Deception of Yitzchak

I want to talk about the famous story in the Torah where Jacob “tricks” his father into giving him the blessing meant for Esau.

If you recall, the story goes something like this… Yitzchak was getting old and wanted to bless his two children. He favoured Esau and wanted to give an extra blessing to him, but Rebecca favoured Jacob and wanted him to get the extra blessing. Yitzchak send Esau out to hunt some dinner so Yitzchak can eat before giving Esau his blessing. Rebecca hears this and tells Jacob to go into the yard and bring a goat so she can prepare some food for Yitzchak. Then tells Jacob to dress in Esau’s clothes and place the goat’s hair on his arms and neck (since Jacob was smooth skinned and Esau was hairy) and go to his father pretending to be Esau, thus tricking Yitzchak into giving Jacob the extra blessing. When Jacob comes before his father in Esau’s clothes, Yitzchak doesn’t believe it is Esau (since their voices were different) so asks to feel his arms. He feels the goat hair and says “The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau”. Yitzchak seems to buy the trick and Jacob gets the extra blessing.

The simple reading seems to be a child trying to pull a fast one on his elderly, poor sighted, father. As usual there is much more going on here.

To explain what’s going on here, we need to first need to understand why Yitzchak wanted to give Esau the extra blessing (and why Rebecca knew it had to go to Jacob). Yitzchak knew that his children would have to carry on the mission of Abraham. Doing this required spirituality, since it’s a spiritual mission, but the mission involves changing the world and that required someone with an aggressive personality. Jacob was clearly the spiritual one and Yitzchak knew he would be the one to take the message forward. But Yitzchak felt the Jacob was to passive, so his plan was to give the spiritual blessing to Jacob and a physical one to Esau, and they would work together to carry out Abraham’s mission. Rebecca knew that as long as Jacob was dependant on Esau, the mission would never be carried out.

When Yitzchak says: “The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau”, he’s not speaking literally. He knows the person in front of him is Jacob (this is Yitzchak we’re talking about), so how do we interpret that saying?

The voice represents the power of intellect, and the hands represent the power of action. Yitzchak is saying that the person before him has the intellect of Jacob and the action of Esau. He then knew that Jacob would be able to carry out the mission himself, and gave him both the physical and spiritual blessings.

Of course when Esau finds out what happened, he’s not very happy and asks for some sort of blessing. Yitzchak gives the following blessing to him: “Behold, your dwelling place shall be the fat places of the earth and of the dew of the heaven from above. And you shall live by your sword, and you shall serve your brother, and it will be, when you grieve, that you will break his yoke off your neck." Remember that Esau is the father of Rome (and thus the Christians), keep that in mind when you evaluate the accuracy and meaning of this blessing.

Shabbat Shalom

Paraha Toldot – Part 1

There are two stories in this week’s paraha that are potentially troubling. I think I’ll address these two issues at Shabbat dinner.

The first is the story of Jacob buying Esau’s first-born-ship for a bowl of red lentil pottage. The second being the story of Jacob tricking Yitzchak and getting the blessing meant for Esau.

First, the story of the pottage. The text tells us that Jacob was making pottage and Esau comes in from the hunt and tells Jacob he is starving and asks for some pottage. Jacob says he’ll give the pottage if Esau in exchange for Esau’s first-born-ship. Esau says “I’m going to die, what use do I have for the first-born-ship.” The deal is made. Jacob gets the first-born-ship and Esau gets his pottage.

The problem here is that it seems like Jacob took advantage of Esau’s hunger and made him enter into a contact he may not have really liked. If Esau was really dieing of hunger, he’d make just about any deal to get some food. Halacha tells us that a contact entered into under these conditions is not valid. So how do we resolve this problem.

First, some context. The Midrash tells us that the reason that Jacob was making lentil pottage is that it was the day of Abraham’s funeral. Lentils are a traditional food eaten by mourners. So on the day of his grandfather’s funeral, Esau is out hunting. So let’s look at a simple reading of the text and see what it tells us. After the deal was made the text says “And Jacob gave Esau bread and a pottage of lentils, and he ate and drank and arose and left, and Esau despised the birthright.” [Gen:25:34].

The deal seemed to be to sell the birthright for pottage – so where did the bread come from. The commentators tell us that the bread was to make the deal valid. If Esau was really starving, then the deal would be void. So Jacob gave Esau some bread to satisfy Esau’s hunger. Only then did the ask Esau to make the deal. Jacob did not take advantage of his starving brother; he did everything possible to make sure Esau really wanted to make this deal.

