“The tools of Hamas are their weapons”
Excerpt of a shiur given December 11th 5784, 4th night of Chanuka
More hints and insights from the Rav, translated from Shivivei Or 338.
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Now, Yosef comes to Dotan.
He asks the angel, where are my brothers shepherding? He says to him, Dotan.
They want to kill you, he (the angel) hints to him. He didn’t want to tell him that they want to kill you.
“They conspired to put him to death.”[1]
They passed a death sentence upon him, it wasn’t everyone, really it was just Shimon and Levi.
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“Shimon and Levi are brothers, the tools of Hamas are their weapons.”[2]
They were members of Hamas. (Yaakov said to them before his death, you are Hamasnikim!)
What a curse! What words!
They freed your daughter, (Dina). Say thank you! Dance! Your daughter was kidnapped in Gaza! She was there in some bunker, in some tunnel. They went into the tunnel and they brought your daughter out, so dance, sing!
They brought her out with a miracle, give them a double inheritance!
“And I have given you Shechem – one [portion] more than your brothers.”[3]
What curses you cursed them with. They freed your daughter! Dance, sing, they brought her out via a miracle.
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No, “Shimon and Levi are brothers, the tools of Hamas are their weapons.”[4]
You are Hamasnikim! You are like Hamas!
“Into their design may my soul not enter. With their congregation do not unite… Accursed is their rage, for it is mighty.”[5]
He cursed them with such curses.
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I asked Yaakov, what’s with these curses? They freed your daughter, be happy! Dance!
No, accursed is their rage, for it is mighty, and their wrath, for it is harsh. I will divide them in Yaakov.
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They have no inheritance in the land.
Shimon has no inheritance – he got Dimona, Beer Sheva, Adada and Ziklag. All of this is in the desert, this isn’t ‘in the land’. This is in the wilderness – that’s where they have their inheritance.
And Levi – nothing.
I will divide you in Yaakov.
Levi was totally deprived, he had no inheritance. He needs to go and stand in the granary and to recieve maaser / terumah (i.e. charity). He has nothing, no inheritance. And he got a few cities of refuge.
This is all the inherited cities of the Levites.
All of this, because they went and slaughtered a whole city.
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But the RAMBAN asks, did they need to wait for Shimon and Levi to free Dina?! On the contrary, Yaakov should have freed Dina!
But Yaakov knew that there was going to be a war with the entire city.
[From previous shiurim, the Rav explained that Yaakov had the question if it was permitted to kill the entire city in order to save her. Therefore, he wanted to get advice from Yitzhak, and that’s why he didn’t act immediately.]
The entire city was protecting Shechem ben Hamor.
Hamor ben Hamor – a donkey, son of a donkey. His father was Hamor, and he was also a hamor. Hamor ben hamor.
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FOOTNOTES:
[1] Bereishit 37:18.
[2] Bereshit 49:7.
[3] Bereishit 48:22.
[4] Bereshit 49:7.
[5] Ibid.
Well. The people of Shechem were converts from Abraham. It’s obvious that Yaakov wouldn’t kill them on a knee jerk reaction. It’s obvious that he would have consulted Yitzhak. Why would he kill a people with whom he and his forefathers were hoping to unite, especially since the sin made was “failing to wait”? Was it permissible for Adam to be slaughtered when he sinned with Hava? Was it permissible for King David to be slaughtered when he sinned with Batsheva? They all failed to wait and do things in the proper order. Hmmm… Now, they say the entire city was protecting Shechem ben Hamor, and that lack of justice among noahides was the real problem. But if they bring the halakah about noahides, then they have to bring it whole. Jews aren’t supposed to kill benei Noah if they disobey the noahide code outside the land (or even on the land if Jews aren’t sovereign). There wasn’t a Jewish king. There wasn’t a Sanhedrin. Not even a bet din for the matter. The land wasn’t conquered yet, let alone Jews being sovereign there… Also, Israel wasn’t officially at war against Shechem, so the laws of war didn’t apply either….. Clearly, it was not permitted to kill anyone. But the Rav ask “how was it permissible”? Like… am I supposed to understand it was? It’s interesting, but I can’t see the point… And he makes links with Hamas… ew… I don’t understand at all. Why are you talking about hints? May you give some hints on the Rav’s hints? 🙂
Your comment seems to be mixing things up all over the place.
1) Adam and Chava – yes, they were liable for the death sentence for eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Just Hashem ‘sweetened’ the sentence by making it take effect in a 1,000 years, and not immediately.
