Ki Seitzei

This parsha contains more commandments than any other. One commandment states, כי תבנה בית חדש , when you build a new house,ועשית מעקה לגגך, you must put a gate around the roof.  
The Ben Ish Chai has a very interesting take on this Posuk.
‎The clever person is never standing still; his thoughts are always full of new ideas & plans - whether it be materialistic, how he's going to succeed in business, or in spiritual matters, how much he plans on accomplishing in Torah. However, when those plans don't come to fruition, a person can become depressed. Even though the ideas were great when he started, the shattering of his dream can bring him all the way down. 

The Ben Ish Chai continues that even if a person on Rosh Hashana was inscribed for great things to happen, it's possible for a person to have reality changed to illusion. If a person is always dreaming about great things happening to him so that it seems real, so Hashem, figuratively speaking, isn't obligated to give it to him anymore.   

There was a story of a person whose business was selling eggs & chickens.  ‎Every week he would go into the Arab village, buy some chickens & eggs, go back to his town & sell them for a few dollars more then he paid. This way he would eke out a small profit to feed his family. One day, as he's walking from the village to his town with a basket full off eggs on his head & chickens on his shoulders, he begins to think & bemoan his lot as an egg peddler & how hard it is for him to eke out a meager living.

As he's thinking, he gets an idea.  Instead of selling the eggs & chickens, why not bring them home, let the chickens sit on the eggs & then he will have a thousand chicks. Of course they will all be female & have more eggs and then more chicks. His thoughts continue that, in a few months, he could have hundreds of thousands of chickens which he could then sell, ‎buy merchandise from overseas & make huge profits. Afterwards, he will be able to exchange his little hut for a huge house surrounded by gardens. Within a short time he will be appointed the leader of the town. He will lead the delegation that goes to the king on his birthday. He begins thinking about how he will bow to the king when he greets him. Because his daydream was so real to him, he actually starts bowing.

The basket of eggs on his head came crashing down; he fell on top of it killing the chickens on his shoulder & crushing all the eggs. So not only didn't he have the glory of his dreams, he also didn't have his eggs or chickens & was now penniless. Alas, his dreams had robbed him of what little he had.  
 
This, says the Ben Ish Chai, is what the Satan tries to do to us. He wants us to daydream & just think about what we‎ could do rather than actually doing anything.  By having us live in our daydreams, he, in essence, steals from us what we were meant to get for real. Instead, we were living in a dream. 

To avoid this, he translates the posuk as follows כי תבנה בית חדש , when a new thought enters your head on how to prosper either financially or spiritually, ועשית מעקה לגגך that new thought is the roof of the house, while the body of the person is the fence to give the thoughts a boundary, making sure that they don't run wild. This “fence” requires one to take what's able to be done & do it before the thoughts go wild. Then ולא תשים דמים you won't have illusions in your home & you will be able to get the actual good that's meant to come to you!  

Shoftim

Our Parsha begins: שפטים ושטרים תתן לך בכל שעריך, Judges and officers shall you appoint in all your cities. The parsha then continues to describe how the judges have to conduct themselves with honesty & integrity. Finally, the Torah tells us that if you do these things, you will take possession of the land. Rashi says the merit of doing these laws in enough to keep the Jewish people on their land. These seem like pretty important laws, but how do they relate to the average person?  

The Shela Hakadosh tells us that there are seven gates to the soul: the two ears, two eyes, two nostrils & the mouth ‎whose job it is not to let outside influences into the body of a person. This is what the posuk means & how it relates to every one -  שפטים ושטרים תתן לך בכל שאריך put judges & police on all your gates;  be careful that no bad enters through these gates on your body. Hear no evil, see no evil, don't let smells lure you & be careful how you speak; these are the lessons the Torah is trying to tell us. Let's take this a step further.  

Later on, the parsha tells us the laws of the unintentional murderer & how we have to prepare a city for him & make sure the roads are clearly marked so that when the man is fleeing, he knows exactly where to go. Once, in Radin, two men came collecting; one came collecting for yeshivos & charity orginazations in Yerushalaim and the other for secular institutions throughout Israel. The latter was in town for a short time & left with all that he needed, while the other one had to spend much time working tirelessly to reach his goal.  

This bothered him very much. Here he was doing the right thing, collecting for worthy causes yet, it was so hard for him while this other person had it so easy. He brought his complaint to the Chaftez Chaim who answered him as follows. When the Torah gives the mitzva of the city of refuge, it says to prepare the route with signs & make it easy for the person to run there. There must be clear signs and  good lighting to make sure he can find it easily. However, by the Mitzva to go up to Yerushalaim for the three festivals, we find no commandment to put up signs & make the way clear for the people going up.  Why, for a sinner, we are so careful that he should know where to go but for people doing a Mitzva we let them figure it out on their own.  

What kind of person has to go to a city of refuge? A sinner; even though he killed by accident there is still negligence & a sin.  That is why he has to go for atonement. We don't want a person like that talking to other people asking directions therefore there needs to be clear directions were to go so he doesn't influence other people. However, people that are going up to Yerushalaim are good people; we want them to ask directions & engage other people in conversation so that they could influence them for the good & get them to go. So, too, continued the Chafetz Chaim, that man who was collecting for secular things, Hashem made him succeed quickly so he wouldn't hang around long & influence people for the negative.  However, you, who were collecting for good & would be a positive influence on people, Hashem made it take you longer so that you would inspire people for the good. 

If we take the lesson of the beginning of the parsha & use our natural gates to shield us from outside influences, then, as we are walking around all day meeting people from all walks of life, we can be a positive influence by showing that leading a pure life makes us better people, more caring, kind & considerate. By example then, we will have a positive influence on all those around us!

