התורה נתגלה לבעל הבית
(Painting by Michoel Muchnik)Degel Machaneh Ephraim, Parshas Vayeira:
"For the guest brings Torah to the host, and according to the guest is the nature of Torah that is revealed to him."
Could anyone further elaborate on this teaching that the Degel recorded in the name of his grandfather, the Baal Shem Tov?
See יוקח נא מעט מים for the original text.
5 Comments:
HKBH is mezamen to a person guests with a purpose and a message. If the guests are social guests - invited to bolster the host's ego - kovod, status, self importance, fancy guests, obviously, the host is functioning on a level of chitzonius, and he doesn't get past the chitzonius in his learning of Torah HaKedosha.
However, the more he seeks pnimiyus, bitachon baHashem, and the resulting search to give to others in an ultruistic way, aware of his yetzer for osher vekovod and distancing himself as much as he is able, which translates into the TYPE of guests that he seeks out and that will gravitate to him, HKB"H will reveal to him sodos HaTorah.
I have seen this happen before my eyes.
"b'derech she'adam rozeh lailech molichin osoh"
the most wonderful chinuch is to train children to want to help out and serve lonely and rejected people - also bnai Avraham YItchok veYaakov.
Thanks for the insightful comment!
I'm guessing the pshat to be, that through the mitzva of hachnosas orchim the host merits to understand torah. The holier the guest is, the deeper is the torah that the host merits to get.
Thank you for your blog which I enjoy daily.
NE
B"H
"For the guest brings Torah to the host, and according to the guest is the nature of Torah that is revealed to him."
I'm not going to try to explain this text because I'm sure the tiny bit of it I can understand is completely insignificant, however I'll share the tiny bit I can see in it.
In Avot, it says that a wise man is one who learns from everybody. When Hashem sends a guest to us, he does it for a specific purpose. If we keep in mind this teaching of Chazal, we can learn many deep lessons, "the guest brings Torah to the host". The particular type of guest (which Hashem selects for a specific purpose, as I said above) determines the type of Torah we can learn from them, if we are aware of this teaching of Chazal.
My understanding I'm sure is very very tiny and insignificant. There are probably far greater insights within this holy teaching that I can barely grasp, but I hope this helps a little bit.
Blessings! :)
Check out Sefer Baal Shem Tov, at the beggining of parshas Vayera, where he quotes this section of the Degel. The footnote there reads "to understand this concept see the Meiras Enayim", which is printed in the beginning of the sefer. There he quotes a story about the Besh't delaying the departure of the Maggid from Medzibuz because the maggid's "mind was like a wellspring" that would flow stronger as more water was drawn from it. The footnote there (at least in the newer editions of Sefer Besh't) refers back to the Degel, parshas Shmini and many other places. I did not have time to look up the four or five sources.
However, a thought that I had was that the first entry in Degel, where he quotes the Orach Chaim, might be a bit of a precursor to this whole discussion..."the seer before the seen" (vayera elav H'). A person causes the shefa (or guest) to be revealed. Of course the Kedushas Levi speaks about immediatly practilizing any divine influx or inspiration that one experiences through expressing it by some sort of physical act. Because, it might only be a guest. At the end of Degel, under "words I heard from my zeide", he explains the word "Orach" to be a contraction of Ohr 'ches', the light of olam habah. Hope this makes some sense (and helps).
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