netzavim-vayelach

T

he posuk says הקהל את העם האנשים והנשים והטף gather the nation the men, women & children למען ישמעו ולמען ילמדו in order that they will listen & learn the Torah. 
Rashi says the men come to learn, the women come to listen & the children come to give s’char for those that bring them. The Rambam says that even the greatest torah scholars who know everything had to come & listen to the king read the Torah.
The דרש דוד asks, if the reason that we do הקהל is that the people should listen & learn the torah, wouldn't it have made more sense for people to be grouped by level, instead of having everyone come together, from the smallest child to the greatest rabbi?
The ספר החינוך says, the mitzvah of הקהל is not just limud hatorah, but being that the whole essence of Klal Yisroel is Torah & that's what differentiates us from the rest of the world, we gather everyone together so that it should be a momentous occasion that everyone's talking about. When people ask, what's going on? Why is everyone here? The answer is to hear Torah & that will have people talking about it & praising it, infusing a desire in the people to pursue it.ר' אריה לווין asks, it says in the gemara in berochos   לעולם ירגיז אדם יצה"ט על יצה"ר; a person should always agitate the yetzer hatov at the yetzer hara, then you won't sin. He asks, how do you translate the word רגזו, and how do we have the yetzer hatov  agitating the yetzer hara?
He uses the following mashal to explain. 
There were two merchants with neighboring stores. One was full of customers at all hours of the day, making the owner very wealthy, and one which nobody came into, obviously making the owner very poor. One day a buyer came into the poor man's store & was looking around. It seemed, finally, the poor man was going to get a big sale. Alas, along comes the wealthy shopkeeper from down the block, trying to get the customer to go to his store. The poor man starts yelling & getting angry, saying, you have to try to take my one customer? Can't you let me have something? When the people heard what happened, they all agreed with the poor man. His argument was so strong that they all supported him and the wealthy shopkeeper left. That's the meaning of להרגיז; that you make a strong enough argument that your opponent just leaves on his own.  This is the way we have to deal with the yetzer hara. All day he's feeding us reasons why we can't learn, so when night comes, & the work excuses are over, he tries to get us with other reasons that we can't learn. He's just like the rich man trying to take the one customer from the poor man.   However, being that we just said that our whole essence is Torah, we have to be like the poor merchant. We have to get angry & say to him with an irrefutable argument, you got me all day long, now I have a little time at night to learn; do you have to take that away too?! Can't you let me have something?! Our desire has to be so strong that we get angry at any form of the yetzer hara that tries to stop us from learning in the little time we have, strengthening our commitment to learn & follow the torah, enabling our nation to survive!

ki savo

The posuk says ובאת אל הכהן אשר יהיה בימים ההם you shall come to the kohen that's in your days.
Rashi says that you only have the kohen that's in your generation however he is.
Ramban asks, we said by the shoftim that you have to go to the rabbis of your generation even though they might not be as great as previous ones, nonetheless, you must listen to them. That makes sense, but to tell me I have to give bikurim to the kohen of my generation seems superfluous. Who else would I give them to if not the kohen of our days?
The דרש דוד explains that the reason why the mitzvah to wipe out Amalek & the mitzvah to bring bikurim are right next to each other, is because the essence of Amalek's sin was אשר קרך בדרך that he happened upon you on the way. Rashi explains קרך-happened, that it comes from a lashon of מקרה - chance. Amalek's motto was that everything happens by chance & nobody is in control.
Bikurim show us the opposite effect . We are commanded to bring the first fruits to the kohen every year, & they have to be brought with great joy & thanks to 'ה for giving us the fruits. Why all the pomp & ceremony for a run of the mill everyday occurrence? You plant seeds, they grow, you have fruit; it's natural.
This is why it's next to Amalek. To dispel the notion that everything happens by chance; that even for a natural everyday occurrence like planting, we come & give gratitude to 'ה, showing that we believe even the smallest things are controlled by Him. There is no such thing as coincidence.
We know the job of the kohen was to teach the people & admonish them for their sins, helping them to grow in the service of 'ה. Maybe what Rashi meant when he said to give them to the kohen of your days, is that even nowadays when we don't have the kohen to teach & guide us, we have to look at everything that happens as a message from 'ה . In the last couple of weeks we have had a hurricane, an earthquake, & the 10th anniversary of 9/11. 'ה is trying to tell us something. I'm sure we can all think of something we could improve on, however, looking at the bikurim themselves, we can learn something. When people brought the bikurim, the wealthy people would bring their fruits on gold platters, & the kohanim would take the fruit & return the platter. The poor people would bring it in wicker baskets & the kohanim would keep the baskets too. Is this an example of the rich get richer & the poor get poorer? Explains ר אהרן בקשט, that the rich brought lots of big nice fruit, when the kohen would take the fruit off the gold platter it still looked like an impressive offering. But the fruits from the poor people weren't so nice, & there wasn't a lot, so taking only the fruit would look like a measly offering. In order for them not to be embarrassed in front of all the other people, the kohen took the fruit in the basket so it would look like they were getting something impressive from them too. Let's take this to heart & see the little things we can do not to hurt or embarrass other people, promoting achdus between one another so we won't need any more messages!

