Devarim- July 16th, 2021
This Shabbat:
Friday Candle Lighting: 7:47 PM
Shabbat Ends: 8:47 PM
Torah Message:
Hit By an Angel
“These are the words…” (1:1)
The Midrash says, “There is no blade of grass in the field that grows unless a malach (spiritual messenger/angel) stands over it, hits it, and says ‘Grow!’ ”
Why does the malach need to hit the blade of grass? Wouldn’t some less violent form of encouragement suffice?
In Hebrew the word for “earth” is Eretz. Eretz can be read as arutz — “I will run.” This world is always running forward. Running to a place beyond this world. Eretz is also related to ratzon, meaning “will” or “desire.” What a person desires, what he wills, he “runs” toward.
This world is a world of trying, of striving to reach beyond this world. The word for “heaven” in Hebrew is Shamayim, from the root sham, which means “there.” Literally, Shamayim means “theres,” in the plural. Sham-im. Heaven is the sum total of all the “theres” that we can ever run to.
In other words, Shamayim is the ideal, the perfect form of everything in this world. Things in this world are not in a perfected state — they are still in their inchoate form.
One of the most difficult things in this world is to change. To become more than we are. To realize our true potential. We don’t want to change. We’d rather sit by the pool and watch the water-lilies float to-and-fro. Any true change is painful.
The realization of the discrepancy between what we are and what we could be is like being hit by a malach.
Rashi and Onkelos both teach that the place names in verses one and two of this week’s Torah portion are “code words” for the sins that took place at those places. Direct rebuke is rarely effective. It is much better to hint at the problem and let the listener feel the angel hitting him.
Matot/Masei- July 9th, 2021
This Shabbat:
Friday Candle Lighting: 7:50 PM
Shabbat Ends: 8:50 PM
Torah Message:
Sticks and Stones
“…an utterance of her lips…” (30:07)
Bar Kamtza was prepared to pay an enormous sum to save himself from humiliation. And if Bar Kamtza came to the party, it meant that he assumed that the host wanted to be his friend now — which could only have crushed him further.
No one can second-guess the Master of the World. No one can say this happened because of that. But when tragedies happen — and especially when they are close to home — each one of us must do more than a little soul searching.
This year, 45 holy Jews were crushed to death in Meron on Lag B’Omer. On Erev Shavuot, two more of our holy brethren were crushed to death and over 180 injured in Jerusalem.
As I write this, five people have died and 156 remain missing as a result of the collapse of an apartment building in Miami, Florida. The area is more than a third Jewish, with a large Orthodox population.
Stones can crush, and bodies can crush — but words can crush just as effectively.
It’s not just sticks and stones that break bones.
Pinchas- July 2nd, 2021
This Shabbat:
Friday Candle Lighting: 7:51 PM
Shabbat Ends: 8:52 PM
Torah Message:
Coca-Cola Loses $4 Billion
“Hashem said to Moshe, ‘Take to yourself Yehoshua bin Nun, a man in whom there is spirit…’ ” (27:18)
In his work Nefesh HaChaim, Rabbi Chaim Volozhiner reveals that the stature of man reaches from this the lowest of worlds to the very heights of Heaven. Man’s actions ascend through all the spiritual worlds above and reach the highest place in creation. There, his actions generate an energy that flows back down to this world. So what starts off as a small kindness in this world travels up to highest reaches of existence and rebounds down into this world as, let’s say, bountiful rain in the heart of Africa or sunshine on a cloudy day in Cornwall. And, of course, the more “spirit” there is in a man, the more his actions impact.
It’s difficult for us to imagine these abstract spiritual energies. But something happened a few days ago which offers a parable.
Product placement is a form of advertising in which branded goods and services are featured in a production that targets a large audience. Also known as “embedded marketing” or “embedded advertising,” product placements are typically found in movies, television shows, personal videos, radio, and — less commonly — live performances. In exchange for product placement rights, companies may pay a production company or studio in cash, goods, or services.
On Monday, June 14, Cristiano Ronaldo removed two Coca Cola bottles during a press conference at the European Championship, and the Coca Cola company “tasted the feeling” of its share price falling some 4 billion dollars.
The Portugal captain is a renowned health fanatic and made it clear what he thinks of the carbonated soft drink. The 36 year-old shifted the bottles of Coca Colaaway from him during a press conference in Budapest in the prelude to his country’s Group F game against Hungary.
Ronaldo followed it by holding up a bottle of water, before declaring in Portuguese: “Agua!” as he appeared to be encouraging people to choose that drink instead.
