Marriage in the Desert When you think of a desert, what do you think of? A desert can be a frightening place, scorching heat, arid land, no civilization, and no cell phone service. A place of “snakes, vipers and scorpions, and drought, where there is no water”. But a desert can also be a place of deep beauty and solitude: no distractions, no light pollution, and untouched nature in its raw, unfiltered state. For some, it’s a dream retreat, serene and sublime. The Torah was given in the Sinai desert. The desert is a symbol of the physical world we live in; a world not naturally hospitable to holiness, sensitivity to others, and spirituality. The physical world is considered a spiritual desert because, this world is, in the words of the Tanya, “the lowest in degree; there is none lower than it in terms of concealment of His light, and no world compares with it for doubled and redoubled darkness; So much so that it is filled with Kelipot {forced of unholiness} and Sitra Achara {the other side}, which actually oppose G‑d, saying: “I am, and there is nothing else besides me.” Yet paradoxically, the desert’s spiritual desolation can awaken an even deeper yearning. When King David was forced to flee Jerusalem and hide in the desert he said: “My soul thirsts for You; my flesh longs for You, in an arid and thirsty land, without water”. The spiritual challenges of the world can create a longing for G-d far more powerful than the love the soul felt in heaven. “The Lord spoke to Moses in the Sinai Desert”, the opening phrase of the fourth book of the Torah, reminds us that specifically because the world is a spiritual desert, it can inspire a more passionate love to G-d. Specifically because it is not a place hospitable to civilization, its vast landscapes, shades of color, and expanses of the sky, inspire a sense of serenity, beauty and transcendence. The verse continues: “The Lord spoke to Moses in the Sinai Desert, in the Tent of Meeting”. The Hebrew word for meeting, Moed, is related to the Hebrew word Daat, knowledge and intimacy. The longing created by the desert creates a more profound intimate bond with G-d. The tent of meeting, is specifically in the Sinai desert, for the marriage between G-d and his people happens down here on earth. Unlike a relationship formed in the comforts of heaven, this divine union is forged in the trials of the desert. It is here, in the desert of life, that the deepest bond is formed. And it is here that the sacred marriage takes place. Adapted from Likutei Torah Bamidbar 4:2
Blog - Torah Insights
Marriage in the Desert - במדבר
Sabbatical and Sinai - Balancing the Paradox - בהר בחוקותי
Sabbatical and Sinai - Balancing the Paradox
What does the Sabbatical have to do with Sinai?
That is the question the Midrash asks addressing the opening commandment of this week’s Torah portion, the commandant to let the land rest every seventh year.
And the Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying,
Speak to the children of Israel and you shall say to them: When you come to the land that I am giving you, the land shall rest a Sabbath to the Lord. (Leviticus 25:1-2)
Rashi quotes the Midrash which asks why the Torah introduces this specific commandment with mentioning that it was stated at Sinai:
What does Shemittah [the “release” of fields in the seventh year] have to do with Mount Sinai? Were not all the commandments stated from Sinai?
The Torah was given at Mount Sinai, in the desert, because the desert is a place void of civilization, agriculture, and distraction, a place removed from the concerns of physical life, where the focus can be completely on spiritual reality. The land of Israel seems to be a dramatic departure from the Sinai lifestyle; instead of wholehearted devotion to spirituality, the people are called upon to work the land; to plow, sow, and harvest. How can one bridge the experience of Sinai with life in the land?
The Sabbatical year teaches that the objective of Torah is that a person inhabit two opposite plains simultaneously. The mission of a Jew is to unite the physical and the spiritual, heaven and earth, finite and infinite, Mount Sinai and the land of Israel.
The Sabbatical demonstrates that while owning land, and being deeply involved in agriculture, a Jew can experience a sabbatical year for Hashem. The work done in the first six years is not a means for itself, but rather it is for the sake of the Sabbatical year.
