Guaranteed Investments

Parshas Naso

Posted on May 31, 2011 (5771) By Rabbi Naftali Reich | Series: Legacy | Level: Beginner

Gifts are not worth much if the recipient cannot keep them. In fact, that is the very meaning of the word “gift,” something that is given, something that may used in any way the recipient sees fit. If so, how do we explain the Torah’s choice of words when describing the mitzvah of giving tithes and gifts to the Kohein, the one who performs the priestly duties for the community? Listen closely to the words of the Torah. “And all that a man gives to the Kohein shall be his.” (5:10) Well, if he gives it to the Kohein, then it is obviously his, isn’t it?

Some commentators perceive a novel insight in this verse. The Torah, they explain, is addressing the instinctive defiant reaction of a person who is required to give some of his hard-earned money to the Kohein or to the poor. “Why should I give him my money? He didn’t work for it. I did. Why shouldn’t I be allowed to keep it?” The Torah reassures this person that he is mistaken, that the money given to the Kohein is indeed money well spent, that it is actually the best by far of all his diversified investments.

A person never really has his possessions firmly in his grasp. If he uses them up, he many have derived some enjoyment from them, but they are now forever gone. If he hoards them, he can never be assured that they will stay with him. They may be stolen. He may suffer financial reverses. Nothing is guaranteed.

The only way a person can safeguard his money and make sure he always retains it is by using it in a way that will bring him eternal reward. When he gives some of his to a beggar who cannot feed his family. He has earned himself eternal reward. When he gives to the Kohein who ministers to the spiritual needs of the community, he has earned himself eternal reward. When he supports institutions of Torah, he has earned himself eternal reward. This is what the Torah is saying. “And all that a man gives to the Kohein shall be his.” Only when he uses his money for a higher purpose does it become truly “his.” Only then is his investment guaranteed.

A great sage once visited a very wealthy man.

“They say you are very rich,” said the sage. “Is it true?”

“I’m afraid it is,” said the man. “I am one of the wealthiest men in the country.”

“Indeed?” said the sage. “Can you prove it to me?”

The man smiled. “I could take you on a tour of my properties, but we would have to travel for days on end. I could show you my storehouses of treasures, but you would become weary climbing from one floor to the next. But I can show you my account books. Would you like to see them?”

“Please,” said the sage.

The man took the sage into his back room and opened some of his account books for him.

“I am not convinced,” said the sage. “Show me more.”

The man opened more and more account books for the sage, but he was still unconvinced.

“I have no more account books,” the man finally said in frustration. “What is that little book up on that shelf?” said the sage.

“That is the ledger of my charitable donations,” said the man.

“Show it to me!” said the sage.

He leafed through the little ledger and closed it with a smile on his face. “I see that you are indeed a wealthy man,” said the sage. “Very few people have given as much to charity as you have. You see, all those other account books mean nothing. Tomorrow, you can be penniless, and then what would you be worth? But the charity you gave can never be taken from you. Your good deeds are yours forever.”

In our own lives, we often feel pressured by the communal charities and all those worthy institutions who are always so desperately in need of funds. And there is no end to it. If we give to them this year, we know they will be back next year for more. But let us look at them from a different perspective. Let us see them as an opportunity to make an investment that will bear dividends for ourselves and our families for all eternity, in this world and the next. Let us be thankful that we are fortunate to be on the giving end and that by doing so we enrich our own lives beyond measure.

Text Copyright © 2011 by Rabbi Naftali Reich and Torah.org.

Rabbi Reich is on the faculty of the Ohr Somayach Tanenbaum Education Center.

