Rav Shmueli on the Perasha

Some of the interesting things from Rav Shmueli's latest Shiur.

• In the first 6 minutes or so, he tells over something he heard from Rav Ovadia, Shlit"a, that we know that the Berachot given to Yaakov Avinu by Yitzhak Avinu were meant for the final generation - i.e., our generation. (He elaborated more on this idea in last week's shiur.) If so, the prosecuting angels can claim that if the Berachot were actually meant for Yaakov Avinu, then it would make sense since he deserves it, being the Tzaddik that he is. However, our generation has all kinds of people, including Beinonim and Resha'im. How is it possible that we deserve these Berachot? The answer is that Yitzhak Avinu thought that Eisav was receiving the Berachot - and he's a Rasha - and Yitzhak Avinu gave them to him anyways, so we can claim that we deserve the Berachot too.
• At about the 57:20 mark, he talks about how we know that many Sephardic women have the custom of ululations, which somewhat sounds like "lalalalalalalalala" during weddings and other semahot. He says that the source of this custom is from Yaakov Avinu marrying Leah instead of Rahel. Everyone was saying "היא לאה היא לאה היא לאה" to loudly hint to him that it was really Leah, but Yaakov Avinu didn't hear this loud hint.
• Right after that, he says that the verse לֹא-יֵעָשֶׂה כֵן בִּמְקוֹמֵנוּ can mean that in our language and place, "No" becomes "Yes" - this was Lavan's crooked defense.
• At about the 1:01:00 mark, he told a story I heard before, but is great to hear again. The אלשיך was giving a derasha on פרשת ויצא and the Ariza"l was in attendance. He started to expound on all the 100 ways that Lavan cheated Yaakov Avinu (עשרת מנים). The Ariza"l started laughing in the middle. Later, people asked him why he was laughing. He explained that angels brought Lavan into the room to hear the derasha, and for every one of the ways that Lavan cheated Yaakov Avinu, the angels asked him, "Did you do this?" He answered, "Yes, I did", and for that, he was given a whack. When the אלשיך mentioned one of the ways, however, and Lavan was asked if he did it, he said, "No, I didn't do that, but if I would have thought of it, I would have." The Ariza"l laughed each time Lavan was whacked for his trickery.