Vayeira: The Meaning of Yitzchak’s Name and Avraham’s Bris Milah

Transcript

This Torah class is brought to you by TorahAnytime.com. In this week's parsha, Parshas Vayeira, the Ribono Shel Olam sends malachim, angels, to inform, to be mevaser, to mevaser Sarah Imeinu that she's going to have a child. Torah tells us that when she heard it, she laughed. Vatitzchak Sarah bikirbah. Sarah laughed. The Torah is clear that the laughing that she laughed was a complaint against her, was a taanah. It was something that she did wrong. How do we know? Because we see clearly that the Ribono Shel Olam turns to Avraham Avinu and says to him, Lamah zeh tzachakah Sarah? Why did she laugh? And when she's told why did she laugh, her response is, Lo tzachakti, I didn't laugh. And the Ribono Shel Olam says, No, no, no, you did laugh. Why do you laugh? Af umnam, eileh, it's not true. Hayipalei meHashem davar? Hashem has difficulty to take care of this? Of course He can do it. So it comes out that the laugh was something which was wrong, something which was a taanah. A complaint against Sarah. Yet, when the child is born, he is given the name Yitzchak. Who tells Avraham to call him Yitzchak? This was in last week's parsha, Hashem. Hashem tells Avraham Avinu, even before this episode, even before the episode that Sarah laughed, in last week's parsha, when He informs Avraham that he's going to have a child, He says, V'yaladet ben, and you should call the child Yitzchak. So, l'choira you see that the laughing of Sarah actually came after the name was already decided from the Ribono Shel Olam. Why is he called Yitzchak if the laughing is something which is not good? It's a taanah. What did she say? She said, Kol ha-shomea, whoever hears that I had a child, yitzchak li, will laugh, right? Tell me something. That's what she did. When she heard that she's going to have a child, she laughed. So it must not be a very good thing that people are laughing. Yet, we find that we call him Yitzchak. Imagine somebody does something wrong. So instead of concealing it, instead of hiding it, he names his first child after that story. Let's say a person had a machlokes in the shul, and the rav gets up and says, You make a machlokes, and he names his first child Machlokes. You know, Yitzchak means to laugh. Rashi, last week's parasha, says clearly, why was he called Yitzchak? Al shem ha-tzchok. Al shem ha-tzchok. Rashi says clearly that the Yitzchak comes from the laughing, because whoever heard that Yitzchak was born when he was a hundred years old laughs. As a matter of fact, even the name Yitzchak itself, Rashi gives a second pshat, has to do with the age of when Avram—how old Avram and Sarah was. Tzadik, right? Kuf. Avram was kuf, Sarah was tzadik, Yitzchak. So you see that the name is all about, he was ben zekeinim. Look how old his parents were when he was born. And people laughed, and that's what we call him Yitzchak. The Malbim says, what does it mean, al shem ha-tzchok? What does Rashi mean? Rashi means that this point, which laughter? The laughter that whoever hears that Hashem gave a child to Sarah and to Avram at such an old age, they're gonna laugh. It's an unbelievable funny story. Look.

What's going on over here? So make up your mind. Is it a good thing that people are going to laugh? Is it a bad thing? How do you explain it? We get the impression that the Tzchok was not a good thing. The Tzchok was laughing. Kol ha-shomea yitzchak li. Interesting. Sarah was told, Why did you laugh? What does Sarah turn around? She calls him Yitzchak. Why? Kol ha-shomea yitzchak li, right? So that's not a good thing. The yitzchak li is a bad thing. The yitzchak li is something that you shouldn't call your son to remind you that you laughed. And yet we call him Yitzchak. Why is he called Yitzchak if the Yitzchak was a ta'anah? The Yitzchak was a complaint. The Yitzchak was a bad thing, not a good thing. Don't name the child after something which is not a good event, an aveirah. So the truth is, Rabbeinu Bechayei explains that actually two people laughed. It's true that in this week's parsha Sarah laughed, but in last week's parsha, Avraham laughed. It says clearly in the pasuk that Avraham fell on his face and he laughed. Says Rabbeinu Bechayei, it's not called Yitzchak because Sarah laughed, but actually it's called Yitzchak because Avraham laughed. And it must be a good thing that Avram left, says Rabbeinu Bechaye, because if it was a bad thing, you wouldn't call him left after a bad thing. So you know what the question becomes? Why? If two people did the same thing, what you did, that's no good, but what I did is good. It sounds very much like a wife. A wife could do the same thing as the husband, but when the husband does it, it's no good. But when the wife does it, then it's good. Here's the other way around. The wife did it, that's terrible, that's no good. Avram did the same thing. Why doesn't Hashem say, What are you leaving for? Lama zeh tzchakah? What are you leaving for? The same way He screamed, the same way He screamed at Sarah, and rebuked Sarah for laughing, He should have rebuked Avraham Avinu for laughing. Chok uf is the kasha; that itself was the question. Unbelievable. I want to tell you that there are many terutzim to this kasha. So first let's work a little bit to see the difference between Avraham and Sarah, the difference between Avram's laugh and Sarah's laugh. Some mefarshim want to say that it says by Avram, Vayomer b'libo. Okay, the pasuk by Avraham Avinu is in perek yud-zayin, pasuk yud-zayin. Okay, so read the pasuk. It says clearly, Vayomer Avram b'libo. No? Go ahead, read. Vayipol Avram al panav, vayitzchak, vayomer b'libo. Ram, believe. ... It says like this: Vayipol Avraham al panav vayitzchak, vayomer belibo. He said in his heart. So what is vayomer belibo? So some mefarshim want to say he didn't speak it out. In his heart he said, Haleben me'ah shanah yivaled? A person in his heart has the right to have question. A person in his heart could wonder, but if you speak it out, that already becomes a problem. While by Sarah it says clearly, Vatitzchak Sarah bikirbah leimor. So some want to say the leimor, she spoke out, she expressed the tzchak that was belibah. Avraham, avinu, was vayomer belibo, and he didn't express what he said. So he had a little bit of a question: how can it be such a thing? All right, it's not so bad. Yeah, but still, why would Hashem say to call Yitzchak after this event? Not a good thing to question. And the answer, he wasn't really questioning.

Questioning, he was wondering. Okay, but still, have to explain why would Hashem want that she should be called Yitzchak after this event, yet by Sarah was bikirbah, leimor. She expressed it. You expressed it, it's much worse. That's one pshat. There's another pshat in the mefarshim, the exact opposite. Vateitzchak Sarah bikirbah, she laughed inside. Leimor means it remained bikirbah, while Avraham was vayomer, belibo, he said what was in his heart. So he expressed openly that he was laughing and wondering. And there's a klal, as the Tosefes Bracha, the Targumim, and the sefer brings out over here in this pasuk, that a ganef is much worse than a gazlan. A gazlan comes to you out in the open and he steals from you. A ganef doesn't hide. Why does he do it hidden? Because he's afraid. You know, he doesn't want anyone to know, he doesn't want anyone to see. So when it's out in the open, it shows you're not afraid. So Avraham Avinu, vayomer, he said belibo. Same belibo, speaking out. So it means he didn't think he was doing anything wrong. He wasn't ashamed. While Sarah was vateitzchak Sarah bikirbah, but she did it hidden inside because she was ashamed of what she was doing, because she knew there was something wrong with it. To the point we find later that when Hashem says, Why did you laugh? What did she say? I didn't laugh. What do you mean? If you laughed, you laughed. And the answer the mefarshim say is because it wasn't out in the open. She laughed where? Inside. Inside. So she didn't remember, you know, sometimes a feeling, an emotion, you don't remember. Was I laughing? But if you laugh openly and you speak out openly, how could it be? So when he denied that you did it, Hashem tells you, You did this. You say, No, I didn't do it, to prove that actually she never really spoke it out. Okay, rabosai, you hear the two answers? Again, we are addressing a simple question: the name Yitzchak. And I'm soon going to show you very interesting. Yitzchak's name was unique. We find clearly that the Rishonim say that the only one of the Avot that Hashem gave him a name was Yitzchak. Rashi, Grada says that Yaakov Avinu also, Vayikra shmo Yaakov, Hashem called him Yaakov. So the Torah Temimah explains that it's a stirah in different Chazal, that the Yerushalmi says only Yitzchak was given a name by Hashem, while Bavli, we'll go with what Rashi says later, that Yaakov was also given a name by Hashem. But if you learn like the Yerushalmi, only Yitzchak. The Rabbeinu Bechaye in last week's parsha explains that that's why Yitzchak was the only one that his name did not change. Avraham changed from Avram to Avraham. Yaakov changed from Yaakov to Yisrael. Yitzchak was the only one that it didn't change. Why? Because the name, says Rabbeinu Bechaye, came from Hashem, so it wasn't changeable. This is the way Hashem gave the name. As a matter of fact, my grandfather told me from the Netziv. I saw others say it as well, but it could be that it's also from the Netziv; they heard it or they got it from sefarim that quote the Netziv. If you notice that in this week's parsha, when Yitzchak is born, they give him the name. Avram calls him Yitzchak, and then it says he made him a brit milah when he was eight days old, ka'asher tzivah oto Elokim. So the Netziv says, why is it that he was given a name right when he was born? Normally, we give the name by the bris. Here it says clearly in the parsha that Yitzchok was given the name right away. Says the Netziv, it's very simple, because normally the name is given by the parent, when the parent decided what the name will be, so you give it by the bris. Here Hashem told him clearly in last week's parsha, V'yoladet ben, you'll give birth to a child and you'll call his name Yitzchok. So since Hashem clearly told him, when your child will be born you'll call him Yitzchok, he called him Yitzchok as soon as he was born. And therefore, it says, Kasher tzivah oto Elokim, simply it's referring back on what? On the bris milah, that he did bris, that's the end of the pasuk. Vayamal Avraham es Yitzchok bno, kasher tzivah oto Elokim, says the Netziv that actually it's going back on the beginning part of the pasuk too. He calls him Yitzchok, and he makes him a bris milah, kasher tzivah oto Elokim, because the name was also kasher tzivah oto Elokim. The name Yitzchok.

