Hallowed Spaces - Reflections on Parashat VaYera 5774

Nestled among all the drama of (literally) Biblical proportions in this week's parasha - the destruction of Sodom & Amorah; the birth of the miracle baby, Isaac; the expulsion of Hagar & Yishmael; and the Binding of Isaac - there is a remarkable verse that is quite easy to overlook. I refer to Genesis 19:27 - "And Abraham awoke early in the morning, and went to the place where he stood before Gcd."

Why does the Torah even bother to note this seemingly insignificant fact? Check out this gemara: "Rabbi Chelbo said in the name of Rav Huna: the Gcd of Abraham will help a person who establishes for himself a fixed place of prayer; furthermore, it will be said of them when they die, 'what a humble person! what a pious person! what a student of Abraham!' And how do we know that Abraham fixed for himself a special place of prayer? For the verse states: "And Abraham awoke early in the morning, and went to the place where he [had previously] stood before Gcd." [BT Berachot 6B]

The trigger word here is "amad", stood/stand, which is the name of our central prayer, the Amidah, which is recited while standing silently. By this we infer that Abraham established for himself a special place to render this special prayer.

But why should this be the case? We Jews understand and are very good at sanctifying time - we have this weekly gig called Shabbat, when we unplug our iPhones, tablets, and televisions to plug in with the A-lmighty; to commune with Gcd and focus on our families. So far, so good.  But the notion of sacred space is a little foreign to the Jewish mind, especially in an age when we don't have the Beit HaMikdash (Holy Temple). Why should the living room floor be qualitatively different than a pew in the synagogue? or driving in the car? or sitting on the beach? After all, the verse says, "Holy is the Lcrd of Hosts, His Glory fills the entire world."

Rav Kook explains the need to sanctify both time AND place. He wrote that prayer is not a sterile intellectual exercise. The spirit and the emotions must also be marshaled in the service of Gcd. Therefore, any environment that provides emotional and spiritual inspiration to match the intellectual fervor of the pray-er can be a sacred space. As the verse states, "And you shall love Hashem your Gcd with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your energy." Intellectual. Emotional. Spiritual. And what could be more inspirational than a place where prayers have been previously answered, like Abraham's choice of place?

From this perspective, shul (synagogue) - where the Holy Torah Scrolls abide, where countless prayers, both individual and communal, have been answered - is a much better place to pray than, say, sitting naked in the lotus position on the living room floor. Good luck with that. (I mean just getting in the lotus position.)

Ask a mathematician if something exists, and he will examine the values in the x-coordinate, the y-coordinate, the z-coordinate, and the t-coordinate. If all four of those values are positive, then yes, that 'something' exists (or at least did exist). In other words, the 'something' must take up space in time, with the x-, y-, and z- coordinates indicating length, width and depth, and t- indicating time. See the pattern? The inter-connectedness of space and time.

Every time we make a brachah (benediction) we say these words: "Blessed are You Hashem, our Gcd, King of the Universe..." The Hebrew word for Universe (OLAM) has a double connotation. 'Olam' means place, like the world or the entire created universe; but it also has a connotation of time, as in "l'olam va'ed" to mean eternity. Again - space and time combined. X-, Y-, Z-, & T. Existence itself. So perhaps a better way to understand the blessing is "Blessed are You Hashem, our Gcd, King of all Existence..."

This was Abraham's unique contribution to human thought - to first recognize, and then sanctify and unify both time AND space - very existence itself. And for us, as students of Abraham, we follow his example, binding together mind, heart & soul in prayer; and by doing that, we declare the Unity of the Creator. 

So come to shul! Anyway, that living room carpet is looking kind of grungy...

Shabbat Shalom.

Anything Goes - Reflections on Parashat Noach

Good authors too who once knew better words, 
Now only use four-letter words writing prose,
Anything Goes.

The world has gone mad today, the good's bad today,
The white's black today, the day's night today...
Anything Goes.

Cole Porter's lyric comes to mind in thinking about this week's parasha. In it, we read of the Great Flood, and of Gcd appointing Noah as the Great Trustee of creation, tasked with preserving the seeds of life and repopulating the post-diluvian world. But why was the flood necessary in the first place? OK, so maybe people weren't on their best behavior, but destroy the world? Woof, that seems kind of harsh...

