Posts
RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL:JEWISH RENEWAL:JEWISH SPIRITUAL RENEWAL:HESTER PANIM:MISTORIM
More Comments:Jewish Spiritual Renewal:Hebrew College, MA, for Shabbat 11/15/08 for the Torah, TaNaK, and Talmud class from an Ethical and Spiritual view point.
Shalom Talmudim v Chaverim:
We are continually getting new students joining the class due to the wonderful national and international press we have been given in newspapers and the World Wide Web. If anyone wants the classes from the first, second, third and this fourth parasha class, and cannot access them from the Hebrew College Shamash Web Site at the bottom of this page, email me at RabbiASegal@aol.com and I will copy and paste them to you. Feel free to tell your friends about this class. It is free and the more the merrier.
Some more comments came in from our fellow Talmudim v Chaverim:
Mike wrote:
BEFORE WE CAN CHANGE THE WORLD , WE HAVE TO CHANGE OURSELF FOR GOOD AND RIGHTEOUSNESS.
__
Sharon wrote:
In this parasha we read of God's appearance to Abraham after his circumcision. What was such a big megillah about his circumcision that got God Almighty to come visit him while he was healing? When a righteous Jew who is ninety-nine years old decides that he must circumcise himself, then he is worthy that God should reveal Himself to him.
Pirkei Avot tells us that "When a man is one hundred, it is as if he were already dead and passed away and removed from the world." But Abraham was 99. He was still in a life where the Divine is still masked. Hence the Zohar says he must still remove the foreskin of this world. Abraham was told by God, "Be thou perfect." While Abraham lead a life of chesed, his spiritual life was incomplete without circumcision.
"The works of the Fathers are a sign for the children," (Midrash Beresheit Rabbah 40) meaning that the spiritual resources that we have in being able to keep the commandments are an inheritance from the virtue of the Fathers before the Torah was given. Circumcision was a commandment given long before the Torah was given at Sinai. Abraham's relationship with God sets the stage and an example for all of us who follow him.
--------
Marco wrote:
Re God, or so called acts of God, or wars, harming both righteous and non-righteous people, including people, brings to mind the pusuk from Job: "Shall we then accept the good from God, but not accept the bad?" (2:10) We certainly remember King David calling out to God in Psalm 22:2 "My God, my God – why have You forsaken me, remaining far from saving me and from the words I shout"
The idea of God hiding from us in time of need, hiding His face, ''hester panim'', is answered for us in the Book of Esther where God's name is not mentioned once but His Hand is everywhere. Indeed this is why we wear masks on Purim. The concept of prayers not being answered by God was not new to the mid 20th century."Why do You hide Your face, forgetting our destitution and suffering?" (Ps. 44:25). In fact history shows that those who are outwardly more Jewish and more righteous tend to be the first to go to shoahs. Our Sages teach that Rav Yosef wept and said: Are the righteous ones really considered so insignificant – that it is specifically they who are the first to die? (Talmud Bavli Tractate Bava Kama 60a).
For every exile and shoah that has happened to us, we were scared to our very existence remembering: "My anger will burn against them on that day and I will abandon them, and I will hide My face from them and they will be for consumption, and many evils and troubles will befall them, and on that day they will say: 'Is it not because God is not in our midst that these evils have befallen us?' And I shall surely hide My face on that day, for all the evil that they have done" (Deut. 31:17-18).
We must remember that:in every generation there are those who arise to destroy us, but God saves us from their hand." (Ela she-bekhol dor va'dor amdu aleynu lekhaloteynu..from the Passover Hagaddah)
As Rabbi Segal taught us, when asked where was God in the Holocaust, Rabbi Segal answered ''In the camps with us, crying.'' 'Wherever they were exiled, the Divine Presence went with them' (Talmud Bavli Tractate Megilla 12b). The Talmud Bavli Tractate Chagiga 5b brings the following passage said to Yechezkel the Prophet. B'mistorim tivku Nafshi ,God says "I cry in a hidden place". The Talmud explains that God has a place called Mistorim where he cries. Cries over what? God is in pain and He is crying over the destruction of the Temple, the long exile and the suffering of the Jews.
But this did not heal our wounds or bury our dead. ''Zion said: the Lord has abandoned me; God has forgotten me" (Is : 49:14).'' Tikkun Olam is all about repairing the suffering broken face of God with one act of chesed towards another at a time.
__
As always, I learn more from my students than I have from my teachers. Good material. Todah Rabah!
Shabbat Shalom!
Rabbi Arthur Segal
Hebrew College, Newton Centre, MA, USA
Via Shamash Org on-line class service
Jewish Renewal
Jewish Spiritual Renewal
Hilton Head Island, SC;Bluffton, SC, Savannah, GA
Hebrew College, Newton Centre, MA, USA
Via Shamash Org on-line class service
Jewish Renewal
Jewish Spiritual Renewal
Hilton Head Island, SC;Bluffton, SC, Savannah, GA
To unsubscribe email SPIRITUALRENEWAL-unsubscribe-request@SHAMASH.ORG
For other options go to: http://listserv.SHAMASH.ORG/
