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The Maidservant’s Mistake

< 1 minute
Straightforward

Everyone knows the feeling. Something cracks you open — a funeral, a close call, a Yom Kippur that actually worked — and you think: this time it’s different. This time it will stick.

And it doesn’t stick.

The Sages tell us that the maidservants at the Red Sea saw more than the prophet Yechezkail ever did. More light. More clarity. More God.

And then they went back to serving.

Rav Chayim Shmuelevitz asks the obvious question: how? How do you witness the greatest revelation in history and walk away unchanged?

His answer is devastating in its simplicity: because they didn’t do anything with it.

The nations heard. They trembled. For a moment, the world shook. And then the moment passed — and so did the trembling. A feeling without a foothold disappears. Always.

This is the entire project of mussar. Not to feel more. To become more. The goal isn’t the shiver — it’s what you build while you’re still shivering.

The Chazon Ish, when asked how to reach elevated spiritual levels, gave an answer that sounds almost disappointing: keep the mitzvos. All the details. According to halacha. That is the elevation.

Not the peak experience. The daily practice.

When something cracks you open — a fast day, a loss, a moment of unexpected grace — you have a narrow window. The feeling is real. But feelings are not loyal. They leave.

So before they do: do something. Call someone. Make a commitment. Change one thing.

The maidservants saw God and stayed maidservants. We don’t have to.

Feelings visit. Habits live. Act before it expires.

What’s Yours To Do; What’s Not

2 minute read
Straightforward

We are a generation obsessed with control. We optimize, we plan, we run the numbers, we prepare contingencies for our contingencies. And still, somehow, the things that matter most — the marriage, the child, the career, the health — have a way of reminding us who’s actually in charge.

There’s a detail in this week’s parsha that most people walk right past.

The Torah says, “V’yaaroch oso Aharon” — “Aharon shall arrange it” (Shemot 27:21). Not light it. Arrange it.

The Gemara in Yoma (24b) makes something quietly radical out of this: the actual lighting of the Menorah was not classified as an Avodah — not a formal sacred service. Which meant, technically, even a non-Kohen could do it. The Kohen Gadol, Aharon himself, was only responsible for the preparation. The flame? That was someone else’s department.

The Sefas Emes draws out the deeper current here. The Torah’s word choice — arrange, not kindle — is telling you something about the nature of the flame itself. It arose on its own. Aharon trimmed the wicks, set the oil, positioned everything just so — and then he stepped back. The ignition came from somewhere else.

This is not a minor technical point. It is a complete theology of human effort.

Our job is arrangement. We set the conditions, we do the work, we show up — fully, seriously, without cutting corners. But we do not control outcomes. We never did. The Kohen who thought he was lighting the Menorah was mistaken about his own role.

Pirkei Avot says it plainly: “Lo alecha ham’lacha ligmor” — it is not upon you to complete the work. Not “you don’t have to” complete it. You cannot. Completion is structurally, cosmically beyond your jurisdiction.

Most of us spend enormous energy trying to cross a border we were never issued a visa for.

Confusing effort with outcome is one of the great sources of human suffering. We arrange beautifully, and nothing ignites — and we call it failure. We arrange sloppily, and somehow the flame rises anyway — and we call it success. We credit and blame ourselves for things we didn’t fully cause.

The Menorah corrects this. Aharon was not failing when he didn’t ignite the flame. That was never his assignment.

Your assignment is the arrangement. The learning, the preparation, the showing up. The hishtadlus — full, earnest, unhurried. And then: “V’ya’al be’ad atzmo” — “it will rise on its own” (Shabbat 21a). That rising is not yours to manufacture.

This isn’t passivity. Aharon didn’t stand in the Mishkan and wait for the wicks to trim themselves. He worked. He prepared. He arranged with precision and care.

But he knew — or he was supposed to know — that the fire that matters cannot be forced into existence by human hands alone. Real illumination, the kind that lasts, the kind that transforms, comes from above.

Which means two things practically:

Give everything you have to the arrangement. And then release the outcome with grace.

“Mizmor l’Dovid” — the Talmud notes that David sang before his salvation, not after. He arranged his faith in advance. He didn’t wait to see how things turned out before deciding whether to trust.

That’s the Kohen’s walk into the Mishkan every morning. Wicks trimmed. Oil set. Hands open.

The rest was always Hashem’s.

Soul Signatures

2 minute read
Straightforward

There’s a legal principle: a document under challenge stands or falls by its signature. If the signature holds, the document holds. Which means the most important thing you’ll ever sign… is your own life.

The Torah describes the making of the tzitz—the golden plate worn on the Kohen Gadol’s forehead—and something small slips by almost unnoticed: “vayichtivu alav michtuv” — they wrote on it. Plural.

One plate. One crown. Why they?

Because the Torah is telling you something that goes far beyond the goldsmith’s workshop.

Every person must write it. Every single one of us must engrave Kodesh LaHashem—Holy to God—not on metal, but on ourselves.

At Sinai, the instruction was singular: “You shall make a plate… and engrave on it.” That was Moshe’s job. The Imrei Emes teaches that once an act of holiness enters the world, it doesn’t belong to one person anymore. It becomes everyone’s inheritance—and everyone’s responsibility.

Holiness is not a title you receive. It’s a seal you inscribe.

Now here’s where the Gemara lights it up. Gittin 2a teaches: “A document that is challenged is upheld by its signatures.”

Think about that.

Your soul is a document under dispute. The Sitra Achra—the forces inside and outside that whisper who do you think you are?—is constantly filing the challenge. Constantly questioning your worth, your legitimacy, your claim to holiness.

You don’t answer that challenge with argument. You answer it with proof.

Your engraving. Your signature. The life you’ve actually chosen to live.

Every morning, before the world gets loud, you have a moment. A blank forehead. A fresh piece of parchment.

What will you write today?

Not what was written for you. Not what you inherited, borrowed, or performed for someone else’s approval.

Your letters. Your chisel marks. The proof, carved deep, that you have claimed your name.

Kodesh LaHashem.

A challenged soul stands by its engraving.

The signature on your life isn’t your name. It’s every choice you made when no one was watching. That’s the document. That’s what holds. Sign it well.

The Sacred Center

2 minute read
Straightforward

The heart doesn’t sit exposed. It’s surrounded — by ribs, by muscle, by everything the body considers worth protecting. Anatomy knows something about priority.

The Israelites didn’t just wander in the desert. They camped — deliberately, directionally, each tribe assigned to a specific side, with the Mishkan in the center:
יַחֲנוּ בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל מִנֶּגֶד סָבִיב לְאֹהֶל־מוֹעֵד יַחֲנוּ – They shall camp around the Tent of Meeting at a distance. (2:2)

Four sides. No gaps.

But does the Torah need a bodyguard? Of course not. The Torah guards us.

But as the Lubavitcher Rebbe taught, G-d entrusted us with the posture of protection. The encircling wasn’t for the Mishkan’s sake. It was for ours.

Because the real Mishkan is inside.

And it needs guarding from four directions:

From the north — the cold. Spiritual indifference. The slow freeze of routine that turns prayer into performance and mitzvot into muscle memory.

From the south — the heat. Desire without direction. Passion that burns bright but burns down.

From the east — the dawn. This one is subtle. Self-congratulation. The morning light of your own brilliance, blinding you to anything beyond yourself.

From the west — the dusk. Despair. The voice that says it’s too late, too dark, too far gone.

Every person carries a Mishkan within them — a spiritual center, a point of holiness at the core of who they are. The question is whether we’ve stationed our tribes around it.

What does it mean to camp around your inner life? It means intentionality in all four directions. Warmth against the cold. Boundaries against the heat. Humility against the pride. Hope against the dark.

The Torah doesn’t need our protection. But the Torah asks for it — because the act of guarding is what shapes the guardian.

The heart doesn’t guard itself. Everything around it does. Same with the soul. Same with you.

Patience Redux

3 minute read
Straightforward

There is a version of yourself, you are fairly certain, who would be more focused, more present, more spiritually alive — if only the circumstances were a little different. A quieter house. A less demanding job. A different city, maybe. We carry this other life around with us, and it makes it very hard to fully inhabit the one we actually have.

There is a particular spiritual temptation that rarely announces itself. It doesn’t arrive as doubt or rebellion. It comes, quietly, as a geographic complaint.

Here, we say, I cannot really pray. Here, I cannot really connect. But someplace else — someplace holier, someplace quieter, someplace more conducive — there I could truly serve God.

The Torah knew this temptation. And so, with characteristic precision, it refused to give us the exit.

The Midrash asks a question so obvious we almost miss it: why did God give the Torah in the desert? Sinai was no one’s homeland. It belonged to no tribe, no nation, no particular people. It was — almost by definition — a between place. Liminal. A gap between the life the Israelites had left and the life they had not yet arrived at.

The Aish Kodesh, Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira of Piaseczna, takes this question and turns it into a teaching that cuts. Had God given the Torah in the Land of Israel, he writes, we might have concluded that the Land is a condition — that holiness requires the right address, that closeness to God is a matter of geography. The desert dismantles that conclusion before we can form it. You can serve Me anywhere. You can serve Me in the in-between.

The Shema commands us: V’ahavta et Hashem Elokecha b’chol l’vavecha — love the Lord your God with all your heart.

Rashi, faithful as ever to the text’s grain, pauses at the word b’chol — with all. What does “all” add? He explains: that your heart should not be chaluk — divided — against HaMakom, against the Place. God is called HaMakom, the Place, precisely because God is every place. The command to love with all your heart is a command against the inner geography of conditions — the inner cartography we draw that designates certain spaces sacred and others not.

R’ Aaron HaGadol of Karlin pressed this teaching into a demand: never say that here you can serve God and there you cannot. The whole heart, he taught, is precisely the heart that does not negotiate with location.

There is a burning bush somewhere in this. Moshe encounters the Divine not at the Temple, not in Jerusalem, not even in a place with a proper name. He encounters it in the wilderness, in the middle of a working day, in the middle of his complicated, exiled life. And God’s first instruction is not theological. It is positional: Shed your sandals. The ground on which you stand is holy ground.

Not was holy. Not will be holy. Is holy. This ground. Right now. Because you are standing on it, and I am meeting you here.

As the Lubavitcher Rebbe taught, the holy land is always where you are.

We are all, at various moments, living in the desert. In the gap between what we left and what hasn’t yet arrived. In the middle of the liminal — between jobs, between relationships, between who we were and who we are becoming. The spiritual temptation is to wait for the conditions to improve before we truly begin.

But the Torah was given here. In the between. In the nowhere. As if to say: this is the moment. This is the place. The one you are standing in right now.

You are, as it turns out, exactly where you are supposed to be.

And the ground beneath you — however parched, however unfamiliar, however far from where you imagined you’d be — is holy.

The Yoke That Sets You Free

2 minute read
Straightforward

Most of us have been taught that trying harder is always the answer. Work more. Push more. Give more. But there’s a moment—and you’ve probably hit it—when all that effort starts to feel like you’re digging yourself deeper.

The Torah commands: the land shall rest. Shmita. But the Zohar says something unsettling—this rest only happens when someone truly accepts the yoke of Heaven. Otherwise? Nothing gets done. Not really.

The Sfas Emes brings the image of an ox. And it stops me every time.

An ox can pour every ounce of strength into a field. Strain. Heave. Work itself to absolute exhaustion. Full effort. Total commitment. Maximum output. And without the yoke—without something directing and aligning that raw power—it doesn’t just fail to help.

It ruins the field.

Plows where it shouldn’t. Tears up what was supposed to grow. The harder it works, the worse the damage.

We live in a culture that is obsessed with the ox, and completely uninterested in the yoke. We celebrate output. We worship productivity. We measure our worth in what we accomplish, how fast we move, how much we produce. The question we ask each other—constantly, almost compulsively—is how much did you get done?

But the Sfas Emes is asking a different question entirely.

Who are you plowing for?

Because effort without alignment isn’t neutral. It’s not just wasted—it’s actively destructive. The person who grinds through life on ambition alone, chasing goals that were never really theirs. The activist burning hot but hollowing out from ego rather than calling. The learner accumulating knowledge like a trophy case, never letting a single idea change them. We recognize this. We’ve been this.

Striving with no yoke. Working furiously. Ruining the field.

Kabbalat ol malchut shamayim—accepting the yoke of Heaven—is not the opposite of effort. It’s what makes effort real. The yoke doesn’t suppress the ox. It makes the ox’s strength useful. It takes everything that raw power wants to do and gives it somewhere meaningful to go.

And here is Behar’s great paradox: the yoke is the freedom. Shmita—releasing the land, releasing control, releasing the desperate grip on outcomes—is not failure. It’s the most courageous act in the parsha. Let go, the Torah says. Trust. And watch what grows in the space you’ve stopped trying to force.

He fulfills the desire of those who fear Him. The Sfas Emes reads this not as God granting wishes, but as something far more intimate. God implants the desire. He reaches into the heart of the person who has truly submitted, and He plants the wanting itself.

You don’t bring God your best productivity numbers. You bring Him your direction. Your alignment. Your yoke.

The question Behar is really asking isn’t whether you’re working hard enough.

It’s whether you’ve decided yet who you’re working for.

The yoke isn’t what’s weighing you down. It’s the only thing that makes the weight worth carrying.

The Gift of Not Being Able

2 minute read
Straightforward

We tend to think the best leaders are the ones who can do everything. But in reality, every great leader eventually hits the same wall. Not the wall of a difficult problem, or a hostile crowd, or a shortage of resources. The wall of themselves. The moment they realize: I am the bottleneck. The moment Moshe admits he cannot carry his people alone is not his lowest point — it is his most important contribution.

In that moment,  Moshe is breaking. The people are complaining, and the weight of carrying them has become unbearable:

לֹא־אוּכַל אָנֹכִי לְבַדִּי לָשֵׂאת אֶת־כׇּל־הָעָם הַזֶּה כִּי כָבֵד מִמֶּנִּי – “I cannot carry all this people by myself, for it is too much for me.” (11:14).

In reply, God responds:

וַיֹּאמֶר יְהֹוָה אֶל־מֹשֶׁה אֶסְפָה־לִּי שִׁבְעִים אִישׁ מִזִּקְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל אֲשֶׁר יָדַעְתָּ כִּי־הֵם זִקְנֵי הָעָם וְשֹׁטְרָיו וְלָקַחְתָּ אֹתָם אֶל־אֹהֶל מוֹעֵד וְהִתְיַצְּבוּ שָׁם עִמָּךְ – Then God said to Moses, “Gather for Me seventy of Israel’s elders of whom you have experience as elders and officers of the people, and bring them to the Tent of Meeting and let them take their place there with you.” (11:16).

Notice what God does not say. He does not say: I’ll make you stronger. He says: you need others.

The Midrash famously connects the word eikha — “how?” — across three devastating moments. Yeshaya cries eikha over a sinful nation. Yirmiyahu opens Lamentations with eikha yashva vadad — how does she sit alone? And Moshe himself uses the same word: how can I carry you alone?

The Alter of Novardok read the Lamentations eikha as the tragic endpoint of what happens when leaders never learn to share the burden. The nation that sits alone in ruins is foreshadowed by the refusal to let others in.

The paradox at the heart of great leadership was that Moshe’s inability was not the problem; it was the opening.

Because admitting he could not do it created a vacuum. And vacuums, in healthy communities, get filled. The seventy elders did not become true leaders and bearers of wisdom just because someone handed them a title. They became leaders because the burden was real, the need was genuine, and someone trusted them enough to step back.

A real helper has their own stature. They push back. They grow into the role. But you can only have that if you create the space for someone to stand opposite you. You cannot have a counterpart if you insist on being everything.

Which is why micromanaging is more than just an inefficiency.

When you refuse to step back, you are not just failing to delegate — you are denying someone else their calling. The seventy elders had something to give. Had Moshe clung to sole authority, they never would have given it. His making space for them was the prerequisite for their rise.

They flourish because you step back. Not despite it.

Moshe’s cry was critical. Not because it expressed weakness, but because he meant it. He was genuinely ready to hear the answer.

Ask the question. Mean it. Then make room for the answer to walk through the door.

Step back and let someone else become great. That is the greatness.

Doing Something With It

< 1 minute
Straightforward

Feeling inspired is easy. It might even be the easiest thing in the world. The hard part — the only part that counts — is what you do before the feeling wears off.

R’ Binyamin of Lublin notices something sharp:

אלה הדברים אשר צוה ה‘ לעשות אותם — “These are the things that God commanded to do them.“

Why not simply “these are the things God commanded”? What does  “to do them” — לעשות אותם — add?

He explains: inspiration is a gift from Heaven. The flash of clarity you feel, the sudden resolve to be better, the moment a teaching cracks something open inside you — that’s God talking. It arrives from above. You didn’t manufacture it.

But here’s where most people stop. They feel the fire, they tell someone about it, they ride the warmth — and then it fades. The inspiration was real, but the doing never came.

That’s why the Torah adds “to do them” — לעשות אותם. The divine command doesn’t end with the receiving. It ends with the doing. God’s word is not complete until it lands in action.

There’s even a subtle warning embedded in the word אותם — them, the things themselves. Not your feelings about the things. Not your conversation about the things. The things.

So the next time something moves you, ask one question before the feeling passes:

What’s one thing I can do with this today?

That’s when God’s command is finally fulfilled.

Because inspiration with no action isn’t spirituality. It’s entertainment.

Celebrating Second Chances

3 minute read
Straightforward

Judaism has a holiday that exists because a group of people complained. Not a festival commemorating a miracle, not a fast marking a tragedy — a full day on the Jewish calendar, born entirely from the fact that a handful of men refused to accept the answer they were given.

There’s a halacha so basic it barely needs saying: if something is beyond your control, you’re patur — exempt, absolved, no blame attached. Oness rachmana patrei. The Torah itself is the source. If you were tamei on Erev Pesach, you couldn’t bring the korban. End of story. Move on. Nothing to feel bad about.

So what did those men actually want?

“Lama nigara?” — Why should we be diminished? Why should we be less? They weren’t arguing the law. They knew they were tamei. They knew they were exempt. They weren’t coming to Moshe with a grievance. They were coming with a hunger.

The Chiddushei HaRim reads this as something almost unprecedented: their desire itself was the catalyst for a new mitzvah. Not a psak. Not a leniency. A new day on the Jewish calendar, born entirely from the fact that these men could not stomach the idea of being spiritually lesser than their brothers.

Think about what that means. They weren’t on the level — and they refused to accept it.

Most of us, when told we’re exempt, feel relief. These men felt loss. That gap — between where they were and where they wanted to be — was intolerable to them. And instead of making peace with their situation, they brought their longing directly to Moshe, directly to God.

And God said: yes.

But here is where the story gets even more radical.

The Frierdiker Rebbe points out something hiding in the text. The Torah says lachem — the case of one who is far away lachem, for himself. The Sages read this to include not only those who were accidentally tamei, not only those who were unavoidably distant — but even those whose distance was deliberate. Even someone who brought the impurity upon himself. Even someone whose “far away” was a choice.

Even him, says Pesach Sheni: come back. You can still correct it.

This is not a loophole. This is a theological statement. The lesson of Pesach Sheni, as the Frierdiker Rebbe teaches it, is simply this: it is never too late. It is always possible to put things right.

The Rebbe, in a letter that carries the full weight of that tradition, puts it this way: do not despair. If you find yourself far from the Sanctuary — spiritually distant, unfit, excluded from where everyone else seems to be — you are not told to give up. You are told: begin your way toward the Sanctuary. Come closer and closer. The second Pesach exists for you, if you try hard enough.

The Zohar adds one more layer: the gates of heaven that opened on Pesach remain accessible on Pesach Sheni. A second door. But notice — it only opens for those who are knocking.

That’s the deepest teaching. Pesach Sheni is not the holiday of second chances in the way we sentimentalize the phrase. It is the holiday that honors a specific spiritual posture: the refusal to be consoled by your own exemption. The refusal to make peace with distance. And the audacity to bring that refusal before God as if it were itself a prayer.

Pesach is the only holiday that has this feature because it marks the birth of the Jewish nation and its eternal bond with God.

Lama nigara is not a complaint. It’s a confession of love.

The men were tamei. They couldn’t help that — or perhaps, in some cases, they could have. But what they could always control was how they held it. And they held it like a wound, not a waiver.

That longing created a mitzvah.

Which means: your desire to be where the great ones are is not arrogance. It is not naivety. In the right hands — held honestly, brought directly to God — it is generative. It makes things that didn’t exist before.

Pesach Sheni tells us: no matter how you got here, no matter how far you wandered or how deliberately you stepped away — don’t make peace with where you are. Start walking. The gates are still open.

We call it a second chance. God calls it a mitzvah.

The Moon in Your Pocket

< 1 minute
Straightforward

There’s a particular kind of exhaustion that has nothing to do with sleep. It’s the exhaustion of a journey that just keeps going — one hard stretch after another, with no end in sight.

The Torah seems to stammer. They journeyed from Ramses in the first month, on the fifteenth day of the first month. Why say “first month” twice? Just say the fifteenth!

The Sfas Emes hears something deeper in the repetition. The double mention of the month is no accident — it’s a hidden reference to Rosh Chodesh, the mitzvah of renewal that was given at the very dawn of the Exodus.

But why embed this hint specifically here, in Parshas Maasei — the parsha of journeys?

Because that’s exactly the point.

The Torah lists forty-two journeys. Desert to desert, camp to camp, crisis to crisis. The masa’os of Bnei Yisrael aren’t just geography — they’re a mirror for every life. We all travel through stretches of wilderness: confusion, failure, hardship, the nights that won’t seem to end.

Into that darkness, the Torah plants a quiet message: remember the moon.

Kiddush Levanah puts it simply — שהם עתידים להתחדש כמותה — Yisrael will always renew themselves, just like the moon. The moon doesn’t fight the darkness. It simply waits, and then it comes back.

This is the gift hidden inside the repetition. No matter where the journey takes you, no matter how far the road has wandered from where you hoped to be — Rosh Chodesh is always around the corner. Renewal is not the exception. It’s built into the calendar. It’s built into us.

The darkest stretch of the journey is never the last stop.

God didn’t just promise renewal. He scheduled it.

The Guarantor

3 minute read
Straightforward

Most of us have had someone vouch for us. A parent, a mentor, a friend who put their name on the line and said: I’m responsible for this person. That act of standing as guarantor is one of the most powerful things a human being can do.

The scene is explosive. Binyamin sits shackled in Egypt. Yehuda steps forward.

Everything hinges on this moment.

R’ Alexander Zusha Friedman asks us to see Binyamin not merely as a younger brother, but as a symbol — the youngest, the most vulnerable, the one most susceptible to being swallowed whole by an alien world. Egypt is not just a place. It is a gravitational pull. And Binyamin is caught in it.

Yehuda made himself the guarantor. Anochi e’ervenu. I will be responsible for him. Not “we will do our best.” Not “hopefully things work out.” I am accountable. With my life, with my future, with everything. The buck stops here.

This is the model for every generation. When our youth are ensnared — by a culture that corrodes, by a world that seduces, by an Egypt that promises everything and delivers emptiness — someone must step forward. Someone must say: I will be responsible for him.

The Kedushas Levi notices something devastating in Yosef’s ultimatum: “If you don’t bring the youngest, you won’t see my face.”

He reads it as cosmic law, not just a brotherly ultimatum. If we don’t look out for one another — if the strong abandon the vulnerable, if the established abandon the struggling — then God, so to speak, hides His face from us. Our relationship with the Divine is inextricable from our responsibility to each other. You cannot stand before God while abandoning your brother.

R’ Meir of Premishlan cuts even deeper. When Yehuda pleads, he says: “How will I go up to my father if the child is not with me?” — ki hana’ar einenu iti.

Not: how can I face my father.
Not: how will I explain this.
But: how can I go up — how can there even be an ascent, a going-forward, a moving toward anything holy — if the younger generation is left behind?

We don’t get to climb alone. If a brother is missing, our journey has failed.

The Shem MiShmuel asks: why now? Yosef had held himself together through interrogations, through imprisonment, through years of exile. What breaks him open at this moment?

He sees Yehuda offer himself as a slave. V’anochi eheye lecha l’eved. Take me instead. Keep him. I will go down so he can go up.

Here, the Shem MiShmuel sees not just loyalty, but teshuva. Years earlier, it was Yehuda who sold a brother into slavery. Now he offers himself into slavery to save one. The circle closes. The fracture heals.

And Yosef could not restrain himself. He burst open. Because genuine self-sacrifice, genuine return, changes the atmosphere in a room. It changes history. It breaks down every wall.

This story writes itself into our moment.

We live in an Egypt of our own — dazzling, distracting, indifferent to Jewish continuity. And there are Binyamins everywhere. Young people unmoored. Younger siblings drifting.

The question the Torah asks us is simple and searing:

Who is standing up to be their guarantor?

Not who is lamenting the situation. Not who is analyzing the trends. Who is saying anochi e’ervenu — I take responsibility. I will not go up unless he comes with me.

The Torah says it plainly: if we don’t look out for each other, God doesn’t want to see our face. Our relationship with heaven runs directly through our responsibility to each other. There is no shortcut.

When we find that person — when we become that person — something in the heavens cannot restrain itself either.

The World You See Is the World You Choose

2 minute read
Straightforward

Twelve men took the same forty-day trip. They saw the same cities, ate the same fruit, walked the same roads. Ten came back terrified. Two came back inspired. This isn’t a story about Canaan. It’s a story about what we bring with us before we arrive.

But how did these intelligent men, hand-picked leaders of Klal Yisrael, get it so catastrophically wrong?

The Gemara in Sota (35a) reveals something remarkable. Hashem didn’t abandon the spies in Canaan — He helped them. Wherever they traveled, He arranged for locals to be distracted with funerals and illness, drawing attention away so the spies could move safely and freely. The oversized fruit, the flourishing cities, the breathtaking landscape — all of it was on full display, a living advertisement for the gift that awaited them.

And yet. They came back broken.

The Steipler’s answer is the mussar haskel: they went in with a foul mindset, and so a foul world is what they found. The corpses that Hashem sent to distract the Canaanites? The spies reported them as proof that the land “eats its inhabitants.” The towering men — giants of flesh — became monsters in their telling. The very blessings were refracted through a lens of fear and negativity until they became curses.

Nothing changed in Canaan. Everything changed inside the spies.

This is the terrifying lesson. Reality is not simply out there, waiting to be reported. We meet the world through the filter of who we are when we arrive. A person who enters a situation with gratitude will find reasons for gratitude. A person who enters with dread will find — and will create — confirmation of their dread. The spies didn’t lie, exactly. They reported what they experienced. But their experience was a product of their inner world, not the outer one.

Calev understood this. He silenced the crowd — ויהס כלב — not with counter-arguments, but with a cry of reorientation: “We can surely do it.” He wasn’t ignoring the giants. He was choosing his lens.

As we head into our own uncertainties — the difficult conversation, the uncertain venture, the relationship that needs tending — the Steipler’s question echoes: What mindset are we walking in with?

The optimist and the pessimist live in the same world. They just don’t live in the same reality.

Same room. Same land. Same life. The only question is — who are you when you walk in?

The Hell of Standing Still

2 minute read
Straightforward

The most dangerous moment in any spiritual journey isn’t when you fall. It’s when you succeed.

Korach was no fool. The Midrash tells us he was brilliant, wealthy, and — perhaps most dangerously — right about one thing. The Jewish People were holy. Every single one of them stood at Sinai. Every one of them heard God speak. So when Korach declared the whole congregation is holy —כִּי כָל הָעֵדָה כֻּלָּם קְדֹשִׁים— he wasn’t fabricating. He was quoting reality.

That’s what made him so dangerous.

Rav Tzadok HaKohen identifies the precise nature of Korach’s sin as subtler than a power grab. Korach believed that once you’ve arrived — once the nation has reached genuine spiritual greatness — there is no longer any need for leadership, structure, or guided growth. You’re holy. You’re there. What more could Moshe possibly give you?

This is the sin: taking the greatest moment of your life and turning it into a ceiling

The Torah’s response is devastating in its poetry. Korach and his followers are swallowed chaim — alive:

וַיֵּרְדוּ הֵם וְכׇל־אֲשֶׁר לָהֶם חַיִּים שְׁאֹלָה – They went down alive into Sheol, with all that belonged to them… (16:33)

The earth opens, and they descend into a living hell. Our sages tell us that they did not die; the Torah emphasizes that they went down living.