But in the ten generations since Adam and Eve, the world had degenerated into a pretty brutal place. Not just your garden variety, cut-you-off-in-traffic, urban jungle brutal, I mean really brutal. Uber, mega, hyper-brutal. No rules at all brutal, a sort of might-makes-right Mad Max badlands; where the reigning ethos was "I want, and I don't care what I have to do to get it." A world where the weak and the compassionate deserve to die. It was inhuman, monstrous. A world where, as the warbling tenor croons, anything goes. 

Against this stands Noah, "a righteous person, blameless [compared to] his generation" (Genesis 6:9). So the A-lmighty, looking down upon a world that had somehow short-circuited, resolves to wipe the slate clean and call a do-over. With one critical difference.

The Covenant of the Rainbow.

After the flood, Gcd promises to never again destroy the world. We are taught (BT Sanhedrin 56a) that Gcd also holds humanity to a new standard, known as the Seven Laws of Noah. These laws are binding on all people, at all times, irrespective of religion, creed or location. 

The Seven Laws are:

1.) To believe in the One True Gcd, sole Creator of Heaven and Earth;
2.) Not to blaspheme (to give thanks to the Source of Life);
3.) Not to murder;
4.) Not to steal;
5.) Appropriate intimate relationships (as listed in Leviticus 18);
6.) Compassion to animals (and by extension to one's fellow man); and
7.) Ensure the rule of law.

Anyone who lives their life according to the Seven Laws is assured a place in the Afterlife. Good People. The good guys. The white hats of the world. 

Unlike other faiths that reserve Heaven exclusively for their own peeps, the Jewish understanding of eternal life is universal, open to all people, specifically including non-Jews. Jews are commanded by Gcd to hold to a yet higher standard, the Sinaitic Covenant of the 613. And as the Light Unto the Nations, it is our mission, our divine calling, to teach the recognition of Gcd and these Seven Laws to the World.

What broke down in the generations before Noah? These rules are so fundamental, surely they could have reasoned them out on their own? The answer to that question is as relevant today as it was 5,000 years ago. 

Man's capacity to rationalize his behavior in order to justify getting what he wants is virtually boundless. Faulkner wrote in Light in August, "ingenuity was apparently given man in order that he may supply himself in crises with shapes and sounds with which to guard himself from truth."

Ante-diluvian man was so clever, so ingenious, that he justified rape, murder, theft, cruelty, and torture. Day was night. Wrong was right. Gcd was not in the picture. What was the inevitable result? We are taught that the deeds of evildoers return the world to a state of "Tohu VaVohu," utter chaos and nothingness (Genesis 1:2).  And the acts of these generations caused the world to be shrouded once again in the primordial floodwaters of chaos.

We've all encountered rotten people - thieves, adulterers, cheaters, drunk drivers, addicts, people who commit all manner of evil, petty and grand. Do they ever escape the consequences of their deeds? They create horrific chaos in their own lives and in the lives they touch, and that chaos casts very long shadows. Primordial darkness.

We have been taught to abandon totem and religious taboo and place our faith in the enlightening and redemptive power of Reason. But lawyers used the sharpest legal rationales to justify the Nuremburg laws. World-class doctors used the noblest rationalizations to experiment on Jewish children without anaesthesia. Chemists and engineers applied their brilliant command of the sciences to design ever more efficient methods of human extermination. Open the newspaper; shocking crimes no longer shock, and the world looks on with a yawn at the systematic murder of innocents. The Age of Reason died in the gas chambers.

It takes a formalized legal code, predicated upon an absolute moral standard, to curb our "ingenuity." We simply cannot trust our own intellect to construct a functional standard of behavior for ourselves. We need not abandon reason, but we do need to recognize its limitations. 

The enduring lesson of the Great Flood is one of humility - of recognizing our inherent limits, and recognizing that we cannot manage on our own - we need Gcd.

Shabbat Shalom.

The Choice of Your Life - Reflections on Parashat Nitzavim

What to make of this odd phone call?

Shortly before we made aliyah, I received an urgent call from an old family friend (we'll call him Otto.) Otto was one of the fortunate few on the kindertransport, the impromptu effort to rescue as many Jewish children as possible from Central Europe between Kristallnacht and the start of World War II.

After the war, he moved to Israel, and later made yerida to the US.

