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PERASHA VAYISHLACH

12/09/2022 01:44:50 PM

Dec9

Why seven?

"And he himself passed before them and bowed himself… seven times until he came near to his brother." (33,3)

On that which is written in the parsha (before Yakov met with Esav) "And he himself passed before them and bowed himself… seven times until he came near to his brother" our Rabbis ob'm wonder. If a person wants to honor or appease someone, he bows before him once. Why did Yakov bow specifically seven times?

First we will bring as an introduction the interpretation of the Baal Haturim as to why Yakov bowed 7 times – Like the verse "Seven times a righteous man will fall and will stand up" – in order to take away the 7 abominations from Esav's heart.   And we also need to understand which 7 abominations were in Esav's heart.

To begin with we will relate what is written in the gemara (kedushin): In the beis medras of Abaya a harmful spirit walked around that even if two people came into the beis medrash together, he was able to harm them. One day Abaya heard that Rav Acha bar Yakov was planning on coming to his city to learn Torah in his beis medrash. Abaya immediately announced that no one was to let Rav Acha bar Yakov sleep by them so that Rav Acha would have to sleep in the beis medrash and in his merit a miracle would occur and the harmful spirit would die.

Indeed when Rav Acha bar Yakov came to the city of Abaya and did not find a place to sleep over, having no choice he went to the beis medrash of Abaya. When he came in the harmful spirit appeared before him in the form of a snake with 7 heads. Rav Acha immediately began praying and bowing to G-d that He should save him from the harmful spirit. After each time that he bowed down one head fell off the snake until after 7 times of bowing down all 7 heads of the harmful spirit had fallen off and it died.

Accordingly, we can understand why Yakov bowed down 7 times, for the numerology of the name Yakov יעקב  is 182 which is 7 times the Name of Hashem (7x 26=182). We can say that Yitzchak gave over to Yakov, in the blessings that he gave him – 7 times the Name of G-d; for Yitzchak יצחק in numerology is eight times G-d's Name (8x26=208) – and when Yitzchak blessed Yakov he gave him 7 times the Name of G-d and the remaining Name of G-d he gave to Esav.

The numerology of Esav is 376. If we take away one Name of G-d from this that Esav had gotten from Yitzchak we get 350 which is 7 times the word impure טמא. טמא) adds up to 50 and 7 times 50 is 350.)

Now we understand what Yakov did by bowing 7 times until he reached Esav, for each time he bowed he reduced the name טמא (=50) one time from Esav's name "until he came near to his brother" and this is what the Baal Haturim means "in order to take away the 7 abominations from Esav's heart."

SHABBAT SHALOM!!

 

 

 

 

 

Fri, March 29 2024 19 Adar II 5784