And therefore, says Rabbeinu Bechaye, says the Netziv, excuse me, says the Netziv, that he named him as soon as the baby was born, like the tzivui of HaKadosh Baruch Hu. You know, tzaddikim, when they hear a tzivui from Hashem, they do it right away. They do it exactly the way they hear it. You know, if he was a bucharian, forgive me, and he would say, Call him as soon as, you know, you have the baby, he would wait a day or two, you know. If he was a yekke, maybe he would wait an hour, right? But since Avraham was yarei Shamayim, what did he do? At the moment. I can imagine Avraham Avinu as a brisker would be standing there as the baby is born. The baby, as it's coming out, Ah! His name is Yitzchak. Why? Because Hashem told him, You'll give birth to a boy. So he doesn't have a, okay, tomorrow, tomorrow, you know, four o'clock is not eight o'clock. When he's born, it says, Veyoladet ben, and you'll call him Yitzchak. Probably Avraham called him Yitzchak the minute his head came out. Maybe he even went to the rav to ask a she'eilah. Yeah, he maybe went to Shem and asked, when the head comes out, when the feet come out. Hashem said, when he's born, I have to call him Yitzchak. Yeah. You know, the Brisker Rav says something very nice in this week's parashah. It says that Hashem tells Avraham, Go out and count the stars. Avraham Avinu complains that he has no children. Hashem tells him, Go outside. And count the stars. So listen to the lashon of the pasuk. It says, the pasuk, Vayotzei oto hachutzah, vayomer habet na hashamayim u'sfor hakochavim, im tuchal lispor osam. Vayomer lo, ko yihyeh zaracha. So the Brisker Rav asks, he's talking to him. Is he talking? Vayotzei oto hachutzah, vayomer. Hashem says to him. So why does the pasuk continue again, Vayomer lo, and he tells him, Ko yihyeh zaracha? It should continue. Vayotzei oto hachutzah. He took him out, and he tells him, and part of the telling him is, Ko yihyeh zaracha. Says the Rav, a beautiful pshat. Avraham Avinu medakdek b'netzivui of Hashem. Hashem, Vayotzei oto hachutzah, vayomer, and he tells him, Look up and count. So the minute he heard count, he starts counting. So there was a stop, there was a break, there was a pause. Vayomer, and that's why he continued telling him. It's not like, Go outside and sit down and learn. So you could continue telling because it's all the same conversation. If someone was medakdek in the tzivui of Hashem, sit down and learn. So the minute he heard that, he sat down and learned. So there was a stop. Vayomer lo, so he continued talking to him, and he tells him, Sfora, Ko yihyeh zaracha. Why? Because Avraham was medakdek, medakdek. So here too, Avraham was told, You'll have a child, and you call him Yitzchak. So you know when he called him Yitzchak? The minute he had his child. And that's what the pasuk finishes, Ka'asher... Tzivah Elokim, the same way Hashem told him. What did Hashem tell him? Hashem told him that he should go name the child. Okay. I was thinking of something very interesting, all right? Normally in the Torah, who calls the child a name? We find that the imahot gave the names. Vayomer Leah, Vayomer Leah, Leah, Rachel. They all gave their own names. Binyamin was given by Yaakov because Rachel already died. So how come over here it says that Avraham gave the name? And the answer is, again, with the same thing like the Netziv brings out, because Hashem told Avraham. It wasn't a name that was chosen. It was a name that was given and was commanded to Avram to give. Veyoladet ben vekarat. So who called him Avram? Avram right away got up and called him Yitzchak. The question is, what does it say in the pasuk? Which word, which name of Hashem does it use? It says like this: Vayikra shmo Yitzchak. Vayamal Avraham et Yitzchak beno ka'asher tzivah oto Elokim. Now if you're talking about the brit milah, so you could come and say Elokim.

You know, milah is something which is brit. It's something which is maybe even din. You could hear the word Elokim. But the calling, the way that Yitzchak learned, the calling of Yitzchak, the calling of Yitzchak was, Kasher tzivah oto Elokim. So why is that Elokim? It should say, Kasher tzivah oto Hashem. It's a good thing that he had Yitzchak, no? Elokim is always a sign. It's always something which is to leramez midat hadin. If it's going back on the calling of the child Yitzchak, then why is it, Kasher tzivah oto Elokim? It should be, Kasher tzivah oto Hashem. So here we have a few questions. Again, question number one: Yitzchak was called after the tzchok, but the tzchok was not a good thing. The tzchok, we see Sarah was a complaint against Sarah. So why is it that we name him Yitzchak if laughing is not a good thing? Unless we say Avraham, he laughed, that was a good thing. Why? Why should Avraham's laughing be better than Yitzchak's, and then Sarah's laughing? So we said because Sarah maybe only laughed inside, while Avraham laughed outside. He wasn't ashamed that he was laughing, so you see that he didn't do any— it wasn't meant in a bad way, while Sarah did it in a way that she was ridiculing. Therefore she did it inside because she was ashamed to show that she was laughing. You see, she denied it later. Yeah, but if laughing is not good, so why is Avraham's laughing any better? Second question: Rabbeinu Bechaye says Hashem called Yitzchak Yitzchak, and that's why his name was never changed. Why? Why would Hashem call his name Yitzchak? Why is it so important to be called Yitzchak? And what does it even mean, Yitzchak? Yitzchak is laughing. Imagine a guy calls his son Lazy. Why? Because I was lazy, so I call my son Lazy. Instead of Laser, we call him Lazy. Yitzchak. Imagine a guy calls his son a joke, a laughter. What kind of name is Yitzchak? Third of all, we find that Avram had to call him Yitzchak. Like the Netziv explains, Kasher tzivah oto Elokim, that Hashem commanded Avram. What's the big deal Sarah gives the name? Avram has to call him Yitzchak. Third of all, unless we say maybe because Sarah was laughing was no good, Avram's laughing was good, so Avram had to call him Yitzchak maybe, because Avram's laughing, we're saying is good, like the Rabbeinu Bechaye says. Last but not least, the question is, Yitzchak is called Yitzchak. You hear? Kasher tzivah oto Elokim. Elokim? The midah hadin is it's called Yitzchak. Why is it the midah hadin? Why do we say Elokim instead of Hashem? It was midah harachamim that he had this baby. So, rabosai, let me give you the pshat, the pshat, which I think is emet la'amito. You hear? Beautiful, beautiful pshat. You know the answer? Okay, so let's see. The name Yitzchak actually... Has two spellings. The name Yitzchak in the Torah is Yud, Tzadik, Ches, Kuf. In Amos and in Yirmiyah, it's spelled differently. It's spelled Yischak with a shin, the sin. Here the Torah, it's spelled with a tzadik. It also could be spelled with a chet. I want to even point out that actually the same pasuk is found twice in Tanach. One time it's spelled with a tzadik, and the other time it's spelled with a sin. Asher karat brito im Avram, ushvuato l'Yitzchak, vaya'amideha l'Yaakov. We say it in Hodu every day. That's from Divrei Hayamim. The Hodu that we say from tefillah is in Divrei Hayamim, and there it's spelled with a tzadik. The same pasuk is in Tehillim, Kapitel Kuf-Heh, pasuk tet, or maybe hei or tet, it could be off by one or two pesukim, and there it's the same pasuk: Asher karat et Avram, ushvuato l'Yischak. Same pasuk.

