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A Short Snap Shot of Rabbi Arthur Segal
There are two major differences between the Judean and Babylonian supplications.The Bavli is in the first- person- singular. The Yerushalmi uses the plural as well. The Rabbis in Judea's Gemora thought Talmud study was a communal pursuit and made decisions in committee. In the Gemora in Bavli, each scholar was alone in his statements and had to pray he was not subjecting himself to ridicule when he opened his mouth.
In Judea, there was concern about the Derech Eretz of anger. It was not allowed and Rabbis could not upset one another. In the Bavli, angry arguments were the norm, as long as there was peace ''after class.'' Many times there was not, and friendships were torn apart or rabbis expelled when they stepped on the toes of the Rosh Yeshiva. (Talmud Bavli Tractate Kiddushin 30b).
While the Judean academies may have been a more comfortable place to study, it is the Talmud Bavli that we use because those disagreements, usually with love, and respect, brought out deep thought.
Yet, getting back to the gist of this Shabbat's parasha, the most important aspect of the passages is the question that is posed in both Talmuds: When entering the beit midrash, the house of study, what is the prayer that we offer each other??!!!
And for this, both Talmuds, agree that the Derech Eretz in greeting any Jew, or anyone else for that matter is : "Receive all men with a cheerful face.'' (P.Avot 1:15), ''Let your house be wide open.'' (P.Avot 1:5). ''Let the honor of your fellow be as dear to you as your own.'' (P.Avot 2:15). ''Who is honored? He that honors his fellow man'' (P. Avot 4:1) [The converse is true as well: Who is dishonored? He who dishonors his fellow man."]
But all of the above is nothing new: Some ancient wisdom from our Sages:
'' Why are you so surprised to find evil and corruption running amok everywhere you look? This world is the coarsest and harshest of all worlds, the ultimate concealment. Almost all of it is darkness and emptiness. Only a tiny spark of good is buried deep within to keep it alive.
''You could spend your lifetime dwelling on the outrages and scandals and things that are not right--or your could take a moment to search for that spark. You could find it, grasp it, fan its flame. From within its aura, you will see the darkness shining brighter than the heavens. In that moment of light, the night will never have been.
''Fueled by your love,and the love of God, the light will swallow all that surrounds it. ''
Jewish Spiritual Renewal is all about taking that spark of God inside all of us, and fanning it into a flame, an aish ha Torah, a fire of Torah.
So we cannot live our lives finding faults in the world or in others. We all have plenty of faults within ourselves to tackle to give us a life time of Tashlichs to fulfill. One who goes around all day, seeing the cup half full, is defined by our sages : "The chronic fault-finder will complain that the bride is too pretty." Cute, but true. Or like the waiter who goes up to the Sisterhood gals from Temple B'nai Korach and says :''Was there anything right with your meals today, ladies?'' And one answers: "The food was awful, was poison, I tell you....and such small portions!!...''
Our cups are truly over flowing each day with God's blessings even if some of us deny God, or think we earned everything with our own hands. Everything we have is not just a gift, but a loan, from God. Those who do ritual mitzvoth, let us say the rituals of building a sukkah and making the beracoth over the four species, negate those mitzvoth when they do not treat their fellow man properly. The Talmud wants us to live in a Sukkah of Shalom with our fellows every day.
I will leave you with this bit of Torah: Deut. Chapter 8: "Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees .... 12 Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, 13 and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, 14 then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God... You may say to yourself, "My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me." 18 But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your forefathers, as it is today. ''
And this important timeless pusuk from the TaNaK: Mal: 2:10: ''Have we not all one father? Has not one God created us? Why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother?''
Please learn to play nicely. We are all equal children of Ha Shem. Regardless of what sect of Judaism you are in, even the most atheist, or Humanistic, we have never been freed from these obligations to all of our fellows, not just ones that we like or from whom we think we can gain something.
