Praying every day

More than two years ago I made the commitment to dawn tefillin and daven Shacharit every day. Before today, I have only missed one day. That was the day we went to Israel. We had to leave our house well before dawn, so I couldn’t daven before we left, and although I really wanted to, I was not yet comfortable davening in the middle of the terminal, or on the flight (especially since the flight would arrive in Israel just as Shabbos was about to start, I didn’t want to answer questions about why someone who is davening on the plane, would travel on the Shabbos).

But today I missed Shacharit for the second time. The reason this time is even better than a trip to Israel. Today, I missed davening because my son was just born. While I may have missed formal prayer, I spent the entire day (and most of the preceding night) in informal prayer for my wife and new son. As spiritually uplifting it is to dawn tefillin, holding my baby in my arms for the first (or second, or hundredth) time brings me just as close to my Creator.

Welcome Jonah Aaron

Early this morning, Mandy and I welcomed our first child, Jonah Aaron into the world. This was, without doubt, the most moving religious experience of my life.

You’ve seen it on TV hundreds of times (or thousands if you, like Mandy, are addicted to Life Network and TLC), but when I heard Jonah’s cry and the doctor announced “it’s a boy”, my eyes filled with tears, and a feeling came over me that I’ve never felt before and that can not be described in words. It was as if G-d himself was standing beside me and giving me the greatest gift imaginable.

Once the nurses cleaned him off and I was able to get close to him, I bent over, and whispered in his ear the Shema. Amid all the confusion he must have been experiencing at that moment, I wanted him to start his life by hearing the words that have sustained the Jewish people for thousands of years. It’s a good thing I was whispering, because anything louder would have come out as a cry.

The nurse then put Jonah beside Mandy (it was a c-section, so Mandy didn’t get to hold him) and the look and Mandy’s face told me she was experiencing the same feelings as I was.

I then got to carry Jonah to the nursery, and on the way a tear filled father introduced Jonah Aaron to the anxious grand parents, uncles and aunts.

This was an experience I’ll never forget, and one that, G-d willing, I’ll get to experience many more times.

May the almighty grant Jonah a long life willed with joy, happiness and thr service of G-d.

Parashat Va’Etchanan – The Dynamics of Prayer

This week’s Torah portion is, spiritually, on of the richest in the Torah. The 10 commandments are here, the Shema is here, and a lot of instructions from Moses. Put them all together and you have a very impressive collection of teachings.

The portion begins with a very strange episode. G-d has told Moses that he will not enter into the land of Israel. Moses prays and prays and prays. Eventually G-d has enough and tells Moses to go up on the Mountain and look onto the land but that he will never enter it. Not only does G-d not accept Moses’ prayer, G-d tells Moses that he doesn’t want him to pray anymore.

There seem to be two issues here. Number 1, Moses is surely a great man, so why doesn’t G-d accept his prayer? Second, if G-d hasn’t accepted his prayer until now, why tell him to stop praying? Basically, these boil down to the question of “How does prayer work?”

The Talmud addresses this issue with the following. Say you have two people, seemingly identical from the outside, with the same illness. They both pray for health, but one lives and one dies. The Talmud gives two explanations as to why one person’s prayers were answered, and the other’s wasn’t.

The first explanation says that one of the people prayed with all their heart, and the other didn’t. So according to this approach, the difference between a prayer being answered or not, is the intensity of the prayer, and the devotion of the person praying.

The second explanation says the first person prayed before his final sentence was announced in heaven, and the second person after it was pronounced. So this approach says it’s all about timing. Praying only helps until G-d has made his decision. Once he’s passed his judgment, there is nothing praying can do.

There are sources that hold by the second position, but it seems that the first position is the more commonly accepted in Jewish thought. So that raises the question; why then did G-d tell Moses to stop praying? We’ll need to look into prayer a bit deeper to understand.

Lets look back at the sick people from the Talmud. The illness is not the problem; it’s the symptom. The problem is a distancing from G-d, which could sometimes have severe consequences. The person got a message from G-d (the illness) alerting his to the problem and tries to correct the problem by bringing himself closer top G-d through prayer. If that prayer is intense enough, according to the first position in the Talmud, the distancing from F-d will be healed, and there will no longer be a need for the illness, so it will go away.

So let’s look at Moses’ case. G-d tells Moses not to pray anymore, because there was no problem with their relationship. As we said, prayer can raise your relationship with G-d to a higher level, but there was no higher level for Moses’ relationship with G-d, it was perfect. So why couldn’t Moses enter the land? Does it have anything to do with Moses? No, it has to do with the people. Once you understand that, you see why G-d told Moses not to pray anymore. G-d was saying ‘It’s not about you, its about the people.” It’s not that Moses’ prayers will not be answered, it’s that they cannot be answered because the people had distanced themselves from G-d.

This gives us some insight into why so much of Jewish teaching has to do with community. Perfecting our own personal relationship with G-d will only take us so far; the pinnacle can only be reached when the entire Jewish people mend their relationships with G-d.