So we see that there's Yitzchok and there's Yischok. What's the difference? So the truth is, it's interesting. When Avraham Avinu fell on his face and he laughed, the Targum translates it, v'chadi. Chadi is happy. Sometimes a person laughs from happiness. He's in a good mood and he laughs. V'chadi. When Sarah laughs and it's a taanah, the Targum translates it, tzchok, not chadi, but lag, that she was laughing, she was ridiculing. Kol ha-shomea yitzchak li, there the Targum translates it. Vayikra shmo Yitzchak. What is Yitzchak? Chadi, also happiness. So it could be we could say that there's two things. There's tzchok, ridicule, and then there's like tzchok, a person is happy, simcha. The problem is, it makes sense Avraham maybe was one type of laughing, happy laughing. Sarah was making fun laughing. Yeah, but at the end of the day, it's the same name, Yitzchak. By Avraham it doesn't say it with a shin, it says it with a tzaddik. And what is the difference between the two laughing? One is from happiness, all right. The other one is from ridicule. I want to tell you something interesting. There are two psukim which we find the word tzchok. And there, it says it with a shin, not with a tzaddik. For example, yoshev bashamayim yischak, with a shin. It doesn't say yitzchak, it doesn't say laugh, it's a shin. It also says, az yimalei s'chok pinu. You look at the Ramban. The Ramban mentions these two pesukim on the name Yitzchak. What's the difference between tzchok and schok? I'll tell you what the difference is. Tzchok is when I don't want to see the truth, so I make fun of the truth by tzchok. Schok is when I see the truth after I thought it meant something else. After I looked and I thought that it was something completely different, which wasn't true, and then I see the truth, then I have schok. For example, yoshev bashamayim, he looks at the people, everybody's running around after such sheker, and in shamayim they know the truth. It's a schok, you laugh, you're laughing. Here, you ever see a puppet show? Everybody's laughing. What's so funny about a puppet show? And the answer is because you think that the puppets are moving, but the truth is you know that there's something on top playing with it, right? The thing which is far from the truth, the more that it's far from the emet and you makir the emet, you laugh. For example, you see a guy behaving... Mishuneh. You laugh. Why? Because you know you're not supposed to. The truth is you're not supposed to behave this way, and then behaving mishuneh, different, is funny. But let's say a guy doesn't know you're not supposed to behave that way. He thinks that's normal behavior. He doesn't know what the right way to behave is. He's not going to laugh. You ever see two meshugayim? One guy laughs at the other, Ha, look the way you're behaving. No, because he thinks he's supposed to behave that way. The meshugeneh thinks that the other guy is behaving normal. And the normal person looks at it, he knows what it's supposed to look like, so he laughs. Kama rachok zeh meha'emet. Yoshev bashamayim yischak. Yischak. Az yimalei s'chok pinu. In this world we look and we say, Oh, yisurim, bayot, Klal Yisrael is going through galut. But then when the truth becomes revealed, s'chok. It'll turn into laughter. Az, when Mashiach comes, yimalei s'chok pinu. We're going to laugh. We thought it was this. Truth is, it has nothing to do with this. This is the emet behind the story. So you laugh. Yitzchak. The Maharal speaks...

Din. Avraham was chesed, Yaakov was Torah, and din. Din and gevurah goes together, din and gevurah. Din. You know the Medrash says, Yitzchak tava yisurim. The Medrash says that the first person to ask for yisurim was Yitzchak. Yitzchak lived a life kulo yisurim. Yitzchak had nothing. Avraham started off poor, but then he turned rich. Yaakov, running from Esav. V'ata iti shtei machanot. Yaakov was a king. It says when they came and they brought back Yaakov to burial, the people, the kings, were throwing their crowns onto the aron of Yaakov, and they said that the malchut of Yaakov is nothing. I'm sorry, our malchut is nothing, excuse me, our malchut is nothing compared to the malchut and the kingship of Yaakov. Yaakov was a melech. Yaakov, Avraham Avinu, nesi Elokim atah b'sochenu. He was treated like a king, Avraham. Yaakov was treated like a king. It says even clearly that he didn't want to be buried in Mitzrayim. Why? Shelo yaasuni avodah zarah. Yitzchak was din. Yitzchak stood home, and he was even a suma. He was blind. He was blind. Suma ein lo taavah. He has no taavah. Midat hadin, yisurim. He sat home. You know, from the Akedah, he married Rivka, he sat home, midat hadin. What is midat hadin? Midat hadin, it starts with din. But actually, eventually, what do you see from the din? You see that the Ribono Shel Olam has rachamim. Later on, it becomes clear. It becomes clear that the din was for the purpose of rachamim later. Yitzchak was Yitzchak. In his name, Yitzchak, when you look originally, it's tzchok. You don't see. You feel that there's no emunah. Till he was born, you know how much yissurim Avraham Avinu had? But then at the end, what happened? Chalashamayim yitzchak. They start to laugh, because you start to realize the chesed, the chesed that was behind the din. This is why it says, Asher karat et Avraham ushvuato. One time it says l'Yitzchak, and in the same pasuk, ushvuato l'Yitzchak, because the kiyum hashvuah was not to Yitzchak. Yitzchak, as a matter of fact, Yitzchak tried to make be'erot. It says in this week's parsha, Sitmum Pelishtim. Whatever he tried to do, Yitzchak, the Pelishtim were there. Vayist... sitna, it says clearly, vayistimum. They made it against him. Everything that he did, they went against him. The Rabbeinu Bechaye explains that actually all of the be'erot is a siman. A map, a roadmap for the future things that are going to happen bad in Klal Yisroel. Like the Beit Hamikdash, he says. One of them has to do with the Beit Hamikdash, that they threw earth. They buried the Beit Hamikdash. That's one of the be'erot. They buried the be'erot. It's all din in the history of Klal Yisroel. Yitzchak is Yitzchak. But at the end, it's az yimale s'chok pinu u'shvuato. Where are you going to see the kiyum hashvuah? You'll see it l'Yitzchak. Eventually that you'll laugh. What laughter? S'chok. Tzchok is when you can't believe it, doesn't make sense what's going on. Tzchok is when you start to understand what really is the true story behind it. U'shvuato l'Yitzchak. That's why Yitzchak's name was called from Hashem, and that's why Avraham had to give him that name. Yitzchak's name was very special. The Malbim, I told you, explains that why was he called Yitzchak, al shem ha-tzchok, that whoever hears, whoever hears that I had a baby to a hundred years old, yischak. What does that mean, yischak? Mipeleh, says the Malbim, that labi mitpaleh from the nissim of HaKadosh Baruch Hu.

That's how the Malbim explains the tzchok. People are going to laugh. What are they going to laugh? Wow, you saw what Hashem did? It's unbelievable. It's unbelievable. Who could believe a thing like this? And they're going to laugh from that. It's the same type of laughing as Az yimalei schok pinu. The miracles. We'll be mitzpaleh. Avraham Avinu walked around, Matiten li, v'anochi holech ariri. Vayomer, what is Hashem telling? You'll have a child, and what are you going to call him? Yitzchak, because the schok. You'll realize the Az yimalei schok pinu afterwards. Yeah? That's why Avraham Avinu had to call him Yitzchak, and that's kasher et tzivah oto Elokim. The midah of din. Yitzchak's name takes two points: midah of din, and that later on, from the midah of din, you see the rachamim. Ki b'Yitzchak shu'ato li Yitzchak, kasher tzivah oto Elokim. And this was Avraham. Avraham had to call him this. This was Avraham giving over in his child that I'm chesed, and Hashem was mitchased with me, but you, Yitzchak, it's din. It's din. Kasher tzivah oto Elokim. It's din. What's the melaveh the din? That what? That eventually kol Hashemaya yischak. Az yimalei schok pinu, shvuato leYitzchak. The one day from the bad — not bad, from the din — we'll start to realize that it was actually all rachamim. This is the chashivut of the name Yitzchak, and Hashem calls him this. This is a name that Hashem called him. And even in his name, I want you to know, I want to tell you even further. Tell me, Yitzchak. So the tzaddik, Rashi says, is because she was ninety. The kuf was because Avraham was a hundred. What does the yud stand for? Asarah nisyonot shenisnaseh Avraham Avinu. What is the asarah nisyonot? The midat hadin. Elokim nisa et Avraham. The midat hadin came to test, to see if he passes the test, then it's midat harachamim. Yitzchak — yud nisyonot, says Rashi. It's a Rashi. Kuf, a hundred years. Chet — I'm sorry, kuf, tzaddik, ninety years. Chet is the milah. The milah is also din. Like I said, kasher et tzivah oto Elokim. So the asarah nisyonot, the milah, the ninety, the hundred, is Yitzchak, the midat hadin. But eventually from that, what do we have? Az yimalei schok pinu, shvuato leYitzchak. This is the name, and this is the importance and the significance of the name of Yitzchak. This, rabotai, is part one of the shiur. Part two. I wanted to speak about two different topics this week, because the second topic is very important. It's one of the yesodot of Yadut, and that is the brit milah of Avraham Avinu. The first part of the shiur was the inyan of din, and that the Ribono Shel Olam eventually—don't forget everybody's life, there are difficult situations we go through. Everybody has his din, his nisyonot, but a person has to know, az yimale s'chok pinu. Eventually it will become clear that rachamim, the tremendous rachamim that Hashem has with the din. The din becomes the basis, the base that brings out the rachamim later. So it becomes az yimale s'chok pinu. It's one of the amudim of the Yadut that the Avot gave us. The Avot gave us, they enriched us in our heritage, all the inyanim of chesed and din and rachamim. What is in din? This nekudah, that it's din which leads later to what? Az yimale s'chok pinu. Now, rabotai.

