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He was considered the most prominent Rabbi of Morocco. He made aliyah in 1742 with his two wives and 30 talmidim. On July 7, 1743, less than a year after his arrival in Yerushalayim he suddenly died and was buried on Har Hazeisim.
Chassidim decided that the Ohr Hachayim Hakodosh was really a Chasid and adopted him, but this happened only after his demise.
The story is that the Baal Shem Tov was sitting at Shalosh Seudis Seudah and before anyone in the area could have found out about the Ohr Hachayim's passing, he exclaimed,
"The light from the West has been extinguished!"
At any rate, Chassidim made it an obligation to learn Ohr Hachayim's commentary. And there isn't a Chassidishe Shul that doesn't have a shiur in the Ohr Hachayim.
The Ohr Hachayim is not an easy read, as he writes very poetically and embeds pesukim from Tanach and sayings from all over the Talmud and Midrash in his commentary. One must be familiar with Tanach and the Talmud to decipher most of his commentary.
It was only natural that Chassidim would undertake the difficult task of writing a commentary to decipher and explain every line of the Ohr Hachayim's commentary to make it easier on those who were eager to learn this beautiful "peirish".
On or abouts 2007, Oiz Vehadar under the leadership of R' Yeshua Leifer of New Square, did just that and did a magnificent job and now any lay person wanting to enjoy the Ohr Hachayim's commentary and is fluent in Lashon Hakodesh can do so. Artscroll in 2017 translated it into English, but of course for those fluent in Loshon Hakodesh using the Oiz Vehadar edition is a no brainer; and no comparison!
As an addition to the actual translation of the Ohr Hachyim, Oiz Vehadar added a deeper commentary called מאורי החיים "The lights of Life" a play on the name of the author of the Ohr Hachyim ..R' Chaim ben Attar z"l, and this was done by Harav Menacham Mendel Pomarantz.
He also did a magnificent job except that Harav Pomarantz is in love with the failed Satmar "Shiteh" and whenever he has an opportunity, he pushes the Satmar agenda and puts anti-Eretz Yisrael ideas in the mouth of the Holy Ohr Hachayim Hakodosh!
Notice I didn't write anti-Zionist ideas, I purposely wrote "anti-Eretz Yisrael ideas" and you will see from the following example, what I am talking about.
In this week's parsha, parshas כי תבוא the Torah makes the following statement:
והיה כי תבוא אל הארץ אשר ה' אלוקך נתן לך נחלה וירשתה וישבת בה
"When you come to the land that G-d your Lord is giving you as a heritage, occupying and settling it."
The Ohr Hachayim's comment on this verse is as follows.
(Note that I am quoting this verbatim so that even a child would be able to understand it. This comment happens to be one of the simplest and most straight forward comments from R'Chaim z"l.)
אמר והיה לשון שמחה, להעיר שאין לשמח אלא בישיבת הארץ
"The word והיה is an expression of joy, in order to alert us that one should only rejoice when Jews live in Eretz Yisrael"
The Ohr Hachayim had a question.
The verse could have started with כי תבוא? Why did the Torah choose to add the word והיה ?
The Ohr Hachyim answers that the word והיה is an expression of joy to let us know that joy is only when Jews live in Eretz Yisrael!
So far so good!
It's the next commentary of the Ohr Hachyim Hakodash that drove R' Pomerantz and his Satmar cronies to drink!
The Ohr Hachayim comments on the words וירשת וישבת "and you shall occupy and settle it"
ישיבת הארץ שהיא מצוה בפני עצמה
וכמו שמצינו כמה הפליגו רבותינו ז"ל
"The mitzvah is that of dwelling in the land, which is a mitzvah unto itself, as we find how much the sages emphasized the mitzvah of living in the land."
Any questions?
None whatsoever, right? It is clearly stated that Yishuv E"Y is a Biblical mitzvah
Not so fast, there was no way that R' Pomerantz was going to let these words of the Ohr Hachayim Hakodosh slide without subtly implying that this was not what the Ohr Hachyim meant.