Shabbat Shalom

Parashat D'Varim

I have recently started a committee at our Shul (along with our Cantor) to attract young members (25-35 years old) and encourage their active involvement in the Shul, and in Jewish life. Tonight we hold our first event, a Shabbos Dinner. This was supposed to take place in the Cantor's home, but the response was so great, that we needed to move to a larger space!

I will be delivering the Dvar Torah. What follows is my planned speech.

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Public speaking is often listed among the activities people fear most. While I regularly engage in public speaking at work, I’m still not completely comfortable with it.

However, this small discomfort is magnified when I’m preparing a Dvar Torah. During the preceding week, I’m truly anxious. But the anxiousness is not in anticipation of the speaking, but because of the desire to convey a meaningful message in the time I have.

Winston Churchill is considered to be one of the great orators of modern time. He once said; “Ask me to speak for an hour, and I’ll start right away. Ask me to speak for 5 minutes, and I’ll need time to prepare.” A speaker can ramble for an hour on any topic, but when you only have 5 minutes, you need to make sure you use them well.

And since I’m sure you’d all prefer that I talk for 5 minutes as opposed to rambling for an hour, I’ve chosen my topic carefully.<>

This week we start the book of D’varim (Deuteronomy), the fifth and final book of the Chumash. The book is Moses’ farewell address to the people in the days before his death, and just before the people enters the Promise Land. The book is written in the first person, Moses speaking directly to the people. The other four books are written in the third person; “G-d spoke unto Moses saying, ‘speak to the people and tell them…’.”

This change in style has been noticed by ancient and modern readers. While modern scholars are quite comfortable using this information to suggest a different “source” or author for this book, traditional Jewish opinion, both ancient and modern, insists that the entire Torah is the word of God. So strong is that insistence that the Talmud teaches (Sanhedrin 99a) that if a person claims the entire Torah is written by G-d, except for one word which was written by Moses, that person has denied the entire Torah.

But the Talmud itself says that the first four books came from G-d through Moses, but the words of D’varim came directly from Moses. How does traditional Judaism resolve this issue?

Before we get to that, we need to ask “why do we care?” What would be the big deal if the first four books were written by G-d and the fifth by Moses? It’s a matter of authority. Judaism is Torah. If all or part of the Torah is man made (even if that man is Moses), then it has less authority that if it were written by G-d. Less authority for the Torah means less authority for Judaism. Judaism is Torah. Even if we say that the ideas come from G-d but the words come from man, that has less authority and if the words were to come from G-d.

But the Torah is full of places where the words don’t come from G-d. “And Pharaoh spoke to Moses…” These words clearly come from Pharaoh. Yet we still say that those words are just as divine as the ones describing the giving of the 10 commandments.

What gives those words their authority is that G-d told Moses to write them down. Even if the words come from man, they become divine when G-d decides they need to be included in the Torah and tells his scribe, Moses, to write them.

That’s what happens in D’varim. Moses writes his own speech and delivers it to the people. At the end of the speech, G-d tells Moses “I couldn’t have said it better myself. Now right it all down”, and then proceeds to dictate back to Moses everything that was just said. When the speech was given it did not have divine authority, it got that authority when G-d told Moses to write it down.

This is captured (cryptically) in the Zhoar when it writes that the entire Torah are the words of G-d, but the book of D’varim are also the words of Moses.<>

The book of D’varim is always started on the Shabbat before Tisha B’Av. One reason for this is that a major theme of the first parashat of D’varim is the retelling of the story of the spies. That tragedy occurred on the 9^th of Av. On that day G-d told Israel that because they cried for no reason, that G-d would give Israel many valid reasons to cry on that day in the future. In addition, Parshat Devarim is a record of Moses' speech of chastisement to the Jewish people, an especially appropriate prelude to the historic day of Divine chastisement. This connection is too powerful to ignore. Parshat Devarim and the 9^th of Av clearly belong together.

The story is told that Napoleon was walking through the streets of Paris one Tisha B'Av. As his entourage passed a synagogue he heard wailing and crying coming from within; he sent an aide to inquire as to what had happened. The aide returned and told Napoleon that the Jews were in mourning over the loss of their Temple. Napoleon was indignant! "How come I wasn't informed? When did this happen? Which Temple?" The aide responded, "They lost their Temple in Jerusalem on this date 1,700 years ago." Napoleon stood in silence and then said, "Certainly a people which has mourned the loss of their Temple for so long will survive to see it rebuilt!"

When we loose a loved one, we cover the mirrors, we sit on the floor and we mourn for 7 days. Then every year we light a candle, say Kaddish and drink a L’Chaim, but we don’t reenact the mourning. So why do we continue to mourn a loss that occurred 2000 years ago?

