| Dear Friend,
This Shabbos is the Chasidic festival of Yud-Tes Kislev, marking the liberation of the Alter Rebbe from Czarist imprisonment. Accordingly, our campaign for publishing a volume by his son, Rabbi Dov Ber of Lubavitch, continues.
If you have not participated yet, please join us today.
Please take a moment and dedicate this volume in honor of Yud Tes Kislev.
Thank you. ____________________________
An insight by the Rebbe on parshat Vayishlach, selected from our Daily Wisdom by Rabbi Moshe Wisnefsky.
Stinginess vs. Generosity The Parsha records the death of Isaac and lists the descendants of Esau:
Timna was a concubine of Esau's son Eliphaz, and she bore Amalek to Eliphaz. All these are the descendants of Esau's wife Adah. (Gen. 36:12)
Timna can serve an object lesson in the dangers of being stingy. Her very name means "You will withhold," reminiscent of King Solomon's advice: "Do not withhold [al timna] good from one who needs it when the power is yours to bestow it." Timna's nature was to withhold even when she had nothing to lose by giving.
A member of a royal family, Timna sought to convert to the faith of Abraham, but she was rejected on account of her stinginess, which was deemed incompatible with the generosity that Abraham had instilled in his family. Rather than forsake her stinginess, however, she tried to have her way by becoming a concubine of Abraham's great-grandson Eliphaz. But by aligning herself with the wicked Esau, she perpetuated her own evil, giving birth to a son who inherited her heartlessness – Amalek, the cruel archenemy of Israel.
By practicing generosity and cultivating a generous spirit, we can, in contrast to Timna, be a part of Abraham's great enterprise of spreading goodness, making the world fit to be G-d's ultimate home. --Daily Wisdom Volume 3
May G-d grant our people a decisive victory over our enemies, Gut Shabbos, Rabbi Yosef B. Friedman Kehot Publication Society
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