 

A Life Saving Lesson

Parshas Naso

Posted on May 24, 2018 (5778) By Rabbi Label Lam | Series: Dvar Torah | Level: Beginner

 

Why is the Subject of the Nazir juxtaposed to the subject of the Sota? To teach you that anyone who sees a Sotah in her destruction should refrain from wine. -(Rashi)

There’s a glaring question in this statement of Rashi. With a little information, it will become apparent. A Nazir is someone who goes on a specific 30 day spiritual diet to “detoxify” himself. The situation involving a Sotah is one which arises when a husband suspects and formally investigates whether his wife has placed herself in a position of impropriety. When a doubt still lingers over whether there was actually an act of infidelity, she is offered a sort of truth serum to resolve the doubt. If she drinks the Sotah water and is found innocent, then she is promised a blessing of children. If, however she drinks it and she is in violation, then she swells up and dies.

Let’s say you saw a friend drive up to a certain non-kosher drive-thru window and buy himself a DOUBLE CHEESE WHOPPER AND A MILK SHAKE! He then surreptitiously pulls his car to the side and (without a blessing) opens his mouth wide to take the first bite. You watch in amazement as a dark rain cloud gathers spontaneously as if it had a mind and mission of its own. As your friend begins to sink in his teeth…WHAM! A bolt of lightning is launched from the cloud leaving him and his whopper a charred piece of toast.

Are you now more or less committed to the discipline of keeping kosher? The fright of that experience is enough to put a pause before eating anything of doubtful kosher status. The lesson could not have been taught more clearly. Why then if someone witnesses the Sotah in her hour of doom, do they then need a spiritual realignment? After all, he’s seen “the hand of G-d” in action. Why should he of all people become a Nazir? He is the last one that needs to take on this regimen.

Reb Levi Yitzchok from Berditchov tzl. had been working on himself, in a private setting, trying to overcome some challenge, on whatever high level he was struggling, when he resigned to accept that it was just not possible for him to change.

Immediately afterward he stepped out into the street where he witnessed an argument between a wagon driver and a store owner. The store owner wanted the wagon driver to unload the goods into his store. The driver insisted, “I can’t!” The store owner barked back. “It’s not that you can’t! It’s that you don’t want to!” The fight went on like this with ever increasing intensity, “I can’t!” “It’s not that you can’t! It’s that you don’t want to!” Then a surprise!

The store owner quietly reached into his pocket and waved a few bills and said, “What if I offered you 50 Zlotas? Would you be able to?” The wagon driver answered soberly, “I’ll give it try.” Reb Levi Yitzchok marveled that the wagon driver was indeed then quite capable of doing the job. It was not that he was not able. It really was because he did not really want to. He also understood that this incident played out before his eyes to instruct him about his own circumstance. If he could only meditate on and deeply realize the true value of the accomplishment at hand then he could gain enough power to leverage himself to do the impossible.

Reb Levi Yitzchok realized immediately that if he saw this event it was meant for his eyes. He was being shown this scene for a pointed reason. That’s how great people think! The Torah wants us to think like Tzadikim too. If this person who was in the Beis HaMikdash one day happened to have seen what he saw, then it was designed and prepared and acted out before his eyes for a special reason.

Imagine, now, you are hustling on the highway at a very fast pace when traffic slows to a crawl. Eventually the cause of heavy traffic is known as you have your turn to rubberneck while passing the scene of an overturned car. The police and EMT people are standing around looking quietly morose. It seems the worst has happened. For the next 10 minutes your foot wishes to press even harder on the gas pedal but you recall that deadly scene and arrest yourself. After a time it is already an ancient memory. You might wonder, why HASHEM showed you that picture, or why you had to hear some other piece of distressing news and then you figure out how you can take that tragedy and switch it for a life saving lesson.

That Golden Peace Treaty

Parshas Bamidbar

Shavuos

Posted on May 18, 2018 (5778) By Rabbi Label Lam | Series: Dvar Torah | Level: Beginner

That Golden Peace Treaty

Rabbi Elazar said: All agree with regard to Atzeret-Shavuot, that we require that it be also “for you,” meaning that it is a Mitzvah to eat, drink, and rejoice on that day. What is the reason? (Pesachim 68B)

On the Holidays, how is our time to be spent? There is a dispute! One opinion says that it is to be entirely spiritually or entirely material (eating and rejoicing) but not both. The other side says that the day is meant to be divided. When it comes to Shevuos everyone agrees that it should be divided between devotion to HASHEM and eating and rejoicing? Why is the holiday of Shevuos different?