I was glad to receive Otto's call. He knew that I was a passionate religious Zionist, that we were living our values and beginning a new life in Israel, and what I expected was a warm phone call filled with sweet wishes for our future. 

What I got instead was an earful from a very troubled old man.

"Shuki," he pleaded, almost to the point of tears, "the religious must never be allowed to take control of the government. You must hear me on this. Israel must always remain a democracy. The religious will turn Israel into an Iran-style theocracy, a Jew-istan. 

"Shuki, I am not religious, and I know that you are religious, but promise me that your generation will always work to ensure that Israel is democratic and free."

Wow. Talk about a non-sequitur. Did Otto, did Tel-Avivians, did most people think that Orthodox Jews seek the reins of government in order to compel others to religious conformity?  

Much later in my life, I read an insightful biography by Alan Bullock called Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives. In it he describes Stalin's early attraction to the Russian Orthodox priesthood and "...the requirements of orthodoxy: the exclusion of doubt, the intolerance of dissent, and the persecution of heretics..."

Otto was terribly afraid that rabbis, if given half a chance, will behave like ayatollahs.  But Bullock's definition is most decidedly not the Jewish definition of orthodoxy. 

In this week's Torah Portion, Moses defines the elemental requirements of Jewish Orthodoxy. He pleads: "I bear witness before you today, with heaven and earth as my witnesses, that I place before you life and death, blessing and curse; and CHOOSE LIFE that you and your descendants may live." (Deuteronomy 30:19)

Emphasis on the word CHOOSE. 

Moses is saying that in order for any authentic spiritual impulse to arise in the human heart, there must exist a background, a societal infrastructure, of absolute free will. If coercion is present, the spiritual ember that smolders in all of us is snuffed out.

Yes! Of course I urgently long for my fellow Jews to observe the mitzvot - to observe the Sabbath Day and keep it holy; to keep kosher; for people to treat one another with dignity, integrity and respect. I plead guilty as charged on all counts, your honor! We pray for these things every day. But the way to achieve these lofty goals is not to legislate respect, or compel prayer, or to force someone to observe the mitzvot against their will.

Back in parashat Chukat, Moses hits the rock instead of speaking to it, as Gcd had commanded. Water still gushed out, but for this seemingly minor infraction, Moses is (disproportionately?) punished by being barred from entering Israel. Poof! - the crowning achievement of a lifetime of hard work and self-sacrifice - gone in a moment. 

What did he do that was so horrible so as to deserve being barred from Israel? Rav Kook teaches that Moses, in his impatience, introduced religious coercion into the world. Instead of speaking to the rock - using the gentle influence of logic and persuasion and example - he impatiently hit the rock, used force to get the desired result. It is for that reason that Moses is punished so severely.

It is a stark truth that most of the pain in our lives is self-inflicted. Almost all human suffering is a consequence of bad decision-making - most people choose the path of least resistance, the path of instant gratification, the path of the lie - the path of death. And like Moses and the rock, the impulse of the illuminati, born of the pain of seeing our fellow man suffer, is to force people to make better choices, in their own self-interest.

But that is not Gcd's plan. Gcd wants ritual observances to spring naturally from a desire to connect with the Lifesource. 

When our hard-won life's lessons bring us to a place of wanting "to love the Lord your Gcd and to cling to Him," at that moment a religious person is born. And the complex string of life choices (and their consequences) that can bring a person to that place of spiritual enlightenment can only happen in a framework of human freedom and dignity, where each and every one of us is free to sort these issues out for ourselves.

No thoughtful, authentic Jew wants to create a society where the irreligious are compelled to perform mitzvot under duress. To the contrary, we wish to create a just society, based on the norms of ethical, compassionate monotheism which protects the widow and orphan, upholds human freedoms, and gives everyone the unfettered opportunity to choose for themselves life or death, blessing or curse.

Otto need not have been concerned; religious Zionists are no threat to democracy and freedom. Yes, we will educate, persuade, advocate - and blog - for our fellow Jew and our fellow humans to choose life - but ultimately, the decision of your life is in your own hands.

U'vacharta B'Chaim - Choose the path of Mitzvot, the path of Torah, the Path of Life.

Shabbat Shalom.