I'd like to discuss the brit of Avraham Avinu. You know, we make two brachot when we come and we make a milah on our child. The first bracha we make, al hamilah. The second bracha we make is lehachniso bivrito shel Avraham Avinu. When do we make the bracha al hamilah? So you make a chituch, you cut. Before the cutting, over la'asiyatan of the mitzvah of the cutting, we make a bracha al hamilah, or lamul et haben. I think that's why I'm saying lamul et haben; I have a different... same thing, al hamilah. Okay. Then the father makes a bracha lehachniso bivrito shel Avraham Avinu, and then we do pri'ah. What's pri'ah? We take the orlah and we move it back. We uncover it. So there's chituch, which is milah, and then there's pri'ah. So before the pri'ah, we make the bracha lehachniso, which is over la'asiyatan of the pri'ah. So before the chituch, we make al hamilah, over la'asiyatan. Before the pri'ah, we make the bracha lehachniso bivrito shel Avraham Avinu. Can I tell you a little bit of an interesting yesod that people don't know? Avraham Avinu never made pri'ah. Avraham Avinu was not metzuveh al hapri'ah. Avraham Avinu was not metzuveh al hapri'ah. Now, when I say he didn't do it, I'm a little bit careful, because I don't mean he didn't do it; he ended up doing it. But that wasn't the tzivui of his brit milah. The tzivuy of his bris milah was to make milah without priah. Huh? The Gemara says it in Yevamos, daf ayin aleph amud aleph. The Gemara says Avraham is metzuveh al hamilah v'lo al hapriah. It's a mefurish Gemara. The Gemara says Avraham did not do priah, okay? Now, I'm surprised you would ask me not that, you know, Gemara Yevamos, okay, you don't know Gemara Yevamos, but you should know Rashi at the end of this week's parsha that says that Avraham couldn't do priah because he was old, and he didn't have what to do priah on anyway. Rashi says clearly, since he was an older person, an older person, there's nothing to do priah. There's nothing there. So Avraham did milah, but he didn't do priah. Yet, the ovel asiyasan of the priah is the bracha, lachniso bivriso shel Avraham Avinu. So how could it be that Avraham Avinu didn't do his own bris? I mean, you're telling me lachniso bivriso shel Avraham Avinu, but that's not what he did. That wasn't the bris of Avraham. The bris of Avraham was milah without priah. This question the Chasam Sofer asks, Meseches Shabbos, daf kuf lamed gimmel. Doesn't understand, how could you make a bracha, lachniso bivriso shel Avraham Avinu? Avraham Avinu didn't do priah. Abosai, let's address this question. And in the course of the conversation that we'll have about this question, we're going to address the famous question that the Mizrachi already asks, and after him all the Gedolei Acharonim, Sefardic and Ashkenazic, everybody asks this question, and they give many different answers: why Avraham Avinu did not keep the mitzvah of milah. Pili was a hundred when he was commanded. It says in the Gemara, Yuma daf chaf-chet amud aleph, that Avraham kept the entire Torah. Kiem Avraham kol haTorah kula ad shelo nitnah, afilu the mitzvah d'Rabbanan of eruv tavshilin. So why did he not do a brit milah on his own all the years? Why did he have to wait till he's a hundred and get a tzivui? The Mizrachi is the first to ask this question, the Mizrachi on the Rashi. Why does Avraham wait and not do it on his own? And, im yirtzeh Hashem, discuss this in great length later on in the shiur. But before we do this, I have to give you a little information to understand the difference between milah and priah. What is milah? What is priah? What is the significance of milah in the brit, and what is the significance of the priah? What role does it play? What is the yesod of milah and the yesod of priah? And then maybe we can understand, A, why Avraham Avinu was not mitzuvah al hapriah. Why not? Why not? That's the mitzvah. Today the Gemara says clearly, mal v'lo para, if you don't do priah, it's ki'ilu lo mal; it's not a milah. So why taka Avraham Avinu, who's mitzuvah al milah, was not mitzuvah al priah? Second of all, how can we make a bracha, lachniso bivrito shel Avraham Avinu, over the priah?

If that wasn't his mitzvah of a bris. And third of all, what's bichlal Avraham Avinu's hanhaga that he waited on all mitzvahs he did, and he didn't have to be told to do it, while here he had to be told to do it before he did it. So there's an interesting Maharach Or Zarua. He is the first one, the Rishonim, to talk about—he's a Rishon, siman yud aleph—and he says a yesod, that the mitzvah of milah is not complete with the cutting. It continuously goes as long as a person is a mahul. It's not a mitzvah, I make a cut and I have a mitzvah of milah. The mitzvah of milah is continuous, nimshach, it continues all the person's life because he's a mahul. The mitzvah is, A, to have a milah, to have the maaseh milah, and to be a nimol. He brings a proof. The Gemara says that David HaMelech wanted to be mekayem mitzvah תמיד, constantly. So when he was in the beit hakisei, in the shower, in the beit hamerchatz, he said, What kind of a mitzvah do I have when I'm in the beit hamerchatz? Till he says, You know, I have a mitzvah. He looked at the milah and he said, I have a mitzvah of milah. The question is, the mitzvah milah was when he was eight days old. The mitzvah milah wasn't when he went into the shower, in the beit hamerchatz. Says Maharach Or Zarua, from here we have a proof that the mitzvah of milah is continuous, and every moment that a person is a nimol, he gets a mitzvah. So a Jew gets a mitzvah every second. By the fact that he is a nimol. See, David HaMelech was happy that he has mitzvos tamid. Why? Even where he can't do maaseh mitzvos, because he's in a beis hamerchatz, he has the milah. Says Beis Halevi, siman mem-zayin, that you see from here, from the Maharach Or Zarua, that there's two mitzvos. One is la'asot milah, and the other one is lihyot namul, to be a namul, to be a person that has milah. But that's not such a big chiddush, because that's pretty much what the Maharach Or Zarua is saying, right? The big chiddush to me in the Beis Halevi is the following. Says Beis Halevi that there's two parts to a bris. One part of the bris is the maaseh milah, and that's learned from the pasuk, Himol lachem kol zachar, when Avraham was told to make milah. Then there's a second part of the bris, and that is, V'hayta briti bivsarchem. My bris will be, will be constantly, says Beis Halevi. V'hayta, it's there. It doesn't go away. It stays there. The bris, which is the bris, lihyot nimol, to be a person with a milah. So you have the maaseh bris—well, actually, I don't want to say the word bris, because he doesn't say it that way. He says the maaseh milah. Then you have the bris, V'hayta briti bivsarchem. You know, a bris is something that stays. When you want to make a treaty, in America they do it on a piece of paper. You know why? Because that's how much the treaty is worth. You could take the paper and put it into the trash can and shred it, because the whole thing will be ikar. Wasn't worth that, like they say in English, the paper that it was written on, right? Latzur al pitz l'chutei. A paper, you can use it to stuff a bottle with it. That's how much it was worth in the first place. But a real brit, the way the Rishonim say, chotamo shel melech, it's the stamp of the king, is something which is omed. You know, when they wanted to make a brit, Yaakov and Lavan, what did they do? They took a stone and they said, Eid hagal hazeh, v'eidah hamatzevah. You think they took a piece of paper and they wrote down blah blah blah blah, sign President Obama, and signed they had the rasha, and each guy laughs at the other guy when he walks away? They used to tattoo it. They used to make a real—it was a real thing, a brit. Okay, so what they did was they did eid here. Eid. You know, it's brought down that Bilam was either a grandchild of Lavan or maybe he was Lavan himself, according to some opinions. Tell me, how did Bilam die? Does anybody know how Bilam died? No? Pinchas. It says because he was flying, he was Superman. You think the goyim got Superman? Yeah, Bilam was Superman. He was flying around over there faster than a leaping Bilam, than a leaping asson, whatever. Okay, בקיצור, so he's flying around over there, and Pinchas with the tzitz makes him fall. But what did he fall on? There's a baal...

