'FROM MOSHE TO MOSHE THERE NEVER AROSE ONE AS MOSHE'
Dear Family,
I hope everyone is well.
Mazal Tov to Hirshy on his upcoming birthday next week. Wishing you a year of lots of new opportunity Hirshy!
Mazal Tov to Zalmy on passing his second year of Law with a first class pass. Well done Zalmy. Michayil el Chayil!
This is a week of Moshes - Moshe Rabeinu, and Rambam (acronym for Reb Moshe Ben Maimon, and also known as Maimonides.)
Besides all of their known greatnesses, what came into focus this week was THEIR TREMENDOUS GENEROSITY.
Moshe Rabeinu
The whole Written Torah came to us through Moshe Rabeinu.
His benevolent eye and generosity is expressed in this weeks Sedra, Pinchas, where he hands over the leadership to Yehoshua, and V23 says that Moshe rested his hands (plural) on Yehoshua. But Rashi mentions that in V18, Hashem had told Moshe just to put his hand (singular) onto him.
It was with this benevolence and generosity that Moshe handed over all his teaching and leadership to Yehoshua, and to us Bnei Yisrael
Rambam
Today, all the learning cycles studying Rambam, came to the conclusion of Mishneh Torah.
And tomorrow we start this Holy work all over again. Today is therefore a good time to make a resolution to join either the one- chapter- a-day, or the 3-chapters-a-day cycles.
The Rambam took the whole Oral Torah, (with all its backwards and forwards Talmud debates and complexities) and expressed his generosity to Klal Yisrael, by crystalizing it into a clear and concise form, so that everyone could understand it and practice it - men women and children at any and every level.
And at the same time he derived from the Written Law, the 613 Scriptural Mitzvot.
To show the Holiness of our incredible Torah I heard tonight a most beautiful revelation (I did not catch the exact source of the following verse.)
In the section discussing our going out of Egypt it says 'Revot moftzei beEretz Mitzraim' - this is the acronym of Rambam.
If you now count 613 words (or it could be letters) backwards from this verse, you find the word Mishneh.
And if you count 613 forwards, you find the word Torah!
And it speaks about going out of Mitzraim on the 14th of Nissan. The 14th of Nissan is also the Rambam's birthday!!
Ie hidden in code in Torah we see Mishneh Torah, connected to Moshe ben Maimon, born on 14th of Nissan, and connected to the 613 Mitzvos!!!
This incredibly deep Torah of ours, is all of our heritages, and has been handed down to us primarily by Hashem, but with tremendous generosity of Moshe Rabeinu and Moshe ben Maimon!
Gut Shabbos to all.