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Thursday, November 20, 2008

Vort on Parshas Chayei Sarah by... Anonymous!

In this week's פרשה, Eliezer, the servant of אברהם went to find a wife for יצחק. After he got there and met up with Rivka, Lavan, Rivka's older brother went out to greet him. The Possuk says (פרק כ"ד פסוק כ"ט) that וירץ לבן לקראתו - Lavan ran to greet him. However, in the next Passuk, it uses a much more relaxed לשון, the wording of ויבא אל האיש - and he came to the man, at a much more leisurely pace. Why the difference in wording?

The משך חכמה explains this with a גמ' in ב"ב on ט"ז:. The גמרא says on the פסוק of וה' ברך את אברהם בכל - that בת היתה לו ו"בכל" שמו - Avrahom had a daughter named בכל. Lavan presumed that he would marry בכל, and, when אליעזר showed up, לבן presumed that he was here with his wife - בכל, Avrahom's daughter. Therefore, he ran to greet אליעזר. Once, as the next פסוק relates, he heard רבקה explaining to her mother אליעזר's true cause, he slowed down.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is all showing up in wingdings font on my computer. Can you ask your IT department to look into this? thanks

DMI said...

I'll change the font, tell me if it helped, thanx

Anonymous said...

all fixed - thanks!

DMI said...

no prob!