ברכת כהנים

The famous ברכה, which the Kohanim where instructed by Hashem to bless the Bnei Yisroel each day, consists of three short sentences. They appear in Torah in the middle of Parshas נשא.

Much has been written about these famous brochos, there are numerous medrashim and all the meforshim comment and elaborate on the blessings.

I would like to add a few of my own thoughts.

The first sentence of ברכת כהנים consists of three words. The second has five words and the third, seven words. There are fifteen words in total. Accordingly, the last word of the middle sentence, ויחנך, is the middle word altogether, being the eighth word, having seven words before and seven after it.

The root of the word ויחנך is חן, namely grace. What we are saying is that the פנימיות, the inner core of all the brochos which the Kohanim gave, is that Hashem will give us חן. But what is the definition of that word?

We find that the last verse at the end of sedra Beraishis reads as follows.
ונח מצא חן בעיני ה', Noach found grace and favour in the eyes of Hashem.

What I suggest is that he found that particular חן because he, unlike the rest of his generation, adhered to the original righteousness with which Odom Harishon was created. If we go back to the story of the sixth day of creation when Odom Harishon was created, we find that the 58th word, נח = חן, from the beginning of that parsha is בצלם אלקים, in the image of Hashem. What I am suggesting is that in the same way as נח has this חן by retaining the צלם אלקים, the Kohanim are blessing us all, that Hashem should, once again, enable us to have it , and not lose the צלם אלקים.


If we look at the first posek, which reads as follows, יברכך יהו - ה וישמרך, we find that first letters are י, י and ו which add up to 26. This is a hint to the numerical value of יהו'. The end letters are ך, ה and ך which themselves add up to 45. That is equivalent to the numerical value of אדם, namely 45. It is also equivalent to the name of Hashem written out as follows יוד = 20, הא = 6, ואו = 13 and הא = 6. This totals 45.

I believe that this comes to emphasise the fact that Hashem, יהו', will bless and guard all of us, אדם, from all angles and in all ways.


ברכת כהנים is a מצות עשה a positive command which is supposed to be carried out by the Kohanim every day. This is actually done in Jerusalem, Bnei Brak and the general southern part of our Holy Land. In the Galilee, I believe that the custom is only to make ברכת כהנים on Shabbos and Yom Tov. In the Diaspora, the custom is that the ברכת כהנים is only carried out on Yomim Tovim.

There are various reasons given as to why these important brochos are not given every day in גלות. Furthermore, if there is no Kohen at a particular minyan, the brocho is not made wherever this minyan is praying, being Jerusalem, Haifa or London for example.

The ברכת כהנים are included in the Shemona Esrai for Shacharis and even if there is no Kohen it is recited. We ask Hashem to bless us immediately before the last brocho, namely שים שלום.

Why do we not leave out that section if there are no Kohanim present, or in golus if we are talking about any time other than Yom Tov?

May I suggest that the last two words of the whole parsha, ואני אברכם, and I will bless them give us the clue.. I believe that these two words can be interpreted to mean that if in the event of the Kohanim not actually physically blessing the Yidden, Hashem will do it himself, ואני אברכם.

May we all be gebentched.

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NOAH’S ARK התיבה

The story of the מבול and the Ark is not only written in Torah, but numerous nations, worldwide, have traditions that there was a flood. Not only nations in the Middle East, but even India, China and as far away as Alaska or the ancient inhabitants of Mexico have recorded that the first world was destroyed after 1656 years by rains and lightening until all the land including the highest mountains were submerged 15 amos (approximately 26 foot = 8 metres) in water.

As we know, because it is written in Torah, the measurements of the Ark were 300 amos long, 50 amos wide and 30 amos high. This equals to approximately 500 ft long by 80 ft wide and 50 ft high. (In metres, say 160 by 25 by 16). We also know that the Torah tells us that there were 3 levels in which there were compartments or cages.

We also find that Noach was commanded to take into the Ark a pair of each species of animal, bird and insect and in respect of טהור animals, seven of each.