Who Are You? - Reflections on Parashat Eikev

Throughout the poetic parasha of Eikev, Moshe urges us several times not to forget his teachings. In other verses in the Parasha, he asks us also to remember. In one particular verse, he even says "Remember - do not forget." (Deuteronomy 9:7)

Huh? We know that there are no superfluous words in the Torah. Every word, every letter, even every flourish above a letter, is put there by the A-lmighty to teach us something unique and special. So what's with Moshe telling us both to remember and not to forget? To quote Yogi Berra, isn't that redundant all over again? Is Moshe starting to repeat himself, like Bubbies and Zaydes sometimes do?

Quick aside: my Zayde a"h loved to sit and shmooze over a cup of coffee. Nothing would please him more than to have an unannounced visitor drop in. He would quickly put some water in the kettle, bring out some cake or cookies (his pantry was always magically full of cakes and cookies), and settle in for a nice long kibbitz session. I tell ya, that kitchen was made for coffee klatches. 

We lived four hours away, but once a month or so, we'd make a day of it, just to sit at the signature turquoise table with the matching swivel chairs, rest our chins in our hands, sip coffee, nibble on cake, catch up on family news, and listen to the stories flow.

Anyone who visited at Zayde's table regularly knew that you'd begin to hear his stories, well, more than once. Maybe even more than a few times. To the point where we knew most of them by heart, actually. But we never complained, since the joy was in the telling and in his company.

Every once in a while though, mixed in among the stories that we had heard over and over again, he would tell us some amazing story from his long life that we'd never heard before. We'd almost fall off our chairs in astonishment. "Zayde," we'd say, "you've told us the bootleg schnapps story a hundred times, how can it be we never heard this story before?" His eyes would twinkle; he'd just shrug his shoulders and smile.

Was Moshe getting repetitious in his dotage? Or is there a real distinction to be made between 'remembering' and 'not forgetting?'

Here is the difference: remembering is an act. It is a mitzvah. The famous example is the annual commandment to remember what Amalek did to us when we left Egypt. We build museums to memorialize the six million killed by the Nazis. We remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy. We also remember life cycle events like birthdays and anniversaries with parties, cards and gifts.

Remembering is a conscious act. It means pausing from the bustle of daily life, and even if only for a moment, focusing the mind on that which is remembered. 

Throughout Israel on Memorial Day (and a week before on Holocaust Remembrance Day), air raid sirens wail for two full minutes. Cars stop in the middle of the road, in intersections, even on the superhighways. People step out of their cars, and standing with heads bowed, they remember their dead. Sometimes people weep openly in the street. It is a deeply moving experience. 

Remembering means doing something; it is a call to action.

Not-forgetting, on the other hand, is passive. Not-forgetting lurks just below our conscious thought, always present, yet just out of reach, barely noticeable in the shadows of our mind. It is content to gently make its presence known without commanding center stage. 

There is no act to not-forgetting. It is not a moment, rather it is a constant companion, a part of the backdrop of our life. It is the foundation stone upon which our every decision is built, the prism through which we experience the world around us. Not-forgetting influences the way we see, hear, smell, touch and taste. As we mature and build on our life's experiences, those experiences are incorporated into the foundational database of not-forgetting, of our truest essence.

In other words, not-forgetting is about identity; it's speaks directly to who we are.

Specifically, Moshe is telling us not to forget our Jewish identity. No matter how affluent or influential we may become in the future, we mustn't ever forget our roots - we were slaves in Egypt, with no pretensions to greatness or lives of ease. Simplicity, honesty, hard work, devotion to Gcd - these are the gifts of our grandparents. 

Yet people try (in vain) to erase their past. Rabinowitz becomes Roberts, joins the best clubs, drives the finest cars, drinks the most expensive sherry, and marries the supermodel - and still they call him "Jew" behind his back.

By embracing our past, we have a shot at crafting our future. Deny your past, Moshe warns, and you're on the path to oblivion.

So we must show kindness to strangers because we were once strangers in Egypt. We must be humble, for our past is littered with our mistakes. We must show gratitude, because we are Jews, and the word "Jew" means to give thanks to Gcd. We must be devotional, because we strive to emulate the spiritual greatness of the Bubbies and Zaydes of our past.

My Zayde knew to the core of his being who he was - a Jew, a Galitzianer, a perpetual student, a devoted husband, father and grandfather. He never played at being anyone other than who he was. 

And endless times over coffee, my Zayde would take your hand in his, look you in the eye and say: no matter where you go or what you do in life, never forget you are a Jew.

