Parashat Re'eh

Parashat Re'eh
Av 27, 5772 (August 27, 2010
by Avi Whitten-Vile



This was my Torah portion for my bar mitzvah, 3 long years ago. I can’t find my dvar, so here is the newer, shorter, user friendly version.

Parsha Re’eh opens with what could be the most important verse in the Torah for modern Jews. “See, this day I set before you a blessing, and a curse.” Moses is trying to persuade the Israelites to do the right thing, i.e. follow G-d’s commands, and He is warning them about the consequences if they choose wrongly. However, it seems important to say, that they get to choose. There are, of course, consequences for following the wrong path, but our actions become meaningful precisely because we get to choose them.

And what is a blessing and what is a curse? Sometimes it’s hard to tell.
When you have a pain in your elbow, is this a blessing or a curse? My sister woke up with a painful elbow this summer, and luckily the pain prompted her to see a doctor who said she had a spider bite that was infected and gave her the proper medication. Without the pain, she wouldn’t have known she had a gross oozing reddened spider bite. She wouldn’t have noticed it since it was on the back side of her arm (It was kind of cool actually; not that I wish my sister pain). Life has many situations like this that seem to be bad or good on the surface, but a deeper look and some wisdom can often show you the real benefit. Just last week, my dad had a problem with his eye. He had to have surgery and now he can’t read for 10 days. This seems like a curse and as of this writing, he still can’t find the “deeper meaning” behind not being able to read. Maybe it’s good to heighten your other senses for 10 days. I’ll tell him that.

Millions of people in California want to win the lottery. Sometimes for fun, we buy a few tickets and then realize we should have just burned our money on the lawn. People devise strategies, examine their dreams (Ok we sometimes think out loud about what we’d do with 30 million dollars) and spend lots of money trying to win. Superficially they think of the lottery as the ultimate blessing. However, there is a higher rate of divorce and suicide among lottery winners. Many people zip through their money and even end up in debt. Their estranged relatives begin to call and suddenly they have a whole new set of friends; Most of them looking for a handout. Having a lot of money can sometimes just provide you with more opportunities to be irresponsible.

The world is a very confusing place. Often the path before you is not white or black, but fuzzy. Look around and you can see people doing things they think are wonderful, and even holy, but you think they are wrong. Suicide bombers think they’re doing a holy act.

It takes wisdom to discern what is taking you towards goodness and putting light into the world, and it takes experience to see what is bringing more darkness and sadness into the world.

We are people with free will, who have to learn what G-d wants from us and then try to meet those high standards. We have to decide for ourselves and understand that sometimes there is benefit in what initially seems like a curse.

Parashat Va'etchanan

Parashat Va'etchanan
Av 13, 5771 ~ August 13, 2011
by Shoshanna Chana Somerville

Writing this D’Var Torah today, I am particularly focused on the brachot that I can bestow upon my friends and family. Are you wondering why? Well, it’s something that any of us can do on our birthdays as a part of celebrating the G-d given gift of life. So, this being the 11^th of August, I have the privilege of giving brachot; and in fact, I started last night. Giving my friends a bracha, I was acutely aware of how much and how deeply they’ve prayed that HaShem would grant them their deepest yearnings. Almost simultaneously, I became amazingly attuned to my own supplications to HaShem, repeatedly beseeching Him to fulfill what I want most of all.

This introduction now brings us to the week’s Parasha, V’Etchanan. Moshe is painfully aware that he will not have the opportunity to lead the Bnai Yisrael into the Promised Land. He knows that Yehoshuah Ben Nun has been chosen in the capacity to lead, and that Yehoshuah will reflect all the light that Moshe has ever exuded. And…

The letter, Vav, (and) in V’Etchanan – Chapter III, Verse 23 - is the link to the previous parashah, which begins Sefer Devarim. This book strongly reteaches – via Moshe’s initiative rather than G-d’s dictating to him - all of the mitzvot to the second generation in the Midbar. So, we understand the Vav to be a joiner link, in this case. We can also know it as a prefix of conjunction. It says that the story continues.