A d'var Torah follows...and an interesting point from one of our fellow chaverim follows it. He is living the life of a Jew and I have worked with him, and many others, step-by-step using the Dereck Eretz outlined in my "The Handbook to Jewish Spiritual Renewal: A Path of Transformation for the Modern Jew." (WWW.JewishSpiritualRenewal.net)
Shavuah Tov,
With sincere ahavah v' beracoth!!
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
Law And Order
There are many times when I remember feeling proud to be Jewish and proud of our vast traditions. Reading this parasha brings me to one of those exceedingly proud moments. Only two or so months have passed since the first Pesach, and we are taught by Moses' rules of societal behavior in the middle of the Sinai wilderness
As modern Jews we hearken back to the original late 1800s
All of these laws today are studied and discussed in our Talmud. I urge you to read through a tractate or two. Perhaps you will be inspired to study Talmud. You will see that Judaism was always a living religion and a way of life subject to interpretation and adaptability over time and place. Many of these pasuks (verses) are discussed in volumes in our great rabbinic literature.
Questions pondered in the Gemora section of the Talmud are intense. In Exodus 21:23-24, does "life for a life, eye for an eye" mean that literally or do we mean monetary compensation? In Ex. 22:24, when the Torah says we should not charge interest for our loans, and not to pay interest on loans, is it "kosher" to invite your loan officer to your home for dinner? If there are so many laws that have the death penalty as punishment, why does the Talmud say that a court that issues a death penalty more than once in seven, or some rabbis say seventy, years is a "bloody" court?
Before one can even begin to understand these laws or to undertake an acceptance of these man to man ethical laws, we need to ask, "Why?" Why should we do good to our fellow man? Why can't we steal if we can overpower another? Why aren't our individual lives more important than another's? The answer lies subtly in the parasha of last week, specifically in the order of the Ten Utterances.
Before we can do good to our fellow man, we must accept God as the creator and true judge of all. If good and evil are separated from God, they become no more than personal opinion. We have seen too often in history that God without ethics and ethics without God has led to evil. So the first three commandments command us to know and love God.
In the 1,000-year-old text Duties of the Heart, which reads as new today as any self-help book, Rabbi Bachya Ibn Paquda, of
The fourth commandment is about Shabbat. It is a gift from God. Granted, we know that historically the Babylonians set aside special days of the month on their lunar calendar (the 7th, 14th, 19th, 21st, and 28th days). They could not cook foods, ride in a chariot, discuss work or politics, reveal oracles, or heal the sick. These were not Shabbats, not days of rest, but unlucky days to do the above mentioned tasks. If we do not love and accept God, we will not accept this gift of our Jewish Shabbat. And if we do not love ourselves to take time out for rest and our own soul's nourishment, how can we love another and do good for another?
The fifth commandment is to honor our parents. Can a person with self-hate, who doesn't believe in God, truly honor his mother and father? And can a person, who has no love for his parents, truly love strangers and see them as brothers and sisters of the same Holy Parent? Is this why these first five commandments are presented before the last five, which deal with relations between man and man?
Rabbi Samson Hirsh, a
The role of Mishpat, from our parasha Mishpatem, is the performance of justice. The performance of justice is not just a divine occupation. The world without justice (tzaddakah) is rebelling against what Locke called Natural Law. When we perform acts of justice, we become a partner with God in doing Tikun Olam (repairing the world). We therefore are all elohim (dispensers of justice). "Every judge who judges with complete fairness even for a single hour, is as though he had become a partner to the Holy One, in Creation." (Talmud Bavli Tractate Shabbat 10A).
When we do good deeds to our fellow man, and follow the ethics in the Torah that we as liberal Jews embrace, we help bring the Shechinah (God's holy Presence) into the world, a Midrash teaches. Man has the capability of bringing the divine presence of God into each of our hearts by treating our fellow humans justly and with love.
