Noach-October 12, 2018
This Shabbat:
Friday Candle Lighting: 6:04 pm
Shabbat Ends: 6:51 pm
Torah Message:
Catch the Wind
“…and G-d caused a spirit (ruach) to pass over the earth, and the waters subsided” (8:1)
People often say, “If there is a spirit in Man, why can’t we see it?”
In this week’s Torah portion there’s a difference of opinion about how to translate the word ruach in the above verse. Rashi and others translate it as “spirit”, whereas the Ramban translates ruach as “wind”.
Just as the wind is invisible, but it blows the leaves through the air and moves them around on the ground, so too the spirit inside us cannot be seen but it motivates every part of our body.
SUKKOT-Sep. 28, 2018
This Shabbat:
Friday Candle Lighting: 6:22 pm
Shabbat Ends: 7:09 pm
Torah Message:
Dear Rabbi,
I know it’s a mitzvah to build the succa, which in our home the men and boys usually do, but it’s usually the women and girls who do the decorating. Is the decorating of the succa also a mitzvah?
Dear Melissa,
The Sages taught regarding the verse, “This is my G-d and I shall worship Him with beauty” that one is to beautify oneself before Him in the performance of mitzvot. And not only must one be adorned with mitzvot, but those mitzvot themselves must be beautified, as the Sages taught, “Make for Him a beautiful succa, a beautiful lulav, a beautiful shofar, beautiful tzitzit, a beautifully written Torah scroll …in a beautiful covering”.
Ha’Azinu-Sep. 21, 2018
This Shabbat:
Friday Candle Lighting: 6:32 pm
Shabbat Ends: 7:19 pm
Torah Message:
Gardening, Jewish Style
“May my teaching drop like rain, may my utterance flow like the dew” (32:1)
A violent storm. Winds howling. The rain lashes the ground. It seems as though the earth is being torn apart by the weather. And yet without this heavy downpour nothing will grow properly. For if only the dew waters the ground, the heat of the sun will burn and shrivel the seeds.
Only if heavy rains water the ground will the dew do its job of bringing forth the flowering blossoms.
This is the way of Torah. If a person labors in the halacha, filling himself with the methodology and torrent of Talmudic logic, even though it may seem that he is struggling against a deluge, he will eventually bring forth strong and beautiful flowers.
He may feel storm-driven and pounded by the rains. Nevertheless, the fruits of his labors will also include the esoteric parts of Torah, the “dew” of Aggadita (homiletic, ethical teachings from our Sages). They will flower in his hands.
However, if he only concerns himself with the “dew” of the Torah, the Aggadita, then in the withering “sun,” the bright lights of secular cynicism, his Torah will wither and die, lacking the deep rain to nourish its roots.
- Sources: based on the Netziv as explained by Rabbi Pinchas Kantrovitz
Vayeilech-Sep. 14, 2018
This Shabbat:
Friday Candle Lighting: 6:42 pm
Shabbat Ends: 7:29 pm
Torah Message:
Getting to the Upper Third
“Gather together the nation, the men and the women and the children…in order that they will hear and they should learn…” (31:12)
Every seven years the king reads the Torah in the presence of the entire nation. This is the mitzvah of Hakhel. Even though the young children did not understand what was being read to them, their parents received reward for bringing them.
This reveals to us a major principle in the education of the young. Even though they may make a noise and be distracting to their elders, the experience for them is irreplaceable, for they feel, through osmosis, the importance to the Torah. Even though they cannot understand a word they have imbibed a vital lesson: The Torah is the life-blood of the Jewish People.
Rav Yaakov Kamenetskywas once visiting a kindergarten of a Torah school. Noticing that all the mezuzahs on the doors were placed on the lower third of the doorposts, he remarked, “It’s a lovely idea to put the mezuza in a place where the children can easily reach up and touch them, but please put them where they belong, on the upper third of the doorpost, and let them use a stool to reach the mezuza. Otherwise they will grow up thinking that you can put the mezuza anywhere you wish. One does not raise children with untruths.”
Ki Tetzei-Aug 24, 2018
This Shabbat:
Friday Candle Lighting: 7:10 pm
Shabbat Ends: 7:57 pm
Torah Message:
I Know It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll
“When you go out to war against your enemies…and you will capture its captivity.” (21:10)
Educational psychologists recognize the wisdom of our Sages in Pirkei Avot: Elisha ben Avuya says, “One who learns as a child is like ink on new paper, and one who learns when he is old is like ink written on paper which has been erased.”
However hard one tries to erase the writing of one’s youth, there will always be a residual grayness on the paper of the mind.