When the Temple was destroyed, we lost more than a building; we lost the ability to practice normative Judaism. Normative Judaism requires a Temple, High Priest, alter and sacrifices. We will not be able to return to that until the Temple is rebuilt. The Jerusalem Talmud makes an astounding statement: "The generation in which the Temple is not rebuilt is to be regarded as though the Temple was destroyed in that generation." The explanation is simple. When we mourn for the Temple, we are not mourning for a building that was destroyed 2,000 years ago. Our mourning must be directed to the realization that each generation is obligated to rebuild the Temple and that our failure to do so has little to do with politics, the debate over who has control over the Temple Mount, or the threat of the Arab nations to go to war if we disturb the mosques that sit atop the Temple Mount. The Temple will be rebuilt when a sufficient number of Jews make a commitment to Judaism. When will the Messiah come? As the Torah says, "Today, if you hearken to My voice."

That’s why we’re here today. The trends suggest that commitment to Judaism is declining with each generation. These problems are in no way unique to Judaism, but they are uniquely important to us. The continuity of Shaar Shalom and the Conservative movement is in jeopardy. Cantor Ben and I started the Young Members Committee in order to address this problem, because the solution lies with our generation. We need to stem by tides of assimilation and secularization. We need to foster our love for Judaism, keep Jewish homes and pass our traditions on to the next generation. That is what has sustained us through 2000 years of exile, and that what is needed to sustain us in the future. We’re starting with a Shabbat program, because there in lies the key to continuity.

More than the Jews kept the Shabbas, the Shabbas kept the Jews.

B’H’, May we all live to see the day when continuity is no longer an issue; a day when the entire Jewish world turns its attention away from internal politics and towards the Almighty.

Shabbat Shalom

What’s in a name?

I’ve always wondered where the English names for the books of the Torah come from. For the most part they seems quite unrelated to the Hebrew names.

The first book makes sense; the Hebrew name “Bereishit”, which means “in the beginning”, clearly relates to the English name “Genesis”. But what about the other 4 books? How does “Shmos”, which means “the names” relate to “Exodus”? How does “Vayikra”, which means “And He called”, relate to Leviticus? How does “Bamidbar”, which means “In the wilderness”, relate to “Numbers”? And finally, how does “Devarim”, which means “the words”, realte to Deuteronomy?

The answer is that the English names (which are actually Latin) are based not on the traditional Hebrew names, but on the names given to each of the books in the Talmud. The traditional names are based on the opening sentence of the book. The Talmud gives each book an alternate, more descriptive name.

The Talmud calls Shmos “Sefer Ha’Gaula”, which means “the book of the redemption”, we can clearly see how that relates to the English names of Exodus.

Vayikra is called “Toraht Kohamin” which means “Laws of the Priests”. The Priests, remember, come from the tribe of Levi. The English name Leviticus, is Latin for “tribe of Levi”.

Bamidbar is called “Sefer Ha’Pekudim” which means “the book of the counting”, hense the English name “Numbers”.

And finally, “Devarim” is called “Mishnai Torah”, which means “The repetition of the Torah”. The Latin Deuteronomy means “repetition of the law”.

Parashat Matot-Massei

This week we conclude the book of Bamidbar (Numbers) with the reading of the double portion of Matot and Massei. Among the many themes discussed in this week’s portion, we read the story of the Tribes of Reuben and Gad asking Moses for permission to stay on the east side of the Jordan river so that they can raise their sheep. Moses agrees to their request, but it is decided that they must still cross the Jordan to participate in the conquest of the Promise Land, and then they may settle where they wish.

No one seems to bat an eye at the request to stay outside of the Promise Land. But wasn't the entire point of the Exodus to settle in the Promised Land? Would it have been just as acceptable if these two tribes had opted to return to Egypt after assisting in the conquest? What happened to the commandment of settling in Israel? How could people on the spiritual level of the desert generation decide to voluntarily trade spiritual potential for livestock? And how could Moses and the elders support such a plan outright, without making the slightest attempt to dissuade them from such apparent madness, or at the very least consult with God before reaching agreement? Why do we not find the slightest degree of criticism about this transaction in the Torah?

Judaism teaches that everything in the universe only exists by virtue of the fact that it can be used as a vehicle for sanctifying God's Name. It is the responsibility of every Jew to sanctify G-d’s name, but every Jewish soul was sent to this world having been assigned a particular way of sanctifying G-d’s name. Some souls do this through charitable work, others through leadership, some through military prowess, some through teaching, and other through the raising of livestock.

The tribes of Reuben and Gad made their request because they knew (and Moses understood) that their souls were intended to sanctify G-d’s name through raising sheep. (After all, many of the most important people in Jewish history were shepherds.) Not only were the lands of the east side of the Jordan ideal for shepherding, but the Torah forbids the raising of sheep inside the land of Israel.

Reuben and Gad did not choose to live outside of Israel in hopes of a better life, they chose to live there because they knew that that’s where they believed they could best sanctify G-d’s name.

In the world of today, the decision to remain in other countries rather than move to the land of Israel is a voluntary one. Whoever chooses to remain in the lands of exile because he feels that he can do a better job of collecting his holy sparks there is committing no fault.

