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PARSHAS SHELACH
 

Miriam always looked forward to Wednesday afternoons. That's when she and her mother would bake challah together. Afterwards, they would freeze the challah. And then on Friday, they would defrost it so that it would taste freshly baked for Friday night. This Wednesday, Miriam's mother told her, was special.

"You see, Miriam," her mother said as she placed the dough on the table. "We are going to fulfill the mitzvah of taking challah - separating a piece of dough and reciting the berachah."

"But we do that every week when we bake challah," Miriam said with a puzzled look on her face.

"Yes," her mother replied as she cut away the proper amount of dough from the batch. "But this week it's special, because the mitzvah of taking challah is mentioned in this week's parshah."

Miriam remembered what her teacher had taught about "living with the parshah." Her mind wandered to Eretz Yisrael in the times of the Beis Hamikdash. She imagined people preparing to deliver portions of challah to the Kohanim. She could almost see them carefully setting these portions aside, making sure that they would not mix with other bread or become tameh.

"Mommy," Miriam suddenly asked as she braided her dough into a perfectly shaped challah. "When we take challah, we separate a piece of dough from the rest of the batch. It is supposed to go to the Kohanim, who are special and separated from the rest of the people. They have many responsibilities and privileges that other people do not have. I know their job is important, but isn't Am Yisrael supposed to be united? If we are supposed to have Achdus, why are the Kohanim so different?"

"Separation can also be helpful," replied her mother. "Sometimes, separation helps us to achieve true Achdus. Separating the Kohanim from the rest of the people gives them the authority to teach and guide. They do their best to lead the people to follow HaShem's will. And it is when Am Yisrael fulfills HaShem's commandments that we become truly united.

"The separation between Kohanim, Levi'im, and Yisraelim is not intended to divide our people. Each group has different jobs to do in making our world a dirah for HaShem. And doing this all together brings about complete Achdus - among our people and in the world."

‘Please Tell Me What the Rebbe Said’ (Adapted from Likkutei Sichos, Vol. II)

Dear Young Shluchim,

Well time doesn’t stand still for anyone, certainly not for super-busy, world-famous, scientific inventors like me! And that means that Gimmel Tammuz is now a week closer than it was a week ago! A whole week! Seven days! One hundred and sixty eight hours! Ten thousand and eighty minutes! That is a whole lot closer. And what a busy time it has been! Let me see…. If I minus off the time that I spent sleeping (no sleep on Thursday night, no sleep Friday night, 302.5 minutes on Motzei Shabbos, 191.75 minutes Tuesday night…. Ummm…. Total 1329.6 minutes), the time I spent davening and learning, and the time I spent eating that leaves me with….. Um…. Let me just get out my big-keys-for-easy-use calculator and I’ll figure this out…. Uhh….I was doing other things for about four thousand and eight minutes and twenty six and a half seconds. Which means that for six thousand and seventy one minutes and thirty three and a half seconds of the last week I was working on perfecting my latest super-duper-brand-new-soon-to-be-released-invention. Yup, you got it!  The new complicated and powerful addition to the COL lens – the four-sight feature to help us all connect to the Rebbe! That might sound like a lot of time to you young shluchim, but like all busy shluchim I don’t rest for a minute so I used every single spare minute I had.

Anyway, as I was saying, I finally perfected the four-sight lens and added the other two features. It happened on Sunday as I was sitting and wondering – like inventors like me do – about how to perfect my lens. And like I do when I am wondering I started chewing on the end of my pen. Then I started doodling on a piece of paper. Then I started chewing my pen some more. And then the pen platzed and ink started spurting all over my mouth, my shirt, my special inventor tie and even onto my special inventor glasses (Boruch Hashem I wasn’t wearing my super-duper COL lens!). I sat back in shock. My pen had platzed. My one-and-only Kinus Hashluchim 5765 pen was no more. Tears started welling up in my eyes. It wasn’t just the loss of my pen that upset me – like all good inventors I had plenty of pens. But this pen was special. I had used to write my birthday cards. And to make shopping lists for Mrs Getzel. And to write to the Rebbe. Then suddenly it hit me! Write to the Rebbe! That is something every Chossid does to be connected to the Rebbe. We write to the Rebbe when we have good news to tell and we write to the Rebbe when we have not-such good news. We write to the Rebbe when we have simchas and we write to the Rebbe when we need brochos. It is the ‘Write’ thing to do! So without wasting a moment I pulled out my one-and-only Kinus Hashluchim 5764 pen and started working out how to add this special third feature to the COL four-sight feature.

