Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1999 11:45:40 +0300 (IDT)
B"H

                             "Path Markers"
                                Shoftim:
                          By: Yaacov Silverstein
                       e@mail: hm16@popeye.cc.biu.ac.il
                  HomePage: http://faculty.biu.ac.il/~hm16/
                                Year:  5759
This Weeks Dvar - Torah was prepared in the memory and merit of:
 My grandfather:  Rav Yitzchak Zev Ben Yisroel Mordechai Hakohen Solomon Z"L 

************
Note: The next few weeks will have a shorter Dvar Torah and less Halacha
Bytes than the regular weeks.  I will try my best Bl"Nd to keep the Divrei
Torah coming to you each week without interruption.
************

Pasuk: (16:20)

"Righteousness, righteousness shall you pursue..."

One may readily ask, why does the Pasuk have to repeat the word "Tzedek"
(Righteousness) twice?  Rav Eliyahu Meir Bloch writes that even when one
is running after righteousness, he must make sure that he is using
righteous means to reach his final goal.

People may think that since their goal is righteousness, they don't have
to use 100% truth in their path, to reach this goal.

Rav A.J. Twerski further explains, that ones performance of a Mitzvah,
should in no way come through dishonest or improper means.  As we also
learn in the Torah that if one gives charity from money which was not
earned honestly, this is not what the Torah wants from us.

We have to all make sure that we use the Torah to make us into better
people, and not a stumbling block.


Pasuk: (21:7)

"And they shall answer and say, 'Our hands did not spill this blood."

This Pasuk is dealing with a case where a Jew was murdered due to neglect
or indifference which was given to a lonely traveler.
If this persons body was found lying in the open, the Torah requires the
elders of the town, of which is nearest to the corpse, to perform a public
ritual in which they declare that they were not culpable for not assisting
this lonely traveler, and that they pray for forgiveness for the Jewish
people.

By the elders saying "Our hands did not shed blood", they mean to say that
they did not know of the traveler and thus had no part in allowing the
traveler to go on his lonely way without food and escort. (Artscroll
Chumash - based on Rashi)

We see from Rashi, that the Torah is equating negligence in feeding or
escorting ones guest, with murder.

How can we say that the elders may be even slightly responsible for his
death?  

Comes Rav Henach Leibowitz and explains that it is not the physical part,
escorting ones guest and giving him food which is the important part,
rather it is the sensitivity which one shows to his guest, which gives
this lonely traveler a feeling that others care for him.

If this person would have been escorted, it may have given him that extra
courage to standup against his adversaries.
One is to show warmth and kindness to all, for its effects are far
reaching.  The lack of it, can equate one to a murderer.

The Maharal explains, that each person has an inner need to feel that he
is part of a community.  When one escorts someone, even a few steps, he
attaches this person to oneself, and when this traveler is part of a
community, he has more merits, and thus has the Heavenly protection that
Hashem gives to the community as a whole.  

********** 

I would like to thank my mother (S.M.F) for helping me out by
looking over the first draft.

(The above Halacha is not Psak, it is there to try to help to increase
ones Torah awareness, for final Psak, please consult your : Local Reliable
Orthodox Rabbi.)


                ------- **********---------
                --------***********--------