GEN1274 Wherever we habitually run up against difficulty and repeatedly cause suffering in our lives – to ourselves and those around us – lack of moderation is often the culprit.  Many things are healthy in moderation but potentially damaging in either excess or abstention.  Much research says that a moderate intake of alcohol can be good for your health, though we all know the sorts of diseases and problems born of alcoholism.   The same is true for dieting, which can maintain a healthy weight and can also devolve in to anorexia.   At the other end of the scale, obesity is now a major public health issue.  Self –esteem is a necessary spiritual strength, while self-debasement or arrogance veer away from the balanced middle range.  So it is with many other things we do in our lives.   Except for what is harmful in any measure, which out to be totally avoided, inmost other cases the ideal route is the middle one, neither abstaining in the absolute nor indulging to the hilt.   … The Torah role model for the middle way is Jacob, who made a vow asking [this verse]. By pointing out the seemingly obvious—that bread is to eat and clothing to wear—Jacob is telling us that the proper measure for food is enough to satiate hunger but not the level of sumptuous feasting. Similarly, we should clothe ourselves, but only in simple, functional attire.   There is no more virtue in starving our bodies (whether in fasting or in anorexia or bulimia) than there is in gorging endlessly on delicacies. Both extremes miss the mark.   Similarly, not taking care to have proper clothing is as spiritually inappropriate as is flaunting costly and fashionable garments. MORINIS 174

SHOW FULL EXCERPT

GEN1271 … Do not hanker for the table of kings, for your table is greater than theirs… Pirkei Avot VI:5  On one thing philosophers, thinkers and writers seem to agree: Pursue happiness as a goal, and it will elude you. And the more intense the search, the more bitter the disappointment.  If happiness comes at all, it arrives by chance, as a byproduct. When our own Patriarch Jacob left home as a young man, in flight from Esau, to join an uncle he did not know in a land he had never seen, all he asked of the Almighty was “bread to eat and clothing to wear”; it would be enough to survive.   When he returned home from Laban, he was the wealthy owner of “oxen, donkeys, manservants, and maidservants.” Genesis 32:6  Wheatever happiness riches could bring—at the least, freedom from want—Jacob gained without particularly seeking it. Later in life, “Jacob dwelt (literally,, sat) in the land of his father’s sojournings”: Genesis 37:1 Jacob sat, expecting serenity in his later years. He looked forward to the happiness of peace and quiet, after a life filled with tribulations enough. Came the disappearance of his beloved son Joseph, sold into slavery by his other sons, and he knew greater grief than ever before. When our Patriarch asked for bread, he attained riches. When he sought ease and rest in leisure, he found tribulation and sorrow. How sane and sound, then is the counsel of this perek.   If you are fortunate enough to study Torah, do not seek the happiness of a royal table daily set for a banquet, or a regal crown of honor and might. With or without Torah, such goals are highly uncertain. If you gain them, they may prove disastrously hollow. Be content even with a crust of bread and salt, a bit of water, and a place on the ground to sleep. Is this a way to happiness? Yes, but not a happiness that this world knows.   Bear in mind that “your Employer can be trusted to pay you the reward for your work” – in a world of eternal bless: “Know … that the Lord God, He is God, the trustworthy God who keeps the covenant and loving-kindness for those who love Him and keep His mitzvot …” Deuteronomy 7:9. Let this be the leitmotif that runs through your life, and you will never go astray. The pious Hafetz Hayyim [Rabbi Israel Meir HaCohen Kagan, 1839-1933 - AJL] wrote a number of volumes to instruct his people in the ways of devotion. Wanting to publish some, he discovered that in his country no one could issue a book without the formal approval of an official censor. The censor for Hebrew books was a man named Steinberg, so to him the Hafetz Hayyim went.  This Steinberg had studied Torah in his youth and was quite learned. But to achieve his position he had cast off every trace of his ancestral religion and learned to toady to government superiors.  When the Hafetz Hayyim entered his office, Steinberg looked up in surprise.   “Yisra’el Me’ir!” he cried. “Do you remember me? We started studying Torah together in that little schoolroom in back of the town. Well now,” he continued smugly, “look at you, and look at me: I am quite rich, I have a position of importance, a magnificent home, liveried servants … And you – with all your Torah, what have you? You are poor. Your overcoat is worn. And you must come to ask me ever so politely to let you publish your books! Where is your wisdom? Learn from me: live the way I do!”   For a moment the Hafetz Hayyim was silent. Then gently he said, “As I was walking into your office, a man drew alongside in a handsome coach drawn by magnificent horses, and he offered me a seat beside him.  Perhaps I should have accepted eagerly. But I rather asked him where he was going. He and I were headed in quite different directions; and I declined his offer. But then, you and I are also going in different directions --- and I must equally decline with thanks your offer to take me along. You see, I am headed toward a different destination, and I intend to get there.”   SINAI3 322-3

