B"H
Friday, Shevat 23, 5781 / February 5, 2021
The highlight of this week's Parsha, Yitro, is about G-d giving the Ten Commandments to the Jewish people at Mount Sinai. This great event took place seven weeks (50 days) after The Exodus.
Q. Why did G-d wait 50 days after the Exodus to give the Torah?
A. During their enslavement in Egypt, a majority of the people adopted much of the Egyptian way of life. As a result, they had fallen to a very low spiritual level, while many of them even worshipped idols. In order to receive the Torah, they had to elevate themselves spiritually. It took them seven weeks to achieve that spiritual elevation.
Q. There are 620 letters in the Ten Commandments. What is the significance of this number?
A. They correspond to the 613 Biblical Mitzvot plus 7 rabbinical laws, which total 620!
Q. The first letter of the Ten Commandments is "Alef" (which equals number 1), and the last one is "Chaf" (which equals 20), totaling 21. What is the significance of this number?
A.When we add up the first letter of each of the Five Books of the Torah, they total 21 (2+6+6+6+1=21). It teaches us that the entire Torah was given to us at Mount Sinai.
Q. In addition to reading from the Torah on Shabbat (and holidays) we also read from the Torah every Monday and Thursday. Why?
A. Our sages instituted this custom so that three days should not pass without the reading of Torah.
Q.The first five commandments, written on one Tablet, have many more letters than the last five commandments, which were written on the other Tablet. Were the two Tablets of equal size or not?
A. Both were of equal size! Also, contrary to popular perception, the two tablets were square.
The right tablet contained the commandments between man and G-d, the left contained the commandments between man and man. While the five commandments inscribed on the right contained 146 words, the five commandments on the left, between man and man total 26 words. Yet, they were written on the same size tablet!
There is an important lesson in this: The 26 words took up the same amount of space because they were written in much bigger letters. The lesson from this is that G-d wanted to make us aware that one should not minimize in the importance of the commandments between man and man. They are as important as the commandments between us and Him.
SHABBAT SHALOM
Montrealcandle lighting time: 4:49 / Shabbat ends: 5:55