I worked for hours and hours on the lens when suddenly…..BEEP-BOOM-CLUNK-BANG, BEEP-BOOM-CLUNK-BANG, BEEP-BOOM-CLUNK-BANG. I jumped so high that I almost hit my head on the ceiling. Not that I wasn’t expecting my extra-loud alarm to go off. It goes off at the same time every day. Exactly 6:13 in the morning and exactly 3:58 in the afternoon. But every day it goes off just a little bit louder than the day before. Which shocks me just that little bit more. Anyway, as soon as I had landed back down in my chair, I jumped straight back up. You see, my alarm was to remind me that it was time to learn. Even an extra busy super scientist like me needs to set aside times to learn! So I opened up my worn out Likutei Sichos and started learning. I love learning Likutei Sichos. The Rebbe always has such clever answers to the questions he asks. It really gets my inventor mind working overtime. So I wasn’t surprised that when I finally closed my sefer I finally know what the final part of the four-sight feature was. Like the Rebbe himself wrote in Hayom Yom, we can connect to the Rebbe by learning his Torah. It took me just a few more hours to add this special part to the four-sight feature and finally, after hours and hours of working it was ready. It had taken me hours of thought, bumped knees, tens of cups of coffee and one chewed pen, but I had finally worked out what we need to do to get ready for Gimmel Tammuz. Through Limud, Nigun, Sipur and (W)Riting – my special LeNSeR four-sight COL lens, I will work to connect myself even more to the Rebbe and to give him lots of nachas!

Now that’s all sorted, I’d better clean up the ink that spurted all over me and my office before Mrs Getzel comes in to check out my latest invention. 

See you next week.

Dr. Getzel

פרקי אבות

שבת after מנחה

פרק  שני

Mushki Lowenthal, 6
Copenhagen, Denmark

Hi from Copenhagen, Denmark. my name is Mushki  Loewenthal and I am 6 years old. We had a great ice cream- cheesecake party for shavuos, and I helped make a huge Har Sinai with loads of beautiful flowers. Iy”h next week we will be having Camp Gan Yisroel, both an overnight camp and a day camp. We usually have a Shluchim bunk which is a lot of fun, and we all try to give the Rebbe a lot of nachas.

Hej hej (that’s goodbye in Danish)
and Moshiach nu!
 

ואם בריאה יברא ה‘ ופצתה האדמה את פיה ובלעה אתם ואת כל אשר להם וירדו חיים שאלה

 "But if ה‘ will create a new thing, and the earth open its mouth and swallow them and everything that belongs to them, and they go down in the pit alive." (16:30)

QUESTION: Why did משה wish such a strange death upon קרח and his followers?

ANSWER: משה loved all the בני ישראל, including קרח and his followers. These people were doing a big עבירה, because by arguing with משה they were going against what ה‘ wanted. Had they died immediately, they would have left this world without doing תשובה, and they would thus have lost their share in עולם הבא. Therefore, he davenned that they descend alive to the pit, hoping that while still alive, they would regret their עבירות and do תשובה.

In fact, according to an opinion in the גמרא, קרח and his followers do indeed have a share in עולם הבא.
 

פרק שני

   עין ראה ואוזן שומעת 

Once the chassid Reb. Zusha of Annipoli who was traveling on a long trip by horse and wagon. As they were traveling they passed a beautiful
orchard full of trees with delicious looking fruit hanging from them.  Looking at them, the
coachman suddenly got very hungry and said to Reb Zusha “I’m going to pick some fruit for myself.  You keep a lookout and let me know if you see anyone watching.”  As the wagon driver was about to pick an apple, he heard Reb Zusha scream “מען זעט, מען זעט” - “They are looking, they are looking.” 

The frightened coachman ran back to the wagon, huffing and panting he looked all around them.  Confused, he asked “Who is looking?  I don’t see anyone.”  Gently, Reb Zusha replied with a smile “ה‘ above sees and He was looking at what you were about to do.”

