A Quick Torah Thought

Abraham armed his disciples to save Lot, his nephew, who - despite his wayward ways, was no less than a brother in Avraham's eyes. He didn't flinch, he didn't think twice, striking at night, employing the element of surprsise to his advantage, pursuing the vicious and heartless enemy until Damascus.  Rebbetzin Jungreis of blessed memory regularly quoted her father as teaching that if one wanted to know what was happening in the world one should look at the Parsha. The fact that in the Land of Israel in biblical times the Torah was completed once every three years and not once every year as we do today (as was the Babylonian custom) notwithstanding, it is hard not to see resonances of what happened in the time of our forefathers and what we are now seeing unfold in our home country.  We hope and pray that all our prisoners are freed, and come home safely, though know in our heart of hearts that that is exceedingly unlikely, to the point where an Israeli father, to obviat...

Noach has one of the most eye-openingly bizzare Midrashim I have ever seen. Why didn't the raven go out to see if the flood waters had receded? He was afraid that Noach would sleep with his wife! Rashi brings this as one of two interpretations as to why the raven, rather than set out on his mission, chose to circle the ark, making sure that no funny business happened inside in his absence. Besides the practical/technical question as to how Noach actually could have slept with "Mrs. Raven" (after all, typically the wife's name isn't mentioned in the Torah), it would seem that there is a deeper message here. Furthermore, Rashi cites another Midrash which seems equally as odd, yet different in purpose and message: It wasn't that the raven didn't want to fulfill his mission, it's that he was reserved for another calling that he uniquely could fulfill, namely feeding Elijah the prophet when he hid from Ahab and Jezebel after he decreed drought upon the land...

There's a famous book called "Rich Dad, Poor Dad," in which the author, Kiyosaki, talks about his two different parental influences, one, a father, who taught him the more spiritual side of life, about meaning and the like; the other taught him about how to get rich. In a certain respect, the patriarchs of my family, my grandfathers were similarly different, not  in terms of wealth, or financial standing, but in terms of their attitudes to life. One, of blessed memory was a rabbi, very cerebral, who could sit for hours and think, mindfully taking in life. The other, may he live and be well, couldn't – and still – at the ripe age of 97, and now nearing 98, can't sit for a minute. A survivor, he's always jittery, always anxiously eager to do, unable to take a moment to reflect, even at his advanced age, about what was, but rather, inveterately needs to always be planning, thinking about what will be. When he stands, hovering over you, and you tell him, "Sab...

The Yerushalmi Talmud makes a statement that seems banal at best, redundant at worst: "Greater is the sanctification of God's name than its desecration."  That's like saying it's better to be Mother Teresa than Heimrich Himmler, or Albert Shweitzer, than Attila the Hun.  It is most certainly good to seek to do good, and nefarious and insidious to seek evil. What then is embedded in the novelty of the statement made by the Talmud?  Rabbi Zvi Yehuda taught that the Hebrew for  "than" - the letter mem - can take on many forms. It could mean than in the classical comparative sense, but it can also mean, in the aftermath of, or the wake of, thus the teaching: Greater is the sanctification of God's name created in the wake of its desecration, i.e. after it has already been desecrated   –   than were there were to be a situation in which there was the said consecration where His name had not been priorly desecrated.  More than anything, I ...

Though often overlooked, one of the culminating moments of the Tishrei holidays is the beating of the willow branch against the floor. More than anything - Israel now at war - there is something firm and true within the very natural scent of the leaves hitting the ground.  God's hand is often hidden in nature, the world we live in. On Yom Kippur, when we are hopefully inscribed and sealed for life, we ask for God to reveal himself in the inner workings of the world. Perhaps nothing is more telling than the recital of God's name, a name recited only once a year, the bonafide name heard audibly by the masses leading throngs of congregants on Temple Mount to bow in awe - and praise.  Sukkot though is a very different holiday, one when leave the comfort of our homes, entering the elements, their world, wind, rain, the nippy cold, or suffusing heat; we see God in nature, and then, when on Hoshanah Rabba, we beat the five solitary branches on the floor we feel that smell, natural, r...