Rav Tzadok reads this with surgical precision. The punishment mirrors the crime. Korach argued you could be spiritually alive in complete holiness — and need nothing more. So that is exactly what he received. He remained spiritually alive, fully intact in his holiness — and found himself in Gehinnom.

The message burns bright: a person can be genuinely, authentically holy and still be in hell. Not despite his spiritual achievement — but because he declared it complete.

Without leadership. Without safeguards. Without the humility to say there is still somewhere to go — even perfection becomes a trap. The ground swallows you not when you’re empty, but when you plant your flag and stop climbing.

Korach’s hell wasn’t punishment from without. It was the logical conclusion of his own beliefs, played out to its end.

The greatest danger isn’t the person who knows they’re broken. It’s the person who is genuinely great — and knows it.

God didn’t punish Korach for being unholy. He punished him for being certain he was holy enough.

Filling the Gaps

2 minute read
Straightforward

We tend to remember the most dazzling people in the room. The ones who command attention, who radiate presence, who seem lit from within. The Torah, when describing the most precious gems ever assembled, names them for something else entirely.

Among the materials Bnei Yisrael were asked to donate for the Mishkan, the Torah lists avnei miluim — the stones set into the Efod and Choshen of the Kohen Gadol. The name is curious. These were precious gems. Sapphires, emeralds, diamonds. Why call them miluim — stones of filling?

Rashi answers simply: she’mimalim oto b’mishbetzotav — they fill in the settings. The stones are named not for their brilliance, but for the gap they complete.

Rav Shmuel Birnbaum would point to something remarkable here. The Torah could have named these stones anything. It could have called them avnei kavod, stones of glory, or avnei ziv, stones of splendor. Both would be true. These were the most dazzling gems in the ancient world, worn over the heart of the holiest man in the nation.

Instead, the Torah names them for their function. For what they do for someone else. For the empty space they make whole.

This is not an accident. This is the Torah telling us how to measure value.

We live in a world that worships the decorative. We celebrate what dazzles, what turns heads, what commands a room. And there is nothing wrong with beauty — these were, after all, extraordinary stones. But the avnei miluim teach us that beauty alone is an incomplete accounting of a person. The deeper question is always: what gap do you fill? Whose setting are you completing? What would be missing without you?

The greatest people are often those who subordinate their brilliance to someone else’s wholeness. They are gifted, yes — but they spend that gift filling in what others lack. A listening ear for someone unraveling. A steady hand in someone else’s chaos. A word of clarity when confusion reigns. They are precious stones — but named, always, for the space they complete rather than the light they emit.

Avnei miluim. Stones of filling.

Be beautiful. But more than that — be useful. Find your gap, and fill it.

Because the most valuable gems aren’t always the shiniest. They’re the ones holding everything together.

The 100% Problem

2 minute read
Straightforward

Happiness is easy to ruin. You don’t need tragedy or disaster. A small nagging feeling that things could be slightly better will do just fine.

The Torah says something that has always troubled the commentators. The tochacha — that terrifying litany of curses — doesn’t arrive because of idol worship or Shabbos violation. It arrives, the Torah says, because “lo avadeta es Hashem Elokecha b’simcha u’v’tuv levav” — you didn’t serve Hashem with joy and with goodness of heart.

That seems almost unfair. You served Hashem. You just weren’t happy enough about it?

R’ Gifter explains that the Torah is pointing to something deeper than mood.

We all know the feeling. You get something good — a raise, a vacation, a perfect meal — and somewhere in the back of your mind, a little voice whispers: if only it were a little more. A little better. The Gemara already tells us: one who has a manah wants masayim. It’s not ingratitude exactly. It’s the human condition. Happiness arrives, and it arrives at 95%.

That five percent gap is everything.

Because simcha and tuv levav are two different things. You can have simcha — genuine happiness, real joy — and still not have tuv levav, a heart that is truly full. The tochacha isn’t a punishment for ingratitude. It’s the natural consequence of living with an unfilled heart. When your inner world has a permanent vacancy sign, it hollows out everything — your avodah, your relationships, your life.

This is why the Torah gives the farmer a mitzvah of simcha at bikurim. Not a suggestion. A commandment.

At first glance, that seems redundant. The farmer just watched his fields produce. He’s standing at the Beis HaMikdash with the first of his fruits. Who needs to be commanded to feel happy?

But the mitzvah isn’t commanding the emotion. It’s commanding the perspective.

Any farmer can be 95% happy. Torah happiness is 100% — because it is built on a specific theological conviction: that Hashem doesn’t give a person what they need. Hashem gives them what they need and then some. Not 100% — 110%. The mitzvah of simcha is the discipline of actually absorbing that truth, not just nodding at it. Of standing with your basket of first fruits and saying: this is not almost enough. This is more than enough. This has always been more than enough.

The child who got X and complained about Y isn’t a bad child. She’s a human being who hasn’t yet learned the hardest spiritual skill there is — the skill of a full heart.

That skill has a name. The Torah calls it simcha u’v’tuv levav. And apparently, it’s the whole thing.

When you truly believe Hashem gives 100%, the 5% gap closes. Not because your life got better — because your accounting did.

Most Is Plenty

3 minute read
Straightforward

The Megillah ends with great triumph — feasting, joy, light, and gladness. But it also ends on a strange note:

כִּי  מׇרְדֳּכַי הַיְּהוּדִי מִשְׁנֶה לַמֶּלֶךְ אֲחַשְׁוֵרוֹשׁ וְגָדוֹל לַיְּהוּדִים וְרָצוּי לְרֹב אֶחָיו דֹּרֵשׁ טוֹב לְעַמּוֹ וְדֹבֵר שָׁלוֹם לְכׇל־זַרְעוֹ – For Mordechai the Jew ranked next to King Ahasuerus and was highly regarded by most of the Jews and popular with the multitude of his brethren; he sought the good of his people and interceded for the welfare of all his kin. (10:3)

Note the quiet, unsettling detail: וְרָצוּי לְרֹב אֶחָיו — Mordechai was highly regarded by most of his brothers. Most—not all.

Sit with that for a moment. He did everything right. He walked into the fire on behalf of his people. And when the dust settled, and everyone was saved, some of them — his own brothers — still found a reason to withhold their full approval.

That detail stings. Because if anyone earned everyone’s unanimous approval, isn’t it the man who helped save the Jewish People from extermination?

One uncomfortable answer is that some Jews never forgave Mordechai for refusing to bow to Haman. In their eyes, none of this had to happen. If he had just complied a little, nodded politely, played the game, then maybe none of this would have happened. The genocide threat, the terror, the instability — Mordechai’s fault.

The Midrash adds a second layer to that critique. Some of the Sanhedrin distanced themselves from Mordechai not because of the bowing, but because he had stepped back from Torah study to wade into the murky waters of politics and palace intrigue. In their eyes, a scholar of his stature belonged in a yeshiva, not in a throne room.

But this is precisely what makes Mordechai great. He was learned — and when the moment demanded it, he was brave. He didn’t wait for consensus. He saw what the moment required, and he stepped up. A lesser man might have kept his head down, preserved his reputation among his peers, stayed comfortable inside the walls of the yeshiva while his people slowly drifted toward catastrophe. Mordechai walked out into the storm instead, and that’s what makes him the hero of this story.

Our sages preserve the Sanhedrin’s critique—but the Megillah preserves Mordechai’s courage. Mordechai saved everyone, including the Sanhedrin. It’s his story we tell, and his songs we sing.

It’s an old and painful pattern: danger arrives from outside, and we find someone inside to blame. Not because it’s true, but because it’s easier than accepting that the world doesn’t care how nice you are. If the problem was Mordechai’s “extremism,” then we can keep believing the world is basically safe — as long as we’re agreeable enough.

But Purim is Judaism’s way of saying: no. Sometimes the world isn’t asking for your manners. It’s asking for your spine.

Every generation has a Haman. Every generation also has Jews who think a bow will fix it. There will always be Jews who think it’s okay to bow to our enemies — if not literally, then spiritually: if not to the man, then to his approval, his definitions of who we’re allowed to be. “Just blend in.” “Don’t make a fuss.” “Be less visible.” It sounds like wisdom and masquerades as peace. But it’s usually fear wearing a suit.

Mordechai refused to bow — not because he loved conflict, but because he loved truth more than comfort. And taking that kind of stance will never win unanimous applause. Even when it saves countless lives, it will still irritate the part of the community that confuses surrender with safety.

So the Megillah leaves us with a final, bracing lesson: you can be right, you can be courageous, you can save everyone — and still not be loved by all.

The Ibn Ezra states plainly what we all learn eventually: it is simply impossible to please everyone.

Purim isn’t a holiday about being liked. It’s a holiday about seeing clearly.

The Megillah ends with feasting and joy and songs — and one quiet asterisk. Not everyone was happy. Not everyone could bring themselves to embrace Mordechai with a full heart. And Mordechai, we can assume, knew. He was smart, not naive. He could read a king; he could read a room.

And still he served. Still he sought the good of his people. Still, he spoke peace to all his brothers.

That is the Megillah’s final lesson: you don’t wait for all before you act. You act, and you let most be enough.

Most is plenty.

Family First

3 minute read
Straightforward

One of Judaism’s holiest places might surprise you. Beis HaMikdash, sure, shuls, yeshivas, kevarim, yes. But what about your family dinner table?

On Seder night, Judaism doesn’t transmit itself through slogans or lectures, but through a table where a family is allowed to be honest, curious, skeptical, playful, and sharp. The Torah’s great ideas don’t drop from heaven into a vacuum; they land inside a home. That’s where the story begins.

The Exodus opens with a quiet line that is easy to skip:

וְאֵלֶּה שְׁמוֹת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל הַבָּאִים מִצְרָיְמָה אֵת יַעֲקֹב אִישׁ וּבֵיתוֹ בָּאוּ – These are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob, each coming with his household. (1:1)

Before we are a nation, we are families. Before we share a destiny, we share a table. The first Jewish we is not political; it’s domestic.

And then something goes right — and wrong — at the same time:

וּבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל פָּרוּ וַיִּשְׁרְצוּ וַיִּרְבּוּ וַיַּעַצְמוּ בִּמְאֹד מְאֹד וַתִּמָּלֵא הָאָרֶץ אֹתָם – But the Israelites were fertile and prolific; they multiplied and increased very greatly, so that the land was filled with them. (1:7)

On paper, it’s blessing. But the Midrash explains how in practice, it becomes exposure. “Filling the land” means you’re no longer contained by the privacy and particularity of home; you are now inside an Egyptian public, countable, manageable, assimilable.

In a way that feels painfully modern: when a society shifts, the family stops being the locus of life. Life moves outward — into commerce, into politics, into entertainment. The center of gravity relocates. Not necessarily because anyone chooses it, but because the world quietly reorganizes itself around what is loud, profitable, and public. Egypt isn’t only a place of forced labor. It’s a place where the home gets hollowed out.

So watch what redemption looks like:

דַּבְּרוּ אֶל־כׇּל־עֲדַת יִשְׂרָאֵל לֵאמֹר בֶּעָשֹׂר לַחֹדֶשׁ הַזֶּה וְיִקְחוּ לָהֶם אִישׁ שֶׂה לְבֵית־אָבֹת שֶׂה לַבָּיִת – Speak to the whole community of Israel and say that on the tenth of this month each family shall take for itself a lamb, a lamb to a household. (12:3)

Not a rally. Not a mass awakening in the town square. The first command of freedom is addressed to the family unit. The Korban Pesach is eaten not in a national auditorium but inside the home. A meal in your dining room with friends and family. A story told in your language, to your children, in the presence of people who know you before you perform.

Redemption starts close to home; it is familial before it is communal or national. Which is another way of saying: redemption is intimate.

Egypt breaks the Jewish people by breaking the Jewish home. Pesach heals the Jewish people by rebuilding the Jewish home. It’s a reset — return the center of gravity to where it belongs. Put the future back at the table.

That’s why the Seder is engineered around questions.

Children are not a distraction from the Seder; the children are the Seder. Ma Nishtana is the proof that the home is alive — alive enough to ask, to push back, to notice difference. A home where nobody questions is not a home; it’s a waiting room.

The Haggadah’s genius is dialogue — give-and-take, interruptions, curiosity that wanders and then comes back. The point is not to “cover material.” The point is to reestablish a culture where meaning is built in relationship. The Seder isn’t a lecture; it’s a map of relationships and meaning, built at the dinner table.

On Pesach, we don’t just celebrate that God took us out of Egypt. We practice the kind of home that makes leaving Egypt possible — with open doors, open mouths, open questions, where the center holds not by control, but by conversation.

We survived Egypt. Look around your table and commit to surviving the distraction of everything that replaced it.

God in the Dark

2 minute read
Advanced

We don’t fear the dark because we can’t see. We fear it because we can’t understand.

מַה נִּשְׁתַּנָּה הַלַּיְלָה הַזֶּה — Why is this night different from all other nights?

The phrase contains more than it first appears. Night—לַּיְלָה—isn’t just a time of day. It’s the human experience of darkness: confusion, concealment, the unknown, chapters of life you can’t yet interpret. Nobody chooses their darkness. It chooses us — settling into the corners of our lives like something that has always lived there.

But this—זֶּה—is a word you only use when something is right there, in the room. You say זֶּה when you can point. Later in our Seder, we point to the Maror, we point to the Matzah.

But how do you point to darkness, name it, and say—this?

R’ Avraham Tzvi Kluger teaches that the gift of Pesach is precisely the ability to say הַלַּיְלָה הַזֶּה—This darkness.

Because we all carry darkness and uncertainty inside us. The phone call that changed everything. The relationship that ended without a final conversation. The year you got through — but couldn’t tell anyone how. On all other nights, that darkness stays dark—opaque, wordless, heavy.

But the Seder is not ordinary time. The Seder is an immersion in faith: not wishful thinking, but radical trust that there is a God who remembers and redeems. The darkness doesn’t vanish. But something quietly shifts — like your eyes adjusting to a room you thought was empty, and slowly realizing it isn’t. And then, without fanfare, you begin to recognize that the road you walked — even the hardest stretches — was always taking you somewhere.

The night becomes this—something you can point to, something you can finally name; הַלַּיְלָה becomes הַזֶּה—this darkness. Our Seder does not explain the darkness. It changes what it means.

Because on all other nights, darkness is just darkness.

But on this night—הַלַּיְלָה הַזֶּה—we dare to believe the darkness has been pointing somewhere.

God did not promise us a life without darkness. He promised us He was in it.

Your Heart Comes First

< 1 minute
Straightforward

We spend our lives trying to change the people we love. It is an exhausting, noble, and ultimately limited strategy.

The Chafetz Chaim would say he set out to change the world—and failed. So he tried to change Polish Jewry — and failed. Then his hometown of Radin — and failed. Then his own family — and failed. Finally, he focused on changing himself. And in the end, that is how he changed the world.

We read Parshas HaTeshuva every year on the Shabbos before Rosh Hashanah, and the Torah hands us a roadmap. In one of the most hopeful sections in the entire Torah, Hashem promises:

וּמָל ה’ אֱלֹקיךָ אֶת לְבָבְךָ וְאֶת לְבַב זַרְעֶךָ — Hashem will circumcise your heart — and the heart of your children (30:6)

It’s a beautiful promise, but notice the sequencing. Your heart first; then your children’s.

The Shinever Rov sees a profound lesson hidden in that sequence. If you want your children to do teshuvah, begin with yourself. Your own return will ignite theirs.

This is not merely practical advice — it is how the world actually works. Children don’t hear our lectures. They feel our energy. They absorb whether we are people who take our own inner lives seriously, who genuinely reckon with who we are and who we ought to be. A parent who does real, honest, vulnerable teshuvah sends a signal that ripples outward in ways no speech ever could.

The Yamim Noraim have a way of making us anxious about others — our children, our students, the people we love who seem distant from their own souls. The Torah’s answer is disarmingly simple: start closer. Start inside.

Before you look around the table, look in the mirror. That’s where teshuvah starts.

The Sophistication of Simplicity

2 minute read
Straightforward

We live in the age of optimization. Track your sleep, plan your career, hedge your investments, anticipate every outcome. We have more tools to control the future than any generation in history — and we are more anxious than ever.

The Torah has something to say to all our complex calculations:

תָּמִים תִּהְיֶה עִם ה’ אֱלֹהֶיךָ – You must be wholehearted with Hashem your God. (Devarim 18:13)

One word does all the work: simple, wholehearted – תָּמִים.

We’ve heard it before. When Hashem calls Avraham into the covenant, the charge is to walk before Me in that wholeness – הִתְהַלֵּךְ לְפָנַי וֶהְיֵה תָמִים . But notice the difference. To Avraham, it is an instruction, a mitzvah: be simple and wholehearted. Here, speaking to an entire people standing at the threshold of their future — not “be brilliant,” but “be whole.”

So what is the Torah asking of us, practically?

The Sifri cuts through with striking plainness: don’t consult astrologers, don’t anxiously interrogate the future, don’t scramble to outmaneuver what hasn’t happened yet. Walk simply with Hashem. Accept what comes. That‘s what it means to be simple and wholehearted. No great spiritual achievement. No advanced practice. Just — stop sweating the future. Let Hashem hold what you can’t.

You can still plan — you just stop needing the plan to guarantee you’ll be okay before you make a move.

Rebbe Nachman takes this even further. He insists that no complexity or sophistication is required to serve Hashem. Only simplicity, only sincerity. And then he says the thing that stops you cold: simplicity is the highest level, because God Himself is ultimately simple.

This lands oddly in a world that rewards complexity — nuanced takes, layered frameworks, sophisticated analysis. There’s a place for that. But Rebbe Nachman is pointing at what we miss while we’re busy being impressive: Hashem isn’t complicated. The path to God isn’t complicated. We are.

The charge to wholeness is an invitation back to something we already know, something we were before we learned to hedge and calculate and worry. It is the spiritual posture of a person who has decided, once and for all, that Hashem can be trusted with the parts of life that feel most out of control.

The most complete version of yourself is not the most sophisticated version. It’s the most wholehearted one — the one who walks simply, trusts fully, and doesn’t require the future to explain itself before taking the next step.

That person, says the Torah, is tamim. And that person is already, quietly, im Hashem Elokecha.

We spend our whole lives trying to become more. The Torah whispers that sometimes the bravest thing you can do is become less complicated — and trust that Hashem enough to fill the rest.

The Whole Thing

2 minute read
Straightforward

A cake that is ninety percent baked is not a cake. It is batter. It looks like a cake, it smells like a cake — but pull it out ten minutes early, and you have something no one can eat. Ninety percent is not ‘almost’ one hundred. They belong to entirely different categories.

The Torah tells us something similar:

כׇּל־הַמִּצְוָה אֲשֶׁר אָנֹכִי מְצַוְּךָ הַיּוֹם תִּשְׁמְרוּן לַעֲשׂוֹת לְמַעַן תִּחְיוּן וּרְבִיתֶם וּבָאתֶם וִירִשְׁתֶּם אֶת־הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר־נִשְׁבַּע יְהֹוָה לַאֲבֹתֵיכֶם – The whole mitzvah that I command you today, you shall be careful to do. (8:1)

Kol. All of it. The whole thing.

Rashi quotes a Midrash that leans into that word with its full weight. Kol hamitzvah means you must complete what you begin. Don’t do the easy parts and abandon the rest. Don’t convince yourself that partial effort earns full credit. The mitzvah isn’t yours until it’s finished.

We live in an age that celebrates beginnings. We announce intentions. We buy equipment. We start the practice after the High Holidays. Beginning feels like an accomplishment — it produces a genuine emotional rush, the anticipation of who we might become. And then, without any dramatic moment of quitting, we drift.

Rashi refuses to let us off the hook. The Torah doesn’t say begin the mitzvah. It says do it. And doing means finishing the whole thing.

Because sometimes what we call ‘not finished yet’ is really something else: a refusal to belong to the whole.

But then the Ohr Hachaim opens the verse even wider.

He reads Kol Hamitzvah not as a command about completion, but as a statement about wholeness. Consider the human body. You wouldn’t cut off your little finger because it seemed less essential than the others. Every limb, every nerve, every seemingly minor appendage belongs to the body’s integrity. Sever even the smallest part, and you no longer have a whole, fully functioning person — you have someone diminished.

The mitzvot form that same kind of living system. When we select only the ones that feel natural or convenient, the ones that don’t cost too much, that’s not practicing Judaism or Torah. We are performing an amputation and calling it a lifestyle.

The image is compassionate, though, not only demanding. The Ohr Hachaim is not scolding. He is reminding us that every part of the body wants to function. The little finger doesn’t resent the hand for being stronger. It simply does what it was created to do. The question underneath his teaching is: Do you know what you are? Do you understand that you were made for wholeness?

The Torah is not asking you to do everything today. It is asking you to want the whole thing — to hold the entire body of mitzvot with love and longing, even the ones you haven’t yet reached, even the ones that still feel far away. At the level of desire, acceptance of the whole—even before full observance—is an act of wholeness.

Kol hamitzvah is ultimately not about legal compliance. It is about the posture of a soul. There is a person who approaches life with their whole self available — whole attention, whole follow-through, whole commitment to finishing what they began. And there is a person who perpetually negotiates with themselves about how much they can withhold and still call it service.

The Torah is not asking which mitzvos we intend to keep. It is asking which person we intend to become.

Whole thing. Whole person. There is no third option.

The Point of No Return

3 minute read
Straightforward

There is a moment in everyone’s life when ambiguity becomes unbearable. When we can no longer live in the comfortable middle space between who we have been and who we know we must become. The birth of the Jewish People hinges on such a moment.

God told Moshe to tell the Jewish People to slaughter the Pesach lamb and smear its blood on their doorposts, to save themselves from the destructive forces:

וְהָיָה הַדָּם לָכֶם לְאֹת עַל הַבָּתִּים אֲשֶׁר אַתֶּם שָׁם וְרָאִיתִי אֶת־הַדָּם וּפָסַחְתִּי עֲלֵכֶם וְלֹא־יִהְיֶה בָכֶם נֶגֶף לְמַשְׁחִית בְּהַכֹּתִי בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם – And the blood on the houses where you are staying shall be a sign for you: when I see the blood I will pass over you, so that no plague will destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. (12:13)
But the obvious question is: what’s the point? God knows where we live. He already knew where every Jewish household was. He didn’t need signposts.

So what was the blood actually doing?

Rabbeinu Bachye’s answer is bracing. The blood wasn’t a signal for God. It was a declaration for Israel. The Egyptians worshipped the lamb. To slaughter one — not in your kitchen, not in your basement, but publicly, visibly, and then to paint its blood across your doorpost like a flag — was an act of almost reckless courage. It was saying: I am not with them. I have chosen a side, and I will not be choosing again. And I am willing for everyone to know it. 

Rabbeinu Bachye is describing something far more universal than an ancient Egyptian night. He is describing the human need — the deep, almost desperate need — for a point of no return.

We sometimes imagine faith as an interior condition — a private arrangement between a soul and its Maker, quietly tended, nobody else’s business. And there is truth in that. But Rabbeinu Bachye is pointing to something the Exodus demands of us: that at certain hinge moments in history, the interior conviction must find its way to the doorpost. It had to become visible—and cost something.

Sometimes, the waiting itself becomes the problem. The unsmeared doorpost becomes its own kind of statement. And not choosing so often has a way of choosing for us.

What the Israelites did that night was not merely logistical. It was, in the deepest sense, an act of self-clarification. The blood on the doorpost told them something about themselves they perhaps hadn’t fully known until that moment: I am someone who does this. I am someone who has left. Not someone who is thinking about leaving. Not someone who finds Egypt increasingly problematic. Someone who has crossed the threshold — and painted the crossing so visibly that there is no honest way to uncross it.

We like to think belief comes first and action follows. But the Exodus story suggests something truer: sometimes you discover your faith only after you’ve done something that makes retreat expensive.

The blood wasn’t a magic charm. It was a mitzvah that forced a decision into visibility. The families who walked through that door the morning after were not saved by a physical or spiritual property of blood painted on wood; they were saved because they had, in one concrete and irreversible act, separated themselves from Egypt — not just geographically, but spiritually, publicly, with their whole bodies. It marked the family and told them who they were, settling something that had been unsettled for too long.

There are moments in our lives when something similar is required. There are people who have known for years — known with the deep, exhausting certainty that the body carries before the mind admits it — that a relationship was over, or that it was time to stop living half-in and fully commit. And they lived in that knowing, privately, indefinitely, until one day something forced the act: a conversation started without a script, a promise made out loud, a door closed without theater but without ambiguity either. And they discovered, in the aftermath, that they hadn’t just made a decision. They had finally become the person who had already made it.

What saves us at those moments is not the act itself, as if it carries some magical potency. What saves us is what the act reveals and solidifies — closing the distance between who we secretly know we must be and who we are willing, now and at last, to become publicly.

God did not need the sign on the door. He already knew who we were.

The miracle of that night is that by morning, so did we.

The Rod and the Rock

2 minute read
Straightforward

Moshe strikes the rock. Water flows. The people drink.

And God says he will not bring this congregation into the land.

It seems almost cruel. After forty years of wandering, of bearing these impossible people through impossible terrain, one moment of frustration, and the dream slips away. Rashi and Rambam tell us the sin was anger itself. Ramban pushes back: it was the striking, the rod raised when words were called for.

But maybe they’re saying the same thing. Because anger doesn’t stay inside for long before it reaches for the rod.

There is something seductive about leading through fear. It works—and right away. A voice raised, a threat implied, a punishment administered, and suddenly there is compliance, at least in the short run. The rock gives water. The meeting ends on time. The children go to bed.

But God wasn’t asking for water from the rock. God was asking Moshe to speak to it. To demonstrate, at the very threshold of the promised land, that a different kind of leadership was possible — one built not on force but on relationship, not on compliance but on covenant.

The Iggeres HaRamban frames it starkly. Anyone who lives in anger, the Sages teach, places himself under the dominion of Gehinnom. Not because anger is ugly—though it is—but because a life oriented around anger becomes a kind of hell from the inside out. It closes the self. It forgets the other. It turns every relationship into a power struggle waiting to be won.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks wrote that the Torah’s ethical revolution was precisely the move from a world of power to a world of responsibility. Might doesn’t make right; the strong don’t get to simply impose. There is a moment of divine anger that even God recoils from — as if heaven itself knows that when strength loses patience, something essential is lost.

This matters in every room we inhabit.

In our families, compliance born of fear looks like connection but isn’t. Children who obey out of fear are not the same as children who listen out of trust. Spouses who yield to avoid conflict are not the same as spouses who genuinely agree. The water flows, but the relationship has been hit—not spoken to.

At home, at work, and in our communities, the math is identical. Short-term fear-based compliance is extraordinarily expensive. It costs trust. It costs loyalty. It costs the very thing leadership is supposed to cultivate — a people who want to go somewhere together.

Moshe was the greatest leader in Jewish history, and yet even he, in one unguarded moment, reached for the rod when he should have reached for words. The Torah records this not to diminish him but to tell us the truth: that the pull toward force is not a small temptation. It visits the best of us, at our most exhausted, when the people are complaining for the hundredth time, and the water still hasn’t come.

The question God asks us — in our parenting, our friendships, our management, our leadership — is whether we can stand before whatever rock faces us and speak to it. Whether we can lead not by making people afraid of what happens if they don’t, but by helping them see what becomes possible if they do.

Because in the long run, if you can’t speak to the rock, you can’t bring anyone home.

The Year and Its Curses

3 minute read
Straightforward

Our sages teach that we read the tochacha—that terrifying litany of rebuke and curses—right before Shavuot, so we may genuinely accept the Torah, and the tochacha in Devarim before Rosh Hashanah, so we may effectively do teshuva.

But that just moves the problem one step deeper. What does reading the curses do for us?

The Kozhiglover explains that the tochacha isn’t only a list of punishments. It has a weather system. A mood. A particular kind of dread. The suffering it carves isn’t random cruelty—it’s a specific kind of distance, the kind that makes you start doubting whether anything is addressed to you at all. The line that haunts me most is not the famine or the sword. It’s this: v’halachti imachem b’keri—”I will walk with you b’keri.” With happenstance. With coincidence. With the feeling that the world has slipped out of meaning.

The curses are terrible. But the worst thing in the tochacha is the keri.

