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ABOUT US
The words "Torah Tavlin" are best known from a phrase in the Gemara in the tractate Kiddushin: "בראתי יצר הרע ובראתי לו תורה תבלין" - "I created the Yetzer Hara, and I've also the Torah Tavlin" - as an antidote; it is only in this passage that the context compels this translation. The word “Tavlin” has many understandings in the teachings of Chazal, but it is literally translated as “Spices.” Just as a master chef will employ a refreshing blend of spices and ingredients to make his culinary creation into a masterpiece, so too, does Hashem blend together a Divine brand of seasoning - “Tavlin” - into His Living Torah for us to absorb, each according to our individual understanding. Through the countless pages of our commentators, from thousands of years ago up to the present day, we “taste” these spices in every word and posuk in the Torah, and our intellectual senses are overloaded. It is the “Sam Hachaim” - the elixir of life, and the truest manner to experience the Torah.
THE WEEKLY MESSAGE
Parshas Mishpatim
"The ear that heard..."
The Torah tells us "ורצע אדניו את אזנו במרצע ועבדו לעלם". Rashi makes a point of noting that the servant’s ear in question is the right ear, and not the left and he goes to great lengths to prove this point.
But The Rebbe R’ Heschel of Krakow zt"l in Chanukas HaTorah asks that despite Rashi's proofs, why would we even think for a moment that the posuk is referring specifically to the left ear as opposed to either one? He explains that the reason is because as Chazal tell us, the slave’s ear is bored through due to the fact that ‘the ear that heard at Sinai the words, Thou shall not steal, and he went and stole, deserves to be bored.’
The Medrash states in the name of Rabban Shimon bar Yochai that when Hashem spoke to the Nation at Har Sinai, the words went out ‘from the right of Hashem to the left of Yisroel.’ It turns out, therefore, that the ear that heard Hashem’s words was the left ear! In case one might think the left ear is bored, Rashi proves otherwise!
TT WEEKLY POSTS
