Weekly Newsletter Volume 3, Issue 10

December 24, 2022; 30 Kisleiv, 5783

Parsha Rav Yitzchok Zev Soloveitchik ZT”L (“Reb Velvel”) raises the following question on this week’s Parsha: “The brothers bought food from Yosef in Egypt during the famine in Eretz Yisrael. Yosef detained Shimon and sent the rest of the brothers on their way back to Yaakov with a request to bring Binyamin to Egypt. Why did Yosef place the money back in the brothers’ sacks that they rightfully paid for the food that they bought?” Reb Velvel answered, “Because Yosef wanted to ensure sure that the brothers would return to Egypt.”

Someone present at Reb Velvel’s Shiur asked him, “Wouldn’t Yosef’s brothers come back to Egypt anyway? Considering the famine, their need for more food would surely cause them to return. And besides, wasn’t their brother Shimon taken captive? They would surely return to redeem him?”...

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Weekly Newsletter Volume 3, Issue 9

December 17, 2022; 23 Kisleiv, 5783

Parsha “And Yehudah said to his brothers, ‘What is the gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood? Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, but our hand shall not be upon him, for he is our brother, our flesh." (Bereishis 37:26-27)

In the battle for truth, we must be aware of a human frailty that often colors a person’s decision making and account for it when convincing a person to do the right thing and to see things objectively. The human frailty of which we will speak is the harboring of Negi’os (prejudices and biases) and how it warps one’s way of thinking. It is also important to realize that often, people are either unaware of their own biases or feel that their biases do not affect them. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University found that only 1 in 661 people feel that they have more biases than the average person...

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Weekly Newsletter Volume 3, Issue 8

December 10, 2022; 16 Kisleiv, 5783

Parsha “And he said, ‘No longer shall Yaakov be your name, but it shall be Israel – for you strove with an angel and with men and you have prevailed.’” (Bereishis 32:29)

Rashi on this Passuk tells us that the “men” that Yaakov strove with refer to Eisav and Lavan. Rav Nosson Wachtfogel ZT”L in Kovetz Sichos (page 135) explains that we are generally aware of the details of Yaakov Avinu’s struggle with Eisav, but what was the exact struggle with Lavan? Granted, it may not have been easy to work an additional seven years to marry Rachel after Lavan tricked him into marrying Leah and to provide Lavan with “an honest day’s work” during that time, however for a person of Yaakov’s great stature and integrity, it does not appear that it should have been too much of a struggle...

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