The worst thing is the possibility that nothing means anything—that the pain is coming from nowhere and going nowhere, that you can’t even locate it inside a relationship.

The Kotzker Rebbe had a way of saying things that felt like a door slammed open. “Even darkness is not dark to You.” He was reading Tehillim 139, but he was also reading human experience: darkness doesn’t destroy you; not knowing where the darkness comes from is what destroys you. And that’s the distinction the tradition keeps circling: there is suffering that refines, and suffering that merely wounds. The moment you know that even the night is held by God, the darkness changes character. It still hurts. But it no longer abandons.

Refinement requires meaning—not a neat explanation, but the minimal condition of a relationship. A pain can be unbearable and still be held. That holding changes everything.

When pain arrives b’keri—when it feels random, meaningless, like the universe forgot you were there—it doesn’t purify. It hardens. It calcifies. It creates what our sages call malachei chabalah, destructive forces born from the untethered, unintegrated experience of suffering. They circle. They compound. And they carry forward into the new year.

So what does reading the tochacha actually do?

The Torah is the blueprint of creation, the channel through which Divine will moves into the world. When we read the curses as Torah, we are doing more than speaking words; we are doing something metaphysical. We are taking the raw, uncontextualized pain of the passing year and pulling it back into the frame of Divine speech. We are saying: this too is Torah. This, too, has a Source. This too was seen.

That gaze—being seen by God through the act of Torah reading—is itself the dissolution of the curse. Not because the pain wasn’t real. But because pain that is held within a relationship is fundamentally different from pain that is adrift. One is exile. The other is return.

As R’ Nachman of Breslov taught, even in the deepest darkness within darkness, we must be certain that God is there as well; this is the practice of what it looks like to live with that knowledge.

Before Shavuot—before we receive the Torah again—we are asked to do this difficult thing: to speak our suffering in God’s language. To read the darkness as if it were verse. To refuse the lie of keri, the lie that any of it was random.

The year ends with its curses when we stop letting them be curses. When we return them to where they came from. When we look up—even from inside the darkness—and say: You were here too. Even this was Yours.

That is how the year ends.

That is how we begin again.

Just Today

2 minute read
Straightforward

There is a moment — every person who has ever fallen knows it — when you are standing at the threshold of return, and the weight of what you’ve done and the dread of what lies ahead conspire to paralyze you completely. You are stuck between your past and your future, and neither place feels livable.

The Torah speaks directly into that moment.

זאת תהיה תורת המצורע ביום טהרתו — This shall be the teaching of the metzora on the day of his purification… (14:2)

But what exactly is this teaching? What instruction does the metzora most need to hear as he begins his process of purification?

The Divrei Shmuel of Slonim finds the answer buried in plain sight: on the day of his purification, ביום טהרתו.

Not yesterday. Not tomorrow. Today.

The Slonimer is teaching something radical. The metzora’s greatest enemy is not his sin — that chapter is closed. And it is not the road ahead — that chapter hasn’t been written. His greatest enemy is the temptation to live anywhere other than the present moment. To drown in guilt over what was, or to drown in anxiety over what will be.

The Torah will not allow it. It plants him firmly in this day, היום, the language of teshuva.

There is a profound mercy in this. God does not ask the metzora to account for every yesterday before he can begin. God does not demand a guaranteed tomorrow before granting him entrance. God says: show up today. Do what today requires. Let today be enough.

We often think that the paralysis of the person who has stumbled comes from laziness or indifference. It rarely does. More often, it comes from the crushing totality of it all — the full accounting of the past, the full uncertainty of the future, arriving all at once. It is simply too much.

And so the Torah breaks the unbearable into the bearable. It tells us we don’t have to fix everything. We don’t have to guarantee anything. Just be here, in this day, doing what this day asks of us, ביום טהרתו.

This is not a teaching about the metzora alone. It is the teaching for every person who has ever needed to begin again, תורת המצורע. The path forward is never the whole journey at once. It is always, only, today.

The Courage to Say “I Was Wrong”

2 minute read
Straightforward

The eighth day of the Mishkan’s inauguration should have been a day of pure celebration. Instead, it ended in catastrophe. Nadav and Avihu died before God, and Aharon’s world was shattered.

In the aftermath, Moshe turns to Aharon and his remaining sons and instructs them on what to do with the sin-offering. They are to eat it. That is the law.

But he discovers that instead of eating the goat, they have already burned it. Moshe is angry. He confronts Elazar and Itamar. Why did you not eat the offering? This is what you were commanded. What happened here?

And then Aharon speaks. Quietly, with the particular authority of a man who has just buried his children, he offers a counter-argument. Given what befell me today, would it have been acceptable before God for a mourner in my condition to eat the sacred offering?

Four words close the scene:

וַיִּשְׁמַע מֹשֶׁה וַיִּיטַב בְּעֵינָיו – And when Moses heard this, he approved. (4:22)

Rashi quotes the Midrash, which explains the subtext of what happened. Moshe didn’t simply defer. He admitted something: I heard this law at Sinai, and I forgot it. Aharon’s argument had reminded him of something he already knew – הוֹדָה וְלֹא בוֹשׁ לוֹמַר לֹא שָׁמַעְתִּי.

He could have framed it very differently. He could have called it a special ruling born of tragic circumstances, a new application of an existing principle. He was the supreme authority; no one would have challenged him. The record would have stayed clean.

But he admitted: I heard and I forgot.

The Torah introduces the concept of leaders sinning and making mistakes as a matter of when, not if:

אֲשֶׁר נָשִׂיא יֶחֱטָא… – When a leader incurs guilt… (4:22)
Rashi, drawing on the Talmud, reads when as fortunate – אשׁר / אשׁרי: fortunate is the generation whose leader can admit his mistake.

Because a leader willing to publicly say I was wrong is telling his people something irreplaceable: that truth matters more than reputation. It communicates, through action, that he actually believes in the truth of what he teaches and that the Torah belongs not to those who claim infallibility, but to those who are honest.

I heard, and I forgot. A few words from the greatest leader in Jewish history — and they carry more moral authority than a lifetime of projecting certainty ever could.

Fortunate is the generation that learns to live that way.

Hearing That Demands a Response

2 minute read
Straightforward

We’ve all had the experience of telling someone something urgent and watching it go nowhere. They nodded. They seemed moved. And then nothing changed. We say: they didn’t hear me. But that’s not quite right — they heard perfectly. They just didn’t listen.

The parsha opens with three words that contain an entire philosophy of the spiritual life: Vayishma Yisro — and Yisro heard.

But everyone heard. Every surrounding nation heard about what happened. The news traveled. The world trembled, at least for a moment.

So what made Yisro different?

We need to slow down here, because “heard” doesn’t quite capture it.

We know the word shema. We say it at the peak moments of our lives and at the valley moments too — whispered at a bedside as a soul prepares to leave this world, declared in moments of collective faith. Shema Yisrael. We translate it as “hear,” but that translation is too thin. Shema is more than just hearing. Shema is listening that requires a response.

Think about it this way. If I’m walking along the tracks and a train is barreling toward me, and you scream — Get out of the way, run! — and I keep walking, what would you say? You’d say I didn’t hear you. But that’s not technically true. The sound waves reached my ears. The neurons fired. The information registered. What you mean when you say I didn’t hear you is that I didn’t respond — and when something is so urgent, so significant, that it demands a response, the failure to respond is indistinguishable from not having heard at all.

That is shema. Not passive reception. Active transformation.

R’ Yehuda Leib Chasman teaches that Yisro didn’t hear anything different from anyone else. The difference is that Yisro actually listened.

The nations around him were moved and inspired, even. For a few moments, they felt the ground shift beneath their assumptions. But then the moment passed, and they went back to their lives. Back to their idols, their routines, their comfortable distance from the truth. The inspiration was real. The response was absent. And so — by the definition of shema — they never truly heard.

Yisro heard, and he moved.

This is the difference between a great person and an ordinary one. It is not that great people have more profound moments of inspiration. It is that they do something with them. Every person has moments of genuine clarity: a breakthrough, a conversation, a teaching that suddenly opens up and speaks directly into your life.

The question is never whether the inspiration was real. The question is whether you let it reach you all the way down, into the place where behavior lives.

Every nation heard. One man moved. The Torah records his name forever. The others — we don’t remember their names because there is nothing to remember. Inspiration without response leaves no mark on the world, and no mark on the person.

Thelast flash of inspiration you had — the one that was going to change everything — what happened to it?

Starting Again

2 minute read
Straightforward

The Torah is not particularly interested in catastrophe. Floods, exiles, flights in the night — these come and go quickly. What the Torah lingers on, returns to, insists upon, is the moment after. The step forward. The beginning again.

Adam leaves Eden and builds a world. Noah steps off the ark and plants a vineyard. Avraham hears the call and walks — not into nothing, but toward something, though he cannot yet see it. Yaakov wakes up off the ground with a stone for a pillow and keeps moving. Moshe sits down at a well in Midian, a fugitive and a failure, and within a few sentences, he is building a life he could not have imagined.

This is not a coincidence. With these stories, the Torah consistently highlights the human resilience of our greats. Starting again is not the exception — it is the pattern. It is what people do. It is, perhaps, what people are.

We speak of starting over as though it were a concession, evidence of some prior defeat. But look at the list. These are not the Torah’s cautionary tales; these are its heroes. And in every case, the greatness does not precede the starting again — it emerges from it. The departure is where Avraham becomes Avraham. The ground is where Yaakov sees the ladder. The well in Midian is where Moshe’s real life begins.

There is only one tragedy in any of these stories, and it is the one that almost happened. It is not too hard to imagine our heroes giving in to fear and despair, refusing to walk the scary and unknown path that leads to a whole new world. Adam clutching the gate of the garden. Noah too afraid to get off the boat. Avraham hearing the call and staying put. Yaakov giving up. Moshe sticking with what he knows.

The circumstances that bring us to a new beginning are rarely chosen, and life is generous with those. The only question — the only one that matters — is whether, when we find ourselves standing at the threshold, we actually step through.

The world was created in a beginning, not the beginning. A world built to begin again. And we, made in our Creator’s image, carry that same capacity.

There is no tragedy in starting again, so long as you actually start again.

The Palace Within

3 minute read
Straightforward

Moshe’s mother hid him in a basket of reeds. His people were making bricks in the mud. And God chose this moment to raise His messenger inside a palace:

ויגדל הילד ותביאהו לבת פרעה ויהי לה לבן ותקרא שמו משה ותאמר כי מן המים משיתהו – “And the lad grew up. And she brought him to the daughter of Pharaoh, and he was to her as a son. And she called his name Moshe. And she said, because he was drawn from the water.” (Shemos 2:10)

A Jewish child, a Levite’s son — raised in a palace. It seems like an odd arrangement. Shouldn’t the redeemer of Israel be formed among the people he would one day lead?

The Ibn Ezra explains that the Creator arranged for Moshe to be raised in Pharaoh’s court specifically so he would absorb a royal manner of living—not as an idea, but as a habit, in his bones. And we see immediately that it worked. When Moshe encounters a taskmaster brutalizing a Hebrew, he doesn’t freeze or calculate. He acts decisively. When he arrives at the wells of Midian and finds Yisro’s daughters being shoved aside, he doesn’t look away. He stands up. He is a person who moves through the world with the settled confidence of someone who knows that injustice demands a response — and that he is the one to give it.

From here, R’ Yeruchem Levovitz draws a lesson that reaches far beyond Moshe’s story: that even someone with the inherent greatness of Moshe Rabbeinu needed the right environment to actualize what was latent within him. Royalty had to be inhabited, not merely observed; Moshe’s leadership qualities would not simply emerge on their own. They had to be practiced until they became second nature.

This is both demanding and hopeful. Greatness, the Torah is telling us, is in large part a product of formation.

And yet there is a paradox. Moshe was the most humble of all men — עניו מכל האדם. In his personal life, he mastered the art of absorbing insults without reaction. And yet this same man stood before Pharaoh without flinching and bore the weight of an entire nation on his shoulders. Humility and power were not contradictions. They were two expressions of the same deeply formed self. He could be bold because he had nothing to prove. The palace didn’t breed arrogance in Moshe — it gave him the inner stability that made genuine humility possible. A person with no settled foundation clings to honor because they need it. A person who has been properly formed can give it away freely.

So what does this mean for us?

It means we need the right environments. Where we place ourselves, what we absorb, what rooms we walk into — these are not peripheral questions. They are questions about who we are choosing to become.

It means we need the right role models. The Ibn Ezra says Moshe saw royal behavior and got into the habit of it: the seeing came first. We cannot aspire to what we have never been shown.

And it means we are someone else’s environment. The dignity or carelessness with which we move through the world is being absorbed by those around us, especially those who are still becoming who they are. Moshe was drawn from the water and placed in a palace. The people in our lives have been placed, in part, in ours.

The Torah begins the story of the great redemption not with miracles but with a child in a palace learning to walk like a king. The burning bush would come. The plagues would come. The splitting of the sea would come. But first, there was formation.

In the palaces we build for ourselves and for one another, let us build wisely.

All the Colors of the Rainbow

2 minute read
Straightforward

God didn’t make one color. He made a spectrum. Take the hint.

One of the great discoveries of modern physics is something our eyes have always known. Light — pure, radiant light — is not simple. It is composite. Pass it through a prism, and what was invisible becomes visible: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet. The light doesn’t change. Only now can you see what was always there.

We call this a spectrum. The Torah calls it a rainbow.

נְתַתִּי אֶת-קַשְׁתִּי בֶּעָנָן — “I have set My rainbow in the cloud.” (Bereishis 9:13)

After the flood, after the waters recede and Noach steps onto a ravaged earth, God offers a covenant. Not a contract written in ink, but a sign written in light. But why a rainbow? Of all the signs God could have chosen, why this particular convergence of light and water?

Because a rainbow is not one thing, it is many things, side by side, each occupying its own place, each necessary to the whole. Remove the red, and it is not a rainbow. The beauty is inseparable from the diversity.

The flood came because the world had lost its structure — every boundary dissolved, every distinction erased. And so the sign of the new covenant is not a sword or a fortress. It is a rainbow—a reminder that peace is not the absence of distinction but the harmony of distinctions held together.

The Kabbalists took this further. In Jewish mysticism, the rainbow symbolizes the divine middos — Chesed, Gevurah, Tiferes, and the rest — each a distinct quality, each its own color in the divine spectrum. They appear separate. But they are all expressions of the infinite. Separate, but actually one. The colors do not compete. They complete.

At the end of Yaakov’s life, he gathers them all together and blesses them. Every tribe. every type. Yehuda, the leader, and Binyamin, the beloved. Yissachar the scholar and Zevulun the merchant. Yaakov could have blessed each son privately, but he did not. He specifically wanted each tribe present for every other tribe’s blessing — wanted Yehuda to hear what Yissachar received, wanted them to know, standing in the same room, that their brother’s blessing was different from their own and not theirs to have.

This was itself a kind of blessing, because it is easy to mistake your own gift for the only gift. The scholar assumes the merchant is spiritually shallow. The merchant assumes the scholar is practically useless.

Yaakov knew otherwise. His last lesson was to teach his sons that Israel doesn’t need you to be someone else. It needs you to be unreservedly yourself. Reuven has something Yosef does not. Yosef has something Reuven does not. And the nation needs both.

We live in a world tempted to flatten — to reduce the spectrum to a single color for the sake of efficiency or ideology. And we live, on the other side, in a world tempted to let the colors separate entirely, every tribe turning inward, blessing only itself.

The rainbow is the third way. Not flattened, not fractured. Distinct and harmonious. Each in its place, each irreducible. That is what Yaakov saw when he looked at his sons that last time — not a crowd, not a blur, but twelve faces, each unmistakably itself, each unmistakably his.

And together — only together — making light.

Quitting Is for Winners

2 minute read
Straightforward

Yaakov spent twenty years in Lavan’s house. Twenty years of being cheated, manipulated, and exploited by a man who changed his wages ten times. And then the Torah tells us, without ceremony, that Yaakov gathered his family and his flocks and left. Getting up after twenty years is its own kind of courage — your legs don’t quite believe it yet.

He didn’t wait for permission. He just walked away.

We may read this story as one of perseverance. Yaakov works seven years for Rachel, gets handed Leah, and works seven more. We marvel at his endurance.

It’s a fine lesson. But there’s another way to read it.

The deeper lesson isn’t about how long Yaakov stayed; it’s about knowing when to leave.

We have a word for staying too long in something broken. We call it loyalty, because the truth is much harder to say.

We need to break our addiction to what we call perseverance. Because “never give up” is bad advice. Knowing when to give up is a hugely underrated life skill, and people who don’t have it end up holding themselves hostage in negative situations, torturing themselves over perceived failure, staying in broken arrangements long after the writing was on the wall.

Perseverance means keeping your eye on what you’re building, even as you adjust your tactics. Stubbornness is doing the same thing over and over because stopping would mean admitting it wasn’t working. From the outside, they can look identical. On the inside, they’re completely different.

Yaakov persevered; he wasn’t stubborn. He adapted, negotiated, outmaneuvered — built his future inside the very system designed to drain him. But when the situation became genuinely toxic, when Lavan’s face changed, Yaakov didn’t agonize. He got up and left. This isn’t working anymore, time for something else. That’s not failure; that’s wisdom.

Counterintuitively, then, quitting is for winners.

Knowing when to quit, change direction, leave a toxic situation, move on from something that wasn’t working, and move on — that is a priceless skill. And the people we look up to tend to have it. They’re not the ones who stayed longest in the wrong place. They’re the ones who could feel the difference between this is hard, and I need to push through, and this is broken, and I need to go.

We stay too long because leaving feels like admitting the time was wasted. It makes the loss official. And most of us would rather keep the tab open than settle the bill. But Yaakov’s twenty years weren’t wasted just because he left. They produced the tribes of Israel. The time was real. The fruit was real. The chapter just had to close.

The Torah doesn’t linger over his departure. It simply says he got up and left, and that Hashem was with him on the road.

And he never looked back.

The Gap Is the Gift

4 minute read
Straightforward

God left the world unfinished. That’s not a flaw in the design — that’s the design.

When the city of Sodom loses its way, God lets Avraham know that its doom is near. Avraham Avinu — the man who left everything at God’s command, who walked with the Almighty in a way almost no human being ever has — plants his feet, lifts his face to heaven, and says:

חָלִלָה לְּךָ מֵעֲשֹׂת  כַּדָּבָר הַזֶּה לְהָמִית צַדִּיק עִם־רָשָׁע וְהָיָה כַצַּדִּיק כָּרָשָׁע חָלִלָה לָּךְ הֲשֹׁפֵט כׇּל־הָאָרֶץ לֹא יַעֲשֶׂה מִשְׁפָּט – It profanes You to do such a thing, to bring death upon the innocent as well as the guilty, so that innocent and guilty fare alike. It profanes You! Will the Judge of all the earth not do justice? (18:25)

There can be no mistake that he is arguing with God. Not politely. He is arguing, and he means it.

The obvious question to ask is, how does Avraham have the nerve to argue with God?

Rav Yitzchak Berkowitz gives an answer that is one of the most fundamental ideas in all of Jewish thought: He’s supposed to.

The world is a mess. Not without beauty — but a mess, genuinely, unmistakably. Children get sick. Good people suffer. Teachers who pour their souls into classrooms can’t make rent. Friends go through things that keep you up at night. You have your own list. We all do.

But belief gets dangerous when we twist it.

When confronted with the world’s brokenness, there’s a temptation to reach for what sounds like a very religious answer: Emunah. Bitachon. Ratzon Hashem. Bashert. It’s God’s will. Who are we to question? We fold our hands and call it faith.

But that’s not faith. That’s fatalism. And Judaism fights fatalism like it fights idol worship — because fatalism is idol worship. It takes the living, demanding God of Avraham and turns Him into a statue that sits there while you do nothing.

Notice something about Avraham’s argument over Sodom. He never says a word about what he wants. He doesn’t say, “This doesn’t sit right with me.” He says: This is wrong. He invokes the language of values, not preference. He is making a moral argument. And God does not rebuke him for it.

Because God builds the gap on purpose.

The world’s flaws are by design. The world is unfinished, not because God ran out of time, but because the next move is ours. Every injustice you notice, every situation where you think — this shouldn’t be like this — is not an accident. That is God tapping you on the shoulder. That is your soul recognizing something that needs to be made right.

Think about what the alternative would mean. If God wants things exactly as they are, then shut down the chesed organizations — God wants those people poor. Shutter the schools — God prefers ignorance. Throw out your glasses, skip the surgeon, let the fire burn.

But nobody lives this way, because nobody actually believes this. Nobody! But we sometimes speak this way, which gives us cover to do nothing.

Anyone who has spent enough time with people in real pain quickly learns the same thing: we don’t know why things happen the way they do. Our primary experience teaches us that the simple moral ledger we wish existed — where bad things happen to bad people — simply isn’t the world we live in.

But, as R’ Jonathan Sacks teaches, we shouldn’t want it to. Because if the calculations were transparent, we’d observe and nod. There’d be nothing left to do. So instead, we are left with the gap. With the audacity of a man who loves God so much that he cannot look away when something seems wrong. Will the Judge of all the earth not do justice?

That audacity is the gift.

None of this is easy to hold. It is much, much simpler to fold your hands and call it faith.

Don’t silence the feeling. When something bothers you — a kid struggling, a family going through something awful, that friend you’re worried about — don’t talk yourself out of it. That feeling is the assignment. That is your moral compass. The worst thing you can do is sophisticate yourself into feeling nothing.

Do something. Avraham didn’t just feel bad about Sodom. He argued, he pushed, he tried. He didn’t save the city, but he established what a Jew does when he sees injustice: he tried to do something about it. You may not fix everything. But you try.

And don’t let Ratzon Hashem be an excuse. The will of God is not a destination; it’s a starting point. God’s will is the prompt, not the conclusion. To use Ratzon Hashem to justify doing nothing is to turn it inside out. It means: God has arranged this reality, with all its brokenness, and He is looking at you. Now what are you going to do about it?

We’d be mistaken to think that Avraham Avinu argued because he doubted; he argued because he believed. He cared. He looked at Sodom and couldn’t accept it. He was, in the deepest sense, bothered — and he let that feeling drive him into action.

We carry that in us.

The world has gaps. God put them there on purpose. Each of us, in our own circle of influence — in our families, our communities, our work — can see something that needs to be better. So ask for help. Pray hard. And then go do something about it.

Don’t accept the world as it is.

That refusal is not a lack of faith.

It is the faith.

The Land Is Mine

2 minute read
Straightforward

In a world where land is hoarded or flipped to the highest bidder, the Torah says stop. Let go. Rest.

One of the Torah’s most interesting laws is the mitzvah of Shemitta, the Torah’s command to let the land of Israel rest every seventh year—no planting, no harvesting for profit—reminding us that the earth belongs to God, not us. It’s a divine pause that restores balance, humility, and equality.

וְהָאָרֶץ לֹא תִמָּכֵר לַצְּמִיתֻת: כִּי-לִי הָאָרֶץ – The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is Mine. (Vayikra 25:23)

The land is Mine. Not yours.

That’s not just a spiritual statement. It is revolutionary.

At its heart is the idea that land must be distributed, and redistributed, according to divine command, not power, skill, or wealth.

Every 50 years, land reverts to its original owners. Inequality is structurally limited. Accumulated power is reset. No one becomes permanently dispossessed. No one can dominate the land indefinitely—not even the “original” owner, because ownership is a fiction, a story we tell to forget who really owns the land.

The land is Mine. Not yours.

And it is sustained only by faithfulness to the Torah.

In a world where accumulation is sacred, and ownership is worshipped, Shabbos limits our time, and Shemitta limits our property.

The Torah doesn’t abolish inequality. It disciplines it. Wealth compounds. Land concentrates. Then the Torah calls time, interrupting the algorithm of greed. It assumes fluctuation, success, failure—but insists on a cyclical return to justice. To pause. To reset. To remember.

We often separate religion from politics and finance. But the Torah says they are the same.

The land is Mine. Not yours.

We all have property we cling to—status, ego, the illusion of permanence. We think that having something makes us better than people who don’t. But Shemitta isn’t only about agriculture; it’s about the soul. It is a whisper from the Divine: let go. Remember whose world this is.

Nothing we hold is entirely ours, not forever. Everything returns to the Source.

The land is Mine. Not yours.

If the land is not ours, then neither are the people who walk upon it. Everyone has their place; no person is disposable.

Shemitta teaches us to stop claiming what was never ours—including superiority. No status is permanent.

To release not only the land, but our grip on judgment, hierarchy, and entitlement.

Because if the land is God’s, then so is every soul upon it.

When Does Change Actually Begin?

2 minute read
Straightforward

Here’s a question most of us have quietly asked ourselves: When can I finally say I’ve changed? Is it when the past is behind me? When others believe it? When I’ve done enough to prove it?

In much of modern culture, change is proven by outcomes: therapy goals achieved, resolutions kept, habits restructured. But the Torah flips this — transformation begins not with results, but with sincere readiness.

In the Torah’s introduction to the laws of the tzara’as, it frames the laws in the context of the day of his purification:

זֹאת תִּהְיֶה תּוֹרַת הַמְּצֹרָע בְּיוֹם טׇהֳרָתוֹ וְהוּבָא אֶל־הַכֹּהֵן: וְיָצָא הַכֹּהֵן אֶל־מִחוּץ לַמַּחֲנֶה וְרָאָה הַכֹּהֵן וְהִנֵּה נִרְפָּא נֶגַע־הַצָּרַעַת מִן־הַצָּרוּעַ – This shall be the ritual for a leper on the day of his purification. When it has been reported to the priest, the priest shall go outside the camp. If the priest sees that the leper has been healed… (14:2,3)

Notably, the Torah calls it “the day of his purification,” before he’s actually purified yet. He’s just starting. The healing hasn’t happened, the rituals haven’t begun, and the Torah still calls it “the day of purification.”

Why does the Torah declare it “the day of purification” when nothing outward has changed? Isn’t it premature?

The Beis Yisrael observes here a breathtaking truth whispered by the Torah — that healing begins not with the final outcome, but with the decision to change. Before the ritual immersions, before the birds and the cedar and the hyssop — before any sign that anything has changed — the Torah already names it the day of purification, because the soul has already turned. It begins in consciousness, not in rituals.

As the Imrei Emes notes, repentance doesn’t begin when others believe we’ve changed. It begins the moment we truly want to change – היום אם בקולו תשמעו.

The body lags behind the soul: Even before the physical signs of healing appear, the person is spiritually in a new place. Reality takes time to catch up to intention, but God already counts inner readiness for change as the turning point. And maybe so should we — seeing others not only as who they’ve been, but who they’re trying to become, and perhaps extending ourselves the same grace.

The moment of transformation is fleeting but instant. It’s not only after you’ve fixed everything. Nor when someone else declares you clean. Nor when you’ve proven yourself to everyone. It begins sooner — far sooner. Today — in that quiet moment on the bus, or standing at the kitchen sink. If you open your heart, soften your ego, and truly hear. That’s the day of purification.

Change begins in that sacred moment when intention and desire align—when we truly hear the calling to be different.

Purity and healing are not destinations we arrive at, but moments of turning we pass through. The day of transformation doesn’t wait for evidence or witnesses—it arrives the moment your heart is ready, often in life’s quietest spaces, where only you and God bear witness to the change.

And the moment your heart is ready, the day has already arrived.

Prayer Without Permission

2 minute read
Straightforward

In the hushed corridors of the Persian palace, Esther faced an impossible choice. The law was clear: approach the king without being summoned and face death. Yet the fate of her people hung in the balance.

In that pivotal moment, Esther made her decision and walked deliberately toward the throne room against protocol:

וּבְכֵן אָבוֹא אֶל־הַמֶּלֶךְ אֲשֶׁר לֹא־כַדָּת וְכַאֲשֶׁר אָבַדְתִּי אָבָדְתִּי – “Then I shall go to the king, though it is against the law; and if I am to perish, I shall perish!” (4:16)

She violated the royal protocol, and yet, that bold, desperate act saved her people. Consider this: had she followed the proper channels—waiting for an invitation, scheduling an audience through the court protocols—she would have undermined her own message. This was not the ordinary course of business; the very act of breaking protocol communicated the desperation of the moment in a way that no formal petition ever could.

