RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL:JEWISH SPIRITUAL RENEWAL:LAG B'OMER:SANHEDRIN 14A:RAVA:AKIVA

RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL:JEWISH SPIRITUAL RENEWAL:LAG B'OMER:SANHEDRIN 14A:RAVA:AKIVA 

 

JEWISH SPIRITUAL RENEWAL:SHABBAT 5/9/09 TORAH,TANAK,TALMUD,SPIRITUAL, ETHICAL VIEWS

 

Shalom my beloved Chaverim v' Talmudim:

 

Another glorious week has passed and as a gift that keeps on giving, God has yet again given us another Shabbat to have true Oneg and Shalom in.

 

The lesson as usual is for next week's shabbat which will have as at day 30 of the counting of the Omer. I mention this because on the 33rd of the Omer, which we call Lag B'Omer, as Lag means 33, we have a holiday. This would be Tuesday May 12, 2009. Before this time, for the first 32 days of the Omer, or different schedules depending on which halakah one follows, there is actually a period of mourning occurring. Why?

 

Some Talmud: Bavli Tractate Yevamot 62b: In Judea circa 100 CE a great plaque occurred killing 24,000 of the rabbinic followers of Rabbi Akiva. Why were they struck dead? Because these rabbis wanted Kavod ha Rav (honor due to rabbis) for themselves, but would not give Kavod ha Rav to each other. Each thought their learning, their spiritual level, their semikah ordination if you will, was better than the next. They were killed. On Lag B'omer, the plague ended. Avika was left with just 5 rabbinic students.

 

Some more Talmud: Bavli Tractate Eruvim 21a: ''A human being must either climb up or climb down.''  We either must learn from the spiritual and ethical lessons of our Talmud and sages and grow spiritually as individuals and as a people, or ignore them, and decrease spiritually and intellectually. 

 

Some more Talmud; Bavli Tractate Beracoth 61b : Akiva was killed by torture by the Romans. He was one of our ten Martyrs. His last words were the Shema which is how this became our custom.

 

Some more Talmud: Bavli Tractate Sanhedrin 14a: Akiva's 5 students were left without a teacher and needed semikah ordination. Up to this time, one became ordained after studying with many rabbis on many subjects, by one rabbi, and witnessed by two rabbis. The Roman emperor Hadrian decreed , in trying to do away with Judaism, that no more ordinations of rabbis could take place. Further he said, that any town that allowed a rabbi to ordain, would be destroyed.

 

The line of succession was saved by Rabbi Yehuda ben Bava's martyrdom: he took no other rabbis with him, and five students of the recently martyred Rabbi Akiva, to a mountain pass far from any settlement or farm, and this one Rabbi ordained all five students. These new Rabbis were: Rabbi Meir, Rabbi Shimon, Rabbi Yehudah (ben Ila'i), Rabbi Yosi and Rabbi Elazar ben Shamua – an entire generation of Talmud leadership. When the Romans attacked them, Rabbi Yehuda blocked the pass with his body allowing the others to escape and became one of Judaism's ten Rabbinic Martyrs himself by being speared 300 times. Hence, semicha is also granted from one Rabbi to a new Rabbi, without the need of two witnesses, and the above five Rabbis carried on this tradition even to today.

 

 Unfortunately the sad reality, is just as the debate lingers as to who is a Jew, the debate lingers as to who is a rabbi. The Reform movement in a Responsa states that for their Temples, pulpit rabbis need to attend and complete their academic program at the Reform movement's Rabbinic schools or a handful of schools that they accept.  But they further state that this does not negate other sects of Judaism from accepting the time-honored semicha of one-on-one. Nor do they deal with the issue of rabbis who are not pulpit rabbis but teach, study, and do research. They do say that the need for three rabbis is unneeded as the two additional rabbis are just witnesses and cannot attest to the new rabbi's knowledge. Most if not all orthodox sects do not accept Reform ordination, and definitely do not accept any female rabbis' ordination.

 

Have we learned much since the first rejoicing on Lag B'omer?

 

Some more Talmud: Bavli Tractate Shabbat 33b: The other reason we celebrate this holiday is it is the death of  Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai the Kabbalist author of the Zohar who spent more than ten years living and meditating in a cave eating carobs. He is the same Shimon who received one-on-one semikah from ben Bava above. If he were alive today, he would not be hired by a URJ temple. Because Bar Yochai brought light to the world with Kabbalah, bon fires are lit all over. (Zorah means radiance). Lag B'omer is also a Rabbinic scholars holiday reminding them to treat each other with respect and Kavod, and not the  way rabbi Akivah's dead 24000 rabbinic talmidim treated each other.

