Re'eh: 5784 - Why is it called a chassidah (stork)? Because it acts graciously (mischased) with its friends. Yet in Bava Metzia it is written that mice are wicked because they too call their friends to eat. What's the difference? And a moral lesson.…

00:00 Speaker 1 Please.

00:02 Speaker 2 In the weekly parsha, Moshe Rabbeinu repeats to the Jewish people the prohibition against eating certain animals and birds, telling them which are impure and which are pure. He goes over these prohibitions again. In principle, the laws of forbidden foods are a statute Hashem has decreed, a command He has issued. Take, for example, what we read in the weekly parsha: “You shall not cook a kid in its mother’s milk.” That is the prohibition against mixing meat and milk. Why are meat and milk forbidden together? Because Hakadosh Boruch Hu commanded it. There is no logical reason or explanation for it. Hakadosh Boruch Hu commanded it. Nevertheless, the Ramban gives a reason why we may not eat forbidden foods: when a person eats something, it becomes part of his own flesh and blood. So when a person eats an impure animal, he takes on that animal’s bad traits. That is the reason the Ramban gives for the prohibition: a person acquires the food’s bad traits within himself. If so, a question arises. One of the birds the parsha says we may not eat is the chasidah, the stork. Rashi asks—not here in our parsha, but in Vayikra—why is it called a chasidah? Because it acts kindly toward its companions. So people ask: if it acts kindly toward its companions, it has a good trait. Why, then, did the Torah forbid it? It should be a kosher bird. But we may not eat a stork. There are various explanations. One is that it acts kindly toward its companions—only its companions. It does nothing for anyone who is not its friend; it has no connection with them. That is why the Torah forbade it. Because its kindness extends only to its companions, it is a non-kosher bird. That is one explanation. But then people ask: the Gemara in Bava Metzia, which we have learned, says, “The wicked mouse.”

02:15 Speaker 2 In other words, mice are wicked. Why? Because when they discover a place with food, they not only eat it themselves; they bring their friends too. So the question is: here we call the stork a chasidah because it acts kindly toward its companions, while there we call the mice wicked. Why are they wicked? They seem to be acting kindly too—they bring their friends. Why do we call them wicked? The difference, they say, is that when the stork acts kindly toward its companions, it gives them what is its own, what it has already taken. The mice bring all their friends at the homeowner’s expense. That is why we call the mouse wicked. What do we learn from this? Every part of Torah teaches us something. When a person does an act of kindness, it should be at his own expense. Sometimes a person is willing to do an act of kindness, but only when it costs him nothing. If a person does an act of kindness, he should do it at his own expense, not someone else’s. Along the same lines, there is also a lesson about trust in Hashem. We say, “Blessed is the man who trusts in Hashem, and Hashem will be his trust.” This seems repetitive. “Blessed is the man who trusts in Hashem”—what does “and Hashem will be his trust” add? It sounds like the same thing twice. But this applies to trust as well: when a person is in trouble, he needs to trust that Hashem will give him everything he needs, whether livelihood, health, or anything else. But when someone else is in need, should he tell him, “Listen, have trust in Hashem”? No. “And Hashem will be his trust”—trust is something you should practice yourself. When it comes to someone else, you need to act. You cannot leave it to trust in Hashem. You need to do everything

04:05 Speaker 2 you can to help someone else. “And Hashem will be his trust”—trust is for yourself, not at someone else’s expense. Have a good Shabbos. Thank you very much.