VAY E I C H I ● T E V E T 1 4 5 7 6 9 ● J A N U A R Y 1 0 2 0 0 9
Rebecca Yoshor
Accepting Rebuke
be’ertorah wellspringoftorah
Editor Dvar Torah•Rebecca Yoshor•Grade 11
I
n Parshat Vayechei, we
learn about the death of
a great tzadik, Yaakov
Avinu.  The pasuk says that on his
deathbed, Yaakov gave tochacha, re-
buke, to three of his children, Reuven,
Shimon, and Levi.  Yaakov rebuked
Reuven for his actions as a teenager.
After the death of Rachel, his most be-
loved wife, Yaakov moved his bed into
his wife, Bilha’s tent instead of into
Faculty Dvar Torah•Dr. Shulamis Pollak
P
arshat Vayeichi
paints for us the
culmination of the
family tree of our great forefathers
and mothers. As the first book of
the Torah comes to a close, we too
receive closure on the family story
that laid the foundation for the
building of the Jewish nation.
While on his deathbed, Yaa-
kov blesses each of his twelve sons
A Torah publication of the students, faculty and alumni of the Robert M. Beren Academy.
Dr. Shulamis Pollak
Making Peace
the tent of Leah, Reuven’s mother. Re-
uven was angered by this and took the
initiative to move Yaakov’s bed into
Leah’s tent. Yaakov remembered this
on his deathbed and admonished Re-
uven for his actions of getting involved
in matters that were not his business.
Yaakov also chastised Shimon and
Levi for their hastiness in killing the
people of Shechem without consult-
ing him first.  All three men accepted
with their own blessing according
to their strengths and weaknesses.
In addition, Yaakov blesses two of
his grandchildren, Ephraim and
Menashe as part of the tribal bless-
ings. One cannot help but wonder
why Yaakov felt the need to bless
these two grandsons specifically
and what message the Torah is
transmitting by including their
blessings? Furthermore, the mes-
Rabbi Eliezer Kessler
Language of Prayer
the rebukes of their father and admit-
ted that their actions had been wrong. 
Rabbi Yehuda and Rabbi Shmuel bar
Nahami comment in a Midrash that
the brothers’ acceptance of tochacha
is the reason they, alone, merited to
be listed in the lineage of Moshe and
Aaron in Parshat Shemot, and the rest
of the brothers are left out. The great
reward the sons of Yaakov received for
accepting tochacha confirms that ac-
Continued on page 2
sage must be a strong one indeed,
because it is exactly these two fig-
ures that our chachamim chose to
construct the bracha for the weekly
blessing that a parent gives to a son
on Friday nights, “Yisimcha elokim
k’Emphraim u k’Minashe,” May
God establish you like Ephraim
and Menashe.
In order to understand
the significance of this blessing,
Continued on page 2
Faculty Dvar Torah•Dr. Shulamis Pollak
Continued from page 1
we need to take a step back
and ref lect upon our national
history and how Ephraim and
Menashe fit into it. If we take
an overview of Sefer Bereishit,
one can summarize by saying
that we witness God creating
the world and then populating
it with people who will follow
in His ways. We are intro-
duced to Avraham, Yitzchak,
and Yaakov as they fight to
pass their belief in God down
from generation to generation,
despite the conf licting famil-
ial personalities and struggles
they encounter along the way.
Each one then has a chosen
child who is favored, and each
one has at least one other child
that literally, might be willing
to kill, for that future. In the
effort to give birth to Am Yis-
rael, our early history seems to
be fraught with family discord,
constant splintering, rejection,
and attempts at rejection, of a
part of our lineage. From this
perspective it seems clear that
Editor Dvar Torah•Rebecca Yoshor•Grade 11
Continued from page 1
cepting our sins, though difficult,
is well worth it.
 The difficulties involved
in accepting criticism and admit-
ting our mistakes is highlighted
also in a story regarding the
Chafetz Chaim and one of his stu-
dents in his yeshiva in Radin. The
student had been caught smoking
on Shabbos and was about to be
expelled. The Chafetz Chaim
heard what had happened and
2 Be’er Torah Vayeichi
simply blessing these ensuing
shevatim, even after their rec-
onciliation with Yosef, would
not suffice to ensure a positive
and loving future for the family
of Am Yisrael.