So with apologies to Roger Daltrey and Pete Townsend: Who Are You?  The voice of Moshe whispers across the generations: be very clear on that question, and "al tishkach," don't ever forget.

Shabbat Shalom.

Sinat Chinam - The Hatred in Our Midst

This Tuesday is Tisha B'Av, the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av. It is a day of fasting, of mourning, and of deep personal introspection. We remember this day as the anniversary of the destruction of the first Holy Temple by the Babylonians, the second Temple by the Romans, and the myriad tragedies, pogroms and disasters that have befallen the Jewish people on this ill-fated day throughout history.

We are taught that the cause of the destruction of the second Temple was sinat chinam, gratuitous hatred between Jew and Jew. We are directed to the infamous incident in Gittin 56a of Kamtza & Bar Kamtza. 

Briefly: a wealthy man held a sumptuous banquet and invited all the "A-List" dignitaries of Judea. He also sent an invite to his friend Kamtza. By accident, the invitation was delivered to a guy named Bar-Kamtza (no relation.) Bar-Kamtza also happened to be a bitter enemy of the host. (You can see where this is going.)

Bar-Kamtza goes to the banquet, thinking that the invite might be an opening to a rapproachment between the adversaries. But when he gets there, the host goes ballistic at the temerity of his enemy showing up at the exclusive shindig and orders Bar-Kamtza unceremoniously ushered to the curb. 

Bar-Kamtza sizes up the situation. He quietly and urgently pleads with the host not to make an awkward situation worse and humiliate him in front of all the rabbis, politicians, business moguls and celebrities in attendance. He offers to pay for his meal. No. He offers to pay for half of the banquet. No. He finally offers to pay for the entire blasted affair if the host will merely allow the evening to pass without incident. Again the answer is an unyielding NO.

The anger that consumes Bar-Kamtza over his humiliation and mistreatment leads to a chain of events which resulted in the Temple being razed by the Romans. In other words,  sinat chinam was the precipitate cause of the destruction of the Temple and ultimately, the Roman expulsion which we experience down to today.

In thinking about this gemara, most people focus on the egregious behavior of the host. People think, "if I ever hosted an A-List-black-tie soiree, I'd never behave that ungraciously to a guest, even an enemy."  Excellent, but few (if any) of us will be having Gwyneth Paltrow to dinner anytime soon. Since, when we look in the mirror, we don't see someone who would act with that much venom, we conclude that sinat chinam is somebody else's problem. We cluck our tongues, point to the other guy, and conveniently exempt ourselves.

Let me clue you in to a little secret: the REAL sinat chinam in the story was that the learned rabbis in attendance did not intervene on Bar-Kamtza's behalf; and once he was bodily ejected, they shrugged their shoulders and went back to the party.

True sinat chinam is ignoring the plight of your fellow. It is plugging your ears with your fingers, squeezing your eyes shut, and saying, "leave me out of it, I have enough troubles of my own." 

Sinat chinam is moral cowardice. Sinat chinam is not standing up to speak truth and righteousness on behalf of a friend in distress; it's taking the easy and convenient path; it's averting your eyes, turning your back and going about your own business. This kind of sinat chinam is very relateable and tragically is very, very prevalent in Jewish life today.

This week, I witnessed this pernicious form of sinat chinam firsthand. A person in our community was accused of a monstrous crime based only on hearsay and innuendo, with no evidence to support the charge. In fact, strong evidence exculpated him, but the campaign of whispers persisted. 

Thank Gcd, some people stood up for their friend; but several more, rabbis among them, sided with the fear, with the lies, with innuendo and rumor and shadows. It was self-evidently a case of first degree character assassination. But instead of standing up for truth, the moral cowards averted their eyes, chose not to get involved, cowered behind their voice mails, shunning this hapless victim. In the end, he lost his job over nothing more than a vile, malicious whisper.

What do we mourn for on Tisha B'Av? A building? A return of the ritual sacrifices? I suggest we mourn for something much deeper.

The Jewish people are supposed to be the exemplars of ethical monotheism. Our elevated and holy society, driven by love of Gcd, love of Torah and love of our fellow man is intended to be what Isaiah calls 'a light unto the nations.' Our highest ideals and aspirations are embodied in the order, beauty and splendor of the Temple, resplendent on Gcd's holy mountain. 