Now let’s look at a deeper understanding of the text. When Esau said “"Behold, I am going to die; so why do I need this birthright?"”, [Gen 25:33] what did he mean by that? The simple reading is that Esau was starving to death, but the deeper meaning tells us that the dieing he was refereeing to was not an immediate death – he was talking generally. Esau’s live philosophy was “Eat, drink, for tomorrow we die” - a denial of the afterlife. The birthright is a spiritual blessing, what use does Esau have for that – he was interested in material goods. Going even deeper, Esau knew that the role of the first born was to be the families emissary in the Temple. The temple service required complete concentration – if your thoughts wavered for even a second, you would die on the spot. That’s why there were so many High Priests in the Second Temple – they were never of good character and kept dieing on us. Esau knew that if he was the family’s representative in the temple, he would not be able to do the job and would die. What does he need that tzuris for? What Esau was saying is that he has no use of the birthright; in fact he despises it and would happily sell it for even the smallest material gain (i.e. some pottage). Jacob knew that such a person should not get the blessing of the firstborn.

Next time I’ll talk about the story of Jacob tricking Yitzchak into giving him Esau’s blessing.

Shabbat Dinner

This coming Shabbat, my wife and I will be hosting a Shabbat dinner for our Friends. As RSVP’s come in, it looks like we’ll have 13 people. This will be the first time we come together as a group of friends for Shabbat – hopefully the first of many.

I’m planning this as a traditional Shabbat including a sumptuous meal and some Torah study. I’m not sure which one will be harder to prepare.

The menu is set, and I’ve done the pilgrimage to the kosher supermarket to get the kosher meat. The cooking will be spread out over 3 days … hopefully everything will come together nicely.

Now I need to plan the Torah study. I’ll talk about the weekly Torah portion, but I need to work out specifics. As I figure out what to talk about I’ll port it here.

Wish me luck.

Marriage vs. Creation

The Torah uses words sparingly. The entire story of creation is 31 verses. This week we read about how Abraham’s servant found a wife (Rebecca) for Isaac. This takes 67 verses. This tells us something about the importance of the decision of who to marry.

We also learn something about how choose a spouse. Abraham’s greatest trait was kindness. He was matched with Sarah, whose greatest trait was judgment. They complemented each other, two halves of the same soul. Isaac took after his mother, and was a very good judge. That’s why Abraham’s servant was looking for a woman of total kindness. He looked for a woman who would not only offer him water, but would offer to water his 10 camels. Abraham knew that kindness to animals is a good indication to kindness to people.

Perhaps this is where the concept of “opposites attract” comes from? Your spouse should not be someone who is identical to you in every way, but someone who complements you. Someone who challenges you in the areas you cold improve on, and can learn from you in the areas they can improve on.

I was lucky enough to find a wife who complements me perfectly. We’re both better people because of each other. G-d willing, we will be able to put this to use in raising a family with our combined values.

Shabbat Shalom.

Parashat Chayei Sarah

This week’s parahat starts with the death of Sarah. The text details how Abraham made sure he paid full price for the plot of land where he buried Sarah (which became the Tomb of the Patriarchs – in today’s Hebron). He was offered the land as a gift, but he insisted on paying full price. We need to ask why?

Rashi tells us that it’s because Abraham wanted to make sure no one in the future could come and say we stole the land. The other piece of land that the Torah records the purchase of (for the same reason) is the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. King David bought the land for full value to make sure that the site of the temple can never be claimed by anyone else.

It’s ironic that the two most hotly contested pieces of land today are Hebron and Jerusalem. Apparently, Abraham had very good foresight, but it didn’t seem to help.

The parashat ends with the death of Abraham. Ishamel and Isaac come together to burry their father. Ishamel is that father of Islam, and Isaac is the father of Judaism and Christianity (Isaac’s had two sons, Jacob who father Judaism, and Essau, who fathered the Romans – who became the Christians). The Torah tells us that in the end they all put their differences aside and came together... maybe we will see a parallel some time soon.

The Akedah

Last weeks Torah portion ended with the story of the Akedah – the binding of Isaac. This is one of the most famous stories of the Torah, and one which is often misunderstood.

Rabbi Motty Berger tells a story of a conversation he had with a man a few years ago. The man told the “Rabbi that he doesn’t understand how he expects to be able to “sell” this religion. Your religion tells the story of Abraham, the founder of your religion, who was told by G-d to kill his son, and you take it as an example of what a great man he was that he was willing to do it. You expect to be able to sell a religion like that?”