But whoever chooses to voluntarily remain there because his standard of living would be higher, needs to question their priorities. If a correct system of priorities would place a person in Israel, where it is easier to form a more powerful connection with God, then that person is clearly losing out by staying put.

I count myself among those who may need to reexamine my priorities.

Shabbat Shalom

Parashat Pinchas –Women’s Rights

This week’s Torah portion is deals with many different issues. It starts with the conclusion of the story of Pinchas (which started at the end of last week’s portion), where he is made a Cohen, by Divine decree. We then read that G-d commands Moses to wage war on Midian in retribution for the licentious plot the Midianites perpetrated upon the Israelites. A census is then taken for two reasons; first, to count the number of men available for army duty, second, to divide up the land of Israel among the tribes. Moses then asks G-d to appoint a successor to him (G-d selects Joshua). We conclude with a description of the various offerings that are to br brought throughout the year.

What I wanted to talk about, is a small paragraph tucked away in the middle of the portion. G-d is instructing Moses how to divide up the land, by giving a portion to every male for their families. The daughters of Tzelafchad come forward and tell Moses that their father is dead and had no sons. They ask for their father’s portion to be given to them. Moses consults with G-d, and agrees to the request, thus establishing the Jewish laws for inheritance.

Many people accuse Judaism of being sexist; they claim that women are treated as second class citizens. This is, of course, a ludicrous claim. If one takes the time to understand Judaism, you will see that women’s roles, while different from men’s roles, are central. Some choose to view different as meaning inferior, but the reality is that different roles simply reflect the real differences between the sexes; not better or worse, just different.

We see from the section of this weeks parashah, that women’s rights in Judaism were actually 1000’s of years ahead of their time. This episode takes place in a time when women had no inheritance rights anywhere in the world. A father would pass his estate to his son(s), and if there were no sons, to the closest male relative. If there were none it would go to a male friend… but never to a daughter or other women. 3500 years ago, Judaism gave women standing in property issues. While inheritance would still go to a son first, if there were none it goes to a daughter before going to other relatives. While some would arguer that it’s still not totally equitable, it’s still an amazing ruling considering that it took most other religions and cultures 3500 years to catch up (and many still have not).

In many ways Judaism is one of the least sexist religions out there. And in those cases where there seems to be some sexist issues, the perception usually results from a poor understanding of the laws. When you take the time to learn about the issue, you see that the law is not sexist, it simply is designed to take advantage of the unique make ups of men and women.

This is a major issue for me, so I’m sure I’ll write about it further.

Shabbat Shalom.

Parashat Balak - Prophecy

This week we read a famous section. The Israelites are in a war with the Moabites, and the fighting is at a stalemate. The King of Moab, Balak seeks out a non Jewish prophet, Bilam, to curse the Jews and turn the war in Moab’s favour. But every time Bilam tries to curse the Jews, what comes out of his mouth is a blessing.

As usual there is lots here I could talk about, but what is most interesting to me is a section in the Talmud that says Bilam’s level of prophecy is equal to that of Moses. Think about that, Moses, being the most righteous person ever to live, is being compared to Bilam, who the Talmud says committed all sorts of heinous acts. In fact, the Talmud goes so far as to say that any accusation you can think of, you can accuse Bilam of. So what does the Talmud mean here?

To answer that, we first need to understand how prophecy works. Prophecy is not “seeing the future”, it’s setting the future. When a prophet sees a vision it is not a picture of things to come; it is a communication by G-d. When the prophet interprets the visions and puts words to it, that is what gives the vision power. The interpretation of the vision caused the prophecy to come true. That’s a difficult concept to understand, but an important one. So the power is in how the prophet interprets the vision, not in the vision itself.

So there is a problem with that, the vision comes from G-d, but the interpretation comes from man. And how man interprets the vision depends on that man’s perspective. For example, there are cases in the Bible where two prophets see the same vision, one describes it in a few lines, and the other takes a whole chapter. One vision, but two sets of words to go along with it (remember that it’s the words that have the power). This is not unreasonable. Take two people, one from New York and one from a small town in the deep south, and show them both a vision of mid town Manhattan at 10:00 on a Monday morning. The one from the small town will go on and on about what he saw. So many people moving every which way, the cars, the noise, people with green hair… The one from New York will probably sum it up in a few lines; typical Monday morning.

Now that we understand how prophecy works, how does this apply to Moses and Bilam? When Moses prophesied, he did not do it in the same way as the other prophets. He didn’t get a vision and give it words; G-d spoke directly to Moses. G-d supplied the words, and thus G-d gave the power to the prophecy. When the Talmud says that Bilam’s prophecy was on the same level as Moses’ it meant that Bilam also got the words from G-d, not just visions. Moses prophesized that way because he was on such a high level that he was able to “talk with G-d”. But Bilam was obviously not on such a high level, why did he get words directly from G-d?

Remember that Bilam was a horrible person, if he would be given a vision, he would interpret it based on his immoral perspective, and thus bring about disastrous results. G-d didn’t want that to happen, so he gave the words directly to Bilam in order to prevent any interpretation.
Moses received words because he was on such a high level, Bilam because he was on such a low level.

