Parasha of the Week

  The first of the Great Ten Commandments reads: I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other gods besides Me. What is remarkable about this event is that it was a revelation to a people.  Until now God had only revealed His essence and Will to a chosen few.  Noah, Abraham, Hagar, Sarah, Jacob, Isaac and more were the pre-Sinai recipients of the Word of God. After the Sinai experience revelation was again restricted to single people.  Moses, Manoah, Hannah and many prophets also heard God.  Never again was a people given the Message, only individuals. One of the cited reasons for the mass revelation was that no one could say that they alone were privy to God.  No person could claim they they were singled out as special by the Holy One.  Every participant at Sinai was equal.  With this simple understanding of the greatest event in history unfolds the highest ideal for humanity. Tazria is a skin ailment.  Some Sages declared that the skin di...

  Ramban the great interpreter of Torah and mystic of the thirteenth century noted, “What happens to the Fathers is a portent for the Offspring.”  Expressing a deep thought Ramban means that sometimes there is a convergence that takes place between generations that may never actually meet.  For example, a grandfather may pass on a story which becomes a key to unravel the mission of a granddaughter many years later.  Perhaps some act has a great or gift only reveals its true worth many years afterward.     There are times, Ramban implies, when one generation places a seed in the ground that lies dormant until germinated by a later generations.    An example of this is intergenerational transfer that occurs in Genesis  And Abram passed through the land, until the site of Shechem, until the plain of Moreh….1      Rashi  comments: “ And Abram passed through the land,”  means Abram entered it;   “ until the site ...

  If you do not acknowledge someone, are they there? Can you remember the feeling of being ignored? Can you recollect the sensation of almost being violated when they looked right through you? Beyond you? When you tentatively raised your opinion in the conversation no one noticed. How did that feel? Walking past a homeless person with an outstretched arm on the street poses the same conundrum. Do they exist? Do they matter? Do they feel violated? Or are they so used to being invisible that they no longer feel the pang of not being there? Isn’t this the underlying basis of the philosophical question, "if a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, did it really fall?’ Perhaps the question ought to be re-phrased as, "if a tree falls in the forest and no hears it, does the life of the tree matter?" Is the fact that it has fallen of any consequence? Of course it matters to the creatures of the forest. Some animals will lose their home while others will find one in the sh...

In commenting on the enigmatic passage of Abraham being called to sacrifice his son Isaac, Ramban, Nachmanides, makes a powerful observation. He says that while the episode is a test it is not the kind of test we are accustomed to seeing.   God knew the outcome of the test. God knows it all. So what then was the point of directing His servant, Abraham, to offer up his son? Ramban reveals to us that what we think is unrealized potential. In other words, everyone would say they would do the right thing, if called upon. But, until the time comes when we are actually called to act, it is only a thought, an idea. When we ultimately find ourselves in that situation and respond to the calling do we release the quality of goodness from a mere thought into the physical realm. At the moment when Abraham responded to the demand of God he released his inner well of goodness. "He brought forth the potential into actuality." Thinking good thoughts are only the first step in meeting God. Th...

  “Justice, justice shall you pursue”  (Deut. 16:20)               The Hebrew word  Tzedek  (meaning “justice”) is repeated twice in the above verse.  Judaism teaches nothing in the Torah is superfluous.  Every dot, dash, and word repetition has a purpose and reason.  Why, then, is the word “justice” repeated?               The contemporary Torah scholar Pinhas Peli writes, “the word “justice” is repeated twice to teach us that when pursuing justice we cannot remain one-sided. . . .It is, indeed much more difficult to find a way between two claims, both of whom have justice on their side, than to decide  a priori  which of the two sides is absolutely just and must be aided.”               Talmudic law understood this to mean that when two litigants come before a...

  Today’s Torah begins: “See, this day I set before you blessing and curse: blessing, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I enjoin upon you this day; and curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the Lord your God.”   The ability of each Jew to choose good or evil, involvement or indifference, piety or skepticism, is the cornerstone of the Torah and of rabbinic Judaism. Judaism presupposes that we have the power to say “no” to God.   Our choice implicates God.   Torah records the instruction to “keep (shamor tishm‘run) all this commandment that I command you.”   The rabbis note the Hebrew verb shamor, to keep or guard, is the same verb used to designate someone who safeguards the property of another.  They know that the Torah uses language with great precision, and if God gives this command using shamor it must be to signify that the Torah, which is God’s property, has been handed over to us for safe keeping.  We are the guardian...

Tayva is translated as box, something rudderless.   Rabbi Chaim Navon critiques Noah. He notes that the Hebrew word   tayvah   appears twice in the Torah. The first in relation to Noah who was told to build a   tayvah , the word that is translated as ark.   Tayvah   is also used to describe the “basket” in which baby Moses was placed so that he might float down the river. Thus both Noah and Moses were shielded from harm  by being placed in a   tayvah. Navon also underscores that God’s decision to destroy the world reflected His deep   regret   that he made man on earth. Hence the Divine edict, “ and I will blot out from the earth the men who I created .” (Gen 6: 6.7) The great sin of the Golden Calf incensed God. In his rage he informed Moses that He would destroy the entire community He had liberated from Egypt and make of him (Moses) a great nation heretofore  known as the Children of Israel, would henceforth bear the name Childr...

