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Two Cities, Two States of Being - ראה

Friday, August 30, 2024 - 8:53 AM

Two Cities, Two States of Being

There are two locations in the land of Israel discussed in this week’s Torah portion. In the opening verses of the portion, we read about the ceremony that the Jewish people were to perform as soon as they entered the land: the declaration of the blessings and the curses between the two mountains Gerizim and Abal:

Behold, I set before you today a blessing and a curse.

The blessing, that you will heed the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today;

and the curse, if you will not heed the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn away from the way I command you this day, to follow other gods, which you did not know.

And it will be, when the Lord, your God, will bring you to the land to which you come, to possess it, that you shall place those blessing upon Mount Gerizim, and those cursing upon Mount Ebal. (Deuteronomy 11:26-29)

Gerizim and Ebal surround the city of Shechem, which has a problematic history for the Jewish people. The outskirts of Shechem was the place where the sons of Jacob kidnapped and sold their brother as a slave. Quoting the Talmud, Rashi comments on the word Shechem and states: “A place destined for misfortune. There the tribes sinned, there Dinah was violated, there the kingdom of the house of David was divided”.

Later in the portion, the Torah describes another place, “the place G-d will choose”; a place where the Jewish people will go to celebrate the three annual pilgrim holidays and the place where they will gather to celebrate and consume the tithings of their produce:

You shall tithe all the seed crop that the field gives forth, year by year.

And you shall eat before the Lord, your God, in the place He chooses to establish His Name therein, the tithes of your grain, your wine, and your oil, and the firstborn of your cattle and of your sheep, so that you may learn to fear the Lord, your God, all the days. (Deuteronomy 14:22-23)

These two places, Shechem and Jerusalem, represent two stages in the spiritual development of the collective Jewish people as well as every individual Jew. When we first enter the land of Israel, when we first begin our journey to reach a state of meaning, holiness, and closeness to G-d, we encounter the two mountains of Gerizim and Ebal, where we have to exercise our free choice to decide between good and evil, between the blessing and the curse. At the beginning of our spiritual development, we are pulled between the power of the holy and the seductive lure of negativity. When we first enter Israel, we are in Shechem, the place where struggle, failure, and ultimately correction are possible.

And then we reach Jerusalem.

Historically, Jerusalem was selected as “the place G-d will choose”, more than four centuries after the people entered the land. Jerusalem represents the deeper place in our soul and psyche where there is no inner struggle, only a wholesome experience of awareness and celebration of our connection to G-d. In Jerusalem, there is no struggle between the positive and the negative, between the physical and the spiritual. In Jerusalem, celebrating and consuming our grain and wine and eating the meat of the offerings is, in fact, a holy experience. In Jerusalem, our deepest core emerges. In Jerusalem the physical and spiritual parts of our life are integrated with one desire to serve and celebrate our connection to G-d.

The Great Voice With No Echo

Friday, August 16, 2024 - 2:03 PM

The Great Voice That Has No Echo

Describing the revelation at Mount Sinai and the voice that the people heard, Moses says:

The Lord spoke these words to your entire assembly at the mountain out of the midst of the fire, the cloud, and the opaque darkness, with a great voice, which did not cease. And He inscribed them on two stone tablets and gave them to me. (Deuteronomy 5:19)

The Hebrew words "Vlo Yasaf", translated here as "(the great voice) that did not cease", is one of the tricky words in Hebrew that are difficult to decipher because they have two opposite meanings." Vlo Yasaf", could mean (1) it did not cease, meaning it is ongoing. Or "Vlo Yasaf" could mean (2) it did not repeat, implying that the voice only happened once. Indeed, Rashi offers these two possible interpretations for this verse:

Which did not cease: Heb. וְלֹא יָסָף, interpreted by the Targum: וְלָא פְּסָק "and it did not cease"... for His voice is strong and exists continuously. Another explanation of וְלֹא יָסָף: He never again revealed Himself so publicly [as He did on Mount Sinai. Accordingly, we render: and He did not continue].

The Midrash offers another interpretation, consistent with the second meaning - "it did not repeat". The Midrash explains that the great voice that the Jewish people heard at Sinai, did not have an echo.

What is the significance of the voice at Sinai not having an echo? Wouldn't the powerful, booming voice of G-d create an enormous, awe-inspiring echo? An echo is formed when the sound waves hit a surface in which they cannot be absorbed; the sound waves bounce off the resistant substance and create an echo. When the Midrash says that the voice of Sinai had no echo, it indicates that the physical world did not resist the voice. Every aspect of the creation absorbed and internalized the word of G-d.

Like every part of Torah this, too, is a message for our life. The Torah we study is not relegated to an abstract idea or thought-provoking belief system. The Torah permeates each and every part of our life, and infuses it with holiness. That is why the Ten Commandments address not only abstract belief systems: belief in one G-d, rejection of idolatry, and commemorating the Shabbat, but also mundane life: honor your parents, treat human life with dignity, and respect other people's property. The Ten Commandments cover the full gamut of The human experience, from the abstract to the practical, because the Torah has no echo; it permeates every part of our lives.

