The dangers of luxuries! Parshas Terumah скачать в хорошем качестве

The dangers of luxuries! Parshas Terumah

Like and subscribe! This is why technology was created! The dangers of luxuries! “Let them take for Me a portion” (25, 2.) "ויקחו לי תרומה." Rabbi Chaim Palachi says that the letters of the word תרומה can be rearranged to spell המותר (extra). This implies that there is a correlation between extras and luxuries (המותר) a person enjoys and the charitable donations (תרומה) he gives. Our commitment to charity is measured against the luxuries we allow ourselves. If it is clear from our lifestyle that we are not frugal with money, and we prepared to spend money on extras and luxuries, then heavens pays attention when someone knocks on we door collecting for a worthy cause! Are we as free with our תרומה as we are with המותר? Does the same generosity that manifests itself in our own lifestyle manifest itself in our spending for mitzvos? Aside from the primary danger of luxuries, which is that people become accustomed to indulging in unnecessary pleasures, luxuries also cause judgment to be brought on a person in heaven. They will ask ‘if you had money for these luxuries, where were you when you were asked to give charity?’ (Alanu Leshabayach.) Someone once told the Satmar Rebbe ‘business isn’t going so well lately.’ The Rebbe said ‘the main thing is that it’s going. So many people come to me and say their business has stalled, or it has even failed and they’ve gone bankrupt!’ Rabbi Galinsky explains that the end of meseches Gittin says that Beis Shammai forbids a man to divorce his wife unless he finds that she has been promiscuous. Beis Hillel says that one can divorce his wife even if she only burns his supper. But how could that be? One day she’s not paying attention and the food burns, and suddenly her husband should divorce her? Picture the scenario: she is making supper and leaves it cooking on the stove. The phone rings. It’s her friend calling; they haven’t spoken in a while. They talk a lot and something starts burning. She then realizes that supper is burning! The food at the sides of the pot is burned and ruined however the food in the middle of the pot is still edible. If she is a good wife then she will spoon up the food that’s still edible onto his plate, and she’ll eat the burned part. If she demands equality, she’ll take half of the edible part and half of the burned part and serve him the same. But if she is selfish, she’ll take the edible food for herself and serve him the burned part. The Mishna doesn’t say ‘even if her supper got burned’ rather ‘even if she burned his supper.’ She served him a burned supper deliberately while making sure her own food was edible. That’s why he divorces her. Such a woman is deserving of a get! When business is going well, you set aside a generous amount for charity, and for that you should be blessed. But now that supper is burned – business is limping along. Have you cut costs at home? Did you stop giving the kids their allowances? Or did you go on vacation as you do every year and spend money on yourselves as usual? Only to the poor and Torah institutions do you serve burned food? This is something everyone has to ask himself. If business is still going well enough to spend the same money on oneself and one’s family as before, then one can find the funds to give to charity, too. (V’Higadeta parshas Ekev 8, 19 and V’Higadeta on the Haggadah dinay chodesh Nissan, maos chitim.)