The writers of the Kabbalah (Isaac Luria et al) described ten sefirot (levels) of God's nature that we should achieve for ourselves. The sefirah of judgment (din), also called gevurah (power), represents the fearsome powers of divine punishment and wrath in the world. This power, it is posited, is needed to maintain control over the universe. This power also contains the seeds of demonic evil, also known as the "other side" (sitra ahra). God's name when He dispenses din is Elohim. It appears on the left side of the kabbalistic "map." The sefirah of chesed (loving kindness, compassion, or love), also called gedullah (greatness), represents the generous, benevolent side of God, best shown in man by Abraham. God is known as El or El elyon when he shows chesed, and this trait appears on the right side in kabbalistic terms. Luria says there are seventy-two bridges of chesed. The right side represents attributes of chakmah (wisdom), chesed (love), and nezah (eternity), while the left side represents binah (understanding), din (justice), and hod (glory). We can see how the left side without balance from the right can lead to evil, while the right side without the left can lead to weakness.
Wisdom seeking, like a cave-dwelling monk without real life understanding, is not a Jewish concept. Knowledge without wisdom can lead to disaster. Too much mercy without justice leads to anarchy, while too much justice without mercy leads to totalitarianism. The middle column brings us tiferet (beauty) with a strong foundation (yesod), leading to a divine crown (keter), and a oneness with the Godhead, the Ein Sof, the Unknowable Infinite. This middle represents the ideal balance of mercy and justice. This harmony, the Kabbalah teaches, is important for the survival of the universe.
The beauty of this parasha is in its combination of everyday societal problems with a relationship with God. Judaism takes the everyday and makes it holy. We take what some religions consider profane and make it divine. The Talmud teaches that it is a sin to be offered a new fruit you have never tasted before and refuse it. Our religion glorifies relations between husband and wife. And we make holy our relationships with one another, when we truly are Keneset Yisroel, the people of
Let's keep our eyes on our own behaviors instead of judging our fellow congregants, officers, rabbis, and cantors, and let's work to make our own synagogues places where the Shechinah would be happy to dwell.
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
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From Ben at Chabad in Florida:
Rabbi,
What I did for R----, our Jewish Chaver in South Africa, I hope I would do for anyone in need and along the
lines of your dvar torah for anyone regardless of religion or national origin. As Jews we have to find ways in our every day lives to give of ourselves and do acts of Chesed not because those acts come back to us, which they do, but because it is right and certainly altruistic and part of G-d's will.
We have the chance many times a day to do G-ds will but are we listening? He puts us in places to have the chance...... our will must line with His to be in shlema, take the leap, do the deed. It will give us more than it gives the receiver of our kindness.
I am a true believer of this principal. I am reading an excellent book on the topic called the " Chesed boomerang." What got this book into my hands I really cannot say but I would recommend it and its
principals to anyone pursuing spiritual renewal and growth, as well as your books. (WWW.JewishSpiritualRenewal.net rabbi's insertion...)
Our generation is tested more than any previous and tomorrow's will have the same issue. Technology blurs many lines between right and wrong.. G-dly and ung-dly. Many times in my readings the sages have already thought of our justifications and warn against them, but they could not have envisioned a world
of microwaves, internet and cable tv. This is a tough distraction as it numbs us.
It makes us ignorant whether we are talking about religion or life in general. Reaching beyond these hindrances to be as holy as we can be is an incredible journey....... the staircase that never ends but taking the steps one at a time is one way to get higher.
In Tractate Yoma, as you mention, the words of Rabbi ben Azarya are true. We have a built in "out" so to speak. We can repent both on Yom Kippur and through teshuvah for both sins to man and G-d. What a deal........the way to truly live is to master who we are and avoid as many sins as we can before they
happen rather than repenting after. This is true Tikkun Olam. It works takes time but it truly can be had by all and the rewarding like you will live as a result is incredibly worth it.
All the best,
Ben
___
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
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