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RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL:JEWISH RENEWAL:HANDBOOK TO JEWISH SPIRITUAL RENEWAL
RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL:JEWISH RENEWAL:JEWISH SPIRITUAL RENEWAL:HILLEL:OMER:
So when we love our fellow, we do so, not with the ulterior motive of bringing them to Torah. We love because love is the goal, love is the mitzvah. By showing love, by showing chesed, Torah is taught without saying a word about it. Conversely, when we turn someone away, and act inclusively, especially from something ostensibly Jewish, like a Sabbath dinner, we are teaching anti-Torah and are doing Chillul ha Shem, a desecration of God's Holy name.
JEWISH SPIRITUAL RENEWAL:SHABBAT 4/25/09:TORAH,TANAK,TALMUD, FROM AN ETHICAL AND SPIRITUAL VIEW
Shabbat Shalom my beloved Chaverim v' Talmidim:
I hope you had a joyous spiritual Pesach. Thank you for all who came to our home for the first night seder. The conversation and learning was fantastic.
Some Talmud: Bavli Tractate Ta'anit 7a: "I have learned much from my teachers, more from my colleagues, but most from my students." THANK YOU!!!
Thank you also for my friends and Talmidim who prepared, and had me lead, a second night seder only a 1/2 mile from our home. What was so amazing were the teen age kids from Florida's NIFTY who where here for Spring Break but wanted to spend a night at a 'properly done' Seder as they put it. What a joy it was to see these children, all post b'nai mitzvah, who go to Reform Temples in Florida, but go to services every Friday night and Saturday morning, and Hebrew school, 6 hours a week, each Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. These kids knew the Hagaddah, and knew the Beracoth ha Mazon as they do it at their homes every day. I was in tears.
My thanks also to the nursing home staff and the Jewish residents and their adult children who allow me the mitzvah of doing mini-Shabbat service for them, and this past Friday, mock-seders. I saw miracles. A gal who hadn't eat much solid food, ate 3 hard boiled eggs. A gal with Alzheimer's who is lost inside herself, sang along to all of Dayanu! And another gal with Alzheimer's who hasn't spoken much of anything that made sense in months, when she ate the Charoset (thanks Carole!!), said 'mortar for bricks, mortar for bricks.' The nurses thought it was more rambling but I explained. They tasted the yummy Charoset and asked what the ingredient was and I said 'Pesach.'
Please do not ever doubt that Ha Shem did miracles for our ancestors and does daily miracles for us today.
Our week started with a visit from one of my many Rabbinic teachers who stayed with us for three days and two nights. Ellen and I had our home filled with tephela, study, Judaism, spirituality, and love.
Thank you also to those 30+ folks who came out at 630 am on Wednesday April 8th for the Blessings for the Sun to God, and then the siyyum we had in lieu of the fast of the first born. That was a nice way to start a spiritual Passover. www.BlessTheSun.org . It was a once in 28 year event. If your temple did not do it, you have 28 years now to petition them of the spiritual meaning of the service.
Lastly I want to welcome the so many new members of the class, locally from word of mouth, and from the three yeshivot, and from nationally and internationally who hear about the class. Along with this, my welcome to those local folks who have asked to study with me one-on-one. You humble and honor me.
OK. As I am writing this today is the 8th day of the Omer. The class however is for a week later, the 15th day of the Omer and Rosh Chodesh Iyar. It is a double portion of the Torah that (this) Shabbat so there are two d'vrai Torah below. If there were every d'vrai that needed ethical and spiritual interpretations, these two are it. Happy studying.
Let us continue with Pirkei Avot, as we read the 6 chapters during the 7 weeks of Omer between Passover and Shavuot, so that we can grow ethical and spiritually.
Some Talmud: Pirkei Avot: 1:12: Hillel would say: Be of the disciples of Aaron---a lover of peace, a pursuer of peace, one who loves the creatures and draws them close to Torah.
Some Torah: Lev. 19:18: ``Love your fellow as yourself." This is not an easy task. Yet is the hall mark of Judaism, according to Rabbi Hillel of circa 100 BCE who said this is the whole of Torah, the rest is commentary and told us to go and study.
How do we love someone, when we judge them and see their defects? Worse yet, how to we love them when we see them as spiritually or morally inferior to ourselves. How does someone who considers himself 'pious' love a Jew who he considers to be someone who is far off Torah's highway? Or how does a Jew who is told he is not a Jew, love the Jew who is doing the finger pointing?
The answer is two fold, maybe more: 1) We aren't to judge others until we have stood in their shoes. Since that is impossible, don't judge others.
Every time I work with folks, in confidence, and they tell me their stories, poverty, dog-eat-dog up- bringings, street fighting, anti Semitism, broken homes, abuse, etc, the defects of character that plaque them and that they finally wish to be rid of, are nothing compared to what most other humans in the same conditions would have grown up to have.
And 2) in that same chapter in Leviticus the answer is given "I am God." We can only truly love another with God's help. God takes away our hate, or grudges and fills us with love so that we can love. He fills us with forgiveness. But only when we ask Him. Without God, except for a very few special people, we can only love the folks we want to love. I get into more detail about this in ''The Handbook to Jewish Spiritual Renewal: A Path of Transformation for the Modern Jew'', www.JewishSpiritualRenewal.org and
Note how in the correct translation of the Ethics of our Fathers, Hillel doesn't say, as usually is written, love your fellow man. It says love creatures....beriot. That term is the lowest of some of the Hebrew terms for 'man.' Hillel is telling us a number of things. He is telling us to work with a man who has sunk so low, we don't want to work with him. He is also telling us that we all have the same common denominator and that all men are created equal, Jew and Non-Jew, and that Leviticus means, love your fellow human. Any translation that tries to imply that it means love your fellow-Jew is perverting Judaism.