How the animals were fitted in and, of course, all the stores with which to feed them, is a matter of debate and the midrash gives a number of different opinions. Rashi states, quoting the midrash, that the top floor was for Noach and his family (and I assume to keep the stores). The middle floor was for all the animals etc. and the bottom floor was for the זבל rubbish etc. which accumulated during the course of the year. This is just one opinion in the midrash.

Anybody who has visited a major zoo will understand the comments of the Ramban (ו-יט) where he states that if you bear in mind that there were elephants, hippopotami and other such large animals as well as thousands of insects and hundreds and hundreds of birds, all of which had to be packed into this comparatively small Ark, this must have been through a miracle. He adds, that if it was a miracle, why did Hashem command Noach to make such a large Ark and he comments that one has to try and do as much as possible in a natural manner. He also discounts the theory that the amos quoted in Torah should be in the size of Noach which could have been larger than nowadays, stating that all amos in Torah are the size that we know of, namely around 1 ½ to 2 feet. Say ½ metre approximately.

There is a famous midrash known as Pirkei de R’ Eliezer. This was compiled by one of the leading tanoim Rebbi Eliezer Ben Hyrcanos, Chapter 23 speaks in detail about the Ark and its measurements etc. it also states that there were hundreds of small houses, animal cages, etc. on each floor amounting to 365 in total for each floor. Furthermore, he states that the three floors were used as follows, the animals were on the lowest floor, the birds on the middle floor and the insects and creeping objects as well as the human beings were on the top floor. He does not mention what they did with any debris, זבל, natural wastage etc.

There is a commentary on this midrash by R Dovid Luria (the RaDaL). He quotes the Ramban on Torah regarding the amount of large animals and the amount of food necessary to keep them all alive for a full year, and therefore, the Ramban states, as mentioned above, that there was, therefore, an obvious miracle in respect of the Ark and its inhabitants for the year. The RaDaL comes out with a very interesting idea, namely that there really were not so many animals taken into the Ark, because as he states, numerous animals, birds etc. are really all part of one species but then have sub-divisions of species as well. For example, domestic cats, tigers and lions are all part of the “cat” family. Likewise dogs, wolves and the like are all part of the “lupine” family.

He suggests that one pair only of each species (with the exception of the טהור species) were taken in to the Ark and from these, later on, subspecies developed again after the mabul once they had left the Ark. He brings a proof to this, saying that in the same way as human being have different features, colours, sizes, heights etc. but we all come from one original person, after the mabul, we came from Noach and his children, a similar thing happened as far as the animals etc.

Therefore, he postulates, there were really not so many taken into the Ark all together.

However, he does not dispute the fact that there must have been a miracle in principle. (For the detailed and lengthy discussion please see his commentary at פרק כ''ג , אות י).

He also mentions that as far as food is concerned, it is possible that they had pressed, concentrated, food (דבילה)

Based on his comments, I wonder whether one could dare to suggest the following., We know from the midrash that Hashem told Noach to take these various animals and Noach protested that he would be unable to catch them and bring them into the Ark. This was actually seven days before the doors of the Ark were closed. Because Noach protested, Hashem caused the animals who were to be saved to come themselves to the Ark and Noach only had to lead them in. Would it be too fanciful to suggest that, for example, as far as the large animals, the elephants etc. baby elephants who had recently been born were taken in, one male, one female. They would have, obviously, not taken up such an amount of space and would also have not needed so much food and the same could apply to other large animals etc.

Furthermore, if all the inhabitants of the Ark were fed with only concentrated food, just sufficient to keep them alive, it would not have been a necessity to have very large quantities of supplies. If Noach commenced giving these animals etc. the rations from the first day that they arrived, namely seven days before the doors were closed, the animals could have gradually got acclimatised to their new regime and could possibly have gone out of the Ark during those seven days, carried out their calls of nature outside, so that after seven days, they would have no natural זבל wastages and debris to dispose of once they were inside again for the ensuing year.

