Tribal lands

Twice in our history Hashem has said He wanted to destroy the Jews, and twice Moshe "argued" with Hashem and won: by the Golden Calf and the spies.

The Midrash (Shemos Rabbah 44:9 + Bamidbar Rabba 16:22) have 4 stage conversations with Moshe and Hashem:
1. Hashem says He wants to destroy the Jews
2. Moshe says that Hashem made a promise to the Patriarchs
3. Hashem says that He will let Moshe be the sole survivor, and fulfil the promise through Moshe

Here is where they differ - at the Golden Calf Moshe says that he cannot become a nation, as he only represents one tribe - Levi! Moshe says that all the Tribes have an assurance, at which point Hashem concedes the argument and lets the Jews live.

By the spies, this fourth point is different - Moshe says that letting the nation continue through him would be a Chillul Hashem - a desecration of G-d's Name - that people would speculate that Hashem could not sustain them in the desert, and so they died. Hashem replies that these people will have heard of His miracles in Egypt, so this would have no basis! Moshe counters by saying that perhaps people will say that the kings of Canaan were too great for the G-d of the Jews, at which point G-d concedes the argument and lets the Jews live.

R' Yehoshua Hartman points out that it is clear that the Golden Calf argument was better - life continued as normal. The spies arguments clearly wasn't so great - all the Jews of that generation died out and they wandered in the desert for an additional 39 years as a result! Why didn't Moshe use the tried and tested winning argument, that the Tribes also had an assurance?

In our Parsha, Ki Sisa, Moshe says: זְכֹר לְאַבְרָהָם לְיִצְחָק וּלְיִשְׂרָאֵל עֲבָדֶיךָ אֲשֶׁר נִשְׁבַּעְתָּ לָהֶם בָּךְ וַתְּדַבֵּר אֲלֵהֶם אַרְבֶּה אֶת זַרְעֲכֶם כְּכוֹכְבֵי הַשָּׁמָיִם וְכָל הָאָרֶץ הַזֹּאת אֲשֶׁר אָמַרְתִּי אֶתֵּן לְזַרְעֲכֶם וְנָחֲלוּ לְעֹלָם - "Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants, to whom You swore by Your very Self, and to whom You said: 'I will multiply your seed like the stars of the heavens, and all this land which I said that I would give to your seed, they shall keep it as their possession forever'" (32:13)

Where is the assurance about the Tribes? And why mention the promise about the land, out of all the promises He had made to the Patriarchs?

The Gemara (Bava Basra 122a) discusses how the land was divided up, and concludes that it was divided up amongst the tribes. The Brisker Rov points out that mentioning the land is therefore a mention of the tribes, which answers a point that may be bothering the more astute reader - what assurance to the tribes were we referring to?)

Armed as we are with this knowledge, the Ramban (14:17) answers why Moshe could not winning argument that had worked so well by the Golden Calf again when he argued with GHashem about the spies - he could not mention the land - as the spies had explicitly stated that they did not want it!

R' Yehoshua Hartman points out the difference between the question and answer stage. When we asked why Moshe could not use the winning argument, we thought that the assurance was independent of anything, at the answer stage we realised that the assurance is tied and intrinsic to the land.

Random searches?

The Pasuk says "וַיְחַפֵּשׂ בַּגָּדוֹל הֵחֵל וּבַקָּטֹן כִּלָּה וַיִּמָּצֵא הַגָּבִיעַ בְּאַמְתַּחַת בִּנְיָמִן - "He searched; he started with the eldest and finished with the youngest, and the goblet was found in Benjamin's sack" (44:12). You would think this means he searched from Reuven's bag until Binyamin's bag. Not so. The Midrash Rabba says that the eldest referred to was in fact Shimon. And Yosef only searched this eldest and the youngest, Binyamin. The Griz, the Brisker Rav asks how the Midrash reached this conclusion.

He answers in the name of the Maharil Diskin that in 44:8 the brothers said a kal v'chomer, one of ten in the Torah, that" הֵן כֶּסֶף אֲשֶׁר מָצָאנוּ בְּפִי אַמְתְּחֹתֵינוּ הֱשִׁיבֹנוּ אֵלֶיךָ מֵאֶרֶץ כְּנָעַן וְאֵיךְ נִגְנֹב מִבֵּית אֲדֹנֶיךָ כֶּסֶף אוֹ זָהָב: - Behold, the money we found in the mouth of our sacks we returned to you from the land of Canaan; so how could we steal from your master's house silver or gold?". However, there are two people who did not make this kal v'chomer: Shimon and Binyamin! Binyamin was not there so he could not say he was as honest as his brothers who returned Yosef's gold, and in 44:24 it says " וַיִּקַּח מֵאִתָּם אֶת שִׁמְעוֹן וַיֶּאֱסֹר אֹתוֹ לְעֵינֵיהֶם - and he took Simeon from among them and imprisoned him before their eyes".

So the pasuk is actually telling us that the only people who were searched were the oldest and youngest of the people whose honesty had not been proven, Binyamin and Shimon!

Is there a hidur mitzva after the mitzva is done?

There is a concept of hidur mitzva, which means that we can make the mitzvos we do more beautiful. Examples of this are taking nice esrogim on Succos, getting larger tfillin, getting a megillah written by the best scribe, among many countless others.

