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Beit Midrash
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- Chemdat Yamim
- Ein Ayah
Ein Ayah: The greatest level of a leader of a nation is that he should consider himself so dedicated to the needs of the people he leads that he fully appreciates their worth, their situations, and their specific needs. Specifically, he should be able to not view these elements of the people’s lives from his own perspective but to lower himself into their situation in a clear manner, as if he is standing in the same predicament and in one place with them.
When this delicate characteristic is found in abundance in a righteous judge, it will cause him to "go down" to the people, travelling from one place of their inhabitation to another place. This will then naturally cause him to lower his spirit to their inner situation, which is quite distant from his own level. In that way, he will raise them up, take them with him, and judge them with justice and with an approach of belief. Such a holy judge will be led by a great internal strength to keep the judicial apparatus functioning on firm footing without the need for intimidating officers to enforce the smooth running of the judicial system.
However, to reach this level is no simple thing. How great and lofty, holy and transcendent, it is?! How much spirit of Hashem must a person have upon him to know how to lead those who are far from his level based on their true situation?! Shmuel was blessed with these abilities, and therefore his "spirit took him" to travel from place to place in the cities of his fellow Jews – going down to them and raising them up to him, as opposed to influencing them from his high station.
Shmuel’s sons did not attain their father’s high level in this regard. They decided to judge the people from their own places according to their understanding. Such justice cannot be definite, and therefore it needs a judicial apparatus to support it. These positions were filled by assistants and scribes who received pay. Shmuel’s sons’ actions could not be considered a sin in the regular sense of the meaning; however, this was not the way of their father, who was chosen by Hashem – the righteous Shmuel.
Various Rabbis
Various Rabbis including those of of Yeshivat Bet El, such as Rabbi Chaim Katz, Rabbi Binyamin Bamberger and Rabbi Yitzchak Greenblat and others.
Moreshet Shaul Moreshet Shaul: A Crown and its Scepter – part II
Based on Siach Shaul, Pirkei Machshava V’Hadracha p. 294-5
Rabbis in Midrash
Lessons
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Moreshet Shaul Hashem Is your Shadow – part I
Based on Siach Shaul, Pirkei Machshava V’Hadracha p. 420 – an address from 1941
P'ninat Mishpat A Non-Contractor in Changing Times – part I
(based on ruling 85128 of the Eretz Hemdah-Gazit Rabbinical Courts)
Moreshet Shaul Our King on Rosh Hashana, Our Father on Yom Kippur.
Based on Aroch Siach, p. 221 (Rav Shaul Yisraeli)
P'ninat Mishpat A Non-Contractor in Changing Times – part II
(based on ruling 85128 of the Eretz Hemdah-Gazit Rabbinical Courts)
Moreshet Shaul Hashem Is your Shadow – part II
Based on Siach Shaul, Pirkei Machshava V’Hadracha p. 420 – an address from 1941
Parashat Hashavua Happiness for the Right Reasons
[With painful longing, we share these divrei Torah from our co-Rosh Kollel for close to 40 years, Harav Moshe Ehrenreich zt”l.]
