SHEMINI

The Siftai Chachamim has posed the question: Why does Rashi need to specify the words of the priestly blessing? Is it not enough to inform us that this is the priestly blessing, without specifying its content?

There is another question which must also be asked. Before the priests bless the congregation in the synagogue, they make a bracha: " ...who has blessed us with the triple blessing written in the Torah by Your servant Moshe, and recited from the mouth of Aharon and his sons." Why do we need this long recitation? Is it not enough to conclude with the words "written in the Torah"?

In regards to the question concerning Rashi's commentary to the verse in our weekly parsha, it can be said that the Divinely ordained text of the priestly blessing had not yet been revealed. The event described in our parsha took place immediately after erection of the mishkan. When Aharon wanted to bless the people, he used, intuitively, words that afterwards G-d agreed to prescribe as the wording to be used to bless the children of Israel. Therefore, Rashi specified the words that Aharon used, and that is also why the blessing beforehand specifies that these words were "recited from the mouth of Aharon," before they were revealed in the Torah and written there by Moshe.

(Har Tzvi)

It is written, "Remove anger from your heart..." (Ecclesiastes 11:10). The following story, related in "Tenuat Hamussar," depicts how far away from the trait of anger Rabbi Yisrael Salanter tried to keep himself.

When Rebbe Yisrael lived in Berlin any Jew from Russia or Poland who journeyed nearby made a point of going to see him, whether for the sake of just being in his presence or to ask him advice about some matter.

It happened once that Rabbi Ehrman entered his room, and found Rebbe Yisrael in a state of sadness. When he asked about the reason for it, Rebbe Yisrael explained that two Jews from Kovno, where Rebbe Yisrael had studied in the past, had just visited him. They told him about some changes which were being instituted there in the congregation of Kovno, and Rebbe Yisrael foresaw that there would be undesirable results as a consequence of them.

Rabbi Ehrman asked if the consequences of the changes were so bad as to warrant so much sadness on the part of the Rav? This question Rebbe Yisrael answered in the negative. However, upon hearing of the changes, he had become angry.

Rabbi Ehrman asked, "Did you say something to the visitors that may have humiliated them?"

"G-d forbid," Rabbi Yisrael said. "No one besides myself sensed anything."

"Then what has caused the Rav such sorrow," Rabbi Ehrman asked?

"What are you asking," Rabbi Yisrael said. "Do you not know that anyone who is angry is considered as if he worshipped idols, and all the types of gehennom (hell) have dominion over him?"

The Rama writes (Yoreh Deah 81:7): "The milk of a gentile is like the milk of a Jewess. Nevertheless, a child should not nurse from a gentile woman if it is possible to arrange it through a Jewish woman. The milk of idolators occludes the heart and produces a bad nature.

"The woman who is nursing, even a Jewess, should not be allowed to eat forbidden things, and certainly the child as well. It will harm him when he is older."

We have learned (Sanhedrin 27) that children are not punished because of the sin of the parents if they do not follow in the ways of the parents. Therefore, why have hundreds of generations been punished by the decree of death as a consequence of the sin of Adam?

Since the sin of Adam was to eat something that was forbidden, it seems that the forbidden foodstuff continues to disperse its evil influence throughout the generations.

(Rabbi Leib Chessman)

The Chatam Sofer was asked the following question by a member of his congregation who had a son five years old. The boy was mentally retarded. He had a voice, but he could not speak any recognizable words. He could hear when someone spoke to him, but he did not know what was being said to him. In the city of Vienna an institution had been established to deal with problems like this one, and the father had been assured that if he would send his son there, the boy's intelligence would certainly improve, and there was even hope that he could become a more or less normal person.

However, it was not possible to provide kosher sustenance for the boy in Vienna. He would not be able to receive enough kosher food, and he would certainly have to eat non-kosher products. The father asked the Chatam Sofer if it were permitted to send the boy to the institution, or not?

The Chatam Sofer answered that it was permitted to send the boy there until the age of thirteen years and one day. "Nevertheless," the Chatam Sofer wrote, "the early rabbis have declared that forbidden foods occlude the heart and produce a bad nature. Therefore, I say that it is better that the boy should be a moron all his life...."

(Teshuvot Hachatam Sofer, Orach Chaim, 83)