A Quick Torah Thought

Lip service has gotten a bad rap, but in the words of Hoshea (14:2), from the Haftarah for Shabbat Shuva, that's what it's all about. "Instead of bulls we will pay (the offering) of our lips." In fact, lips used to be taken seriously. If a watchman had promised to pay for livestock he was watching that had been stolen, and thereafter, said he would not, the Gemorah in Baba Metziah avers that surely he still intends to pay; he just doesn't have the money handy at that given moment.  The words of our mouth have a potency that's hard to comprehend; in Sanhedrin, a flagrant murderer being led to his death was encouraged to atone, the presumption being that his atonement was full-hearted and complete in every sense of the word.  It is truly a blessing to live in a society when what we say actually matters, when the words we utter are so far-reaching that they shape lives in ways that are otherwise recognizable.  I will end with a story, simple, yet poignant, shared...

If anything, we are one of Him. Our desires, passion for good, and unquenchable yearning for change are all rooted in the divine. All too often, it would seem, at this most awesome time of the year, we more than anything feel estranged from God. Pep talks, attempts at feeling a sense of fear, and even God's majesty are likely to be met by not closeness but rather a sense of exceptionalism - God, the ethereal, ever so far away, whose desires we have to understand, but not to whom our desires need to be communicated.  I personally believe that at this time of year what's necessary more than anything else is to re-meet our inner selves, to take the time to discover our unique Godly voice in the form of understand ourselves and realizing that who we are, is an expression of the above - in a way that gives life fresh breath, belief in a better hope or dream. The recognition that God created the world with each and every one of us in order to create greatness in His name is in my h...

There is something utterly strange about the sequence of events in which Moses passes the Torch to Joshua. It is preceded by the mitzvah of hakhel; men, women, children and converts assemble in Jerusalem where the King reads from the holy Torah in a ceremonial way intended to invoke the greatest awe and splendor - to the point where the Jewish people are no less than guaranteed that were they to keep the mitzvah, they will surely fear God, along with their progeny in the promised land.  Immediately thereafter, Hashem tells Moshe to summon Joshua, and tells Moshe in no uncertain words that the same way a husband may act promiscuously and unfaithfully, the Jewish people will likewise stray. The question thus is what happened to the promise, and to what extent does this momental gathering have an effect if its message isn't adhered to? Is there something diabolical in making a promise that will inevitably not be kept? Or, were there other conditions that the promise was predicated on?...

It seems to me that the narrative we tell ourselves signifies who we are as people. Nothing seems so evident than the story of the Bikkurim, choice first fruit brought to the Beit Hamikdash. I thought about that message this week as I got a hitchhike back home from Hashmonaim, a few kilometers from the Maccabim-Reut Junction, where earlier that day an Israeli soldier from Ukraine had been murdered in a gory terror ramming attack.  The person who kindly stopped had just come back from Nepal, and India. He gladly told me about his adventures; he himself had been a full-time soldier in the Yahalom,  Special Operations Engineering Unit, when he decided that it was too much, he wanted to start a family, and so he took 9 months to travel abroad, hoping to gain clarity about what to do next in his life.  The conversation took us to Everest; I mentioned what happened recently on K2, world-class mountaineers walking right over the body of their Sherpa guide, who had aided them in ...