Sunday, June 6, 2010

Men vs. Women

This Shabbos my fourth grader gave a d’var Torah that I liked very much and wanted to share with you. First, I want to thank her teacher, Morah Danya Stechler for the very nice idea. (For all of you old Ma’ayanoters, that’s Rabbi Stechler’s wife!)

When Hashem tells/allows Moshe to send the meraglim, He says שלח לך אנשים.... Many of the mefarshim discuss the strange wording of “Send for yourself…”, and give various explanations for this phraseology.

The Kli Yakar gives a number of different ideas. One of which is that it was the men of the generation who were not so dedicated to Eretz Yisrael and wanted to turn around and go back to Mitzrayim. The women, however, loved Eretz Yisrael, as is evidenced by b’not Tzlafchad who requested to inherit their father’s portion of land there.

Therefore Hashem said, “Since you, Moshe, think that these men are qualified and that they care about Eretz Yisrael, send for yourself men. But in My opinion, it would have been better to send women, because they would not say bad things about Eretz Yisrael!”

We should all take the message from this Kli Yakar that one of our responsibilities as women is to teach ahavat Eretz Yisrael to all of Klal Yisrael!

2 comments:

Alona Stewart said...

That's a really nice dvar Torah :D And pretty impressive. I didn't even know who the Kli Yakar /was/ until ninth grade.

Rabbi Besser said...

I just looked this up because it was so interesting, and of course Mrs. Stechler had the כלי יקר exactly right. It was his last of four suggested פירושים. Number 3 was less Maayanot-y.