He who is harmed will not receive all his allotted virtues and rights, who in one moment of error will lose everything on his part. This is how Rabbi Josiah Pinto explains this week's Torah portion, which presents us with the creation of the luminaries - the sun and the moon
This coming Saturday we begin reading the Book of Genesis in the synagogue. The esteemed Rabbi Josiah Pinto, head of the Patriarchal Jewish Court in Morocco, explains that one learns a fundamental foundation of Judaism from this lesson: the great power of those who despise it and are silent.
It is written in the Torah Portion: "And God made the two great lions the great light for the government of the day, and the little light for the king."
And so Rabbi Pinto explains:
The Gemara says (Shabbat:) those offended and not offended, the ones who hear their shame and do not answer, the one who makes light of pain and rejoices in anguish, about whom the Scripture says (Judges 5) "He was loved as the sun has risen in all his might" According to this we will try to clarify what is between the sun and the moon.
In the creation of the world, after God created the sun and moon, the moon came to God and slandered the sun. God took the power of the moon and handed it over to the sun and from that day forward, the moon has no light and has no power of its own, but it is a mere reflection of the sun. All-day long the sun has mercy and acts favorably on the moon and allows it to shine in the evening and returns the power of light to the sun at the beginning of each day.
The great lesson here is slander. The moon spoke slander about the sun, God took her power and gave that power to the sun. The rights and virtues of that person are passed on to the person who has been slandered. Just as the moon had light and this light has been moving to the sun since the moon spoke slander about the sun, so too a man who speaks slander about his friend takes his virtues and gives them to his friend. A person can study Torah and do kindness, give charity and good deeds, but as soon as he spoke slander about someone he forefits all his rights and by default assigns them to his friend.
Therefore a person should be careful not to slander his friend, not to hurt him or grieve him, because once that person has caused him grief he transfers all the rights and virtues to his friend, and it is a pity that a person will toil for years and work hard, Therefore man should take care to respect the dignity of his friend not to grieve or hurt anyone in the world.