“Vav” means “hook” and it looks like a hook. We can be standing here on earth and be hooked on Sh’mayim. Sh’mayim also, comes to earth. There is a flow back and forth, something for which we are striving daily in our prayers and by carrying out the mitzvot. We truly speak to G-d if we attain kavanah, and we surely try to perform the mitzvot as G-d expects of us; and, consequently, He causes His countenance to shine down upon us.

V’Etchanan has a gematrical value of 515. Midrashically speaking, we learn that Moshe implored HaShem 515 times with prayer. He requested that he be allowed to cross the Yarden into Aretz Israel. Actually, since he had labored to lead the Bnai Yisrael out of Mitzraiim and had to contend with their grumbling and other mishugas for forty years in the Midbar, it was only natural for him to think that he should take this nation into the land of milk and honey.

At the same time, Moshe knows that G-d decreed that he would not be able to do so; but, G-d has taught Moshe well. Moshe exercises his own will and persists in petitioning Him. Moshe does not want to let up.

How paradoxical a situation Moshe has created! On the one hand, he is repetitiously requesting that HaShem change His plan; and on the other hand, he is appealing to the Bnai Yisrael to obey HaShem’s will – all of the chukim and mishpatim that he, Moshe, is transmitting to them. While lecturing these people, Moshe is showing his most tender and vulnerable self. “I pray Thee, let me cross over and see the good land on the far side of the Yarden, that good mountain [Har HaBeit] and the Lebanon.” (Chapter III, v.25.)

515 times Moshe has petitioned G-d. Then Moshe moves on. “And now, O’Yisrael, hearken to the statutes and to ordinances that I am teaching you to carry out…” (Chapter IV, v. 1)

With regards to our own beseeching of HaShem, I am sure that He knows what we dearly want. He hears our prayers. He accepts them. He is so conscious of the brachot that we give and receive. Fullfilling our prayers and all that we seek is another matter. It is dependent on His Divine Plan. We have every opportunity to keep on bugging Him, even beyond 515 prayers; and we can do so based on our learning determination from this parashah. We are also cognizant of an inner meaning in V’Etchanan: It is the “chen” within the word, the “chet” and “nun.” Moshe knew of G-d’s infinite grace, and we should also know of it. Yes, we have to go forward – move on if everything does not turn out as we’ve desired. But like Moshe, our Emunah stays in tack. And then, just maybe…

Parashat Massei

Parashat Massei
Drash given at Beth Jacob
on Shabbat, July 30, 2011
by Omri Dahan

Many of you may remember an old Mel Brooks bit in which a young Jewish woman calls her mother, complaining that the car won’t start, the house is a mess, the kids are sick, and she still has to make lunch for her Hadassah meeting. The mother says not to worry– that she will come over, clean the house, start lunch, and take care of the kids. The daughter, grateful, thanks her while the mother explains in an exasperated tone that she doesn’t mind walking to the subway, taking the subway to the Long Island Railroad, getting off the train and walking to the bus, riding the bus for three miles and then of course, it’s no problem walking the fourteen blocks to the house. Finally, the mother asks how her daughter’s husband, Sam, got to work if the car didn’t start, to which the daughter replies “Sam? My husband’s name is Paul… Is this 917-1166?”

“No, this is 917-1177.”

“Does that mean you’re not coming?”

In this week’s Torah reading, Parshat Massei, the Torah, in a very specific/detailed manner goes through the many stops Bnei Yisrael made in the wilderness along their way to Israel.

33:5-read in Hebrew

And the Jews traveled from Ramseis and they camped in a place called…

Read 33:6

And they traveled from sukkot and camped in Eitan…

Read 33:7 and they traveled from Eitan and settled in pi hachirot

Read 33:8-and they went from pi hachirot….and they went to migdal and

it just goes on and on, verse after verse and they went from this place to that place, why all the repetition?

QUESTION: The Torah which is so careful not to waste words…goes into such detail listing every place to which they traveled and set up camp. First they stopped here, then they stopped there, truthfully who cares? As long as they get to Israel! What does it matter where they stopped along the way?

ANSWER: It does matter because each stop in the wilderness was another part of the Jewish people’s spiritual journey; each stop represented another stage in their development as a people.