How I wish my bekiut (breadth of knowledge) in Torah was as clear as my recall of the lyrics of “Bridge Over Troubled Water”!
A young fellow had started learning at a ba’al teshuva Yeshiva and came to Rav Shlomo Wolbe zt”l with a question: “Rebbe, I was once a national violin virtuoso. Is it permissible for me to continue playing?”
Devarim-July 19, 2018
This Shabbat:
Friday Candle Lighting: 7:45 pm
Shabbat Ends: 8:45 pm
Torah Message:
Words Building Worlds
“These are the words…” (1:1)
Shortly before his marriage a young man went to great Torah scholars. He said that he had something that was weighing heavily on him, something that even the day of his marriage would not atone for. “I grew up in Jerusalem when food was a luxury. Nobody even knew what a banana looked like. One day the rebbe went out of the classroom for a few moments and left a few coins on his shtender. I was hungry and I took the money and put it in my pocket. The rebbe came back and immediately saw that the money was gone. He made the whole class stand in a line facing the wall, and one-by-one he checked our pockets. Quickly I dropped the money into the pocket of the boy who was standing next to me. When it came his turn he couldn’t believe that the money was there and he started to cry. He pleaded with the rebbe and told him that he hadn’t stolen the money, but of course no one believed him. After that he got a name of being a thief, and not too long afterwards he dropped out of the cheder, and gradually he went down until he dropped religious observance completely and became secular. Even though the day a person gets married is a day of atonement for him, how can I ever atone for what I did to that poor boy?”
Shlach-June 8, 2018
This Shabbat:
Friday Candle Lighting: 7:45 pm
Shabbat Ends: 8:34 pm
Torah Message:
Seeing is Believing
“And you will see it, and you will remember all the commandments of G-d” (15:39)
There’s an interesting grammatical anomaly in this week’s Torah portion. When describing the mitzvah of the tzitzit, the fringes that must be attached to a four-cornered garment, the Torah says: “It will be for you tzitzit, and you will see it, and you will remember all the commandments of G-d, and perform them.”
Ostensibly, the Torah should have written, “You will see them,” referring to the tzitzit strings in the plural. The spiritual masters (Menachot 43b) explain that the phrase”and you will see it” can also be read as “and you will see Him“. This would mean that when someone does this mitzvah with all the appropriate intention and concentration, it has the power to open his eyes to the Divine Presence, the Shechina — “and you will see Him“.
Beha’alotcha-June 1, 2018
This Shabbat:
Friday Candle Lighting: 7:42 pm
Shabbat Ends: 8:30 pm
Torah Message:
Against the Tide
“Take the Levi’im” (8:6)
One of my least favorite experiences is to be part of a large crowd.
A multitude of humanity can all too easily lose its humanity. It can so easily become an untamed beast. The herd instinct is ever-present in man, albeit lurking beneath the surface.
And this herd instinct has its more subtle forms as well. Most of us don’t like to be out of step with our peers, be they clad in torn jeans or black suits. To step out and be a little different is very difficult and uncomfortable.
Nasso-May 24, 2018
This Shabbat:
Friday Candle Lighting: 7:38 pm
Shabbat Ends: 8:39 pm
Torah Message:
The Eye of the Beholder
“…May G-d illuminate His countenance for you and be gracious to you.” (13:17)
One of the phenomena of the twentieth century that defies complete understanding is The Beatles.
Granted, they had two outstanding composers and a third who was pretty good. They were prolific, writing around 300 songs. It’s true that Schubert wrote over 800 tunes, but only about a hundred are truly memorable. Mozart comes close to that, but you have to wait a long time until you get to someone who wrote so many goodtunes. The “mop-tops” were all appealing, thin, and full of youthful enthusiasm. And they were witty and iconoclastic. But nothing really can explain their huge success.
Bamidbar-May 18, 2018
This Shabbat:
Friday Candle Lighting: 7:33 pm
Shabbat Ends: 8:35 pm
Torah Message:
Ofsted Off-course
“In the desert…” (1:1)
It’s not so often that Orthodox Jews find themselves on the same team as the Vatican, but an article entitled “First They Came For The Jews — UK Education Overlords Seek To Prohibit Judaism By Stealth” states:
“A London school with an excellent academic record is being threatened with closure for its apparent lack of sufficient enthusiasm in indoctrinating children between the ages of 3 and 8 in the concepts of ‘gender reassignment’. This is the lesson learned by Britain’s hounded faith schools, most recently Vizhnitz Girls’ School, an Orthodox Jewish school in Hackney, London.