This Shabbat, the last Shabbat of this year, we'll read "Lo Bashamayim hee" – "It (the Torah) is not in Heaven". Many Commentators have dealt with that expression. A well known Talmudic story tells us about a Halachic dispute in which one of our Sages tries to convince the audience with heavenly signs, but finally, after another of our Sages stood up and exclaimed: It's not in heaven; decisions have to be taken by the (human) majority, G!d laughed and said:My children have overruled me, my children have overruled me.
Does that teach us that as human beings, we have to assume our own responsibility on our actions and not rely on heavenly signs?
מחר נקרא את פרשת "עקב". מילת "עקב" נדרשת וקוראים בה משמעות של "מצוות קלות שהאדם דש בעקבותיו" (עֵקֶב= עָקֵב), כלומר: מזלזל בהם. מהן מצוות קלות? האם יתכן שהיום יש נטיה להתייחס בזלזול גם למצוות חמורות ומרכזיות כגון זכויות הגר וכבוד האדם? אולי יש להתבונן באומץ בעדיפות הניתנת למצוות מסוימות ולבחון את עקביותה.
Dear Family and Friends,
The name of the Torah-section we'll read tomorrow is "Ekev"; it has the same root (with different vowels) as "Akev"=heel and our Sages and Rashi read it as: And it will be, because you will heed: Heb. עֵקֶב, lit. heel. If you will heed the minor commandments which one [usually] tramples with his heels - i.e., which a person treats as being of minor importance.
What are commandments treated as being of minor importance?
Is there a tendency today to accord less importance to social issues? To a fair approach to strangers and proselytes? To human dignity?
Maybe the moral and spiritual priorities should be reexamined?
לכן, אולי יש להגדיר את השורש נ.ח.ם בצורה אחרת ולומר שמדובר בהתבוננות שונה על המציאות, בין אם כתוצאה מכך ההרגשה היא רעה או טובה. יתכן שבכל מקרה, התבוננות מחודשת באירועים מאפשרת שינוי לעומת קיבעון מחשבתי המנוגד לצמיחה.
שבת שלום ומנחמת לכולנו
Dear Family and Friends,
Tomorrow's Haftara starts with the words "Nachamu"; the usual meaning of the root "NHM" in Hebrew, signifies: consolation.
Nevertheless, in the Torah we meet 2 apparent contradictory meanings of that word:
The Lord saw how great was man's wickedness on earth, and how every plan devised by his mind was nothing but evil all the time. And the Lord regretted[vayinahem] that He had made man on earth, and His heart was saddened.
However, just a few verses earlier we read in connection with Noah’s birth:
And he named him Noah, saying, "This one will provide us comfort [yenahamenu] from our work and from the toil of our hands, out of the soil which the Lord placed under a curse." (Bereishit 5:29).
Maybe we have to redefine the meaning of that root by saying thatnehama can be defined as a new vision of reality that requires that a decision already taken be changed, or which creates a different relationship of consciousness or of emotion that lends new significance to an event beyond our control.
We wish you a Shabbat Shalom, that will provide us nechama=comfort
בתחילת ספר דברים, קוראים אנו את נאום הפרידה של משה רבנו בו נאמר, בין יתר הדברים:" שמֹע בין אחיכם ושפטתם צדק בין איש ובין אחיו ובין גֵרו" וההפטרה לאותה שבת, שהיא שבת "חזון", מסתיימת במילים: "ציון במשפט תפדה ושביה בצדקה". דומני שנכון היום לתרגם את קינתו של ירמיהו על 'חורבן המקדש' כקינה על אבדן הקדושה בחיינו ובחברתנו, כאשר הקדושה, הטרנצנדנטיות בתוך החיים, היא לא אחרת מאשר ההסתכלות אל עבר האחר, דהיינו החתירה לצדק, חמלה ושלום.
שבת שלום ותשעה באב משמעותי.
Tomorrow we start reading "Devarim", which is basically Moshe's last speech and legacy. In this admonition, we read: 'Hear the causes between your brethren, and judge righteously between a man and his brother, and the stranger that is with him' and the Haftarah's last words are: "Zion shall be redeemed with justice, and they that return of her with righteousness". Maybe, the meaning of our mourning on Tish'a beAv nowadays should be understood as a longing for more Sanctity, Transcendence in our lives and in our society, which means, in simple words, being able to transcend egocentrism and ethnocentrism, striving for peace and justice. Shabbat Shalom and a meaningful Tish'a beAv