The basic level of the mitzva of Chanuka is ner ish uveiso, where the man of the house will light one candle each night for his household. A step up is called mehadrin (beautiful), where the man will light progressively as the holiday progresses. The best is called mehadrin min hamehadrin, which is what most tend to do, whereby each member of the household will light progressively.

The Rambam (a Sephardi) says something most interesting that people don't normally notice, but the Griz (The Brisker Rav) points out that the Rambam says the word Madlik, as opposed to Madlikin, which indicates his view is that there is no such step as the final one we mentioned, that the best mitzva one can do is for the householder to light progressively or recessively, but not for each member to.

This is at odds with the Rema (R' Moshe Isserles, whom Ashkenazi Jews tend to hold like) who holds that each person lighting is mehadrin. So whow are we to understand the Rambam's position, and why does the Rema argue?

We can look to a Gemara in Shabbos that can perhaps shed light on this issue. The context is Bris Milah, where the Mohel realises afterwards that he has left something called tzitzin (small piece of skin). There are two types of tzitzin, the type that leaves the baby boy considered uncircumcised, and the type that doesn't matter. The Gemara concludes that eino chozrin al tzitzin she'einon meakvin, that there is no need for the Mohel to perform the Bris again if it is the type which does not matter.

Rashi explains that this is only on Shabbos that the Mohel doesn't return, but that on weekdays he would. The Rambam says that he wouldn't go back to perform the operation again even on a weekday.

So the Brisker Rav, the Griz, explains to us what the issue really is: after the shaas mitzva is gone, you can't make it better. There is no doubt that this is the case on Shabbos, where everyone agrees that you don't break it for the hidur, but the Rambam sas that once the Mohel is finished the Bris, he can't make it any more mehudar than it was, as the Mitzva has been completed.

The Rema and Rashi disagree, and say that yes, you can! This is the difference with regard to lighting Menoras; The Rambam says that once the householder has lit, there is no hidur mitzva for the rest of the householders to perform a hidur, as the mitzva has already finished when the householder lit the first light, so the hidur stops once he has lit additional lights. Any further attempts at hidur ie mehadrin min hamehadrin are after the shaas hamitzva, so are unnecessary.

We hold like the Rema and Rashi, that we can do hidur after the main mitzva has been completed, which is why each of us lights our own Menora.

Because That If....?

The Pasuk says: " כִּי אִם זְכַרְתַּנִי אִתְּךָ כַּאֲשֶׁר יִיטַב לָךְ וְעָשִׂיתָ נָּא עִמָּדִי חָסֶד וְהִזְכַּרְתַּנִי אֶל פַּרְעֹה וְהוֹצֵאתַנִי מִן הַבַּיִת הַזֶּה - ??? remember me when things go well with you, and please do me a favor and mention me to Pharaoh, and you will get me out of this house." (40:14). The words כִּי אִם do not really belong here, as the translation above clearly shows - they do not add or change any meaning in the Pasuk. כִּי אִם translates loosely as "because that" and many variations. Certainly this translation isn't helpful in understanding the Pasuk, so what are they there for? As we have seen many times, it is because we have not understood the context clearly enough.

There is a story told by the Brisker Rov in the name of his father R' Chaim Brisker about the Rav of Kovno, (present day Kaunas in Lithuania). The story occurred while General Napoleon was marching through Eastern Europe. The lords and gentry wanted to please Napoleon as his armies passed through their lands, and they wanted to honour him by making a lavish evening whereupon they would bestow gifts and treasures to him. The province's leaders each took their turn to present him and his delegations with their offerings, and after a while, he noticed none of the Jewish community were represented, and he was relatively good to the Jews and questioned how come there were no Jewish leaders at the ball. The pronvince's leaders shuffled around uncomfortably, and explained that they did not feel the Jews to be members of society worthy enough of honouring Napoleon. He flew into a rage and insisted they bring a rabbi, and the gentry grew nervous. They sent for the rabbi from the nearest town, which happened to be the Rav of Kovno. (I couldn't find out who this was at the time of writing...) He was rushed to the ball and Napoleon requested that the rabbi say something truthful, something he'd felt was lacking in the previous speeches. The gentry were quaking at this point.

The Rav said that that week's weekly portion was ours, Vayeshev, and he'd never understood why the Pasuk had said כִּי אִם until the sequence of events that had unfolded that night that had enabled him to have an audience requested by Napoleon. He explained that without context, we don't see the bigger picture, (a concept we discussed regarding Chanuka already,) with regards to what on earth Napoleon was doing in this far flung corner of Europe. He said that things do not just happen "by the way". Everything is ordained, everything is planned in Heaven. Yosef was saying to the butler that he was innocent, and certainly that was the case: how does one prevent a fly falling into the wine as you drink it? But nevertheless he was imprisoned? Loosely applying this with the translation of כִּי אִם, "you are here because ie in order that you must remember me when things go well with you".

The Rav then proceeded to tell Napoleon that the reason he was near Kovno was because the Jews were being oppressed terribly, and he was here to save them. Napoleon applauded, and save them he did - he removed the gentry's stewardship over the Jews (albeit temporarily!).

Geshmack!