SHOW FULL EXCERPT

GEN1277 To encourage people to make donations, Jewish law permits making conditional vows to charity: I will donate [state the amount] to charity if such-and-such happens.”   Rabbi Moses Isserles, the Ramah (sixteenth century), explains: “If a person says, ‘If so-and-so, who is deathly ill, will be cured…I will donate such-and-such to charity,’ but then the sick person dies, the person is not obliged to fulfill his vow because it was clearly conditional” Shulchan Arukh, Yoreh Deah 220:15.   Normally, setting conditions for one’s observance of a Jewish law is prohibited.  Thus, it is forbidden to say, “I’ll observe the Sabbath if I become rich” since Jews are obliged to observe the Sabbath whether they are poor or rich. [Therefore, we are permitted to set conditions only for that portion of charity that is over and above that which we are expected to give [i.e. a minimum of 10%; see 28:22].  That Jewish law allows such conditional vows underscores how eager the Rabbis were to encourage charitable giving by any means necessary.   TELVOL2:164

SHOW FULL EXCERPT

GEN1276 Rebbeinu Meir ruled that a vow, an oath, and a handshake are binding even if they are conditional; for most of them are, indeed, of this conditional nature, vis.: “If God will be with me,” and, similarly Numbers 21:2: “If you give this people into my hands” Mordecai, Baba Kamma IV TEMIMAH-GEN 129

SHOW FULL EXCERPT

GEN1275 It is written Psalms 119:136: “My eyes have shed streams of tears for not having observed Your Torah,” and Psalms 38:19: “For I will declare my transgression; I will worry over my sin.”   One should always nurture sorrow in his heart for what has passed and worry about the future and always be afraid that he might not fulfill the requirement of repentance, as it is written Proverbs 28:14: “Happy is he who fears always.”  Even if one happens to be meritorious and completely righteous, he must always fear that he might sin in the future.  As we find in the case of Yaakov, even though the Holy One Blessed be He told him [this verse]: “And I will guard you wherever you go,” he was afraid that he might come to sin [and invalidate the assurance].   And so did King David assay Psalms 27:13: “I cannot securely believe to see the good of Hashem in the land of the living.”   TZADIK 221-3

SHOW FULL EXCERPT

GEN1279 See [[GEN1858]] Genesis 47:31 swear BLOCH 248-9

SHOW FULL EXCERPT

GEN1280 (Continued from [[DEUT1295]] Deuteronomy 23:22 vow GATES 249-251 Indeed, we have been commanded not to take vows, as the pasuk says Deuteronomy 23:23, “But if you refrain from making vows, you will not incur sin”; our Sages derived from this Nedarim 77b: if you do take a vow upon yourself, you will incur sin.  The reason for this is that an oath is a pitfall before the one who takes the vow, lest he violate his word or delay its fulfillment.   But a righteous person is gracious and giving Psalms 37:21, with the need for taking a vow, unless he calls out of distress Psalms 118:5 [I.e., in times of trouble, when he calls out to Hashem for help], in which case a vow is in place, just as the pasuk states [this verse].   Likewise, when the leaders of the Jewish community, who represent the entirety of Yisrael, assemble together [Devarim 33:6] they vow [in public] with the intent of strengthening weak hands [Yeshayahu 35:3, Iyov 4:3; I.e. the righteous person will make a public vow to do a mitzvah so that the others will be motivated to do the mitzvah as well. GATES 251

SHOW FULL EXCERPT

GEN1278 Pray to God to save you from loshon hora.   The Midrash explains that Yaakov’s request was the God might keep him from speaking loshon hora. Genesis Rabbah 70:4.   The Chofetz Chayim writes that we should learn two lessons from Yaakov’s behavior: 1) When we find ourselves in physical danger, we should be especially careful not to speak loshon hora.  When one is in danger and needs God’s help to be saved, loshon hara may discourage God from extending His assistance.   For this reason, knowing that his uncle was a cunning man, Yaakov requested to be saved from speaking loshon hora. (Shiras Haloshon 2:10).   2) When we find ourselves in danger of speaking against other people, we should pray to God to save us from loshon hara.  Yaakov was on his way to Lovon’s house and feared that he would be detrimentally influenced by him; hence his request to be saved from speaking loshon hora. (Z’chor L’Miriam).  PLYN 98

SHOW FULL EXCERPT

GEN1284 Doubtless the tithe was set aside for charitable purposes.   AHAVCH 24

SHOW FULL EXCERPT

GEN1288 You should know too, that the giving of one tenth to charity is the practice for the average person.  Whoever wishes to act generously, however, should set apart one fifth of his possessions.   Chazal have found support for this idea in [this verse]: “And of all that You give me, a tenth – a tenth will I give…” – twice one tenth equaling one fifth.   Here too, I believe, one is first to give a fifth of his net worth and then one fifth of all his subsequent earnings.   In distributing the funds, one should divide them into two: one tenth going to students of the Torah (corresponding to the first tithe given to the Priests and Levites to devote themselves to the study of the Torah, as Scripture has stated), and the second tenth for mitzvah purposes.   So I have learned from the Shittah Mekibetzeth (Kethubot 50a) quoting Harav Hameili.   AHAVCH 165

SHOW FULL EXCERPT