Parashat HaShavuah

[Tumah]

I don't understand how the verse starting and ending with alef alludes that God sends suffering to a person, and decreed...

This is how I understood it. Alef is an allusion to G-d because it is 1 and also G-d is called Alufo shel Olam, the Chief of the world.

The verse is speaking about a person who is suffering from his wounds that were given to him by another. The verse is enclosed within a letter that alludes to G-d as if to say that it was brought under G-d's discretion.

All the other commentaries on these verses are a lot more technical talking about the 5 types of payments, what type of damage has to be inflicted, etc. I was trying to find something a little...lighter.

 

[dantech]

We've seriously neglected this thread.
Anything on Vayikra before we move on to the next one?

 

[CMike]

The small aleph can also refer to the humility of Moses.

There was a good dvar torah last shabbos.

Why is there supposed to be so much salt on sacrifices?

Salt by itself is bitter, but placed on foods it makes it tastier.

Salt can refer to our foibles and the things about us that are not so good, however, when combined with the sacrifice, it becomes pleasant to G-D

A sacrifice, a Korban, is from karov, to get closer to G-D. That is the point of them.

I thought those were interesting points.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

It's interesting …

There are two similar and uniquely disturbing events in our Tanakh. In Parashat Shmini, two of Aaron's sons are killed for offering up "foreign fire". The two sons are Avihu and Nadab. In 2 Samuel 6, Uzzah reaches out to steady the Ark and is also summarily killed. And Uzzah's father? His name was Avinadab.​

… perhaps wordplay employed to suggest parallels.

 

[RabbiO]

I will probably not be a position to post this more appropriately close to the date. I expect to be away the last 2 weeks of December. So, lest I get caught up in too many other things and forget to do this, here is a d'var torah on Vayechi-

As retold by Martin Buber in Tales of the Hasidim, once, when Rabbi Mordecai, was in the great town of Minsk expounding the Torah to a number of men hostile to his way, they laughed at him. "What you say does not explain the verse in the least," they cried. "Do you really think," he replied, "that I was trying to explain the verse in the book? That doesn't need an explanation! I want to explain the verse that is within me."

With that in mind, the Torah portion for discussion is Vayehchi.

Sons gather to gain their blessings. We’ll talk further about this in a bit. The life of a father who dreamed, the life of a son who dreamed and interpreted dreams both draw to a close. The reading of Bere****, the book of beginnings, concludes. The curtain falls on the age of the Patriarchs.

We’re all familiar with the story of how Jacob and his family came to settle in the land of Egypt. There was a famine. There was no bread.

The Ishbitzer Rebbe noted that in Hebrew the word for dream "Chalom" and the word for bread "Lechem" - are formed of the same letters "Chet Lamad Mem" – by which to teach us that just as one needs bread to live - so too one needs a dream.

Dreams. There are all kinds of dreams: dreams that come by night, dreams that come by day, silly dreams, sad dreams, prophetic dreams.

The most fundamental of dreams, the one upon on which all other dreams are meant to grow out from is to know who, at the very essence of your being, you are - because all the other dreams are the ways in which you express, you actualize, that knowledge of who you are, the meaning you bring to your life. It is a theme repeated again and again throughout the Tanach. Which is why perhaps, Rabbi Tzadok of Lublin, a disciple of the Ishbitzer Rebbe taught: “A person is measured by that person’s dreams.”

Dreams.

We live in a modern age. We are sophisticated in our view of the universe. We are rational. We are pragmatic. We have more power over our physical reality than at any time in our past. And by the accoutrements in our lives, we seem to be fairly successful in our lives. And yet for so many of us we reach a certain age, or we face a certain crisis, and we look at our lives and go, “Huh?”

The problem is not that we may, to paraphrase the old commercial with Dennis Hopper, turn our dreams over to the authorities at age 60.

The real problem for many of us is that we abandon, for whatever reasons, our dreams long before age 60. Or at best we put dreams on hold, banishing them off into a future that may or may not ever come. We tell ourselves, “I will be this, I will do that. I will go there. I will really be able to live my life, I will really be able to be me when” –-- well, you fill in the blanks. We compartmentalize our lives, forgetting, for example, that kavanah is not simply something we are supposed to bring to prayer. It is how we are supposed to approach our lives.

There is a price we pay for surrendering our dreams or putting them off into a distant future where they exist only like some hazy trophy we hope to win. We lose a connection to ourselves. We know what we are, but we don’t know who we are. We become expert at doing but not at being.

Sons gather to receive their blessings. Jacob, on his deathbed, calls for his sons, ostensibly to tell them their fate at the end of days. Yet he never does. Instead Jacob rambles on describing each of his sons in terms not always complementary. Midrash states that Jacob’s mouth was closed and the Shechinah departed from him because Jacob wished to reveal too much – the time of the coming of the Messiah. I offer an alternative explanation.

