The Heter from the Author of the She'iltos
The following once happened to the author of the Yeshu'as Yaakov zt'l, the Rav of Levov. On Pesach night a simple Jew hurried over to the Rav with a she'ilah concerning Pesach. The Rav understood all the Jew's kitchen utensils to be involved in the question. The Gaon had doubts about the psak and was hesitant to give a ruling. He therefore told the Jew: "You are invited to stay with me the whole Pesach."
But the Jew did not agree. "I do not want to be by the Rav during Pesach since I prefer being in my own home. My only question is if the utensils are kosher or not."
The Rav again thought deeply about the halachic question and after a few moments said: "Kosher!"
The Jew happily returned home, but the Gaon was extremely bothered by the psak he had given even though he had found the heter in the She'iltos who rules that the chometz in such a case is boteil beshishim.
The following morning the Yeshu'as Yaakov awoke in a cheerful frame of mind. He told his household that he had been grieved terribly by the heter he had given. That night the She'iltos appeared to him in a dream thanked him for using that heter and said, "This is the first time someone used my heter."
And with that the author of the Yeshu'as Yaakov was content.
(An excerpt from Orchos Chasidecho, Episodes and Behavior of Our Torah Giants carrying the approbation of Maranan Verabonon shlita)
With Signs — This is the Rod
In the time of the Vilna Gaon a small stone was discovered in a deserted house in Russia. People invested it with extraordinary powers but were unable to grasp the source of its power. The best researchers in Russia were unable to solve the secret of the stone and sent it to German scientists. They hoped that in Germany the scientists would succeed in understanding the special characteristics of the stone. However, the German scientists too were baffled and decided to return the stone to Russia.
Before returning the stone, Moshe Mendelshon advised them to ask the Vilna Gaon, who was famous for his profound knowledge of the secrets of nature. The Gaon indeed revealed the stone to be sanpironon and its nature is to divide water into its chemical parts. When Mendelshon heard what the Gaon had answered he tried to show off his spurious outlooks. He claimed that since Chazal say that the rod of Moshe was a sanpironon it seems that Moshe split the Yam Suf in a natural way and not through a miracle. In this way Mendelshon hoped to deny the miracle of the splitting of Yam Suf.
When the Gaon heard what Mendelshon had said he wrote to him: "You are such an apikores! Our Torah writes: "Hareim mattecho (Lift up your rod) and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it" (Shemos 14:16). Hareim means put it away, as the Torah writes in parshas Korach "Heiromu (get away) from among this congregation" (Bamidbar 16:9). Through `stretch out your hand' and not stretching the rod was Moshe able to `divide it.' The Torah explicitly writes that Moshe did the miracle of the splitting of the Yam Suf with his hand and not the rod!"
(Haggodoh Talelei Oros)
Yisroel Say . . . and Believed in Hashem and His Servant Moshe
During a Shabbos meal in Maran HaRav Moshe Feinstein's home, a visitor told the following story.
A Jew who needed a yeshu'ah travelled to a famous Rebbe known as a tzaddik who effected yeshu'os. When he arrived the Rebbe first told him: "I want you to be aware that a yeshu'ah is dependent upon emunah. If you do not believe in me, all your efforts in coming here are in vain."
The Jew answered: "Rebbe, even by the splitting of Yam Suf the Torah writes (Shemos 14:31) "Yisroel saw the great hand which Hashem did upon Egypt" and only afterwards the Torah writes "[the people] believed in Hashem." We see that emunah comes after the yeshu'ah. The Rebbe should first bring me a yeshu'ah and afterwards I will believe in him." The Jew won that argument and the Rebbe first gave him a yeshu'ah. This is what the visitor told HaRav Moshe Feinstein zt'l.
The Rosh Yeshiva answered that there is an elementary difference between saving a whole mass of people and saving an individual and therefore the kashye is not a good one. Moreover we can differentiate between two types of emunah: One emunah is knowing that Hashem can do everything, is Master of all, is more powerful that any power in the world, nothing can stop Him, no one can do anything without Him, and a person himself has no power whatsoever. Am Yisroel had this particular emunah before the splitting of Yam Suf since they saw the miracles in Egypt and had already learned that lesson. Even before the splitting of Yam Suf the Torah writes "Bnei Yisroel cried out to Hashem" (Shemos 14:10).