This moment takes on even deeper significance when we consider our sages teaching that every reference to “the king” in the Purim story has a dual meaning and is also an allegory for God, The King.

Esther’s defiance isn’t just political—it’s spiritual. Her willingness to break protocol mirrors a deeper truth: even when we don’t follow the right steps, we are still heard.

Jewish tradition provides us with structured prayer, set times, formulated words, and careful sequencing; it can create rhythm and meaning in our spiritual lives. There is undeniable wisdom and beauty in these established pathways that have sustained our people through millennia.

But what of the mother sobbing in the middle of the night for her child? The lost soul whispering a plea in the dark?

How often do we find ourselves constrained by the “proper” way of approaching God, struggling to connect with the proper words, times, or places?

One of Purim’s greatest lessons is that the “wrong way” also works—sometimes even better. The power of prayer does not reside solely in formulaic recitation—it also lives in spontaneous, raw, unscripted intent. Sometimes, breaking protocol isn’t just necessary—it’s transformative – אֲשֶׁר לֹא־כַדָּת.

Elsewhere in our tradition, Hannah also approached God unconventionally—people thought she was drunk. She prayed for a child at Shiloh by moving her lips without audible words. No one taught her, she did it, and it worked—and her innovative, heartfelt prayer became the model for our silent Amidah. There are times when our raw, unfiltered needs must be expressed straightforwardly, even if they don’t follow the prescribed patterns of tradition.

This doesn’t diminish the importance of our formal traditions. But it reminds us that the core of prayer is reaching out with an open heart.

Like Esther, we may find the gates of heaven open—not to perfection, but to presence. When words fail, when the right words feel distant, when we hesitate because we fear we aren’t doing it the “right way”—just say what you need to say. The King is listening.

The Art of Grounded Greatness

3 minute read
Intermediate

Some people live with their heads in the clouds—always dreaming, always reaching for something bigger. Others stay firmly on the ground—practical, realistic, never daring to soar too high. But the key to a meaningful life isn’t choosing one or the other. It’s in holding both at once.

This delicate balance is woven into the very fabric of the Jewish worldview, reflected in some of our tradition’s most profound teachings. Nowhere is this clearer than in the Cherubim on the Ark, whose wings stretched toward the heavens while their faces remained turned toward one another:

וְהָיוּ הַכְּרֻבִים פֹּרְשֵׂי כְנָפַיִם לְמַעְלָה סֹכְכִים בְּכַנְפֵיהֶם עַל־הַכַּפֹּרֶת וּפְנֵיהֶם אִישׁ אֶל־אָחִיו אֶל־הַכַּפֹּרֶת יִהְיוּ פְּנֵי הַכְּרֻבִים – The cherubim shall have their wings spread out above, shielding the cover with their wings. They shall face each other, the faces of the cherubim being turned toward the cover. (25:20).

As the Sadeh Margalit notes, this wasn’t just aesthetic design – it was a blueprint for living; spiritual heights mean nothing if we aren’t also face-to-face, engaged with each other.

This profound pattern of grounded aspiration also appears in Yaakov’s dream:

וַיַּחֲלֹם וְהִנֵּה סֻלָּם מֻצָּב אַרְצָה וְרֹאשׁוֹ מַגִּיעַ הַשָּׁמָיְמָה – He had a dream; a stairway was set on the ground and its top reached to the sky (28:12).

As R’ Yehuda Leib Gertner teaches, the ladder reached the heavens yet remained firmly planted on earth, a powerful image that captures an essential truth: dreaming without roots is mere fantasy; rootedness without vision leads to stagnation. True greatness requires both.

But let’s be honest – maintaining this balance is incredibly challenging. We all know people who’ve lost their way on both extremes: The business executive who achieves incredible success but can’t remember the last time he really listened to his children. The scholar who can quote any text but walks past a neighbor in need without noticing.

While we admire those who dream big, unchecked ambition often leads to dangerous detachment. To reach without looking inward, to ascend without connection, is to miss the true heights of greatness. Like the cherub who turns away, like a ladder missing its base, they rise without anchoring themselves in connection.

Our sages teach that when the Cherubim faced away from each other, it signaled spiritual and national disconnection. A person who flies too high and forgets the ground may one day look down and realize they are utterly alone.

Yet the opposite extreme carries its own dangers. Those who never lift their eyes beyond the present moment risk becoming trapped in a cycle of mere survival, losing sight of all life has to offer. We see this in the “practical” person so focused on daily tasks they’ve stopped believing in possibility, in those who avoid dreaming big because they fear disappointment, and in people so consumed by screens and schedules they never pursue deeper wisdom or purpose.

As the Malbim notes, the Ten Commandments were split into two tablets: five between man and God and five between man and man. One tablet without the other is incomplete. Focusing only on your spirituality can leave you self-absorbed, and focusing only on your relationships with people can have you losing sight of the higher purpose that gives relationships meaning.

So, what does this ancient wisdom mean for us in practice today?

When you’re praying, let your soul soar – but keep your eyes open for those in your community who might need help this week. When learning Torah, reach for deep understanding – but always ask yourself how this wisdom can make you a better spouse, parent, friend, or neighbor. When pursuing your career goals, dream big – but measure success not just by personal achievement, but by how many others you can lift along the way.

The Cherubim and Yaakov’s ladder aren’t just historical images but timeless messages about the path to genuine fulfillment. They teach us to reach skyward while remaining grounded and to pursue our highest aspirations while strengthening our human connections.

Reach for the Heavens. Climb with purpose.

But keep your feet firmly planted in the world of kindness and connection.

Shabbos Redux

3 minute read
Straightforward

It’s not a sin to need money, to want money, or to have money. But it might be a sin to love money or tie human value and identity to money.

From the time Adam was cursed to work at the sweat of his brow, and today, arguably more than ever, humans have grappled with hustle culture—the idea that working long hours and sacrificing self-care are required to succeed.

A person is not their money. A person is not defined by their economic productivity at all. Recognizing the intrinsic value of every human created in God’s image reminds us that our worth is not measured by wealth or productivity but by our very being.

Pharaoh’s rhetoric—”They’re just lazy!”—was not just an excuse for oppression; it was a worldview that equated human worth with work. This same perversion echoes across history, from Pharaoh’s Egypt to Auschwitz’s gates and now to the modern grindset that glorifies relentless labor over true purpose. The names have changed, but the logic remains the same: people are only as valuable as what they produce. This thinking is so ingrained that overwork is mistaken for virtue even today.

For the people who walked under it, the demonic slogan “Arbeit Macht Frei” (“Work sets you free”) is the ultimate perversion of labor’s value—work twisted into a tool of dehumanization. But the Torah offers a counterpoint: work is meaningful, but it is never the measure of a person’s worth. Shabbos is a weekly rejection of a system that defines people by productivity alone. There is no glory in self-sacrifice in the form of endless labor.

Of course, practical realities often force people to work beyond healthy limits. The mortgage doesn’t pay itself, and children need to eat. However, this constraint should be acknowledged as an imperfection in our system, not glorified as an ideal.

In our time, hustle culture and “grindset”—the mindset and mentality of absolute perpetual grind—is poison. Our smartphones have become portable taskmasters, ensuring we’re never truly off the clock. Hustle culture breeds hard workers, sure, but by the same token, lazy thinkers who don’t have time to prioritize. How many of us would benefit from slowing down to devise an effective strategy?

The epidemic of burnout, anxiety, and depression in our society is not unrelated to our loss of sacred rhythms of work and rest.

Against this backdrop, the Torah’s introduction and framing of Shabbos is a breath of fresh air: Six days shall you work, and on Shabbos, you shall rest. Because the Creator created for six days, and then He rested.

To be sure, work is important. Our sages teach us to enjoy our work – אהוב את המלאכה. Our sages go further and say our work is sacred because the Divine Presence did not rest among the Jewish People until they had worked to build the Mishkan – וְעָשׂוּ לִי מִקְדָּשׁ וְשָׁכַנְתִּי בְּתוֹכָם.

R’ Tzadok HaKohen observes that the Torah always frames the mitzvah of Shabbos in the context of an obligation to work six days—that is to say, not a seventh. Work is important; it is part of inhabiting the fruitful and productive world in which the Creator has placed us.

We’re supposed to work; work gives rest its meaning, just as effort gives fulfillment to reward. There is no rest with no work; a vacation is only as sweet as the labor that precedes it—without meaningful effort, even rest becomes hollow. Shabbos transforms rest from mere absence of work into something sacred. Work and rest are two sides of one coin.

The Creator doesn’t get tired, but Creation does. Rest is not a reaction to exhaustion but an integral part of the design. Everything needs to stop to catch its breath.

As R’ Samson Raphael Hirsch notes, just as individuals need rest, so does the earth; Shemittah is Shabbos for the land. It is not just an agricultural law—it is a radical reset, a divine reminder that human worth is not measured in wealth or output. In a world that worships work, Shemittah breaks the illusion that value is transactional. Creation is about more than economic productivity; it demands a different mode of being—one that steps away from the grind to allow for renewal, reflection, and return. Rest is not a reward. It’s part of the building process.

There is a depressing phenomenon among some senior citizens. After playing as much golf and tennis as their bodies allow, they literally wait for death. Their entire life revolved around earning a living, and rather than live, with no more work they literally had nothing left to live for.

Even in today’s corporate world, companies recognize that constant work can be counterproductive. “Gardening leave” forces professionals to step back from the industry as a strategic reset. Shabbos operates on the same principle but with a higher purpose: to remind us that life is not just about what we produce but about who we are.

Pharaoh and hustle culture demand that we prove ourselves through endless labor. Shabbos reminds us that we were never slaves to begin with. In a world that tells us we are what we do, Shabbos tells us we are enough simply because we exist.

Leaders Lead

2 minute read
Straightforward

The most dangerous leadership failure isn’t incompetence—it’s convenient patience.

At the dedication of the Mishkan, the affluent princes of each tribe, the Nesi’im, were the last to bring their offerings.

Their thinking was to allow the regular folks the opportunity to contribute, and they’d backstop the project; whatever was missing, they would cover. They waited to see what was needed, filling in the gaps rather than seeking personal recognition.

At first glance, their decision seems noble—selfless, even. They intended to support rather than overshadow. Yet, in their hesitation, they miscalculated. In the end, the people had provided everything except for some final touches.

Rav Yeruchem Levovitz observes that they had rationalized their delay as generosity, but it contained an element of laziness, a passive reluctance to lead from the front. Their plan wasn’t wholly virtuous; it was a little too convenient.

When we delay action in moments that demand initiative, our leadership loses something. The Torah describes their gifts with a missing letter—subtly highlighting that something about their contribution was defective – נשיאים / נשאים. The princes lost not just a letter but their opportunity to inspire others through example.

They were not the first or last to fall into this trap. This pattern of leadership—stepping in only when gaps appear—is not unique to the princes. It recurs in all spheres of leadership, from personal responsibility to communal roles. Telling yourself you’ll backstop whatever is missing can feel magnanimous. It’s an easy way to look generous while avoiding the hard work of true leadership.

Leadership isn’t about waiting until the last moment to patch holes. It’s about stepping in before gaps appear. It’s about anticipating needs, not just reacting to them. Being the safety net isn’t the same as carrying the weight. The finest contributions come from those who engage early, not those who wait for necessity to force their hand.

When backstopping becomes a way to compensate for prior inaction, it can be a comfortable excuse rather than a noble act. Virtue is not in waiting until urgency forces movement but in acting when it is most challenging—when excuses are easiest to make.

As our sages teach, in a place without leaders, strive to be a leader—not when it’s easy, but when it’s most needed.

Rationalizing laziness is one of the subtlest self-deceptions. It sometimes wears the mask of mercy, patience, and even wisdom. “I’m just letting others have a chance!” We convince ourselves that patience is wisdom when it’s often fear disguised as strategy. A mindset that feels wise and generous can mask a reluctance to bear the full weight of responsibility.

Failure to act early is a timeless lesson. Consider a struggling company. A leader who swoops in when bankruptcy looms may be hailed as a savior—but where was that leadership when the first cracks appeared?

The test is simple: am I waiting because others need space, or because I need comfort?

True leadership isn’t about last-minute heroics; it’s about stepping up so the crisis never comes.

Little by Little

3 minute read
Straightforward

We all know that feeling: waiting for something we desperately want, wondering why it’s taking so long. Whether it’s a career breakthrough, a relationship, or personal growth, the slow pace of progress can feel excruciating.

In those moments of impatience, the Torah offers us profound wisdom about the true nature of divine kindness. When God promised the Jewish people that they would inherit the Land of Israel, He declared the conquest would be gradual rather than instant:

לֹא אֲגָרְשֶׁנּוּ מִפָּנֶיךָ בְּשָׁנָה אֶחָת פֶּן־תִּהְיֶה הָאָרֶץ שְׁמָמָה וְרַבָּה עָלֶיךָ חַיַּת הַשָּׂדֶה.מְעַט מְעַט אֲגָרְשֶׁנּוּ מִפָּנֶיךָ עַד אֲשֶׁר תִּפְרֶה וְנָחַלְתָּ אֶת־הָאָרֶץ – I will not drive them out before you in a single year, lest the land become desolate and the wild beasts multiply to your hurt. I will drive them out before you little by little, until you have increased and possess the land. (23:29,30)

Such a measured approach might seem puzzling at first—wouldn’t immediate possession of the land be preferable?

The Torah explains otherwise: a sudden conquest would have left vast territories temporarily uninhabited, inviting wild animals to overrun the land before it could be properly settled. What appeared ideal in theory would have proven disastrous in practice.

This principle isn’t just an ancient lesson—it’s a blueprint for how we navigate frustration in our own lives.

As R’ Shlomo Farhi explains, when progress feels painfully slow, the answer lies in this teaching. Just as an unsettled land would become overrun by predators, blessings that come too quickly can overwhelm our ability to steward them properly. God gives you just enough, one step at a time. Each step forward comes with enough room to grow and inhabit that space before moving on.

Sometimes, what we need isn’t everything all at once but to receive it slowly, at a manageable pace. God’s measured kindness ensures that you’re not overwhelmed and that what you receive is manageable and sustainable. Sometimes, the slow, step-by-step process is the greatest kindness, even when it doesn’t feel that way in the moment.

When something takes a long time to come to fruition, God might be asking you to divide and conquer—again and again. And yet, often, we’re so fixated on the whole of what we want that we don’t move in, commit, connect, occupy, or settle the parts we already have. We convince ourselves that the blessing isn’t here yet—because it’s not fully complete. The way we handle this divine process in our lives often reveals our deeper relationship with progress and perfection.

Imagine owning a magnificent house – seven bedrooms, a luxurious living room, beautiful outdoor spaces – and a dated kitchen. Some people will fixate on that single flaw, uproot their entire family, and move into a cramped rental for two years during renovations. They abandon the joy of living in 95% perfection because they cannot tolerate the 5% that needs some work. Rather than enjoying their abundant blessings while gradually improving what needs attention, they let one imperfection divide them from all they have. People with this pattern of allowing a single flaw to overshadow countless gifts rob themselves of life’s richness, perfectly illustrating the need for divide-and-conquer thinking.

Many people approach life this way. They think, Until I’ve solved all my problems, I’ve solved none of my problems. They let one unfinished area prevent them from enjoying all the blessings in the others. But maybe God is giving you pieces and wants you to enjoy those pieces while you work on the rest.

You wouldn’t refuse to move into a house because the basement is unfinished. Why should you refuse to settle into your life just because one area still needs work? God’s kindness comes in stages, and learning to live and enjoy those stages is part of the process. Don’t let one work-in-progress keep you from inhabiting, settling, or connecting with all the goodness that’s already yours.

So when we look at God and wonder why we didn’t get what we wanted, we have to ask ourselves: Did we get none of what we wanted? Often, the answer is no.

This wisdom extends to every area of life. We tend to focus on what’s missing, on the things we don’t have. But if God gave us everything we asked for immediately, it might overwhelm or even break the blessings that are already ours. What if we could learn to be grateful for the things we don’t yet have?

Smaller, incremental gains are far more sustainable than dramatic overnight transformations; blessings and success are best handled in stages. By giving you space and time to adjust and grow, God has granted you the opportunity to nurture what you do have.

Koheles reminds us that everything has its season, time, and purpose under the sun. The divine plan unfolds at the perfect pace—even when we wish it would move faster.

Sometimes, the greatest gift isn’t getting everything we want – it’s getting exactly what we can handle, exactly when we can handle it.

How can you start settling into more of your blessings today?

Rewriting Reality

2 minute read
Straightforward

The Jewish People must have felt invincible after witnessing the greatest miracles in history—the Exodus and the splitting of the Red Sea.

It didn’t last long.

Three days after traversing the Red Sea, they reached Marah, and provisions ran low. No one could imagine the manna or well coming their way. They were thirsty; what were they going to drink?

וַיָּבֹאוּ מָרָתָה וְלֹא יָכְלוּ לִשְׁתֹּת מַיִם מִמָּרָה כִּי מָרִים הֵם עַל־כֵּן קָרָא־שְׁמָהּ מָרָה. וַיִּלֹּנוּ הָעָם עַל־מֹשֶׁה לֵּאמֹר מַה־נִּשְׁתֶּ – They came to Marah, but they could not drink the waters of Marah because they were bitter; that is why it was named Marah. And the people grumbled against Moshe, saying, “What shall we drink?” (15:23,24)

It was a legitimate survival question. The human body has physical limits.

They could have asked. Instead, they grumbled and complained.

As the Kotzker Rebbe profoundly teaches, it was not the waters that were bitter, but their hearts – כִּי מָרִים הֵם.

This teaching is not metaphorical; it is also supported by modern neuroscience. The concept of neuroplasticity explains that the brain physically reshapes its architecture to build new structures in response to whatever stimuli, behavior, and thoughts you’re pumping into it. Our experience of the world is shaped by our internal state; the world is a mirror that reflects back our states of consciousness.

As the Proverb teaches, as a man thinks in his heart, so he is – כִּי  כְּמוֹ שָׁעַר בְּנַפְשׁוֹ כֶּן־הוּא (Proverbs 23:7). The thoughts we cultivate shape not only our self-perception but the world we encounter. A bitter heart sees a bitter world; a heart sweetened by gratitude and openness finds sweetness even in hardship.

We write our reality; life’s challenges often reflect the state of our inner world. Studies show that when people expect hostility, they interpret neutral actions as aggression. If you enter relationships or situations expecting hostility or failure, you’ll unconsciously act in ways that elicit those outcomes. The reverse is also true: projecting kindness often fosters positivity and connection.

Your mind is a filter, not a camera. Change the lens and the picture changes.

The stories you tell yourself, the emotions you cling to, and the patterns you repeat are the ingredients of your inner architecture. What are you feeding your mind? Is your mental, emotional, or spiritual diet cultivating thoughts of scarcity, resentment, and self-doubt, or are you nourishing yourself with hope, curiosity, and compassion?

Our minds filter reality based on what we expect to see. If we train our minds to expect bitterness, we will find it—even in places where sweetness exists. When you see the world as unkind, consider whether you are viewing it through the lens of your own dissatisfaction.

You don’t see the world as it is; you see it as you are. When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.

Small, positive changes in thought patterns lead to profound shifts over time. Modern psychological theories, such as confirmation bias, affirm that we notice what aligns with our beliefs. We can intentionally harness this mechanism to rewire our neural pathways with gratitude and openness.

You are not just an observer; you are the builder.

This world has always contained both bitterness and sweetness, but we choose the lens through which we see it. If the reflection feels bitter, try softening your gaze. Sweeten your perception, and you may taste a world that has been waiting for you to taste its sweetness.

Perfectly Imperfect

2 minute read
Straightforward

Closing the book of Genesis, the Torah offers one of the most profound images of closure and legacy in the Torah: Yaakov gathers his children around his deathbed and sees them united in faith and purpose. All of Yaakov’s children remained within the covenant, united in their commitment to his spiritual legacy, and everything was brought into harmony

Our sages see here a moment of wholeness, and Rashi here quotes our sages’ description that “his bed was complete.”

But pause for a moment. Is this really the perfection we might imagine? After all, Yaakov’s family history is far from ideal: sibling rivalries, betrayals, jealousy, and strife – and a little kidnapping and human trafficking.

How, then, can this moment represent perfection?

The answer challenges our usual assumptions. The Torah here presents an image of perfection that does not conform to a conjured image of artificial symmetry and flawlessness—a life untouched by failure or struggle.

That’s not what perfection looks like; that’s not real.

Yaakov’s life tells a different story, and it’s real. It’s a vision of perfection not in the absence of struggle but in the beauty and wholeness that can emerge from it.

In the story of Yakov’s family, we see a man whose life is anything but smooth. He wrestled with angels, endured family betrayals, faced deep loss and sorrow, and spent years in exile. His life was filled with scars and setbacks, yet it culminated in this profound moment of unity and blessing.

This moment invites us to rethink our definition of perfection.

In this view, perfection doesn’t mean the absence of flaws but rather the willingness to wrestle with them and emerge stronger. Perfection isn’t a destination we reach; it’s a way of being, where the scattered fragments of our lives—both light and shadow—are woven together into a greater whole. It is a vision of a life fully lived, where nothing is wasted, and even the struggles become stepping stones toward a greater wholeness.

The bumps and scrapes of our lives are not flaws to be erased; they are part of the story that makes us whole.

What does perfection look like for us? Perhaps it looks like the family that navigates its disagreements but still comes together for a Shabbos meal. Or like siblings who argue yet still rally together when a parent is in need. Or the person who has faced failure but uses those experiences as a foundation for growth. A generation of Holocaust survivors has shown us that wholeness doesn’t mean being unbroken—it means turning even the darkest moments into a foundation for life and blessing. Like Yaakov’s family, perfection isn’t about being flawless—it’s about growing through those flaws.

Life is messy, and our relationships—whether with family, friends, or even God—are rarely perfect in the conventional sense. But they are not a distraction from the journey; they are the journey.

Tipping Point

2 minute read
Straightforward

Joseph’s story is one of the most complete and dramatic arcs in the Torah. It is a story of youthful arrogance transformed into prophetic greatness and, more importantly, betrayal transformed into redemption.

Joseph starts as his father’s favorite, but his dreams and their interpretations alienate his brothers, who throw him into a pit and sell him into slavery. In Egypt, his fortunes sink further as he is falsely accused by Potiphar’s wife and imprisoned. His downward trend is long and grueling, filled with isolation and injustice.

But where exactly does Joseph’s story hit its turning point?

Many would point to his prophetic interpretation of Pharaoh’s servants’ dreams as the critical moment that started the upswing that brought him to Pharaoh’s attention and set him on the path to prominence. It’s a fair answer and mostly correct.

But Rav Shimon Schwab offers a profound insight: Joseph’s tipping point was not the moment he interpreted their dreams, but rather five minutes earlier, the moment one morning he noticed they weren’t themselves and thought to ask, “Hey, you seem sad today; what’s happening?”

וַיָּבֹא אֲלֵיהֶם יוֹסֵף בַּבֹּקֶר וַיַּרְא אֹתָם וְהִנָּם זֹעֲפִים. וַיִּשְׁאַל אֶת־סְרִיסֵי פַרְעֹה אֲשֶׁר אִתּוֹ בְמִשְׁמַר בֵּית אֲדֹנָיו לֵאמֹר מַדּוּעַ פְּנֵיכֶם רָעִים הַיּוֹם – When Joseph came to them in the morning, he saw that they were sad. He asked Pharaoh’s courtiers, who were with him in custody in his master’s house, saying, “Why do you appear downcast today?” (40:6,7)

This compassionate inquiry, selfless and unassuming, with no agenda or ego, recognizing the pain of another and taking the initiative to address it, is the pivotal moment the story turns on. This act of noticing—seeing others in their pain and offering support—echoes throughout the Torah, highlighting how empathy and connection to others are essential elements of leadership and redemption.

Like Joseph, Moshe’s leadership began with noticing. The Torah describes Moshe seeing an Egyptian taskmaster beating another Jew and intervening to stop the injustice. In both stories, leadership emerges from the courage to look beyond oneself and act on behalf of others.

Small acts of care—a question, a moment of attention—can ripple outward, changing the course of events in ways we cannot foresee. But just as significantly, these acts can ripple inward, helping us heal and grow. When Joseph looked beyond his own suffering to care for others, he set himself on the path to recovery and redemption. Seeing others’ pain is not just an act of kindness—it’s a sign we’re starting to rise ourselves.

Joseph’s rise began not with grand miracles or mysterious prophecies but with the quiet act of noticing another person having a rough day.

Life’s turning points rarely involve fanfare and supernatural insight. Far more often, they are shaped by deliberate, invisible actions that create connection and healing.

Seeing beyond our own struggles to notice others’ pain and lift them is no small act; it’s the first step to redemption.

Small Things; Great Purpose

4 minute read
Straightforward

Yaakov’s family had just crossed the Yabok River with his family to apparent safety. This moment follows years of personal struggle, fleeing from Esav, building a family, navigating Lavan’s dishonest manipulation, and escaping Esav’s clutches again. In a liminal state, on the cusp of his final and pivotal confrontation with Esav, he almost inexplicably crosses back and remains behind:

וַיִּקָּחֵם וַיַּעֲבִרֵם אֶת־הַנָּחַל וַיַּעֲבֵר אֶת־אֲשֶׁר־לוֹ׃ וַיִּוָּתֵר יַעֲקֹב לְבַדּוֹ – After taking them across the stream, he sent across all his possessions. Yaakov was left alone… (32:24,25)

Our sages teach that he crossed back to retrieve some minor items the family had left behind in the river crossing. And yet, returning for small jugs seems trivial, even absurd, in such a charged moment. Why risk his safety for some small and insignificant objects?

But from this act, our sages subvert our expectations, teaching that something small doesn’t equal something insignificant and that for the truly righteous, their property is more sacred than their bodies. As R’ Shlomo Farhi teaches, it is because righteous people know how powerful those resources can be when directed appropriately, even small things, and they are worth going back for and holding on to.

This act, seemingly minor, offers a counterpoint to our modern tendencies and challenges the consumer-driven mindset. Modern culture often drives us to pursue novelty at the expense of what we already have. We discard things once they lose their excitement, overlooking their inherent sanctity. But in this teaching, our sages reveal that waste isn’t just a material loss – it’s a spiritual one. Each resource is an opportunity entrusted to us, no matter how small. Treating our possessions and moments with care counters the impulse of excess, reminding us to honor the potential in what we already hold before reaching for what’s next.

The Arizal teaches the profound truth that even the most minor details of our lives are tailor-made for us; there are no random leftovers, only intentional gifts laden with purpose and potential. As our sages teach, a person cannot touch even a thread of what is destined for someone else; what’s yours is uniquely yours, sent to you for a reason. To leave such gifts behind prematurely is to miss the opportunity they offer. You’re not ready to move on if you haven’t yet gleaned the lesson or growth they’re meant to inspire.

This teaching isn’t about clinging to the past no matter what. Once an object, relationship, or trait has served its divine purpose, there comes a time to let it go. Yaakov eventually left Yitzchak’s house when the time came, just as he left Lavan’s household after fulfilling his mission there and just as he left Israel for Egypt when it was time.

In our own liminal states, those moments of transition or uncertainty, retrieving our small things means revisiting overlooked strengths or unfinished business to prepare for what lies ahead. The wisdom lies in discerning when something still serves you and when it no longer does.

There are small things in our lives and in our personalities that are easily ignored, especially the unpleasant things we’d rather gloss over. But Yaakov’s greatness was his realization that to go forward, he first had to go back, to confront and own those small things, and his transformation and elevation to Yisrael happened immediately after.

But as the Chiddushei HaRim teaches, this lesson holds true for every little thing that is intrinsically good about us as well, however small – our strengths, talents, and even quirks should never be dismissed or suppressed. These qualities are divine blessings bestowed on us for a reason; they may appear insignificant, but they’re part of a greater design. Don’t be embarrassed by them, and don’t casually abandon them before understanding their place and purpose.

As our sages teach, there is divine wisdom and joy in appreciating what we already have; our seemingly minor traits or possessions are also part of our spiritual lot.

Tipping points begin in the most unlikely places – small jugs, small acts, small decisions. The things you think don’t matter are often the ones that matter most.

 Yakov’s greatness was in inconveniencing himself; he took personal responsibility for the unglamorous work – no one went for him or with him. Yakov’s inner resolve, this small act of diligence, signaled a readiness to face larger challenges, which sets the stage for his epic struggle with the angel, which the Zohar characterizes as the archetypal cosmic battle.

