Saturday 5 September 2009

Learnt some new midrash at Chabad tonight about d'yo (ink)...

They had a guest over from Israel and he was talking about the rebellious son from last weeks sedra and how according to Rashi there was no such person because really they only had a limited period of time (a few months after bar-mistvah) to be termed such a person. However if there was then it would be justified that they should be put to death because they were bad and would be bad. However Ishmael who was sent away ostensibly for teasing was rescued in the desert because at that time he was a tsaddik - even though after he was going to turn bad in the future and Hashem told the angels that that was the reason for his rescue ...

This is likened to d'yo (ink) and the fact that there is argument between the P'ri M'gadim and the Chatam Sofer over ink. Normal STaM ink is black but some of it will go brown over time. The former says this makes it pasul but the latter doesn't agree and the halacha is that if it fades to brown over time as ink is wont to do then it is fine and still kasher (as long as the body of the letters is still unborken and the fade isn't too bad). It just gets old and perhaps a bit world weary and maybe collects up some sins - like Ishmael or maybe like us. However if the ink turns brown immediately (or was red) then it was never kasher ink and should never have been used - like the rebellious son - who was never good and shouldn't have been in the world. You can write over the old brown ink if you want to (but you don't have to) but you can't write over the immediately brown or red ink.

Perhaps in Elul we should be looking at how brown our own ink has got and whether we need to do some repair.

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