those feelings of connection and to use it into our regular life when things are going good. Thank God, to try to harness that feeling, to always be connected and to always, you know, have that ultimate bond with Hashem. Um, so with that, I'm going to finish for today's podcast. I hope you enjoyed. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to reach out to
[email protected]. have a great day.