Our sages liken Yakov standing alone to God’s ultimate sovereignty and singularity; there is a thematic resonance in how both are uniquely alone and isolated – וְנִשְׂגַּב ה’ לְבַדּוֹ /  וַיִּוָּתֵר יַעֲקֹב לְבַדּוֹ. Rav Avraham Yitzchak haKohen Kook explains that Yakov could connect to the majesty of Redemption present even in life’s most minor and most trivial mundane details; the divine presence permeates even the smallest details of existence. The person who sees even the smallest jugs left behind as containers with potential spiritual value is the same person who can stand alone in the darkness in anticipation and readiness for the ultimate day of Redemption.

Retrieving our own small things might mean rekindling old friendships, small acts of kindness, revisiting a skill we’ve neglected, or simply pausing to appreciate the gifts and blessings we often take for granted.

Holiness doesn’t announce itself; it hides in plain sight, waiting quietly in the mundane for us to uncover its light. Greatness often begins in the smallest places, moments, and choices others might miss.

What small moments, opportunities, and relationships might you be overlooking?

Blessings in Disguise

4 minute read
Advanced

Life rarely goes according to plan; ask anyone who has walked past the front door, and they’ll confirm it for you.

The Torah confirms this early on. Through Yakov’s story and his unexpected marriage to Leah, the Torah teaches us to embrace life’s surprises as sacred opportunities for growth and hidden blessings; we can find wisdom not in the plans we make but in the blessings that emerge from surprises.

The Torah describes Yakov’s instant infatuation with Rachel and his tireless efforts to earn her exploitative father’s approval to win her hand, but the prize is more than worth it and years of work pass like days. After seven years, the day finally comes, and Yakov receives permission to marry. After a whirlwind blur, the dust settles the morning after the party, and Yakov wakes up.

But Rachel isn’t there. It’s Leah.

They are irrevocably married now, rendering all previous commitments meaningless and irrelevant, mere pretexts at best. Yakov’s expectations collapse in an instant. It’s hard to think of a more egregious bait and switch, except this is no prank.

Leah is not what Yakov expected.

Leah is not what Yakov signed up for.

This story captures our basic reality and identifies it in the sacred life of our hallowed ancestors. That moment is incredibly isolating, bewildered by the absurd complexity of reality, where any semblance of order or plans is obscure and unseen – הֶסְתֵּר פָּנִים. As the Torah tells us, yes, that’s how life is sometimes. No one is immune.

The great love Yakov dreamed of and worked for remains a constant source of pain for the rest of his life and beyond. He eventually marries Rachel, too, and Leah feels unloved in comparison, naming her children for her struggles and eventual reconciliation with her role. Rachel dies young, and her children become the axis of competition and strife, leading to Joseph’s abduction and disappearance, ultimately leading to the family’s descent to exile in Egypt.

Yakov’s adult life exemplifies this tension between expectation and reality.

The Bais Yakov of Izhbitz-Radzin goes one step further with perhaps the most profound human challenge, suggesting there is an alternative response to the realization that it’s Leah, that moment you wake up and realize all your efforts have not led you to what you were expecting or working towards.

Of course, this wisdom extends far beyond the confines of marriage; it’s about every area of life. It’s about any moment you realize something isn’t quite what you thought it would be. It might be a child who grows differently than expected, a job that falls short, or a friendship that fades. Or relationship, house, investment, or self-image. The gap between expectation and reality is the human condition and a universal experience.

But there is an alternative response: the realization that Leah gave birth to most of his children, acted as a mother to the whole family, and left a legacy of enduring blessings. Leah also has blessings to offer, even if they weren’t the ones Yakov sought.

When that moment comes for us all, we can embrace that moment with clarity and acceptance rather than resistance and struggle.

Although the specific elements of Yakov’s story are deeply personal, the fact of them represents a universal human truth. Modern psychology echoes this wisdom in the concept of radical acceptance, which invites us to let go of resistance and instead embrace reality as it is—imperfect yet full of purpose and possibility.

We must remember who Yakov is. Our sages teach that he is the perfected archetype of the Jewish People, whose face is carved into the Heavenly Throne. Yakov is called the most perfect, the harmonious blend of the finest qualities of his father and grandfather.

This moment happens to Yakov, who struggles with it for the rest of his days.

It is not a punishment; it is a constitutive element of being human.

In this stark yet comforting teaching, we devote our lives to an idealized vision we cherish, only to wake up and find a reality that is unexpected, imperfect, yet laden with blessings of her own.

And as we know, the Torah records how Yakov’s final resting place is beside Leah, not Rachel. This subtlety implies that, before the end, Yaakov reconciled the disappointment of his youth with the deeper truth that Leah had truly been a blessing, not a misfortune. She had a unique role in the Divine plan, a plan that transcended Yaakov’s expectations and took a lifetime and beyond to emerge.

As legendary Holocaust survivor and psychologist Viktor Frankl observed, when we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.

As our prophets teach us, God’s plan is not like our plan – כִּי לֹא מַחְשְׁבוֹתַי מַחְשְׁבוֹתֵיכֶם. The divergence between the life we plan and the one we live is not a punishment but an essential, sacred reality.

But as our sages teach, happiness can still only be found where we are, here, and not there – אֵיזֶהוּ עָשִׁיר? הַשָּׂמֵחַ בְּחֶלְקוֹ.

This is our challenge. We all carry the ghosts of what might have been. But these ghosts need not haunt us; instead, they can be redeemed when we honor their place in our story.

Leah’s blessings are not the same as the dream Yakov’s heart initially longed for, but they illuminate the sacred beauty in life’s surprises, where the pain of unmet expectations gives way to a broader perspective and recognition of God’s hidden hand in our lives.

If you’re facing an unexpected reality, what blessings might lie within?

Foundations First

3 minute read
Straightforward

Foundations matter.

In all we do, whether a new venture, relationship, job, habit, routine, study partner or anything really, early choices are more than mere actions; the foundations express priorities and reflections for the future we envision. In moments of new beginnings, our first decisions are pivotal, shaping the immediate outcome and setting the foundation, tone, and trajectory for all that follows.

As R’ Shlomo Farhi teaches, when you pass a construction site, you can gauge the size of the building from its foundations. No foundation means it’ll be little more than a barn or shed; a regular foundation, a regular house; a big foundation, a big house. When the foundation stretches several plots wide and stories deep, you know you’re looking at the beginnings of a skyscraper. Just as with buildings, the depth of our own foundations reveals the potential scale of what we aim to build.

The Torah powerfully illustrates how influential such choices can be with contrasting stories that open and close the book of Genesis, shaping not just individual lives but generations that followed.

After the Flood, Noah steps out into a ruined world, and the Torah describes him as a man of the field, no longer the man of God he once was – וַיָּחֶל נֹחַ אִישׁ הָאֲדָמָה וַיִּטַּע כָּרֶם. The first thing he does is plant a vineyard, and the story unfolds in that direction, leading to Noah’s vulnerability and a disturbing episode with his son.

As R’ Yerucham Levovitz teaches, Noah’s choice to cultivate wine reflects an inward turn, a desire for immediate comfort at a critical moment for rebuilding. Rather than guiding his family’s spiritual path to rebuilding society and preparing for continuity, Noah’s actions subtly signal personal indulgence and a retreat from responsibility.

Wine is great and is a joyous staple at all Jewish holidays and events, but Noah’s choice to cultivate wine as the first human action after the Flood sets a tone for what follows, establishing a fragile moral foundation rather than a legacy of renewal or strong moral direction.

Instead of entering the new world with a teaching moment for the future, Noah’s choice to plant a vineyard becomes the teaching moment.

The story tells us the consequences of creating an environment where the next generation isn’t given a structured legacy but rather one tainted with difficulty, bringing moral challenges rather than ideals. His choice subtly influences his descendants, setting a tone of missed potential and lack of spiritual preparedness, reflecting a present-focused orientation, seeking immediate gratification and comfort in momentary need.

Whereas Noah’s choice reflects the vulnerability of a short-term-oriented mindset, the Torah sharply contrasts this with the story of Yakov’s family reuniting in Egypt. Before the family arrived in Goshen, Yehuda was sent ahead to make advance preparations – וְאֶת־יְהוּדָה שָׁלַח לְפָנָיו אֶל־יוֹסֵף לְהוֹרֹת לְפָנָיו.

As Rashi comments, Yehuda was sent to establish a forward operating base of Torah learning for the family – לְהוֹרֹת / הוראה / תורה. In other words, Yehuda’s decision to establish a place of learning before entering Egypt is the opposite of Noah’s; a purposeful act aimed at long-term continuity and moral grounding.

Yehuda’s first act before the family enters exile is to establish a fertile foundation for educating future generations, showing foresight and commitment to legacy, and sending a signal of prioritizing spirituality and learning that would guide his descendants. This choice was more than symbolic; it ensured that his family’s identity and values would remain intact in Egypt. For posterity, this initial choice at a new beginning reflects core values, intentions, messages, and a vision reverberating through our communities with a long-term effect that has kept the Jewish People going for millennia.

Psychologists might suggest that initial actions in any journey create identity markers, shaping how we perceive ourselves and our capabilities moving forward. Modern psychology refers to this as identity-driven behavior, where the decisions we make at critical junctures reflect—and shape—our deepest values and aspirations.

Our first choices reveal what we value today and also who we hope to become.

Cultivating a vineyard may have reflected a desire for comfort and relief after trauma, but it was ultimately a self-limiting decision resulting in isolation rather than legacy building. Investing in spiritual infrastructure compounded into a continuity that would sustain his family for generations.

These stories and the values espoused by them offer a blueprint for how we might approach new beginnings, whether life phases, projects, or personal transformations. Short-term relief has mixed long-term consequences, but long-term foundational investments in growth and values yield stability and collective strength.

Yehuda’s example encourages us to prioritize choices that anchor us in our values and set us up for long-term stability—a timeless reminder that what we start with shapes our lives and all who come after us.

In our own lives, the first steps in new beginnings can set a tone for what we wish to cultivate long-term. Invest in what is meaningful and mission-focused at the outset to anchor yourself in values that resonate.

Foundational acts matter because they set the stage for what comes next; strong foundations last beyond lifetimes, echoing in the lives we shape with the values we choose.

Choose foundations that will echo for generations.

Cloud Connection

3 minute read
Straightforward

For the forty years between Egypt and Israel, the Jewish People were sustained by miracles. Every morning, magic food descended from the sky in the form of manna, and they were accompanied by a supernatural well that followed them wherever they went. Apart from food and drink, the camp was also accompanied by miraculous clouds that surrounded and protected them, providing shelter from the harsh elements and guiding their path, the Clouds of Glory – ענני הכבוד.

We don’t have any practices that commemorate the manna or the well, but we remember the clouds with the festival of Sukkos, where the sukkah serves as a reminder of this spiritual and physical shelter.

Why do we only remember the clouds?

The answer lies in what the clouds represent about the human condition and our relationship with the Divine.

Living in the desert is extraordinarily challenging, requiring highly specific adaptations. Basic survival is a constant struggle, especially for people entirely unfamiliar with desert life. The Jewish People, former slaves in Egypt, were not desert nomads. They were utterly unprepared for the harsh realities of wilderness living. The clouds were not just convenient; they were essential for survival. Yet, their importance goes beyond physical protection.

As the Ramban explains, the Clouds of Glory were not just a necessity for survival but a sign of God’s active engagement, accompanying the Jewish people as a visible manifestation of the Creator’s presence.

But there was a moment when the Jewish People stumbled.

They made a Golden Calf, and the clouds vanished.

As the Vilna Gaon teaches, the people got together in an act of contrition and repentance to build the Mishkan, and when Moshe opened the Mishkan on the 15th day of Tishrei, the clouds returned.

That’s when we celebrate Sukkos, that’s why we celebrate Sukkos.

Sukkos isn’t just about remembering the clouds; it’s about how they came back. When all seemed lost, the return of the clouds forever showed that reconciliation with the Creator is always possible, even after great failures.

As the Chiddushei HaRim teaches, this moment signifies being enveloped in the shade of faith – בְּצִלָּא דִּמְהֵימְנוּתָא – a metaphor for God’s shelter that symbolizes the profound spiritual security that comes when we return to faith after error, knowing that God’s presence will never abandon us, that God’s love and forgiveness will always be available even after our worst mistakes. The Nesivos Shalom observes that this is why Sukkos is in Tishrei, the month of closeness, coronation, and ultimate reconciliation with the Creator, not in Nissan when the Exodus happened.

As our sages teach, repentance is special because it brings healing to the world. Sukkos celebrates this healing for our individual souls and our collective relationship in alignment with the Creator.

Generations later, when King Solomon dedicated the Beis HaMikdash, the clouds appeared again and filled the space, signalling God’s approval and a connection established – ‘וְהֶעָנָן מָלֵא אֶת־בֵּית ה. The dedication was celebrated by a forteen day holiday, seven days of Sukkos and seven days for the Beis HsaMikdash, yet the prophet calls it one holiday, in the singular – וַיַּעַשׂ שְׁלֹמֹה בָעֵת־הַהִיא  אֶת־הֶחָג וְכל־יִשְׂרָאֵל עִמּוֹ קָהָל גָּדוֹל מִלְּבוֹא חֲמָת  עַד־נַחַל מִצְרַיִם לִפְנֵי ה אֱלֹהֵינוּ .שִׁבְעַת .יָמִים וְשִׁבְעַת יָמִים אַרְבָּעָה עָשָׂר יוֹם.

R’ Tzadok haKohen of Lublin explains that these two holidays were one and the same; Sukkos commemorates the clouds returning, and it had just happened again. The clouds came in Aharon’s merit, and it was Aharon and his descendants who served. The clouds, Mishkan, and Beis HaMikdash, represent God’s enduring presence guiding and accompanying the Jewish People.

The cloud in those times marked a divine acceptance and a renewed relationship, and Sukkos celebrates that same divine presence in our lives, reminding us that reconciliation is always possible after alienation.

Unlike the manna or the well, which provided temporary sustenance, we remember the clouds on Sukkos because they represent not only physical shelter but the enduring theme of divine reconciliation.

Reconciliation is the natural consequence of the process we have undertaken on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.

In a world dominated by disconnection and uncertainty, stepping into the sukkah reminds us that God’s presence surrounds us, even when it feels distant. We all have moments when we feel disconnected, but, like the sukkah, these moments of fragility are also opportunities to rediscover divine closeness and that real security is to be found in the spiritual world, not the material world.

Sukkos doesn’t just mark the journey of the Jewish people through the desert—it celebrates the home of faith, the ever-present yet unseen hand of God in our lives. On Sukkos, we celebrate the importance of human agency in the spiritual world, the dynamic in which human-driven action or initiative triggers a corresponding divine response, a principle that guides our personal moments of repentance as well – אִתְעָרוּתָא לְתַתָּא. Whether it’s making time for quiet prayer amidst a busy schedule or an act of kindness when it feels hard, these small acts of spiritual initiative invite a divine response.

In the shelter of the sukkah, we rediscover God’s invisible hand, a source of strength and security when we feel most vulnerable, reminding us that, like the clouds, faith is always waiting to embrace us.

Ecology Redux

4 minute read
Intermediate

In today’s intricate and fast-paced global economy, the human footprint on the environment is undeniable. Explosive population growth and intensified resource extraction have had a profound impact on ecosystems, wildlife, and the climate. The data is clear—our activities have an enormous impact that cannot be disputed.

As the world faces unprecedented ecological destruction, many believe humans can reverse or mitigate the damage and actively work towards that goal. Others doubt that we have the power to undo what has been done. But if we can break, we must believe we can repair. The core of this modern dilemma touches on an ancient religious question embedded in the very earliest Jewish traditions.

What is humanity’s responsibility to Creation?

The Torah provides a foundational and unambiguous answer in the very first chapter of Genesis; humans are the foremost species and will conquer the world – וַיְבָרֶךְ אֹתָם אֱלֹהִים וַיֹּאמֶר לָהֶם אֱלֹהִים פְּרוּ וּרְבוּ וּמִלְאוּ אֶת־הָאָרֶץ וְכִבְשֻׁהָ.

However, there is a second element that warrants careful consideration.

The Torah soon presents a contrasting image by doing something quite unusual and describes the Creator’s intentions; the Creator places Adam in the Garden of Eden for his benefit, but also to tend and protect it – וַיִּקַּח ה’ אֱלֹהִים אֶת־הָאָדָם וַיַּנִּחֵהוּ בְגַן־עֵדֶן לְעבְדָהּ וּלְשׁמְרָהּ.

This adds a profoundly different approach to the orientation of conquest and dominion.

Our sages teach that the Creator walked through Eden with Adam and pointed out every detail of every plant, taking great pride in Creation, made for humanity to enjoy. But our sages also teach that the Creator gave Adam a warning that accompanied his great gift, to take great care not to spoil it because no one would fix it for him,

In this reading, humans are not overlords of our world, but stewards entrusted with the care and conservation of the world, validating human power to destroy, but equally validating the power to create and protect – הַשָּׁמַיִם שָׁמַיִם לַה וְהָאָרֶץ נָתַן לִבְנֵי־אָדָם.

What’s more, the Book of Jonah is explicit that the Creator cares for animals and plants; the book concludes with God’s reminder that even animals are precious in the divine view, reinforcing the idea that every aspect of Creation is worthy of protection. Our world is a treasure, and every human, every creature, and every plant is an irreplaceable jewel that the Creator has proudly, attentively, and lovingly shaped. Adam is called a custodian, gardener, and guardian to actively participate and recognize the sanctity of protecting what God has given.

The Torah prohibits needless waste and environmental destruction with a rhetorical question: are trees an enemy that can withdraw? כִּי־תָצוּר אֶל־עִיר יָמִים רַבִּים לְהִלָּחֵם עָלֶיהָ לְתפְשָׂהּ לֹא־תַשְׁחִית אֶת־עֵצָהּ לִנְדֹּחַ עָלָיו גַּרְזֶן כִּי מִמֶּנּוּ תֹאכֵל וְאֹתוֹ לֹא תִכְרֹת כִּי הָאָדָם עֵץ הַשָּׂדֶה לָבֹא מִפָּנֶיךָ בַּמָּצוֹר.

The entire body of the laws of Shemitta is about creating an ethic of sustainable land use, a way of relating to our world that goes beyond profit and exploitation.

The imagery of the Shema prayer is specifically about the Land of Israel, but in general, it is explicit about how the Earth is sensitive, impacted by, and responds positively or negatively to human behavior.

One lesson of the Flood story is that every species has its place; Noah’s fatal flaw was not fighting for his world, not believing his world was worth saving. Noah was responsible for ensuring the animals could viably survive, and today, we face a similar, though magnified, challenge in preserving the diversity of life on Earth – מֵהָעוֹף לְמִינֵהוּ וּמִן־הַבְּהֵמָה לְמִינָהּ מִכֹּל רֶמֶשׂ הָאֲדָמָה לְמִינֵהוּ שְׁנַיִם מִכֹּל יָבֹאוּ אֵלֶיךָ לְהַחֲיוֹת.

None of this is a creative or symbolic interpretation. These ancient sources are explicit in even the most superficial reading; our great ancestors could never have imagined the context to understand them the way we do today.

We have the power to destroy our planet.

Our ancestors may not have understood the intricate webs of ecosystems and biodiversity to the extent we do today, but our impact on the environment has been exponentially greater than theirs, and with that comes the moral responsibility to use our knowledge wisely.

The pace of a globalized, hypercapitalist society complicates our personal role. The rapid movement of people, products, and ideas worldwide has led to incredible progress and profound environmental degradation.

We live in an age of organized irresponsibility — systems so vast and tangled that no one feels accountable. We are all inherently deeply enmeshed with the global economic system in a way that disconnects us from the consequences of our actions. We don’t mean for orangutans in Indonesia to die when we buy peanut butter; even worse, not buying isn’t enough to save them. The machine has already become so entrenched and vast that it largely exceeds the power of even any government to do much about it.

It’s not the kind of thing that can be conquered by eliminating a singular external obstacle. There is no head to cut off. However, as our sages have taught, we are not obligated to complete the work, but we are not free to desist from it.

So perhaps we need a religious imperative of responsibility to guide our lifestyles, which will shape the course of human progress. We do not have the religious language or precedent to say that renewable and sustainable practices are a mitzvah or that pollution or deforestation is a sin.

But we can certainly say that profaning the pristine environment the Creator gifted us with is a sacrilege, a desecration of what is holy.

We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children. The Jewish concept of the image of God reminds us that we are not isolated entities. We are interconnected and responsible for one another and for all Creation.

For the sake of future generations, the question is not whether we make a difference, but whether we will fulfill our sacred duty to safeguard the Earth that has been entrusted to us.

No one else is coming to save it.

The Weight of Words

3 minute read
Straightforward

Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, is a time of deep introspection, repentance, and atonement for our most serious sins. Yet intriguingly, we begin this solemn day not by confronting these grave transgressions but with Kol Nidrei, a prayer focused on the annulment of vows. Sung in a haunting melody, the atmosphere is heavy and somber, setting the tone for the day ahead.

So why does the day of atonement begin specifically with Kol Nidrei, a communal prayer about our vows and promises?

To understand why we begin with vows, we must understand the central role of speech in Jewish thought. In Judaism, words are not merely a way to communicate – they are creative forces, the building blocks of creation itself.

In Jewish thought, speech is not merely a means of communication but a creative force that shapes reality, as seen in the Torah’s opening: The Creator said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. Human speech reflects this divine power, binding us spiritually and legally through our words. This idea is echoed throughout the Torah, where words are seen as the building blocks of reality, reflecting divine truth – בִּדְבַר ה’ שָׁמַיִם נַעֲשׂוּ.

R’ Shlomo Farhi highlights how, in this telling, truth is a fundamental prerequisite of creation so that when the Creator speaks, reality conforms to it; speech creates reality.

In  Jewish thought, human speech reflects this divine act of creation. When we make a vow, we harness this creative power to bind ourselves spiritually and legally. Breaking a vow is thus not just a minor transgression; it disrupts the very fabric of reality we help create with our words:

לֹא יַחֵל דְּבָרוֹ – He shall not profane his word.

Vows are a form of speech that harnesses the same creative force that brought the world into existence, binding us spiritually and legally. Even the simple reading suggests that breaking a vow profanes what ought to be sacred and is a form of self-desecration; our sages suggest that breaking a vow is like violating the entire Torah.

This respect for the power of words leads our sages to caution us to guard our speech carefully and that, arguably, nothing is better than silence; words hold gravity and are not to be treated casually. As the Rambam teaches, a wise person measures their words, speaking only after careful consideration, for nothing holds more gravity than speech.

The Reishis Chochma shares a shocking insight that explains why we start Yom Kippur with Kol Nidrei; a person who wants their prayers to be taken seriously must be someone who honors their word and takes their word seriously. Words that are casually disregarded strip the speaker of credibility in their relationships with others and also with the Creator.

This ancient understanding of speech as foundational to trust is mirrored in modern psychology. Studies show that people who consistently keep their promises are more trusted and respected as leaders. In both realms, integrity in small matters builds the foundation for reliability in more significant commitments. Before asking forgiveness for our major sins, we must first acknowledge and correct our everyday failures in honoring our words, promises, and intentions.

Breaking vows may not be the most severe sin, but it is symbolically critical. The opening of Yom Kippur with Kol Nidrei is not about the scale of the sin but about the foundational role that accountability and integrity play in all of our actions. As we approach God with requests of forgiveness and blessings, we must first demonstrate that we treat our own words with reverence.

The foundation of all moral behavior begins with trustworthiness. Over time, societies and relationships are built or destroyed based on how seriously people take their words. When words are treated casually, it erodes the moral fabric that sustains a just society.

Yom Kippur is a day of asking for divine mercy, but it begins with an acknowledgment – if we are not honest with ourselves and others about small things like our vows, how can we expect to be taken seriously in larger matters like our repentance and commitments to do better?

As we welcome Yom Kippur, we affirm that the universe was built with words, and the world we inhabit is shaped by the promises we keep. As we approach the Creator in repentance, with the hope our prayers be taken seriously, we open with Kol Nidrei, because we are people who take our words seriously. If you just keep your word, the year ahead will be better just for that alone.

Run Your Own Race

4 minute read
Advanced

Between Rosh Hashana and the end of Yom Kippur, Jewish tradition teaches that the books of life and death are open, and all are judged for the coming year.

Righteous. Wicked. Somewhere in between.

The concept of a book for those in between – neither fully righteous nor wicked – suggests a dynamic state.

The margins feel razor thin; in between means balancing on a knife edge, and just the slightest whisp would tip the scale.

Most of us strive to be good most of the time, and it’s all relative, after all, so who could ever be in between?

When we compare ourselves to others, it seems inevitable that someone will always appear better or worse.

I’m far better than that awful piece of work I spent months dealing with; I helped an orphan get married this year.

So who is in between?

In our sages’ estimation, the true measure of a person is not based on comparison to others but on who they were yesterday and who they are striving to become today. Who is wise? One who learns from everyone, or in other words, openness to growth and learning. We are called to judge ourselves not based on others’ standards but on our own personal growth.

Our sages teach that in fact, every last one of us must view ourselves as in between, that our own merits are balanced perfectly in between, and the world’s merit as well – צָרִיךְ כָּל אָדָם שֶׁיִּרְאֶה עַצְמוֹ כָּל הַשָּׁנָה כֻּלָּהּ כְּאִלּוּ חֶצְיוֹ זַכַּאי וְחֶצְיוֹ חַיָּב. וְכֵן כָּל הָעוֹלָם חֶצְיוֹ זַכַּאי וְחֶצְיוֹ חַיָּב.

R’ Shlomo Farhi explains that there must be a book of in-betweeners, and we must see ourselves as in that category, or else nothing we do matters. Acting as if every action matters is the only way any action can matter. Being an in-betweener means constantly balancing our deeds on the fine line between righteousness and imperfection, always striving but never fully there, giving weight and importance to every single choice and action.

And perhaps there is a profound truth behind this.

Far beyond balancing merits and sins, the broader human experience is always in a state of becoming. We are all in between, not in comparison to each other, but compared to ourselves.

In between where we have come from and where we are going.

Our efforts and contributions are not measured against universal standards or in comparison to others but are evaluated based on our personal capacities and circumstances. Just as an overweight asthmatic isn’t expected to match an Olympic runner, we’re measured against our personal circumstances; we are not expected to replicate the exact deeds of our hallowed ancestors. Instead, our objective is to strive towards our version of perfection and do the utmost within our abilities and circumstances. There is deep kindness in this process, recognizing our efforts as complete and worthy, and seeing perfection in our earnest attempts.

You must give 100% of what you can, just as everyone else is tasked with doing their best. In every single context, however close or far, and no matter who else is involved, you are always as far as everyone else, whether one step or two miles.

So it follows that what we do matters, voting with our actions on the people we are still becoming.

Being in between, it only follows that we cannot judge ourselves so harshly. On Rosh Hashana, it is the ideal time to take stock, thinking about the year that has passed and the year that lies ahead of us. We often torment ourselves with thoughts that we should be further along in life or haven’t accomplished enough. By now, we were supposed to have finished that project, done that deal, passed that test, settled down, bought a house, had a kid, learned more, or what have you.

In moments of doubt, it helps to remember one of the most powerful blessings we recite daily, including on Rosh Hashana.

The Creator has prepared our footsteps – הַמֵּכִין מִצְעֲדֵי גָּבֶר.

Being in between is a good place to be, the right place to be, and where we are supposed to be: in between and on the way. The Creator has prepared your footsteps up to this moment, each step, including the missteps and those that seem uncertain, and will prepare your footsteps with a divine purpose far beyond the horizons you are currently able to foresee – הַמֵּכִין מִצְעֲדֵי גָּבֶר.

Not late or early, but right on time and exactly where you are meant to be. We should not judge ourselves so harshly.

All is at it should be in this moment, you are not behind schedule, and everyone is running their own race, quite literally. We might be in the crowd together, but whose point of departure and destination are identical? Where you have come from and where you are going are utterly unique; there can be no valid comparison between you and anyone who ever lived. Our sages taught us not to judge our fellow until we have reached his place.