ki seitzei

The posuk says לא יבא עמוני ומואבי בקהל ה
There are two reasons given why Ammon & Moav can never enter into the jewish nation. First, because they did not greet the Jews with bread and water when they went out of Mitzraim, and second, because they hired Billam to curse the nation in order to destroy us.
The דובנא מגיד asks, how are we blaming these murderers, a nation that wanted to try to totally annihilate us for not giving us food, when that's only a courtesy? Isn't it enough to fault them for trying to kill us? How does them not giving us food even count?
Another anomaly we find, says the מליץ יושר, is if because a nation tried to destroy us they can't join us, then why could Mitzri'im become part of the jewish people? After all, they tried to destroy us too.
The רמב"ן says, one of the reasons why we do שלוח הקן is because we want to train ourselves not to be cold hearted. He quotes the רמב"ם that says that the reason we don't slaughter a mother animal & its kid on the same day, and the mitzva to send away the mother bird are both because an animal has the same built in feeling for a child that a human does. So if we would slaughter the kid in front of the mother, or take the eggs when the mother is there, it would cause great anguish. The Torah is showing us how compassionate we have to be even for an animal; how much more so for our fellow man.
With this we could understand how the מגיד answers his question. He says, in reality, the two reasons are one. The main reason is that Ammon & Moav didn't bring us bread and water, however if they would try to justify it by saying they were a poor country & couldn't afford it, we mention the second reason; that they hired Billam and expose their lie for where then did the money come from to hire Billam?
What the Torah is showing us here is how much kindness & feeling someone else's pain has to be part of our DNA. So much so that even though a nation like Mitzraim enslaved & tortured us, the fact that they provided us with a home when we needed it allows them to become part of our nation. They might have done those things to us says the מליץ יושר, for they felt we might overpower them one day, so it wasn't purely malicious. However, Ammon & Moav, who didn't even have the decency to give us a little food when a whole nation was on the run, had no feeling for another's pain, & therefore can never be a part of us. Let's take this lesson and truly feel one another's pain & actively try to alleviate it any way we can, & then midah K'neged midah 'ה will alleviate our pain and bring the geula speedily in our day!

shoftim

The posuk says לא תסור מן הדבר אשר יגידו לך ימין ושמאל; you shall not turn from the word that they will tell you, right or left.
Rashi says even if the חכמים tell you that right is left and left is right you still have to listen. שפתי חכמים explains that to mean that even if it appears to you that what they're telling you is the opposite of what you think, you still must listen.
The חתם סופר asks, why does it use the analogy of left and right as opposed to a different comparison, like light & dark?
He says that just like by Yaakov, when he put his left hand on Menashe instead of Efraim, when Yosef asked him about it he had a good reason for doing it. We see that even when our Rabbis tell us something that in our minds look like it's switching right to left, there's good reason. This is exemplified by the following story. When ר' יצחק זאב סולוביצ'יק first became Rav of Brisk, a delegation came from the army to his shul on Rosh Hashana to ask the rabbi to come with them in order to say וידוי with a jewish prisoner who was condemned to die. It was the law of the land that they couldn't kill a prisoner before they read him his last rites. However, when they got there the Rav was saying שמונה עשרה, so they said they would come back later. When the Rav finished his tefila the people told him what had transpired, and he decided that he wouldn't go. When they heard that the Rav wouldn't go, they began to protest & even spoke up and said that he's endangering all of them, but to no avail. When the delegation from the army came back it was in middle of musaf. The rabbi was davening & sensed that they were there, so he stayed in that stance for a long time so they wouldn't bother him. The people had no patience, so one of the older members said he was the Rav and went with them. He read the prisoner his last rites, who was then was taken out & killed. After davening, officers came to the Rav's house in a panic. The Rav's family was frantic thinking that they came to lock him up for not going, until it became clear that these officers were from another town coming to see if the Rav had gone to the prisoner. They wanted to catch up to him, for it came to light that the man was really innocent & didn't deserve to be killed. Quickly, it became clear what had happened, and the man who thought he was so smart & listened to the people, going against the Rav, caused the death of an innocent man. הרב איסר זלמן מלצר gives us a different perspective on why the Torah used right & left as opposed to light & dark. Light & dark are hard to mix up, but left and right are easy to mix up. If you stand opposite someone, each one says the right is on the other side. Therefore, chazal used the terminology of left & right because you can't see what the rabbi sees because you're standing in a different place than him. If you would be on his level & understand what he does, then your right would also be like his. So let's take this lesson & strengthen our אמונת חכמים, knowing that when we listen we will come to no harm!