Jacob understood that for a person who does not know who he or she is, who has no dream, there is no end of days, because such people occupy only space, they may age but they do not move through time. Jacob understood that a person who does not know who he or she is cannot have a dream. And so Jacob blesses his sons by telling them who they, in fact, are. He provides them the cornerstones upon which to build their dreams.

I close with what is for some of you a familiar story. There once was a great rabbi, Rabbi Zusya of Hanipol. Rabbi Zusya spent much of his life studying text and serving small congregations throughout many provinces. His life was filled with congregational expectations as well as fulfilling the expectations of his students. One day a young man saw Rabbi Zusya sitting on the steps leading up to the synagogue. His head was in his hands and he was obviously upset about something. The young man approached Rabbi Zusya and asked him, "Rabbi Zusya, why are you so distraught?"

Rabbi Zusya responded, "because, I am concerned about the day that I will have to go before the great throne of judgment."

"Rabbi Zusya, you have nothing to worry about. You have been a great scholar and rabbi to so many people. You strive to meet all the needs of so many people. You might even be compared to such a scholar as Moses!""Yes, that is what worries me. For when I go before the throne of judgment, they will NOT ask me, 'why were you not more like Moses our teacher? Instead, they will ask me: 'Why were you not more like Zusya?'"

 

[dantech]

I will probably not be a position to post this more appropriately close to the date. I expect to be away the last 2 weeks of December. So, lest I get caught up in too many other things and forget to do this, here is a d'var torah on Vayechi-

As retold by Martin Buber in Tales of the Hasidim, once, when Rabbi Mordecai, was in the great town of Minsk expounding the Torah to a number of men hostile to his way, they laughed at him. "What you say does not explain the verse in the least," they cried. "Do you really think," he replied, "that I was trying to explain the verse in the book? That doesn't need an explanation! I want to explain the verse that is within me."

With that in mind, the Torah portion for discussion is Vayehchi.

Sons gather to gain their blessings. We’ll talk further about this in a bit. The life of a father who dreamed, the life of a son who dreamed and interpreted dreams both draw to a close. The reading of Bere****, the book of beginnings, concludes. The curtain falls on the age of the Patriarchs.

We’re all familiar with the story of how Jacob and his family came to settle in the land of Egypt. There was a famine. There was no bread.

The Ishbitzer Rebbe noted that in Hebrew the word for dream "Chalom" and the word for bread "Lechem" - are formed of the same letters "Chet Lamad Mem" – by which to teach us that just as one needs bread to live - so too one needs a dream.

Dreams. There are all kinds of dreams: dreams that come by night, dreams that come by day, silly dreams, sad dreams, prophetic dreams.

The most fundamental of dreams, the one upon on which all other dreams are meant to grow out from is to know who, at the very essence of your being, you are - because all the other dreams are the ways in which you express, you actualize, that knowledge of who you are, the meaning you bring to your life. It is a theme repeated again and again throughout the Tanach. Which is why perhaps, Rabbi Tzadok of Lublin, a disciple of the Ishbitzer Rebbe taught: “A person is measured by that person’s dreams.”

Dreams.

We live in a modern age. We are sophisticated in our view of the universe. We are rational. We are pragmatic. We have more power over our physical reality than at any time in our past. And by the accoutrements in our lives, we seem to be fairly successful in our lives. And yet for so many of us we reach a certain age, or we face a certain crisis, and we look at our lives and go, “Huh?”

The problem is not that we may, to paraphrase the old commercial with Dennis Hopper, turn our dreams over to the authorities at age 60.

The real problem for many of us is that we abandon, for whatever reasons, our dreams long before age 60. Or at best we put dreams on hold, banishing them off into a future that may or may not ever come. We tell ourselves, “I will be this, I will do that. I will go there. I will really be able to live my life, I will really be able to be me when” –-- well, you fill in the blanks. We compartmentalize our lives, forgetting, for example, that kavanah is not simply something we are supposed to bring to prayer. It is how we are supposed to approach our lives.

There is a price we pay for surrendering our dreams or putting them off into a distant future where they exist only like some hazy trophy we hope to win. We lose a connection to ourselves. We know what we are, but we don’t know who we are. We become expert at doing but not at being.

Sons gather to receive their blessings. Jacob, on his deathbed, calls for his sons, ostensibly to tell them their fate at the end of days. Yet he never does. Instead Jacob rambles on describing each of his sons in terms not always complementary. Midrash states that Jacob’s mouth was closed and the Shechinah departed from him because Jacob wished to reveal too much – the time of the coming of the Messiah. I offer an alternative explanation.

Jacob understood that for a person who does not know who he or she is, who has no dream, there is no end of days, because such people occupy only space, they may age but they do not move through time. Jacob understood that a person who does not know who he or she is cannot have a dream. And so Jacob blesses his sons by telling them who they, in fact, are. He provides them the cornerstones upon which to build their dreams.