Re'eh

There is an argument in the gemara between Reb Meir & Reb Yehudah regarding a verse in our parsha. The posuk says בנים אתם לה אלקיכם you are children to Hashem your God. Reb Yehudah states that the Jews are only considered children of Hashem when they comply with his wishes. Reb Meir disagrees, maintaining that even when the Jews do not display the proper respect & devotion to Hashem, they still enjoy the special status of being "children of Hashem". Rashba notes that although in disputes between Reb Yehudah & Reb Meir we usually follow Reb Yehudah, in this case we follow Reb Meir. Thus, Jews are irrevocably & unconditionally deemed children of Hashem.    

The Rabbi of Ludz once came to talk to one of the ministers of the king. As they were talking, the king’s minister was very impressed with the knowledge & sharpness of the rabbi.   He remarked, “How unfortunate is it that you were born a Jew. Had you been born a Christian, you could have risen so far as being the Pope!  
The rabbi smiled and answered, “instead of feeling sorry for me that I was born a Jew, feel sorry for yourself that you were born a Christian. As a Christian, the most you could become is the level of Pope who is serving the "son of God". However, had you been born a Jew, you could have reached a way higher level  ‎of being an actual son of God Himself, for the Jews are בנים לה!  

What does this mean to us that we are בנים לה ? How does it affect each one of us personally? 

When the Chafetz Chaim was very old, already in his nineties,  ‎Reb Chaim Ozer asked him to come to Vilna to speak to the people about family purity.  Because of his age, the Chafetz Chaim didn't go anywhere anymore, However, because Reb Chaim Ozer asked him, he was willing to take the trip. Since his family didn't want him to go, they said they wouldn't help him; but when they saw that he was going out to go himself, barely walking, they agreed to go & took him to Vilna. When he arrived, thousands of people came to greet him. He spoke on Friday night for the women with over six thousand women attending. The next day, on Shabbos, he spoke for the men, with also over six thousand men in attendance. 


On Shabbos late afternoon, he received people with individual ‎needs. One man came to talk to him about his problems. After the Chafetz Chaim answered his questions, he took the man's hands in his & spoke to him earnestly about Emuna until he saw that his words made an impact on the man. When he left the house, the Chafetz Chaim was overheard saying to himself "it was worth it to come from Radin to Vilna just to strengthen one man's Emuna".  Even though he had spoken to thousands of people, he had no way of knowing if it had accomplished anything; but for that one man that he knew he had affected, it was all worth it. 


This powerful story demonstrates that each & every one of us is important for we are all Hashem’s children. Just as a parent cares about each child individually & tries to do what's best for that child, so, too, Hashem treats each one of us as that special child & He will always do what's best for us. Each one of us matters to Him as an individual. So, if we can internalize that & know that Hashem loves us & only wants what's best for us, we should try to reciprocate that love & try to get closer to Hashem whatever way we can!

Eikev

Moshe speaks to the people, reminding them of all the blessings they will get by listening to & performing the Mitzvos. ‎He goes on to remind them of all the things Hashem had done for them throughout the years in the desert.  
Then he goes back even further & shows them how far they came by saying, בשבעים נפש ירדו אבתיך מצרימה , with seventy soul your forefathers went down to Egypt, ועתה שמך ה אלקיך ככוכבי השמים לרב ,and now Hashem made you plentiful  like the stars in the sky. 

The בן איש חי notes that this posuk is similar to other pesukim which refer to the Jews in singular, בשבעים נפש , seventy soul, as opposed to שבעים נפשות, seventy souls. On the other hand, the nations of the world are referred to in the plural, as it says by Eisav, ויקח עשו את נשיו ואת בניו ואת בנותיו ואת כל נפשות ביתו & Eisav took his wives, his sons & daughters & all the souls of his household. What's the difference? Why are the Jews referred to in the singular whereas ‎the nations of the world are called נפשות, souls, in the plural?

‎The עוללות אפרים once came before the king in order to benefit the Jews of that country. However, a minister who was an enemy of the Jews didn't want to let the rabbi speak to the king. He badmouthed the rabbi by saying that the gemara states, אתם קרויים אדם, you are considered man & the nations of the world are not considered man. Continued the minister, they consider us animals & then they come to ask us for favors!?

The rabbi answered remarkably, "how great are the words of our sages who said that it's forbidden for a goy to learn Torah, for he reads the words but doesn't understand them. True it says that we are called אדם & not the goyim but what's the intention of the gemara? There are four different names that refer to man,  איש, גבר, אנוש, אדם. Three of them have plurals: אישים, גברים, אנשים; however, אדם has no plural. 

This is what the ‎gemara means when it says that the Jews are called אדם and not the nations of the world. The nations are אנשים, in the plural for the people are all individuals. What connection do the people of one city have to the next? Do they care if someone in another town whom they don't know is hungry or in pain? It makes no difference to them. However, the Jewish people are called אדם, for we are one nation & if one of our people is in pain - no matter if we know them or not, no matter what country they live in - we all feel his pain for we are one.  

The king, when he heard these words, realized how correct he was. Whereas you might have random acts of kindness between the nations, it's nothing compared to the selflessness of the Jewish people for one another. 

This understanding helps us interpret what it means when the posuk says, "guard the mitzvos of Hashem by going in His ways & fearing Him." According to the Chafetz Chaim, fear is the lowest level of getting close to Hashem. This posuk instructs us that even to reach the lowest level of fear of Hashem, you have to "go in His ways" - being merciful and kind, being one who does chesed for other people. 

We have to realize that the way to get close to Hashem is by doing kindness & feeling for other people. That's what makes us unique & one as a people. Let's take this opportunity to strengthen our love for one another and to care about each other. By so doing, we will climb one level at a time until we reach the highest level of clinging to Hashem!