The Rabbi replies, “OK, so you think Abraham was wrong. So tell me, what would you kill your son for? Picture this, let’s say you’re a good father, and you have a son just turning 18. He comes to you and says ‘Dad, I really respect you, and I need to make some decisions on how to live my life. So tell me, what’s it worth dieing for? And I want you to know, that what ever you tell me, that’s how I’ll live my life.’” The Rabbi continues, “You don’t like Abrahams choice, so what’s yours.”

The man knew he was trapped, whatever he says, the Rabbi would counter, you made your choice, and Abraham made his, what’s the difference? So the man replies “I’d tell my son it’s not worth dieing for anything, you just stay alive.”

The Rabbi answers, “What happens if your son says, ‘Dad, I don’t understand, if there is nothing in this world worth dieing for, that what did you bring me into this world to die for? When you chose to have me, you didn’t know anything about what my life would be like. You didn’t know if I’d be rich or poor, happy or miserable, full of joy or suffering. The only thing you knew when you brought me into this world is that one day I would die. I thought that meant that there was something you can get out of life that’s worth dieing for.’ What Abraham taught Isaac was that there one this in this world worth dieing for – your connection with G-d. Don’t sell you life (or your children’s life) short.”

Once that lesson was made clear to Abraham and Isaac, G-d tells Abraham not to kill Isaac, but instead raise him with that understanding.

This was Abraham’s basic philosophy – “I choose to live, and if necessary to die, for the reality of one G-d”.

Let’s all let this story put our lives in perspective and help us make more informed decisions.

Parashat Vayeira

This weeks Torah portion is filled with one dilemma after another, and culminates with one of the most famous dilemmas in the Torah. We start with Abraham, then go to Lot, then Sodom and Gomorrah, then Abimelech and finally it all culminates with the Akedah.

The Torah views all these events as being somehow related. The Akedah story is led into with the phrase “And it happened after all these things”. If this parashat was simply a chronology of events, then it would be clear that the Akedah happened after all these things The fact that the text makes that explicit, suggests that there is not only a temporal relation, but a deeper one.

Each of these events contain a moral dilemma which Abraham has to address (in the case of Lot, Abraham is only indirectly involved). It is his response to each one that leads to his ultimate test – the Akedah.

In the second of last dilemmas, Abraham tells Abimelech that Sarah is his sister. Consequently, Abimelech takes Sarah. G-d tells Abimelech that he is a dead man for taking Abrahams wife. Abimelech confronts Abraham and asks why he did not tell him Sarah was his wife. Abraham’s response was “I saw there was no fear on G-d in this land, and I knew you would kill me for my wife.” Apparently, Abimelech’s kingdom would not commit adultery, but would not think twice about kill the husband so that the wife becomes fair game (compare that to our society where we would not kill someone, but adultery is OK).

It was this response that made the Akedah necessary. Basically Abraham was saying that morality was whatever G-d says. So G-d’s response was “OK, if morality is whatever I say, then go kill your son.” Now Abraham is in a bind (no pun intended), he just rebuked Abimelech for not following G-d’s will, so how can Abraham not do what G-d asks of him – even if it means killing his own son.

Of course we all know how it ends up (if you don’t read your Torah). I’ll tell you a story about the consequence of the Akedah next time.

G-d vs Man

This week’s Torah portions (Vayeria) starts with an interesting few phrases. Basically it says that G-d appeared to Abraham as he sat outside his tent; then Abraham saw three travelers and went out to greet them.

Two questions should arise from this.

First, G-d appearing to someone (even Abraham) is a big deal. Why does the Torah not record the content of this encounter? Rashi and Rambam give two different accounts.

Rashi says to look back to then end of last weeks portion. Abraham had just circumcised himself. G-d was visiting the sick. That’s why the content of the meeting was not recorded, because when you visit the sick, what you talk about doesn’t matter, it’s your being there that makes the difference.

Rambam takes a different approach. He says to look to the next verse. The three travelers Abraham saw were a vision. This vision was the context of the revelation.

The seconds question is as follows. The text basically describes the scene as follows. Abraham is chatting with G-d, then Abraham sees some visitors. Abraham tells G-d to hang out in his tent for a while so he can go greet his guests. Talking to G-d is a significant event, how can you tell G-d to wait while you greet guests?

If you take Rambam’s explanation (above), there is no problem. The guests were just a vision. But if you take Rashi’s then there could be an issue here. This issue is one of the great ones facing the Jewish world today. What comes first, G-d or Man?