I close with what is for some of you a familiar story. There once was a great rabbi, Rabbi Zusya of Hanipol. Rabbi Zusya spent much of his life studying text and serving small congregations throughout many provinces. His life was filled with congregational expectations as well as fulfilling the expectations of his students. One day a young man saw Rabbi Zusya sitting on the steps leading up to the synagogue. His head was in his hands and he was obviously upset about something. The young man approached Rabbi Zusya and asked him, "Rabbi Zusya, why are you so distraught?"

Rabbi Zusya responded, "because, I am concerned about the day that I will have to go before the great throne of judgment."

"Rabbi Zusya, you have nothing to worry about. You have been a great scholar and rabbi to so many people. You strive to meet all the needs of so many people. You might even be compared to such a scholar as Moses!""Yes, that is what worries me. For when I go before the throne of judgment, they will NOT ask me, 'why were you not more like Moses our teacher? Instead, they will ask me: 'Why were you not more like Zusya?'"

Nice way to bring back this thread!

 

[RabbiO]

I thought I had a copy on this computer of a d'var torah on Ki Tissa.... but I was wrong. However, I did run across a d'var torah I wrote on Balek. Yeah, I know, that's months away, but what the heck. I'd probably be on the wrong computer when it would be more timely to post it.

Before Shrek met donkey most of us knew that:
A horse is a horse of course, of course,
And no one can talk to a horse, of course
Unless that horse is, of course,
the famous Mr. Ed.

Those of us of a certain age knew that even before that first immortal uttering of “Wilbur” there was, of course, Francis the Talking Mule. And long before Francis there was the great great grandmother of them all, Balaam’s ***, which brings me to my remarks about this week’s parasha - Balek.

Just to bring us all up to speed, the children of Israel have defeated the Amorites and are now on the move heading for Canaan, and they’re taking a short cut that will move them right through Moab. Balek, the king, concerned about their numbers and their intent calls upon the services of a seer of some renown named Balaam. He wants Balaam to curse the Israelites to ensure that his army will be able to drive the Israelites out of Moab.

An interesting thing about Balaam. He is not an Israelite, but he is, in fact, the real deal. The Torah, and our tradition, make clear that he is, indeed, a prophet of Adonai. When Balek sends emissaries to Balaam to entice him to come to curse the Israelites, promising him great riches, Balaam consults with G-d who tells him not to go. When Balaam refuses the offer, Balek sends a second set of emissaries with an even better offer.

This time G-d tells Balaam he can go, but he is only to speak the words that G-d gives him to say. Notwithstanding the instructions of G-d, Balaam attempts to earn the rewards that Balek has promised him. Three times, twice with elaborate fanfare, Balaam attempts to curse the children of Israel and three times Balaam instead utters words of blessing. He earns no reward, he incurs the wrath of Balek and is forced to flee back to his own place. (In a later parasha we learn that Balaam is slain by the very Israelites upon whom he conferred words of blessing. And we talk about a hard day at the office!!)

Other than the fact that there is humor in the Torah, for in some ways this is a most comic tale, what can we derive from this week’s portion?

Some of you may recall the d'var torah I gave some time back regarding the deathbed blessings conferred by Jacob on his sons, how he gave them the gift of knowing truly who they are. In a sense, Balaam is the flip-side tragedy of knowing who you are, but not being who you are.

Balaam not only plays false with G-d, he plays false himself. He puts profit before principle, cash before conscience, reward before responsibility, convenience before calling. And in the end, Balaam loses himself. And perhaps, metaphorically, this is made most plain by the story of a donkey who can see an angel in the road whom Balaam cannot.

We get caught up on a daily basis in the busy-ness of our lives, the craziness of our lives, the minutiae of our lives. There is bread that needs to be put on the table, there are deadlines to meet, competitors who must be outdone or outbid. We so often act in the moment, for the purposes of the moment, making compromises with our selves without caring as to the consequences of our actions on our personal authenticity.

There is the old riddle of the black sock that becomes frayed by a little hole and is mended with green yarn. Then, later, another little hole, mended again with green yarn. And then again and again, until.... The question becomes “When does that black sock become not a black sock, but rather a green one.” And so the question for us as human beings is, when do we cease to be truly who we are, but instead wind up being someone we have created, but never intended to be.

It is said that our souls have three components - nefesh, ruach and neshamah. By their characteristics some are reminded of the id, the ego and the superego, but that is a topic for another day. It is also said that on Shabbat we receive an additional soul, or component of the soul, the neshamah yetera, which then departs as Shabbat ends.

Perhaps it is that the neshamah yetera is actually, or potentially, always with us, a fourth component of the soul that liberates us to be truly our authentic selves, that we push away in hurrying to and fro. Perhaps the real trick is to find the way to manifest it on the days between one Shabbat and the next.

Then we will not live our lives like Balaam, who rode one, but only succeeded in making an *** of himself.