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Pirkei Avot
Biblical Faith – with Shmuel “Sam” Peak
Emunah channel is here. For Info www.torahfaith.org
Commentary from Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag
From the Sefer: The Shadow of the Ladder
This is the way of the Torah: You should eat bread with salt. You should drink water in strict measure. You should sleep upon the earth and live a life of suffering and you should labor in the Torah. If you act this way, you will be happy and it will be happy for you. You will be happy in this world and it will be well for you in the world-to-come.
Dedicated to Brian and Camie Davis
Program Link – Read the Torah w/Shmuel – Contact – Emunah Channel
Biblical Faith – with Shmuel “Sam” Peak
Emunah channel is here. For Info www.torahfaith.org
The physical realm is completely opposite in nature to the conceptual realm. How then can we, as physical beings, successfully pursue, integrate and retain Torah studies, which are purely conceptual?
We may answer this by considering that every object has form and substance, which also are opposite in nature. Form and substance can unite when the physical is subordinate, and conforms to shape. Likewise, this is the principle behind this Mishnah, which advises us to subordinate the physical to the spiritual.
Dedicated to Rick and Christi Hoerster
Program Link – Read the Torah w/Shmuel – Contact – Emunah Channel
Biblical Faith – with Shmuel “Sam” Peak
Emunah channel is here. For Info www.torahfaith.org
David, king of Yisra’el, who learned nothing from Achitophel except two things: Rashi explains that the two things relate to not studying alone, but with another and not to enter the house of study or House of G-d with a proudly erect posture. In Tehillim 55:14 we read that King David is called a man of my measure, my guide and my intimate. We do not explicitly find that King David called Achitophel his teacher, Rav. It is implied in the statement, “You are a man of my measure”; i.e. you are equally deserving of honor. King David meant to say: “Just as you owe me as honor as the king. I owe you honor as a teacher.”
Dedicated to Rick and Christi Hoerster
Program Link – Read the Torah w/Shmuel – Contact – Emunah Channel
Biblical Faith – with Shmuel “Sam” Peak
Emunah channel is here. For Info www.torahfaith.org
Do not read charut (engraved) but read cheirut (freedom)
This interpretation appears to be irrelevant play on words, but truth it conveys a remarkable idea.
The mind conceives a picture of an object, but that conceptual representation, of course, is not the object itself. Similarly, the Torah is a picture of the world-indeed, it is the blueprint of Creation and a prescription for how the world should be-but it is not the world itself. Script is a parallel to Torah, for script is also a graphical representation of words, but not the words themselves.
Dedicated to Gordon and Christy Smith
Program Link – Read the Torah w/Shmuel – Contact – Emunah Channel
Biblical Faith – with Shmuel “Sam” Peak
Emunah channel is here. For Info www.torahfaith.org
The image “Like a golden ring in a swine’s snout” conveys that even an extremely precious article becomes disgusting when it is attached to something so repulsive as a swine. Similarly, the beauty of even the most attractive woman becomes repugnant if she is inane (empty).
The golden ring and the beauty of the woman are metaphors for the intellect, for intelligence shines in a person’s face with the same radiance as beauty. The pig’s snout is a metaphor for the physical component of a human being. The verse tells us that if the precious intellect is not applied to Torah, it is an irrelevant accessory of the physical body. It becomes as worthless as a golden ring attached to a snout that pokes around in the garbage heap.
Dedicated to Gordon and Christy Smith
Program Link – Read the Torah w/Shmuel – Contact – Emunah Channel
Biblical Faith – with Shmuel “Sam” Peak
Emunah channel is here. For Info www.torahfaith.org
A commentary from Rabbi Chayim of Volozhin by Rabbi Avraham Sutton
What is the meaning of man being the soul of all the worlds? The essence of the matter, however, is that G-d created adam (man) only after having brought the (primordial) worlds into existence. [It is by virtue of his been having been created last that] man is such a marvelous creature. He was created [thus] so that he could have the ability to bring all that was created before him to perfection. For G-d incorporated in him [aspects of] all the wondrous rarefied lights, and of all the supernal worlds and spiritual palaces that preceded him, as well as the complete blueprint of the supernal glory [Atziut] as it rides upon and governs the merkavah [lower universes of Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah].
Dedicated to Robert Wright
Program Link – Read the Torah w/Shmuel – Contact – Emunah Channel
Biblical Faith – with Shmuel “Sam” Peak
Emunah channel is here. For Info www.torahfaith.org
Chapter 6
Mishnah Two
Mount Horeb is another name for Mount Sinai, famous as the site where G-d gave the Torah. The word Horeb, חורב comes from the same Hebrew root as does חורבך, churban, meaning “destruction.” Why does Rabbi Levi refer to Mount Sinai by the term that designates “Mount Destruction”? We would have expected the opposite, for Torah brings structure and security to the world, fashioning it into an edifice.
The truth is that the Torah has a double-edged power. For people who seek the Torah, it brings fulfillment and structure to their lives.
Dedicated to Robert Wright
Program Link – Read the Torah w/Shmuel – Contact – Emunah Channel