True, they may not have put on weight and I would postulate that they might have, very well, lost weight and become very lean. This would tie in perfectly with the posek in Torah וישאר אך נח ואשר אתו בתבהthere remained only Noach and those who were with him in the Ark. The word אך is, as we know from other places a מיועט, namely, something less or reduced. The midrash quoted by Rashi says that the lion attacked Noach and injured him and therefore, the אך refers to Noach. But according to the theory I have just suggested, one could say that the word אך applies to Noach and every other thing that was inside the Ark as they all lost weight and, therefore, אך, מיועט, fits perfectly.

According to this theory, it would be possible, I suppose for all the major species, animals, birds, reptiles, insects etc. to have all been accommodated, with their food, in the Ark. Furthermore, you would, therefore, not need to a compartment for the זבל as I mentioned above.

As far as water is concerned, Noach had a חלון , a window, because he sent out the raven and then the dove from that window. Would it be too much to suggest that he did have some water with him which was taken into the Ark before the door closed. Subsequently, from time to time, whilst the water was pouring down, he collected water into the Ark by opening the window. Although this water may have been very hot as we are told, that Hashem utilised מים רותחין boiling hot water for the מבול, this could, of course, have come in, been collected in a vessel and cooled down over a short period of time. Furthermore, animals on very small rations of food and not moving around would, I suggest, not need large quantities of water especially if the compressed food had moisture in it.

Just to end on a lighter note. We find that after almost a year had elapsed, Noach sent out the dove which returned to him, with an olive leaf it had plucked, in its bill, Rashi comments that this dove was male and brings a number of proofs. Mrs P Lipschitz, during a lecture to Bais Yaakov sem girls suggested that Rashi’s proofs were not really necessary. There is a midrash that this dove flew from Mount Ararat on the Turkish/Russian border to the Har Haziezim in Yerushalayim where there were still some olive trees and picked up the olive leaf. Whoever heard of a female keeping their mouth shut for such a long journey from Yerushalayim to Ararat.

It could only have, therefore, been a male bird.

We really do not know all the details of what happened at the time of the mabul. What we do know is that this is a story with a lesson that has to be visited again and again to ensure that we rise above the depravity and spiritual decline which happened then and which we see unfortunately, daily in our current permissive society.

ל' תשרי

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NOACH א מרחשון 5768

Good morning everybody, I am once again, pleased to be back speaking to you.

This week’s sedra parshas Noach is, as we all know, a very interesting one. As we read in the first posek of the sedra אלה תולדת נח נח איש צדיק תמים היה בדרתיו את האלקים התהלך נח Noach has titles and praises showered on him more than any other person in the whole of Torah איש ,צדיק ,תמים. Neither Avrohom nor any other of the Avos or Moshe Rabbenu have so many praiseworthy titles appended to them. Why did Noach merit this?


I have other questions regarding Noach. If you go back to the last posek of the previous sedra it reads as follows ונח מצא חן בעיני ה' If we look carefully at that posek the words נח and חן are actually the same letters but inverted. The Torah does not play with words and here you can see that there is a definite correlation and that the Torah is trying to tell us something. In fact, if you read that verse first, and then the next one that we started off with, you get a whole picture. Noach found grace in the eyes of the Hashem. These are the history of the generations, and history, of Noach. Noach was an איש צדיק תמים in his generations and he walked with Elokim, Hashem.

The name נח is mentioned four times in these two pesukim. I don’t believe that it happens anywhere else in Torah that you have the same person’s name mentioned so many times in just two verses.

Let us go back further, to when he was actually born. The Torah tells us that Lemach was 182 years of age and he finally had a son and the Torah continues
ממעשנו ויקרא את שמו נח לאמר זה ינחמנו
The whole wording is strange. Lemach called his name Noach “saying”, What is this לאמר?. What did he say; the Torah continues this (person נח) will comfort us from our works and the toil of our hands. We find that Rashi, at great length, discusses the fact that his name should really have been Menachem מנחם which means comfort or comforter and is related to ינחמנו so why was he called Noach rather than Menachem? Rashi concludes that during Noach’s time the earth rested from the original curse that there would be difficulty in producing food and, therefore נח means “rest”

One other interesting thing is that on the word זה “This”, we have two טעמי המקרא the נגינות, trop, they are תלישא גדולה followed by a גרשים. It is very unusual that there should be two נגינות on one word and even more unusual when there are only two letters to the word. Even more peculiar is that fact that when the Baal Koreh reads this he sings the גרשים before the תלישא גדולה.