Abraham did not view this as a dilemma. He viewed dealing properly with your fellow man as a way of showing honour to G-d. That is the accepted Jewish view, but too many people seem to loose sight of that and honour G-d instead of man, rather than honoring G-d through man.

Lets all try to keep that in mind when conducting our interpersonal relationships.

Parashat Lech Lecha – Part 2

"Sarai said to Abram, G-d has kept me from having children." (16:2)

Sarai and Abram are the first recorded case of infertility in human history. This hits especially close to home given the two miscarriages my wide and I had in the span of 6 months while trying to start a family.

Up to this point in the Torah, no less than 25% of the narrative deals with who gave birth to whom. Clearly, children were central to ones identity. This is still the case today, but (perhaps unfortunately) to a lesser extent. It is clear from the narrative that Sarai and Abram loved each other very much. In a truly unselfish act, Sarai offers her concubine to Abram as a second wife, knowing full well the bond that could develop between Abram and Hagar, at her expense. Sarai wanted so much for her husband to have children that she was willing to take that risk.

Abram was torn between the desire to have children, and the love for his wife. Though clearly yearning for a child, Abram, as the first Jew, would not consider taking another wife. The Torah does not tell us that Abram married Hagar; instead it says that Sarai took Hagar and gave her to Abram. While Abram surely treated Hagar with honour and respect, the Torah records no conversations between the two.

This seems to be a case of infertility treatment. The couple wanted to have children naturally, but when the wife saw she couldn’t, she did everything in her power to give her husband a child. In those days, the only infertility treatment available was taking a surrogate, today there are many more options. This passage is where Judaism derives its ruling on the permissibility of fertility treatments.

Rabbi Jay Kellman writes “And Abram came to her, and she conceived” (16:4). The birth of Yishmael no doubt evoked mixed emotions. Surely Abram and Sarai where happy that Abram was no longer childless, but no doubt Abram, perhaps even more so that Sarai, felt sadness that his child could not be her child.”

It was the selflessness of Sarai’s act that is why she merited a son of her own. And it is this amazing marriage that should be a model to us all.

Parasha Lech Lecha – Part 1

As with many of the early parahas in the Torah, Lech Lecha is so full of meaning that I could spend an entire year learning about it.

There are two thoughts that stand out for me, so I’ll talk about hose briefly.

First, this parasha contains one of my favourate lines. It’s one that really opened my eyes to the prophetic truth of the Torah. When talking about the book of Genesis, Nachmanides (and may others) use the phrase “The actions of the fathers are assigned to the children.” We could understand this on two levels. On a microcosmic level, we see that what happens to the characters in these early stories will be repeated by their children. But on the macrocosmic level, these stories set up the guidelines for the basic interactions between Jews and non Jews for all of history.

G-d starts the parsha by telling Abraham to "Go from your land, from your birthplace, and from your father's house to the land that I will show you. (Genesis 12:1) I could talk about that line for pages, but instead I want to talk about what G-d says a few lines later. I will bless those who bless you, and curse those who curse you, and through you, will be blessed all the families of the earth." (Genesis 12:3) G-d tells Abraham that he and his descendents (the Jews) will be under G-d’s protection. Nations that are good to the Jews will prosper, those who treat them poorly fill falter, and the whole world is going to be changed by the Jews.

Poland was a nothing country. They passed a set of laws that were amazingly good to the Jews. The Jews flocked there and Poland became a major power. Poland then turned on the Jews and look at them now. Same thing with Spain, Germany, Turkey and countless others; you can literally chart the rise and fall of most of histories empires based on how they treated the Jews.

Rabbi Ken Spiro explains: “Part of it, by the way, is not so supernatural, because if you have a group of people living within your country -- an educated, driven, dedicated, loyal, creative, well-connected people -- and you're nice to them and you allow them to participate and contribute in a meaningful way, your country is going to benefit. If you crush those people and expel them, you're going to suffer, because of the economic fallout. But, of course, there's much more going on than just that.”

Next, I want to talk about the personal connection with this parasha.

Jewish Education – Story Number 2

I recently saw an interview with the Principal of one of the largest Jewish day schools in America. He was asked what the greatest challenge was that the Jewish school system faces today. This was his reply:

“Parents spend thousands of dollars a year in tuition to send their children to our school where, along with calculus and chemistry, we are expected to teach some semblance of ethics. Then, on Sunday, the parents take their child to an amusement park and lie about his age in order to save five dollars on the admission fee. To save five bucks they destroy a $15,000 education.”