To answer a question “why”, we need to see a thing in context. One of the most amazing things about being a human is that we are comprised of two completely different, disparate elements- whose needs seem almost irreconcilable. The SOUL and the BODY-are an “odd couple” indeed. While the BODY, like a horse, wishes to run on its horizontal plain in search of food and phillies, the SOUL, like a rider, is much more interested in climbing vertically in pursuit of truth and philosophy. How do we deal with this built in human dilemma? Whose needs dominate over the other’s needs? There are four classic approaches.

1-What we’ll call the far eastern way is an ideal that the soulful portion dominates the physical body. The successful practitioner finds him-self atop a mountain-aloof. His physical needs have been thoroughly quieted. He feels almost no pain. He can sleep on a bed of nails and fast. He is divorced from his body. Having trained himself to not to hear the whimpers of his own physical being or the temporal world around him, he meditates in that state and transcends the mundane.

2-The second we can refer to as the far western approach. Here the immediate needs of the body drown out the voice of the soul until it is a frail and thin voice, an afterthought called conscience. With plenty of continued practice that voice can be almost entirely annihilated.

It is recorded how the Nazis were sick to their stomachs the first time they carried out the brutal murder of Jews but after a while they could go home and eat dinner as if nothing had happened. The callous that develops with deeds that violate the sensibilities of the human soul grows thicker and darker with each repeated action. Eventually the body is divorced from its soul- Kores- cut off.

3- A third possibility encourages both spiritual and material indulgence but alternately. This “solution” is not a solution. In fact it complicates the human experience. The Talmud says pithily, “Oy li M’yotzri, Oy li’ M’yitzri”- “Woe to me from my Creator (or) Woe to me from my desire!” (Brochos 61A) Either the conscience will ache when violated or the body when deprived. A professor Meier was able to induce neurosis in rats. How? One door offered a food prize and the other a shock. Once the rat figured out which was which, the psychologist switched them. Now the rat crept cautiously from door to door uncertain whether it would receive a delight or an electric shock. At some point the rat parks himself equidistant from both doors and chooses to starve to death rather than risk getting a shock. OY! It’s not easy being a laboratory rat or a person that swings easily and too often from top of the spiritual spectrum into the abyss and back again.

4-The 4th- the middle-east emphasizes the spiritual but without negation of the physical. A fellow asked his friend, “Why are you busy caring for your horse all day?” He answered, “He’s a dumb horse and I’m a smart person. He needs me!” His friend then replied, “If he’s so dumb and you’re so smart, why don’t you get him to do things for you!?” If the soul can learn somehow to discipline the body in a sensitive and caring way, then a peace plan can be brokered between these two giant and competing forces. A person can happily navigate between the temporal on the way to the eternal in a joyous way. King Solomon had said about the Torah, “Its ways are ways of pleasantness and all its paths are peace.” (Mishlei 3:17) So we eat cheesecake and learn Torah too on Shevuos, to honor and reaffirm that golden peace treaty.

 

Chaos in the Desert

Parshas Bamidbar

Posted on May 25, 2017 (5777) By Rabbi Naftali Reich | Series: Legacy | Level: Beginner

It must have been chaos in the desert, a city planner’s nightmare, before the encampment of the Jewish people was reorganized in the second year after the Exodus from Egypt. The new plans called for the encampment to follow a rigidly defined grid. The people were to be divided into four groups of three tribes and placed to the north, south, east and west of the central hub in which the Mishkan stood. Each tribe was assigned its precise place in the scheme of things, with its own flag and tribal emblem.

Why did God put off the organization of the encampment until the end of the second year of the Jewish people’s sojourn in the desert? Why did He allow chaotic conditions to prevail for so long?

The commentators explain that it would not have been wise to create a formal pattern of encampment during the first year. At that time, the Jewish people were still in an early formative stage. Although they were all descended from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, although they had all shared the common woes of bondage in Egypt, the idea of a Jewish nationhood based on the Torah and the covenant with G-d was still very new.

