All You Have to Do Is Listen
There is an old saying which praises the individual who can tell his neighbor, “Go to hell” and make him feel happy to be on his way. Of course, this talent of subtle diplomacy has always been a rarity as can be seen from Rabbi Akiva’s statement, “I swear that in this generation there is no one who knows how to rebuke.”
More difficult to find however is the person who can accept reproach and correction. Even the Israelites at the time of Moses, who are usually seen as spiritual role models, could not bear the brunt of a direct moral attack on their failings. Thus Moses was forced to disguise his reprimand in veiled, indirect references.
But is it…
Continue reading All You Have to Do Is Listen
Pre-shavout Lecture #2
If G-d Authored Torah why all the changes in Judaism
Jerusalem Matters
Through 2,000 years of exile, Jews from four corners of the world always turned in prayer toward Jerusalem. What memory were they so eager to preserve?
We need to understand the importance of memory. Memory is not history or dead memorabilia. By defining the past, memory creates the present. Dictators have long appreciated this. Which is why Stalin airbrushed Trotsky out of photographs, and revisionists denied the Holocaust ever happened.
In Hebrew, the word for man is “zachar”; for memory it is “zecher.” Man is memory. People who suffer memory loss through illness or accident don’t just misplace their keys. They lose their selves. They become lost and adrift, because without memory, the current moment has no context, and no…
Continue reading Jerusalem Matters
A Mystic’s Vision
Lag B’omer celebrates the life and death of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. Though mostly identified as the ‘father” of Jewish mysticism, he was also a dominating presence in Jewish Law and Midrash. At first glance, this seems rather strange: a mystic dabbling in the minutiae of Halacha. After all, what is mysticism if not lofty abstractions and esoteric meditations, truly a world apart from the mundane and prosaic questions that make up the texture of daily life! And yet, many of the great mystics were giants in Halacha. Here, we will trace one thread of Kabbalistic thought and see how its message is applicable to so many areas of Judaism.
But before we begin this journey, let’s define - in…
Continue reading A Mystic’s Vision
Rabbi Akiva’s Moshiach
They both turned their lives around; became a success; but began as outsiders. Who were they, and why did they end their careers in disagreement?
Rabbi Akiva started his spiritual journey at the age of forty. Until then he could not have told you the difference between an Aleph and Bet. What changed everything? A rock with a hole! Hardly a miracle; not even memorable, until he asked, “What made a hole in this stone?” He was told, “The water which constantly drips every day.” Akiva immediately reflected, “If that which is soft can engrave that which is hard, then the words of Torah which are like steel can certainly penetrate my heart which is but flesh.” He immediately turned…
Continue reading Rabbi Akiva’s Moshiach
The Lag B’omer Mystery
The Omer period should have been a time of joyful anticipation, marking as it does, the Exodus from Egypt until the revelation at Sinai. Instead, it is a time of semi-mourning, except for Lag B’omer, when our sorrow is temporarily halted. What occurred then? The Talmud relates that during this period, Rabbi Akiva’s 24,000 students died from a mysterious plague sent from Heaven because, “They did not show respect to one another.” Nonetheless, on Lag B’omer the plague ended.
This only creates new questions. Why does this event merit thirty-two days of sadness when greater tragedies, such as the destruction of both Temples, are marked by a single day of grief. In sheer numbers, the Inquisition, Crusades, Chemelnitsky pogroms, and…
Continue reading The Lag B’omer Mystery
It’s a Book of Light
Lag B’Omer, the thirty-third day of the Omer count from Pesach to Shavuos, is the day most associated with the teachings of Kabbalah. It is the anniversary of the passing of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, author of the most basic Kabbalistic work, the Zohar. Literally, the Aramaic word Zohar is translated as luminance or radiance, but it is most often referred to as The Book of Splendor.
Rabbi Shimon, who brought us this so-called Bible of Jewish Mysticism, taught his disciples more than just the secrets of the Torah. He also instructed them on how to celebrate life, and sometimes even death, according to these inner disciplines. Concerning the date of his passing, he directed his students that at that…
Continue reading It’s a Book of Light
One Day at a Time
How did a group of oppressed and degraded slaves transform themselves and achieve such a level of sublime spirituality at Sinai? They addressed one defect at a time.