This answer really had an effect on me. G-d willing, I’ll have the opportunity to raise (many) Jewish children. I intend to raise them in a manner consistent with the teachings of Torah. If I’m going to do that, I need to live in a manner consistent with Torah.

We’re always taught that lying is wrong, yet we see our parents do it all the time; lying about children’s age to save money; lying at customs about the value of good you bring into the country to save some duty feel… Telling the truth is easy when it doesn’t hurt you, but when there is a cost associated with it (especially a monetary one) it is not as easy. I’m trying especially hard to be truthful in those situations. Hopefully by the time I have children to raise (in the, G-d willing, not to distant future) the way I lead my day to day life will be consistent with the way I’d like to teach my children to live theirs.

If we’d all make that same commitment, the next generation will be a great one to be part of.

Jewish Education – Story Number 1

My mother is a teacher at a Jewish day school. The following story was told to her by the new Director of Education at her school.

This new Director, lets call him David, used to be a student at the same school he is now Director of. One day in science class, his teacher calls on another student to do a problem. The student can not do it and the teacher keeps on him and thoroughly embarrasses him for not being able to solve the problem. David is appalled by this speaks out to the teacher, telling him that it’s not proper to publicly embarrass a student like that. Of course, the teacher did not like this and sends David to the principal’s office.

I need to give some context about David here before I go on. His father is from a Hasidic family and was a survivour. David’s father felt that part of the reason for the passivity of many Jews (especially the Hasidic) was that they had always been taught to respect and obey authority figures, so they could not speak out against the Nazi’s. Because of this, his father made an “about face and became Modern Orthodox”. He wanted to make sure his children were able to stand up for what they believed in. David was sent to a more “public” Jewish day school, rather than the more religious one, because his father felt that school would teach his son these principles.

Back to our story. David was scolded by the principle. When he went home and his father found out what happened, his father scolded him. David was lectured on the importance of respecting your teachers and that his actions were inappropriate.

When David was getting ready for bed that night, his father came into his room and said “one more thing… I’m very proud of you for standing up for what you believe.”

My mother has not been happy with the way her school has been run lately. But after meeting the new Director and having him tell this story (with tears running down his face) she decided, you know what, with a man like this running things, maybe this won’t be such a bad place to work until retirement.

Cause vs. Reason

The first session I attended at the “Renew Your Spirit” conference was about “The Jewish Pleasure Principle”. There were several very interesting points made. The most interesting being the distinction between cause and reason.

The following example was used. A team of researchers figured out how to send an electrical impulse to a mouse’s brain to provoke the sensation of being “full” (i.e. having eaten a full meal). They rigged up a leaver in the cage that when the mouse pushed it, rather than a food pellet being dispensed, the impulse was administered, so the mouse thinks it has eaten and is full. This worked very well; the mouse was never hungry and never needed to eat. Of course the mouse died from starvation in a matter of days. The mouse had cause to be full, but no reason.

Now, how does this apply to Judaism? The issue is having cause for feeling pleasure vs. having reason for feeling pleasure. The theme of weddings was used often in the talk. The speaker compared secular weddings, where it is the host’s job to make sure the guests have a good time, to Jewish weddings where it is the guest’s job to make sure the couple has a good time. (As an aside, the speaker branched off to talk about the difference between mixed and separate dancing at weddings. With separate dancing, each couple is there to have a good time with the spouse, and tend to ignore the bride and groom. With separate dancing, everyone takes it upon themselves to dance around the bride/groom to make sure they have a good time.)

The story was told of a Jewish wedding where all the guests had much to drink and were all having a great time. The drink gave them all ample cause to feel pleasure. However, the Rabbi was not pleased; he took a crystal bowl and smashed it to sober everyone up. The Rabbi admonished the guests since the guests had cause to be happy (the wine) but no reason (they were not making the bride/groom happy).

I thought this principle of cause/reason could be applied to many aspects of Jewish life (and life in general). Before we do anything, positive or negative, we need to make sure we have reason and not just cause for doing it.

Renew Your Spirit

This past Sunday my wife and I attended a conference called “Renew Your Spirit” hosted by “Torah in Motion”. The conference had 6 sessions, at each session you could choose between two or three different speakers.