This also explains another important question about the portion. If Bilam wanted to turn the war in favour of the Moabites, why didn’t he just bless them, rather than trying to curse Israel? The answer should now be obvious. Bilam was such an immoral person, he was unable to bless, only curse.

Shabbat Shalom

Parashat Chukat - Moses, the Rock and the Land of Israel

Read this weeks Torah portion and ask yourself the question “How many people die in this weeks portion?”

You should easily come up with at least 2; the text clearly talks about the deaths of Miriam and Aaron. What’s less clear is that the answer is really in the hundreds of thousands. This portion is the transition from the generation that stood at Sinai to the one that will enter the Land of Israel. Keep that in mind, I’ll get back to it shortly.

The event that I wanted to talk about was the incident with Moses and the rock. The story goes like this. The people complain to Moses and Aaron that they have no water. Moses asks G-d what to do. G-d tells him to assemble the people before a rock, and instruct the rock to give forth water. Moses assembles the people, but when it comes time to speak to the rock, he gets angry at the people and hits the rock instead. Because of this incident, G-d decrees that neither Moses nor Aaron will get to lead the people into Israel.

This raises several obvious questions. Why such a major punishment for such a seemingly minor crime? There are many explanations available for this issue. But even if you accept those explanations, you still have to ask why Aaron got the same punishment; he didn’t seem to do anything.

The explanation I like says that the relationship between hitting the rock and not being allowed into Israel is not once of a punishment for a crime, but one of demonstrating a decision.

It takes a very different kind of leader to bring a group of slaves out of Egypt than it does to take a nation into a holy land. Moses was the right man for the former, but G-d decided he was not the right man for the latter. The incident with the rock didn’t condemn Moses, it proved G-d’s point.

Throughout the desert wanderings, whenever water was needed, Moses would always hit a rock to get it. Picture the scene, the nation is thirsty and demanding water. Moses strikes a rock and water flows out. The scene suggests that it’s through Moses’ power that the water flows. However, that’s not what the people think. The people watching that were the same ones who stood at Mount Sinai; they knew that the water comes from G-d, Moses is just the conduit.

In the incident in this week’s portion, the people observing the scene were not at Mount Sinai. They view Moses’ miracles as coming from his power. They knew about Sinai and G-d, but they sense something different.

G-d was setting up this event at rock to be the Mount Sinai for the next generation, where everyone would see the power of G-d. But after 40 years of acting in a particular way, Moses didn’t seize the opportunity. Through no fault of his own, Moses reinforced the people notion that the miracles come from Moses, not G-d.

This is why Moses (and similarly Aaron) could not go into the Land of Israel; G-d knew that if they did, the people would worship them like gods.

In chapter 4 of Deuteronomy, we get a retrospective of this event. Moses says to the people that he’s not going to enter the Land, but you are. And when you get there don’t make any idols. The relationship between those 2 statements might not be clear, but in the context of the above, the passage should be understood as follows. “If I were to enter the land you would worship me. So I’m not going to enter. But you are, and when you get there don’t worship anything else (other than G-d).”

Moses was the greatest of all leaders in human history, but he wasn’t the right man to lead the people into Israel. There’s an important lesson here, when selecting a leader, be sure to select the right one, not the best one.

Shabbat Shalom

Parashat Shlach L’Cha – The sin of the Spies

This week, we read one of the most tragic portions in the Torah. The Jews are standing at the border of Israel, about to enter and fulfill G-d’s promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but instead of entering, they decide to send in “spies” to scout out the land.

The spies return with a huge bunch of grapes and say, "You all see the size of these grapes? You should see the size of the people who eat them. They are giants! No way we can beat them. We may as well go back to Egypt." The people let out a great cry at their misfortune.

Moses is absolutely horrified and God is very angry. As punishment, G-d decrees that the Jews shall wander the desert for 40 years and all adult males will die off before they will be allowed to enter Israel. G-d tells the Jews that because they cried on this day for no good reason, they will cry on this day throughout history for some very good reasons.

The date that this happened was the 9th of Av, Tisha b’Av. This is a major fast day in the Jewish calendar. Virtually every major disaster in Jewish history is going to be connected to the Ninth of Av. The destruction of the first and second temples, the expulsion from Spain, the start of World War I (which led to the Holocaust) and many other tragic events all happened on that day.

The question is, if G-d knew the result of sending the spies would be so horrendous, why did he tell Moses to do it? The answer is that G-d didn’t tell Moses to send spies. If we read the passage carefully, and the passage in Deuteronomy that recounts this event, along with the commentary, we see that what actually happened is that G-d told Moses to go into the land, the people said to Moses, before we go into the land, we should send scouts, Moses asked G-d if he should do that, and G-d said “If you want to do it, the do it.” G-d knew it would turn out badly, but it’s a matter of free will, if Moses wanted to send scouts, then he should do it.