Where Do You Get Your Oil? - דברים

Friday, August 9, 2024 - 4:09 PM

Where Do You Get Your Oil?

The Torah seems to spend a lot of time discussing the lands that the Jewish people conquered and settled east of the Jordan River, outside the borders of the original land of Israel.

One of the cities mentioned in this week’s Parsha, Argov, or, as the Mishnah refers to it, Regev, was a city known for the quality of its oil, which was the second best in all the land of Israel. As the Mishnah tells us:

Tekoa was the primary source of olive oil (for use in the Temple. The oil obtained from the city of Tekoa was the first grade and choicest among oils). Abba Shaul says, ‘Second best to Tekoa was Regev on the east bank of the Jordan River. (Mishnah, Menachot 8:3)

Like every word, law, and episode in the Torah, the discussion about the location of the choicest oil for the temple has a deeper spiritual meaning as well.

Oil represents wisdom, enlightenment, and humility; the ability to put one’s ego, perspective, and limitations of self aside, in order to connect and be absorbed in something greater than self. The first opinion of the Mishnah implies that the oil for the temple, the ultimate state of negation of self and absorption within the holiness of G-d, can come only from the land of Israel, the land chosen and sanctified by G-d Himself. Only an extraordinary holiness can overwhelm the sense of self and pull the person into a greater spiritual experience and perspective.

Abba Shaul disagrees.

True, Tekoa, in the land of Israel, is the “primary source of olive oil”, yet there is a “Second best to Tekoa”. The lands east of the Jordan, which were added to the land of Israel by the initiation, effort, and actions of the Jewish people, represent “man-made” holiness. This spiritual enlightenment and perspective is one that a person can create through their own effort and meditation. Abba Shaul teaches that the self-transcendence that a person can create through their own effort is “second to”, and therefore in the same category as, the holiness and inspiration that G-d created from above.

The first opinion of the Mishnah teaches that the “oil” is accessible only through an extraordinary experience. Abba Shaul teaches that one can generate extraordinary inspiration within the ordinary experience.

Perhaps this explains the fascination of the Torah with the lands east of Jordan. While a more intense and loftier holiness is available in Israel, the lands east of the Jordan represent a greater novelty, the ability to create holiness through human effort and enterprise. The lands east of the Jordan represent the ability of the Jewish people to generate holiness, not only in the land of Israel but in every part of the earth.

Adopted from the teachings of the Rebbe, Likkutei Sichos Devarim 24:3

The Meaning of the Land of Israel - מטות מסעי

Friday, August 2, 2024 - 12:46 PM

The Meaning of the Land of Israel

The story seems straightforward. Two tribes approach Moses and ask to be settled outside the land of Israel, in the lands which the Jewish people conquered east of the Jordan river. At first Moses is furious and frightened at what he sees as a potential reenactment of the episode of the spies forty years earlier. He suspects that the request is motivated by a fear to enter the land and is a rejection of the land of Israel. Moses agrees to their request only when the two tribes promise to lead the rest of the Jewish people in battle for the conquest of Israel. If they keep their promise, Moses told them, they would be entitled to the land east of the Jordan.

A careful reading of the discussion between Moses and the two tribes reveals, perhaps, that Moses was not just negotiating a deal with the tribes, but rather he was emphasizing to them the true meaning and value of the settlement in the land of Israel.

The two tribes tell Moses that they have abundant cattle, and they describe the lands east of the Joradan as “a land of livestock”:

The land that the Lord struck down before the congregation of Israel is a land for livestock, and your servants have livestock." They said, "If it pleases you, let this land be given to your servants as a heritage; do not take us across the Jordan." (Numbers 32:4-5)

One of the major problems with their request is that it offers a glimpse into their perception of the land of Israel. If Israel is merely a place for the Jeiwsh people to settle and build a life for themselves, then indeed, there is no superior value to Israel over the lands east of the Jordan. On the contrary, for people who raise cattle, the lands east of the Jordan are better.

In his response to the two tribes Moses keeps repeating one phrase: “before the Lord”:

Moses said to them, "If you do this thing, if you arm yourselves for battle before the Lord, `and your armed force crosses the Jordan before the Lord until He has driven out His enemies before Him, (32:20-21)

Moses was telling them that the value of Israel is primarily in the fact that it is the Holy Land, the land where one senses the presence of G-d, the land where we are “before the Lord”.

Only once they understand and internalize the unique holiness of Israel does Moses allow them to embark on their spiritual purpose, which is also the purpose of each of us who live outside the borders of the land of Israel, namely, to spread the awareness of G-d that is native in Israel to the lands outside of Israel.