What does the Sabbatical have to do with Sinai? The objective of the Sabbatical is connecting the holiness of Sinai with the soil of the land. It reminds us that Torah’s instructs not to retreat to the solitude of the desert, nor to experience a transcendent spiritual reality, but rather it is to live a life that unites opposites, a life that connects the intense holiness and transcendence of Sinai with the finite time and space we inhabit.
(Adapted from the teachings of the Rebbe, Lekutei Sicos 1 Behar)
Why We Bless Before We Eat - אמור
Why We Bless Before We Eat
There is a biblical commandment to bless G-d after we eat food, as the Torah states “And you will eat and be sated, and you shall bless the Lord, your God, for the good land He has given you.” (Deuteronomy 8:10). Yet, the rabbis introduced blessings to say before we eat food. As the Mishanh in tractate Berachot describes the specific blessing for each category of food:
How does one recite a blessing over fruits? Over different fruits that grow on a tree one recites: Who creates fruit of the tree, with the exception of wine. Over wine one recites: Who creates fruit of the vine. Over fruits that grow from the earth, one recites: Who creates fruit of the ground, with the exception of bread, as over bread one recites: Who brings forth bread from the earth. Over herbs and leafy vegetables one recites: Who creates fruit of the ground. (Talmud Berachot 35a)
The Talmud seeks to understand the premise for reciting a blessing before eating food. After some attempts to derive it from a Biblical verse, the Talmud concedes that the source is based on a logical argument:
The fundamental obligation to recite a blessing over food is founded on reason: One is forbidden to derive benefit from this world without a blessing.
But why not?
The Talmud further explains that the entire world belongs to G-d:
Rav Yehuda said that Shmuel said: One who derives benefit from this world without a blessing, it is as if he enjoyed objects consecrated to the heavens, as it is stated: “The earth and all it contains is the Lord’s, the world and all those who live in it” (Psalms 24:1)...Rabbi Ḥanina bar Pappa said: Anyone who derives benefit from this world without a blessing, it is as if he stole from God and the community of Israel.
Yet, this explanation requires further clarification. Yes, the blessing acknowledges that the world belongs to G-d, but how does that give a person the right to “steal” and partake of G-d’s bounty? The blessing does not seem to be a request for permission to enjoy that which belongs to G-d.
One Answer is alluded to in this week’s portion. The Torah relates the laws of Terumah, the gift of produce given to the priest. The Torah describes how the Terumah must be eaten in a state of ritual purity, and it must be eaten exclusively by the poreists: “No non-Kohen may eat holy things; a kohen's resident and his hired servant may not eat holy things”.
Yet there is an exception. A servant, who was purchased by a Kohen, may partake of the Terumah:
And if a Kohen acquires a person, an acquisition through his money, he may eat of it, and those born in his house they may eat of his food. (Leviticus 22:11)
The world and all of its bounty belongs to G-d, we have no right to seize his property. Yet, when we bless, we acknowledge that he is “our G-d, king of the universe”; if He is our king and we are his servants whom he has acquired, then, like the servant allowed to consume the holy Terumah, we may benefit from the blessings and bounty of the world, considering that we are doing so as part of our Divine service. Our interaction with the world is infused with spiritual purpose and intention, transforming the material substance into energy to fuel holiness, goodness and kindness.