But the Temple is in ruins, and the Jewish people have lost the voice of moral authority in the world. If the world thinks about us at all, they look at us as an anachronism, or as a curiosity, or as a nuisance. 

It is over our personal failings and the inability to fulfill our holy mission that we cry on Tisha B'Av.

How do we presume to preach truth to world if we turn our backs to our own brother in distress? That is the sinat chinam that destroyed - and continues to destroy - everything that the Temple represents.

To those who stood up for truth this week - and you know who you are - it is in your merit that the Holy Temple will be speedily rebuilt in our lifetimes.

And to the moral cowards - and you know who you are - shame on you.

May we merit to see Tisha B'Av go from a fast day to a feast day, and from a day of mourning to a day of joy.

Shabbat Shalom.

The Ordination of Joshua - Reflections on Parashat Pinchas

In this week’s parasha, Parashat Pinchas, Moses is told that the ride is almost over. He is commanded by Hashem to appoint his successor: “…take for yourself Yehoshua bin Noon, the spiritual man, and place your hands on him.” (Numbers 27:18) The Hebrew word for “placing the hands” of the teacher upon the student is called ‘semichah.’

And so it was that on the Sunday of Parashat Pinchas, I attended a mind-blowing rabbinical conference which culminated in the granting of semichah, rabbinical investiture, to about 40 individuals, including me, after years of study, testing and preparation.

Why is this significant? Aren’t there enough unemployed rabbis in the world?

Well yes…but no. You see, this Yeshivah and these rabbis are a very unique lot, for three reasons.

First: My yeshivah is a virtual yeshivah. Yeshivat Pirchei Shoshanim (YPS) harnesses the incredible potential of the internet to spread the light of Torah in the world. My teachers, the Rabbanim, live in Israel, and their students live all over the world. A student in Miami can have a chavruta (study partner) in Johannesburg. A global network of friendships is forged poring over the great books of Jewish law, all plugged into the Rabbanim in Israel. Laptops, tablets and smart phones are the new tools of the Torah trade.

This speaks to a larger point: there are certain voices in Torah that want to declare the internet off-limits because of all the shmutz and frank evil that can be found out there. And there’s no denying it – it’s out there. But YPS disagrees with this impulse to ban. Just like radio and TV in earlier generations, the medium itself is neutral; it can be used for good or for evil. The internet is like a fertile field; it can grow food or it can grow weeds. The field doesn’t particularly care one way or the other. 

Online Torah study dispels enormous darkness in the world, just like a single kernel of corn is worth an acre of weeds. Rav Kook taught that the proper way to fight evil in the world is not to confront it on its own terms, but rather to flood the world with goodness: with Torah study, with mitzvoth, and with acts of kindness towards our fellow man.

Second: Students of YPS span the spectrum of Jewish life: Gerrer Hasidim, Litvish (people schooled in the intellectualism of the Lithuanian yeshivah tradition), Modern Orthodox, Chabad, Religious Zionists, Ba’alei Teshuvah (people who have returned to a life of religious observance), and more. Despite our disparate backgrounds, we all stand together in brotherhood and amity, united by a common commitment to an informed, centrist understanding of Halachah (Jewish Law).

Meaning: We are witness to a disturbing polarization in Jewish life. On the left is the complete rejection of the authority and authenticity of Jewish Law. Like a rose clipped from the bush, it may be fragrant for a short time, but its end is inevitable.

On the right is a growing trend to pile stringency upon stringency in the interpretation of the law. To extend the metaphor: this is like wrapping that beautiful rose in protective netting so tightly that it gets neither light nor water. This trend towards stringency is born of insecurity, or a flawed or inadequate understanding of the Halachic decision-making process.

Both approaches are self-destructive. Holding the religious center is always the most difficult path. YPS and its talmidim, Jews from all walks of life, are committed to deciding questions of Jewish Law leniently whenever possible, and strictly only when necessary. This requires in-depth study, close consultation with the Rabbanim, a clear understanding of legal precedent and the rationale behind those precedents, and the courage to speak the Halachah unequivocally in the face of opposing views.

Third: there is an old aphorism that if you want something done, give it to a busy person. The talmidim of YPS all work for a living. We are doctors, lawyers, educators, business owners. We have mortgages, car payments, and tuition bills. We are busy. We are classic overachievers - overbooked and straight up exhausted.