It says he fell on that stone, ed hamatzeivah, edah. Why? Because there was a treaty between Yaakov and Lavan that you're not going to bother my children. So what was pogea in him? What hit him at the end? He fell down onto that rock. Because the rock was supposed to stand as a treaty, as a sign of the treaty. Yeah, many years later that was. Unbelievable, yeah, unbelievable. Years and years and years later, because, you know, a treaty is something which is vaita. It's a serious thing that's lasts forever and ever. Not like in America. You know, you give the guy a handshake, and while you give him the handshake, you're making fun of him behind his back. That's not a treaty. Arabs make a treaty like that. They make a picture, yeah, and they write, and then they throw it in the garbage, right? But that's Arab treaty. Vayakom briti bivsarchem, it's got to be hayta, kiyum. So it has to be in the flesh forever, that it stays there, l'kiyum. Says the Beit Halevi that the kiyum of the brit is not the maaseh chituch, but the kiyum of the brit, rabotai, is what? Liyot nimol, the fact that we walk around all our lives without orlah. So we have a chiddush that the maaseh milah, the maaseh milah is not necessarily the brit. The fact that vayta, that we're nimol, that itself is the brit. There's another chiddush. From the Beis Halevi in Parshas Lech Lecha. This was in the teshuvot, siman mem-zayin. In Parshas Lech Lecha, the Beis Halevi says that there's actually two parts to a bris. One is the cutting off of the orlah, okay, and then there's pri'ah. Pri'ah is the chelek of the bris. Milah is the chituch, which is the maaseh. But the kiyum, the kiyum of the bris, is in the pri'ah. Maybe like a hechsher. But the kiyum of the bris, says Beis Halevi, is the pri'ah. Speaks out the Beis Halevi, even though Avraham Avinu didn't do pri'ah. So it comes out that he speaks out that Avraham Avinu was not mitzuveh in the bris the way we understand bris. Unbelievable, huh? If bris—it's unbelievable chiddush—if bris is what? The kiyum of the bris is the pri'ah, how could we understand that Avraham Avinu was not mitzuveh in pri'ah? What is it? And then we make on that pri'ah, lachniso bivrito shel Avraham Avinu, when Avraham Avinu himself didn't do that. Again, you want to talk about a bris, so we name the bris after Avraham Avinu. The bris is pri'ah. Avraham Avinu was mitzuveh in the pri'ah, and davka on the pri'ah we make the bracha, lachniso bivrito shel Avraham Avinu, when Avraham Avinu... Open a window or something. It's hot. Maybe a window or something. Open the window there. A little bit fresh air, you know. Put a chair. Yeah, it's an unbelievable question. Pelei peleim. Avraham Avinu... Brit. But the brit is priah, and Avraham was not told to do priah. And bedavka the priah, we make the bracha, lachniso bivriso shel Avraham Avinu. It's pili plaim, pili plaim. Unbelievable question. You hear, rabosai? It's pili plaim. Avraham Avinu didn't—well, not didn't—he wasn't mitzuveh on the priah. So brit means priah, I thought. And davka on the priah, which is the brit, which he was not mitzuveh, lachniso bivriso shel Avraham Avinu. What's the pshat? Okay. So I want to tell you a big yesod. Tosafot, ayin aleph amud beis in Yevamot on that Gemara says that even though Avraham Avinu was not mitzuveh on the priah, that does not mean he didn't do it. He did it on his own. Hashem never told him. Hashem was mitzaveh him on the milah. He went on his own and he did priah. Different Rishonim—the Chida has a lot of arichut on this Tosafot—but b'kitzur, that is the final analysis of the Rishonim, that Avraham Avinu did priah on his own. On his own. He was mitzuveh only on the—

Milah. On his own, he decides to do priya. Now, you want to know why he didn't have what to do it on, so we'll talk about that a little bit later. But there's a Tosfos in Yevamos. The question: why not? Why? Good. Avraham Avinu was not mitzuveh, but why not? Hashem told him to do brit milah. Let Him tell him to do brit milah the right way, with priya. Why, bidavka, it's mashma that Hashem told him only milah, because the tzivui had to be only on the milah, not the priya. The tzivui had to be only on the milah, not the priya. The question is why. The question is why. Why should it be that way? Okay. So the truth is, there's a Rashi later that says that when a person's older, he can't even do priya because it's worn out from the life. Chayim, you live with a wife, so it gets worn out. So if that's true, then Avraham Avinu couldn't have done priya. So what's that? He was not mitzuveh al ha-priya. Maybe he was mitzuveh, but he just didn't have it. It's mashma that he was not mitzuveh. It's more than just it wasn't there. So I went to look a little bit. I looked in Kisvei Ari. Kisvei Ari brings that the difference between milah and priya: milah is for the aseh, do milah, and the priya is keneged the lo sa'aseh. And he says the word priya is gematria shin samech hei, which is the number of the lo sa'ases that we have. Pri-ah is gematria sha, shin samech hei, because it's merumez. It's parallel to the lo sa'aseh, you hear? So I found this in Kitvei HaAri, but I don't know what I do with this. What, he was not mitzuvah on the lo? Maybe. Maybe the avot kiymu es kol haTorah kula aseh. But on the lo sa'aseh, because this big talk in the Acharonim: is Avraham considered a ben Noach? Is Avraham considered a ben Yisrael? Kimu kol... You know, the avot, they mekayem all the asehs for sure; that the Gemara says. What about the lo ta'aseh? You know, Yaakov Avinu married two sisters. That's a lo ta'aseh, huh? Maybe they were mekayem the aseh, not the lo ta'aseh. I was trying to figure, does it have anything to do with this? Mila is aseh; priah is lo ta'aseh, according to Kitvei HaAri. Does it have to do with this question: why Avraham Avinu was mitzuvah on the aseh? Maybe. Maybe. I don't know. But what I do know is a different answer, which I thought about for quite some time, and it's a beautiful answer. Why, A, as Avraham mitzuvah on mila v'lo on priah? B, why is it that we say lachniso bivrito shel Avraham Avinu only on the priah, if the priah wasn't his mitzvah? I told you over that the Mizrachi asks, why was Avraham Avinu not mekayem the mitzvah of milah on his own? Why did he wait till Hashem commanded him? So there are many tirutzim, many answers, both from the Ashkenazi, from the Sefardi, Sefardim, beautiful tirutzim which I want to go through. The first answer is an interesting teretz from the Hafla'ah, very simple halachic teretz. You know, milah is chovel. It's putting damage to your body. You're damaging, you're cutting yourself. So kol zman you don't have a mitzvah to do milah, you have no right to do it. A person can't be chovel b'atzmo. A person's going to come and say, you know what, I want to do a mitzvah, I'm going to cut myself for yisurim for Hashem. Hashem never told you to cut yourself for yisurim for Hashem. You're not allowed to do that. Milah is a mitzvah. So when it becomes a mitzvah, then you have the heter to be chovel b'atzmecha to do the milah. Says Haflaah, in the end of Hamakneh, that's why Avraham Avinu didn't do milah ad she'nitztaveh. Beautiful, beautiful teretz from the Haflaah. His student, the Chasam Sofer, in the teshuvot, gives a different answer. The Chasam Sofer says, and it's also in siman reish mem-hei in Shulchan Aruch, milah is a sakana. So what right do we have to make milah, even though it's a sakana? Yarog v'al ya'avor is only on the shalosh mitzvot. To give up your life is only on the three mitzvot. So why do we do milah if it's a sakana? So the Gemara actually says that it's not a real big sakana that rov die from it, but a mi'ut do die. Some do die from milah, sure. The Gemara says there's cases.

Of meis machmas milah, where one brother dies and then another dies, so the third child doesn't have the milah because his brothers were meisu machmas milah. So you see that there is such a thing. Maybe it's not widespread, but it's a miut that it happens. Says Chasam Sofer, so what's the reason that the Torah says to do milah? And the answer is, migniu mitzli. The mitzvah itself protects the child, and therefore you can do a bris milah on a child even though there's some sakana involved. It's interesting that Tashbatz learns from the mitzvah of milah the halacha of parental consent when it comes to a refuah, when it comes to something which is medical. You know, the child needs a surgery. Who decides? Yeah, I'll give the child—maybe it's a sakana. Says Tashbatz, the father has the right to sign consent, heskem, to give his child for a refuah, to a surgery. We see from milah, because milah is a sakana. And who does the Torah give the mitzvah to? The father. Most Rishonim explain, why do we give the mitzvah to the father? Because who else would take care? I mean, the child is born here, he's in the father's reshus, so the father has to take care to make sure. And actually, some Rishonim want to learn the mitzvah is actually the child's mitzvah. But since the child can't do it because he's a baby, so we give it to the father. But the Tashbatz learns, you know why we give it to the father? Because he has to give reshus, consent, to give a child lemilah, because it's a sakana. So the Chasam Sofer says, but what is the reason to give a child to sakana if it's so? And the answer is because the mitzvah protects. So kol zman you don't have the mitzvah, you don't have the protection. So Avraham couldn't do the maaseh milah till he was commanded and it became a mitzvah, which is a chiddush, because normally you would say it's a mitzvah anyway. He was doing it l'shem hamitzvah. He was doing it for the sake that it was a mitzvah, but he wasn't mitzuveh. You know, sometimes I like to add to this Chasam Sofer the parental consent in the mitzvahs Hashem. I mean, Avraham Avinu was doing it because it was a mitzvah. So Hashem never told him to do it, but he did it l'shem mitzvah, so why wouldn't it protect him? And the answer is maybe this nekudah. He needed parental consent to be given for this surgery, so to speak. So when Hashem told him to do it, it's Hashem giving him the consent. So even if he would do it l'shem mitzvah, it's still not enough. You need it that Hashem—and the truth is Rashi says clearly, Vecharot imo habrit, that what happened, vecharot imo habrit? No, Rashi says Hashem did it with him. Hashem took the knife, vecharot imo habrit. Hashem cut Avraham Avinu the milah together, together with Avraham Avinu, imo habrit, together. Rashi, the end of the parashah. It's like parental consent, so to speak. Hashem was giving His child Avraham Avinu heskem to the surgery. So even if Avraham was doing it l'shem mitzvah, but he had to wait for Hashem to be mitzaveh, because otherwise it's a little bit difficult, the Chasam Sofer. If it's migni, if it helps the mitzvah, so even if I was a mitzuveh, I need to be mitzuveh for it to protect me. This is the second. So again, the first answer is you can't be chovel. A person cannot damage his body, אי מילא, Hashem said. So kol zman there was no tzivui. Says haflaah, Avraham Avinu couldn't do milah on himself because he would be chovel b'atzmo. Chasam Sofer explains a different answer, that the reason why he waited for the tzivui, because otherwise it's a sakana, and the whole heter to be nichnas l'soch sakana is only if what? If there's a mitzvah, that the mitzvah protects you. He had to wait for the mitzvah. There's another answer that's given from the Brisker Rav, and he says that actually the whole metzius of the mitzvah is to take away that you're an arel. Kol zman Hashem didn't say that there's a mitzvah of milah, the orlah is not an orlah. For example, the Gemara says, me'usi hi ha'orlah. Orlah is ma'us. What's ma'us about the orlah? Says Brisker Rav, k'darkam shel Raboteinu Brisk, that why is it ma'us? Because Hashem said to cut it off. That's why it becomes ma'us. It's the Torah that makes it. For example, Rav Chaim Brisker explains, why is gilui arayos bad? Now today they don't think it's bad. That's because vatishachet ha'aretz. But if they were healthy, normal people, they would understand that—