Rashi: when it says the Jews went from Chazerot to Rismah, the place Rismah was so named because of the lashon hara that was spoken by the spies. The word “rismah” he explains is always used in connection with lashon hara, with slander and so that place, Rismah was supposed to remind the Jewish people and all of us studying the Torah thousands of years later, about the terrible incident of the spies and the perils of speaking lashon hara.

QUESTION: BUT again WHY? If it was such a terrible moment in our history why would the Torah want us to recall it by including Rismah in our parsha? The sin of the spies is something we’d prefer to forget, not be reminded of again and again?

Because every part of life is part of our development and is therefore meant to be learned from.

Every experience, the good, bad and even the ugly we believe happens to us for a reason and is somehow designed to enable us to grow in some kind of way. And therefore the Torah mentions every place Bnei Yisrael journeyed, even the places that reminded them of their sins and failings because from every place and from every experience we are supposed to learn another lesson.

One of the most powerful examples: life of Abraham Lincoln. History has been very kind to President Lincoln who is viewed by many as perhaps the greatest President in the history of the United States but how many of us are aware of the incredible failings and setbacks which he faced in his life?

In 1831 Lincoln he lost his job.

In 1832 he was defeated for the state legislature.

He tried another business in '33. It failed.

His fiancé died in '35.

In 1836 he suffered a nervous breakdown.

In '43 he ran for Congress and was defeated.

He tried again in '48 and was defeated again.

He tried running for the Senate in '55. He lost.

The next year he ran for vice president and lost.

In '59 he ran for the Senate again and was again defeated.

Finally in 1860, Abraham Lincoln was elected the sixteenth president of the United States, and the rest is history.

Would it have been possible for Lincoln, to have become the great statesmen he became w/out having suffered those setbacks? Some believe that it was precisely Lincoln ’s ability to somehow learn and grow from each of those experiences that developed him into the great leader he ultimately became.

And so the deal at work that went south, the tire that blew as we were driving on the road, all the little and big things that happen to us that we wished hadn’t happened, are meant for us to somehow learn and grow from.

The great Ramchal, Rabbeinu Moshe Chaim Luzzato in his classic work Derech Hashem wrote that every person’s life predicament is their challenge; that every life situation is presented to us as a necessary means for our spiritual perfection. It’s not always easy being who we are, struggling each day to be better or get better results for our lives. But there is a choice in that struggle, one we can choose to embrace: that whatever appears to be IN the way, actually IS the way. As King David so poetically wrote in Tehillim, Gam Ki Elech B’Geh Tsalmavet, even in our darkest moments, Hashem does not abandon us…He has given us this precise struggle, each of us with our very own path, with all the seemingly ridiculous stops along the way – many of which we cannot understand until much later – for a reason.

And that is why in Sefer Bamidbar as the Torah records all the Jewish experiences in the wilderness it records not only the manna falling from the heavens but also the cheyt haegel, the sin of the golden calf.

It tells us not only how unified and spiritually connected the Jewish people were at ma’amad har Sinai, at the revelation but also how much they kvetched and complained and they how struggled w/ their faith in God.

Rashi asks:

why the Torah records the sin of the spies immediately after the incident when Miriam, spoke ill of her brother Moshe?

Rashi answers:

Because even though they saw that Miriam was punished for speaking ill about her brother they did not learn from that situation and ultimately they repeated her sin of slander.

Most mistakes, sins and errors that we make in life are repeats. Every once in a while we manage to err in a new and creative way but most of the time it’s the same issues resurfacing in some other area. And so it bodes well for us to learn from those situations so we can grow from every part of our lives.

Tomorrow night is Rosh Chodesh Av. We begin the 9 days culminating in Tisha B’av. And we go through this mournful period where we minimize our festivity and rejoicing also so we can learn from the most difficult and painful parts of our history, the destruction of the first and second Temples, the Spanish Inquisition, the Crusades, the Pogroms, the Holocaust; we take time to reflect on all these tragedies because just like any individual, if we don’t spend time trying to learn the lessons of our history we run the risk of repeating the same mistakes again and we rob ourselves of the opportunity to grow from them. That’s why we refrain from eating meat, drinking wine and observe the various other restrictions. So we today can not only connect with what happened so long ago but ultimately grow and learn from those experiences.