Coca Cola is one of the official sponsors of Euro 2020. The company’s share price dropped from $56.10 to $55.22 almost immediately after Ronaldo’s gesture, a 1.6 percent dip. The market value of Coca Cola went from $242 billion to $238 billion — a drop of $4 billion.
If moving two bottles of Coke can eradicate four billion dollars, how much more can a smile to someone who needs it cause the sun to shine on a damp day in Cornwall!
- Source: Heard in the name of Rabbi Nosson Conick from Rabbi Shmuel Nochum Conick.
Balak- June 24th, 2021
This Shabbat:
Friday Candle Lighting: 7:51 PM
Shabbat Ends: 8:53 PM
Torah Message:
An Artist’s Impression
“May my soul die the death of the upright…..” (23:10)
In June 2012, the Israeli government expedited its “Tama 38” (National Outline Plan) mandate, which calls for the reinforcing of buildings against earthquakes. The incentive for builders is that they can build and sell an extra floor, and for apartment owners, that they receive an extra room that doubles as a rocket shelter.
I live in Ramat Eshkol in Jerusalem, an area where every second building seems to be in some stage of the “Tama.” The signage outside these buildings always depicts an idyllic scene of a super-modern façade with nary a stroller to crowd the entrance, or an errant air-conditioner hanging from a window, or a porch covered over to make another much-needed bedroom.
Often in life, our aspiration fades in proportion to our perspiration. We start with high ideals, but sometimes things get very difficult. However, if we never had that “artist’s impression” of our future, we would never have an ideal to aim for.
“May my soul die the death of the upright…”
Bilaam wanted to die the death of the upright — he just wasn’t prepared to live the life of the upright.
Bilaam saw evil as the easy way to success. With all his gifts as a prophet, he never made the effort to get out of his spiritual armchair.
It is likely that most of us will never achieve our spiritual goals, but if we never had that “artist’s impression” in our heads, we would never have even left our armchairs – let alone built an entire floor on the edifice of our spiritual lives.
Chukat- June 18th, 2021
This Shabbat:
Friday Candle Lighting: 7:50 PM
Shabbat Ends: 8:52 PM
Torah Message:
Show Me the Waze To Go Home
“Come to Cheshbon” (21:27)
I well remember, before setting off on a trip, pulling out my somewhat dog-eared maps and carefully planning my route. I carefully considered the prevailing traffic at my estimated times along journey, and committed to memory the route, jotting down the names or numbers of the highways that I would need to take.
Who’d a-thought that that just a few short years later, my maps would be gathering mold at the bottom the trunk of my car, and a satellite miles above me in the sky would be guiding me to my destination on a screen in my car? And not only that, but if the traffic situation changed, it would reroute me as I was driving!
Waze sure is a wonderful invention. Only problem is if the satellite doesn’t work, or your phone can’t pick up the signal.
A few years ago, one of my sons was attending a Yeshiva in the south of Israel, and my wife and I made several trips to visit him. I jumped in the car, fired up Waze, and off we went. We must have made the journey at least five or six times, when one day I realized that Waze had gone “on the blink.” I suddenly started to pay attention to the road signs and cast my eyes to the left and the right, trying to recognize the scenery.
I had absolutely no idea where I was.
Or how to get to where I wanted to get.
Our lives are full of labor-saving devices that can make our lives full of labor.
When the personal computer first came out, I suggested that every computer that left the factory should have a little sticker on it saying, “You can waste your life saving time.”
One of the most dangerous things in life is to travel through it on “auto-pilot.” Although we may have traveled though similar situations in the past, life choices require constant reevaluation. The “Negative Drive” is a master of misrouting. And what may have been a necessary strategy in the past — or even a mitzvah — now, on this particular journey, the road that we are on may take us far from our goal.
“Come to Cheshbon.”
The Talmud (Bava Batra 78b) expounds this verse in this manner: “Therefore, the allegorists say, ‘Come to Cheshbon.’ … Those who rule over their negative drive say, ‘Come and evaluate the cheshbon (“balance sheet of the world”) — the loss of a mitzvah versus its gain — and the gain of a transgression versus its loss…’ ”
When we fail to do life’s essential map work, we may find ourselves far “awaze” from where we want to be.
Korach- June 11th, 2021
This Shabbat:
Friday Candle Lighting: 7:47 PM
Shabbat Ends: 8:49 PM
Torah Message:
A “Shayne Gelechte”
“And Korach took…” (16:1)
One of the few maxims in my sparse Yiddish lexicon is “a shayne gelechte.” Literally translated, it means “”A fine laugh,” but idiomatically we would translate it something like, “If it didn’t make you cry, you’d have to laugh.”