Each tribe had its own outlook and personality, which gave it a singular perspective on Torah and Jewish issues. Had the tribes been assigned to different sections of the encampment, there would have been a high likelihood that their ideological differences would lead to factionalism and dissension. At the same time, ideological differences among the tribes could also be a potential source of great national strength. The various perspectives could engender lively exchanges and debates. So how could the ideological differences be used to create a strong intellectual, emotional and spiritual vitality without leading to factionalism?

G-d’s solution was to allow the tribes to live together in one huge, chaotic melting pot for a full year. During this time, they would merge together into one nation indivisibly united around the core of the holy Torah. They would bond not only as a large clan but also as partners in the divine covenant.

But this condition could only be allowed to continue for a limited time. Otherwise, the tribes would truly melt together into some kind of a composite that lacked the focused strengths and virtues of each individual tribe. Therefore, G-d instructed the tribes to separate into a structured encampment in the second year, after the Mishkan had been built. The tribes would thus retain their individual character and still remain bonded to the rest of the Jewish people by their common connection to the divine Abode in their midst.

A man enlisted in the army and was assigned to an army base, where he made a number of new friends. After a few months of intense training, he was transferred to another base where he was given artillery training. One of his new friends was assigned to infantry training, while another was sent to communications school.

“What is going on here?” the young soldier complained to his sergeant. “If we are to be separated, why were we thrown together in the first place? Why didn’t they send him straight to communications school and where we fit? They knew his aptitude when he enlisted, didn’t they?”

“They certainly did,” said the sergeant. “Tell me, if you are called on to support the infantry in battle with artillery fire, will you rush to do it?”

“Of course. That is my job.”

“But will it help at all if you know that your friend is in the infantry?”

“I suppose it would.”

“There you go,” said the sergeant. “Starting with all the men together leads to greater sense of commitment.”

In our own lives, we also live in small separated units. We are divided from each other by our interests, our professions, our family backgrounds, our neighborhoods. But we must recognize that there is more that binds us than divides us. We are brothers and sisters whose ancestors stood together at Mount Sinai and heard the voice of G-d. We shared the memories, both glorious and painful, of thousands of years of history. Regardless of our differences, we are one people.

Text Copyright © 2010 by Rabbi Naftali Reich and Torah.org.

Rabbi Reich is on the faculty of the Ohr Somayach Tanenbaum Education Center.

 

Human Nature

Parshas Bamidbar

Posted on May 22, 2012 (5772) By Rabbi Berel Wein | Series: Rabbi Wein | Level: Beginner

The book of Bamidbar is perhaps one of the saddest, so to speak, of all of the Holy Scriptures. Whereas the book of Shemot, which records for us the sin of the Golden Calf also gives us pause, it concludes with the final construction of the Mishkan and G-d’s Presence, so to speak, resting within the encampment of Israel. But the book of Bamidbar, which begins on a high note of numerical accomplishment and the seemingly imminent entry of the Jewish people into he Land of Israel, ends on a very sour note. It records the destruction of the entire generation including its leadership without their entrance into the Promised Land.

The narrative of the book of Bamidbar tells us of rebellion and constant carping, military defeats and victories, false blessings, human prejudices and personal bias. But the Torah warned us in its very first chapters that “this is the book of human beings.” And all of the weaknesses exhibited by Israel in the desert of Sinai, as recorded for us in the book of Bamidbar, are definitely part of the usual human story and nature.

Over the decades that I have taught this book of Bamidbar to students and congregants of mine, invariably many of them have then asked me incredulously: “How could the Jewish people have behaved in such a manner?” I cannot speak for that generation of Jews as described in the book of Bamidbar but I wonder to myself “How can so many Jews in our generation relate to the existence of the State of Israel in our time so cavalierly?

