WATER AND LIGHT

Dear Family,

I hope that everyone is well.

Wishing a refuah shleimah for Yechezkiel ben Ester.

Mazal Tov to Naomi whose birthday is tomorrow. Wishing you a successful and happy year Naomi, with many simchos. I hope all going well at Harvard and looking forward to good news BEH

Wishing long life for Claude and Joy on the yohrtzeit of Gregg coming up this week. His neshamah should have an Aliyah!

In this week's Parshah Vayeshev, in V 37:24, Yosef's brothers throw Yosef into a pit, and it says. "The pit was EMPTY, there was no WATER in it." (from shiur of Rabbi Yehoshua Gordon ah)

Rashi asks the obvious question - If the pit was empty, why do we need the extra words that there was no water?

And he answers that Torah is teaching us that there was no water, but there were snakes and scorpions. (ie it was empty of normal items that usually fill a pit, but there was therefore something else)

There is a famous Torah teaching which explains that the bor - pit in the verse is referring to a person's head, and water is referring to Torah Teaching

Nature abhors a vacuum. A person cannot just be empty-headed.

Ie, if a person does not have anything meaningful to fill his head, like Torah Teaching, (water), then it is going to have negative stuff in some form or another (ie snakes and scorpions)

Connected to the above and related to Chanukah which is coming up next week, it is known that the Rebbe Rashab would study his Gemarra for half an hour after lighting his Chanukah candles. (at a slight distance away from the candles)

The Rebbe explains (in Reshimos) that this practice highlights the special CONNECTION OF TORAH TO LIGHT

And it is a lesson for all of us that Chanukah is a time to increase our Torah learning.

Furthermore, since the Greeks wished to prevent us from studying Torah, we respond by increasing!

Gut Shabbos and a Happy Chanukah to all with much light!