Ki seitzei

One of the numerous mitzvos in this week's parsha is the mitzvah of שילוח הקן, sending away the mother bird when you want to take her eggs. It's a relatively simple mitzvah, yet its reward is great, as the posuk says, שלח תשלח את האם ואת הבנים תקח לך, “You shall surely send away the mother and take the young for yourself, למען ייטב לך והארכת ימים, so that it will be good for you and you will prolong your days." The Ksav Sofer asks, “What is so special about this mitzvah that we are promised goodness and long life?” 

He explains, based on the Ramban, that the mitzvah of sending away the mother bird is given to us in order for us to get used to having mercy even on animals so that we act merciful to one another. Chazal tell us that there are three types of people who don't have a life; one of them is the merciful person, because he is always troubled by everyone else's problems. Especially when he can't help, he's bothered even more. However, after the Torah commands us to have mercy on the mother bird in order that we become more merciful, it guarantees us that we won't always be upset and depressed like the usual merciful person, thereby shortening our days. Rather, it will be good for us because we will be able to help our friends, and we will have long life which won't be shortened because of our merciful nature. 

We see a similar concept a little later in the parsha. ארבעים יכנו , “You shall hit him forty times." The Gemara tells us that even though the Torah says that you get forty lashes, the chachamim explain it to mean only thirty-nine. Once, during a conversation between two rabbis, one of them said a very novel interpretation of some Torah concepts. The other one was impressed and said, “I see that you are a great man because you are able to expound the Torah so beautifully.” The rabbi said, “Not true; we see that a Torah scholar is called a great man because of only one teaching. When the Torah said to give someone forty lashes and the chachamim interpreted it to mean only thirty-nine is the only place we see that the rabbi is called great."

What's so special about this teaching? We have a similar teaching by sefiras haomer, when we count the days until we bring the omer. The Torah says, count fifty days and the chachamim say to only count forty-nine days. It's the same type of teaching, yet it's only by the teaching of the lashes that we call the rabbis great; what's the difference?

He answered that a person who can expound the Torah and even come up with his own novel interpretations is not considered great. However, one who could expound the Torah to take away even a little pain from a fellow Jew, like the rabbis who reduced the lashes by one, he is considered great.

Since we are in the days of Elul, which is a preparation for the days of judgment, and we know that Hashem works מידה כנגד מידה, "how we act towards others, Hashem acts towards us," the more we should follow this concept. Try to help others and take away some pain from our fellow Jew, so that Hashem will help us and take away our pain. Let's use this opportunity to pay more attention to the people around us and what they need, to merit Hashem’s attention to our needs and giving us a long and peaceful life!