One final difficulty is that there is a אות משונה in the ז and this, of course, I must explain. There are certain letters in Torah that by tradition were not written in the normal way. We all know about the big ב of בראשית and the small א of ויקרא but in addition, on rare, but some, occasions there is an אות משונה . That means they are written with something different about them, not in the normal way and I have, today brought with me a copy of these unusual ways of writing letters as extracted from a Sefer called מחזור ויטרי written by a Talmid of Rashi. If you look at each individual letter, you will see that they are sometimes most extraordinary and if you look at the ז it looks like almost a ת with a line through the middle. The ז of זה has by tradition this similar split in it.

I feel sure that by now, you all realise that Noach birth and Noach’s life were all something very special.

In order to explain this special quality, I think we have to go back to the creation of Odom Harishon who was created by Hashem as the perfect man, both physically and spiritually. The Torah tells us when he was created on the sixth day of Maasei Beraishis, ויברא אלקים את האדם בצלמו בצלם אלקים ברא אתו and Hashem created the man in his image, in the image of Hashem he created him.

צלם אלקים is a special spiritual affinity with Hashem.

If you go back to the beginning of the sixth day of creation and count the words commencing from ויאמר אלקים תוצא הארץ נפש חיה למינה and you keep on counting the words until you come to ויברא אלקים את האדם בצלמו בצלם אלקים you will find that there are exactly 58 words. The gemmatria of נח and חן is each 58. What I am suggesting is that ונח מצא חן means that Noach found grace in the eyes of Hashem because he adhered to the חן namely the צלם אלקים the special spiritual affinity with Hashem.

The Zohar Hakodesh at the end of Parshas Beraishis and the Midrash likewise both comment on a posek in tehillim which says אשר שם שמות בארץ The Rishonim, the original inhabitants of this world used to have kavona, they gave names to their children according to their attributes. The word שמות is interpreted as “names”.

If we go back two generations, the great-grandfather of Noach was the famous חנוך Here, in his name also, we have the Ches and the Nun, the חן but in addition we have a Vov and a Chof which adds up to 26 which is the same gemmatria as the name of Hashem. What I am suggesting is that his father also gave him a name which had in it this hint that he would attain a very high spiritual level, that he would have this צלם אלקים and הוי' integrally in himself. In fact, we find that he unusually died very young for those generations, he was only 365 years of age and the Torah tells us
ויתהלך חנוך את האלקים ואיננו כי לקח אתו אלקים
Rashi comments that he was a Tzaddik and he looked as if he would possibly be going to sin and, therefore, Hashem took him from the world earlier than he should have otherwise departed. There is a medrash which says the כוחות הטומאה ganged up on him and I suggest that because his name so clearly showed that he had this spiritual affinity, extreme pressure was put on him to make him sin.

When his grandson, Lemach, had a son, he realised that this boy also had the potential to be spiritually bound up with Hashem as had happened to חנוך. He was scared that the same thing might happen to his son as had happened to חנוך. Therefore, he did not name him חנוך after his great-grandfather but named him נח and when asked about the name explained that he, נח, would comfort everybody by inventing a plough to make agriculture easier. That being the implication of לאמר, saying ממעשנו זה ינחמנו

We find that when ראובן was born to Leah, the Torah tells us that she called him ראובן because כי ראה ה' בעניי Hashem saw my humiliation (because Yaakov was still upset that she had replaced Rochel) Rashi there quotes Chazal who explain that she said ראו מה בין בני לבין חמי etc. See the difference between my son and the son of my father-in-law (namely Eisav). Why was it that our Chazal gave a different explanation from that which is written in Torah as being the reason for Reuvain’s name? If you look carefully at what is written in Torah it says כי אמרה, when she was asked she said, see my discomfort and humiliation. That was the טעם גלוי, the official explanation. But deeper down there was a hidden reason, a hidden meaning טעם כמוס.

