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Shabbat Parashat Yitro 5774

Yitro | 17 Shevat 5774 | 18/01/2014

Parashat Hashavua: The Desire to be Coerced

“The nation answered with one voice, and they said: “Everything that Hashem spoke we will do” (Shemot 24:3). While this sounds like a very enthusiastic acceptance of the Torah, we seem to have a different version of the episode. On the pasuk, “They positioned themselves under the mountain” (Shemot 19:17), the gemara (Shabbat 88a) expounds: “This teaches us that Hashem held the mountain over them and said that if they accept the Torah, good, and if not, there would be their grave.”

Ask the Rabbi: Feeding A Sephardi Something Permitted Only for Ashkenazim

I am Ashkenazi. When I invite Sephardim to my house, should I be concerned to put the food on the fire, like the Sephardi rules of bishul akum, or since they are my guests, could I just turn the fire on and rely on my Ashkenazi rules even l’chatchila?

Ein Ayah: Without Rest

Rav Chiya bar Ashi said in the name of Rav: Torah scholars have no rest, not in this world and not in the World to Come, as the pasuk says: “They will go from strength to strength; they will be seen by Hashem in Zion” (Tehillim 84:8).

P'ninat Mishpat: Accessory to an Alleged Crime

Dayanim asked the Rosh the following question to help them adjudicate properly. Reuven suspected that his wife’s brother Shimon was involved in the stealing of valuables from his house. He suspected that his wife took the objects out of the house and that Shimon then helped her hide them.

Refuah Sheleimah

amongst the sick

of Klal Yisrael

for

Rabanit Itah bat Chana

Ehrenreich

Mr. Eliyahu ben Sara Zelda Carmel

Mrs. Racheli Bat Rozi Bouskila

This edition of
Hemdat Yamim

is dedicated
to the memory of
R' Meir
ben

Yechezkel Shraga Brachfeld

o.b.m

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

Hemdat Yamim

is dedicated

to the memory of

HaRav Professor

Reuben M. Rudman

o.b.m

Hemdat Yamim
is dedicated
in memory of
Shmuel Rozenhak
o.b.m
who passed away
Iyar 6, 5773

A weekly divrei Torah leaflet: A Glimpse at the Parasha, Ask the Rabbi, From the writings of Harav Avraham Yitzchak Hakohen Kook, zt”l, Pninat Mishpat (Jewish Monetary Law).