Adapted from the teachings of the Rebbe, Hisvaduyos 5771 3:347
Do Good Fences Make Holy Neighbors? - אחרי קדושים
Do Good Fences Make Holy Neighbors? The Torah's enjoins us to "be holy" in the Parsha that deals primarily with interpersonal relationships, indicating that the test of holiness lies not in the halls of study and prayer, or secluded in nature, separate from civilization, but rather in the societies we create and the relationships we build. Creating a society that protects both the individual's rights as well as his sense of responsibility to others, is a balance that the Talmud spends lots of time and energy negotiating. In the first Mishnah of Tractate Baba Batra, the Talmud describes neighbors who share the use of a courtyard and decide to split their partnership and erect a wall. MISHNA: Partners who wished to make a partition [meḥitza] in a jointly owned courtyard build the wall for the partition in the middle of the courtyard. What is this wall fashioned from? In a place where it is customary to build such a wall with non-chiseled stone [gevil], or chiseled stone [gazit], or small bricks [kefisin], or large bricks [leveinim], they must build the wall with that material. Everything is in accordance with the regional custom… Therefore, if the wall later falls, the space where the wall stood and the stones belong to both of them, to be divided equally. Almost two thousand years, before Lewis Samuel Warren and Louis Brandies coined the term "right to privacy", in the Halachilk conclusion of the Talmudic discussion the Torah recognizes the right to privacy, classifying "damage through sight" as damage, and therefore each neighbor can compel the other to participate in allocating the space and the materials for building a wall that will protect their privacy. But walls can also create moral challenges, allowing the homeowner to separate himself from the pain of others. Indeed, later in the Tractate, when the Mishnah states that neighbors living in the same courtyard may compel each other to pay for a gatehouse, the Talmud asks: Is this to say that making a gatehouse is beneficial? But wasn't there that pious man, with whom the prophet Elijah was accustomed to speak, who built a gatehouse, and after-ward Elijah did not speak with him again? The objection to the building of a gatehouse is that the guard who mans it prevents the poor from entering and asking for charity. The Talmud suggests a solution that balances the right of the members of the courtyard to protect their privacy, while also encouraging their moral and ethical obligation not to sever themselves from the pain of others: The Gemara answers: This is not difficult: This, the case presented in the Mishna, is referring to a gatehouse built on the inside of the courtyard, in which case the poor can at least reach the courtyard's entrance and be heard inside the courtyard; that, the story of the pious man and Elijah, involves a gatehouse that was built on the outside of the courtyard, completely blocking the poor's access to the courtyard's entrance. Returning to the first Mishah, to the story of the neighbors who build a wall dissolving their "partnership", upon careful analysis we can see that the Mishnah may be signaling a subtle but important message about neighbors. The entire Mishnah instructs on the process of resolving the partnership. Yet, the conclusion of the Mishnah, "Therefore, if the wall later falls, the space where the wall stood and the stones belong to both of them, to be divided equally", implies that they indeed remain partners! They share ownership of the bricks and of the place of the wall. The Mishnah signals to us that we can choose to minimize the partnership with our neighbor, but we cannot eliminate it. We live together, and we therefore impact each other. This Mishnah sets the tone for the entire Tractate and for our understanding of relationships within society. Yes, we may and should protect our own rights, space, and privacy, yet we must also remember that we are in a partnership with the people around us. We are interconnected and interdependent with the broader community.
Planting Seeds - תזריע מצורע
Planting Seeds
We left Egypt. We received the Torah. We built the temple. Now, it’s back to real life.
The center of the book of Leviticus discusses various laws of ritual impurity, and devotes no less than two portions to the specific details of the impurity of the Tzaraat. It is therefore surprising that the name of the Parsha introducing the impurity, “Tazria”, which means “to seed”, referring to the opening statement “a woman who will give seed and give birth to a son”. Ritual impurity is the antithesis of life; how can a section dedicated to the intricacies of ritual impurity, particularly the isolating affliction of Tzaraat, be introduced by a word brimming with promise of new life and growth?
The transition from the beginning to the middle of the third book is abrupt. From a place of holiness and joy, we come face to face with the realities of life that include sadness, death, and spiritual, psychological, and physical challenges. We often wonder why G-d would want us to engage with a challenging environment rather than remaining within the spirituality of the temple.
The answer, of course, is planting seeds.
The challenging environment is not meant to destroy the seed; on the contrary, the seed germinates and produces something immeasurably greater: a plant, a flower, a fruit-bearing tree. The purpose of the challenge is the incredible growth it unleashes.
While we don’t always see how the challenge is, in fact, a step in the process of growth, which is why the details of the impurity and the process of the purification are divided into two distinct portions, we believe that this is indeed the case. In some years, including this one, we combine both portions into one Shabbat reading, empowering us to sense, within the planting process, the blossoming of life that is sure to follow.
Adapted from the teachings of the Rebbe, Likutei Sichos 22, Tazria Metzora