 Can you imagine how יהושע and כלב felt as they journeyed secretly across ארץ ישראל along with the other ten מרגלים?
They knew that it was not going to be easy to ignore the mutterings of the other מרגלים. They knew that they would have to beware of their bad influence even though originally all of the מרגלים were considered צדיקים. יהושע and כלב realized that their travels would be risky because משה had given יהושע a special blessing for courage and trust in ה‘ before they began their journey.
Feeling that he needed extra help, כלב went out of his way to go to חברון and daven at מערת המכפלה where the אבות and אמהות are buried, requesting that their merit protect him from being influenced by the מרגלים.
כלב's efforts and his תפילה were rewarded. Not only was he not persuaded by the מרגלים; later, he was even more successful than יהושע in lifting the spirits of the people and strengthening their trust.
כלב gained this special ability to inspire the people because he made the effort to turn to ה‘ on his own. יהושע was also protected from the bad influence of the מרגלים, but that was not of his own doing, since he had received a special ברכות for this from משה רבינו. כלב made the effort on his own, despite the difficulty and danger.
ה‘ give us brochos which give us strength and trust in Him. Since these comes from above, we may not always sense them so strongly. But when we turn to ה‘ on our own, we experience His ברכות much more powerfully and this makes us feel strong and brave as we face the future.
When the מרגלים returned and frightened the people with their report, כלב rose courageously to speak to the people. And when he spoke, he succeeded in getting all of the people to listen to what he had to say, even those who sided with the מרגלים.
What did כלב say? He told the people: "We have a righteous leader who has proven to us many times that Hashem is with us. Our leader, משה, is so trustworthy that if even if he would tell us to climb to the heavens, we would succeed!"
Where did כלב get the courage to speak with so much trust and determination?
It all came from the effort he had put in before, strengthening himself in the face of difficulty. Although he was fearful of the מרגליםs influence, he worked on himself, turning to ה‘ for help. כלב did not set out with a blessing given to him from above; he earned ה‘'s blessing on his own. This gave him the strength to get the people to listen to him as he proclaimed, "We will go up and inherit the land."
 

In the town of Berdichev everyone was talking about the latest news.  A very rich man had passed away but nobody was very sad because the man had been a miser and hadn’t shared his riches with anyone.

The Chevra Kadisha wanted to charge his family a lot of money to bury him but the family were very upset and they asked the רב of the town - who was none other than the צדיק, ר‘ לוי יצחק of Berditchev- what to do.  When they came before him, they were surprised to see how sad he looked.  Not only did ר‘ לוי יצחק say that the family was right but he also promised to come to the levaye.

Of course, when the townspeople heard that ר‘ לוי יצחק would be coming to the levaye, they all came too.  Needless to say, everyone was very curious why this miser was getting so much respect and after the levaye was over, they asked the רב why he had come to the levaye.  “No one knew him like I did”, he replied.  “Everyone thought he was a miser but I know what he was really like because of three דין תורה’s that I judged.

“The first case was with a wine merchant.  He was an agent for all the other merchants in the town.  They would give him money to buy wine and they would pay him a commission.  One time, just as he was about to buy the wine, he realized that the money was missing.  He was so upset, especially because it wasn’t his money, that he fainted right there, in the middle of the street.  Suddenly, a man stepped forward and announced that he found the money.  The merchant felt better right away.

“Not long after, another man came and said that he really found the money but he had listened to his יצר הרע and hadn’t return it.  When he heard that someone had pretended to find it, he felt really bad and wanted to repay the generous man but the man refused to accept it.  They came to me to judge the דין תורה and I decided that the first man - whose levaye we just went to - did not have to accept the money.

“The second time I met him was a similar case.  A poor man decided to go and try to make some money working in a far-away town.  His wife asked him where she should get money for food, clothes and everything else she would need while he was away.  He told her that she could go to a certain rich man every week and ask him for payment.  This, of course, wasn’t true but the poor lady didn’t know that.  When she innocently came to the rich man, he realized what was happening and generously gave her money every week for many months.

“When the husband came home, ב“הhaving made some money, he wanted to repay the rich man  - our ‘miser’ - who refused to accept the money.  Again they came to me to judge the דין תורה, and again I decided that the rich man could keep his מצוה.

“The third story was when a very wealthy man who had gone bankrupt came to the rich man for a loan.  ‘Who will be your guarantor? Who will pay me back if you can’t?’ the rich man asked.

“‘My only guarantor is ה‘,’ he replied. The rich man was happy with that and said that ה‘ is a guarantor that he could trust.

When the day arrived that the man was supposed to pay his loan, he didn’t appear.  Several months later he did come, begging forgiveness.  ‘You don’t owe me anything.  Your Guarantor was very honest, and He paid me back very well.’

“Again they came to me for a דין תורה and again I decided that the rich man did not have to accept any money.

“So you see,” ר‘ לוי יצחק said to the townspeople, “you were wrong about the rich man who passed away.  He was no miser.  On the contrary, he was a great and special צדיק who gave צדקה on the highest level possible - giving in secret, without anybody knowing and saying how great he is.  Just like he stood in my בית דין, he is now standing in front of the בית דין של מעלה accompanied by his מצות.”

Last Week's Winners:

Level 1:
 Mendel Piekarski, 7; Bogotá, Columbia
 Yossi Spiero, 8; Amsterdam, Holland 

Level 2:
 Mushka Mann, 8.5; Venetian Islands, FL
 Ephraim Kahn, 10; Paris, France 

We'd love to hear your feedback! Send us your comments, ideas and suggestions to: connections@shluchim.org
 

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