And since everyone else is also in-between and on their own unique path, we can never reach their place, so we should avoid judging others altogether. But when judgment is unavoidable, it should be with compassion and the benefit of the doubt. Without resorting to mental gymnastics, it simply means seeing something favorable, anything, something worthwhile they can build from.

One of Rosh Hashana’s central features is accepting God as our King, and all power and outcomes follow from that authority. Part of accepting God as the King is practicing acceptance of the realities that flow from that authority, the circumstances and paths of our lives, and also the lives of others.

There are no valid comparisons. We cannot compare people’s spiritual successes or material successes. Success looks different and is different to everyone, by our own standards and by the Creator’s.

You can only judge yourself and measure against your own progress and your potential.

It’s no good to feel satisfied with whatever accomplishment and then stay still. Today is better than yesterday; tomorrow will be better than today. One day at a time.

Much like a marathon, life is a test of endurance, not a sprint. Runners talk about running your race, which means ignoring all the other runners. Running your race means executing your plan and doing your work, not someone else’s. There is no place for envy, spite, ego, or greed to derail you or cause you to chase a phantom ideal that was never meant for you.

On the journey of our spirit, it doesn’t matter how far others have or have not gone; we are each on our own unique path. Late bloomers still bloom.

Focus on yourself and your own performance and progress, your growth and not someone else’s, knowing that your unique path is yours alone.

We are all in between and all on our way.

Run your race.

The Forgiven

4 minute read
Straightforward

If we take our prayers and beliefs seriously, Rosh Hashana is the Day of Judgment. According to Jewish tradition, Rosh Hashana is when God evaluates every individual, determining their fate for the coming year. All are accounted for; nothing escapes God’s judgment.

Our prayers in these High Holy Days remind us of the seriousness of this judgment; life and death hang in the balance:

מי יחיה ומי ימות – Who will live, and who will die?

The weight behind these words is heavy at these highest of stakes; we fear death, and rightly so. So we pray, cry, make amends, and hope. Every year, we do teshuva, often making the same promises, pledging to improve, and striving for transformation.

While our prayers reflect a deep fear of death, the statistical reality suggests that for most of us, life will continue.

Data from the 20th century shows that around 40-50 million people died each year, and in the early 21st century, the number rose to over 50 million annually, according to global health statistics.

The COVID-19 pandemic caused a temporary noticeable increase that quickly normalized. During the pandemic, death felt nearer, and those painful announcements and phone calls came more frequently. In our circles and in our times, something like October 7th and its aftermath are also unusual, which is a major contributing factor to how we can be so shocked.

But outside such exceptional circumstances, people don’t die as often as we might fear. The data suggests that less than 1% of the worldwide population will die in a given year, and advances in healthcare and longevity research will probably continue to reduce this rate.

The scariest and most irreversible outcome – death – has a remarkably low rate of occurrence, and most of us will make it through the decades and grow old, at least in today’s world. What this tells us is that life, more often than not, goes on. Statistically speaking, around 99% of us will be here next Rosh Hashana.

Given these numbers, it becomes clear that the most common outcome isn’t death but survival. And if survival is the norm, perhaps our focus should shift from fearing the end to examining how we live. This is not to diminish the seriousness of death in any way, but rather, it calls for us to shift our perspective. If most of us are likely to survive, what are we really afraid of?

If God, as our prayers assert, forgives abundantly, then perhaps our anxiety should not center around survival. After all, what’s God going to do with all that forgiveness if not offer it freely? If God is merciful and forgiving, maybe we can spend less time worrying about whether we will be here next year and ask a far more uncomfortable question.

What if God has already accepted our teshuva?

Perhaps the issue isn’t whether God forgives us, but whether we allow ourselves to accept that forgiveness and act on it. Because if we genuinely believed that God readily accepted our repentance, what excuse would we have left for staying the same? If our sins are forgiven, and the slate is wiped clean, then what’s holding us back from real change?

We often say we’ll change, but deep down, we cling to our past failures as a shield. Maybe we fear that if we accept God’s forgiveness, we’ll have no excuses left for not becoming the people we aspire to be.

This leads to a difficult realization: Maybe it’s not that we doubt God’s forgiveness, but that we resist accepting it. The Rambam teaches that God’s forgiveness is immediate once repentance is sincere. If God forgives instantly, the challenge shifts to us: we can no longer attribute our stagnation to divine judgment but must face our own resistance to change.

If God forgives, we can no longer blame our shortcomings on our inability to earn divine mercy. The truth may be that we don’t always want to believe we have been forgiven. If we accepted it fully, we’d lose our scapegoat—the one thing we can point to as holding us back. We’d be left with only ourselves to confront.

And so, we hide behind disbelief. It’s easier to assume that God hasn’t fully accepted our teshuva—that way, we can explain why nothing changes year after year. We cling to the idea that we haven’t yet been forgiven because if we knew we had been, the responsibility for our lives, our transformation, would squarely rest on our shoulders.

So, what would be possible if we lived as though we had been forgiven? If we truly believed in the power of our prayers and the reality of our resolutions, how much more meaningful could our lives become? Instead of fearing death, what if this year, we feared stagnation—the possibility of a life lived without growth or change?

An essential part of teshuva is learning to forgive ourselves. While God gives us a clean slate, we often cling to our old narratives and patterns. But if God has already wiped our slate clean, what stops us from doing the same? Frequently, it’s our own harsh self-judgment, an inner voice that refuses to let go of past failures.

We are called upon to emulate the Creator; just as the Creator is gracious and compassionate, we must act with grace and compassion – מַהוּ חַנּוּן וְרַחוּם אַף אַתָּה חַנּוּן וְרַחוּם. As R’ Shlomo Twerski highlights, if the Creator forgives us after teshuva, we must forgive ourselves as well.

Self-forgiveness demands that we confront our flaws head-on, taking full responsibility for our own growth; without it, we remain stuck in old patterns of behavior, unable to grow or change. Jewish tradition teaches that teshuva is not just a return to God but a return to our true selves. If God wipes our slate clean, we, too, can free ourselves from the chains of self-condemnation.

The scariest possibility isn’t that God won’t accept our repentance; it’s that He already has – ויאמר ה’ סלחתי כדברך. If we accept this truth, then we must confront what comes next: our responsibility to change. Now, with no excuses left, we are left only with the question of whether we have the courage to act on it.

What if we stopped using disbelief as a shield and chose to live as though we were forgiven?

What if this year, instead of fearing death, we feared the true danger: a life without change? The only question is whether we can live up to the gift of forgiveness by finding the courage to rise to the occasion and taking the opportunity to transform.

What if we started now?

Better Safe Than Sorry

4 minute read
Straightforward

In Judaism, the value of human life is nearly supreme; preserving life even overrides strict laws such as the observance of Shabbos and fasting on Yom Kippur.

This value extends beyond emergency situations; the Torah mandates a comprehensive approach to health and safety in general:

וְנִשְׁמַרְתֶּם מְאֹד לְנַפְשֹׁתֵיכֶם – Take great care of your souls… (4:15)

It is worth highlighting that the Torah is uncharacteristically emphatic here. In the Torah’s approach to language, words are measured, and adverbs are rarely used; the use here signals a profound emphasis on the importance of personal safety and caution. It’s not just important, but very important – מְאֹד.

One specific law that tangibly encapsulates Judaism’s deep regard for life and safety is the simple commandment to build a guardrail around a roof, preventing potential tragedy:

כִּי תִבְנֶה בַּיִת חָדָשׁ וְעָשִׂיתָ מַעֲקֶה לְגַגֶּךָ וְלֹא תָשִׂים דָּמִים בְּבֵיתֶךָ כִּי יִפֹּל הַנֹּפֵל מִמֶּנּוּ – When you build a new house, you shall make a guardrail for your roof, so that you shall not bring blood upon your house if anyone falls from it. (22:8)

While legal nuances and practicalities indicate that not everyone practices this law and that there are physical instances where building a fence is impossible or unnecessary, the moral imperative underlying the law is always operative. Our general orientation should be that we take practical and pragmatic precautions to do what we can to prevent danger and bloodshed, particularly in our own homes.

But we believe in an immanent Creator, that everything that happens is divinely ordained, or as our sages put it, a person does not injure his finger below unless it was first decreed above.

To put it in philosophical and theological terms, if God is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient, then whatever happens in this world to individuals, life’s great and small wins and losses, are solely the product of Divine will, and resistance is futile.

So why build a fence to prevent accidental falls? If a person is supposed to fall, so the thinking goes, then protective measures will not prevent the fall, nor will their absence cause injury to someone the Creator miraculously spares!

You can’t fight fate; why take precautions at all, then?

The Sefer HaChinuch uses this law to reveal a much broader point; part of the order of Creation is that Divine Will manifests to us as the laws of nature to which we are subject, which is why we build fences rather than count on miracles.

This explanation has far-reaching implications: God has created this world and guides it according to laws of nature that are predictable, comprehensible, and, for the most part, binding. There might be exceptions, but there are rules that hold true for all people in all places, and the primary way humans experience Divine Providence is by navigating these natural laws. Part of how we experience that is that fire burns, and water extinguishes fire. Similarly, the laws of nature dictate that gravity makes things fall and that when a person falls from a tall roof to the ground, they will be seriously injured or die. Accidents happen, so the Torah commands us to act prudently and build fences to guard our surroundings.

Just as we visit a doctor when sick rather than waiting for a miracle, building a guardrail is an expression of engaging with the world responsibly, acknowledging that God’s providence often operates through natural means.

It follows that our sages understood this commandment to extend far beyond the physical act of constructing a guardrail, instead representing a broader category of obligation to protect ourselves and others from harm, obligating individuals to remove dangerous hazards, whether a loose stone or an open well, emphasizing our responsibility for the safety of our surroundings.

The Rambam expands this obligation to prohibit any form of dangerous behavior, such as keeping a dangerous dog or using a rickety ladder; there is no difference between a roof and any other hazard, whether it’s riding a bike, or carrying a knife, each must be made safe.

It also follows that this can be understood more broadly not just as a directive to guard physical health but also to protect spiritual and emotional well-being as well, guiding us to avoid harmful actions, behaviors, toxic environments, and spiritual dangers.

We are constantly building in our lives, and everything we build needs boundaries. Relationships need fences to ensure mutual respect and growth. Everyone needs boundaries to protect against the distractions and temptations that so easily threaten our spirituality.

It is easy to take liberties with the dignity, honor, or feelings of the people we love. At times, we do things that are hurtful, insensitive, and demeaning. Boundaries are the fences that ensure that we behave properly. Negligence in erecting a fence around an exposed roof invites physical danger and is a cause for monetary and even criminal liability; failing to set other boundaries can similarly invite harm in less obvious ways.

The Lubavitcher Rebbe highlights how the Torah emphasizes this law specifically with new construction because moments of novelty are when people are most susceptible to missing critical safety measures. When we are swept up in the excitement of something new, whether it’s a new home, child, business venture, job, relationship, car, or bicycle, we often overlook the safeguards necessary to prevent harm. The Lubavitcher Rebbe emphasized the importance of setting boundaries and guardrails with every new initiative. It is folly and the height of naivete to freestyle and hope for the best. Take the precautionary steps of establishing boundaries and putting measures in place to protect what’s valuable.

While Judaism does believe in destiny and fate to some extent, we equally also believe in our ability to influence and change it – תְּשׁוּבָה וּתְּפִלָּה וּצְדָקָה מַעֲבִירִין אֶת רֹעַ הַגְּזֵרָה.

The mitzvah of building a fence around the roof is a constant reminder that, while we may believe in destiny, we are not mere bystanders in our own lives. Our role is not to surrender passively to fate but to shape the conditions of our existence actively. Even if, God forbid, someone is destined to fall, our responsibility is to ensure that we are not the cause of that fall – וְלֹא־תָשִׂים דָּמִים בְּבֵיתֶךָ.

Maybe someone is destined to fall. Maybe something bad is supposed to happen. But you don’t have to make it easy. You certainly don’t have to be the one that makes it happen. Statistics are real, but with precautions, they can be things you hear about, not things you are a part of.

The mitzvah of building a fence teaches us that it is not enough to hope for the best; we must take deliberate, thoughtful actions to create safe and nurturing environments.

While we can’t control everything, we can control whether we wear a seatbelt, use a turn signal, or let children ride a bike without a helmet.

Remember, boundaries aren’t just physical barriers; they are the thoughtful choices we make to protect what is valuable to us.

If you care about something, protect it, because better safe than sorry.

Azazel Redux

5 minute read
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Yom Kippur is the Day of Atonement, a day both designated for seeking atonement, but also, a day that inherently provides atonement as well. In the era of animal sacrifice, it was the day of the calendar year that had the most intricate rituals and profound, the crescendo of the High Holiday seasons.

Among these, one stands out for its complexity and mystery: the selection by lottery of two identical goats:

וְנָתַן אַהֲרֹן עַל־שְׁנֵי הַשְּׂעִירִם גֹּרָלוֹת גּוֹרָל אֶחָד לַה’ וְגוֹרָל אֶחָד לַעֲזָאזֵל – Ahron shall cast lots upon the two goats; one lot for the Lord, and the other lot for Azazel (16:8).

The goat designated for the Lord was slaughtered and offered much like any other sacrifice.

The complexity arises with the second goat, the one designated for Azazel. The Kohen Gadol, acting as the Jewish People’s representative in conducting the rituals and routines of his office, leaned his weight on the goat for Azazel before sending it away, symbolically transferring their misdeeds, :

וְסָמַךְ אַהֲרֹן אֶת־שְׁתֵּי יָדָו עַל רֹאשׁ הַשָּׂעִיר הַחַי וְהִתְוַדָּה עָלָיו אֶת־כּל־עֲונֹת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וְאֶת־כּל־פִּשְׁעֵיהֶם לְכל־חַטֹּאתָם וְנָתַן אֹתָם עַל־רֹאשׁ הַשָּׂעִיר וְשִׁלַּח בְּיַד־אִישׁ עִתִּי הַמִּדְבָּרָה׃וְנָשָׂא הַשָּׂעִיר עָלָיו אֶת־כּל־עֲונֹתָם אֶל־אֶרֶץ גְּזֵרָה וְשִׁלַּח אֶת־הַשָּׂעִיר בַּמִּדְבָּר – Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat and confess over it all the iniquities and transgressions of the Israelites, whatever their sins, putting them on the head of the goat; and it shall be sent off to the wilderness through a designated agent. Thus the goat shall carry on it all their iniquities to an inaccessible region; and the goat shall be set free in the wilderness. (16:21,22)

The goat was led into the wilderness and pushed off a cliff to its grim and chaotic death. The word “Azazel” and the ritual itself have no direct parallels elsewhere in the Torah, making it one of the most puzzling elements of Jewish practice.

The Torah is unambiguous that one goat is for the Lord and one is not, it’s for something else.

But that something else is deeply problematic; one of Judaism’s signature and core beliefs is monotheism, that the Creator is one – ה’ אֶחָד. The notion that something could be “other” or correspond to God in any way is inherently dualistic, and it is therefore incompatible with mainstream Jewish belief to entertain the notion that Azazel represents an angel, demon, or deity.

So, what is the goat for Azazel?

A legendary story about the Holy Jew of Peshischa offers a profound insight. One day, the rabbi was distributing fruit to his followers, and one visitor found that the apple he received was wormy and rotten. Confused, he approached the rabbi, wondering why he had been given such a fruit. The rabbi responded that just as fresh fruits serve the Creator with their sweetness, wormy fruits serve the Creator too, even though they’re not for eating.

We live in a world that includes fresh fruit we like to eat, but that also has wormy ones we don’t. Light and shadow are part of the same Creation, two sides of the same coin, the dualism of all things is part of our universe, part of a greater Unity and serving a higher purpose.

R’ Samson Raphael Hirsch teaches that sacrifical offerings are not mere gifts meant to appease and bribe the Creator to favor us, but rededications of our actions. When we bring a sacrifice, we are not bribing God to ignore our wrongdoings; we are marking a moment of transformation, a commitment to realign our behavior with our intentions. The act of presenting an offering is how a person dedicates their actions and behaviours; the goat for the Lord represents the people renewed commitments to be better, “for the Lord” – עֲשֵׂה טוֹב.

So perhaps the Azazel goat is not a counterpart to God, but an inverse counterpart to the act we want to dedicate to God, acknowledging the darker and shadowy aspects of the year gone by, the mistakes that, while not easily erased, must be confronted and released so that we can move forward – סוּר מֵרָע.

On the Day of Atonement, the Kohen Gadol would lean on the Azazel goat, symbolically transferring the people’s missteps and wrongdoings, an essential component of the atonement process, symbolizing the need to confront and release the burdens that inhibit spiritual renewal.

The goats for the Lord and Azazel are not opposing forces but two components of a unified ritual that reflect the dual nature of repentance. It is an acknowledgment that true atonement requires both commitment to positive change and the release of past wrongs.

It’s no good pretending our mistakes never happened; rather, it was about acknowledging them openly. The Arizal teaches that even as we seek to be overwhelmed with blessing and goodness, we must sometimes first confront the consequences of our negative actions, behaviors, or thoughts.

So perhaps that’s the function of the Azazel ritual, a symbolic acknowledgment of the darker aspects that exist within our spiritual and psychological landscapes. These elements may have no place in our future, but they cannot be ignored or forgotten. With the goat for Azazel, we recognize and gather the shadows we have cast and send them to a liminal space—the wilderness—a place for things that don’t belong in our lives or our society. It’s a dissociation from negativity, an act of sending it back to the chaos and formlessness from which it came, so we can move forward and start the year with a truly clean slate.

As Ramban explains, the Azazel ritual is not an offering to another power but a divinely commanded act of purging and distancing from sin. It symbolizes the rejection of destructive forces, reinforcing the belief in one God who commands us to confront and release our darker impulses. This act vividly acknowledges the elements that must be sent away, aligning with Yom Kippur’s overarching theme of cleansing and renewal.

Even as we climb the spiritual ladder, we still make mistakes, and those mistakes can accumulate, each leaving a mark that can inhibit us from moving forward. Our sages remind us that the greater the person, the greater the evil inclination, highlighting that spiritual growth often brings more significant challenges.

The power of the Azazel ritual is that it teaches us that spiritual progress does not mandate perfection; rather, it is the courage to own, confront, and release what holds us back. It is the symbol of acknowledging and discarding the baggage we’ve picked up along the way and reflects part of the fundamental steps of repentance of acknowledging and regretting our mistakes –  וִדּוּי וחֲרָטָה.

Things can only hold you back or weigh you down when you are still attached. There comes a time when we must let go.

Today, we don’t select goats for the Lord or for Azazel, but the power of the ritual is real. It was only ever an external symbol; the real thing is internalized in our spiritual life, and we read it together not just to remember something we lost, but because a crucial part of a healthy spiritual life involves taking stock of our impact on the lives we touch, not just focusing on the good but acknowledging the bad as well.

The path to atonement isn’t about discarding or erasing our flaws but about courageously acknowledging them and using that awareness as a catalyst for change. In fact, the highest level of repentance repurposes our mistakes and uses them as a springboard to climb higher and further.

They sent the goat to the wilderness and left all of it there; we can only move forward with renewed purpose and commitment by letting go of the past, allowing it to dissolve completely.

Yesterday shouldn’t dictate how we behave tomorrow, which is why part of a healthy spiritual accounting includes looking back.

The Day of Atonement isn’t just about discarding the negative; it’s about transforming our relationship with our past. We send our mistakes to the wilderness, allowing them to dissolve so that we can renew ourselves. True atonement uses the awareness of our flaws as a springboard for change, reminding us that while our past shapes us, it doesn’t dictate our future.

Don’t focus on the rearview mirror too much; you’re not going that way.

The Risks of Being Rash

2 minute read
Straightforward

One of Judaism’s most recognized prayers is the Shema, a compilation drawn from Moshe’s final speech after a lifetime of leadership. In this speech, Moshe offers a dire warning that if the people abandon God’s commandments, they will quickly perish from the land – וַאֲבַדְתֶּם מְהֵרָה מֵעַל הָאָרֶץ.

The Baal Shem Tov offers a profound supplementary reading of this warning that not only could we be destroyed with haste, but that haste itself is inherently destructive – וַאֲבַדְתֶּם מְהֵרָה.

In this teaching, the real danger lies in a mindset of haste—a frantic rush through life that disconnects us from our deeper purpose.

As our sages taught, someone who hurries their learning will forget much of it. Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished; patience and natural timing often lead to the best outcomes.

Acting rashly often leads to avoidable errors with potentially far-reaching consequences, especially in complex decisions or relationships. In a rush to decide, better alternatives might be overlooked, closing doors that patience could have kept open, resulting in regret and missed opportunities. Rash decisions, driven by heightened emotions like anger or fear, cloud judgment and lead to choices that seem right in the moment but are regrettable later. This haste often prioritizes immediate gratification over long-term benefits, creating a cycle of quick fixes rather than sustainable solutions.

God’s command to Avraham calls him to embark on a journey that embodies progress and movement, the relentless drive to reach somewhere better – לֶךְ לְךָ. Yet this journey also prompts an inherent question: “When will we get there?” This sense of impatience, this constant yearning for the next step, can lead to frustration and discontent. It traps us in a cycle of endless motion, always striving but never truly arriving.

Rabbi Nachman of Breslov often counseled patience to frustrated seekers, advocating for a deliberate slowing down—a refusal to force outcomes or rush through experiences, echoing Moshe’s warning that haste can be our undoing – וַאֲבַדְתֶּם מְהֵרָה.

The teachings of the Baal Shem Tov and Rabbi Nachman challenge us to confront the impatience that underlies much of modern life. Haste reveals a misunderstanding of the human condition: we can only live one day at a time.

To “kill” the need for immediate results and destroy the endless hurry that defines modern living, we must embrace patience. This requires committing to the idea that all is as it should be in this moment, even as we work towards change. Progress is not always about rushing forward but sometimes about staying still, embracing the present, and trusting the process.

By adopting this slower, more deliberate approach, we gain a deeper understanding of life’s journey. Rather than being condemned to perpetual motion, we can find peace in the present, knowing that each step, however slow, brings us closer to where we need to be.

Stop forcing things; let them be as they are right now.

Haste harms; patience protects.

Blessings in Action

3 minute read
Straightforward

Throughout history, people have pondered the metaphysical workings of the universe, particularly how blessings and prayers might influence our lives. It has even been argued that if something is meant to be, it will just happen naturally, without any effort on our part. However, this passive approach is not one that the Torah endorses.

In Moshe’s final words to the Jewish people, after a lifetime of leadership and guidance, he provides a crucial clarification that continues to guide and resonate for eternity:

וּבֵרַכְךָ ה אֱלֹהֶיךָ בְּכֹל אֲשֶׁר תַּעֲשֶׂה – “And the Lord your God will bless you in all that you do.” (15:18)

This framing is pivotal because it emphasizes that blessings are intricately tied to our actions. As R’ Naftultche of Bobov sharply said, God can bless what we do, but what we do is still up to us!

Moshe does not suggest that success or divine favor will simply materialize without effort. This teaching highlights that while we can hope for blessings, they tend to manifest in the work we actively engage in, the steps we decisively take, and the endeavors we wholeheartedly pursue. As R’ Jonathan Sacks so insightfully noted, faith is not living with certainty; faith is the courage to live with uncertainty, the decision to act despite our doubts, to work, and to strive for a better future. To invert Moshe’s statement: could we expect God to bless the work we don’t put in and the efforts we never attempt?

This idea provides a clear counterexample that challenges the notion that we can passively receive blessings. The Torah’s message is clear: generally speaking, effort is a prerequisite for divine blessing; we can hope for blessing in all that we do, but not in what we don’t. If there is something you desire, you must actively pursue it.

This principle is vividly illustrated in a legendary story about Reb Zusha, who was rushing through a village when a local wagon driver stopped him to ask for help loading some heavy bales of hay. Reb Zusha declined, apologising that he was in a hurry, so he couldn’t help. The driver responded, “You can help; you just don’t want to.” Reb Zusha was taken aback at this interaction and took it very much to heart; he understood that he had captured a profound truth that often, when we claim that we can’t do something, it is not a matter of ability but of will. A lack of willpower will necessarily lead to a lack of follow-through; when we truly want something, we find the means and figure out how.

This teaching aligns with the insight of the Imrei Emes that Moshe’s words at the beginning of his speech describe the people’s unwillingness to enter the Land of Israel. Characterising it from their perspective, he speaks of their inability, that they couldn’t do it – אָנָה אֲנַחְנוּ עֹלִים אַחֵינוּ הֵמַסּוּ אֶת־לְבָבֵנוּ. But Moshe’s own view of events is very different, and he sees through their claimed inability and says they just didn’t want it enough – ‘וְלֹא אֲבִיתֶם לַעֲלֹת וַתַּמְרוּ אֶת־פִּי ה.

As the Chida famously stated, nothing stands in the way of a person’s will; while the physical world may present real obstacles and barriers, desire knows no bounds in the realm of thought, heart, and soul. Nothing can stop you from wanting something. When we truly desire an outcome, we must work on that desire and tie it to concrete action, aligned thought with deed; only then can we hope to see the blessings we seek.

God can bless what we do, but what we do is still up to us.

Do your actions truly reflect what you claim to desire?

As one writer put it, a loser is someone so afraid of not winning that they don’t even try.

The lesson is simple yet profound: if you don’t make a serious effort, do you even want it at all? In life, blessings are not often bestowed upon the idle. Instead, they result from a harmonious alignment between desire, effort, and action, or in other words, in all that we do.

By aligning our intentions with determined actions, we not only work toward our goals but open the door to invite the blessings that can make them a reality.

This Is The Law

3 minute read
Straightforward

The Red Heifer, or Parah Adumah, is a profound symbol in the Jewish tradition. Our sages consider it the archetype of laws that demand faithful obedience, even when they defy rational sense or intuition, as captured by the opening phrase the section is named for: this is the law – זֹאת חֻקַּת הַתּוֹרָה / חֹק.

The Red Heifer ritual restores people from a state of corpse impurity, having been contaminated from coming in contact with death – זֹאת הַתּוֹרָה אָדָם כִּי־יָמוּת בְּאֹהֶל. Although no longer practiced in our day, our sages interpreted every element of the law to embody spiritual and ethical principles that remain relevant to contemporary life.

Despite being out of practice today, our sages understood every element of the law to embody principles relevant to contemporary living.

Rashi, citing R’ Moshe HaDarshan, teaches that just as a mother cleans up after her child, the Red Heifer ritual atones for the sin of the Golden Calf; R’ Yitzchak Vorki suggests that if the Golden Calf represented a lack of faith, the Red Heifer serves as its antithesis, which is the mechanism for restoring spiritual balance and the return to faith and purity.

A Red Heifer eligible for the ritual must be without blemish and having never borne a yoke – אֵין־בָּהּ מוּם אֲשֶׁר לֹא־עָלָה עָלֶיהָ עֹל. The Chozeh of Lublin interprets this as a metaphor for spiritual humility; if a person believes themselves to be without fault or mistakes, it suggests a lack of submission to the yoke of Heaven, underscoring the necessity of humility in spiritual practice.

R’ Simcha Bunim of Peshischa, on his deathbed, stoically confronted his impending death while his wife wept. He reminded her of the teaching that the essence of life and the whole Torah is about preparing oneself for death – זֹאת הַתּוֹרָה אָדָם כִּי־יָמוּת בְּאֹהֶל.

The Chafetz Chaim taught that people should be willing to make sacrifices to learn Torah, challenging the notion of prioritizing material and worldly living over spirituality – זֹאת הַתּוֹרָה אָדָם כִּי־יָמוּת בְּאֹהֶל. Do not forsake Torah study to be preoccupied with mere living; instead, occupy yourself with and live by the Torah in full awareness of life’s fleeting transience and consciousness of our mortality – זֹאת הַתּוֹרָה. This is the law; this is what it’s all about.

The Kohen would add cedar wood and hyssop grass to the fire and burn them with the Red Heifer. Cedar trees are used throughout the Torah and our prayers to symbolize might and pride; hyssop grass symbolizes humility. R’ Simcha Bunim taught that individuals must balance pride and humility, carrying a note in one pocket stating, “The world is mine” in one and “I am dust and ashes” in the other, illustrating the balance between humility and recognizing one’s potential.

