A Quick Torah Thought

There is only one holiday in the Torah for which we have an explicit reason as to its purpose, no other than Passover. Thus we are left to decipher the reason behind the other holidays. For one, the entirety of Tishrei is referred to as a holiday in the Torah. The seventh month - or to be precise, in the words of the Torah, "the holiday of the 7th month,"  serves to convey a very important message about the dualities of the two starts of the year that we find in Judaism. Nissan, on the one hand, is the holiday of redemption - of the Jewish people. Unique to our amalgamation as a nation, it serves as a remembrance that we were brought out of captivity, and were we to not have received this divine mercy, we'd still be enslaved mentally, as a people.  The holiday of Tishrei though has a much more universal message. As evidenced by its description in the Parsha of Re'eh, it serves to assimilate within us the idea that our very existence as people, starting from basic subs...

I heard an interesting dvar Torah from Rabbi Yaron ben David, the rabbi of Kibbutz Be'erot Yitzhak, that I would like to share.  As Moshe tells over the annals of the Jew's travails in the desert, he adds details of the story of the golden calf that we did not see earlier in the Book of Numbers.  "Moreover, Hashem was angry enough with Aaron to have destroyed him; so I also interceded for Aaron  at that time." Interestingly, the Midrash goes on to share the details of what unfolded; Hashem was irascible, intent on destroying any remembrance of Aaron's name (indicated by the Hebrew word, lehashmido - "Hashem was angry enough with Aaron to have destroyed him," lehashmido being a word only reserved for the demise of nations, but in biblical texts, not that of individuals). How, then, in the face of God's wrath, did Moshe save Aaron?  With a very interesting parable. Aaron's progeny, his sons, will serve in the Beit Hamikdash. And the branches of the...

There seems to be a strange juxtaposition in this week's parshah of two concepts that seem to be inherently alien from one another.  Moshe tells the Jewish people they will sin. Summarily, they'll be sent into exile. Then, they'll call out to God repentantly, and then, in the memory of their ancestors, the forefathers, God will forgive them. Then, Moshe asks, "Has there ever been a nation to hear God's voice and survive?" The two, seem to be diametrically opposed. The people have already returned, sought forgiveness and gained it, and then, are told to put themselves through a guilt trip as to how they ever reached such depths despite their exalted role and mission.  But if you search there, you will find your God, if only you seek with all your heart and soul— when you are in distress because all these things have befallen you and, in the end, return to and obey your God. For your God is a compassionate God, who will not fail you nor let you perish; [God] wil...

Tisha Be'av is one of the hardest days for a Jew to encapsulate in our modern times. Even a few hundred years ago, and perhaps even in more recent history, the plight of mankind was very great. Life. from one day to the next, posed great challenges. Financially, we have seen greater success than any previous generation. The stature of Jews worldwide, especially in Western societies, has grown, many of the travails recorded in the Book of Lamentations seeming ever so distant. For many, even the memory of the Holocaust has receded; I remember that is used to be normative to boycott German cars - now, for many, the mere thought is considered antediluvian, backward, a contravention of Western values, and pluralistic thought.  In what way, then, do we remember?  The metaphors and similes employed by Jeremiah reflect a world view that most of us eschew on a day to day basis. The symbols used in the kinot , or corpus of elegies, are foreign to us. Jeremiah refers to God Himself as an...