Category: Chumash Shemot

In the year 1263 Raymond de Penyafort of Spain challenged the Jewish people to a debate. As the church’s representative, he chose a Dominican friar named Pablo Christiani, a Sephardic Jew who had converted to Christianity, to represent them. The Jewish community came to no less than the Ramban himself, to represent them. The Ramban, Rav Moshe ben Nachman (Nachmanides) was the undisputed great leader of his generation.  (His now famous commentaries on the entire Torah and Talmud established him as one of the greatest scholars in Jewish history.) He agreed on condition that he be allowed to respond in the debate. The church was relying on the fact that the Jews would be hesitant to incur the wrath of the church by responding to Christiani’s suppositions, but King James of Aragon, in whose presence the debate took place granted the Ramban free speech. After the debate the Church published its version of the debate which suggested the Jews had no answers for...

Successful People Are Unaccomplished Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day there shall be to you a holy, a day of solemn rest to the Lord. (Exodus 35:2) During the forty years that the Israelites wandered in the desert they carried with them a portable temple referred to as the Tabernacle or the Mishkan. The creative acts that are forbidden on Shabbat are those acts similar to the skills that went into building or assembling the Mishkan. The Talmud outlines 39 different categories of such creative acts that are forbidden to do on Shabbat. They represent our ultimate power of creativity which is to build a temple that accommodates the presence of G-d on earth. Of course we know that G-d does not literally dwell in the Mishkan, however, the Mishkan symbolizes our ability to serve G-d and infuse every moment and every place with the presence of G-d. In other words, the greatest accomplishment of a human being is to serve to make manifest G-d’s presence...

In the fall of 2012, Israel was once again preparing for war in response to the thousands of missiles being fired indiscriminately from the Gaza strip onto the population centers of Southern Israel. On the fourth day of Operation Pillar of Defense (Amud Anan) the Zrihen family were preparing for two very different events. While Eva Zrihen was preparing for her wedding in Tel Aviv, her two younger brothers, Sergeant Eliahu and Captain Emmanuel, were preparing for war. Not fifty miles south of where their sister was posing for wedding photos, they were donning their flak vests and ammo pouches in the staging grounds, trying to get themselves focused for the challenge of entering Gaza in what was expected to be one of the most intensive and costly ground operations in modern warfare.  What goes through your mind on your daughter’s wedding day? I can close my eyes and see, even experience the palpable joy as we walked our daughter...

Shabbat: Rest Assured Keep the Shabbat for it is holy unto you..... because in six days G-d made heaven and earth: and on the seventh day He abstained from work and rested. (Exodus 31: 14-17) Most people know what you don’t do on Shabbat: you don’t tear toilet paper, you don’t drive, you don’t write, you don’t turn on lights, you don’t shop, etc. But they don’t know why, and they don’t know what it is you, in fact, do on Shabbat. And of course, when you just focus on what you don’t do on Shabbat, the experience—which is supposed to be joyous and fulfilling—basically ends up sounding like torture. You have to ask yourself, “Is this the way I want to celebrate a holiday? Is this how I want to spend my weekend after working hard all week long?” In order to understand the real meaning of Shabbat, let’s explore the first place it is mentioned in the Torah. This paragraph is from the Book of Genesis and...

“Make it count”. Words that would stay with me forever. Lying on a hill not four hundred yards from two terrorists who were firing indiscriminately on the local Jewish civilians behind us, it should have been simple.  It’s you or them, on top of which you are protecting civilians; women and children taking cover in the homes behind our position.  But sometimes life is not so simple. It was getting darker, and as the sun dropped lower on the horizon, and the light mixed with shadows, it was clear why we could not open fire. Literally in between and all around the two terrorists who were firing were about twenty or thirty little kids. The local Arab school they were firing from was one that was familiar to me, such that I knew this school was never open at 5 in the afternoon. They had brought these children there for a reason: they were hoping we would respond with fire so...

The Gift of Giving: Love’s Secret Service In this week’s Torah Portion we are commanded to bring pure oil to the tabernacle to light the Menorah (candelabra). “And you (Moses) shall command the children of Israel, that they bring to you pure olive oil beaten for the light, to cause a lamp to burn continually.” (Exodus 27:20) The Midrash, which part of Jewish Oral Tradition, asks an obvious question. The entire world is illuminated by G-d’s splendor and yet He tells the Jewish people to bring oil to light the Menorah before Him? The Midrash answers that G-d desires the works of your hands. How can we understand that G-d desires the works of our hand? How can G-d want something from us? What can we give G-d? Does G-d lack anything that we can provide? The Kabbalah teaches that G-d created the world to give us goodness and yet it seems from the Midrash that G-d is not looking to give but really wants to receive. How...

This week one of modern Israel’s greatest war heroes, Yanosh ben Gal, was laid to rest in the military cemetery in Givat Shaul.  To honor his memory, this story is reprinted from a previous article:                                                                                                         As the summer of nineteen seventy three wound down, the seventh armored brigade was stationed on the Bar Lev line, on the border with Egypt along the Suez Canal.  On the eve of Rosh Hashanah, the brigade was given a week’s leave for the holidays. As the men of the seventh headed off for some R&R all over the country, Yanosh, the brigade commander, stopped off on his way home at the General Staff base in...

Is G-d Beyond Us or Within Us? The Torah recounts that G-d instructed the Israelites to build a sanctuary, telling Moses, “Let them build a sanctuary and I will dwell in them.” Note that G-d did not say, “I will dwell in the sanctuary.” G-d said, “in them.” Is G-d beyond us or within us? One day my son Ananiel and my two daughters, Leyadya and Ne’ema, burst into my study. They had obviously been fighting over something and were very upset. I could see that I was chosen to be the lucky arbitrator to resolve another case of sibling rivalry. They shouted at each other, “You go, you ask Daddy.” “No, no! You go, you go.” Finally Ananiel, who was age five at that time, took the challenge and said, “O.K., O.K. Daddy, isn’t it true that G-d is a boy?” Ne’ema and Leyadya, ages eight and nine, had tears in their eyes. I could hear them silently pleading with me,...

The radio squawked, and the voice over the other end began issuing commands; it was our company commander and we were preparing for an unexpected mission op. It was an innocuous moment; I had to take my pen & pad out of my pocket to write down a list of code words for map locations that I would then need to translate into coordinates for our impromptu mission: where was our drop off point; who would I be rendezvousing with, on what frequency, at what time, and so on. This was a procedure that was part and parcel of being a combat officer in the field and was really not a big deal.  If anything, relative to some of the pressures that most probably lay ahead later that evening it was a moment most soldiers, especially in Lebanon in 1985, would not think twice about. But for me it was a watershed moment. Because I was being asked to write...

God Wants You to be Happy When Rules Become Delicious Recipes for Your Soul “And these are the judgments that you shall place before them.” — Exodus 21:1 "You shall place before them, that is, like a table that is set and ready for eating." — Rashi “Taste and see that G-d is good.” — Psalms 34 LAWS YOU CAN EAT, ENJOY AND SAVOUR The job of a teacher of Torah is not to be a philosopher, ethical guide or law giver but rather a gourmet chef. A gourmet chef has the ability to bring the taste out of every ordinary cabbage, every simple bean sprout, as well as present it all in a delicious tantalizing way. Once, I went to someone's home to raise funds for my institute. I thought we would have about a ten minute discussion. Instead, we were talking for five or six hours. I hadn't eaten all day, and I was starving. Finally I decided that instead of asking for a...