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Shabbat Parashat Bechukotai| 5766

Bechukotai | | 01/01/2005

What Does The Land Want?

In the tocheicha (rebuke and curse for the nation’s sins) much is made about Eretz Yisrael. The Torah repeats that if Bnei Yisrael will not let the Land rest on the Shemitta year, Hashem will send them away, and it will get its “rest” (Vayikra 26:34 & 43). What does that mean? It sounds like the Land has the right to be left alone by us, as if there is some sort of adversarial relationship. The Alshich (ibid.:42) explains the pasuk that Hashem will remember the covenant with the forefathers “…and the Land I will remember” in a bizarre manner.

P’ninat Mishpat

The Rules and Procedures of our beit din have the following provision: “The sides agree and accept upon themselves that beit din may obligate payment even for indirect damage (g’rama) and preventing gains, according to the circumstances.” In principle, when one causes damage through g’rama he is “exempt from paying in the laws of man and obligated to pay in the laws of Heaven” (i.e. he has only a moral obligation to pay). So says the baraita,cited in Bava Kamma 55b: “R. Yehoshua said:

Moreshet Shaul

The first part of our analysis deals with the possibility of using a milking machine without time delays in such a way that the first milk to come out falls into a receptacle in which the milk is immediately rendered unusable. In such a case, it is not considered to be similar to the threshing process, where a usable grain is separated, for here the milk never becomes usable. The question is whether one can do a subsequent action to cause the continued flow of milk to enter a normal container. There are two issues involved here. Firstly, can one start a process of milking which is not immediately considered a melacha, with the knowledge that he will subsequently turn it into a melacha? The second question is whether it is permitted to do the second action, which turns the milking into a melacha from that point on.

Ask the Rabbi

Question: When many people have to make Birkat Hagomel (e.g. at times when many have traveled) the shul often has one person make the beracha on behalf of the rest. Can one person say thanks to Hashem for what he received and have it count for others?

This edition of
Hemdat Yamim is dedicated to the memory of
Leiser Presser
ben R’Aharon Yitzhak and Bracha
on the occasion of his third yahrtzeit, 24 Iyar, and members of his family who perished in the Shoah, Al Kiddush Hashem,
R’ Meir ben Yechezkel Shraga Brachfeld o.b.m.
Hemdat Yamim is also dedicated by Les & Ethel Sutker of Chicago, Illinois
in loving memory of Max and Mary Sutker and Louis and Lillian Klein,z”l.
May their memory be a blessing!

A weekly divrei Torah leaflet: A Glimpse at the Parasha, Ask the Rabbi, From the writings of Harav Avraham Yitzchak Hakohen Kook, zt”l, Pninat Mishpat (Jewish Monetary Law).