How do we tolerate the cruelties that our one-size-fits-all school systems inflict on the ‘different’ child? How do we subject our daughters to the indignities of the current matchmaking process? How, indeed!?” And my answer to myself always is that for the great many of us, human nature trumps common sense, logic and true Torah values. I imagine that this may have been true of the generation of the book of Bamidbar as well.

One of the wonders of the book of Bamidbar is that the count of the Jewish people at the end of the forty years of living in the desert was almost exactly the same as it was at the beginning of their sojourn there when they left Egyptian bondage. Though the following is certainly not being proposed by me as an answer or explanation to this unusual fact, I have always thought that this is a subtle reminder to us that that no matter how great the experiences, no matter how magnificent the miracles, no matter how great the leaders, human nature with all of its strengths and weaknesses basically remains the same.

It is not only that the numbers don’t change much, the people and the generations didn’t and don’t change much either. Human nature remains pretty constant. But our task is to recognize that and channel our human nature into productive and holy actions and behavior – to bend to a nobility of will and loyalty. Only by recognizing the propensity of our nature will we be able to accomplish this necessary and noble goal.

Shabat shalom and Chag Sameach,

Rabbi Berel Wein

The Long Short Way

Parshas Behar Bechukosai

Posted on May 3, 2013 (5773) By Rabbi Label Lam | Series: Dvar Torah | Level: Beginner

If you will follow My decrees and observe My commandments and perform them, then I will provide your rains in their time, and the land will give its produce and the tree of the field will gives its fruit. Your threshing will last until the vintage and the vintage will last until the sowing; you will eat your bread to satiety and you will dwell securely in the land. I will grant (Shalom) Peace in the land…. (Vayikra 26:3-6)

If you will follow My decrees: That you should be striving in Torah learning. (Rashi)

How does “following HASHEM’s decrees” translate into “you should be striving in Torah”? The verse seems to be more focused on the doing dimension, the observance rather than the learning factor. Of course we could say that if you don’t learn you cannot do but that’s way too obvious and simplistic. Rashi decodes the message as meaning, “that you should be striving in Torah!” That means learning!

Secondly, is the promise of peace intended as an incentive, a reward, or is it a natural consequence? Why should striving in Torah deliver peace? What’s the connection?

Just this past Shabbos I was taking a slow paced walk home with my oldest son and my youngest son. I began to quiz the younger fellow who is 17 years his brother’s junior. It was a subject that unbeknownst to would be mentioned in this week’s Daf HaYomi-Eruvin 54B. I queried, “Which is the better way to go, “the shortcut that is a long way” or the long way which is a shortcut”? He got the right answer- the long way which is a shortcut! Then we began to search for practical examples of each of the two ways so we could anchor the idea even more.

Eventually our attention turned to a primary case study that really hit home. My wife and I often jest seriously that the best investment we ever made was to pave a segment of our back yard and to plant a basketball hoop. For a number of very good reasons this is so. 1) There the boys would go daily for recreation. 2) They got plenty of practice and being good in basketball is a big confidence booster for boys. 3) We could promise that the action was in our back yard and we could know where our kids are. Now our youngest son spends many good day light hours back there perfecting his shot.

There’s one problem though. The rim has a little “give” to it- that is it’s not firmly connected and it tends to dip to one side when the ball lands on it. It doesn’t stop us from playing and enjoying but it is a painful reminder of a foolish episode from some 15 years ago. When we were installing the basket and the rim I was in a hurry to get it all cemented and connected. It was a family event. People couldn’t wait to play (that means me). As I was busy assembling my oldest boy was busy studying the instruction which were spread out on the court. He was trying to slow me down but I felt I knew better.

When everything was finally in place I proudly stepped back to admire the fruit of all my hard work. I noticed then that amongst the small pieces there was an “extra” nut and bolt. I wondered aloud, “What’s this thing for?” Then my son who was still staring deeply into the instruction manual asked me if I had done step “D” after step “C”. I had never known there was a step “C’. Well it was all there and it looked fine. Then when we took the first shot it was apparent that this parent had made a mistake. With everything locked in there was no way to undo step “D” and go back to step “C”.