There was no ‘death’ in the world until they ate from that tree, and changed the whole natural order of the world.
2) Kind David is a Jew – the rules for Jews and Noachides are different. Noachides only have seven commandments, but if they transgress one even by a hair’s breadth – they are liable for the death sentence.
Jews are liable for the death sentence for some transgressions, but not for others.
This was the whole debate between Yosef and the brothers, over eating ‘ever min hahai’ – Noachides who do this are liable to the death sentence, Jews are not.
The brothers were saying they were already Jews, so the death penalty didn’t apply, Yosef apparently disagreed, and that’s why the brothers put the din of ‘rodef’ on Yosef, and decided to do away with him.
(This is a super-complicated halachic machloket, the above is a totally oversimplified version of what was going on, to make the point for this response.)
c) Shechem transgressed the Noachide laws on morality by abducting and raping Dina. The city of Shechem transgressed the Noachide laws on setting up courts of law – there were none.
So, they were liable to the death penalty on both counts.
d) I think the main point is, with the Rav’s comments, for more people to understand just how much they don’t understand, when it comes to deciding ‘halachas’ for themselves.
We can’t just crack open a Torah and ‘decide halacha’ based on the pshat of what’s written there.
The oral Torah is an integral part of all these discussions, and even amongst many learned Jews, they simply don’t know it, or know it well enough, to come close to really being able to ‘decide halacha’.
And then there are all the commentators, like the RAMBAM, RAMBAN, and all the machloket between the different Sages down the ages, which all comes to clarify and elucidate the real spiritual issues being discussed even further.
You can see from even his casual conversations, the Rav is familiar with literally the whole of the Torah – written, oral, commentaries, all of it.
There are such deep considerations going on with everything, especially with such ‘big deals’ as returning hostages and killing a whole city that is protecting the abductors.
So the main hint on the Rav’s hint is to keep an open mind, do a lot of hitbodedut, and keep developing more humility that really, we don’t know anywhere near what we think we ‘know’.
And then, to stop arguing so ferociously and self-righteously with other people based on our own ideas, which may or may not be ‘true’ or ‘right’ in the first place.
At the least, to consider we *might* be wrong. Maybe, even just 1% wrong.
Once we grasp that, we’ll be so much nicer to people who think differently from us, and our chances of coming to the ‘real truth’ go up exponentially.
Did anyone even think that the uptick in our soldier and Israeli hostages DEATHS are the political lead–up to another cease fire and horrific ‘agmt’???
Of course! Why do you think ‘the war’ was allowed to start in the first place?
There are no political solutions to what is going on.
All the politicians and leaders on all sides are just puppets.
So, why is our army there anyway?
No matter how many terrorists they kill or arrest, the US and the other countries and puppet leaders will just make sure they are easily replaced, the rockets will keep coming in via Egypt, and we’ll just keep going forever and ever…
Until people realise that ‘politics’ and politicians, and all our institutions, and the media are totally, utterly rotten to the core.
I would prefer that awakening to happen with our guys out of Gaza.
At this stage, they are risking their lives for nothing, because ‘the puppets’ will never let them – us, the Jewish people in Israel – win, no matter what happens on the ground.
In the video game I’m making, the player has to defeat the head of Chamas, Ismail Haniyeh.
Since I started making that level, I’ve learned that he’s just a puppet of Israel/the US/etc., and that, as Eliezer Berland said, the State of Israel wishes he was their prime minister. But it’s still in the game.
Maybe, give R Berland a part in the game? That could be really cool….
Good idea.
I’ll see what I can do
The Israel lobby, also known as the Zionist lobby, are individuals and groups seeking to influence the United States government to better serve Israel’s interests. The largest pro-Israel lobbying group is Christians United for Israel with over seven million members.] The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is a leading organization within the lobby, speaking on behalf of a coalition of pro-Israel American Jewish groups.
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See how innocent children are killed by the most poufel American arms at
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if you do not do something then you do not have a HART
You have this exactly backwards.
It’s the ‘xtian american’ lobby that has infiltrated Judaism, and Eretz Yisrael, in particular, and are just using their bought and paid for puppets here to try and create ‘Armageddon’.
Xtians, and satanists generally, like to keep blaming the jooos for everything, but if you look at who is actually holding the gun, and the purse strings, it always comes back to ‘xtians’, in all their denominations.
And especially the Americans.