According to R' Pomerantz there was no way that the Ohr Hachayim could possibly have meant that there is no "joy except when there are Jews living in Eretz Yisrael" and that "there is a mitzvah of settling in Eretz Yisrael" today in the here and now, even though the Orach Chayim followed up and made Aliyah with his family.
R' Pomerantz refuses to be confused with the facts and secretly slips in Satmar propaganda in his commentary "מאורי החיים"
הנה הרמב"ם בספר המצוות לא מנה יישוב א"י כמצוה בפני עצמה, והשיג עליו הרמב"ן ומנה אותה במנין המצוות, וכן כתב הרמב"ן בפירושי על התורה והביא שם רבינו את דבריו, וכן כתבו עוד ראשונים, וכן מבואר בדברי רבינו כאן ובעוד מקומות ןבפרשת נצבים ועיי"ש במגילת אסתר שביאר שגם לדעת הרמב"ם היא מצות עשה, אלא שהשמיטה משום שלא נהגה אלא בימי משה ויהושע ודוד וכל זמן שלא גלו ישראל מארצם, אבל לא לאחר שגלו מאדמתם, וראה בספר ויואל משה
Loose translation:
"The Rambam in his Sefer Hamitzvois does not count "settling in Eretz Yisrael" as a separate mitzvah. However, the Ramban does count settling in E"Y as a separate mitzvah and includes it in his mitzvah count of 613. Our Rebbe quotes this Ramban. Other rishonim understand this this way as well; the Rebbe again explains this in our parsha (כי תבוא)
See the Megilas Esther (a commentary on the Rambam) that explains that even the Rambam that omitted "settling the land" in his mitzvah count, holds that it is fact a Biblical Mitzvah, but it was only in effect during the time of Moshe and Yehoshua and King David and as long as Jews weren't driven from the land, but this mitzvah does not apply after the Jews were driven from Eretz Yisrael. See Vayoel Moshe"
I don't even know where to begin to take apart this convoluted idea; this is not the time and place to do it.
בקיצור First of all when Moshe was alive there wasn't a single Jew living in Eretz Yisrael, so how does he bunch "Moshe and Yehoshua and King David" together, in the "mitzva of settling the land" The mitzva of settling EY kicked in only after Moshe's demise.
And he admits that the Rambam holds that the mitzvah of ישוב ארץ ישראל is in fact a Biblical commandment, except he postulates that the Rambam would only say that it is a mitzvah during the times of Yehoshua and David.
But how does he know that? Nowhere in the entire Rambam is that indicated in any way.
In addition, no one needs the Rambam to tell us that settling Eretz Yisrael was a Biblical Mitzvah during the times of Yehoshua and Dovid Hamelech, as it is written countless times throughout the entire Sefer Devarim and Tanach.
Second of all, the Megilas Esther ( a commentator on the Rambam) was a yachid in his understanding of the Rambam and in fact most other rishonim hold that the Rambam omitted settling E'Y for an entirely different reason.
See the Sefer כי עת לחננה
Getting back to my point.
The Ohr Hachayim clearly states that there is a Biblical mitzvah of ישוב ארץ ישראל and he doesn't distinguish whether it was during the times of Yeshuah and Dovid or during his own time.
In addition, the Ohr Hachyim as quoted above states that there is only "simcha' when Jews live in Eretz Yisrael! In fact, The Ohr Hachayim as mentioned earlier, made Aliyah with his family.
Why did R' Pomerantz have the need to add a commentary that contradicts the words of the Ohr Hachyim as an addendum? Why did he need to politicize the holy words of the Ohr Hachyim? Why not just let it be and let that statement stand alone?
This proves my point that the Satmar Shitah is not based on Torah but is a personal vendetta against those who sacrificed their lives to build Eretz Yisrael into a land of "milk and honey" with infrastructure that matches any western country and houses over 7 million Jews. This reality that even a blind man can see flies in the face of their irrelevant dogma and that's what is irking them, so when they see a Tzaddik like the Ohr Hachyim Hakodosh writing something that directly contradicts their agenda, they find it necessary to add their preposterous commentary just in case some Satmar guy learning these holy words of the Ohr Hachyim might actually take those words seriously, chas ve'shalom!