But like rabbis through the generations, we are making a strong statement about the critical importance of combining Torah study with an honorable living. The new normal in the Torah world that eschews productive work in favor of learning Torah full-time on public support violates Jewish Law and is ultimately counter-productive.

As business owners and communal leaders, our sphere of influence is considerable. We leverage that influence to carry the message of Torah and authentic, passionate Judaism to an audience all out of proportion to our numbers, and far greater than could any young man fresh out of school.

And think about this: after working 10 hours or more at the office; after seeing to our familial obligations, social and communal obligations, we commit 2 or 3 hours every day to Torah study. Why? What could be so important?

The answer goes to the heart of the mission of YPS and its talmidim.

We live in a world that has lost its way. 

In the chase for the almighty dollar...we have forgotten that true wealth is being content with what you have. 

In the quest for power...we have forgotten that true power is self-control. 

In the pursuit of self-gratification and the endless buzz...we have forgotten that true happiness is found in the service of others. 

The things that really count are the things you really can’t count.

YPS and its talmidim go out into the world to proclaim these truths. Many people intuit that something is amiss in their lives, but don’t quite know what it is or how to fix it. Maybe a YPS rabbi is there to speak to their heart - of Torah study, of Shabbat, of spending real time with the fam, of the power of keeping kosher. Maybe, just maybe, there is deep truth in the discarded values of our Bubbies and Zaydes.

So when a person is ready to improve their lives, a YPS rabbi or military chaplain will be there to provide instruction, guidance, support and help. And so we bring Gcd’s light to the world, one page of Torah at a time, one soul at a time.

For these and many other reasons, I am both proud and humbled to be a musmach (graduate) of YPS.

Shabbat Shalom.

For more information about Yeshivat Pirchei Shoshanim, please contact me or go to www.shulchanaruch.com

A "Chok" By Any Other Name...Insights into Parshat Chukat

The Parasha opens with the words, "זאת חוקת התורה" (This is a "Chok" of the Torah [Numbers 19:2]). By these words, our Sages understood that the Law of the Red Heifer was the quintessential chok, i.e., a law that defies human rationale. We fulfill this mitzvah, even though we don't understand it, because we love Gcd, we trust the Source, and by so doing, we implicitly acknowledge that there are limits to human understanding.

The conundrum of the Red Heifer revolves around the following paradox: the ashes of the Red Heifer render one who is "impure" (from contact with a dead body) pure, simultaneously rendering one who is "pure" impure.* (המטהר את הטמא והמטמא את הטהור) The Midrash teaches that this paradox was so difficult to understand that it's rationale eluded even the great King Solomon, widely regarded as the deepest thinker of Jewish history.

At least that's what we teach our Fifth Graders.

But is the Law of the Red Heifer really so difficult to understand?

To borrow a phrase from H.L. Menken, let us attempt to "unscrew the inscrutable." What follows are no less than three independent approaches to understanding the rationale behind the Laws of the Red Heifer.

I.    The first is the approach of the Kli Yakar. He writes that in order to understand the Red Heifer, we have to break down the ritual into it's constituent parts.

The admixture that was sprinkled on the impure person was "Living Water" such as we have in a mikveh, and the ashes of the Red Heifer. The Red Heifer, in turn, is a specialized form of "Chatat," the sin offering brought in the Holy Temple.

In truth, he writes, it's the Living Water that is affecting the purification; the ashes, while necessary, serve a more symbolic function.

The symbolism of the ashes of the Red Heifer is as follows: First, sin equals death. When a person sins, they distance themselves from the Life-Source, and any living thing that is disconnected from the Life-Source will eventually wither and die.

Second, if an individual wishes to purge sin from their lives, they must destroy it root and branch. Treating the symptoms of sin without dealing with underlying root cause ensures that the sin will resurface in the future.

The archetypal sin in the Jewish consciousness is the sin of the Golden Calf. Thus, if one wishes to rectify this sin at it's root, one must look to the source of the calf...which is the heifer that bore it.

And it can't just be any heifer, it must be completely red. This recalls the verse in Isaiah 1:18: "Though your sins are like scarlet, they will become white as snow; though they will be red as crimson, they become as white as wool." After it is completely consumed by the fire, the Red Heifer is reduced to white cinders, and it is these cinders that are mixed with the Living Waters.