That extra nut was no vestigial piece of hardware. We have lived ever since with the imperfection of that shaky rim and it serves as a perfect example of the shortcut that turned out to be a long way. I should have taken the time to study the manual of instructions.

The Torah is a Divine instruction manual. We are cautioned; If you study it intently and build your life decisions according to the details of its dictates then the peace that follows is a consequence of having traveled the long short way.

 DvarTorah, Copyright © 2007 by Rabbi Label Lam and Torah.org.

 

But Were Afraid To Ask

Parshas Behar Bechukosai

Posted on May 9, 2018 (5778) By Rabbi Mordechai Kamenetzky | Series: Drasha | Level: Beginner

The Torah does not usually leave room for official questions of faith. It tells us, in no uncertain terms, what our responsibilities are and the commitment we must make to be observant Jews. Every mitzvah entails sacrifice. Sometimes it requires a monetary commitment, sometimes a commitment of time and morals. Not often does it consider the human trials one encounters in mitzvah performance. They are our problem and we must deal with them as human beings and as Jews.

Yet this week the Torah uncharacteristically provides leeway for those who may waver in their commitment.

In Parshas Behar the Torah charges the Jewish people with the laws of shmittah. Every seventh year, we are told that the land of Israel is to lie fallow. No work is to be done with the earth. There is not to be a harvest, nor may the ground be sown or reaped.

Observing shmittah is a true test of faith. Imagine! One must not harvest his grain but instead rely on pure faith for his daily fare. Yet the Torah does not leave us with the austere command. The Torah deals directly with the human emotion related to the issue. In Leviticus 25:20 the Torah foretells a human side. “And if you will say in your heart, ‘what shall we eat in the seventh year, behold the land has not been sown nor has it been reaped?'” Hashem reassures the people that His bounty will abound in the sixth year and they will live the seventh year in comfort.

This is not the only time the Torah realizes human wariness. In reference to the command of conquering the Land of Canaan, the Torah states in Deuteronomy 7:17: “Perhaps you shall say in your heart, ‘these nations are more numerous than me. How will I drive them out?'” Once again Hashem reassures His nation that He will not forsake them.

The question is glaring. Why does the Torah answer to human psyche? Why doesn’t the Torah just command us to let the land lie fallow, or conquer the Land of Canaan? If there are problems or fears in our hearts, they are our problems. Those fears should not be incorporated as part of the command.

Isidore would meet his friend Irving every other week while doing business. “How are you Irving?” Isidore would always ask. “How’s the wife and kids?” Irv would always grunt back the perfunctory replies. “Fine.” “A little under the weather.” “My son Jack got a job.”

This one sided interrogation went on for years until one day Isidore exploded. “Irv,” he said abruptly. “I don’t understand. For six years I ask you about your wife, your kids, and your business. Not once mind you, not once did you ever ask me about my wife, my kids, or my business!

Irv shrugged. “Sorry, Izzie. I was really selfish. So tell me,” he continued, “how is your wife? How are your kids? How is your business?”

Izzie let out a sigh of anguish and began to krechts. He put his hand gently on Irv’s shoulder, tightened his lips, and shook his head slowly. “Don’t ask!”

Reb Leible Eiger (1816-1888) explains that there are many questions of faith that we may have. The faithful may in fact fear the fact that there is fear. “Is it a flaw in faith to worry?” “Am I committing heresy by fearing the enemy?” “Am I allowed to ask?” The Torah tells us in two places, “you will have these questions. You will ask, ‘how am I going to sustain myself and family?’ “You will worry,” ‘how will I conquer my enemies?’ ‘Will I be destroyed?'” The Torah reassures us that there is no lack of trust by asking those questions. We mustn’t get down on ourselves and consider questions a breach of faith. Life and sustenance are mortal attributes. They warrant mortal fear.