The Duality of Time
The human genome has taught us that the microcosm is a map of the macrocosm. From a single cell, one can reconstruct an entire organism. Does this apply to religion? Can one tiny Jewish law, a single cell as it were, reveal the totality of Judaism?
The phrase, “ “Count seven full weeks…Count fifty days. “” commands us to count each night between Pesach and Shavuos. What is the law for someone who forgot one day? May he continue to count the rest, or has he forfeited the mitzvah? The Halachos Gedolos (8th century) ruled that the person should stop counting. Hai Gaon (10th century) disagreed. What are their reasons?
According to the Halachos Gedolos, the key phrase is, “...
Continue reading The Duality of Time
Seder a Taste of Freedom Part2
HaKol B’Seder…Everything is okay (in the Seder).
Pesach Seder: An Oxymoron.
Pesach means “To Passover,” a quantum leap that ignores the previously set order.
Seder means “an Order,” a progression that follows rules.
Pesach Seder means to create a structured order that helps us Passover all the rules of order.
The second verse of the Torah: “The earth was null and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep.” (Bereishis 1:2)
This chaotic stage was a primordial “cholent” called Tohu. Why introduce chaos?
The answer is in the next verse, “G-d said, ‘Let there be Light!’” (Bereishis 1:3)
This means: The natural state of this Perfectly Imperfect world is chaos, not order. Our battle is to bring order…
Continue reading Seder a Taste of Freedom Part2
The Final Redemption
Is it over? Did we survive? With all the aunts, uncles, cousins, friends and extended family that came over for the Seder, it’s no wonder you are asking the question.
I’m sorry then to be the one to disappoint you. It’s not over and we didn’t escape bondage to merely survive. Pesach is not a one, or even two night affair. It lasts eight days. And what was begun on the first two days of Passover must be concluded on the last two days. If not…well you know what happens when you leave a job half done.
According to our Sages, the first days of Pesach commemorate the first redemption. The last days celebrate the final redemption. The historical background…
Continue reading The Final Redemption
The Song of Silence
A Torah Scroll is our dearest possession. It is our Tree of Life through which we live eternally. Therefore every detail of how it must be written, its parchment, even its thread, is governed by Halacha (Jewish law). That is how the integrity of our Torah has been carefully maintained for thirty three centuries, with every scribe copying from a previously existing scroll.
In our holiday reading we encounter a format in the text which is very unusual. It is found in the Song at the Sea. First, the lines are written with plenty of open space between each phrase. Second, each successive line is staggered, so that underneath the open spaces are words, and vice versa. True this is…
Continue reading The Song of Silence
The Song of Silence
A Torah Scroll is our dearest possession. It is our Tree of Life through which we live eternally. Therefore every detail of how it must be written, its parchment, even its thread, is governed by Halacha (Jewish law). That is how the integrity of our Torah has been carefully maintained for thirty three centuries, with every scribe copying from a previously existing scroll.
In our holiday reading we encounter a format in the text which is very unusual. It is found in the Song at the Sea. First, the lines are written with plenty of open space between each phrase. Second, each successive line is staggered, so that underneath the open spaces are words, and vice versa. True this is…
Continue reading The Song of Silence
I Want to See Miracles
After the earth shattering miracles of the Exodus, history forgot the Sea Splitting wonders that occurred a mere seven days later. Our Rabbis did not wish that event to sink into oblivion like Pharaoh’s chariots, so they created a ritual to remember our Water Adventure. In addition to the Biblical reading which details the Egyptian plunge, they established a custom that we stay up that night as our ancestors did on their Sea crossing.
There is another aspect to these last two days of Pesach. Rather than raising the ghost of “Redemptions Past” they are a celebration of future freedoms still to come. More specifically, the ultimate and eternal emancipation of the Messianic revelation.
We have a tradition that the…
Continue reading I Want to See Miracles
Nature: a Tool or a Trick?
Without a doubt any listing of the Ten Greatest Miracles would include the Splitting of the Sea. It possesses all the theatrical elements of a real ‘keeper’. Take the setting: a stark, barren desert, and an angry sea. On one side, the world’s most advanced civilization; on the other side, a band of slaves recently freed. Even more impressive than the backdrop and the characters was the action: The bad guys thundering across the desert, the good guys caught between the proverbial rock and hard place. And at the last moment, a miracle: a fiery column, a powerful east wind, and a divided sea. That night, the balance of world power shifted. Mighty Egypt was brought to its knees in…
Continue reading Nature: a Tool or a Trick?