I attended the following sessions:

• Learning to Enjoy our Lives: The Jewish Pleasure Principle - Rabbi Dr. Reuven Bulka


• How We Should Study the Bible and Why it Matters - Rabbi Menachem Leibtag


• Breaking Down the Wall of Stigma and Silence: Mental Health in the Orthodox Community - Leah Malamet & Rabbi Nati Helfgot


• Making Our Relationships Work: Judaism on Love and Marriage - Dr. Rivkah Blau


• Astrology, Science and the Supernatural in Jewish Thought and Law - Dr. David Schatz


• Am I My Brother's Keeper?: Relationships between Orthodox and Non-Orthodox Jews and Movements - Rabbi Nati Helfgot

They were all excellent sessions. Over the next few days/weeks, I’ll try to talk about some of the more interesting ideas.

We also went house hunting this weekend – which involved more Jewish thought than I would have expected. The big issue is living in a Jewish area vs. being within walking distance of our current Shul.

You might not expect there to be an issue here, since the Shul area should be Jewish. However, since the Conservative movement permits driving to Shul on Shabbos, the area around our Shul has become less and less Jewish over the past years. We both really like the Shul and would like to remain members, but we also want to raise out children (when, G-d willing, we have them)in a Jewish area. I’ll kepp you posted on this issue also.

Parasha Noach

"G-d said: I will obliterate humanity that I have created from the face of the earth; man, livestock, land animals and birds of the sky. I regret that I created them. But Noach found favour in G-d's eyes. Noach was a righteous man, faultless in his generation. Noah walked with G-d." (Genesis 6: 7-9).

When you think about this line, you realize how amazing it is. In the midst of a world so corrupt that G-d planned to kill everything init, Noach managed to not only stay righteous, but be righteous enough to cause G-d to rethink his plan to wipe out humanity.

In fact, no where else in the Torah, do we find G-d describing a man in such glowing terms. Why is it then that we only talk about Noach once a year, but we talk about our founding fathers and Moshe constantly? Some of our Talmudic Sages teach that Noach was only righteous compared to his generation, but compared to Abraham Avinu he was nothing. We get a hint of that from the phrase “Noach walked with G-d”. Noach needed G-d’s help to be so righteous, where as Abraham Avinu was righteous on his own.

Still, to be righteous in a world as corrupt as his is a great thing. So why did he not merit to be the first Jew? We get a hint from the end of Parash B’Reshit. The Torah bring down a list of the generations of Adam. Everyone has there first child between age 65 and 187, and fathers many more children. Noach had (only) three children, and not until age 500. Noach did not want to bring children into such a corrupt world. Even though he was a great person, he did not believe he could instill that in his children.

Rabbi Jay Kelman writes: “While understandable, this is not and can not be a Jewish attitude. It is not up to us to be derelict in our own duties due to possible fears about the future. Furthermore our job is to change that corrupt and morally depraved world by having children who will serve as a living example of righteousness and purity. While we must protect and prepare ourselves from the corrupting influences of the world at large, we must never give up hope of changing the world for the better. In times of despair we need to have additional, not less children. It is our children who are the hope for the future. And Judaism, regardless of the present, teaches that the future can and must be a better one. Without this mindset we could not have survived all these years under extremely trying circumstances.”

The honour of being the first Jew had to wait for someone who despite the corruption and around him, prayed desperately for a child. Abraham never gave up on the world around him. He was committed to bringing the world to a realization of one G-d. Being descendants from Abraham, we must carry his positive attitude and constant striving to improve the moral climate.

Discovery Seminar

Last night I went to “Discovery”, which was a seminar hosted by Aish Toronto.

Discovery started as a week long program in Israel, then was adapted to a weekend long program in America, then into a day long program, and now into a 3 hour seminar. They said they did the condensing by speaking very quickly.

The seminar basically attempts to present us with enough information to answer for ourselves the following question “Is the Torah written by man (or men) or G-d?”

The seminar started by talking about how the Mossad verifies messages from its operatives. They look for 5 things:

1. Identifying Information


2. Outside Verification


3. Codes


4. Transmission


5. Control

The Mossad will (according to the host) go ahead with a mission if three of these are present, all five being present would mean they are more sure of the authenticity of this message than “you’re sure that your mother is your mother”.

The seminar then goes on to address each of these five criteria and show how it relates to the Torah.

Some sections were more well done than others, but over all I don’t see how a “non believer” cold leave the event without at least questioning their beliefs. Of course looking at the audience, I don’t think there were too many “non-believers” there.

My favourite part were the many claims the Torah makes that no human at the time could have possibly known. For example, that there is only one animal that has split hooves but does not chew its cud (the pig). Or that fish with scales also have fins.