Gilui arayos is no good. So people think because it's moral, but who made up moral? So says Reb Chaim Brisker, histakel b'oraisa u'bara alma. So in the Torah, there's an issur for gilui arayos; mimeila, in the briah, because Hashem looked at the Torah and made from the Torah the world, so mimeila it becomes that gilui arayos is a bad thing. Not that people on their own got sat down together and said, you know, gilui arayos, that's not good, because believe me, if they got sat down together and they would decide between themselves, they would say, No, gilui arayos is tremendous, it's great, it's a mitzvah to make gilui arayos. It's only because the Torah, in its wisdom, said there's an issur of gilui arayos, therefore histakel b'oraisa, when Hashem created the world, in the world already it became that gilui arayos is no good. Same type of yesod. This is why I compare this to this teretz of the Brisker Rav. When did orlah become a problem? Only after Hashem was mitzaveh to cut. So kol zman sheHaKadosh Baruch Hu lo tzivah, so therefore there couldn't have been a mitzvah of milah, because the mitzvah of milah is to cut off what was bad, the orlah; there was no orlah yet. As long as Hashem didn't make the mitzvah, the orlah wasn't an orlah. It answers a lot of questions. You know when Avraham Avinu's bris was? What day it was? It was on Yom Kippur. It says at the end of the parsha, b'etzem hayom hazeh nimol Avraham. Says Pirkei d'Rabbi Eliezer, perek chaf aleph, b'etzem — we find the same lashon by Yom Kippur — b'etzem ha'etzem ha'kikar hanefesh asher lo te'uneh, b'etzem hayom hazeh venichratah. Says Pirkei d'Rabbi Eliezer, when was the bris of Avraham? On Yom Kippur. Asks all the mefarshim the question: Yom Kippur? It's like Shabbat. Nitche. If someone doesn't have a bris milah till eight days, could you make the bris on Yom Kippur? No. Once it's not on the eighth day, you don't make. Nitche. It's a bris that's... Avraham Avinu was ninety, a hundred. So how come his bris was on Yom Kippur? And the answer is, till Hashem didn't say to make a bris, he couldn't have made a bris. It wasn't called a nitche. The mitzvah began, Avraham Avinu was bizmano. It was as if it was his eighth day. Hashem said, make a bris. It fell out on Yom Kippur. It wasn't a bris nitche. Okay. There's a very famous question. There's a medrash that says that who was the mohel? You know who the mohel was? Huh? Shem ben Noach. The Pirkei d'Rabbi Eliezer says Shem ben Noach was the mohel. He called Shem. Now, one medrash says he tried, ... Hashem was with him. Pirkei d'Rabbi Eliezer says he called Shem ben Noach. He was the mohel. You hear? He called Shem ben Noach. So the Brisker Rav said, why would he call Shem ben Noach? It's like this. If you learn that it was Yom Kippur, and you learn that it was a nitche—see, one teretz is we're saying it's not a nitche—but if you learn it was a nitche, so you're not allowed to do the bris. But he wanted to do it as soon as Hashem told him. So who could he get to do it? He couldn't do it himself. So he went and he got Shem ben Noach to do it, because he was a goy. Ah, the Brisker Rav speaks about that. So what happens? Wait a minute. So since Shem ben Noach was a goy, so what is it? ... maybe. Because al Yom Kippur, he's not allowed to be mechalel Yom Kippur. Hilal b'mechal Yom Kippur. If it's a nidche, well, what right does he have to do Yom Kippur? The answer is called shem menuch to do it. Why? Good. I always say from here you have a raya that amira l'akum b'makom mitzvah is mutar. The Rama brings down one shita from the Ravya that a person could ask a goy to do a mitzvah. And then the Acharonim say, chas v'shalom, it's a big story. Okay, you know we use this a little bit. You know we use it when there's a brit in the shul, they carry the baby. It's like the same point. We get a goy to carry the baby. Shem ben Noach was a goy. So he asks a gevaldige kasha. Right, so everybody screams about this Rama, that we don't pasken like this Rama, like this Ravya. I mean, l'choira this Brisker Rav would say we do pasken, that he went l'shem ben Noach. Okay. The question is, I was a goy, a goy can't do a bris milah. So there's—Avraham did a bris milah, right? So according to the shitas that he did it himself, he was also a goy. So how could Avraham do his own bris milah if he was a goy? So if you learn like Rashi, that Hashem did it with him, all right, so he wasn't a goy; Hashem did it. But if you learn he did it himself, how's he— So they give a teretz like gito v'yado ba'in ke'echad, that just like when a person, a get shichrur, if you give him a get, but how can he koneh the get? He was an eved; he doesn't have a hand.

He's not his own entity. He's considered karka, the chatzer of the... And the Gemara says, Gito v'yado va'in ke'echad, that they come together. He gets his hand, his zchut. Here too, yadut. Yadut of Avram came together with the milah, so the milah became a milah through a Yehudi. This is good tirutzim. You can have Torah. This is a topic that there's no end to the Torah on this topic. Okay, let's get to the next teretz. The next teretz is a very famous teretz from the Brisker Rav. Why was Avraham Avinu not make milah till he was mitzuvah? And the answer is because milah is a bris. A bris has to be between two parties. So you can't on your own make a bris. Hey, you know, it's like we have today. Everybody's yelling, Israel should make a treaty with the Arabs. So what does Israel claim? But there's only one side. There's nobody to make it with. With who? Nobody to have it with. Same thing. You want to make a bris. With who? So you had to wait for Hashem to come and make the bris with Avram. You know, in this week's parsha we learn something very interesting. It says, Vayeira eilav Hashem. So Rashi learns, why did Hashem come? Levaker es hacholeh. Rashi says, levaker es hacholeh. You know the Seforno learns not like that. You know what Hashem was doing there? Bris. A bris is between two parties. Hashem had to be there. Seforno says this yesod, that the reason why Hashem comes to Avram in this week's parsha, because a bris, a bris means two parties. So Hashem had to be there. As a matter of fact, there's a tremendous chiddush. You know that big chair you guys have, that thousand-dollar chair that you guys have over there? What do you call it? Zeh kisei shel Eliyahu... It's one opinion. Seforno says it has nothing to do with Eliyahu Hanavi. You know who that chair is for? HaKadosh Baruch Hu. He says, Lefichach nohagim to put a chair. It's an honor of Hashem, because Hashem comes to everybody, because it's between two parties. Could you imagine you make a bris and one party is not there? He's sending a text message that, I'm sorry, I can't make it; sign instead of me. It's got to be there. So from now on, we're going to call it zeh kisei shel HaKadosh Baruch Hu, and don't say zachor l'tov, just say Avinu shebashamayim, okay? So from now on, who's going to get the next kisei shel Eliyahu? Zeh kisei... Who could sing it? You could sing it. Zeh kisei... It's Hashem's chair, no? This is not Eliyahu Hanavi. It's not Eliyahu Hanavi, I'm telling you. The sefer says—what? Says it. Read it. Go ahead, read, read, read, read. You knew this? You knew this. Okay, go ahead, yeah. The chair part. Read the chair. Right, because Hashem comes, so therefore, lichvodo we put a chair. Okay, so it comes out a very big chiddush, and I want you to know that in Brisk they used to say it very strongly. Bris is chotamo shel Melech. You could use the chotam ha-melech if He didn't give it to you. Would someone walk over and say, You know what, I want to stamp my books and use the chotam shel Melech? Hashem didn't give it to you; you can't use it. The bris is chotamo shel Melech, so you need that Hashem should give it to you. Okay, with this, you hear? Oh, we have an interesting chiddush, you hear? We have an interesting chiddush. L'choira, if Avraham Avinu wasn't mitzuvah on the priah... So how could he even do the priah? I thought you just said that there was reasons that Avraham Avinu couldn't do it till he was mitzuveh. Didn't you just finish telling me that? Like he'd be chovel b'atzmo, he doesn't have the migu mitzli, itzcha tomo shel melech. So then, so bichlal, if the mitzvah was milah and the priah was not tzivui, I thought you just told me tzivui is one of the most important parts of the bris, otherwise you don't have it. So how could you have priah, bris Avraham, without the tzivui? Tremendous question, right? Okay. So let me tell you what I want to give you a tirutz. I want to tell you over a Gra, and after the Gra I want to tell you over a hosafah that I saw in Ben Yoyada. Beautiful. I said this piece in Lakewood, the oilam, I can't even tell you how they enjoyed it. Can't even tell you, the thing from the Ben Yoyada is brilliant. Gaonus. Listen carefully. Gaonus. The Gra says, you know why he didn't do bris milah till he got the command? There's a very famous rule: gadol ha-metzuveh yoter mi-mi she-eino metzuveh v'oseh. If you get a tzivui and you do the mitzvah, it's much greater. Why? So the Rishonim explain, because yetzer hara sets in.

