The Dubna Maggid gives us a parable; there was a young girl who went to the market with a big bucket of apples to sell.  When she set up her shop a heartless fellow came by and started stealing her apples, she stood there wailing as her apples supply dwindled. A wise old woman passing by said to the little girl, ” just as he is taking your apples, so can you take your apples” (take as many as you can).  Each one of us are the little girl in the story, the Yetzer Harah is the heartless man trying to distract us and prevent us from possessing our apples (mitzvos). Every mitzvah is worth something , we should find the strength in ourselves to grab the mitzvos (apples) available even when we’ve lost our chance for the others instead of standing their wailing.

When the Jewish Nation accepted the Torah they said Naseh Vinishma, “we will do and we will listen” (without even understanding),  this was before it was known what was going to be commanded. The Nation had the ability to say Naseh Vinishma because of the tremendous miracles they had seen while being taken out of Egypt, they saw that Hashem’s commandments are always and only for their benefit.We who already know what the commandments entail and how good things have been for us when we do the mitzvos, certainly we should happily accept these, even without understanding. Being that the Torah was given at this time of year, we have the ability to accept it once again at this time each year.

The Mishna in Perkei Avos says, “who is a mighty person? He who conquers his yetzer harah (evil inclination)”. Why doesn’t it say, someone who conquers a city and takes captives, he’s a mighty person? It says “He who conquers his yetzer harah” to show us, a person who conquers his neighbors is just stronger than them, which is relative (what if they were kids, is he actually mighty?), conquering ones own evil inclination and being in control of ones self is most powerful.

Before Moshe came down from Har Sinai with the first set of Luchos which he broke, Hashem already had told him about the Jews worshipping the Golden Calf. The question is asked, why did he even bring them down? why not either break them up there or don’t bring them at all?  Moshe did this because he though the Jews breach of the Torah was idol worship alone (a sin between man and g-d) he was unaware that in addition there was murder and lude behavior occurring (sin between man and man) . Moshe felt he would give the Luchos so long as the mitzvos between man and man were being fulfilled,  which would inevitably reach  mitzvos between man and g-d, however once he saw there breach between man and man that’s when Moshe broke them.

We said yesterday that the “crown” of Torah can be attained by anyone with no exceptions, through true effort.  When Moshe passed away Yehoshua was appointed by G-d as his successor. The questions is asked, were there not greater men then Yehoshua who was one of the spies? There was a hierarchy of judges whom were in charge of up to as many as 1,000 people, Yehoshua was one of those in charge of only 50, why did G-d appoint him as Moshe’s successor? Becuase Yehoshua was Moshe’s aide and  never left the Beis Medrish putting in the most effort possible, Hashem appointed him.  We are judged by the effort we put in, not what we get out of our efforts.

Three “crowns” were given to the Jewish people , the crown of Priesthood, Royalty and Torah. The Torah crown is the most substantial , significant and meaningful crown of all. The crown of Priesthood was given to Aaron, and the crown of Royalty was given to Dovid Hamelech, but the crown of Torah was given to no one in specific, because everyone is able to attain that crown with zero limitations. How is this crown attained? by putting forth the effort to earn it, earning the crown of Torah has nothing to do with your intelligence, rather the effort put forth determines one’s worthiness for the crown.

Three times a day, at the end of Shmona Esrei, we ask HaShem to “grant us our portion in His Torah”.  Shouldn’t we ask for a portion, what does it mean OUR portion.  This would be because each and every Jew has a share in the Torah.  We were all standing at Har Sinai when Hashem gave us this greatest of gifts and it belongs to everyone of us.  There is not a single Jew that does not have the capability to learn on his own level.  This is what is asked of us, that we each realize our strengths and utilize them in learning and service of G-d.

It should be noted that in this weeks Parsha during the counting of the various tribes, there’s a difference between the way the tribes of Yisacchar and Zvulan were listed in contrast to how the rest of the tribes were counted. Yissachar and Z’vulan were counted in as a combined tribe. Why was this the case? Because of their extremely strong connection between on another, what connection is ? The Medrish explains that the members of Yissachar sat and learned Torah all day, while the tribe of Zvulan were shrewed business men who supported both tribes. Zvulan was the financial support while Yissachar was the spiritual support. We see from them being counted as one tribe that when a person takes upon themselves to support a Torah scholar, they share the reward equal to that of the scholar receiving 100% of the mitzvah, this is a unique facet of a mitzvah where as with other things such as money which when split is 50%/50% and can never be split 100%/100% .

The highest level of creation is man, the most distinct feature that we as man posses above the animal kingdom is the power of speech, it is our greatest gift when used appropriately. It can also be most detrimental if we use it incorrectly , incorrect use of speech destroyed the second Bais Hamikdash. The Chofetz Chaim says, “foul speech is what keeps us from being redeemed”, using our speech responsibly is of our highest priority.

The Torah lists the types of non-kosher birds, one of them is called the Chasida (The Stork) . The word Chasida means kindness, the stork is called Chasida because of the kindness it shows to its fellow storks. The Divrei Ames asks, if the bird is so kind, why is it not kosher? An answer is given, that although the stork was kind to its fellow storks and that is admirable, it wasn’t necessarily so kind to others, in order to be truly kosher in the eyes of Hashem one most be kind not only to their circle of friends but to everyone around them.