A Quick Torah Thought

"Then Hashem will open up your heart and the hearts of your offspring—to love Him with all your heart and soul, in order that you may live. Hashem will inflict all those curses upon the enemies and foes who persecuted you." (Deuteronomy 30:7) One cannot but help think of the above verse in today's Torah reading when thanking Hashem for the removal of one of the biggest threats our nation has known in modern times. Nasrallah, whose fiery rhetoric, missile barrages and menacing, taunting presence led hundreds of thousands of Jews to flee their homes is no longer, gone with the wind. He reminds me of Rabshakeh, the Assyrian General sent by his king to blaspheme Hashem, the "true God," as Hezekiah beseeched Hashem for help, for the pride of our nation; that night, the entirety of the Assyrian army died in a mysterious plague.  How grateful we are, how many blessings were shared - hatov ve'hametiv - the one Who is abundantly good, and adds greater good - who has ...

This past week's Torah portion, Ki Tavoh, famously states that the Jewish people, in their infinite suffering, can look to but one thing as the reason - they failed to worship God joyfully. The curses abound; fathers shall eat their children, something we know happened in the horrible destruction wrought in the Second Temple period, elegies bemoaning the "merciful mothers who ate their children's flesh." My grandfather of blessed memory, Moshe Barth Z"L, told me that though he had never seen people eat human flesh in the Holocaust he had heard then that that was what was happening. Searing curses that struck at the heart of the human experience are recorded as such in the Torah reading, national decay, fleeing en masse from our enemies, food dissolving before our very eyes, bread not feeding its owners, people waking and begging for the advent of night, and closing their eyes waiting for morning. "I went to sleep," my grandfather told me, "praying ...

Eshet Yefat Toar is one of the topics in the Torah that speaks more than any other of free will, determinism, and a person's ability to withstand temptation.   A soldier who went to a volitional war was allowed to sleep with a female captive who he found attractive. There is a heated debate between Rashi and Tosfot about whether or not the soldier was allowed already on the battlefield to sleep with the woman. The Tosfot says "yes," Rashi, "no," but even more than interesting than the Ramban who says that the woman is given a month to cry for her parents because it's inappropriate for a Jewish man to sleep with a non-Jewish woman who is still tainted by, and immersed in idol worship, the Even Ezra is particularly surprising.  He doesn't say explicitly at what point the Jewish soldier can have relations with the woman, but he takes a particularly humane approach. He says that the woman is given a month to cry for her parents because she is saddened that t...

Rabbi Kanievsky famously called Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach a zaken mamre . I have to be honest, if anyone would ever call me that, it would be the deepest compliment I've ever heard.  A zaken mamre isn't simply anyone who defies majority rule, like the Ramban said about the karaites. It's someone of such great stature that he has the power, charisma and authority to rip all of Judaism asunder by countering the rule of law, and possibly turning it in favor.  After a halachic issue has been weighed, adjudicated and decided, a rabbi whose view has not been accepted can not undermine the majority by trying to call others over to his side, i.e. by ruling contrary to the majority.  Why is the majority so important? Because the Torah states that you should follow the course set by the majority, regardless of whether it is right or wrong. And if, one, in his brazenness would not hearken to that majority, he would be ipso facto declaring that he doesn't accept Torat Moshe, the Torah ...

We often think about good and evil as opposites, but in the Torah, the power of a mitzvah, or positive deed far outweighs that of a negative one. In Parshat Re'eh we see an example par excellence: a city, whose inhabitants need to be spared due to idol worship, which needs to be scorched to the ground, is spared if but one of its inhabitants possessed a mezuza. The sages teach that all of the possessions of the city must be burnt to the ground in the town square, and seeing that it is forbidden to burn a mezuza it has the potential to save the entire population.  What is the underlying thought, or overarching message? Certainly, you wouldn't spare an entire city because of a parchment left on one's doorpost.  Interestingly, there is a similar strain of thought when it comes to the wayward child, or ben sorer u'moreh . Were a wayward child to have been warned to not act gluttonously after a series of incidents of theft in which he plunders his parents' possessions to...

The interplay of memory is part and parcel of everyone's life experience. There are things we forget, there are things we remember, and there are things others remind us of.  My grandfather, my mother's father, used to quip in his old age that there's a benefit to forgetfulness; he can watch the same episode of "Law and Order," and every time it feels like new.  Paranthetically, I once asked him if he had to teach any masechet , which one would it be, and he answered Sanhedrin, because he always liked systems of law, and how they can make society better.  Recently, I had to grapple with memory, and its very essence, because, Yocheved, our oldest, was jealous of Rina, our youngest daughter, because I was carrying her on my shoulders. Yocheved asked, "How come you never carry me?" to which my wife responded, "But when you were Rina's age, Abba also carried you!" to which she said, "But I don't remember it! I want to remember him carr...

In Va'etchanan, we receive invaluable life wisdom. Moshe, beseeching Hashem for permission to enter the Land of Israel, doesn't plead for mercy because of the great deeds he performed; nor does he remind God that He Himself had called Moshe a loyal servant. He hinges his request on nothing besides the fact that Hashem acts in ways that are inscrutable, acting mercifully when He so chooses, and granting undeserved gifts, even to those who cannot lay claim to them. Moshe says, "I fall into the latter."  Asking Hashem for a free gift, something he does not deserve, he typifies what a truly happy man is. One who is happy does not feel he needs life to be any way other than it is to merit joy; rather, the state of mind he had, and inculcated in others, is what gave him the strength and resolve to ever so dignifiedly lead and be a true " eved Hashem, " servant of God.  Two famous speeches come to mind, inspiration for their humility, and promise for a better tomor...

I recently finished a course at Yad Vashem that guided teachers about how to incorporate different themes and motifs about the Holocaust in the yearly high school academic calendar, from Yom Hashoah, to the U.N.'s "International Holocaust Rememrance Day," to the Tenth of Tevet , designated by the Israeli Rabbinate as the general day of Kaddish for those who don't - or can't - know the date of passing for their deceased loved ones. This is particularly poignant for me seeing that my grandfather, Moshe ben Esther Z"L, who passed away only five-and-a-half months ago, used to say kaddish for his family on Rosh Chodesh Elul, because it was on that date, 82 years prior, in the year 5702, that they were herded to the town square - the rynek in Polish - and sent to their deaths.  The topic of remembrance is one that is important in the Book of Devarim, and a particular verse seemed to strike me as fitting in light of the dynamics in Israel shortly after the war. A mo...