 

Some more Talmud: Bavli Tractate Makkot 22b:  Rava declared, "How foolish are people who stand before a Torah, and not before a Talmud scholar, when a Talmud scholar can provide an interpretation which runs counter to the Torah's literal words!"  What the Rava is teaching (he was one of our greatest scholars circa 270-350 CE Babylon, is that Jews who do not understand what Judaism is, and pray and bow before a Torah scroll, or perhaps in today's parlance, serve on a board or a committee in a synagogue, but who do not pay sincere respect to a Rabbi who has studied all of Talmud, are being very foolish. It is Talmud as a companion to Torah that is Judaism, and written Torah alone that is Hebraism. If not for rabbis, we would be spending each shabbat in our homes in the dark either freezing or boiling, eating room temperature spoiling foods.

 

Some more Rava and Talmud: and this is for my adult Talmidim who have children, bless them, finding their way back to Judaism, but may be in a very strict sect. Tractate  Beracoth 17a, "The goal of wisdom is repentance and good deeds, so that one should not study Torah and Talmud, and then despise his father and mother because of their ignorance."

 

So this leads us to our 7 week study of Pirkei Avot, Ethics of the Fathers, which you can find for free at

Text of Chapter Three - Chapter 3 .

 

And we will use  a mishna from rabbi Akiva above:

3:1. Akiva the son of Mahalalel would say: Reflect upon three things and you will not come to the hands of transgression. Know from where you came, where you are going, and before whom you are destined to give a judgement and accounting. From where you came--from a putrid drop; where you are going--to a place of dust, maggots and worms; and before whom you are destined to give a judgement and accounting--before the supreme King of Kings, the Holy One, blessed be He. The Talmud teaches that if we are not spiritual awakened, and are silly enough to hold grudges, we paint another person with our own defects. In other words, if one says, ''I do not like Moshe because he talks too much,'' chances are the complainer suffers from chronic oral logarrhea. The story is told of a rabbi invited to a home to read a short prayer service and to expound on Tractate Rosh Ha Shana, during the evening meal of the second night of Rosh Ha Shana. And as we have learned the Talmud clearly tells us this is not the Jewish New Year but the New Year for all mankind, and we all have one heavenly Father, one set of human parents, all made in God's image, and many other ways to teach us to love one another. So the rabbi doing what he was invited to do, speaks on these topics inviting everyone to participate. Low and behold, 7 months after this holiday, he hears from the hostess, that a fellow there, has a grudge against the rabbi, because he talked too much, especially to his  friend, who was very interested in Jewish education. The fellow then admits he likes to be the center of attention at dinner parties to tell his jokes. If the rabbi knew the fellow wanted 'the floor' to tell some jokes, the rabbi would have gladly yielded. Rabbis are not mind readers. So the above mishna teaches us how we can avoid sinning....and holding a grudge against someone is a sin. Don't take ourselves so seriously. We come from a ''putrid drop'' from our fathers. Like it or not, this is how we started. Our drop could have just as easily ended up elsewhere. And where are each and everyone of us going to be ending? Food for worms and maggots. And becoming dust. Are the things we get upset about, that we allow to make hedges between one another, worth it? Will they really matter when we are dead and gone? Of course not. Keep this is mind the next time you have a chance of judging someone harshly, or decide to be loving and offering friendship instead. But the next words are confusing. Know... before Whom you are destined to give a judgment and accounting. We are to give a judgment on ourselves?? That's not the way we were taught the Heavenly Judge acted when we were in Hebrew school. Was it? The Talmud tells us that when we come to the heavenly court, we first get asked to judge someone else's life.  After we foolishly judge another we are told we have the same defects of character and hence we have just passed judgment own our own failings.  In reality, those of us who are not spirituality awakened, via Jewish Spiritual Renewal, www.JewishSpiritualRenewal.org , do this every day. So we are judged before we are give our accounting. Our accounting will be a list of all of our good deeds. But how we actually treat another human, how we judge others, whether with kindness or with harshness, determines how we are judged. We see the same idea in Mishna 3:16:  "Retribution is extracted from a person, with his knowledge and without his knowledge." When we pass an opinion on someone, we know have made a rule that we have to live up to. Going back to Sanhedrin 14a, if a sect declares those with 10 years of study, including all of Talmud, not good enough to serve in their Temple, and their curriculum has little Talmud or Halakah study, having their rabbis miss-teach and mislead, doing the grave sin of lifne iver**, they have set themselves up  for a greater level of judgment against themselves, then if they never judged in the first place. So we are left with a great insight  on the human soul. We have the power of freedom of choice and are all made with the spark of God inside of us. We can become homo spiritus and turn that spark into an Aish ha Torah, a fire of Torah, or we can listen to our evil inclination and try to snuff it out and deny it, being nasty to folks, we don't like, because as the Talmud says, they only remind us of our own defects. So what this mishna is teaching us, that with our freedom of choice, we can choose life, for now, and eternity... by not judging others, by being loving and with chesed.  When our souls come in front of our Heavenly Father, may we all live to 120 years, even with our faults, ''The only power on earth or heaven that can judge man is man himself. '' (see chapter 4 on How to do a Chesbon ha Nefesh, a moral accounting of your soul,  in ''The Handbook to Jewish Spiritual Renewal: A Path of Transformation for the Modern Jew.'' Rabbi Arthur Segal : (001) The Handbook to Jewish Spiritual Renewal ) ** Lifne iver means don't put a stumbling block before the blind. Obviously that law isn't there to literal keep folks from tripping the disabled. But it means in business, let us say a dental office, a person is blind, and the dentist cannot sell them crowns (caps) when cheaper fillings will do. In Judaism, most congregants are considered blind and unstudied. We cannot lead them astray and tell them they do not need shabbat, or that its ok to cheat on IRS forms that a shul fills out. 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