It wasn’t until Yaakov
blessed Ephraim and Menashe,
the two children of Yosef, that
we get to see a family that does
not break apart. Yosef had two
sons, both of whom followed in
God’s ways. The Torah states
clearly that Yaakov, following
the theme of the earlier events,
blessed the younger son with
the brachot of the b’chor, but
the outcome here was drasti-
cally different than ever before.
Menashe, even upon witnessing
his brother’s acquisition of his
brachot, remained loving and
peaceful and accepted his share
of Yaakov’s blessing with an
open heart.
The relationship be-
tween Ephraim and Menashe
and their reactions to Yaakov’s
seemingly unfair action is what
demanded the boy be brought to
him. The boy went to the home
of the Chafetz Chaim; terrified
of the anger he was surely going to
face from the great tzadik. How-
ever, upon meeting the boy, the
Chafetz Chaim did not scream
or yell. Instead he took the boy’s
hand in his own and crying, said
the word “Shabbos” three times
in a disappointed, painful tone.
The sight of this great tzadik’s sor-
merits these two people to be
the prototype of person that we
wish our children can grow to
become. This is the kind of
sibling relationship, fam-
ily dynamic, and overall
attitude toward life’s disap-
pointments that will lead
the Jewish people to success.
This is the kind of open mind-
edness and acceptance that will
allow us to survive despite the
seeming unfairness that we will
each most certainly encounter
in life. This is the strength
of character that each parent
wishes for their child- that he
will be able to accept what life
throws at them and walk out
with their heads held high.
If we view Sefer Bere-
ishit in this light and as a whole
entity, we can now appreciate
the journey that God takes us
on in building up the Jewish
nation in a way that can survive
and even thrive in the chal-
lenges of nation building that
lay ahead.
row and the knowledge that the
Rebbe’s pain was caused by his ac-
tions was a big rebuke for this boy.
From that day on, he vowed to keep
Shabbos, and he held true to this
till his death. Accepting that we
have sinned is very difficult, but we
can look to the examples of people
like this boy and the three sons of
Yaakov and be inspired to do our
best in admitting our mistakes and
reform ourselves accordingly.
 ever wonder why..
Do we have to pray in Hebrew?
Rabbi Eliezer Kessler
W
hen we pray
as Jews, do
we have to
pray in the Hebrew language or
can we use a different language
with which we are more fluent?
This classic question is very rel-
evant for those of us who may not
be native Hebrew speakers or who
may not have had a yeshiva back-
ground. To fully address this
question we must first un-
derstand something of the
nature of Jewish prayer
and its history.
In Judaism,
prayer is understood
as a great privilege as
well as a daily obliga-
tion. It gives us
an ability to
forge a special
relationship with
God by which we
can change not only
our own destiny but
also the destiny of all
those around us. The
first person to pray was
Adam HaRishon, the first
man. Our rabbis tell us that
after he was created, Adam recog-
nized the need for rain and then
proceeded to pray for it. From that
time on, until many generations
later, each person would com-
pose his own prayers, speaking to
God from the depths of his own
heart as he felt the need. Finally,
the Anshei Kenesset HaGedola,
the rabbinical body that led Bnei
Yisrael after the destruction of the
first Beit Hamikdash, saw that the
ability to effectively compose tefil-
lot was being lost. At that time,
they took it upon
themselves to use their prophetic
vision and great wisdom to com-
pose all the basic prayers that the
Jewish people should say. With
very little change, these are, in
fact, the very tefillot that have
come down to us today.
The rabbis designed every
word of the text of our tefillot to
be effective on many different
Be’er Torah Vayeichi 3
levels from the simple meaning
of the words to the deepest mysti-
cal implications imaginable. They
used the language of Lashon Ha-
kodesh to accomplish this. Lashon
Hakodesh, literally “the holy
language”, is colloquially known
as Biblical Hebrew since it’s the
language of the Torah and the lan-
guage that God used to create the
world. So if our tefillot have been
written with such care in the
original Hebrew so that
each word has many lay-
ers of meaning how can
we then say them in
any other language?
To answer
this question we must
first look at the Ge-
mara in Masechta Sotah.
