Tzav – March 26, 2016
S.T.A.R.’s upcoming exciting events:
This Shabbat:
- Friday Candle Lighting: 6:51 pm
- Shabbat Ends: 7:40 pm
Torah Message:
Lions of the Soul
“…he (the kohen) will separate the ash” (6:1)
July 1956. Saturday afternoon. A taxi leisurely turns off Dizengoff Street into a side turning. A close-up on the taxi driver’s face. He is wearing a blue baseball cap.
Driver: They went to their deaths like sheep. They asked their rabbis: “Rabbis, should we run away to Israel or should we stay here in Europe? And you know what all those great rabbis said (puts on fake Yiddish accent)?“Don’t leave! Don’t go to Israel! In Israel your souls will be in mortal peril. Jews there drive down Dizengoff on a Shabbes afternoon! You’re better off here in Lodj.”
The driver chuckles, pleased with his own joke. He thinks for a second.
“So I ran away in 1937. I came here. I got a job as a taxi driver. I used to be religious but I gave it up here. Those poor fools are now ashes and I’m alive and driving down Dizengoff on Shabbes.
The picture freezes on the laugh of the driver.
Dissolve. We hear Shostakovitch’s String Quartet no. 8. A large hearse is seen leaving a graveyard. Cut to a freshly filled-in grave in the mid-distance. Hanging on the grave marker is a blue baseball cap. The camera tracks backward. All around it are grave-stones. The camera keeps tracking back through what seems to be like hundreds and hundreds of identical gravestones. They are all identical. Suddenly, the camera stops and slowly tracks in, lingering on one of thousands of identical stones. At the top of the gravestone there is a carving — six pieces of barbed wire arranged in a Star of David. The camera moves downward. We read the inscription: “For one of the Six Million — a place in the earth for someone whose ashes are blown on the four winds.”
Vayikra Parshat Zachor – March 18, 2016
S.T.A.R.’s upcoming exciting events:
This Shabbat:
- Friday Candle Lighting: 6:46 pm
- Shabbat Ends: 7:35 pm
Torah Message:
Happenstance
“And He called…” (1:1)
If you look in a Sefer Torah you’ll notice that the first word of the Book of Vayikra is written with a small letter aleph.
The word Vayikra means “And He called…” The Ba’al HaTurim (Rabbi Yaakov ben Asher 1270 – 1340) explains that Moshe, the humblest of men, was reluctant to write that G-d had called to him. Rather, he wanted to write Vayikar — without thealeph at the end of the word — which means “And He happened…”, as if G-d had just “happened upon him,” for Moshe felt it sounded unbecoming that G-d should go “out of His Way” to speak to him. In the event, when G-d told Moshe to write thealeph at the end of the word, Moshe said he would write it smaller than the other letters — hence the small aleph in our sifrei Torah until today.
What’s unusual about Moshe’s reaction is the thought that anything could be considered happenstance in relation to G-d, Who is the Cause of Causes. What could it possibly mean that G-d just “happened” upon Moshe?
The story of Purim reveals much about happenstance. The Name of G-d appears nowhere in the Megillah; the story itself seems to be one happenstance after another. It seems just happenstance that Esther should find herself Queen of Persia and thus in a position to save her people from annihilation; just happenstance that Mordechai should overhear a plot against the life of Achashverosh, and just happenstance that his loyalty to the king should go unrewarded until the fateful night that Achashverosh cannot sleep and calls for the scroll of the records of the kinG-dom to be read before him, precipitating the series of events that leads to the saving of the Jewish People.
Haman was from the nation of Amalek. Amalek is the agency of atheism in the world — that existence is just happenstance. The gematria of Amalek is the same assafek, which means “doubt”. The Talmud asks where you can find an allusion to Haman in the Torah; it replies that when G-d asked Adam if he had eaten from the forbidden tree, G-d said, “Ha-min ha-etz…” “Did (you) from the tree…?” The word “Ha-min” can be read as “Haman”. The word “Ha-min” is an interrogative pronoun; Haman’s very name suggests question, existential doubt.
