Beshalach: 5782 - Why don't we eye 'Chelev Nachum'? The weekly insight: Rabbi Avraham Abba Bruk and Rabbi Shimon Zonnenfeld with a brief insight on Parshas Beshalach, at the conclusion of the Daf Yomi shiur…

00:00 Speaker 1 “This is my G-d, and I will glorify Him; the G-d of my father, and I will exalt Him.” Reb Meir of Premishlan says: “If a person says, ‘This is my G-d,’ through his own service, then ‘I will glorify Him’—that is very beautiful.”

00:15 Speaker 2 Amen.

00:16 Speaker 1 “The G-d of my father”—or it’s something I have because my father was, uh, devoted to serving Hashem, so now I’m entitled to all sorts of breaks. “And I will exalt Him”—that is about exaltation. You have to put in the work, [unclear].

00:34 Speaker 3 Yasher koach.

00:34 Speaker 1 So that we can have Shabbos.

00:36 Speaker 3 Rabbi Rus[?], Rabbi Shimon.

00:39 Speaker 4 They tell a story about the Chida.

00:41 Speaker 1 Yasher koach.

00:42 Speaker 4 Rabbi Yosef Chaim David Azulai.

00:45 Speaker 2 Amen.

00:45 Speaker 4 Once, when he traveled abroad to collect money for the poor of Eretz Yisroel, he came to a wealthy man and wanted to ask him for a donation. The wealthy man said to him, “Listen, I have a question I’ve asked many people, including rabbis, and no one has answered me. If you answer it, I’ll give you a very substantial sum.” “I won’t refuse. What’s your question?” He said, “We recite ‘Bameh Madlikin’ on Friday night. It says what one may light with and what one may not light with. One may not light with [unclear], or with kerosene, or with tar, and it says there, ‘nor with fat.’” But that wealthy man had understood it the way we just learned.

01:28 Speaker 2 Ah.

01:29 Speaker 4 He had divided the words incorrectly. So he read it as “nor with Nachum’s fat,” because it says, “Nachum the Mede says one may light with cooked fat.” So that was how he read it, and he asked, “Why did they forbid Nachum’s fat? What was his sin? What did he do?” The Chida saw what he was basing it on. He said, “I’ll tell you. In the weekly parsha it says, ‘And it came to pass when Pharaoh sent the people away, and He did not lead them’—velo nacham. Nachum didn’t want to leave Egypt, so they decreed that his fat was forbidden.” The man was very pleased and gave him the money.

02:02 Speaker 3 Yasher koach, yasher koach.