Maybe that’s what our Sages meant when they said:

Anyone who mourns over Jerusalem will merit to see it in its joy” because if we spend time reflecting on what happened before, on where we went wrong as a people in an earlier generation we can better deal with ours today and in so doing merit to see the Temple and Jerusalem rebuilt.

As individuals and as a nation, may we grow from ALL of our experiences, from our triumphs and our defeats, from our successes and from our mistakes and in doing so merit to bring the geulah shleimah, the ultimate redemption both for ourselves as individuals and together as a nation.

Shabbat Shalom.

Parashat Devarim

Parashat Devarim
Drash given at Beth Jacob
on Shabbat, Aug 6, 2011
by Alexandra Hart


Alex: "Posted for reference as my accent may interfere with delivery"

Some weeks back, having started to prep for today, I realized that the term ‘hope’ was a recurrent theme. This Shabbat, we not only read Parshat Devarim but alongside it was read the haftara taken from Yeshaya, commencing; ‘chazon’ ‘vision’. It is Yishaya’s prophecy after the chorban, the destruction of the Bet HaMikdash, when all hope seemed dashed yet it is from this vision that this Shabbat is named Shabbat Chazon. It is the Shabbat preceding Tisha B’Av, a fast day, the saddest date of our calendar yet with this haftarah we are provided with hope in advance of the day.

I pondered about hope for a while, it’s so very intangible, nothing’s secure. No precedent with which to have expectation and pondered some more. I asked the other half of my soul how to differentiate between hope and expectation. The response received came back as a percentage. An interesting route, but not so useful for a dvar Torah.

But Hope. It really is essential. In our (shared) English vocabulary we have many maxims to keep chin up. We say things like ‘Night follows day’ or, ‘Tomorrow will be a better day’ or even ‘There’s light at the end of the tunnel’ and as parents, we may rub and kiss a scrape and say “you’re going to be ok” and so forth. We need hope.

Armed with hope, we live and plan for tomorrow in all manner of ways. Few of us live life without backup and actually live the maxim ‘live in the here and now’, we may of course act it but few of us are really footloose and fancy free.

We hope that things won’t turn bad but if they do, there’s a plan, on a shelf, in a bank, with a lawyer. We have never been able to stop time; we have to move with it. We take what life throws at us, the rough with the smooth and hope that we’ve planned as best as we could.

Perhaps the best way to deal with it all, is to evolve with it. To reinvent or die. To press the refresh button.

Speaking of evolution, I recently heard the neuroscientist, Dean Buonomano being interviewed as part of a review for his latest book, Brain Bugs: How the Brain's Flaws Shape Our Lives. I was entertained by the following demonstrative excerpt about evolution from the same:

When attacked, a skunk's natural inclination is to turn around, lick its tail and spray a noxious scent. That works when a skunk faces a natural predator in the wild, but it's not as helpful when faced with, let's say, an oncoming car.

"They didn't evolve to deal with that circumstance," says the neuroscientist "And humans suffer some of the same consequences of living in a time and place we didn't evolve to live in.

Could evolution, in this sense, ever apply to us as Jews? Let’s get to our parsha. Like all parshiot, they are read year in, year out but each year there’s a new way to look at the very same words.

Here in Devarim, Moshe’s at the end of his life. A fitting time, one might think, to compare and contrast how he has changed from the once meek individual, unwilling, unable, to speak publicly. However, we see a changed character now here in Devarim. He’s jettisoning, projecting his hope on to Yehoushua. Moshe, a man who was never keen to speak, has his final day in the sun. In Devarim, Moshe continues recounting the encampments, as he had done in Parshat Masei. This is to give chizuk, to give hope. Perek gimmel, posuk caf bet, Moshe says to Yehoushua,

“Your own eyes have seen all that G-d your Lord has done to those 2 kings. G-d will do the same to all the kingdoms to which you will be crossing. Do not fear them, since G-d your Lord is the One who will be fighting for you.”

The recounting of the journeys and the trials and tribulations en route is a method with which to inspire – look how far you’ve come! One more push! Yes, there have been troublesome times but things will only, can only, get better! G-d will deliver!

