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it's time for rabbi minkowitz weekly
tour lesson a place where life's most
difficult questions are answered here
with his spiritual perspective and
insight rabbi minkowitz welcome to this
week's torah lesson this week's torah
portion is practiced
the question of the week is
how is rebuke a blessing
so in this week's torah portion partisan
it's famous for yaakov blessing his
children yaakov before he dies calls on
every one of his children
and he blesses them so the question they
ask is
if you give a look on one hand they're
called blessings but in the other hand
you give a look reuven he rebukes
shimon and lady he rebukes
not only did he rebuke them when it came
to yehuda you the start to move back the
commentaries tell us and yaakov had to
say come yahudah you're different
why because obviously he rebuked the
first three
so the question is why they call
blessings now perhaps you might say
they're not blessings maybe a few of
them were rebuking but nevertheless at
the end of all the blessings the torah
tells us very clearly
god that
yaakov blessed each and every one of
them
so on one hand we see openly it's a
rebuke on the other hand the torah
attests to the fact that even though it
might seem like a rebuke but the fact
was each and every one of them received
a beautiful blessing from the dead and
the question then is
so how is rebuke a blessing so in hebrew
tohacha which is the meaning for rebuke
is from two words what are the two words
toich which means inside
is numerically eight
hey is numerically five so inside is
thirteen what's thirteen
so we know there's a powerful word
which is the key to all connections
between people
and that is ahava love
love numerically aleph is one hey is
five
that is two and hey is another five
which equals thirteen
in other words
means the essence of the rebuke is love
so in other words when you're rebuking
somebody
and what they're really feeling is not
the rebuke
even though you're technically outlining
issues that were wrong but when they
feel that the essence of the message the
delivery is one that's coming from a
place of love it goes into a place of
love then they don't feel the rebuke as
rebuke but they actually feel the rebuke
as coming from a place of love and
they're happy to hear it and actually to
work on themselves to transform
themselves
so in other words yaakov blessed every
one of his children even though
if you read yes he did rebuke them and
address certain issues that had to be
corrected and things he was unhappy
about but that was only in the actual
message of the content but the delivery
was one of tohaka and as a torah points
out the essence was love and therefore
it was all a blessing
so to answer the question how is rebuke
a blessing when the essence of the
rebuke is coming from a place of love
the person will feel the love
and have an opportunity to address and
fix the things that need to be fixed but
he won't feel the rebuke because the
feeling will be a feeling of true love
this week's torah lesson is dedicated to
the memory of barackman ari leib made
the torah that we're studying in his
memory cause an elevation for his soul
thanks so much for joining us for our
weekly tour lesson please join us for
live classes here at khabad wednesday we
have the jli course from 12 30 to 2
thursday morning is the parasha class by
khanna from 11 to 12 and thursday
evening we have the jli from 7 to 8 30.
in shabbat morning we have kabbalah
class at nine o'clock followed by
services and for bringing in shavuot
have a great week