The Gemara tells us that a
person who prays with the
tzibur or congregation may pray
in any language he wants. How-
ever, one who prays by himself
should not ask for his needs in
Aramaic (which was the common
spoken language of the time). The
commentaries explain that when
there is a minyan, God’s presence
is in attendance and our tefillot are
accepted readily by Him. How-
ever, when a person prays as an in-
dividual, his prayers need the help
of the melachim which are the
Continued on page 4
 Ever Wonder Why?
Continued from page 3
heavenly angels to bring it
inside the pargod, or
heavenly curtain. The
melachim, it is said, are
“not attached to the
language of Aramaic”
and therefore will not
bring that tefilla to God.
The commentaries
glean many important hala-
chot from this Gemara. The
first concerns the differences
between Lashon Hakodesh,
Aramaic and other languages.
The rishonim offer three dif-
ferent ways of explaining the
phrase “the angels are not
attached to Aramaic” and
from each we gain a different
perspective on our problem.
The first opinion is that of
Rabbeinu Alfalsi, the Rif,
who says that the Gemara
cites Aramaic only as an ex-
Editors ample to illustrate that the
Chaya Miriam Nimchinsky angels do not understand any
Rachel Rolnick language other than Lashon
Rebecca Yoshor Hakodesh. Subsequently,
according to the Rif, the
Faculty Editor halacha would be that
Rabbi Eliezer Kessler one should only pray
in Lashon Hakodesh.
Copy Editors The second opinion
Dr. David Jacobson understands the
Lisa Kellerman Gemara to mean
that while the an-
gels understand
all languages, they
prefer Lashon Ha-
Robert M. Beren Academy kodesh. The third
11333 Cliffwood Drive opinion is that of Rab-
Houston, Texas 77035 beinu Asher, the Rosh,
713∙723∙7170 who interprets the Gemara
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to mean that the angels find
Aramaic to be disgusting, but
that they understand and will
bring all other languages to
God. The opinion that one ac-
cepts determines the language
that he will use for prayer.
Most halachic authorities
agree that the halacha follows
the Rosh and, therefore, an
individual may pray in which-
ever language he wants, with
the exception of Aramaic.
However, in deference to the
Rif, it is considered a mitzvah
min hamuvchar, the choicest
way to do the mitzvah, to pray
in Lashon Hakodesh.
The second set of
halachot that are learned from
this Gemara concern the dif-
ferences between communal
prayer and individual prayer.
One of the great advantages
of praying with a minyan is
that God is in attendance and
the petitioner’s prayer is read-
ily accepted by God Himself.
Indeed, we see this in practice
regarding various tefillot that
are in Aramaic, such as ye-
kum porkan which we say on
Shabbat. If one is praying by
himself, this prayer is omitted.
Similarly, since God’s presence
rests next to the bed of a sick
person, one can pray for that
sick person in any language he
wishes, even Aramaic.
How should a per-
son who does not have an
understanding of Hebrew
pray? That really depends on
the temperament of the per-
son. He could either recite the
prayers from a siddur that has
a reliable translation or recite
them in Hebrew. Our rabbis
tell us that although prayer
from the heart comes from
a language one understands,
there is a distinct advantage to
praying in Lashon Hakodesh.
Namely, that if one does not
understand every word he is
saying he, nevertheless, has
still fulfilled his obligation
and his tefilla will be accepted.
Rav Moshe Feinstein cau-
tions against one making up
his own tefillot because they
probably would not be able to
include all of the components
necessary in order to fulfill the
Biblical obligation of tefilla.
The Mishnah Berurah tells
us that every person should
make it his daily habit to ask
for his needs at the end of his
tefilla. He should pray for his
livelihood and that his Torah
learning not be forgotten.
In the final analysis,
prayer is the time to have a
personal conversation with
one’s Creator. If one cannot or-
ganize his thoughts in Hebrew
then he should do so in what-
ever language he understands.
Although our tefillot are always
heard and desired, there are
preferred ways to fulfill this
great mitzvah that we have.
Lashon Hakodesh remains the
preferred language for Jew-
ish prayer but no matter what
language we use Hashem is al-
ways ready and able to hear our
heartfelt supplications.