Atheism doubts the existence of G-d — but is sure about the existence of self. True humility doubts the possibility of my existence as something distinct from He Who is Existence. Moshe’s response to G-d calling him was that — the feeling that he had no more independent validity than a chance meeting, a happenstance.
Yitro – January 29th, 2016
S.T.A.R.’s upcoming exciting events:
This Shabbat:
- Friday Candle Lighting: 5:03 pm
- Shabbat Ends: 6:01 pm
Torah Message:
The Limits of Desire
“In the third month of the Exodus of the Children of Yisrael from the land of Egypt…” (19:1)
The greatest desire of G-d for His People — Yisrael —was revealed in the giving of His “marriage pledge”, His holy Torah.
If so, why didn’t G-d give us the Torah immediately after we left Egypt? Why did we have to wait three months to consummate this Divine union?
You can’t say it was a function of distance, that it took three months to get to Sinai, because even for Eliezer, the servant of Avraham, G-d supernaturally truncated his journey, and without a doubt He would have certainly done this also for His People.
Bo – January 15th, 2016
S.T.A.R.’s upcoming exciting events:
This Shabbat:
- Friday Candle Lighting: 4:49 pm
- Shabbat Ends: 5:48 pm
Torah Message:
At the beginning of this week’s Torah portion, Moshe and Aharon warn Pharaoh that a plague of locusts will descend on Egypt the following day. Moshe and Aharon leave, but Pharaoh’s servants, fearing the total destruction of Egypt, convince Pharaoh to bring them back. The Torah relates the following exchange between Moshe and Pharaoh: “So Moshe and Aharon were returned to Pharaoh and he said to them, ‘Go and serve G-d, your G-d; which ones are going?’ Moshe said, ‘With our youngsters and with our elders shall we go; with our sons and with our daughters, with our flock and with our cattle shall we go, because it is a festival of G-d for us.’ He said to them, ‘So may G-d with you as I will send you forth with your children. Look! The evil intent is opposite your faces. Not so; let the men go now. Serve G-d, for that is what you seek.’ And he drove them out from Pharaoh’s presence.” (Shemot 10:8-11)
Shemot – January 1st, 2016
S.T.A.R.’s upcoming exciting events:
- Kid’s Disneyland Trip
- Teen Big Bear Shabbaton
- Teen Nessah Shabbaton
This Shabbat:
- Friday Candle Lighting: 4:37 pm
- Shabbat Ends: 5:26pm
Torah Message:
Pharaoh’s Daughter Hides Moshe’s Identity
The narrative that describes the infant Moshe’s rescue by the daughter of Pharaoh and his being raised by her in the palace of Pharaoh presents numerous difficulties. Firstly, how could Pharaoh’s daughter even think of raising this child under the very noses of Pharaoh and his advisors? Wouldn’t they be suspicious of a Hebrew in the very palace of the king, especially since they might very well have been aware of the prophecy that the eventual savior of the Hebrews was born at that time? It is likely that they would think to themselves, “How can we allow this Hebrew child to grow up being exposed to and ultimately learning all the strategies and tactics of the ruler and his advisors?” Secondly, the verse (Shemot 4:11) tells us that, “It happened in those days that Moshe grew up and went out to his brethren and observed their burdens…” How did Moshe know that he was a Hebrew himself, that they were his brethren? Ordinary Egyptians avoided any contact with these lowly Hebrews. Certainly a prince raised in the palace of the king would have had nothing to do with them.
Miketz -December 11th, 2015
S.T.A.R.’s upcoming exciting events:
This Shabbat:
- Friday Candle Lighting: 4:26 pm
- Shabbat Ends: 5:15pm
Torah Message:
The dreamer is about to be saved by dreams, albeit not the ones that he dreamt but rather those of an unlikely stranger – the Pharaoh of Egypt himself. But dreams are dreams and often times they do not coincide with human reality. What makes Yosef so extraordinary in the eyes of Pharaoh was his ability to, so to speak, dream along with Pharaoh, interpret his dreams and translate them into practical life-saving action.