Member:Temple Oseh Shalom

The SPIRITUALRENEWAL mailing list is hosted by Shamash: The Jewish Network a service of Hebrew College. To unsubscribe email SPIRITUALRENEWAL-unsubscribe-request@SHAMASH.ORG
For other options go to: http://listserv.SHAMASH.ORG/

A Short Snap Shot of Rabbi Arthur Segal

Rabbi Arthur Segal

United States

I am available for Shabbatons, and can speak on various aspects of Jewish history, (from the ancient past to modern day, and can be area specific, if a group wishes), Spirituality, developing a Personal Relationship with God, on the Jews of India and other 'exotic' communities, and on Talmud, Torah and other great texts. We have visited these exotic Jewish communities first hand. I adhere to the Mishna's edict of not using the Torah as a ''spade'', and do not ask for honorariums for my services. I am post-denominational and renewal and spiritually centered.

 I am available to perform Jewish weddings,  and other life cycle events, ONLY IF, it is  a destination wedding and the local full time pulpit rabbi is unavailable, or if there is no local full time pulpit rabbi,  or it is in my local area and all of the full time pulpit rabbis are unavailable.

 My post-doc in Psych from Penn helps tremendously when I do Rabbinic counseling. My phone number and address will be made available once I am sure of one's sincerity in working with me.

Rabbi Segal is the author of three books and many articles on Torah, Talmud and TaNaK and Jewish history. His books are : The Handbook to Jewish Spiritual Renewal: A Path of Transformation for the Modern Jew, A Spiritual and Ethical Compendium to the Torah and Talmud, and  Spiritual Wisdom of our Talmudic Sages. The first two are published by Amazon through their publishing house, BookSurge.

For information on how to purchase these, please contact RabbiSegal@JewishSpiritualRenewal.net and visit WWW.JewishSpiritualRenewal.Net.  OR CLICK ON THE IMAGES BELOW. 

 Todah Rabah and Shalom v' Beracoth. Rabbi Arthur Segal ,( Dr. Arthur Segal )RabbiASegal@aol.com . 

 

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
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

Welcome to Rabbi Arthur Segal's Jewish Spiritual Renewal bookstore. We invite you to create an account with us if you like, or shop as a guest. Either way, your shopping cart will be active until you leave the store.

You can purchase each book individually, but if you purchase them together as a set with the Tzadakkah Bundle, I will donate a portion of the sales price in your name to a tzadakkah of your choice, such as your synagogue.

Simply provide the donation information in the "Special Instructions" box during checkout. When doing so, please include the following:

• Name of Organization
• Contact Name and eMail Address
• Organization Mailing Address
• Organization Phone Number

Thank you for visiting.

(001) The Handbook to Jewish Spiritual Renewal

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

(002) A Spiritual and Ethical Compendium to the Torah and Talmud

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

(003) Tzadakkah Bundle

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

---

Join ChristianMingle.com^® FREE! Meet Christian Singles in your area. Start now!