vayakhil pkudi 5775
And Moshe saw all the work, and behold, they had done it as
Hashem had commanded, so had they done; and Moshe blessed
them. (Shemos 39:43)
The Baal Haturim writes
(40:21) that the words
“as Hashem commanded
Moshe” appear 18 times in
Parshas Pekudei, and this is
why the Sages enacted the
18 blessings of Shmoneh
Esrei. Additionally we
have the above verse – “as
Hashem had commanded,
so had they done” – and
corresponding to this, they
enacted the nineteenth
blessing, the Blessing
Against the Heretics.
Once a man complained
to the Satmar Rav, “My
son is caught up with the
kannaim – he is always
leading demonstrations
and protests against
the Zionists. I know it’s
important to fight the
Zionists, but shouldn’t it be
the gedolim and rabbanim
who do the fighting,
not simple Jews?” The
Satmar Rav replied, “No!
Every Jew must fight the
heretics; the rabbanim do
not exempt the others from
this obligation. Look at the
Baal Haturim’s comment
on Parshas Pekudei. The
verse “so had they done”
corresponds to the Blessing
Against the Heretics,
because this verse does
not say that only Moshe
did the work, it says that
all the Jews did it. Fighting
heretics is something
for which every Jew
must take responsibility.”
(Toros Ve’uvdos Mibeis
Raboseinu, p. 209)
To elaborate on
this theme, we might add
that Chazal say that the
total number of prophets
who ever lived was one
million two hundred
thousand, or twice the
number of Jewish men
who left Egypt (Megillah
14a). The commentators
explain the significance of
this number based on the
concept that there are six
hundred thousand souls
in the Jewish people. This
means roots of soul, so
that although there have
always been more than
that number of Jews living
in the world, every Jewish
soul is a branch of one of
these root souls. Every root
soul has a different nature,
and so he needs to hear
his rebuke in a different
way and from a different
prophet. Therefore, it was
not sufficient to sent one
prophet to rebuke all the
people; Hashem had to
send two per root soul, so
that every root soul should
receive two rebukes. The
same is true of the fight
against heretics. There
are today, unfortunately, a
large number of religious know well and trust. It is
Jews who have never therefore incumbent on
been taught what is true everyone, great or small,
Torah belief and what to reach out to those
is heresy. They need to
under his influence –
be enlightened, but no
family members, students,
single person, not even
friends, co-workers - and
a gadol hador, is able to
reach everyone. Moreover, to make some protest,
people are more likely in his own little arena,
to be influenced by the against the pervasive
views of someone they heresy of our time.
‫לע"נ מרים לאה צפורה בת ר' שמואל ע"ה (קאהן) נפטרה ג' תשרי תשע"ג‬
‫לע"נ הרה"ח ר' מנשה ב"ר ישעי' יעקב ע"ה (בירנבוים) נפטר כ' סיון תשע"ב‬
‫לע"נ ר' חיים ב"ר מתתי' ע"ה (ראטה) נפטר ערב יוה"ק תשס"ט‬