The ashes of the burnt Red Heifer are ineffective on their own. To complete the purification process, they had to be mixed with living water, that is, fresh, flowing water – מַיִם חַיִּים. Alone or mixed with anything else, even stagnant or prepared water, the ritual is incomplete and ineffective.

R’ Meir Schapiro emphasized that water, the fundamental life force, is powerful only when it flows. Flowing water can break mountains, make deserts bloom, and carve rock, while stagnant or frozen water is inert.

R’ Leibele Eiger adds that flowing water’s natural descent down the drainage basin represents the virtue of humility, suggesting that we should aspire to be humble and flexible, allowing ourselves to be shaped by the divine. You put water into a bottle; it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot; it becomes the teapot. Be more fluid.

Ultimately, R’ Yitzchak Vorki highlights how the heart of the law of the Red Heifer is loving one’s neighbor; the Kohen who performs the ritual purifies everyone else but defiles himself in the process, symbolizing the self-sacrifice inherent in a life of genuine love and service to others, even at the cost of one’s own comfort.

We may not currently practice the laws of ritual purity, and the Red Heifer may just be something we read and talk about today, but its profound lessons in humility, faith, and selflessness are eternal. These values inspire us to purify our intentions and actions, reminding us of our potential to make a difference, not only for ourselves but for all the lives we touch as well.

There Is More Than Meets The Eye

4 minute read
Straightforward

Don’t judge a book by its cover.

The Torah teaches us that this is not a matter of manners or wisdom—it is a defining existential spiritual battle. Our eyes, those magnificent tools of survival, are simultaneously among the greatest threats to our faith.

Our bodies are hard-wired with biological adaptations to notice things that look nice; that’s how nature works. The beauty of a flower is a by-product of what it takes for the plant to attract and reward the bees and birds that will pollinate the flower.

That’s what eyes do; that’s how they work.

Animals live from moment to moment, always looking for food and threats and not much else. As humans, though, our higher faculties must process and respond to what our eyes see. Unlike animals, we are self-conscious and can evaluate what course of action to take. Although we intuitively understand that there is more than meets the eye, humans have always struggled with it for good reason.

It’s at the heart of the Creation story; the first human failure was a failure of vision. Eve’s desire began not with the taste, but with what she saw; the forbidden fruit looks attractive and nice so she wanted it, and ultimately could not resist – וַתֵּרֶא הָאִשָּׁה כִּי טוֹב הָעֵץ לְמַאֲכָל וְכִי תַאֲוָה־הוּא לָעֵינַיִם וְנֶחְמָד הָעֵץ לְהַשְׂכִּיל וַתִּקַּח מִפִּרְיוֹ.

It’s the mistake the spies make when scouting the Land of Israel. They see a land that has so much to offer, but they see giants and fortified walls. Instead of thinking about how the land might be good for them and trusting in the culmination of the Exodus and the redemption of ancient promises to their ancestors, they just give up in despair about their inadequacy and how they’ll never be able to conquer the strong and mighty natives, leading to a lost generation.

Quite unusually, the Torah characterizes the Creator as vocally expressing disappointment and frustration to Moshe, that their error is unbelievably stupid after all they’ve experienced:

וַיֹּאמֶר ה’ אֶל־מֹשֶׁה עַד־אָנָה יְנַאֲצֻנִי הָעָם הַזֶּה וְעַד־אָנָה לֹא־יַאֲמִינוּ בִי בְּכֹל הָאֹתוֹת אֲשֶׁר עָשִׂיתִי בְּקִרְבּוֹ – And the Creator said to Moshe, “How long will this people spurn Me, and how long will they have no faith in Me despite all the signs that I have performed in their midst?” (14:11)

There is an ancient fable told of a group of blind men who hear that a strange animal called an elephant has been brought to the town, but none of them are aware of its shape and form, and they step forward to know it by touch. The first person’s hand landed on the trunk and said an elephant is like a thick snake. Another one touched its ear and said it seemed like a kind of fan. Another person’s hand was on its leg and said an elephant is a pillar like a tree trunk. The blind man who placed his hand upon its side said an elephant is like a wall. Another felt its tail and described an elephant like a rope. The last felt its tusk, stating that an elephant is hard, smooth, and pointy like a spear.

None of them is wrong, and all are correct, but their limited perceptions lead them to incomplete and fragmented understandings. None have fully apprehended the elephant, and even we who know all these aspects of an elephant do not see the front, back, and sides simultaneously, let alone the inside.

But similarly, our experiences and perceptions often provide only partial glimpses of a broader reality. Assuming we know the whole truth can be misleading, as we are frequently unaware of the deeper dimensions our senses do not capture. We do not experience objective reality; we cannot know the truth, only our experience and perception of it. Our perception is not an infallible representation of reality; our experiences, biases, and limitations shape it.

Indeed, as the Steipler notes, our attitudes shape our experiences. The spies entered the land with a bad attitude; although they experienced miracles, with the inhabitants distracted and preoccupied with tragedy, they perceived everything as negative even though it was all a blessing.

This should create a large space for humility and other perspectives; our sages teach that there are seventy faces of Torah and tell of a story of R’ Meir, who, despite recognizing the inherent impurity of a type of unclean creature, could articulate an argument where it might be considered pure, highlighting the nuanced and layered nature of truth.

R’ Jonathan Sacks notes that the mitzva of tzitzis follows the story of the spies, and the juxtaposition suggests some association by sequence. In fact, the stated purpose of the mitzva mirrors the action of the spies, following the eyes, and even uses the exact same verb – וְיָתֻרוּ אֶת־אֶרֶץ כְּנַעַן / וְלֹא-תָתוּרוּ אַחֲרֵי לְבַבְכֶם, וְאַחֲרֵי עֵינֵיכֶם.

A key part of the mitzvah of tzitzis is to have a blue-violet string – תְּכֵלֶת. R’ Shamshon Raphael Hirsch notes that the visible portion of the electromagnetic spectrum ends with blue-violet. There are infrared, ultraviolet, and lots more additional magnitudes of light that radiate unseen beyond what our eyes can discern on either end of the spectrum. It’s also blue like the sky, the limit of Earth’s visible atmosphere, yet we know space sprawls far beyond our most powerful and sensitive imaging tools. Perhaps then, part of the mitzvah of tzitzis is to remind us of the essential human boundaries of our perception, that there is an invisible, imperceptible, but very real unseen sphere of existence beyond what we see and feel.

The Sfas Emes teaches that engaging our higher faculties to look beyond the surface and see within both ourselves and beyond touches the greatest endeavors we are capable of.

What you see is real. What’s real is so much more than what you see.

Don’t be taken in by appearance; seek the inner truth. In judgment, be aware of your perceptual limitations. When making important decisions, think of your long-term goals and values. Be suspicious of all that is perfectly curated and editorialized in media consumption. In relationships, look beyond the superficial; seek authentic and meaningful interactions with people with good character and values.

What you see is not all there is.

There is more than meets the eye.

Hammered Work

3 minute read
Straightforward

In our modern world, daily living feels fragmented and filled with fleeting connections and constant distractions. Despite being hyperconnected, we experience profound loneliness. The overstimulation from constant connectivity paradoxically leaves us feeling numb.

Notifications, requests, and endless scrolling aim to stave off boredom but leave us feeling scattered. Work, technology, and social obligations often pull us in multiple directions, leading to superficial interactions and transient connections. This constant barrage of information and pressure to multitask erodes depth and continuity, making us acutely aware of a loss of coherence and stability in our lives.

Amidst this disorientation, the Torah offers a profound counterpoint to the notion of fragmentation and disconnection, highlighting how some things require an approach of integrity and wholeness.

וְעָשִׂיתָ שְׁנַיִם כְּרֻבִים זָהָב מִקְשָׁה תַּעֲשֶׂה אֹתָם מִשְּׁנֵי קְצוֹת הַכַּפֹּרֶת – Make two cherubim of gold, made of hammered work, at the two ends of the cover. (25:18)

וְעָשִׂיתָ מְנֹרַת זָהָב טָהוֹר מִקְשָׁה תֵּעָשֶׂה הַמְּנוֹרָה יְרֵכָהּ וְקָנָהּ גְּבִיעֶיהָ כַּפְתֹּרֶיהָ וּפְרָחֶיהָ מִמֶּנָּה יִהְיוּ – Make a Menorah of pure gold made of hammered work; its base and its branches, its lamps, flowers, and petals shall be of one piece. (25:31)

עֲשֵׂה לְךָ שְׁתֵּי חֲצוֹצְרֹת כֶּסֶף מִקְשָׁה תַּעֲשֶׂה אֹתָם וְהָיוּ לְךָ לְמִקְרָא הָעֵדָה וּלְמַסַּע אֶת־הַמַּחֲנוֹת – Make two silver trumpets made of hammered work, and use them to call the community together and for having the camps set out. (10:2)

Then, as now, metallurgy was a highly valued and rare skill. Today, however, we might miss the powerful teaching embedded in these instructions if we aren’t paying close attention.

Typical metallurgical work involves fusing parts through welding or soldering using heat, pressure, or both. However, as Rashi points out, the Torah’s requirement of hammered work from a single piece of metal explicitly rules out the method of shaping components separately and then fusing them together.

Some things should not be crafted in a fragmented manner.

These sacred artifacts had to be shaped from a single piece of material, symbolizing unity, consistency, and completeness, reflecting the timeless ideas they represent.

The cherubim above the Ark symbolize the Divine Presence and the relationship and dialogue between Creator and creation, reminding us of the importance of maintaining a coherent spiritual connection.

The Menorah represents the Torah and the wisdom that enlightens the world, encouraging us to seek depth and continuity in our learning and personal growth.

The trumpets were tools used by the government to lead, gather, communicate, organize, and mobilize the Jewish people, symbolizing unity and purpose and highlighting the need for purposeful and unified action in our communities.

By requiring that key symbols for the Jewish People, the Torah, and our relationship with the Creator be crafted from a single block of metal, the Torah emphasizes the importance of wholeness and integrity in the things that matter most. These objects must be complete and undivided, and the ideas they represent must be whole and unfragmented, reflecting our commitment to our beliefs, practices, and each other – ישראל ואורייתא וקדשא בריך הוא חד הוא.

These symbols are powerful and timeless. You can do some things sporadically, and they are valuable and worthwhile; most people can’t volunteer in soup kitchens every day. However, the fundamentals require a comprehensive commitment and a showing of steadiness and reliability, as reflected in the consistency of the design of a single hammered work. This teaching stands in contrast to the Torah’s sharp criticism of casual practice – וְאִם־תֵּלְכוּ עִמִּי קֶרִי – And if you are with me sporadically… ( 26:21).

The Lubavitcher Rebbe explains that the Menorah symbolizes the Jewish people, branching out from one end of the spectrum to the other, encompassing all diversity. Despite our different ways of shining, we are fundamentally one, made from a single block. The Shelah profoundly notes that any distinction between the left and right branches is an illusion; there is just one beautiful Menorah.

Some things are self-contained and possess everything they need without requiring anything additional or external. As R’ Judah Mischel notes, there are moments we find ourselves somewhat alienated from each other, a little less in tune with ourselves, and our practices falling short of our aspirations; but we’re still fundamentally whole, as we affirm daily, recognizing the sufficiency of who we are – שעשה לי כל צרכי.

In an age of overload, where our attention is constantly divided, we are saturated with short-term commitments, and the boundaries between work and personal life are increasingly blurred, especially with remote work, the Torah reminds us about the importance of unity and integrity.

A person’s Torah and character must be fully integrated, seamless, and unified. It’s not enough to be inspired; the question is: Are Torah and good character part of you yet?

These single, unbroken things are a timeless reminder of the wholeness we seek. As we navigate the complexities of modern life, they remind us to hammer away, encouraging us to slowly cultivate, shape, and form a consistent and steady practice grounded in the belief that we are complete and equipped with all we need, in harmonious and unbroken connection with the Torah, the sacred, ourselves, and each other.

Beyond Words

4 minute read
Straightforward

Seder night is a night when miracles happen, which the Torah refers to as the night God watches over the Jewish People:

לֵיל שִׁמֻּרִים הוּא לַה’ לְהוֹצִיאָם מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם הוּא־הַלַּיְלָה הַזֶּה לַה’ שִׁמֻּרִים לְכל־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל לְדֹרֹתָם – It is a night of vigil for the Lord to bring them out of the land of Egypt; this is a night of vigil for the Lord for all the children of Israel throughout the ages.

But before this declaration, the Torah narrates the Jewish People’s experience in Egypt, echoed by the Haggada at the Seder, and describes the turning point, when the people groaned from their backbreaking labor:

וַנִּצְעַק אֶל־ה’ אֱלֹהֵי אֲבֹתֵינוּ, וַיִּשְׁמַע ה’ אֶת־קֹלֵנוּ, וַיַּרְא אֶת־עָנְיֵנוּ וְאֶת-עֲמָלֵנוּ וְאֶת-לַחֲצֵנוּ… וַנִּצְעַק אֶל־ה’ אֱלֹהֵי אֲבֹתֵינוּ – כְּמָה שֶּׁנֶּאֱמַר: וַיְהִי בַיָּמִים הָרַבִּים הָהֵם וַיָּמָת מֶלֶךְ מִצְרַיִם, וַיֵּאָנְחוּ בְנֵי־יִשְׂרָאֵל מִן־הָעֲבוֹדָה וַיִּזְעָקוּ, וַתַּעַל שַׁוְעָתָם אֶל־הָאֱלֹהִים מִן הָעֲבֹדָה – And we cried out to the Lord, the God of our ancestors, and the Lord heard our voice, and He saw our affliction, and our toil and our duress…  as it is stated; “And it was in those great days that the king of Egypt died and the Children of Israel sighed from the work and yelled out, and their supplication went up to God from the work.”

The Torah describes what they did – they groaned – and what happened as a result: their cries rose to Heaven, and God heard them, considering these cries as stirring prayers.

When you hear something, it is external and may or may not resonate deeply; however, when someone truly listens, their internal desire extends beyond the self and draws the external inward. God actively listened to their cries, which spurred action and led to redemption; the responsiveness of a Creator, who not only hears but listens, signifies a deep, personal involvement in the life of Creation.

But notice how they didn’t pray in any conventional sense at all; there were no gatherings, campaigns, fasts, or prayer lists. They simply cried out from pain and misery, yet these cries were sufficient; they were the worthy and pivotal prayers upon which the story turns.

Rather than perceiving time as a simple linear progression, we can understand time as cyclical, where events repeat in patterns, with recurring seasons and cycles. When we celebrate a birthday or anniversary, we experience a sense of renewal, a revived manifestation of the original event. Your birth occurred on a specific day years ago, yet the energy or force that gave life to you remains special, and we commemorate it annually, creating a temporal loop.

Every birthday signifies a new beginning, a fresh tally of your life, which aligns with the notion that time is not strictly linear but contains pockets of cyclical or even spiral-shaped significance.

Even the fundamental building block of life, DNA, isn’t linear—it’s a double helix, an interlocking spiral.

Life is replete with cycles, not lines—a spiral galaxy forever rotating, never returning to the exact same point. Seder night is not merely a commemoration of the Exodus; it reinvokes the redemptive energy and forces that give rise to redemption, endowing our existence with renewal and possibility.

The turning point of the Seder is the moment the Jewish People cried for help, not as structured formal prayers, but as raw, heartfelt cries.

The Apter Rav explains that when we read the part of the Haggada about our ancestors crying out, the very same primal energies and forces are accessible to us then and there. R’ Meilich Biderman and many others recount stories of individuals who, during this moment at the Seder, uttered the same prayer as our ancestors and subsequently experienced salvation, whether for children, healing, finances, a marriage, or what – וַנִּצְעַק אֶל־ה’ אֱלֹהֵי אֲבֹתֵינוּ וַיִּשְׁמַע ה’ אֶת־קֹלֵנוּ.

Our sages conclude from the stories of our ancestors that God loves righteous prayers; you don’t have to be righteous to generate a righteous prayer. Our daily prayers affirm that God is close to the people who call on Him in truth – קרוב ה’ לכל קוראיו, לכל אשר יקראוהו באמת.

When rain gets cold, it turns to snow, but if it gets too cold, it won’t snow at all.

There are times we can pray. But there are times when words are not enough, and we’re not praying; we’re crying, or maybe not even that, because it is too hard, and we are so tired of running on empty.

As R’ Ahron of Karlin points out, this is not a night of remembering past redemptions; it is explicitly a night of future redemptions for all generations, including ours – לֵיל שִׁמֻּרִים הוּא לַה’ לְהוֹצִיאָם מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם הוּא־הַלַּיְלָה הַזֶּה לַה’ שִׁמֻּרִים לְכל־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל לְדֹרֹתָם.

The Ohr HaChaim highlights how redemption is promised as something ongoing, not something in the past tense – לְהוֹצִיאָם / לְדֹרֹתָם.

Take a moment to think deeply about yourself, the people you love, and the things you need. Be vulnerable and sincere; when it hurts, you cry. An analysis of the adequacy of our intention and prayers is misplaced; a heartfelt sigh and an honest tear have the power to move the heavens.

Although it isn’t a conventional prayer, and although it isn’t directed at Heaven or anywhere in particular, just know that it happens to be a perfectly faithful reenactment of our ancestor’s great prayer, and that was more than enough – וַנִּצְעַק אֶל־ה’ אֱלֹהֵי אֲבֹתֵינוּ, וַיִּשְׁמַע ה’ אֶת־קֹלֵנוּ.

On all other nights, the Creator accepts our prayers holistically, from the outermost words to the innermost thoughts and feelings, our deepest desires that we are not consciously aware of and cannot begin to articulate.

There is no mystical meditation here, no magic words.

But on this night, there is magic in the air; this is a night when miracles happen.

One Step At a Time

3 minute read
Straightforward

Gratitude and thanksgiving are foundational sentiments of the Jewish People; we are named after Yehuda, which derives from the Hebrew word for “thank you” – תודה. We’re not just the people of the book; we could more accurately be described as the grateful people, the thankful people.

Among the many expressions of gratitude in our Tradition is the beautiful Seder night Dayenu song, which divides the Exodus into fifteen distinct stages, deeming that each would have been enough on its own – Dayenu!

If the Creator had just taken us out of Egypt and left our enemies alone – Dayenu!

If the Creator had split the Sea but not given us safe passage – Dayenu!

If the Creator had given us safe passage but not given us food and water for forty years – Dayenu!

If the Creator had sustained us but not given us the Torah – Dayenu!

And so on.

It’s a fun song, we love it, it’s great.

However, it harbors a fundamental flaw at its core; without the entire story taken together, the Jewish People’s redemption ultimately fails.

If the Creator had taken us out of Egypt without dealing with our enemies, they would have prevented our escape.

If the Creator had split the Sea and not given us safe passage, our enemies would have overtaken and killed us.

If the Creator had given us safe passage but hadn’t provided logistical support in the form of food and water for forty years, we would have perished from thirst and hunger.

And if the Creator had sustained us for all that time without giving us the Torah, then what exactly would have been the point of everything?

None of these scenarios would have truly been sufficient on their own; each was critically and independently necessary. That’s why they had to happen!

But if they would not have been enough, why say Dayenu?

Understanding this paradox is revealing; while it’s true that each step might not have been enough for comprehensive and total victory, that’s not the point of the song.

The song is about how each step of redemption is enough to earn our undying thanks and earn our song of Dayenu; we will recognize and be thankful for the good we have been graced with, even when it is not quite sufficient for our goals and purposes.

Too often, we zoom out to view the big picture, moving on to the next goal, the next project, and the next win. It’s easy to forget that the goal we just achieved was one we were desperate for not so long ago.

We have good news. We are happy for five seconds. And then we start thinking about all the next steps, and we have moved on. We get the promotion and plan the next career move. We close the deal and plan the next one. We pass this test and focus on the next one.

This song corrects that mistaken perspective. Leaving Egypt and focusing on the Promised Land would not have been enough; you would have missed the whole thing.

Each win is a building block to something else. No win is big enough; there is no ultimate victory. The chase never ends, and there is no finish line, so each win is sacred in itself – Dayenu.

The milestone is not the end goal but deserves a moment of celebration and thanks – Dayenu.

The Sfas Emes points out that we hide part of the Matzah for the later stages of the Seder – Tzafun means Hidden; redemption was not fully revealed at the Exodus, but was concealed and only unfolds in small steps over time. We sing the song and break down each step because it unpacks what redemption looked like once but also so that we can recognize it on an ongoing basis – Dayenu.

By appreciating the process rather than just the outcomes and focusing on each small victory, we build momentum and create an identity of recognition and positivity.

Each step is leading somewhere – הַמֵּכִין מִצְעֲדֵי גָבֶר.

Critically, celebrating a small win isn’t a premature celebration of a big win. The orientation to counting small wins grounds expectations in the present; you don’t count chickens before they hatch. Counting small wins focuses on what is being achieved now without the pressure of expectation of what might or might not happen in the future.

Don’t wait for a complete resolution to acknowledge the significance of each phase of the journey. Each step is a victory, and each accomplishment is a cause for celebration – Dayenu!

Count small wins; the big wins only happen one step at a time.

Creative Corrective

3 minute read
Straightforward

Shabbos is one of the defining features of observant Judaism. With its community prayers, family meals, and adherence to intricate laws, Shabbos is a foundational pillar of observant Judaism. These practices define the day of rest and embody a complex system of values and teachings that guide ethical and spiritual life.

The Torah itself is pretty sparse in terms of the laws of Shabbos. Don’t light fires, don’t gather firewood. Yet the Torah consistently associates the Mishkan’s construction with Shabbos and emphasizes that Shabbos has priority. Our sages take this to mean that any creative work or activity that demonstrates mastery over one’s environment that was part of the construction project constitutes a primary category of activity forbidden on Shabbos – מלאכה.

One of these is the category of erasing.

The Mishkan walls were made of wooden boards that had to be assembled in a particular order – that’s why building is a primary category of forbidden activity. Much like how you’d put together flat-pack shelving, they were labeled: A connects to B, connects to C, and so on. It won’t click together when you build it in the wrong order!

So, the designers marked the boards with letters, which is why writing is a primary forbidden activity.

And if someone on the design team wrote the wrong letter, smudged it, duplicated a letter, inscribed it in the wrong spot, or it wasn’t legible enough, they would erase it, the source of erasing as a primary category of forbidden activity.

However, erasing is very different from the other primary categories. One of the fundamental principles of Shabbos is that only creative work is forbidden.

Building and assembling are creative. Writing is creative. Even demolition and deconstruction are creative; the Mishkan was portable and part of its design was taking it apart and reassembling it. But erasing is corrective; at no point in the construction or design process did anyone have to erase anything for the purpose of making anything!

So why is erasing a primary category of creative activity?

There is a fundamental lesson to orient ourselves around.

While it’s true that you only erase something when you make a mistake, making mistakes is part of building; you cannot build something and not expect mistakes, in which case undoing mistakes is an integral part of the creative process.

In categorizing erasing as an independent primary creative activity, our sages acknowledge the inevitability of errors and the necessity of correcting them Erasing is not an after-the-fact error remedy; it is a crucial phase of the creative process. All forms of building are inherently accompanied by missteps, and correcting these errors is inseparable from the act of building.

Our sages teach that, apart from seven exceptions, every righteous person has made mistakes since the dawn of time; this means that the capacity for mistakes is fully compatible with the category of righteousness, and mistakes are intrinsic to life.

Creators deepen their understanding of their work by recognizing and rectifying errors, gaining insights that guide them toward a more refined and effective creation.

Erasing is far from a simple act of correction; it is a fundamental component of creation. It is part of the essential process and interplay of making and remaking that defines our human experience and spiritual endeavors.

Our sages were wise to understand that the journey towards any form of creation is inherently paved with trial and error and that each misstep is itself a crucial step forward.

Our sages’ categorization of labor is not legal scholasticism; it prompts us to consider our approach to life’s inevitable errors and how we correct them.

Next time you find yourself reaching for the metaphorical eraser, remember that each mistake and each act of correction is a conscious and creative step towards something greater, a constructive act of masterful refinement.

Look beyond the surface of your mistakes.

Embrace the beauty in the process of correcting mistakes; in our mistakes lies our growth and creativity.

Erasing is building.

Can you embrace your missteps as much as your milestones?

Permissionless

3 minute read
Straightforward

The Mishkan was the focal point of spirituality and connection, and its inauguration was a cause for celebration marked by a seven-day ceremony, but the celebration was marred by tragedy. Ahron’s eldest sons, Nadav and Avihu, broke protocol and presented sacrificial offerings of their own; they died instantly.

Their loss was devastating far beyond their immediate family; they were more than the beloved children of Ahron, who was the heart and soul of the Jewish People. Our sages suggest that they were perhaps even greater than Moshe and Aaron in some regards; they were primed to lead the next generation but never got their chance.

The Torah doesn’t shy away from criticism; its silence about why they deserved to die is deafening, and our sages suggest possible explanations to fill the gap.

In one such teaching, Nadav and Avihu were liable because they would wonder when the old men would die; then, they could finally take Moshe and Ahron’s place and lead the Jewish People.

R’ Noach Weinberg teaches that their fatal flaw was not in speculating about the great men’s deaths but in their waiting and not acting sooner.

They saw opportunities to make a difference, and rather than act, they waited, squandering all the time and opportunities they had along the way. In touch with the young people in a way the older generation could never be, they perceived a sense of deficiency or lack that they never took ownership of or stepped in to solve; they just sat back and waited for their turn. Their fundamental error was the mistaken belief that you are only responsible for fixing a problem once you have permission or authority.

The correct approach is to understand that responsibility begins the moment you become aware of the problem’s existence. In other words, there is no hierarchy to responsibility; you don’t need anyone’s permission. Take ownership of the issues you perceive around you and confront them regardless of your position, resources, or abilities.

R’ Noach Weinberg encourages us to live with and take to heart our sages’ teaching that the world was created for us. Each of us is obligated to view the world as our personal responsibility, which requires no permission to step in and save; when something is your responsibility, the notion of waiting for permission is absurd.

As R’ Shlomo Farhi teaches, the questioning self-doubt of who you are to step up is mistaken; instead, ask who you are not to share whatever gifts you have been entrusted with because your resources and abilities aren’t yours to withhold from the world.

Our sages implore us not to wait for the perfect moment that might never come – שֶׁמָּא לֹא תִפָּנֶה.

Take responsibility for the world you see.

If you have something to share with the world, share it. If you can build, build. If you can lead, lead.

Everyone has something to share with others, and the bar for making a positive difference in people’s lives is not high.

What’s doubly sad about the incident with Nadav and Avihu is that the Torah’s narratives don’t even support their error. We know that Yisro initiated a judicial overhaul that Moshe adopted without debate because it was a good idea on its merits. In a later incident, Yehoshua was alarmed when Eldad and Medad prophesied in the camp, but Moshe was secure with their greatness and wished for more like them. He regularly complained about being exhausted and overwhelmed with his leadership position and needed more help. He was the most humble of all men; we have every indication that, in all likelihood, Nadav and Avihu’s initiatives would have been welcomed and celebrated, but they kept to themselves and didn’t share.

Knowledge must be shared. If we waited until we knew everything, no one teach. As our morning prayers affirm, part of learning is teaching – לִלְמֹד וּלְלַמֵּד.

The Lubavitcher Rebbe famously built a distributed worldwide network of teachers empowered by the lesson that if all you knew was the letter Aleph, find all the people who don’t yet know it and teach them.

If the universe has made you aware of something others have missed, that is permission enough to at least attempt to make a difference. People out there need your help; the clock is ticking.

Nadav and Avihu waited their turn; their turn never came.

Don’t wait.

Sources and Uses

3 minute read
Straightforward

In a finite universe, resource allocation matters, and the headlines often reveal negligence. Trillions of taxpayer funds are spent on healthcare and defense in the public sector with no accountability for where they go. Corporate executives implement cost-cutting measures to increase margins; a few months later, a critical component fails, and a plane crashes. The lack of accountability is how you get lead in toys, carcinogens in baby food, and low-quality materials holding planes and buildings together; numbers tell a story.

In our daily lives, whenever someone wants an investment, one of the most important things investors should consider is the sources and uses, the story the numbers tell. How much money do they need, and where is it going? Will it make the business more profitable, or are you sponsoring the guy’s next vacation? The same analysis applies to charitable giving: what ratio of the fundraising budget goes to the administration’s salaries, travel, and dinners, and how much of your charity actually goes towards helping the cause?