Perhaps Joshua, like any person stepping into a new role is entitled to ask what is expected of him. What the duties are and what of the cause and effect of his actions. Moshe in this speech, coerces him by pointing out, it’s not just hearsay, it’s not a sales pitch. “Your own eyes have seen it!” A meek individual no longer. Moshe has certainly evolved.

But what of the general population? The hoi polloi? On Devarim, The Chief Rabbi of the UK, Rabbi Sacks, remarks on the introduction of the word ‘Yisrael’. It’s not only Moshe who has changed. Parshat Devarim begins with the words ‘Kol Yisrael’. This intimates that they are no longer, Bnei Yisrael. Kol Yisrael suggests that the Jewish people are now a collective. They too have evolved.

Moshe in Devarim says: “G-d your Lord has increased your numbers until you are as many as the stars of the sky.”

Of course, amongst the population, there may well be division, 2 Jews, many opinions but they are inclusive.

Let’s consider inclusivity for a moment; a feature of our people that will never grow old. Rabbi Dr. Lord Sacks reminds us that the word Chayim, Life, is plural. To live life is to live amongst more than one; it is not good for man to be alone.

The word Simcha, though we haven’t celebrated smichot over these past 3 weeks, simcha too cannot be translated into the singular either.

Though in English, an individual can feel joy or happiness alone; simcha is rejoicing as a plethora.

Let’s also consider dark times. Also in dark times there is strength in numbers. And it is here on Shabbat Chazon we are reminded that we are commanded to give hope to those who are alone, those that have no other person with whom to join to learn from, to share merriment, with even whom to share a thought.

If we think back for a moment, our most recent chag was Shavuot.

On Shavuot, we read Ruth, in which are demonstrated the commandments of pe’eh, leket & shikecha., of leaving grain out as hefker for the poor, of showing that you, the farmer, have spared a thought for those that have no one or nothing. It allows these people to have hope that they will be able to live another day. The keeping of these mitzvoth opens more than just a door; it marks the advent of a dynasty; that of King David. These mitzvoth will reappear in Devarim chapt.26.

Here in today’s haftora portion of Yeshaya we read that we are to be inclusive to the widow and to the orphan. It is not good for man to be alone.

As for an orphan, one who has no parents from whom to understand, to point the direction and from whom to learn; I am able to refer back to my own family.

My grandfather became an orphan at the tender age of 7. Instead of all hope being lost, his community ensured that he and his 7 siblings were cared for. They were difficult times, that of The Great War, WWI. But they didn’t lack chinuch, a Jewish education. In fact, it was through his education that his son, my father, was able to give strength and hope to another.

They were holidaying as a family in Spain in the early 1950s. My grandfather, a jeweler by trade, entered a jewelry store and, striking up a bargain, he, together with my dad, entered the back of the shop. The shopkeeper noted that my father’s tzizit were on show. He delved further and to my grandfather’s astonishment, began weeping. He was a Morrano. He explained that his community, his kehilla had, during WWII all agreed to become Morranos, burying all trace of being Jews and giving the outward appearance of being regular Christians, Catholic no less. The shopkeeper had truly believed that all continental, European Jews had been wiped out during the Shoah. With my grandpa’s and father’s appearance his hope was now rekindled; through a child and the chinuch of his father, an orphan.
And to the present day and microcosm once again. My little family has not been here in the US, never mind Oakland and Beth Jacob for very long. Less than a year. With great hope, we made a pilot trip in June 2010 and made our decision to move here having seen and been comforted by the familiar inclusion and continuity of that that had been infused in us by our own upbringing back in the UK. We could envisage that our children could grow up with a similar education. We could evolve yet remain the same. Furthermore, the kehilla of Beth Jacob exemplifies the idea of inclusivity. A middah we are keen to emulate.

So on this Shabbat, Shabbat Chazon, each of us may be searching for a vision, having come through 3 weeks when G-d is not as apparent. We may be expecting solace or some form of enlightenment before one of the greatest fast days of our calendar. Not all of us get to have guidelines for how the future will fall out, there’s only so much for which you can plan. But there are those that can provide pointers and it is in their vision in which we can have that expectation. The words of Moshe to Kol Yisrael transcend time. His words allow us to look back and move onwards with refreshed hope and it is with the guidelines of inclusivity we read in Yeshaya that we understand how this expectation may best be achieved. With these great words of hope, I wish you all a Shabbat Shalom v’ Tzom Kal.

