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Shabbat Parashat Tetzaveh 5780

Ein Ayah: Blood of Life and Destruction

(condensed from Ein Ayah, Shabbat 9:130-131)

Gemara: How do we know that we tie a crimson strip of wool to the head of the scapegoat? It is along the lines of the pasuk: “If your sins will be like crimson items (shanim), they will become white like snow” (Yeshayahu 1:18). It should have said like shani (the singular – a crimson object). What does shanim indicate? Hashem was saying to Israel: “[Even] if your sins will be like years (shanim), which are set out one after the other from the time of the six days of Genesis until now, they will still whiten like snow.”

 

Ein Ayah: Life and the strengthening of life forces that are revealed in one’s spirit, which is incorporated into the lifeblood – the red, warm, and bubbly blood – display beauty and glow. However, they are also the sources of destruction and desolation, with all the sinfulness and evil involved in them. 

At the end of the process, repentance needs to come and forgiveness to be found. And the excess of the turbulence of life needs to be sent away to a place of desolation, to the center of destruction, for it is this excess that is the foundation of destruction and desolation.

This knowledge and internal realization straightens the spirit and makes it seek a better, balanced life, so that a person can maintain a harmonious grandeur, which is in line with the paths of the Torah. The light that comes from the source of life provides the light of forgiveness for all of the moral distortions of life when they leave their area of restraint.

All of these ideas are represented by the crimson strip of wool that was tied to the head of the scapegoat. When the crimson turns to white, it represents the sturdy foundation of purity and sanctity that is attached to energetic life (represented by the male goat, whose name eiz, which shares a root with the word for brazenness).

It is not that repentance works only for “chance” sins, which share more characteristics with unintentional sin than with purposeful sin. The great power of the light of repentance is revealed especially in regard to sins that form a pattern of behavior, which follow a person through his organized daily life. In those cases, the commonness of his behavior in both physical and spiritual matters makes one give up hope for the possibility of repentance.

In such cases, the word of Hashem comes to say that the impression that made one give up hope is incorrect. It is only out of weakness of the heart that a person holds on to that which seems to be his natural order. Repentance stands as a counterbalance to the nature of the individual and the nature of human society. The power of repentance is immense, and it can switch rooted patterns. Even if something remains for many years and for generations, as if in order from the six days of creation, they can be “turned from red into white.”

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Dedication

We daven for a complete and speedy refuah for:

 

Nir Rephael ben Rachel Bracha
Refael Yitchak ben Chana

Netanel Ilan ben Sheina Tzipora

Netanel ben Sarah Zehava

Meira bat Esther

Yair Menachem ben Yehudit Chana

Rivka Reena bat Gruna Natna

Lillian bat Fortune

Yafa bat Rachel Yente

Eliezer Yosef ben Chana Liba

Ro'i Moshe Elchanan ben Gina Devra

Esther Michal bat Gitel

Yehudit Sarah bat Rachel

 

Together with all cholei Yisrael

 

Hemdat Yamim is dedicated

to the memory of:

those who fell in wars

for our homeland

 

Eretz Hemdah's beloved friends

and Members of

Eretz Hemdah's Amutah

 

Rav Shlomo Merzel z”l
Iyar 10 5771

 

Rav Reuven Aberman z"l

Tishrei 9     5776

 

Mr. Shmuel Shemesh  z"l
Sivan 17 5774

 

R' Eliyahu Carmel z"l

Rav Carmel's father

Iyar 8    5776

 

Mrs. Sara Wengrowsky

bat R’ Moshe Zev a”h.

Tamuz 10       5774

 

Rav Asher Wasserteil z"l

Kislev 9  5769

 

R'  Meir ben

Yechezkel Shraga Brachfeld z"l

&

Mrs. Sara Brachfeld z"l

Tevet 16 5780

  

R'  Yaakov ben Abraham & Aisha

and

Chana bat Yaish & Simcha

Sebbag, z"l

 

Rav Yisrael Rozen z"l
Cheshvan 13 5778

 

Rav Benzion Grossman z"l
Tamuz 23    5777

 

Rav Moshe Zvi (Milton)

Polin z"l

Tamuz 19     5778

 

R' Abraham Klein z"l

Iyar 18 5779

 

 R' Gershon (George)

ben

Chayim HaCohen Kaplan

z"l

Adar II 6

 

R' Yehudah ben Naftali Hertz

Cohen (Kamofsky)

Adar II 12

 

 Hemdat Yamim
is endowed by Les & Ethel Sutker
of Chicago, Illinois
in loving memory of
Max and Mary Sutker
and
Louis and Lillian Klein, z”l

 

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