Vayishlach – November 27th, 2015
S.T.A.R.’s upcoming exciting events:
This Shabbat:
- Friday Candle Lighting: 4:27 pm
- Shabbat Ends: 5:25pm
Torah Message:
This Parsha contains one of the most famous and enigmatic narratives of the lives of the Patriarchs: “Jacob was left alone and a man wrestled with him until the break of dawn. When he perceived that he could not overcome him, he struck the socket of his hip; so Jacob’s hip-socket was dislocated…Then he said, ‘Let me go, for dawn has broken.’ And he said, ‘I will not let you go unless you bless me.’ He said to him, ‘What is your name?’ He replied, ‘Jacob’. He said, ‘No longer will be said that your name is Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with the Divine and with man and have overcome.’ Then Jacob inquired, and he said, ‘Divulge if you please, your name.’ And he said, ‘Why do you inquire of my name?’ And he blessed him there. So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, ’For I have seen the Divine face-to-face yet my life was spared.’ The sun rose for him as he passed Penuel and he was limping on his hip. Therefore the Children of Israel are not to eat the displaced sinew on the hip-socket to this day, because he struck Jacob’s hip-socket on the displaced sinew.” (Ber. 32:25-31)
Yayeitzei – November 20th, 2015
S.T.A.R.’s upcoming exciting events:
This Shabbat:
- Friday Candle Lighting: 4:29 pm
- Shabbat Ends: 5:16pm
Torah Message:
Warned that his brother Esav is seeking to kill him, Yaakov flees and settles down for the night. “And he dreamed, and behold!, a ladder was set earthward and its top reached heavenward, and behold!, angels of G-d were ascending and descending on it. And behold!, G-d was standing over him, and He said, ‘I am G-d, the G-d of Abraham your father and G-d of Yitzchak” (Ber. 28:12-13)
Abarbanel lists eight different interpretations of this enigmatic dream that are mentioned in other commentaries. Although he acknowledges that each of them is valuable, he notes that none of them connects the dream with Yaakov’s immediate circumstances, the fact that he “stole” his father’s blessing from his brother Esav and was now fleeing for his life. The eight interpretations are as follows:
Toldot – November 13th, 2015
S.T.A.R.’s upcoming exciting events:
This Shabbat:
- Friday Candle Lighting: 4:32 pm
- Shabbat Ends: 5:20 pm
Torah Message:
In this Parsha is the famous narrative of Esav’s sale of his birthright (bechora) to his younger brother Yaakov for a pot of lentils. Abarbanel finds numerous difficulties with the whole story. What exactly were the special rights of the first-born? If they were truly significant, why would Esav give them up for a mere pot of lentils? If they were not significant, why was Yaakov so anxious to obtain them, and why did he take advantage of his brother’s physical weakness at the time to purchase these rights for a ridiculously low price? He should have given his brother food without asking for anything in return; wasn’t Yaakov supposedly the paragon of honesty and virtue? If we want to say that the firstborn receives a double inheritance, this rule does not take effect until later, after the Torah is given. If we want to say that the firstborn is entitled to the honor and respect of his younger siblings, why does Yaakov want to take this away from Esav in such an underhanded manner? Finally, if the firstborn privileges are to be understood in a spiritual, not material sense,G-d could of course see to it that those advantages were bestowed on whomever He wished, as we see later on in the case of Ephriam supplanting his older brother Menashe, and David being elevated over his older siblings.
Chayel Sara – November 6th, 2015
S.T.A.R.’s upcoming exciting events:
This Shabbat:
- Friday Candle Lighting: 4:37 pm
- Shabbat Ends: 5:25 pm
Torah Message:
At the end of this Parsha, Avraham takes another wife named Keturah who bears him six additional sons. Rashi explains that she was actually Hagar, whom he was essentially remarrying after having sent her away years before. According to Abarbanel it was understandable for him to remarry her after the death of Sara. Abarbanel is puzzled, however, by the fact that the Torah tells us explicitly that there were children from his concubines (plural), to whom he gave gifts. This is a clear indication that Hagar and Keturah were not the same person. What need did Avraham have for an additional wife besides Hagar?