A Quick Torah Thought

"Don't do that to Hashem, your God!," says Rabbi Yishmael, exhorting people to mend their errant ways. In an eye-opening interpretation that seems to come out of thin air, Rabbi Yishmael interprets a verse in the Torah portion of Re'eh in a way that puts a personal onus on each and every one of us to mend our ways, improve our actions and bring about the rebuilding - and not destruction - of the Beit Hamikdash.  The verse upon which Rabbi Yishmael bases himself on comes after a series of instructions about how the Jewish people should uproot idolatry in the land of Israel. You should shatter the altars of the idol-worshippers, burning and destroying any vestige of paganism in the land. And then, the following verse (Deuteronomy 12:4) states: "To Hashem, your God, do not do that!"  In the various opinions that Rashi cites, most prominent among them is Rabbi Yishmael. "Would a Jew ever, with his own hands, destroy the altar of the holy temple? No! So what...

The perennial dilemma facing any religious community, or persuasion, is how to get the next generation to maintain the same level of observance, and belief as those who came before them. Every parent likewise encounters that struggle.  That seems to me to be the challenge that's posed in the Parsha of Eikev:   Take thought this day that it was not your children , who neither experienced nor witnessed the lesson of Hashem your God —God’s majesty, mighty hand, and outstretched arm;  the signs and the deeds that [God] performed in Egypt against Pharaoh king of Egypt and all his land;  what [God] did to Egypt’s army, its horses and chariots; how Hashem rolled back upon them the waters of the Sea of Reeds when they were pursuing you, thus destroying them once and for all;  what [God] did for you in the wilderness before you arrived in this place;  and what [God] did to Dathan and Abiram, sons of Eliab son of Reuben, when the earth opened her mouth and swall...

Hashem revealed Himself no less to you at Har Sinai, than he did to Moshe Rabbeinu. That's one of the key points in the story that we so often miss.  If it was not directly to us, then it was to our ancestors, but Hashem tells the Jewish people they are no less obligated to the Torah's precepts than Moshe Himself. Moshe perhaps spoke regularly with Hashem, "face to face (Numbers 12:8)," but at that unique moment, one of revelation which Hashem Himself attests was like no other - "Has any people heard the voice of a god speaking out of a fire, as you have, and survived? (Deuteronomy 4:33).  Hashem revealed Himself to the Jewish people through fire. The idea is repeated no fewer than three times, adding to its saliency and significance: "From the heavens Hashem let you hear the divine voice to discipline you; on earth Hashem let you see the great divine fire; and from amidst that fire you heard God’s words. When Hashem first introduced Himself to Moshe, it was...

Rashi offers a very interesting commentary on the ethos of gratitude as the Book of Devarim opens. Hashem has commanded the Jewish people to not provoke the people of Edom, the descendants of Eisav, the sworn enemy of the Jewish people. The Jewish people are commanded to deal with Eisav's offspring in a congenial way. Rashi, on the verse, comments that the Jewish people need to show gratitude to Hashem for having protected them for 40 years in the desert. How do they do this? By lifting their heads up high, Rashi writes, and by not haggling with the people of Edom. Pay them a fair price, show them largesse, don't make yourselves into nebachs , but lift your heads up high, pay a little extra for the service and show that Hashem has given you everything he promised. This is in sharp contradistinction to the servile approach Yaakov took prior with his brother Eisav. There, confronted by Eisav's 400-hundred men, each a seasoned warrior in his own right, Yaakov prepares by p...