What I am suggesting is, that a similar occurrence took place when נח was born. His father gave an official reason for the name but there was this deeper explanation, namely, that Noach had the potential to adhere to the צלם אלקים

We can now understand the last posek of Beraishis ,ונח מצא חן בעיני ה'because he, unlike all of his generation had not gone astray.

The third verse in Noach states
ותשחת הארץ לפני האלקים ותמלא הארץ חמס
(All the inhabitants of) the earth had become corrupt before Hashem and the earth had become filled with robbery.

The next posek itself states כי השחית כל בשר את דרכו everybody was affected and it was only Noach who stood out against the depravity, permissiveness and loss of spirituality and lack of affinity with Hashem. It is because of this that he was given such extraordinary titles.

Let us enumerate them again, איש a man, a mensch, the way every person should be, צדיק righteous, תמים perfect. If that is not enough את האלקים התהלך נח he walked with Hashem. Every action of his was in accordance with what Hashem really wanted and that is precisely the idea of adhering to צלם אלקים.

Avrohom Avinu was 58 years old when Noach passed away. As the אבן עזרא puts it כשנח נח היה אברהם בן נח. The midrash says that he, in fact, did meet Noach and obviously knew the background of why the mabul had taken place. He, followed by Yitzchok, Yaakov and Moshe Rabbenu etc., had the example of Noach and what happened in his lifetime to learn from and, therefore, it was not so difficult for them to retain their צלם אלקים .

Let me come back to other points I have raised, namely the two neginos on the word זה and even more extraordinary that the Baal Koreh reads them the other way round. First you have a תלישא גדולה and then you have a גרשים and yet when the Baal Koreh reads them he intones the גרשים first.

The word תלישא is similar to תלוש which means to tear out, so תלישא גדולה means a great tearing out. The Zohar Hakodesh says that תלישא also means תל אש a mound where there was previously a property that has all been destroyed., aish is fire. This is exactly what happened at the time of the מבול, the whole world was uprooted and Hashem used boiling hot water. So the תלישא גדולה is a hint to the mabul which took place in the lifetime of Noach, namely זה, this one, during his lifetime this will happen.

The other side of the coin is that you have Noach standing out against the yetzer horah and all the evil influences. He pushed them away and that is, גרשים. To divorce, to drive away these bad influences and yetzer horah etc. He succeeded.

If you would ask most people what was the greatest event that happened during Noach’s lifetime, the immediate answer would be the mabul but really on a spiritual level, it was even more impressive that he managed to stand out against the whole of his generation. Therefore, when it comes to the Baal Koreh reading these two niginos, both on the word זה , he reads the גרשים first to emphasise that at a very high level that was the first and foremost and primary achievement of Noach.

The fact that the ז is split into two, an אות משונה, comes to tell us that Noach spanned two different epochs of the world one before the mabul and the second after the mabul. The world after the mabul was quite different, for example, things grew differently, people were already allowed to eat meat and there was little comparison with before and after the mabul.

However, Noach remained steadfast in his adherence of צלם אלקים and as it says איש צדיק תמים היה בדרתיו in his generations, both before and after the מבול

Looking carefully at the two words צלם אלקים we can discover a deeper meaning than just the simple explanation mentioned above of being a special spiritual affinity with Hashem. Taking the word צלם the letter צ has a numerical value of 90. The ל has a numerical value of 30, the מ is an end ם. The mekubulim tell us that in addition to the letters of the אלך בית, up to ת the end lettersץ ף ך ם ן also have numerical values. ת equals 400 and ם equals 500, ן equals 600 etc.. Accordingly, in respect of צלם we have, therefore the 500, as well as the 90 plus 30 totalling 620. This is equivalent to the 613 mitzvos the Torah has given us, together with the 7 mitzvos d’rabbonon which, therefore, total 620. Furthermore, it equals the word כתר, a crown. By adhering to all the mitzvos, we are, in effect, figuratively speaking putting a crown on the head of Hashem, namely confirming that He is King of the whole universe.

