Parshas Bishalach – The Measure of a Mohn

One of the strangest pesukim in the Torah is the one that ends the account of the mohn.

After stating that “the Bnei Yisrael ate the mohn for forty years, until they came to a settled land; they ate the mohn until they came to the border of Eretz Cna’an,” the Torah continues, without so much as a segment break, to state that “The omer is a tenth of an ephah” (Shemos, 16:36).

Granted, an omer-volume was the portion each person received daily. But why do we need to know its relationship to a larger volume? And why is so seemingly banal a statement the one to culminate the mohn account?


Something in the Midrash about the korban ha’omer, the offering of an omer of barley on the second day of Pesach, is enlightening here.

In Vayikra Rabba 28:1, Rabi Yanai says:

The way of the world is that a person buys a measure of meat in the market; how much effort he expends, and pain he suffers, in cooking it. And, as people sleep in their beds, Hashem brings the winds and raises clouds and causes plants to sprout and ripens crops… and all He is given in return is the payment of the omer…

So the korban called omer implies a recognition of the fact that, however we may feel about our own efforts, it is Hashem Who does the, so to speak, heavy lifting regarding our sustenance. And that, of course, is the message of the mohn, too. The miraculous all-purpose food that fell from the sky signaled that, whatever efforts we might make to sustain ourselves, it is Hashem’s will that, in the end, in fact, does that.

And so Moshe was commanded to place an omer of mohn, that mere tenth of an ephah,into a container, to be preserved for all generations (Shemos 16:32). It is a reminder not only of the mohn miracle itself, but also of its implication, that, even in the absence of a korban omer, it is not our effort, in the end, that puts food on our tables.

© 2023 Rabbi Avi Shafran

What does it say…

What does it say about a population that sees the murder of innocent worshippers as proper “retaliation” for the deaths, in a firefight with police, of terrorists planning attacks? And what does it say when members of that population cheer the worshippers’ deaths?

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Parshas Bo – Choosing a Channel

Since free will is the fundamental element of the human being that places him in a realm apart from the rest of Creation, the question of how Hashem could “harden the heart” of Par’oh (e.g. Shemos 9:12) is an obvious one. 

The Rambam’s approach, echoing Resh Lakish in the Midrash (Shemos Rabbah 13:3), is that the king’s own freely chosen initial actions robbed him of his free will, like, one might say, a drug addict’s choice to use heroin might affect his ability to choose to shun it thereafter. The hardening of Par’oh’s heart only began after several plagues.

The Ramban’s and Sforno’s approach is that, on the contrary, the heart-hardening actually gave Par’oh free will. It was but a counterbalance to the will-sapping fear of the plagues. The divine steeling of his resolve was thus a corrective measure, allowing him to exercise his free-willed decision to refuse Moshe and Aharon’s demand. 

Rav Shlomo Yosef Zevin offers an original approach. What the Torah’s statement that Hashem hardened Par’oh’s heart means, says Rav Zevin, that he gave Par’oh an enhanced ability to be stubborn. Like every middah, talent and ability, obstinacy can be channeled toward good or bad (See Rav Ashi’s statement in Shabbos 156a about one born under the influence of Ma’adim: “[He will be] either a bloodletter, or a thief, or a shochet or a mohel.”)

Klal Yisrael, after all, is obstinate, too, an am kshei oref. Obstinacy’s import lies in what one does with it.

So Par’oh’s use of his Hashem-given special stubbornness against Moshe and Aharon and Klal Yisrael was… his choice.

© 2023 Rabbi Avi Shafran

Vo’eira – Nobody Will Get Stoned

Slight divergences between the Torah’s words or phrases and Targum Onkelos’ rendering of them are often laden with meaning.

One such seemingly minor change is in the Targum’s translation of Moshe’s words: “Were we to slaughter the deity of Mitzrayim in their sight, will they not stone us?”

Moshe, of course, was replying to Par’oh’s suggestion that, if the nation’s Jews needed to have a festive gathering, they could hold it within Egypt’s borders. Moshe responded that, since animal sacrifices would be part of the celebration, and Egyptians worshiped sheep, the suggestion was a non-starter.

The Targum renders “will they not stone us?” as “will they will not say to stone us?”

Rav Yaakov Moshe Charlop, zt”l, in Mei Marom, observes that Par’oh could certainly have posted soldiers to protect the Jews celebrating in Egypt. And so Moshe couldn’t really have expressed a fear of being attacked. He was expressing instead a refusal to get people upset.

How much there is to learn from this about middos, Rav Charlop muses. “Even when it comes to the greatest mitzvah, one should not do it in a way that causes others pain, even if there are no real repercussions.”

Obviously, there are mitzvos that might in themselves upset others; they must be performed all the same. But when a mitzvah or minhag might cause pain or outrage to some – kapparos in some public places is an example that comes to my mind – concern for the feelings of others are not something to be ignored.

© 2023 Rabbi Avi Shafran

Parshas Shemos – Best-Laid Plans

The account of Moshe’s being placed in the river, discovered by bas Par’oh and raised in royal surroundings would seem to be of no import regarding the main narrative of Shemos – Moshe’s killing the Mitzri, fleeing as a result to Midian and being charged by Hashem with his mission.

Ibn Ezra, though, suggests that it is very much part of the larger story. He writes that “Perhaps Hashem arranged things so that Moshe would grow up in a royal house and his spirit would thereby be exalted” and he would “not possess a base spirit used to being in the house of slaves.”

That, he continues, was necessary for Moshe to be able to kill the Mitzri and intercede to help Yisro’s daughters (and, I might also suggest, to be able to receive nevu’ah, which requires a state of contentment). 

Which makes for a delicious irony: Par’oh’s decree to kill baby boys is what required baby Moshe to be placed in the river, which resulted in his being raised as a royal, which allowed him to become the agent of Klal Yisrael’s geulah, the very thing Par’oh had sought to undermine. 

“Many thoughts are in a man’s heart, but it is Hashem’s plan that will persevere” (Mishlei 19:21). It has been said that the intent of that pasuk is that those very thoughts of man can be the vehicle for the fruition of Hashem’s plan.

We see that not only in Par’oh’s ultimately self-undermining decree but in the narrative that ended Sefer Beraishis. As Yosef reassured his brothers about their plotting against him, which resulted in his elevation in Mitzrayim and his becoming the provider of food to the the nation and his family: “Indeed, you intended evil against me, [but] Hashem designed it for good, in order to bring about what is at present to keep a great populace alive.”

We read these parshios after Chanukah, on the path to the next Jewish holiday, Purim. There couldn’t be anything more Purim-centric than the irony of how best-laid plans can themselves bring about the opposite of the plotters’s wish: “Hashem’s plan.”

© 2023 Rabbi Avi Shafran