A Quick Torah Thought

Whenever I think of Bereishit, I am reminded of my grandfather of blessed memory, Rabbi Israel Orenstein Z"L.  It was a little with awe and trepidation that I read the first words, knowing that the Torah was God's only "hand-written" instructions for how to live a better life, and truth be told, for me - like many - this year has been rife with confusion. This world, my grandfather taught me, was a laboratory of sorts. God wanted to see what would happen when man, in the proverbial sense, had free will. What would he do with it? Would he embrace love, or murder; would people live in His image and respect their brothers and sisters, or heaven-forbid, denigrate the very source of life from which they had come.  It was a dangerous call this "Let us make man" business; perhaps the plural voice - "Let us " - comes to show that even in God's own mind, there were two competing voices, that were not so clear cut.  Who could have imagined how man would...

There is a Midrash that states that Moshe, with but one hour left to live, did the extraordinary. Healthy and sprightly as when he was young, vigorous and able to do whatever he wanted, he sought to impart his final blessings to the Jewish people.  A dear friend of mine - and many of us know stories like these - was told that he had a minimal amount of time left to live. With end-stage pancreatic cancer, he sought to leave his young wife (he died at the age of  37) with the fondest memories he could impart, and sharing together the brief time they had left. They fulfilled their greatest dreams, mostly travel-related, leaving a living-will for their children as well, with poignant heart-felt messages for their two sons.  The mother of a student of mine shared a similar story. I had taught four of her sons, and the mother, who was no stranger to tragedy, helped her husband guide their children in the world that would be after his passing. They told their oldest, now married...

 In the Parshah of Ha'azinu, there is a divine command like no other: "Die."  Why is it that Hashem had to command Moshe Rabbeinu to die? "Die on the mountain that you will ascend, and be gathered to your nation as your brother, Aharon, died on Hor Ha'Har , and was gathered to his nation." The Midrash teaches that there are three voices so earth-shatteringly jarring that were one to hear them in their full intensity, the world could not persist: "the sound of a baby being born, the sound when a man and wife get married, and the sound of one's death." Those sounds represent the most dramatic changes in life, a new soul, a new union that can create new souls and the parting of a soul and its return to its creator.  For Moshe Rabbeinu to leave with a whimper would seem inconceivable. Moshe Rabbeinu, the giver of the Torah and perpetuator and transmitter of God's will in this world, needed to not be coerced into death, but needed to be taken th...