From: Netvort@aol.com
Sent: Friday, March 09, 2007 4:22 AM
To: JoshHoff@aol.com
Subject: Netvort : parshas Ki Sisa, 5767





                                            Read the Ingredients

                  By Rabbi Joshua (inclusively known as The Hoffer) Hoffman


  In this week's parsha, we are given a list of the ingredients that went into the composition of the anointing oil that was used to consecrate the various utensils used in the divine service there. Interestingly, the first of these ingredients is given a special status by Rabbi Masna, as mentioned in the Talmud (Chulin 139b). Papunai is cited there as asking Rabbi Masna where Mordechai is mentioned in the Torah and Rabbi Masna responds that the fragrance "mor deror," or myrrh, is translated into Aramaic by Onkelos as "mira dachya".  Although there is a Talmudic principle that everything has some hint to it in the Torah, we do not often find the Talmud explicity asking where a certain person's name is actually mentioned there. Rav Dovid Feinstein, in a recent shiur on Megillas Esther, explained that since, on Purim, under the leadership of Mordechai and Esther, the Jews ultimately reaccepted the Torah in all of its ramifications with a willing heart, the playing out of the events of Purim was necessary for the Torah to endure among the Jewish nation. Therefore, there is a need to show how the names of the principle players in the Megillah are, in fact, mentioned in the Torah, because those events  are crucial for the endurance of the Torah. Interestingly, this week's parsha also describes a reacceptance of the Torah by the people after Moshe smashed the tablets because of their worship of the golden calf. Perhaps, then, following in the footsteps of Rav Dovid, we can find a way in which the character of Mordechai constitutes an essential element in the reacceptance of the Torah in the time of Moshe, just as it was in the time of Mordechai.


  Actually, Rav Dovid himself, in his Kol Dodi to parshas Ki Sisa, explains the conection between the annointing oil hinted at in Mordechai's name and the reacceptance of the Torah at that time. The annointing oil, explains Rav Dovid, elevates people and objects to a state of kedusha, or holiness. Why was this elevation process done by people through the application of annointing oil manufactured by man? Why didn't God Himself bring about this state? Rav Dovid answers that the kedusha would not be properly appreciated if it came as a gift from God, with no human effort involved. Similarly, in the time of Mordechai, the nation reaccepted the Torah that they had received at Mt. Sinai. As we read in the Megillah,  'kiymu vekiblu,' they upheld and accepted. The Talmud (Shabbos 88a) explains that they reaccepted the Torah given at Sinai with even more fervor than they had at first. Although Rav Dovid does not say this, I believe we can apply his comments in connection with the reacceptance of the Torah in the days of Mordechai to the reacceptance of the Torah in the form of the second set of tablets in the time of Moshe, as well.


  Rabbi Yosef Dov HaLevi Soloveichik, great grandfather and namesake of Rabbi Y.D. Soloveichik of Boston, has a lengthy discussion, in the homiletic section of his halachic work Beis HaLevi, derasha no.18, of the difference between the first and second tablets. One basic difference, which is mentioned in the Torah itself, is that whereas the first tablets were both made and written by God, the second tablets were carved out by Moshe and only written by God. Another difference, mentioned by the rabbis, is that while the first tablets incorporated what was later known as the oral law in the text itself, the second tablets did not. The thirteen rules of interpreting verses to derive halachos, for example, were not given until the time of the second tablets, because there was no need for them before then. The human effort now required in deriving the oral law is reflected in the human effort required in carving out the tablets themselves. The Beis HaLevi continues that, far from giving the second tablets a lesser status than the first ones, these differences, in one sense,  gave them a higher status. Man now became a partner with God in the halachic process itself, as reflected in the statement in parshas Nitzovim (Devorim 30:12) that the Torah is not in heaven.The rabbis invoked this principle in a remarkable passage in Bava Metzia, page 59, in which they rejected the opinion of Rabbi Eliezer in a certain halachic dispute even though he had called on heaven to prove his opinion correct, and a series of miracles actually did occur in response to his call. Once the oral Torah was given, explains the Beis HaLevi, man becomes a partner with God by engaging in its study and using its principles in a proper way to determine what the halacha is in each given situation. In this sense, then, the message of the annointing oil, which is, according to Rav Dovid Feinstein, to indicate that spiritual elevation needs to be attained through human effort in order to be appreciated, applies to the acceptance of the second set of tablets and its initiation of the process of the oral law, as well.



  Please address all correspondence to the author (Rabbi Hoffman) with the following address - JoshHoff @ AOL.com.

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