Just before lighting Shabbat Candles today, we are lighting 8 candles of Hanukkah. We follow the opinion of Beth Hillel, and we are adding every night one candle. Nevertheless, according to Beth Shammai, we should light today only 1 candle and so, every day there would have been less light and more darkness.
Maybe this approach teaches us that even when it gets darker and darker and sometimes we have that experience, we should never stop believing that there will be light again.
Listening to his mother's advice, Yaacov runs away, being afraid that his brother Esav, out of resentment and jealousy, will kill him. A straight reading of the Torah tells us that he left Beer Sheva and on his way to
Maybe this teaches us that we have the choice of redefining the meaning of events and decisions, if the original reason doesn't fit our values.
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Shabbat Shalom to all,
Last week we read about Avraham sending Hagar and Yishmael away, upon Sarah's request.
After the Akedah, Yitzhak disappeared and didn’t live with his parents.
Rashi, quoting a Midrash reads in the words "Beer LaHay Roei" an allusion to the place where we last met Hagar and Yishmael and says that after his mother Sarah died, he brought Hagar back to his father, which is identified with Keturah; we'll also read that Yitzhak and Yishmael are burying their common father together.
Does that teach us that after each episode of hatred and rivalry, people are (or should be) able to overcome fear, to reestablish harmony and peaceful coexistence after repairing injustice?
Dear Family and Friends,
Lot's wife (no name is mentioned) looked backwards after the destruction of Sedom, the Evil City, and petrified ; her daughters, surviving that trauma with Lot, their father, looked towards the future, but, believing they were the only survivors in the world (they never left Sedom and probably didn’t know something else existed…) made him drink, and alike Noach, he became drunk (maybe this was – and sometimes still – a way people react to traumata) ; they had intercourse with him while he was drunk and asleep and gave birth to Amon and Moav. Our Tradition tells us a lot about Amon and Moav, namely that David, and the Messiah are descendants of Ruth, the Moabite.
Maybe this teaches us that sometimes looking towards the future involves very unusual decisions and behavior (are they other options in such circumstances?), but also that in order to be part of the process of redemption some personal transformation is required.
.Shabbat Shalom to all,
Tomorrow, we start again with a new cycle of Torah reading. We'll read about the origins of mankind, the initial 'idyllic' stage in Gan Eden, the Tree of Knowledge and the story of Cain and Hevel. Somehow, although the fact that human beings are mortal by Divine Decision, the first death we meet is caused by a man; Does that mean that Men are responsible of death and destruction? Does that mean that the Divine means Life and taking away a human life, as our Sages claim, affects the Dvine Image and Divinity in the world altogether.
Shabbat Shalom to all
בשמחת תורה, נקרא את הפסוקים האחרונים של התורה בהם מסופר על מותו של משה. התורה מספרת לנו "ולא ידע איש את קבורתו עד היום הזה". אולי דבר זה בא ללמדנו שראוי לזכור את פעלו של אדם בעולם ולא להפוך קברים למקום עלייה לרגל ואולי גם שבירת הלוחות הנרמזת בפסוק האחרון באה ללמדנו שאין קדושה בעצמים, אפילו אם "המכתב מכתב אלהים הוא".
שבת שלום, חג שמח ושנה טובה לכולכם.
Dear Family and Friends,
On Simchat Torah we'll read the last verses of the Torah, where the Torah tells us about Moshe's death and about the fact that nobody knew about the location of his grave; maybe this teaches us that Man's impact on the world is important and not his grave, and maybe the fact that Moshe broke the "Tables of the Law", as alluded in the last verse teaches us that there is no Holiness whatsoever in objects.
Shabbat Shalom, Chag Sameach and Shana Tova to all