Order is important.  When reading the Torah, chronology informs us of how people and a people hood develop.  We watch as the life of Moses, for example, is first described in the opening chapters of Exodus.  We then follow him as he grows, matures and changes through adulthood.  Without this order we would have a faulty, sporadic view of how this redeemer/lawgiver came to be.   That is why this Torah parsha is so troubling.  It is out of order.  The Sages, of blessed memory, universally agreed that the narrative of the census belongs elsewhere in the Torah.  They tell us that all the commandments enumerated here were given before the episode of the Golden calf…yet they are placed after the event.   The Sages were unmoved by the conundrum.  They figuratively shrugged their collective shoulders and said, “There is no chronology in the Torah.”   For those who sit and learn in the light of th...

  The world only stands because of three key elements: Law, Truth and Peace.     Pirkay Avot 1:18   Law is the consistent and just application of rules to insure life in society.  Mishpatim contains the elements necessary for governance.  It is not enough to “feel” that we are doing the right thing because we might be wrong.  After all, is it not clear that our first order of business is to protect ourselves?  With self-interest at the heart of our actions we cannot be trusted to care for others with the same standard that we care for ourselves.  Torah recognizes that the broad strokes of Law are central to existence.   Pray for the government, warns Rabbi Hanina.  If it were not for the fear of such a hierarchy and order man would consume one another.  Pirkay Avot 3:2   If we rely upon people to do the right thing without consequences or binding law evil will ascend with dizzying swiftne...

  The parasha of Yitro ranks as the most powerful section of all the Torah readings.  Containing the essential narrative of Judaism that tells the tale of the Revelation to the masses assembled at Sinai, Yitro spills out a message that would forever change the course of the universe.      Yet, an anomaly lurches out at the reader: why do we begin with such a forgettable man, Yitro, father-in-law of Moshe, and end with a cosmic event?  Two more nagging questions gnaw at the mind.  Why is this pivotal section of the Torah called by the name of a pagan?   What lies at the crux of the conversion of Yitro to Judaism? *And Yitro heard... and Yitro came... Exodus 18:1 * is how the parasha begins.  What did Yitro hear that compelled him to join with the Israelites? What was the catalyst that caused Yitro to abandon his past?  What did he hear?      In the Talmud we find an answer; actually a series of answers.  The great...

  “I will increase your numbers beyond your imagination.” Genesis 17:1 Later in Genesis 35:11 God again appears to a patriarch, Jacob, and renews the promise that his offspring will issue nations and kings that will span thousands of years.  This promise is also delivered by El Shaddai.  Perhaps then the connection of the primal names of God is of generation.  In fact, Shaddai itself connotes generates as it is related to the Hebrew word breast. Perhaps then this is why God no longer reveals His essence as El Shaddai.  Not only have the promises been made but they have been kept as well.  In Moses’ time the nation of  Israel  has grown and prospered.  It is remained faithful to its side of the covenant and now awaits redemption from enslavement.  Its needs are not for numbers but for freedom. The great mystic Ramban reads into our text: The Holy One blessed be He says: Until now I had to remain conceal...

  This week's   portion tells a story often repeated throughout history: The Jews become prominent and numerous. There arises a new king in Egypt "who did not know Joseph" (perhaps he chose not to know Joseph or recognize any debt of gratitude). He proclaims slavery for the Jewish people "lest they may increase so much, that if there is war, they will join our enemies and fight against us, driving (us) from the land."   Moshe Rabbenu  is born and immediately hidden away because of the decree to kill all male Jewish babies. In mortal danger he is set into a basket on the Nile River and sent out into the current with a prayer from his mother and sister that God would care for the infant.  Moses is pulled from the Nile by Pharaoh's daughter. The man grows up as a prince in the royal household.  One day Moses goes out to see the plight of his fellow Jews. His soul awakens to the cry and pain.  He kills an Egyptian beating a Jew....

  Midrash indicates that during the time that Jacob thought Joseph was dead Jacob was like an empty husk; he was bereft of both his son     and his connection to God.      Woodenly walking through his days, Jacob’s devastation was complete.     His son was gone.     The   Shechinah   left him.     This double-pain is connected.     When Jacob thought that Joseph was dead, he also believed that he had failed in his life’s mission: it had been revealed to him that if his sons died before him, he would descend to Gehinom 1. With Joseph apparently dead, Jacob spent his years awaiting his bitter fate in the "Next Universe."   That is why when the message arrived that Joseph was alive, the Torah declares:   The spirit of Jacob their father lived." 2   The  Shechinah  had returned to Father Jacob. After twenty-two years, father and son reunite.  The Torah ...