All in all, $10 well spent.

I’ll talk about some of the specifics as I learn more about them in coming weeks.

Parasha B'Reshit - Part 2

B'Reshit is one of my favourite parahas of the Torah. All of creation is described in 31 verses; it takes science hundreds of thousands of books to describe it. The text is so rich and full of deep levels of meaning that you can spend a lifetime studying it and never fully comprehend all its intricacies. King David wrote "A word well spoken is like a dish of silver filled with apples of gold." King David could have been talking about parasha B'Reshit when he wrote that.

What did King David mean? Take a silver dish and fill it with gold apples. From a distance all you see is the silver dish - as beautiful and valuable as it is. It's not until you get in close for a full inspection do you discover the even more valuable apples of gold inside. So is the case with "a word well spoken". A superficial reading of the text reveals much value, but closer inspection is where you find the "apples of gold".

But enough about creation for now... I'm sure I'll write more about that some other day (since I'm learning about it all the time). The other major part of B'Reshit is the story of Adam and Eve, and their expulsion from Gan Edan (the Garden of Eden). There is, of course, just as much insight tat can be taken from that text, I'll relate my favourite bit here.

Their problems all started when then ate from the "Tree of Knowledge". Of course, that's not quite right. They had knowledge all along, the tree was called the "Tree of Knowledge of Good and Bad". But surely they had this knowledge before they ate the fruit? After all, they knew that they were not suppose to eat from the tree. The classic philosophical question to ask is "What was the difference between Adam and Eve before they ate from the tree and after?" Here's the best answer I've heard.

Before eating from the tree everything was judged as "True or False", not "Good or Bad". "True and False" are objective. One plus one equals two is true. One plus one equals three is false. No one can argue with these. "Good and "Bad" are subjective. Anything which one person says is good, another person can argue that it's really bad.

That's why good and bad are not used to describe scientific truths. It does not matter if one plus one equals two is good or bad, it's just true. Only in the world of ethical issues is good and bad relevant.

Before eating from the tree, Adam and Eve were free from subjectivity. They could just as easily address ethical issues as they could scientific ones. Kindness is not good, it's true. Killing is not bad, it's false. That's why G-d didn't want his children to eat from the tree. Doing so would alter their perception from moral certitude to relativism. Eating from the tree introduced moral relativism into the world.

Now many people would say that's not a bad thing. After all how can we pass judgement until we walked a mile in that persons shoes. That's the very reason why 2/3 of university philosophy students refused to classify the 9/11 terrorists as being bad. Eating from the tree is why people today consider being anti-gay to be bad but being anti-America to be good. Before eating from the tree, both of these would have been false.

Much of the mess that the world is in today stems directly from this sin. How do we recover from this sin? As Rabbi Benjamin Belch wrote "We must be willing to differentiate between the acceptable and the abhorrent. In an age that has for far too long glorified relativism, we've got to learn to get rid of our excessive neutrality and nonjudgmental behavior. Some things are simply evil -- and no amount of rationalization can alter that truth."

...

Tonight I go to the Discovery Seminar. I'll give you the run down next time.

Parasha B'reshit - Part 1

My formal training is as a scientist. The scientific portion of my mind has always had a problem with the Torah's account of creation. Creation vs Evolution. 6 Days vs. 16 Billion years...

I always wanted to believe in the Torah's account, but things just didn't sit well. I never bought the traditional ways of explaining away the problem. "If G-d can create the universe, he can make it look as old as he wants." To me, that just sounds like a cop-out. "The account of creation is poetic, a day is really an epoch." That one just goes against basic torah learning principles - the Torah is carefully worded, if the term "day" is used, it means day.

My dilemma was resolved a few years ago when I read a great book, "The Science of G-d" by Dr. Schroeder. He is both a torah scholar and a PhD in science. He uses relativity theory to resolve the issue.

First, we need to see that time in the first 6 days is different than time after that. Then we look at what time means in the first 6 days.

There are two ways of keeping time in the Torah. The first 6 days are a literal time keeping. "This happens, day one. This happens, a second day". After Adam, time is kept generational. "Person 1 lived for x years and fathered person 2, then lived y more years..." Different ways of keeping time implies time is somehow different.