So the question now becomes, why did Moses want to send spies, didn’t he trust G-d? The answer, again, is that he didn’t send spies. The people he send ended up spying, but that was not Moses’ intention.

The Talmud tells us that a man is not allowed to marry a woman before he meets her. The idea being, you need to meet first to start the process of falling in love, which then seeds the relationship of marriage. This is what Moses wanted, for the scouts (not spies) to bring back stories of the beauty of the land so that the people would start to fall in love.

Moses’ view was that G-d was giving us the land, and we should start to fall in love. The people’s view was that the taking of the land was a military conquest and they needed to send spies to develop a military strategy.

I think there is a lesson to be learned here about marriage. A marriage is ordained by G-d, and if you both go into it with your trust in G-d, then the relationship will bloom like the land of Israel. If you go in looking at it as a conquest, you’re destined to wanted for 40 years.

Shabbat Shalom.

Slow posts for the next little while

I’m about to move from a city with a tiny Jewish population (Burlington) to one with one of the highest Jewish Populations in Canada (Richmond Hill).

Because of the move related activities, posting will be minimal over the next few weeks until I get settled in the new place.

Parashat Be'halot'cha

This week we read about the laws of the Temple Menorah, the Jews celebrate their first Passover since leaving Egypt, we rebel against G-d because of the poor taste of Mannah and the lack of meat in our diets (G-d responds by sending Quail and by killing off those who rebelled) and we finish with an interesting section about Miriam (Moses’ sister).

The text says that Miriam spoke badly about Moses and as punishment is inflicted with tzara'ath (similar to leprosy – I wrote about that a few weeks ago). We know that impure speech (lashon hara) is a sin and the punishment is tzara'ath, so this seems reasonable. However, this passage leads to a separate mitzvah regarding lashon hara; the Rambam writes that in order to remember not to speak lashon hara, we are to remember what Miriam did and how she was punished.

This seems strange to me, we have been given a mitzvah to remember not to speak lashon Hara, and this mitzvah entails an eternal lashon hara against Miriam - remembering and speaking about that which seems to be negative about Miriam. We’re told to speak negatively about Miriam in order to remember not to speak negatively about people. I’m sure you see why this is troubling.

The answer to this problem is that our speaking about Miriam is not lashon hara, since she didn’t intentionally do anything wrong. We are not trying to put Miriam down; we’re trying to learn from her mistakes. And since Miriam didn’t intestinally sin, there is no harm in talking about what she did. Miriam spoke out against her brother out of love for him, it harmed no one.

So if she didn’t intentionally do anything wrong – if there was no sin – then why the punishment? Because when you deal in lashon hara, the effects are devastating.

The story is told of a man who comes home after a hot day of gold and goes to the fridge to pour a glass of coke. He takes the bottle of what he thought was coke, but which his wife had filled with bleach. The wife did not do that intentionally, a bottle of bleach broke, and the only bottle around was from coke, so she saved as much bleach as she could in the coke bottle and left the bottle on the counter. Someone else saw the bottle out on the counter and put it in the fridge. As the bleach touched the man’s lips, he sensed something wasn’t right and didn’t drink it. It wouldn’t have mattered if the wife put the bleach in the bottle intentionally or unintentionally, if you drink bleach it has devastating effects.

The same is true for lashon hara. Unintentionally speaking lashon hara is just as devastating as speaking it intentionally.

A man came to his Rebbi feeling very bad about speaking lashon hara about a friend. He asked the Rebbi ho he could remedy the situation. The Rebbi told him to go get a feather pillow, the man did. The Rebbi then told him to cut it open and release the feathers into the wind, the man did. The Rebbi then told the man to go collect all the feathers, only when he had collected all of them would the lashon hara be remedied.

Our words are like the feathers of that pillow. Once they leave our lips we can try to clean up the mess, but we can never get them back. Just as the feathers can never be fully retrieved, lashon hara can never be fully remedied.

Shabbat Shalom

Parashat Naso

This weeks Torah portion is one of the longest ones of the year. Many items are covered, but the one I wanted to talk about was the instructions for the ‘Priestly Blessing”.

To this day, the Kohanim (who are the descendants of Aaron) say a special blessing over the people. The origins of this blessing are found in this Parashat.

We read that G-d tells Moses to tell Aaron to bless the people. The blessing that Aaron is to give the people is essentially “May G-d overlook your mistakes and be merciful.” This raises a basic question; if G-d wants to be merciful, why does he need to tell Aaron to bless the people, why can’t G-d just be merciful?

Now, I could write an entire thesis on this one question, but I’ll try to keep it short.

The basic issue is the relationship between our actions and G-d’s response. Kabbalah tells us of the strings between man and the fingers of G-d. The picture we get is of G-d controlling us like marionettes. But that pictures doesn’t mesh with the notion that we have free will. Kabbalah explains that the relationship is the other way, it’s our actions that control the hand of G-d. In other words how G-d treats us is directly related to how we act.