Adam, the first man was originally blessed with eternal life without having to worry for his livelihood. After sinning, he was cursed with death and was told that he would eat by the sweat of his brow. The Torah assures us that it is not only human but also acceptable to worry about these two issues — one’s livelihood and survival, as long as we believe in the reassurances about those worries.

Good Shabbos!

Strengthen Our Faith

The book of Vayikra opened on a very high and positive note. Moshe is the recipient of Divine revelation and serves as the High priest of the Mishkan during its first week of its dedication. His brother Aharon is appointed as the permanent High Priest and the children and the descendants of Aharon remain the special family of kohanim throughout the ages of Jewish history.

After the revelation at Sinai and the acceptance of the Torah by Israel, and the dedication of the Mishkan, the Jewish people are apparently at the zenith of their national and spiritual life. Yet this rosy future is not quite what will really occur. At the conclusion of the book of Vayikra, which we read in this week’s parsha, a much more somber picture is portrayed.

Anyone cognizant of the story of the Jewish people over the centuries is well aware that all of the dire predictions that appear in this week’s parsha are not hyperbole. A professor of Jewish studies once wryly commented to me that Jewish history was “all books and blood.” That pretty much sums up the book of Vayikra as well.

Two of Aharon’s sons are destroyed, many laws and strictures are bought down as the Torah of Sinai is fleshed out by G-d through Moshe, and the awful events that will befall the Jewish people – destruction, exile and agony, are all painfully described in this week’s parsha. Thus the book of Vayikra becomes the true book of the Jewish story, in all of its glory and somber narrative.

What are we to make of all of this? That question has hovered over all of Jewish life in every location, generation and circumstance. Because of the inscrutable nature of G-d’s direction of Jewish affairs, the question has never had an even halfheartedly satisfactory answer. The books, the laws, and the commandments remain in the main to be mysterious as does the blood of Jewish history.

Because of this, Jewish history, aside from being composed of books and blood, is mainly composed of faith and belief. That is what the rabbis may have meant when they stated that the prophet annunciated the basic underpinning of all of the Torah – “the righteous person lives on faith.” And faith is truly a difficult commodity to achieve and maintain.

The past century of Jewish life has challenged traditional Jewish faith greatly and dealt it mighty blows. For many Jews it no longer is a viable commodity in their arsenal of life’s values. Yet it is obvious that it is the one and only value that can help us weather the uncertainties, contradictions, cruelties and dangers that make up current Jewish life.

The Torah itself charts no easy way to acquire faith – in fact, it has very little to say regarding the subject of faith itself. However, at the conclusion of the public reading of the book of Vayikra (as at the conclusion of all of the other books of the Torah as well) we rise and strengthen ourselves in our belief and faith. May it so be.

Shabat shalom,

Rabbi Berel Wein

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Barren Land: A Hope of a Better Tomorrow

Parshas Emor

Posted on May 7, 2015 (5775) By Rabbi Berel Wein | Series: Rabbi Wein | Level: Beginner

The emphasis that the Torah places on the location – Mount Sinai – where Moshe received the Torah and its commandments, and the particular commandment regarding the observance of a sabbatical year, has been an issue of much interest to the commentators on the Torah over the ages. Rashi, quoting the famous rabbinic dictum, states that the words “Mount Sinai” indicate to us that just as this particular commandment of the sabbatical year was taught to Moshe on Mount Sinai so too are we to understand that all of the commandments of Judaism emanate from the revelation at Mount Sinai.

But perhaps there is another nuanced lesson here in the mentioning of Mount Sinai, as being the location where this commandment regarding the sabbatical year was first uttered and delivered. The Sinai desert is one of the most barren and inhospitable geographic areas on our globe. The Torah itself describes it as a great, awesome and frightening place, parched of water and short of sustenance, a place of snakes and scorpions.

To speak of a sabbatical year in this context, where and when fields and crops are not to be tended to, seems at first glance to be incongruous, to say the least. We could understand the statement of such a commandment when the Jewish people stood on the brink of entering the Land of Israel or, even more so, when they actually entered the land.

