A Quick Torah Thought

The Ramban writes that we learn the mitzvah of Teshuva from the Torah portion of Vayelech. Our sages teach that repentance, or the ability thereof, was created before the world itself.  And if we read the Torah portion of Vayelech we see very clearly that more than anything, Teshuva is about seeing the good in ourselves and others. "And you shall choose life."  A dear friend of my grandfather Moshe Barth Z"L, Rabbi Shalom Mark Z"L, wrote a book about how Hashem saved him and guided him every step of the way during the Holocaust. A remarkable lifeview as it is, he shares that the words in the Parsha of Vayelech refer to how we choose to see the world. When we "choose life," we are engaging Hashem in our lives and returning to who we really are, people who believe in God's purpose in the world, to do go with us and for us.  Not everyone is a person of that caliber and faith, but what Vayelech teaches us more than anything else is that to the extent we ca...

There is a very perplexing Rashi at the end of the sequence of curses and blessings in the Torah portion of Ki Tavo. The Torah states that God has made an eternal covenant with the Jewish people in the Plains of Moab, just like the covenant sealed at Sinai. Rashi interprets this passage in a way that seems to be at odds with what actually transpired. Rashi states that the covenant was sealed through both "curse" and "oath," and yet in the verses itself, neither on Sinai or the Plains of Moab is there any mention whatsoever of an oath. The question therefore is when this oath actually transpired; is the language figurative? Can an oath be something so ephemeral and transient, as to be a matter of mere awareness or consciousness, but in the absence of any words having been uttered? This question bothered me, leaving me baffled. And so today, I opened a book called "Rashi K'Pshuto," the "Simple Explanation of Rashi," which takes a unique a...

 In Jewish law, there's debate about whether certain things actually happened.  Was a city ever put to death for idol worship ( Ir ha'nidachat )?  Was there ever a son so wayward that his parents had no choice but to get rid of him?  The Talmud goes back and forth, from logical arguments to the anecdotal. Those rabbis who avow to having seen the above with their very own eyes, are countered by those who say, and I'm paraphrasing, "Even it was, it never should have happened!"  When it comes to the wayward son, the camp who says it never should have come to be, make one operative point: besides the fact that no one in their right mind would put their own child to death because of a trifling amount of wine and meat, a child is pure at heart . There has to be an extenuating circumstance, some reason to judge the child favorably, no child deserves to die for a lack of obedience. It's fascinating though, how this argument manifests itself. The Mishna says the parent...

One of the hottest political topics nowadays in America and Israel is what exactly the jurisdiction or authority of the courts is. When has the executive branch (Israel - PM, America: President) overreached, usurping another branch's authority? What sanctions are there when it's gone too far.  Given that the Torah Portion, Shoftim - not to be confused with the Book of Judges - talks about the limits of the authority of all three branches, and clearly delineates the import and relevancy of the Sanhedrin, the high court, be it in Jerusalem, or elsewhere, I'd like to take a minute to describe how "business" was conducted there.  Let's take an example: opening grape juice bottles (no, not the Kedem ones with plastic covers) but rather, the old-fashioned ones with metal caps pressed on instantaneously and folded over the very sides of the top of the bottle. On this question, i.e. whether or not it's permissible to open them on Shabbat (before Shabbat, of course...