There is a passage in the Talmud, which states that if a man eats an apple without saying a blessing, it is as if he has stolen from G-d and the entire Jewish people. The Talmud then goes on to ask, what is it that you would be stealing? The obvious answer is that you would be stealing an apple, since we are not allowed to eat an apple without first thanking G-d. But the Talmud says that what we are stealing is the blessing. One lost apple will hardly affect G-d’s accounting; but by not making the blessing, we are limiting the amount of spirituality in the world, and that is something that can never e replaced.

Now let’s relate this back to our original issue. G-d wants to be merciful and show his love for us, but if limit the amount of spirituality in the world, it’s as if we are holding back G-d from showing us his love. G-d treats us in the same way we treat each other. If we all live spiritual lives, showing mercy to our fellow man, then G-d will have ample opportunity to show his mercy. If we instead treat each other by the strict letter of the law, then G-d will do the same to us.

So what the Priestly Blessing is really saying is “May you all live your lives in such a way that will allow god to overlook your mistakes and show mercy on you.”

So next time a friend or loved one makes a mistake, before you decide how to react think about how you would want G-d to react, according to the letter of the law, or with mercy.

Shabbat Shalom

Accepting the Torah

Last post I talked about the Kabalistic story of how the soul of Torah was created 974 generations before Adam, and was finally given a body at Mount Sinai. There is a very interesting story in the Misha about the giving of the Torah.

The story goes that G-d told the Torah to go to Adam, but the Torah refused because Adam was a sinner. Then G-d told the Torah to go to Noah, but the Torah refused because Noah was a drunk. Then G-d told the Torah to go to Abraham, but the Torah refused because Abraham questioned G-d. This continued through the generations until G-d told the Torah to go to Moses, and the Torah did.

On Shavout we are supposed to personally accept the Torah, just like we did 3300 years ago at the foot of Mount Sinai. However, us accepting the Torah is not enough. The Torah needs to accept us.

That’s what the Omer is for. It gives us seven weeks to prepare ourselves so that the Torah will accept us.

The Soul of Torah

Shavout commemorates the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai. But exactly what was it that was given to Moses at Mount Sinai?

On one level, this has been the major division point amount the various movements in Judaism. The Orthodox view is that G-d gave Moses the613 commandments and the principles of how to apply them – the Oral Torah. The written Torah (the 5 books of Moses) was given to Moses over the next 40 years. The Reform view is that G-d told Moses the contents of the 5 books, which Moses wrote down (to the best of his recollection) over the next 40 years. The Conservative view(s) fall somewhere in between (There are actually 4 distinct positions in the Conservative movement… I’ll talk about those some other time).

However, that’s only part of the question. The Mishna tells us that Abraham (and Isaac and Jacob) kept the entire Torah. How could they have done that if it wasn’t given until the time of Moses?

There is a Kabalistic story that explains this. It says that the Torah was created by G-d 974 generations before Adam. What was created was the “soul” of Torah; the underlying truths and messages of the Torah. Abraham understood the Soul of Torah and was able to keep it. Were his actions identical to ours? Probably not. He probably didn’t wear Teffilin or keep Kosher in the same way we do. But the essence of the laws were kept.

At Mount Sinai, the soul was given a body. That body is what we know today as Torah. The underlying truths and messages contained in the soul of Torah, were rapped in worldly actions. Since that body was also given by G-d, from that time on, it was no longer sufficient to just keep the soul of the Torah, we needed to also observe the body.

The converse is also true. In today’s world it is not sufficient to just keep the body of the Torah; we also need to honour the soul. Strict adherence to the letter of the law, without any attention being paid to the soul, is an empty observance.

This Shavout, lets all try to accept the body and soul of the Torah into our lives.

Chag Sameach.

Eating dairy on Shavuot

There is a universal customs among Jews to eat a dairy meal on the night of Shavuot. There are a variety of explanations of where this came from. For me, the most convincing is the following; because that’s what the Jews ate the night they got the Torah.

Until the Torah was given, Jews were not obliged to keep kosher. But once it was reveled on Mount Sinai, the Jews had to keep kosher. So, of course, the Jews would have had no kosher meat prepared to be eaten that night (since it takes time to prepare meat in a kosher way). So the Jews could not have eaten meat that night. Hence the dairy meal.

The least known of the major holidays

It’s ironic that Shavuot is such a little known holiday; because in fact, Shavuot commemorates the single most important event in Jewish history – the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai.

Not only is this the central event in Jewish history, but it’s probably one of the most amazing events in human history. On this day, some 3300 years ago, G-d spoke to the entire Jewish people. Not to one person in a cave, or a small group of people by a lake, but to millions of people camped around Mount Sinai.

The giving of the Torah was an event of awesome proportions that indelibly stamped the Jewish nation with a unique character, faith and destiny. And in the 3,300 years since this event, Torah ideals - monotheism, justice, responsibility -- have become the moral basis for Western civilization.
Perhaps the reason for the relative obscurity of Shavuot is because this holiday has no obvious "symbols" of the day -- i.e. no Shofar, no Sukkah, no Chanukah Menorah.