Further and most important, no matter how low a person has sunk, he is still a creature of God and deserving of our love and care and bringing them to the ideals of Torah. Remember, true Judaism believes that Torah's basics are universal. Hillel was the rabbi who taught the Roman soldier while hopping on one foot.
But is Hillel saying we are only to love this person IF we can teach them...i.e love your fellow so you can make them into a Torah-clone of yourself?
No, because even if we fail to teach a person a word of Torah, we have still be loving towards them. Maybe they had a meal with us. We may have bored them talking of God's love for them, but they ate.
So when we love our fellow, we do so, not with the ulterior motive of bringing them to Torah. We love because love is the goal, love is the mitzvah. By showing love, by showing chesed, Torah is taught without saying a word about it. Conversely, when we turn someone away, and act inclusively, especially from something ostensibly Jewish, like a Sabbath dinner, we are teaching anti-Torah and are doing Chillul ha Shem, a desecration of God's Holy name.
Some Talmud Bavli Tractate Sanhedrin 44a : ``A Jew, although he has transgressed, is a Jew.'' How a Jew behaves 'religiously,' how a Temple behaves religiously, is no one's business except between them and God.
It is a basic Talmudic and hence Judaic concept that a Jew or an entire congregation may violate the entire Torah of God to man laws, yet his/their intrinsic bond with God is not affected. For man to man laws, such as ethics, and the way we treat each other, the Talmud has a much severe view.
Some Midrash: Beresheit:'' Rabbi Samuel ben Isacc: Torah preceded the creation of the world... but the thought of Israel preceded all in the mind of God.'' God created Israel. He created Jews. He didn't creat 40 different sects of Jews beating each other up, each saying they have the best rabbis, they convert Jews the correct way, and they know how to teach and train rabbis, and everyone else is wrong.
So not only is Hillel teaching us to love our fellow man, but we are being taught to love our fellow Jew. Jews calling other Jews not Jews, or lesser Jews, or their rabbis non-rabbis, are only doing Chillul ha Shem, and worse dishonoring themselves. As the Pirkei Avot, wisely teaches :Who is honored? He who honors another. And later on our sages tell us the opposite is true.
As you read the below dvar on Tazrai, and about the rules of Lashon Ha ra, think for a bit, maybe for a day, about how you can ask God to help you change how you think, and speak about other people.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Arthur Segal
Via Shamash Org on-line class service
Jewish Renewal
Jewish Spiritual Renewal
Hilton Head Island, SC, Bluffton, SC, Savannah, GA
Via Shamash Org on-line class service
Jewish Renewal
Jewish Spiritual Renewal
Hilton Head Island, SC, Bluffton, SC, Savannah, GA
A Short Snap Shot of Rabbi Arthur Segal
 Click to Order | THE HANDBOOK TO JEWISH SPIRITUAL RENEWAL: A Path of Transformation for the Modern Jew Rabbi Dr. Arthur Segal distills millennia of sage advice into a step-by-step process to reclaim your Judaism and your spirituality in a concise easy-to-read and easy-to-follow manner. If you find yourself wishing for the strength to sustain you through the ups and downs of life; if you want to learn how to live life to its fullest without angst, worry, low self-esteem or fear; or if you wish that your relationships with family, friends and co-workers were based on love and service and free of ego, arguments, resentments and feelings of being unloved...this book is for you. Price: $19.99 254 Pages Published by: Amazon's BookSurge |
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 Click to Order | A SPIRITUAL AND ETHICAL COMPENDIUM TO THE TORAH AND TALMUD Rabbi Dr. Arthur Segal dissects each of the Torah's weekly sections (parashot) using the Talmud and other rabbinic texts to show the true Jewish take on what the Torah is trying to teach us. This companion to The Handbook to Jewish Spiritual Renewal: A Path of Transformation for the Modern Jew brings the Torah alive with daily relevance to the Modern Jew. All of the Torah can be summed up in one word: Chesed. It means kindness. The Talmud teaches that the Torah is about loving our fellow man and that we are to go and study. The rest is commentary. This compendium clarifies the commentary and allows one to study Torah and Talmud to learn the Judaic ideals of love, forgiveness, kindness, mercy and peace. A must read for all Jews and deserves a place in every Jewish home. Price: $24.99 494 Pages Published by: Amazon's BookSurge |
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(001) The Handbook to Jewish Spiritual Renewal
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In The Handbook to Jewish Spiritual Renewal: A Path of Transformation for the Modern Jew, Rabbi Dr. Arthur Segal distills millennia of sage advice to reclaim your Judaism and your spirituality.
- Price : $19.99
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(002) A Spiritual and Ethical Compendium to the Torah and Talmud
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A Spiritual and Ethical Compendium to the Torah and Talmud dissects each of the Torah's weekly sections (parashot) using the Talmud and other rabbinic texts to show the true Jewish take on what the Torah is trying to teach us.
- Price : $24.99
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(003) Tzadakkah Bundle
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The Handbook to Jewish Spiritual Renewal and A Spiritual and Ethical Compendium to the Torah and Talmud. Purchase both books as a set, and I will donate a portion of the sales price in your name to the tzadakkah of your choice. -- Rabbi Segal
- Price : $44.98
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