10 Sep PARSHAS KI SEITZEI

Tehillim
The Rashab of
Lubavitz zt’l once
said, “Elul is the
season for saying
Tehillim.” (He said
this when he sent his
gabbai to buy him a
Tehillim in Elul.
Shaar HaMelech
(1:2) encourages
saying Tehillim every day in Elul after
Shacharis. He writes, “I saw a good custom
in many communities, and my parents also
told me about this good custom. From rosh
chodesh Elul until Yom Kippur,
immediately after Shacharis, these
communities say Tehillim with a crying
and sweet voice. I decided to bring this
good custom to our city. Tehillim is needed
because our primary goal this month is to
remove the mastinim (mekatrigim who
speak against us)… and nothing stops them
as well as when we say Tehillim. Tehillim
is called mizmorim, which also means to
shear, because the Tehillim shear away all
thorns [of the mekatrigim]…”

The Nesivos Shalom zt’l (Slonim) was
very ill at the end of Av, and the doctors
determined he needed emergency surgery.
The Nesivos Shalom said he wanted to
postpone the operation until after the
yomim noraim. He explained that we
believe that Rosh Hashanah is when
decrees are passed, and we can daven and
merit a good year.
The family realized that the Nesivos
Shalom was firm with his resolve and asked
the doctor to come to him. The doctor told
him how to take care of himself throughout
this waiting time. He told him what he
could eat, how much he needed to sleep,
etc.
The day after Yom Kippur, he was brought
in for surgery. The doctors checked him
and saw that he no longer needed an
operation. One doctor said, “Time was
good for you.” The Nesivos Shalom replied
that it was indeed “Time” that helped him.
The days of Elul and the yomim noraim
were good for him because he changed his
destiny with his tefillos during this time.
Tzedakah
The King of Spain held Reb Yitzchak
Abarbanel in high esteem and appointed
him to be the treasurer of Spain. But some

people were jealous of Abarbanel’s
success and close friendship with the
king. In particular, the foreign
minister of Spain, a great rasha, was
very jealous of Abarbanel’s status.
He tried to destroy the king’s
affection for Reb Yitzchok Abarbanel
with all his might. He told the king
that Reb Yitzchak Abarbanel was
stealing money from the treasury.
“Did you ever wonder why Abarbanel
is so wealthy and has a beautiful
home and expensive assets? It is
because he steals money from the
treasury! Ask him how much money he
has, and you will see that he will hem and
haw and attempt to get out of giving you a
straight answer.”
The king summoned Reb Yitzchak
Abarbanel and said, “I want to know how
much you own. I’ll give you three days to
appraise your assets, and then come back
and tell me.”
After three days, the Abarbanel came to
the king and said, “I own 700,000 gold
coins.”
The foreign minister and his friends
laughed and said to the king, “His home
alone is worth more than a million gold
coins. He is lying. He doesn’t want to admit
that he is stealing from you.”
The foreign minister devised another
plan to increase the king’s wrath on Reb
Yitzchak Abarbanel. The Abarbanel
knew the kingdom’s secrets, which the
king shared with him. He wasn’t
permitted to tell anyone the secrets other
than a particular high-ranking official.

The foreign minister bribed this high-
ranking official to reveal the sensitive

information to him, and then the foreign
minister spoke to the king about these
secrets.
“How do you know about these
things?” the king asked. “Who told
you?”
The foreign minister lied, “Don
Yitzchak Abarbanel told me.”
The king was angry with Reb Yitzchak
Abarbanel and decided to kill him. But
he couldn’t kill him in Spain since the
Abarbanel was very beloved by the
public, and it would create a tumult and
uproar. So, he handed the Abarbanel a
sealed letter and told him to deliver it to
the owner of a brick factory outside
Spain. A fire burned in the factory’s
furnace all day long. The letter said,
“Throw the bearer of this letter into the
furnace immediately, without further
ado.”
Don Yitzchak Abarbanel, not knowing

what was in the letter, took it from the king
and set out with the high-ranking official to
deliver it. En route, a Yid rushed to the

Abarbanel and said, “I have an eight-day-
old son, and the mohel didn’t show up. Can

you please come?”
Reb Yitzchok Abarbanel didn’t have to
think long to decide. He was on a mission
for the king of Spain, and now he had the
opportunity to serve the King of all Kings,
Hakadosh Baruch Hu. He agreed to go and
perform the bris. Reb Yitzchok Abarbanel
was an expert mohel and never missed an
opportunity to perform this great mitzvah.
So, he said to the high-ranking official,
“Deliver this letter to the brick factory, and
I will meet you there later tonight.”
The high-ranking official didn’t know
what was written inside the letter, and when
he delivered it, he was promptly thrown
into the fire. Before his death, the official
said, “I deserve this because I revealed the
king’s secrets.”
Later that night, when the Abarbanel
arrived at the brick factory, they showed
him the letter and told him the official’s
final words. Don Yitzchak Abarbanel
thanked Hashem for saving him in the
merit of the mitzvah of milah. From the
high-ranking official’s final words, he
understood that the king suspected he had
revealed the secrets.
Don Yitzchok Abarbanel returned to the
king and told the king everything that
occurred. The king said, “I see that your
G-d helps you. But there remains one issue
that still bothers me. Why did you say you
have 700,000 coins when we know you
have so much more?”
Don Yitzchok Abarbanel answered, “The
700,000 coins are the amount I gave to
tzedakah. This is the amount I know for
certain that I have because the merit of
tzedakah will remain with me forever. As
for the rest of my wealth, I can’t say that it
is mine. The king can take it all away at any
moment. So when the king asked me how
much I own, I told him the amount I gave to
charity because that is what I truly own.”
The king praised him for his wise answer.