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Friday, April 19, 2013

Acharei Mos - Kedoshim

Among the list of Mitzvos the Torah tells us that will help to make us holy if we follow them is the posuk of לא תקם ולא תטר do not take revenge or bear a grudge.
Rashi says that revenge is one who asks his friend to loan him something & the friend refuses. The next day the friend asks to borrow something. One can't say I won't lend it to you just as you didn't lend to me.

The חזקוני asks, why is it that we warn the person who wants to avenge himself for being refused a loan by his friend, however, nothing is said to the one who refused to loan to begin with. Surely his sin is greater for initially refusing to lend!

He answers that there is an inherent difference in the reasons of these two people. The first one is a stingy person who can't bear to part with his possessions; Hashem won't force someone to lend against his will. The second person however, is really generous & would normally lend, but now won't because of the hatred that he feels & because he wants revenge. The Torah tells him, let the natural love you have for your friend overcome the hatred you feel from his actions if one could do that then there will be peace in the world.

Easier said than done. How is one able to put those feelings of hurt & being wronged aside & act as if nothing happened?

There's a mashal from the כלי יקר that could help us to understand. There was a little boy who was playing in the sand. He spent hours building a big beautiful sand castle, expecting it to last forever. As he was admiring his masterpiece his big brother came along, & as big brothers will do knocked down the whole castle. The little boy was so upset! This castle was everything to him. He went to his father crying & told him what his brother did, expecting his father to be so infuriated by the destruction of his castle that he would punish his brother terribly.
But the father, knowing that it was really only a sand castle, just a temporary plaything, didn't do anything.

This, says the כלי יקר, is why one can't take revenge. If we understand that all the problems of this world are just like the sand castle of the little boy then we will realize that whoever tries to hurt us are really only causing us minimal damage, not even worthy of retaliation. Just as the father wouldn't punish the older brother because he knew what he did was really nothing so too Hashem, who's controlling everything knows exactly what we need. As we saw by דוד המלך when שמעי בן גרא cursed him and אבישי wanted to kill שמעי because he cursed the king. Dovid said to him, leave him, for Hashem told him to curse. Meaning that שמעי was only Hashem's messenger so how could we punish him?
This, explains the קרן לדוד is why it says 'אני ה at the end of the posuk, for if a person will realize that 'אני ה is controlling all that happens to us then there won't be any reason to ever get angry at another person for then we will realize that they're just the messenger!




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