This dovetails with the expression לעולם ועד יהו' מלך יהו' מלך יהו' ימלוך (total numerical value 620) which, in fact, is not a verse anywhere but is taken from three different posukim. This is said every morning in the middle of יהי כבוד and elsewhere in davening. Once again, we are stating that Hashem, Was King, Is King and Will always be King, proclaiming His ultimate Kingship over the whole of the universe. All this is part of us retaining and proclaiming our צלם אלקים.

Turning to the second word namely אלקים utilising on the numerical values, we have א equals 1, ל equals 30, ה equals 5, י equals 10, and ם is again 500 all totalling 546.

We have a tradition that 91 is the total of two words namely א - ד - נ – ' equals 65 and י - ה - ו – ' equalling 26. Those two words signify our acceptance of Hashem as Lord, Adnus and Havaya, not only Hashem of mercy but the true Name of Hashem שם העצם 6 times 91 is 546. This alludes to the fact that אלקים which represents מידת הדין , in depth, has in it qualities including mercy and the ultimate Name of Hashem. This is true for all points of the compass, North, East, South, West as well as Up and Down, namely, 6 times 91 = 546.

There are other mekubolim who tell us that the numerical values ofץ ף ך ם ן are in the order of how the letters are in the אלך בית so therefore, ך would be 500, ם would equal 600 etc.

According to that calculation the word צלם would, therefore, be צ equals 90, ל equals 30 and ם equals 600 and therefore the total is 720.

The name of Hashem הוי' can be spelt out in full, מלוי in four ways. The one with the greatest numerical value is יוד הי ויו הי, that totals 72. This is known as the spelling of the Shem Haviya associated with the highest world עולם האצילות . From that very high point through the ten ספירות, the קדושה of Hashem descended to this world. 72 times 10 equals 720. Once again, the implication is that by adhering to צלם אלקים one has a unbroken cord right up to the highest spiritual world as when Hashem created Odom Harishon.

Furthermore, ע''ב is the same gemmatria as חסד and by adhering to this, one brings down from the upper worlds Hashem’s loving kindness to ourselves. אלקים on the other hand being מידת הדין represents the fact that we have to always have יראת ה' we must never forget to be in awe, full of reverence for the בורא עולם the creator of the whole world.

To sum up, we, therefore, have in the depths of צלם אלקים much deeper spiritual affinity with Hashem, than just appears on the surface.


I feel sure that you will agree that Noach can serve as a great example for all of us nowadays. I do not think that we need to dwell too much on the frightening moral decay and lack of standards of behaviour taking place over the past decades, the permissive society. We, at least, have the example shown by Noach and also all the mitzvos of Torah to help us to withstand the moral decadence and continuing new inventions which are used in a bad way to try to influence us in an incorrect manner.

I have just returned from Los Angeles having spent an inspiring and spiritually uplifting Succos with my family who live in Los Angeles. There is a thriving Yiddishe kehilla there. In the Toras Emes school alone there are well over 1,000 school children studying and experiencing חנוך, על טהרת הקודש, there are thriving Botei Midrash with limud Hatorah, kollelim, mikvoas, a strong Beth Din and a reliable Kashrus organisation etc.

Do you know in which part of Los Angeles this is all situated, in Hollywood!! Yes, one mile or so from Sunset Boulevard the מקור הטומאה there are Yidden who proudly adhere to the צלם אלקים. There are, in addition, numerous בעלי תשובה among them, many of whom have progressed so far that they are completed integrated into the original kehilla.

This just goes to prove that if Noach could do it, against all of his generation, we can certainly try to emulate him and retain our צלם אלקים together with the rest of Klal Yisroel until the coming of משיח , במהרה בימינו אמן

Thank you.

Start the Day the Torah Way א מרחשון 5768

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