When you have a tzivui, the yetzer is there to stop you. If you don't have a tzivui, the yetzer doesn't care if, you know, he doesn't pay attention to the fact that you're doing it. Gadol ha-metzuveh v'oseh mi-mi she'eino metzuveh. So Avraham Avinu saw that the milah was so special that he wanted to do it as a metzuveh v'oseh, instead of doing it on his own, metzuveh v'eino oseh. He wanted to wait till it was so great. Okay, this is a girsa. So I saw from the Ben Yehoyada, so gevaldik, unbelievable. There's also a mahalach, you know, with aggavah, I just want to throw out. It answers why he was able to do it on Yom Kippur. Why? Because Yom Kippur was eino metzuveh. He did it on his own Yom Kippur. The milah was metzuves. You can't ask how he could do it on Yom Kippur. Gadol ha-metzuveh. The mitzvah of tzivui is much more than the mitzvah of eino tzivui. Yom Kippur was not metzuveh. Okay, aggav urcha. So I saw the Ben Yehoyada says an unbelievable thing. Just like there's a mahalach for metzuveh v'oseh, it also is a mahalach on the flip side when you're not metzuveh v'oseh, because you're doing it mi'ahavah, you're doing it from ratzon Hashem. Milah needed both. Milah needed that it should be metzuveh v'oseh, and it also had to be done in a way which is eino metzuveh v'oseh. So Hashem commanded him on the milah, and he did it metzuveh v'oseh. And then on his own he did the priah, eino metzuveh v'oseh, because the milah needed both. Ben Yehoyada, so gevaldik, rabosai. Think about what he's saying. Unbelievable, yeah? On one hand, the metzuveh v'oseh has tremendous ma'alah, so he waited for the tzivui. Hashem wanted that the bris be done eino mitzuveh v'oseh also. So he needed the priah was not mitzuvah, and he did the priah on his own. So he had both ma'alot, says Ben Yehoyada, in the mitzvah of milah, okay? Now I understand all the questions I asked. First of all, it answers why would Hashem give him milah without priah? And the answer is because Hashem wanted he should do the priah on his own. He first got the milah, and could be like the Chasam Sofer, it's great, because he had already the mignei mitzvah; he was involved in the mitzvah. He was already involved in the mitzvah. You know, there's a whole thing about tzitzis, ha'ma'akvin tzitzis she'einan ma'akvin. Once you're in the mitzvah, so he had already the protection. Now he could do the priah on his own, and Hashem wanted him to do the priah on his own. Wait a minute. This answers already the other question. What was the other question? I asked you a question: what is a bris? A bris is on the two sides from two parties, right? You notice we don't say lachniso bivrit shebein HaKadosh Baruch Hu l'Avraham. We call it brito shel Avraham. What do you mean? Avraham was only one side of the bris. A treaty is between two people, I thought. And the answer is gevaldik. Hashem made the milah, Rashi says. Hashem went and cut. That was Hashem's part of the bris. What did Avraham answer his part of the bris? On the eino mitzuveh v'oseh, he made priah. So dafka in the lachniso bivrito shel Avraham, Avinu, we do where? Avraham did on his own. That's why we make the... It's so beautiful. I said it over Shabbos. This is mine. I use the Ben Yehoyada to say this answer. Ben Yehoyada explains that Avram did the milah on his own. Which part? The priah. Oh, now I understand the lachniso bivrito shel Avraham Avinu. What was Avraham Avinu's part of the brit? He went in to do the brit, priah, because that was his side of the brit. Hashem went and did the milah, and Avram answered by doing the priah. And that's why we say, lachniso bivrito shel Avraham Avinu. I was not mitzuveh. That's the whole point. What did Avram do in the brit? Avram did in the brit the priah, and that's why we make the bracha דווקא where? Before priah, not before the milah. Who? I asked you this. The Sefarim do before the cutting. I agree with you. It's a machlokes Rishonim. I understand. Some sefarim ask—I knew that they do something a little different. I wasn't sure what it was. But either way, it answers this shita of the Rishonim. According to that shita of the Rishonim, lachniso bivrito... everybody asks this question: how do you say lachniso on the priah? What? No. It says later he did... It could be he did priah because it was beisai. But bebeisai, he did on his own. It says that the Meshech Chochmah explains they followed in the shita of Avraham. He wasn't mitzuveh in it, but they did it. Oh, somebody answered that.

Give me a few minutes. We're going to answer that, okay? Rabosai, you hear? So it comes out that that's why the priah here is the vechayta bris yetzarchem. The priah itself is the bris, because the priah shows that Hashem did a bris, and Avraham answered with the bris. But this, rabosai, let me tell you what we have. We have a lot of beautiful, beautiful things. The Chasam Sofer speaks. What does the word milah mean? Milah means to cut. So he says, so then how could the priah be a chelek of the bris? And he says, Yud-gimmel britim, we find that there's thirteen treaties that were put for the milah. So maybe it's not on the priah, maybe it's just on the milah. We find that yechozer v'chotzin hama'aklin, and we find that it's a chelek of the bris. So he says that the word milah does not mean to cut. The word milah means lihyot nimol, to be a mahul means milah. Just like when a person eats, then he's full, satisfied. So when a person has the maaseh milah, yeah, then he's a mahul. But the word milah doesn't mean to cut. The word milah means that he's mahul, okay? Now, the question is, yeah, the question is, but Avraham didn't have what to do milah on. You just told me Avraham had nothing to do milah on. So I saw in Shaila Torah, they bring down from Reb Chaim Brisker. Actually, maybe it's in the Toras Chaim also. In a few places they bring down from Reb Chaim Brisker that why is it that there's two brachot? Why two brachos? Why do we have a bracha al hamilah and lachniso? Oh, the way we're learning, it's unbelievable. But before that, so he wants to say that actually, because there's two mitzvahs. That's how everybody says. There's two mitzvahs. One mitzvah is to do the maaseh milah, and then there's another thing, lihyot nimol. So therefore we have two brachos. One is al hamilah, and the other one is lachniso, to be a nimol, and that's the bris. He brings from Rav Chaim Brisker that actually it's not milah and priah, but it's milah and hatafas dam bris. It's milah and hatafas dam bris. The bracha al hamilah is for the milah, and the bracha lachniso bivriso shel Avraham Avinu was hatafas dam bris. So I had a question. I mean, why is it dafka the hatafas dam bris? I want to tell you something interesting. It says Avraham Avinu didn't have orlah. He didn't have what to make priah on. But it says nimol. What does it say in the lashon by Yishmael? What does it say? Et. But by Avram it says what? Behimolo. It says et? No. By Yishmael it says et, and by what's-his-name it doesn't say et. Besar loto. Says the Medrash, afeilu, one of the Midrashim doesn't understand why by Yishmael it says et, and by Avram. So I saw it brought down from the early kadmonim, you know, he had two orlahs, Yishmael. He had the physical orlah, and he had orlah halev like you never saw. So et lerabot, you know, he had a lot of orlah he got to cut over there. Probably by the Yishmaelim, yeah, you need a chainsaw to get rid of all the orlah, yeah. Ma she'ein kein by Avram. By Avram, nimol basar al ha-tor, there was no et larabot. All he had to do was a small little cut; he got rid of the whole orlah. It's brought down, brought down that Avraham Avinu had no orlah kemat. He was all kadosh. Ma she'ein kein Yishmael, they had the cut and cut. The baby had to cry for two hours. Maybe that's why they do it in the thirteenth. It takes thirteen years for them to do it, to get... You have to start when they're born, and for thirteen years you got to chainsaw it, you know, all the orlah that they have. Okay, so what do we have? That by Avram it doesn't say et. So the Medrash says, you know why it doesn't say et? Because Avraham Avinu didn't have orlah. Yishmael had, so he had et, lerabot. Ma she'ein kein Avram, he didn't have the et lerabot. So what did he have? Hatafas dam bris. You ask me, what did Avram have? And the answer is, he made hatafas dam bris. What's the pshat? You know, by the Akedah, Hashem tells Avram, Don't do the Akedah, you're finished, you're yotzei. What does Avram say? I want to do a little bit. Metifas dam bris, I want something, yeah? That's what Avram adds after the tzivui. Mesiras nefesh, a little bit of bedamayich chayi, a little bit mesiras nefesh, a little bit of hatafas dam bris. That's what Avram added to the bris. So what bracha says Reb...