On Shavuot, there are no symbols to distract us from the central focus of Jewish life: the Torah. This is why it has become a widespread custom to stay up the entire night learning Torah.

While I don’t know if I’ll be able to make the whole night, I certainly plan to spend much of the night (and early morning) in study.

Parashat Bamidbar

This week we start the fourth book of the Torah – Bamidbar (or Numbers, as it’s called in English). We clearly see when the English name comes from; the book starts with the counting of the Jewish people. This was not the first census since leaving Egypt nor would it be the last. As Rashi points out this constant counting reflects the Divine love that G-d has for each and every one of us.

We should all be able to relate to that. We’re all very good at counting the things that are important to us. Unfortunately, the things we tend to count are the dollars in our bank account, the square footage of our houses, or the horse power of our cars.

There were two separate countings; one for the 12 tribes, and then a special one for the tribe of Levi. The Leviim who represented the spiritual side of the Jewish people, teaching Torah and attending to the running of the Beit HaMikdash apparently could not be counted along with the rest of the people. The entire nation was counted materially, then the Leviim were counted spiritually.

The Leviim were also counted differently; all Levi’s males were counted from age 30 days, while for the rest of Israel, only males from 20 years old were counted.

There is an important message here for us and how we relate to our life's goals. While one should only worry about material concerns when one reaches adulthood spiritual training must begin immediately upon birth (in Jewish law it was only upon reaching thirty days that there was a solid presumption that the child would actually survive). If one wants to produce a spiritual person one must begin immediately upon birth. We now know that children do begin learning even before the age of thirty days.

Today Jewish communities are much concerned about continuity, worrying about the declining number of Jews (at least in the Diaspora). Throughout our history when we numbered mush less continuity was not a concern. Our spiritual devotion and strength guaranteed our continuity. It is only if we leave our spiritual roots, our Torah that we are in danger of being swallowed by the world at large. As long as we inculcate our youth with a yearning for spiritual growth we will be able to count many accomplishments of our people.

Shabbat Shalom.

Days and Months

The Friday night Kiddush ends with the blessing “Blessed are you, O’ Lord, who sanctifies the Sabbath.” For holidays, we get a slightly different formula for the blessing; “Blessed are you, O’ Lord, who sanctifies Israel and the Holidays.”

Why the difference?

The issue revolves around how the Jewish calendar works. G-d controls the heavens and the earth. The sun rises and sets because G-d wills it to happen. Since the Sabbath falls every 7th day, it is completely under G-d control. He makes the sun set 7 times, and we have Sabbath.

The holidays are different. G-d specifies the dates of the various holidays, the 10th of this month, the 15th of that month. But man has control over when the holidays fall, because man decides when the new month begins.

The way the calendar works is that the Jewish court would declare a new month when they heard testimony from a witness who saw the new moon. Sometimes due to conflicting testimony (or cloud cover), the new month would be declared a day late. (We no longer use this court system, the calendar was set 2000 years ago based on the rulings of various courts) So, even though Passover always falls on the 15th of Nisan, by declaring the new month a day later, the holiday would be celebrated a day later.

So G-d controls the days, buy Man controls the months and thus the Holidays.

Parashat Behar-Bechukotai

Once again, we have a double portion this week. We read about the laws of the Sabbatical cycles (leaving the fields to rest every seventh year) and the Jubilee year (every 50th year all land reverts back to it’s original owner, slaves are freed, debts forgiven…). We then conclude the book of Vayikra (Leviticus).

The first two books of the Torah have very clear themes. This is not the case with books 3-5. While there are clear themes in the book, it’s hard to pinpoint the underlying theme of the book; why does it start and end exactly where it does.

Even those who deny the divine authorship of the Torah would have to agree that it’s, at the very least, good literature. And in all good literature, the final chapters of the book relate back to the core themes expressed in the opening chapters.

The book begins with “And G-d called out to Moses”. The final parahsat of the book starts with “If you follow My statutes and observe My commandments and perform them, I will give your rains in their time, the Land will yield its produce, and the tree of the field will give forth its fruit. … and you will live in security in your land. And I will grant peace in the Land, and you will lie down with no one to frighten you;” [26:3-6]

That’s what the book is about. G-d is telling the nation of Israel (through Moses) that there is a land set aside for his chosen people. And in order to live in this land chosen by G-d, we must live in the way becoming of G-d chosen people. The book then sets out what this way of living is. It talks about what to eat, how to plant, how to worship, how to treat your neighbour, how to treat strangers… It teaches Israel how to bring G-d into every aspect of their lives. In short, it teaches each of us how to live our lives in the image of G-d.

G-d tells us of all the good that will come if we follow in his ways, and all the tragedy that will befall us if we don’t. Let us all hear the calling of G-d, "Vayikra" so that we can `walk together' in order that the blessings of the Torah will be fulfilled speedily in our days.

Shabbat Shalom!