Hearing the command of letting one’s fields lie fallow for a year while living in a trackless and arid desert certainly seems to be strange. But the Torah, which is eternal and not bound by time or place, comes to teach us an important lesson regarding life generally and Jewish life particularly.

I had a friend and congregant of mine during my years as a rabbi in Miami Beach fifty years ago. He was a Holocaust survivor, a man of material wealth and clever intellect. He once told me that he was a very wealthy man in Hungary before World War II. In the very late 1930s he visited the Land of Israel and on a whim purchased an apartment here in Jerusalem.

In late summer 1944, together with hundreds of thousands of other Hungarian Jews, he and his family were deported to Auschwitz His family could not survive the ordeal, though somehow he did remain alive, and eventually he rebuilt his life and once again created a family and material success in America.

He told me that every night in the barracks of the labor camp, to which he was assigned, lying on the wooden pallet that served as his bed, in his mind he furnished the apartment that he purchased in Jerusalem. In his mind, he bought the finest furniture and wall coverings and arranged them so that the apartment shone in splendor, good taste and elegance.

He said it was this imaginary scene of the better tomorrow that kept him alive and gave him the spiritual and mental fortitude not to give up completely and just pass away, as unfortunately so many others did. To survive the desert of Sinai the Jewish people had to imagine the lush fields of the Land of Israel and a sabbatical year that would bring blessing and prosperity upon those fields and their owners.

The Torah emphasizes to us that the sabbatical year was commanded to Israel in a forbidding and dark place because of the fact that it would give hope, optimism and vision for the great blessings of the Land of Israel that they would yet live to experience.

Shabbat shalom Rabbi Berel Wein

 

Teaching By Example

Parshas Emor

Posted on April 29, 2010 (5770) By Rabbi Yochanan Zweig | Series: Rabbi Zweig on the Parsha | Level: Beginner

 “…Say to the Kohanim, the sons of Aharon, and tell them: Each of you shall not contaminate himself to a (dead) person among his people” (21:1)

The parsha begins with Hashem commanding Moshe to instruct the Kohanim as to their particular responsibilities in maintaining higher standards of holy behavior and purity. There appears to be a redundancy in these instructions, for Moshe is told twice “say to the Kohanim” – “emor” and “ve’amarta”. The Ramban maintains that this double expression is similar to those occasions when the Torah records “daber el Bnei Yisroel ve’amarta” – “speak to Bnei Yisroel and say”. According to the Ramban, the Torah uses a double expression in order to stress the importance of the commandment, or if it involves an activity which runs counter to an accepted norm.[1] Rashi, however, cites the Talmud, which derives from this redundancy that the Kohanim are being instructed twice, once in regards to themselves and once in regards to their children: “Lehazir gedolim al haketanim” – “to caution adults regarding their children”.2 What is implicit within the words “emor ve’amarta” which specifically alludes to the instruction of children, while no such conclusions are drawn from the words “daber ve’amarta”?

The difference between “amira” and “dibur” is as follows: “amira” is the relaying of information without any imposition by the person conveying it, while “dibur” imposes the will of the speaker upon the listener. A parent pressuring his child to behave in a manner different than his peers will invariably fail, unless the parent is able to convey the message that such behavior is in the child’s best interest. The only way that this can be successfully accomplished is if the parent himself willingly performs that which he is requesting of his child. The problem with “Do what I say, not what I do” is that if the child perceives that the parent is reluctant to willingly perform that which he requires of the child, the child will feel that such behavior is not in his best interest.

“Lehazir gedolim al haketanim” does not mean that adults should caution their children, rather that the adults themselves are being cautioned to perform the commandments without any sense of imposition. By so doing, the children will perceive that following their parents’ example is in their best interest. The Torah specifically uses the expression “emor ve’amarta” and not “daber ve’amarta”, for “daber” implies imposition. Especially when requiring of the Kohanim to behave in a more restrictive manner than their peers, it is essential that the message they convey to their children is “This is in our best interest, and not an imposition.”

1.21:1 2.Ibid, Yevamos 114a