Matzah: Not Always Crunchy
Chametz is unique. While other forbidden foods are allowed to be in our possession, in regards to chametz, our attitude is take-no-prisoners and exterminate any crumb no matter how minute. Also, most treif (non-kosher) items can be ‘nullified’ if inadvertently diluted with permissible substances. But chametz remains prohibited even if mixed with something a million times its volume.
Spiritually, chametz whose primary feature is that it rises and inflates symbolizes pride. Other negative traits might be tolerable, or even useful, in small, diluted doses. For example, depression is viewed as “a grave sin,” but a small dash of melancholy, counterbalanced by a heaping helping of joy, may help one reflect and rectify one’s shortcomings. The same applies to anger, stubbornness,...
Continue reading Matzah: Not Always Crunchy
Preparing, Is a Mitzvah
Don’t look now but it’s coming fast and furious. Pesach, that is. In fact (if my calendar is telling the truth) in exactly twenty one days Jews the world over will be reclining at their respective Seders. Years ago, growing up as a child, all of this meant my mother washing, scrubbing, and polishing. It also meant, once the living room was cleaned for the Holiday, it was off limits to us children. Soon afterwards we could not enter the basement, then another room, and another…..
I must admit as bad as it was then, now its worse. These days, I’m one of the folks, sleeves rolled up and - you guessed it - cleaning.
Sometimes it seems that all…
Continue reading Preparing, Is a Mitzvah
Ego Wipes Away With Sweat
Once again it is time for the annual move the furniture, scrub the chairs, line the counters, and unearth the stale cookie underneath the couch. Why the big fuss? Why embark on an all-out assault against chametz? After all, we don’t have to destroy all food before Yom Kippur!The mystics explain that chametz, which rises, represents the ego - something which must be eradicated at all costs. But is a little ego so terrible? Any psychologist will tell you that a healthy ego is a powerful motivator, giving people the courage to pursue their dreams.
On Pesach we celebrate the birth of our nation. At that historic moment, over three thousand years ago, G-d intervened on behalf of an enslaved…
Continue reading Ego Wipes Away With Sweat
Pesach in Jerusalem
Pesach has arrived. There is no mistaking the smells and flavors emitting from the kitchen. But even before the cooking is seriously underway, there are telltale hints. Foremost among them are the cleaning, scrubbing, and shopping mania that seems to have possessed us all. It started me thinking, no wonder we conclude the Hagaddah with, “L’Shana Haba-ah B’yerusholayim - Next Year in Jerusalem.” Surely there in the Holy City of David the pace will be more relaxed and the preparations more spiritual than simply cleaning, scrubbing, shopping, etc.
In order to test out my theory, I did a little research. You can imagine my surprise when I discovered that Pesach preparations in Jerusalem did not seem holier than they are,...
Continue reading Pesach in Jerusalem
Put Out the Light
I believe it was the wisest of men, King Solomon, who first coined the phrase, “For everything there is a season.” / Of course, Pesach is the cleaning, shopping, cooking, more cleaning, inviting family and friends, never-ending lists to do, still more cleaning season. It comes as no surprise therefore, that to some, the official Bedikas Chametz (search for leaven) ritual, the night before the holiday is regarded as ceremonial rather than practical.
The Sages in the Talmud inform us that Chametz is symbolic of the Yetzer Horah, the Evil Inclination. Thus the search by the light of the candle must not only penetrate the dark corners of the cupboard, but the hidden recesses of one’s heart, mind and soul….
Continue reading Put Out the Light
Invest Right
he literal translation of this verse is, “If a person will inadvertently sin by doing any of the things that G-d commanded shall not be done…” Although this straight-forward text is clean and unambiguous, that did not stop one of the great Chasidic masters of a century and a half ago to add another unique interpretation. According to him, the verse also means, “A person may sin when he does one of G-d’s commandments in a way that he should not have done it.”
While most people understand that one must atone for sins committed, this new perspective adds that one must sometimes ask forgiveness for mitzvos (good deeds) as well. This concept is best illustrated with the story of…
Continue reading Invest Right