Parashat Devarim

Parashat Devarim Av 6, 5771 ~ Aug 6, 2011 by Joel Ackerman

The Israelites are encamped on the east side of the Jordan River, facing Jericho. They are ready, they think, to enter the Promised Land. The book and parasha begin: "Eleh had'varim asher diber Moshe el-col-Yisrael ba'ever Hayarden, bamidbar, ba'arava, mol suf, ben-paran o'ven-tofel v'lavan vachatzoret v'di zahav. Achad eser yom meChorev derech Har-Seir ad Kadesh Barnea." There are two major views on how the first sentence should be translated, and where the words of Moses actually begin. The usual translation treats the second half of this sentence and the second sentence as being the names of places that mark the site of the speech (or speeches), and the sixth verse as being the beginning of his speech. Accordingly, this translation would read (quoting the Hertz Chumash): "These are the words which Moses spoke to all Israel beyond the Jordan; in the wilderness, in the Aravah, over against Suph, between Paran and Tophel, and Laban, and Hazeroth, and Di-Zahab. It is eleven days' journey from Horeb unto Kadesh-Barnea by way of Mount Seir." However, Ramban remarks that this is an awfully long description of a place, and he, Rashi and other commentators hold that the apparent place names refer not to the location of the speech but to locations or incidents in which the Israelites committed major sins, or at least indiscretions. Such a translation would begin his speech with the second half of the first sentence: "These are the words which Moses spoke to all Israel beyond the Jordan concerning the places where they sinned: in the wilderness, and by the Sea of Reeds, and the sin of the spies in Paran; and complaints about the manna, and at Hazeroth! (either Korach's rebellion or Miriam's slandering Moses). And there surely was enough gold (the calf). It's (normally) eleven days from Horeb (Sinai) to Kadesh Barnea . (but G-d loved you so much he brought you there in just three days. And we could have entered the land then). But because of the sins of the spies, and of all those who listened to them, entering the Land had to wait until the Israelites had spent forty years in the wilderness. The Israelites believe that they are now ready to enter the Land. What they don't know is that, before they can do that, they will have to listen to the entire book of Devarim, probably the longest farewell speech in history, said to extend over five weeks, repeating many of the laws they have already been taught. But why? After all, they've grown up with the commandments and laws, as well as with the history of our people. One would think that these lessons would have been implanted within them, and did not need repetition? Is it because Moses has to have the last word? There are at least two reasons. First, they need to understand, to internalize, that their lives are about to undergo major changes. Up to now, they have seen God's miracles daily and have been directly sustained by them. However, as soon as they enter the Land, those miracles will cease. So they need to understand, in advance, what that will mean. They need to know how to live in the land, how to work the land and grow their own food. Their clothing will now wear out; they will have to make new ones. They will have neighbors who are idolaters; they will need strong faith and self-discipline to avoid being ensnared by them. Second, they feel that they are different from their parents and, of course will never make the same mistakes; they have faith in G-d where their parents lacked that faith. But they could be wrong; if subjected to the same pressures and temptations as their parents, they could make the same mistakes, commit the same sins, as their parents. So Moses needs to remind them now of the major errors, even the sins, committed by their parents. He needs to remind them of the history that has brought them to this place, both the positive and the negative events. At times during our lives we stand, literally or figuratively, at the border of a new "land" - a new place, a new job, a new status, etc. At such times it can be a good practice, before entering, to review our individual past experiences. This new "land" will be different from the old in at least a few ways. We don't have a Moses to remind us of everything or give us the proper perspective, so we have to give it to ourselves. We may have to remind ourselves, honestly if possible, of what we have done up to now, of the principles that we have lived by (or at least tried to live by), of successes and of mistakes - even of sins - that we have made. We will need to consider what will be different, so that when we enter the "land" we should learn from our experiences, hopefully enjoy success there (or at least make different mistakes). We might need five weeks, or even more, to think of all of these and to settle our minds on the plan. Best wishes on crossing over. Shabbat shalom.