So during the week of mourning over our dead, the ashes of the Red Heifer remind us of the opportunity at hand to reflect on our own lives; to banish sin;  and emulate the piety, erudition and devotion of the deceased.

II.    The second approach to understanding the Law of the Red Heifer is from Rabbi Soloveitchik, zt"l, which I refer to as the "Lifeguard Theorem." Simply put: any attempt to save a drowning man probably means getting a little wet yourself. If someone is lying face down in the mud, in order to extract him, you're likely to get some mud on your shoes.

So, too, with the ashes of the Red Heifer. The process of restoring one who is profoundly impure to a state of purity necessarily involves some minor impurity on the part of the Soref and the Osef, the ones who actually prepared the ashes for sprinkling.

III.    The third approach is retro-tech. The ashes of the red heifer functioned as an ancient semiconductor. What is a semiconductor? It is a material that can have regions of positive charge and regions of negative charge, simultaneously blocking the flow of electricity or allowing it.  Like a semiconductor, the ashes of the red Heifer could simultaneously make the impure pure and  the pure impure.

This idea takes on added weight when one considers the construction of the Ark of the Covenant. We read in Exodus 25:10 that the Ark of the Covenant was constructed from acacia wood, lined on the inside and the outside with pure gold. So we have two excellent conductors (the gold) separated by an insulator (the wood) - in other words, the Ark, upon which the Divine presence hovered, functioned as some sort of capacitor or battery or energy transmission device. If we can conceive of the A-lmighty as the Life/Energy Source of the universe, then somehow that Divine energy flowed through the Ark and into the world.

We have just briefly outlined three rationales for the mitzvah of the Red Heifer. The question remains: if we, who are nominally as smart as fifth graders, could articulate a rationale for the Red Heifer, why couldn't Solomon?

In the end, the Law of the Red Heifer is the quintessential chok. Solomon wasn't confounded by the mechanisms of the pure/impure paradox, which (forgive me for saying this) is almost a trivial matter, but by something much deeper.

It is curious that the Torah calls the water of purification מי חטאת or "water of the sin offering" and refers to the purification process with the language of chet/sin: הוא יתחטא בו (Numbers 19:12).

Water is life, and water itself is a paradox. We can't go more than a few days without it, and yet water can sometimes destroy.

Later in our parashah, at the Mei Merivah, the very water that saves the Jews heralds the deaths of Aharon and Moses.

In Jewish Law, we know that water affects purification, but it can also be a medium for conveying impurity.

Water is life, and life is water. The paradoxes of water are the paradoxes of life. And the paradox of the red heifer water suggested to Solomon epic questions of existence, of life and death itself.

Why do we exist? Given that the A-lmighty deigned to create a universe, why did he plant us on this tiny rock, in a miniscule solar system, in a tiny galaxy, in a remote corner of His created universe?

And now that we exist, to what purpose?

Why is it that when we give with no expectation of return, it is only then that we truly receive?

Why do the righteous suffer while the wicked enjoy lives of ease?

If we have unfettered free will, the future is unwritten. Yet we know that Gcd knows the future. If that is so, the future is in some sense pre-ordained, which means we don't have unfettered free will. But we know we have unfettered free will...

How is it that true freedom comes only through subservience to Gcd?

And perhaps the greatest paradox of all: why is it only through death that we achieve eternal life (חיי עולם הבא)?

It took a Solomonic mind to see all these questions encapsulated in and symbolized by the ashes of the Red Heifer; vexing questions which do not lend themselves to easy answers.

As the Talmud suggests in Tractate Shabbat 83b (at the bottom, beginning with Amar Rabbi Yonatan) perhaps the question itself is the answer. Contained within the Torah are the answers to these questions, and even though we haven't yet successfully decoded the answers, they're in there. So must stay in the study hall and keep asking the hard questions. We must continue to learn Torah, attempting to unlock its secrets, until our dying day.

Thus we come full circle to our opening phrase:  "זאת חוקת התורה" This is the "chok," the conundrum - and the Torah is the solution.

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* I use the terms "pure" and "impure" for the Hebrew ""tahor" and tamei" reservedly and only in the interest of clarity. These terms are not translatable and the imperfect English translation conveys connotations that do not exist in the Hebrew. Subject for another time.