Chai in Brisker, do we make al ha-milah for the chituch, and lachniso bivrito shel Avraham Avinu for the hatafas dam bris. Makes sense, because the Medrash told me. You asked me a kasha, but how can you do priah if there was not? You're right, he didn't have priah to do. So what did he do? When you can't do milah, what do you do? You do hatafas dam bris. And that was extra that Avraham wanted, like by the akeidah, hatafas dam bris, a little bit more, a tiny drop more, hatafas dam bris. B'damayich chayi, a little bit more. Lachniso bivrito shel Avraham. I saw Rav Michl Feinstein, the son-in-law of the Brisker Rav, says something very interesting. He says that people think hatafas dam bris is just to give us nick and blood should come out. He says it's not true. There's a din of chituch; you have to cut basar to make the hatafas dam bris. And he says that he always held that way, and he spoke to his father-in-law, the Brisker Rav. Afterwards, the Brisker Rav said, 100 percent it's true. And then he quotes that he found in the Radak, that the Radak says also, hatafas dam bris has to be that yechotech the basar. So Avraham Avinu didn't have basar. I thought you said he didn't have orlah. The answer must have been he cut for a little bit in the basar to make a hatafas dam bris, and that's the lachniso bivrito shel Avraham Avinu, that extra. What's the bracha that we make, that a father says, I'm being machnis my child to the bris of Avraham? Because what is the bris of Avraham? Not to do what you're mitzuveh, but to do more than you're mitzuveh. Kein yikanes l'Torah, l'chuppah, ul'ma'asim tovim. You know what a bris is? Okay, like the Arabs: I won't hurt you and you won't hurt me. That's not what it is, right? It's more. It's a brit shalom, that I'm going to do more, and I'm going to try more, and I'm going to give more. That's brit. What was the brit of Avraham Avinu? It wasn't just mitzuveh v'oseh. What was the brit of Avraham Avinu? To do more than you're mitzuveh. Ken yikanes leTorah, lechupah, l'maasim tovim. You hear? The brit of Avram. There's a beautiful thing that the Chazon Yechezkel, the Chazonel of Rachad, on the Tosafter, Rav Chatzkel Abramsky, he had a beautiful way with words to express hergeshim to Hashem. Beautiful. So he once got up at a brit and he said, HaKadosh Baruch Hu, you know what a brit is? A brit is a treaty between two sides. What's our side of the brit? Our side of the brit is that we cut our orlah and we say, Torah, chuppah, maasim tovim, we promise, so on and so forth. But what's your side of the brit? What are you giving us? And the answer is, You promise us, Hinei lo yanum v'lo yishan shomer Yisrael. That's what you promised us. We kept our side of the deal today. Now you keep your side of the deal. Hinei lo yanum v'lo yishan shomer Yisrael. Beautiful. What am I trying to bring out? A brit is eino mitzuveh v'oseh. The mesirat nefesh of Avram, even though he was old, and even though it was painful, even though it was painful, what was the eino mitzuveh v'oseh? So I want to show you something interesting. Throughout the dorot, the inyan of the milah was mesiras nefesh even when they were not mitzuveh to do it. It wasn't just to do milah when they were mitzuveh. Even in cases where they were patur from the milah, Yehudim were moser nefesh, or moser nefesh, to be mekayem eino mitzuveh, even without the tzivui, to do the bris, to be nichnas li'briso shel Avraham Avinu. And I'll tell you two beautiful stories. One is a personal story. I've told it to you before, but not everybody heard it. I want you to hear it. There was a Yehudi in my father's shul. He came in the sixties. He was a Russian, Ashkenaz Russian from Rusland, from Ashkenaz Russia, from Rusland. And he came late. He came in the sixties. And the first thing he did when he walked into the shul, he told my father that I'm from the concentration camps I went through, but I want you to know about me the following: that I had two children in the concentration camps. My first child was met machmat milah. When my second child was born...

My second child was born, I didn't know what to do, especially he was in the concentration. Who's going to do the milah for him? Who's going to do it? How are they going to do it? Everybody has a knife to do bris milah. So I said, I can't. I can't give up a second child. I just can't do it. And I thought and I thought, and I said, no. I need my child to be Jewish. I can't. In Yiddish they used to say, fayidish. That's how they used to talk about having a bris, to make my son a Jew. Fayidish my son. So I went over to a person with a white beard, and I said, Are you maybe mohel? He says, I know how to do milah, but I don't have with what to do milah. I could do it with a sharp thing, but, you know, it's dangerous. He says, I don't care. Fayidish mein kind. Make my son Jewish. And he gave us—this is what he told my father when he came. Now I want you to know something interesting about this person. He was shomer Torah u'mitzvot. He put on tefillin. He davened with minyanim. But the one chisaron he had: work on Shabbos. He couldn't give up the Shabbos morning to work. So he would go early to the work by train. Why would he go by train? Because he figured it's less chilul Shabbat if he goes by train. And he would go and have a goy open up the store, and he would set up to make sure everything's okay, and then he would come back for the shul to daven. He used to come to the shul to daven Shacharis, but he kept the store open on Shabbos. When he passed away, so he had one child that was not religious, a girl, and he had a son that had a stroke the year before. It's probably this son. It might even have been this son that they had brit milah on. And his son was incapacitated. He couldn't, you know, take care of the kevurah of his father. So my father took care of it. He was the rav. So he called up Rabbi Zon, and he asked Rabbi Zon, Listen, I know it's short notice, but I need a makom kevurah for somebody. So he says, Okay, I'll get back to you. I'll try to find. So they found a place that nobody wanted to buy because it was in a corner where it's not really a place for two, but it's right next to one of the biggest Admorim that ever walked the streets of America. You're talking about the most famous Admorim, all right? Really, I mean, you're talking about the most famous Admor maybe in America. So, but it's in a corner. There's one thing I have to ask, says Rabbi. And what do you think the first question he asks? Is the person a shomer Shabbos? And from all the things he could ask, the only thing that he had a chisaron is he had the Shabbos morning the store. My father didn't know what to answer. So he says, You know, give me an hour to think about it. Calls him back after an hour. He says, You got to make up your mind quickly because we got to buy it. He says, Bury him over there, and by the levayah, I'll explain to you why I decide you should bury him there. At the levayah, my father got up and he said this story. He said, You see this Jew? This Jew gave up for milah. He was ready to sacrifice his son, and because of this, he's buried next to this tzaddik. You see that Yehudim had tremendous mesiras nefesh where they were patur. It could be he was patur. I don't know, mechuyav to give your child to milah where it's... Milah was eino mitzuveh v'oseh mesiras nefesh, even on the eino mitzuveh v'oseh. Avraham Avinu lachniso bivriso shel Avraham Avinu. There's another story I heard someone told me, Reb Pesach Krohn says it over, but I heard it from Rav Shlomo Shvadron directly, that the Kalover Rebbe said over that there was a Russian family in Russia. They couldn't do the bris during the communist rule. They did a bris after a year. They finally were able to get the mohel, everything hidden after a year. They did the bris. They brought the baby to the mother, and the mother collapsed. Big, big rash. The mother collapsed. She fainted. So when the mother came to, they said, What are you fainting for? What happened? She goes, We were mekabel al atzmeinu that we're not going to kiss the baby till he has a bris. For a year, we didn't kiss the baby. And after the bris, I gave him a kiss, and I collapsed. This was the mesiras nefesh in the brit of the eino metzuveh v'oseh, which lays in Avraham Avinu's, which lays in Avraham Avinu's lachniso bivriso shel Avraham Avinu, on the eino metzuveh, like the Ben Yehoyada says, on the priah, or like Reb Chaim says, that tafat dam brit that he did afterwards. He was not metzuveh; there was nothing there. Moser nefesh for that. And that's b'damayich chayii, b'damayich chayii. Avotai, Yahadut needs mesiras nefesh, but it's important on the eino metzuveh v'oseh. And it's in everything everybody does. What you're not metzuveh, that itself needs mesiras nefesh. The Torah, l'chuppah l'maasim tovim, the mesiras nefesh that Avraham gave us, should go into the children. You've just experienced another Torah class brought to you by TorahAnytime.

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