The Israeli political scene is a shayne gelechte. I’ve never been political, and my indifference — and sometimes hostility — to politics and politicians has been borne by a political system where we are either about to have the fifth election in two years or a coalition government so broadly-based that if you were to stand at the left-hand side of it, you’d need a telescope to see the right. And in between there’s a vast floppy underbelly waiting to crash down on a hapless electorate.
By rights, this Holy Land should be ruled by those who are the least selfish, the least power-hungry, the most noble and the most honest.
We love democracy, but, presumably, the democratization of our lives has its limits: I’m not sure how many of us would submit to extensive invasive surgery based on a straw-poll taken on Twitter or Facebook. The idea that if you ask enough people a question, you’re bound to come up with the right answer, is inimical to Torah thought. The spiritual Masters teach that “The wisdom of the Torah is the opposite of the man in the street.”
Our esteemed Rosh HaYeshiva, HaRav Nota Schiller, shlita, once observed: “The Torah is a democracy of opportunity and an aristocracy of opinion.” Anyone can open a Talmud and start to learn. However, for your opinion to be significant, it must pass a self-policing system of peer approval that validates only the most expert.
And who are the most expert? To me, there is no perceptible difference between Mount Everest and K2, but K2 knows that Everest is taller than it. And thus it is with our Gedolei HaDor. When it comes to the great ones of the generation, each one knows who is more outstanding and in which areas he excels.
I suppose you could translate the phrase shayne gelechte with the English word “farce” — and that about sums up the state of the Israeli political system.
In 1887, Hon. John Dalberg-Acton wrote: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority, still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it.”
Our great Torah Sages sanctify the positions they hold, and not the reverse.
Possibly one of the most egregious power-grabs in history is revealed in this week’s Torah portion. Korach, posing as a champion of the masses with consummate political skill, engineers a rebellion purely for his own ends, and manages to convince, among others, two hundred and fifty of the most august and important leaders of the people.
Joseph Goebbels (y”sh) said, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus, by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
If that isn’t a shayne gelechte, I don’t know what is.
Shlach Lecha- June 4th, 2021
This Shabbat:
Friday Candle Lighting: 7:44 PM
Shabbat Ends: 8:46 PM
Torah Message:
Mutilation or Dedication
“…and (do not) seek after your heart and after your eyes which will lead you astray” [Rashi: The heart and the eyes are like the body’s spies, brokering for it the sins sought by its animal nature] (15:39)
Hermann Rauschning in his book “Gespräche mit Hitler” (published in English as Hitler Speaks) writes that Hitler said to him; “The tablets of Mount Sinai have lost their validity. Conscience is a Jewish invention. Like circumcision it mutilates man.”
It’s interesting that Hitler linked conscience with circumcision. Conscience requires us to think about the consequences of our actions, to focus on the future and not the present. The body wants to ignore consequences. The body’s agenda is instant gratification — a gratification that evaporates immediately with its satisfaction. Circumcision dedicates that part of a man’s body from which flows his future, his tomorrow. So too, with a woman, the Hebrew name for womb is rechem. You can rearrange the letters of rechem to spell machar, which means “tomorrow.” The body is not interested in the future. Its entire agenda is the present. Both conscience and circumcision harness our instincts and direct them to build a future world.
Conscience comes from Sinai. The Torah mandated a revolution in human behavior: Education for all. The sanctity of human life, equality before the law, a vision of world peace where nations would beat their swords into ploughshares, the moral imperative to care for the sick, the aged, the orphan, the widow.
What the arch anti-Semite called mutilation, we call dedication.
Avraham Avinu made a brit — a pact with G-d. Avraham dedicated his future, his progeny, and their progeny throughout the generations, to G-d. And G-d, so to speak, dedicated everything that He would be in this world to come about through the children of Avraham Avinu. The covenant was the mutual dedication of everything each would ever be to the other.
Beha’alotecha- May 28th, 2021
This Shabbat:
Friday Candle Lighting: 7:40 PM
Shabbat Ends: 8:41 PM
Torah Message:
Why is the Menorah mentioned here? (v. 8:2ff.)
Rashi: Why is the section dealing with the Menorah placed next to the section dealing with [the dedication offerings of] the leaders?
Because when Aharon saw the dedication [offerings] of the leaders (above, ch. 7), he was dismayed that he was not included with them in the dedication, neither he nor his tribe. G‑d said to him, “By your life! Your [act of dedication] is greater than theirs, for you will light and prepare the lamps [thereby dedicating them].”