There is, however, another type of emunah. Even after a person knows that HaKodosh Boruch Hu can do everything and everything is done through His desire, a person still does not know whether Hashem wants to save him and make a miracle for him, to what degree He wants to change nature for him. Bnei Yisroel were lacking that emunah and could not compare one matter of emunah to the other. Even after they saw that HaKodosh Boruch Hu had made the water sweet for them, later when they were thirsty for water in Moroh they complained: "Maybe we were worthy for a miracle of yesh miyesh (out of something already existent) to make bitter water sweet, but not for a miracle of yesh mei'ayin (out of something hitherto nonexistent) to extract enough water for six hundred thousand people from a rock." Bnei Yisroel had many similar fears because of their lack of emunah.
Nevertheless, we see there were two types of bitochon. The first type of bitochon, the basic one, bnei Yisroel were surely blessed with. They knew that Hashem can help them and only He can help them, and to Him they cried for salvation. Every person must embrace this emunah. The Rebbe who said that this type of emunah is a precondition to having a yeshu'ah was completely right.
However, bnei Yisroel still did not believe that HaKodosh Boruch Hu would want to change nature miraculously for them. They reached this understanding, the second emunah, only after the miracle, and then the Torah writes (Shemos 14:31) that they "believed in Hashem and His servant Moshe." They then understood that Hashem was prepared to make that miracle for them too.
(Arzei HaLevonon)
Who Redeemed Us and Redeemed Our Fathers
On Purim we say the brochoh of she'osoh nissim la'avoseinu (Who did miracles for our fathers) but we do not include that miracles were performed for us too, as we do in the brochoh on the seder night. Why should there be any difference? If a person thanks Hashem for the miracles his fathers experienced it is as if they were done for him, he should include this point in the brochoh of Purim too. Why only on Pesach?
HaRav Shlomoh Zalman Auerbach zt'l explains: There are two different types of miracles. One miracle had it not been our fathers would not have been born. For such a miracle it is impossible to say in the brochoh that Hashem had redeemed us since we would not have existed without the miracle.
Another type of miracle is like our being freed from slavery in Egypt. Even if HaKodosh Boruch Hu would not have redeemed our fathers we would have been born. Of course, we would have been on a low spiritual level because of the tumah in Egypt, but we would have been alive. In such a case it is relevant to include in the brochoh that a miracle was done to us.
This is similar to the story told about HaRav Chaim of Volozhin who once made a brochoh of she'osoh li neis bamokom hazeh (Who made for me a miracle in this place) when he passed the place where a miracle was done for the mother of his Rav, the Vilna Gaon. In the zchus of that miracle the Vilna Gaon was born.
R' Chaim made a brochoh that specified the miracle was done to him since even without it R' Chaim would be alive. It would not definitely be the same R' Chaim, but he would be alive. He would not be on the same spiritual level to which he was zocheh because of his being a talmid of the Gra. The miracle in that place changed his spiritual condition and therefore it was proper for him to make the brochoh.
(Hagodos Talelei Oros)
The Sea Saw it and Fled
The seforim cite an amazing Midrash: "What did [the sea] see? It saw the beraissa of R' Yishmoel." There are many pilpulim somehow to explain that apparently incomprehensible Midrash.
When HaRav Isser Zalman Meltzar zt'l, the author of the Even Ha'Ozel and the rosh yeshiva of Slutsk, was asked about the Midrash he answered that it is based on an explicit Gemora in Sanhedrin (73a): "From where do we know that one is allowed to save the person being pursued with intent to kill by first killing the pursuer? There is a hekeish: `For as when a man rises against his neighbor and slays him even so is this matter" (Devorim 22:26). What did we learn from a murderer? The halochoh of a murderer comes to teach and we learn something about it too. Just as we are allowed to save a na'arah me'orosoh by killing the adulterer so can we save a person from murder by killing the murderer. And from where do we know this halochoh about a na'arah me'orosoh, as the beraissa of Dvei R' Yishmoel teaches us: `The na'arah me'orosoh cried out, but there was none to save her' (v. 27) — but if there were someone to save her he could save her in any way possible."
When the Egyptians chased after bnei Yisroel the sea saw the beraissa of R' Yishmoel that allows saving someone from his pursuer and therefore saved them from the Egyptians.
(Arzei HaLevonon)
