Behar: Modzhitz: Without Permanence

The 4th of Iyar is the Yahrtzeit of Rav Shmuel Eliyahu (ben Shaul Yedidya Elazar) Taub, Modzhitzer-Tel Aviv Rebbe (1905-1984). In 1935, Rebbe Shaul Yedidya Elazar and his son Reb Shmuel went on a pilgrimage to the Palestine. While they were there R. Shmuel fell in love with the Land of Israel and asked his father if he could stay there. His father agreed and within a year Rabbi Shmuel’s wife and their child came over to Israel. After his father’s death in 1947 he succeeded his father as the Modzitzer Rebbe, to be known later as the Imrei Eish.

“The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is Mine; for you are sojourners and residents with Me (Vayikra 25:23).”

“The land shall not be sold in perpetuity,” a person must be very careful not to allow himself to be so sunk in physical desires of the land, “in perpetuity,” and not be sold, given over to them, as the verse says, “the land shall not be sold in perpetuity.”

Each time we are involved in the physical world we must use the approach that our physical drives and needs are only temporary and that we are not looking for any sense of permanence and the physical things we do or desire.