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- Torah Portion and Tanach
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The Torah study is dedicatedto the full recovery of
Shmuel Ben Aliza
The Ba’al Haturim does not provide Yaakov’s response to this question. However, a look at the Torah’s report of his answer along with some Torah-based common sense can show that Yaakov answered it profoundly. Yaakov answered Eisav that the children were granted from Hashem. We sometimes call children a gift from Hashem. However, a gift is something one gets for free, and he can do whatever he wants with it. So maybe we should call children an investment that Hashem gives us as a joint venture. If one uses investment money wisely, it brings returns to the investor and to the active partner in the venture. So too, when someone like Yaakov brings up his children in the way Hashem desires, both the parent and, kaveyachol, Hashem, gain.
Eisav also had a few wives and many children, as mentioned at the parasha’s end. He saw them as an element of olam hazeh. His wives gave him physical pleasure, and, for him, the more pleasure, the better. Eisav’s children were warriors, with whom to conquer lands and intimidate his brother. These were all things that Yaakov had claimed to pass up on. Wouldn’t one wife be enough, like it was for their parents? Yaakov did not ignore the question about the wives. He answered by saying that the additional wives were not for olam hazeh purposes. Rather, they were a means of having more children, and they were not his plan but a result of the Divine Providence. (Had he married Rachel the first time and she had born children, he would have not married Leah or taken Bilhah and Zilpah.) Regarding the children, Yaakov explained that he didn’t want them to serve his personal interests in olam hazeh. Rather, they were a joint venture with Hashem. The expected profits from the venture of Yaakov’s children were in olam habah. He dreamed of training them to follow the path of their forefathers and build a holy family and, eventually, a holy nation. As a result, patriarchs and descendents would all merit a healthy return in the world to come, as Hashem desired.
Rabbis in Midrash
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Hosha'ana Rabba FLYDUBAI & HOSHANA RABBA- ANI VAHU HOSHIA NA- I & HIM SAVE US
"Ani vaHu Hoshia Na", "I and Him, Save Us". We don't just pray to Him, but we also pray to and for ourselves that we should emulate and educate our children to have that instinctive altruism with which He created the world. President Trump seemed amused about Yaniv Hayon, our PLUMBER who confidently worked with G-d like Superman (he learned from a pilot on a TV show!) to save 174 lives on the Dubai hijacking, but we in Israel are totally accustomed already 78 years to our plumbers, teachers, garbage-men, rabbis, farmers & doctors being Hashem's shlichim! This is what Zionism is about.
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)