So what does time mean in the first 6 days? Well, the term "day" is used, so that means a day as we know it. How do we define a day? A revolution of the earth on it's axis, 1/365 of the time around the sun... Problem is the sun wasn't around until day 3, so how can we define a day this way. We could define a day as 24 hours (hour being defined scientifically). But man isn't around yet, so it can't be mans hours. The only thing existing at this point is G-d, so it must be G-d time - i.e. 24 of our hours, experienced by G-d. Before you're "cop-out" alarm goes off, lets apply some scientific rigger to see what G-d time could mean.

G-d created the universe, so G-d must exist outside of it. The universe is expanding. This seems like a prime spot for some relativity theory. If we gave one of our watches to G-d, how would 24 hours from a position outside of the universe look to someone on earth?

The book works out the math (I'll spare you) and relativity theory says that 6 x 24 hours outside of the universe, would look like 16 billion years to someone sitting on earth. 16 billion years is fairly close to sciences best guess of the age of the universe.

But the book goes one step further. The author figures out what time period would be represented by each of the 6 days. The lists what the Torah claims happened on that day (in order), and compared it to what science claims happened in each of those periods. When the sun was formed, when plant life appeared, when fish appear... The two time-lines match exactly.

For me that was a very convincing argument.

That solves the age of the universe "problem". Now lets tackle the evolution "problem".

The Church always argued against evolution, since the bible says that G-d had a separate creation for every species. The only problem is that if you actually read the account of creation in the Torah (which was a no-no for the Church), it claims nothing of the sort.

The word for create is Barah, which is used exactly 3 times in the creation story:
1) the heavens and the earth
2) soul of animal
3) soul of man
Everything else, was "brought forth" or "sprung forth". So there is no problem there.

In fact if you look at the order of creation in the Torah, it goes from simple to complex. Plant life to fish, to mammal, to man. In fact the Torah agrees completely with the theory of evolution, with one exception. Evolutions believes all this was random, the Torah says it is guided. I'll leave it up to you to decide which one is more believable.

My next post will be about what I've learned about Adam and Eve.

That's enough for now, some other time I'll write more about Science vs. Religion - my favourate subject.

Shabbat Shalom.

Davening Shacharit

For close to 6 months now, I've been leading Psukei D'Zimrah at my Shul's morning minyon. Last June, on my Grandmothers first Yahrzeit, I led the full Shacharit for the first time.

Since then I have not led the weekday Shacharit (although I have done Shabbat Shacharit a few times at our Haskama Minyon). This morning I got a surprise... I was asked to "start us off", which means do Psukei D'Zimrah, and have someone else take over for Shacharit. When we got to the normal take over spot, no one was coming up, and the Cantor asked if I wanted to keep on going. How can I turn that down?

So I kept going and did a fairly good job (much better than the first time). Still stumbled at a few places, but overall got through it with little problem.

I don't usually like to do Shacharit, since there are several places where there is a Kaddish that only the leader says. Since I'm not actually saying Kaddish (and G-d willing I won't have to for many years), I don't like to take that opportunity away for someone who is. I don't mind doing Psukei D'Zimrah, since there is no reader only Kaddish.

However, today I was glad to be asked. My brother is going for an MRI today to see how the mass on his brain is doing (an infection that seems to be responding to antibiotics - the mass was one of the factors that lead to my becoming more religious). My prayer this morning was dedicated to him in hopes of a positive result. One day I'll fill readers of this blog (if there are any) in on the details of "The Monster on Ian's Brain".

Two great learning opportunities in Toronto

My learning schedule is still rolling along after a few weeks. I figure I need to keep it up for 8 weeks before it becomes routine.

On Sunday, I ran the Toronto 1/2 Marathon. This was the second 1/2 marathon I've done (I did this one 5 minutes faster than last time). There were close to 3500 people running, but I bet I was the only one doing Torah Learning while running.

I used my MP3 player (that I got from Aish Audio) to listen to some MP3 torah learning files. I learned about "How to Respond to a Missionizer", and about Simchat Torah. Made the run go by quite quickly. I plan to continue to use the MP3 player on my runs, great time to fit in some extra learning.

There are 2 great Jewish learning opportunities in Toronto in the next few weeks that I plan to take part in.

First is the Discovery Seminar by Aish Ha'Torah. This is a traveling seminar that close to 10,000 people see every year. I've heard good things about it for quite some time now, and was excited to hear it's being held in Toronto on Oct 28th. See the above link for details.

The second is an all day conference by Torah In Motion, which is an organization very similar to Aish Ha'Torah. They are holding a conference on November 2nd called "Renewing Our Spirit". Looks like it will be a very interesting day.

I'll report back on each of these after the events.