Ramban: Rashi’s solution is difficult for me to fathom. For why should Aharon be consoled through the lighting of the Menorah, which was not the exclusive right of the High Priest? Surely, Aharon should have been consoled by a service which he alone was entitled to perform, such as the daily offering of incense, the High Priest’s meal-offering or the service of Yom Kippur?
Rather, it appears to me that the section regarding the Menorah follows the section concerning the dedication of the Altar as a hint to the rededication of the Menorah that occurred in the times of the second Temple, which we commemorate on Chanukah.
Naso- May 21st, 2021
This Shabbat:
Friday Candle Lighting: 7:35 PM
Shabbat Ends: 8:36 PM
Torah Message:
The Torah assigns the exact Mishkan-related tasks to be performed by the families of Gershon, Kehat, and Merari, the sons of Levi. A census reveals that more than 8,000 men are ready for such service. All those ritually impure are to be sent out of the encampments.
If a person, after having sworn in court to the contrary, confesses that he wrongfully retained his neighbor’s property, he must pay an additional fifth of the base-price of the object and bring a guilt offering as atonement. If the claimant has already passed away without heirs, the payments are made to a kohen.
In certain circumstances, a husband who suspects that his wife had been unfaithful brings her to the Temple. A kohen prepares a drink of water mixed with dust from the Temple floor and a special ink that was used for inscribing Hashem’s Name on a piece of parchment. If she is innocent, the potion does not harm her, but, rather, it brings her a blessing of children. If she is guilty, she suffers a supernatural death.
A Nazir is one who vows to dedicate himself to G-d for a specific period of time. He must abstain from all grape products, grow his hair and avoid contact with corpses. At the end of this period he shaves his head and brings special offerings. The kohanim are commanded to bless the people. The Mishkan is completed and dedicated on the first day of Nissan in the second year after the Exodus. The prince of each tribe makes a communal gift to help transport the Mishkan, as well as donating identical individual gifts of gold, silver, animal and meal offerings.
Bamidbar- May 14th, 2021
This Shabbat:
Friday Candle Lighting: 7:30 PM
Shabbat Ends: 8:30 PM
Torah Message:
What’s Wrong With Wikipedia?
“…in the Tent of Meeting…” (1:1)
I must admit to a tinge of nostalgia for the demise of that great 244-year-old creaking behemoth called The Encyclopedia Britannica. It has been ten years since the last printed edition. Britannica continues online in its electronic version, but as far as its online future is concerned, I’m not so convinced. I think people are far more likely to search Wikipedia than Britannica.
One reason, of course, is because Wiki is free, and everyone likes free. However, I think there’s another reason. We love democracy. Anyone can write an entry in Wikipedia. In our society it is axiomatic that democracy is the only legitimate form of social organization. Our mindset is that the will of the majority is the best, the fairest, and indeed the only way to run society. This ideology seeps into other areas of life as well, including encyclopedias. Critics of Britannica claim that it suffers from the biases of the experts it employs. Wiki, however, suffers no less from bias. An article in Forbes magazine reports that Feng Zhu, an assistant professor in the Technology and Operations Management unit at Harvard Business School, and Shane Greenstein of Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, found that in almost all cases, Wikipedia was more left-leaning than Britannica.
We love democracy, but, presumably, the democratization of our lives has its limits: I’m not sure how many of us would submit to extensive invasive surgery based on a straw poll taken on Twitter or Facebook. The idea that if you ask enough people a question, you are bound to come up with the right answer, is inimical to Torah thought. The spiritual Masters teach, “The opinion of the Torah is the opposite of the man in the street.” Rav Nota Schiller, our esteemed Rosh HaYeshiva, once observed, “The Torah is a democracy of opportunity and an aristocracy of opinion.” Anyone can open a Talmud and start to learn. However, for your opinion to be significant it must pass a self-policing system of peer approval that validates only the most expert.
The Book of Bamidbar deals in great detail with the laws and history of the Mishkan, the Tabernacle.
“…in the Tent of Meeting…” (1:1)
The Ramban draws striking comparisons between these laws and the Revelation at Sinai. The Mishkan, the Beit Hamikdash, and, to this day our synagogues, are the distant echoes of that revelation. They all remind us that Judaism is based on revelation and not the “wisdom of the masses.” The Torah was not given as the “Ten Suggestions; please twitter this to your friends and see what they think.” It was given as Ten Statements, Divine and immutable. Maybe check that on Wikipedia and see if I’m right?