You might want to reconsider this post, as respectfully, it seems to be based on your lack of familiarity with contemporary Seforim of this genre.
ReplyDeleteConvention when writing footnotes or a running commentary on a Sefer is to refer to the author as "Rebbeinu". For example, when the Oz V'Hadar commentary on the "Kli Yakar" states "Rabbeinu writes in Parshas xx", this means that the Kli Yakar writes in Parshas xx. Similarly, when the commentary on the Ohr HaChaim that you quote states "וכן מבואר בדברי רבינו כאן ובעוד מקומות" this means "This is understood in the words of THE OHR HACHAIM here and in other places." You can check out the references yourself - wherever the commentary states "רבינו" says something - you will find it in the Ohr Hachaim.
The pirush certainly does NOT inject any anti-Eretz Yisrael bias into the Ohr Hachaim. To the contrary, the point of the Pirush is to highlight the fact that while the Rambam does NOT count Yishuv Eretz Yisrael as a Mitzvah, the Ramban DOES count it, and רבינו - the Ohr Hachaim HaKodosh - ALSO counts it as a Mitzvah, and the Pirush provides citations to other places where רבינו the Ohr HaChaim HaKodosh brings the Shitah of the Ramban.
The only thing that has to do with Satmar in the entire paragraph - is the four words at the end: וראה בספר ויואל משה , which simply suggest Vayoel Moshe as further reading on this topic (and of course the Sefer Vayoel Moshe, while a valuable source of material on the topic, does draw certain conclusions that have been disputed by other contemporary Talmidei Chachamim.)
Anyone who is somewhat learned will realize that “rabeinu” is the ohr hachaim
ReplyDeleteThe word “ רבינו” refers to the Ohr Hachaim himself.
ReplyDeleteRabeinu is referring to the Ohr Hachaim. In every pirush on any sefer that is the word used when discussing the author you are the commentary on.
ReplyDeleteI stand corrected and I cut that sentence out.
ReplyDeleteHowever I am still amazed on the sheer chutzpah of R' Pomerantz to infuse his idea into a commentary on the Ohr Hachayim.
The Ohr Hachayim in most places takes issue with Rashi and many other Rishonim and interprets the particular verse with his very own understanding, R' Pomerantz in those instances makes no comment and does not bring any rishonim that would disagree with the Ohr Hachayim, and that's my point.
To Fashionizta who writes:
"The pirush certainly does NOT inject any anti-Eretz Yisrael bias into the Ohr Hachaim."
I absolutely disagree with your statement, because if you follow מאורי החיים you will see that he never does that to any other Ohr Hachyim commentary, what he does is, he goes and explains the particular Ohr Hachyim in much deeper level. To say that R' Pomerantz did not "inject anti-Israel bias into the Ohr Hachayim, is being either very naive or reading it wrong.
After reading the post and the comments, I decided to have my father a prominent Rav in Beitar Illit look at the Ohr Hachyim and the מאורי החיים to see his reaction.
ReplyDeleteHe had to reread twice and was outraged just like DIN, My father shlitah learns the Orach Chyayim at the Shabbos table and then talks about it during the seuda. My father is not a Zionist in any way but was outraged at the footnotes from the
מאורי החיים
The Oiz Vehadar Commentary on Ohr Hachayim that states:
ReplyDelete"See Vayoel Moshe"
is sick and demented
Artscroll is also guilty of this. The great pierushim are slowly adjusted to conform with modern political positions.
ReplyDelete"there isn't a Chassidishe Shul that doesn't have a shiur in the Ohr Hachayim."
ReplyDeleteIncorrect.
HaBAD-Lubavitch doesn't have it.
What a bunch of snowflakes! He has a different hashkafa than me! Wah!
ReplyDeleteRabbi Pomerantz was born a Gerrer chossid and remains one to this day.
ReplyDelete