Almost Daily Jewish Wisdom at Beit Hamidrash of Woodland Hills
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Aug 24, 2026 · 12 min · 6 segments
Rabbi Rechnitz
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Almost Daily Jewish Wisdom at Beit Hamidrash of Woodland Hills
Aug 24, 2026 · 12 min · 6 segments
Rabbi Rechnitz
I was looking at yesterday's Parsha, Parshas Ki Seitzei, and there's a very simple passage here.
Ki siyanu leish shein asher.
A person has two wives.
Years ago, people were allowed to have more than one wife.
Ho ach asahuvav ach asnuah.
He loves one and he hates the other one.
Viyoldu lo banim, and each one gave birth.
Va ahuvah snuah, the, the, the one he loves gave birth to a son, and the one that, uh, he hates gave birth to a son.
Vehoyo habein habechores nio, and what happened? The one that gave birth, birth first was the one that he hated.
The one that he hated gave birth first to a son, and then the one that he loved gave birth to a son.
When he gives the erusha, we know that a bechor gets pishnaim double.
So when he, he dies and he leaves over, lo yucha levaker es ben ahuvah.
He can't favor the loved ones, but he has to give the pishnaim to the one that he hates.
The one-- the woman that gave birth first, he has to...
Even though she, he hates her, he doesn't want to give her anything, he has to give her double.
You look at the passage, makes a lot of sense.
You look at the Or HaChaim HaKadosh, he says one word, changes the whole passage and teaches a tremendous lesson.
It's for sure.
Vadois.
Vadois.
What's for sure? The Or HaChaim says if a person has two wives, one that he loves and one that he hates, it's for sure that the one that he hates is gonna have the child first.
It's a statement.
It's not if it happens.
No. It's a, it's for sure.
There's no question if a person has two wives, one he loves and one he hates, the one that he hates is gonna have a child first.
Why? We learned it out from, from Leah.
The boy-- He, he...
The, the, the Le-Leah was hated.
She had the child first.
So I wanna say according to Or HaChaim, it's very good why it says here vehoyo aloshim simcha.
The loshim simcha is for the hated woman, even though she's been hated, but there's a simcha here that she'll always give birth first.
She'll always have a child first.
That's number one.
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