When handling other people’s money, there can be no room for moral hazard; as our sages acknowledge, money makes people act weird.

The Torah dedicates an entire section to a detailed account of how the donations to the building of the Mishkan were used, a public accounting for posterity.

The Torah’s space is a precious commodity; what makes the cut and what doesn’t is noteworthy. What are we supposed to make of this accounting, verifying that, by the way, Moshe didn’t mess with the money, and just so you know, Bezalel didn’t burgle some bars; might have we suspected otherwise?

Firstly, our sages note that no matter how sacred the project or how pure the builder’s intentions are, you are always guaranteed to have some clowns; there were actually people who suspected Moshe of skimming off the top and getting rich off the project!

Secondly, the essential principle isn’t in the specific line items of how much of this or that there was; maybe that part doesn’t matter today. However, the broader concept is dynamite; there must be transparency and accountability regarding public funds, even if the people involved have impeccable reputations. Leaders should eliminate the need for people to trust them, even if you’re Moshe and even for the Mishkan.

As R’ Jonathan Sacks highlights, the prophets regularly lambasted corrupt judges who had undermined their integrity and eroded the public trust in justice. A community and nation that suspects its leaders of corruption is dysfunctional. It is the mark of a society in good health when public leadership is seen as a form of service rather than a means to power, which is all too easily abused.

Our sages interpret a remark from Moshe as a way of acting in public life so as to be beyond reproach:

וִהְיִיתֶם נְקִיִים מֵה’ וּמִיִּשְׂרָאֵל – And you shall be clear before the Lord and before Israel… (32:22)

As such, at least two people must be in charge of administering public finances; Moshe was the treasurer, and Itamar independently audited, which is how Moshe could verifiably claim at Korach’s revolt never to have taken anything from anyone. When the Beis Hamikdash was operational, treasurers could only exchange treasury coins with a third party, not their own. They were not allowed to enter the treasury wearing tight clothes or anything with linings or pockets in which it might be possible to hide and steal.

Contemporary governance and leadership experts reinforce what the Torah stated plainly long ago: accountability is a prerequisite to leadership and is not just a matter of personal integrity but of a systemic design that distributes responsibility and ensures oversight. Leaders are tasked with doing right and being seen to do right, establishing a culture of integrity that underpins a healthy, functioning society.

While authorities differ on whether this is a legal obligation or best practice, there can be no question that the Torah’s detailed accounting of the sources and uses of public contributions is a precedent that public trust in leadership is built on openness and accountability. It is healthy for leadership to be accountable to the community it serves, especially when it comes to the stewardship of public resources.

It is the mark of good leadership to take proactive measures to eliminate the need for trust by replacing it with verifiable transparency, creating a culture of accountability and openness.

Accountability and integrity are everything; when you are transparent, you’ll never need people to trust you.

Start Small

3 minute read
Straightforward

The episode of The Golden Calf stands out as a particularly low moment in Jewish history.

Following such miraculous events as the Ten Plagues, the Exodus, and the parting of the Red Sea, among other supernatural phenomena, the Jewish People panicked because their leader was running late. They somehow concluded that an idol was the solution to their troubles.

In the aftermath, the Jewish People grappled with the consequences of their misjudgment and sought to make amends. One form that took was the half-shekel tax, a mandatory contribution from every individual that went towards building the Mishkan. This act of collective responsibility and atonement symbolized the beginning of their journey back towards redemption.

R’ Meilech Biderman highlights how, among other things, the half shekel itself is a symbol that teaches a crucial lesson about human nature and the path of improvement that leads to lasting change.

A half isn’t a whole, only a part. But it’s a start, and that’s what matters.

The half-shekel, being just a fraction of a whole, symbolizes that even partial efforts can be valuable starting points. It is a modest contribution that highlights the power of small beginnings; gradual, consistent progress is usually better than grand but fleeting efforts. Inertia is powerful; just the act of getting started gets you off zero, off the couch, and in the game with some momentum.

The conventional wisdom is to set large goals and then take big leaps to accomplish the goal in as little time as possible, but enormous strides can often lead to burnout and disappointment. Baby steps are all it takes to overcome the daunting prospect of starting over and the fear of failure. Embracing gradual change and appreciating the compound effect of small commitments to minor improvement can be more sustainable and effective.

Small things count; they add up, stack, and compound quickly. You just have to get started.

Commitments and resolutions don’t need to be hard to do; they just need to be something you keep. In that regard, it’s actually better to start small. R’ Yisrael Salanter recommends a strategic approach; rather than a complete overhaul in a given undertaking, surgically target the smallest element consistently. For example, instead of hoping to pray better in general, set a goal of praying one particular blessing more thoughtfully. Rather than resolve to never gossip again, set a goal of one specific hour a day that is gossip-free.

It is easy to dismiss the value of making slightly better choices and decisions on a daily basis; small things are, by definition, not impressive. They are boring and don’t make headlines. But the thing about small commitments is that they work.

Keeping small commitments is what forms new behaviors, habits, patterns, and routines. Small commitments work because they are easy to stick to; it’s something worth being intentional about when change is on your mind.

R’ Leib Chasman’s students would ask him to recommend New Year’s resolutions, and the sage would reply that they could decide for themselves but to make sure to pick something they could keep to. After thinking, they would share their choices with their teacher, and he would interrogate them. “Are you sure you can keep your resolution?” “I’m certain.” “Great! I want you to cut it in half.”

R’ Chatzkel Levenstein intuitively suggests that a human can only be obligated to achieve what is possible within a calendar year, comparing personal growth to a loan paid off in installments. You don’t pay the whole mortgage off in one month; that’s not how mortgages work.

Maintaining basic, consistent efforts is often more fruitful than seeking dramatic transformations. Improving by just one percent is barely noticeable. In the beginning, there is hardly any difference between making a choice that is one percent better or one percent worse; it won’t impact you much today. But as time goes on, these small differences compound, and you soon find a huge gap between people who make slightly better choices daily and those who don’t. One percent better each day for a year is thirty-seven times better by the end.

The journey back from the brink of one of the Torah’s most significant crises began with a simple half-shekel.

It wasn’t much, but it reminds us of the impact of small actions and choices that didn’t seem to make much of a difference at the time; the small things we stick with are what ultimately shape our long-term trajectory and path forward.

The heaviest weight in the gym is the front door.

People will sit up late at night and wonder what they’re doing with their lives, if they’ll ever achieve their goals, if they’ll ever get to the places they want to go. Choose one thing you can do tomorrow that will get you closer, one thing to take action on. Then do it.

Reduce the scope but stick to the schedule; incremental progress drives exponential gains.

Do You Know Who You Are?

4 minute read
Straightforward

In an era where our understanding of the universe is growing at an unprecedented pace, one area remains elusive.

In neuroscience and artificial intelligence, it has so far proven nearly impossible to explain why and how humans and other creatures have the subjective experience that we call consciousness. While some have historically suggested that this is equivalent to the concept of the soul, that’s just another label rather than any kind of explanation.

The philosopher John Locke suggested that consciousness is the continuous collective experience that forms your personal identity. This idea is useful because it is tangible and focuses more on psychology and our experiences rather than anything metaphysical. In other words, what makes you the same person over time is your ability to remember past experiences; or, to put it even simpler, your conscious identity of who you are is a function of where you’ve come from. This continuity of consciousness forms the essence of personal identity; the memories of your past funnel together to tie your present self to your past self.

For some time now, great thinkers have linked the concept of identity with memory and experience. Intuitively, then, the Baal Shem Tov teaches that exile means forgetting.

We know this when we see it; the infamous signature of dehumanization in the Holocaust was erasing people’s names and replacing them with serial numbers. Similarly, we can sadly recognize in cases of dementia that the person before us is experiencing a heartbreaking disconnect from the person that once was.

Exile means forgetting; it’s true of individuals, and it’s also true of nations and societies.

In an era where traditional narratives are often questioned, the loss of a common culture invites fragmentation and can often leave individuals with a sense of feeling adrift. Chaos soon follows when individuals or societies lose touch with the structures and stories that give their lives meaning and direction. In the context of immigrant families, the gradual fading of ancestral languages and traditions is predictable, and the third generation rarely speaks the language of their heritage. This phenomenon is not unique to any one culture; it accurately describes Jewish Americans as much as Korean Americans.

The notion of narrative identity is at the heart of how the Torah frames the Jewish People’s story in Egypt. In the depths of despair, they begin to lose their connection to the past. Our sages imagine a heavenly courtroom drama where the prosecutor questions the value of saving the Jewish People from the Egyptians – if they worship the same idols, what’s the difference? When the Torah describes God’s intervention with imagery of an outstretched arm, it suggests the Jewish People had fallen off a cliff and were saved at the very last moment from the point of no return, the cusp of total assimilation – מ”ט שערי טומאה.

Our sages teach how the Jewish People retained their language, clothing, and names. This teaching is sometimes characterized as praise that they didn’t integrate into the dominant culture and that they retained a connection to their past throughout their exile. But in fact, this teaching highlights the opposite, how they adopted literally everything else. When Moshe himself went to Midian, the locals called him the Egyptian fellow! The Jewish People had forgotten and lost so much that they couldn’t even listen to the man sent to save them; there could be no deeper exile.

But if exile means forgetting, then redemption means remembering; memory is intimately linked with redemption throughout the entire Exodus story, not just on a human level but also at the Divine level.

After the introduction to the setting of the enslavement in Egypt, the Torah describes how God is stirred by memory, specifically, memory of the ancestors – וַיִּזְכֹּר אֱלֹקים אֶת־בְּרִיתוֹ אֶת־אַבְרָהָם אֶת־יִצְחָק וְאֶת־יַעֲקֹב.

When the Creator reveals Himself to Moshe, He introduces Himself as the God of his ancestors, establishing a continuity of Divine engagement with the Jewish people – אָנֹכִי אֱלֹקי אָבִיךָ אֱלֹקי אַבְרָהָם אֱלֹקי יִצְחָק וֵאלֹקי יַעֲקֹב.

It’s also how the Creator instructs Moshe to identify Him to the Jewish People as well – ה־תֹאמַר אֶל־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל ה אֱלֹקי אֲבֹתֵיכֶם אֱלֹקי אַבְרָהָם אֱלֹקי יִצְחָק אֱלֹקי יַעֲקֹב שְׁלָחַנִי אֲלֵיכֶם זֶה־שְּׁמִי לְעֹלָם וְזֶה זִכְרִי לְדֹר דֹּר.

We must remember that God is timeless; God cannot remember or forget. These are words we use when we talk about people; they are anthropomorphic metaphors. When we talk about remembering that someone was hurtful, we mean that the memory will prompt a different action or behavior than one might otherwise expect; God “remembers” in the sense that God acts differently than might reasonably be expected in response to something, in this case, the ancestors. For this reason, the Chizkuni suggests that this self-introduction as the God of our ancestors is the source of our daily prayer – אֱלקינוּ וֵאֱלֹקי אֲבותֵינוּ אֱלֹקי אַבְרָהָם אֱלֹקי יִצְחָק וֵאֱלֹקי יַעֲקב.

Physical freedom was never enough; true liberation from slavery involved a reconnection with the Jewish People’s historical ancestral and spiritual roots. To revitalize the lost nation, to become the people they were meant to be, and to enter the promised land, they had to reforge their connection to the past. By recognizing the codewords of the past and the God of their ancestors, they would know that their time had finally come.

It’s why the Book of Exodus, or more properly, the Book of Names, begins by listing the names of those who journeyed to Egypt, anchoring the narrative in personal identities.

It’s why the Torah interrupts the story with an exposition of each family and the names of their descendants: the names of the sons of Levi, Gershon, Kohath, and Merari, the sons of Kohath, Amram, Yitzhar, Chevron, and Uzziel, and all the rest.

As R’ Hanoch of Alexander teaches, a key part of God’s command is remembering who you are and where you come from; remembering is the catalyst of redemption.

When we speak of our roots, it’s not an empty metaphor. They anchor and ground us; they orient us to where we are. Whatever culture or background, our traditions literally and metaphorically support us; if you want to make it to the promised land, knowing your past is the key to understanding your present and shaping your future.

Life is short, and we barely live before we die. Our narratives do more than recount history; they embed us in a continuum of collective wisdom, teaching us that we are part of a story much larger than our individual selves and that we can be so much more than we are. That’s why knowing your family and your people’s culture and history is so important.

The human connection to family, culture, heritage, tradition, and religion has always been sacred.

Our traditions tell us that we can have the courage to stand up to the existential and metaphysical challenges of life like the heroes of old who walked and talked with the Creator, who would argue and sometimes even win.

Do you know who you are?

You descend from those who wrestle angels and kill giants.

Aim High

4 minute read
Straightforward

In so much of our lives, we occupy places and routines that are familiar and known. But once in a while, life leads us to the very edge and calls on us to step into the unknown and explore the new and uncharted territory of possibility. We can experience these transcendent moments as some of the moments we are most alive, where we extend ourselves and enlarge the boundaries of our reality.

In these pivotal moments, we often meet with what appear to be insurmountable obstacles — goals that lie out of reach, aspirations that loom large like distant stars. It is in these moments that we have the capability of discovering who we are. Do we retreat to the safe boundaries of the known, or do we reach out toward the unknown? This leap of faith is not a blind jump into the abyss but a conscious choice to trust in our capabilities and the Divine hand that guides us.

The Torah describes one such moment.

Pharoah’s daughter, the Egyptian princess Batya, had come to bathe in the shallows of the river Nile with her attendants. It was just another day in the life of a princess; bathing is a normal part of most people’s personal hygiene.

We become familiar with our routines, and our brains can go into autopilot and cruise control; our bodies can go through the motions with little conscious effort. But then, one day, unlike every time before, instead of the river, wind, and wildlife she was used to tuning out, she noticed something completely out of place, something unexpected that jolted her into action – a baby floating nearby:

וַתֵּרֶד בַּת־פַּרְעֹה לִרְחֹץ עַל־הַיְאֹר וְנַעֲרֹתֶיהָ הֹלְכֹת עַל־יַד הַיְאֹר וַתֵּרֶא אֶת־הַתֵּבָה בְּתוֹךְ הַסּוּף וַתִּשְׁלַח אֶת־אֲמָתָהּ וַתִּקָּחֶהָ  – The daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe in the Nile, while her maidens walked along the Nile. She spotted the basket among the reeds and reached out to collect it. (2:5)

There is some ambiguity in the word the Torah uses to describe how she collected the child – וַתִּשְׁלַח אֶת־אֲמָתָהּ. In the plain sense, it means she sent her handmaiden to fetch the basket. But it can also mean an arm’s length or cubit, albeit not the common word for arm – יָדָהּ. Our sages take this to mean that Batya stretched out but could not quite reach, and at that moment, her reach miraculously extended just enough to save the child; she extended her arm, and her arm extended – וַתִּשְׁלַח אֶת־אֲמָתָהּ.

Think about it for a moment. She couldn’t reach the child – her arms weren’t long enough. But she reached out anyway.

The Kotzker Rebbe taught that this should be our orientation to anything that matters. When saving a life, you stop at nothing, exhaust every avenue, and chase every possibility, no matter how remote or improbable it seems.

This quality is the meaning behind Moshe’s name – וַיְהִי־לָהּ לְבֵן וַתִּקְרָא שְׁמוֹ מֹשֶׁה וַתֹּאמֶר כִּי מִן־הַמַּיִם מְשִׁיתִהוּ. R’ Chaim Shmulevitz highlights that despite Moshe having other names, he is known for the rest of his life by the name given to him by the Egyptian princess, named for the moment of boldness shown by his adopted mother.

In the interwar years, Jewish leaders were politically engaged in navigating East European Jewry through what they could not yet know was its final years. One of the most prominent voices was R’ Meir Shapiro, a leading Rosh Yeshiva scholar, politician, and community organizer. At a major leadership meeting, he proposed bold plans to turn the tides of what was in the air, and his audience told him it was impossible. In response, he countered then by citing this teaching.

Our sages use this story to encourage us not to be daunted by the seemingly unattainable. This does not mean recklessly chasing after dreams but recognizing that whether physically, spiritually, or emotionally, our reach can extend far beyond what we understand our physical capabilities and natural boundaries to be.

In a contemporary embodiment of this wisdom, President Kennedy explained why the Space Race was important, why it mattered for humans to go to the moon, in doing so, captured the human spirit at its best: “We shall send to the moon 240,000 miles away, a giant rocket, more than 300 feet tall on an untried mission to an unknown celestial body, and then return it safely to Earth. But why the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask, why climb the highest mountain? Why 35 years ago fly the Atlantic? We choose to go to the moon this decade and do the other things not because they are easy but because they are hard. Because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills because that challenge is one that we’re willing to accept. One we are unwilling to postpone. And therefore, as we set sail, we ask God’s blessing on the most hazardous, dangerous, and greatest adventure that man has ever gone.”

Apart from being able to plant a flag on the moon, which is pretty cool, the Space Race extended the boundaries of science in ways that demonstrably improved our lives, including significant advancements in water purification, waterproofing, disease research, agricultural techniques, fireproof insulation, wireless technologies, LED lighting, food preservation, and scratch-resistant eyeglass lenses.

Batya reaching out to Moshe captures a universal truth about the human condition: we are sometimes called to stretch beyond our perceived limits, and the act of reaching out becomes a powerful metaphor for the courage and tenacity inherent in each of us.

The supernatural extension of Batya’s hand is not a fantasy trope; it symbolizes the extraordinary outcomes that can only emerge from our willingness to extend ourselves beyond what we believe is possible. It reminds us that the potential for the miraculous lies within the mundane fabric of daily life.

What seems impossible may only be so until we dare to stretch our hands.

Aim high and shoot for the moon. Because even if you miss, you might land among the stars.

Imagination Redux

3 minute read
Straightforward

The power of human imagination is incredible.

If you’ve ever daydreamed or watched children play, you’ve experienced firsthand the ability to form images of things or ideas in the mind. When we read stories or consume different media, our minds light up with wonder and possibility, experiencing and feeling things that might not exist in the external world but are very real to us.

The ability to imagine is not trivial; the thoughts and beliefs generated in the internal world drive actions and behaviors that shape the external world.

But imagination isn’t simply idle daydreaming or fantasy, nor even just internal play we then act out externally. It’s a distinctly human quality to think about the future and plan for it, to conceptualize a possible future, and then try to make it a reality.

Without an imagination, you would be stuck living within the confines of what you already know. A world without imagination would be a world without creativity and would leave us with little capacity to experiment, explore, innovate, solve problems, or even entertain ourselves.

The capacity for imaginative thought is an exceptionally creative activity and arguably even a religious act – it is the tool that enables change. The power of imagination speaks to the core of not only who we are but also who we might become, and as such, aligns closely with our essential nature as beings created in the image of the Divine.

This profound understanding of imagination is vividly illustrated in the biblical narrative of Yosef and Yakov’s reunion.

Yosef’s brothers abducted him in childhood and trafficked him into slavery. They covered up their crime by telling their father a wild animal had mauled him, and Yakov lived unconsoled in all the years that followed. When fortune brought his brothers before him, Yosef took the opportunity to bring healing to his family, and Yakov went down to Egypt to see his long-lost son once more. In the pivotal moment, Yakov remarks that he never believed such a thing was possible:

וַיֹּאמֶר יִשְׂרָאֵל אֶל־יוֹסֵף רְאֹה פָנֶיךָ לֹא פִלָּלְתִּי וְהִנֵּה הֶרְאָה אֹתִי אֱלֹהִים גַּם אֶת־זַרְעֶךָ – And Israel said to Yosef, “I never imagined I’d see you again, and now God has even let me see your children as well!” (48:11)

Our sages teach that at this moment, Yakov uttered Shema Yisrael, a centerpiece of Jewish prayer that affirms the unity and power of the Creator.

We might think that Yakov says this prayer out of appreciation; he is thankful for once again laying eyes on his son Yosef before he dies.

But his words suggest something deeper than gratitude, something much more like shock or surprise – לֹא פִלָּלְתִּי.

Rashi takes this expression to mean deliberative thinking or judgment. The Rashbam explains that Yakov never allowed himself to dare to hope he might see Yosef again. The Chizkuni understands it to mean that Yakov had not even prayed to see Yosef again, an impossible expectation given that a wild animal had killed him, noting that the word Yakov uses is cognate to the word for prayer – תפלה / פִלָּלְתִּי.

Or, as we might say today, Yakov never imagined that he might see Yosef again.

The suggestion of an association between prayer and imagination is exceptionally powerful. R’ Judah Mischel observes that the obvious implication is that part of prayer is allowing yourself to dare to imagine that things can be different or better, that something else is possible.

Taking these insights together, we come to understand that the moment of Yakov and Yosef’s reunion captures an essential teaching that the bounds of our imagination are not the limits of what is possible. As our sages teach, even with a sword resting on your neck, you must not give up; you should still pray for an escape.

Our capacity for imagination transcends mere thought and goes far beyond what we perceive as possible and deep into the realm of faith and hope. In fact, R’ Meilich Biderman teaches that the human predisposition towards hope and optimism is one of God’s greatest expressions of kindness.

R’ Moshe Sherer said that one of our greatest blessings is the ability to dream; the Ponevezher Rav sharply added that dreaming big is important, but be careful not to fall asleep.

We all face situations that seem impossibly far, irrevocably broken, and irretrievably lost. This story challenges us to dare envision a world beyond the confines of our current reality, to pray, hope, and work towards the seemingly impossible because absurdly improbable things happen all the time.

Fuse your prayers with the power of imagination – not as an escape from reality, but as a bridge from the inner world to a brighter, better world that might still be possible.

Mama Rachel Redux

5 minute read
Advanced

Unlike the other great heroes of our pantheon, our ancestor Rachel holds a unique place in our mythology. This special significance is powerfully captured by the prophet Jeremiah, whose promise of redemption we read on Rosh Hashana.

Jeremiah singles Rachel out as possessing the power to move the heavens:

כֹּה  אָמַר ה’ קוֹל בְּרָמָה נִשְׁמָע נְהִי בְּכִי תַמְרוּרִים רָחֵל מְבַכָּה עַל־בָּנֶיהָ מֵאֲנָה לְהִנָּחֵם עַל־בָּנֶיהָ כִּי אֵינֶנּוּ׃כֹּה  אָמַר ה’ מִנְעִי קוֹלֵךְ מִבֶּכִי וְעֵינַיִךְ מִדִּמְעָה כִּי יֵשׁ שָׂכָר לִפְעֻלָּתֵךְ נְאֻם־ה’ וְשָׁבוּ מֵאֶרֶץ אוֹיֵב׃וְיֵשׁ־תִּקְוָה לְאַחֲרִיתֵךְ נְאֻם־ה’ וְשָׁבוּ בָנִים לִגְבוּלָם – So said the Lord: A cry is heard in Ramah; wailing, bitter weeping, Rachel weeping for her children. She refuses to be comforted, for her children who are gone. So says the Lord: you can stop crying, your eyes from your tears; there is truly a reward for your labors. The Lord declares: They shall return from the enemy’s land! There is hope for your future. The Lord declares: Your children shall return to their country! (Jeremiah 31:15-17)

The historical backdrop of Jeremiah’s words is the disastrous reign of the Jewish King Menashe, whose father had initiated a religious revival. On his accession, Menashe backslid and reintroduced polytheistic worship across the country, particularly the Temple Mount. The Creator is enraged, and the exile is already well underway due to the degree of religious failures and betrayal.

This historical scene sets the stage for a poignant Midrash, recounted by Rashi, imagining a scene where the patriarchs and matriarchs plead before the Creator. Avraham stands before the Creator and says that only his children accepted the Torah – this argument goes nowhere. He and Yitzchak testify about the Akeida, the Binding of Isaac; this does not win the day. Yakov invokes his great trials to escape the clutches of Esau and the jaws of Lavan; if God will banish them to their doom, was it all for naught? Moshe recalls his unparalleled loyalty, fidelity, and sacrifice for God’s people; was all that just to have them fade away? Moshe curses the sun for shining at such a time of catastrophe.

Amidst these pleas, Rachel’s intervention stands out, demonstrating her unique role. She steps forward and recalls her pain, how her father made her wait, then cheated her out of her great love, yet allowed Leah in to save her from shame, which led to a life of competition, passed on to their children, paving the way to Egypt and everything that followed.

This is the backdrop of Jeremiah’s vision; Avraham, Yitzchak, Yakov, and Moshe, with all their abundant merit and greatness, can furiously plead to no avail; they are all denied.

Rachel alone has the quality to evoke the response – מִנְעִי קוֹלֵךְ מִבֶּכִי וְעֵינַיִךְ מִדִּמְעָה.

This line is powerful and heartrending. It is something our ancestors held onto – on their deportation from Jerusalem, they passed her shrine on the way to Babylon and cried and prayed. This imagery and language is the basis of countless moving songs in multiple languages in Jewish pop music.

More than anyone else in our Tradition, Rachel is the ancestor we associate with exile, pain, and redemption.

But why?

Rachel’s unique position in this narrative invites a deeper exploration of pain and its meaning; a concept echoed in modern psychology. When children are in pain, they want the pain to go away. A savvy parent can make nice and kiss the pain away, and the episode is over and forgotten.

In contrast, when mature people are in pain, they ask why. When we ask why, they don’t necessarily mean the big global and universal why; we understand that the universe is much bigger than any of us. Moshe asked for this insight, which God said was beyond human comprehension. When we ask why, it is a search for meaning.

Legendary psychologist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankel shared this great insight with us – a person with a why to live for can bear almost any how.

It’s intuitive and easy to understand. What would a normal and healthy parent be willing to endure to save their child? Almost anything.

What this suggests, then, is that more than we want our pain to stop, we want our pain to matter; we desperately desire the redemption of pain, and this remains the case even once the physical pains have stopped – some of life’s greatest pains are the ones that didn’t matter, the ones that were pointless, futile, unnecessary. The psychological injury doesn’t heal as quickly as the physical injury.

As the popular aphorism puts it, there is no pain, no gain, or as another one puts it when a door closes, a window opens. We understand that progress or gain can be associated with pain and that pain that leads to gain is worthwhile. The discomfort of childbirth is proximate to the gain of having a child; we are comfortable with pains that carry us forward.

From the stories of our ancestors, Rachel stands apart from our ancestors. Significant challenges characterize our ancestor’s lives; that’s why they’re our ancestors. And yet, at the end of their days, they dies full and complete – וְאַבְרָהָם זָקֵן בָּא בַּיָּמִים / שְׁנֵי חַיֵּי שָׂרָה / וַיִּגְוַע יִצְחָק וַיָּמת וַיֵּאָסֶף אֶל־עַמָּיו זָקֵן וּשְׂבַע יָמִים וַיִּקְבְּרוּ אֹתוֹ עֵשָׂו וְיַעֲקֹב בָּנָיו /  וַיְחִי יַעֲקֹב. When Moshe, Ahron, and Miriam die, they die with no anguish or suffering; it is a smooth and peaceful, even loving, transition – מיתת נשיקה. These greats live challenging lives and rise to greatness, but in the fullness of time and before the end, they live to see the culmination of their journey; everything has come full circle, and they die content, fulfilled, and satisfied.

In contrast, Rachel does not die with such fulfillment or satisfaction. She dies bleeding and in pain, on the back of a life of many pains. The pain of a cheating father, cheating her out of her great love and cheating her out of happiness and a comfortable future. She knows the pain of self-sacrifice for her sister, giving up the future to spare her shame. She endures the pain of endless competition. She bears the pain of childlessness.

And then she dies in childbirth. Not at home, not somewhere safe, not somewhere significant; just on the side of the road, on the way, in between places, or in other words, the middle of nowhere.

Unlike every other ancestor, Rachel stands apart as the archetype and embodiment of unredeemed pain. It’s not fair. The defining theme of her life is that things are not fair. When Avraham, Yitzchak, Yakov, and Moshe had their great tests to point to, those trials ended, but Rachel never did; she lived with her sacrifice until her dying breath.

Unfairness speaks to us at the deepest, most pre-conscious level; without being taught, children recognize when something is not fair and will say so. Scientists have shown that chimpanzees and dogs recognize and are agitated by unfairness.

The notion of unredeemed pain is not fair, and it speaks to us. It cannot be allowed to stand; it must be corrected. It moves us in a way that is so tangible and real that it is perhaps what compels God as well. R’ Chaim Shmulevitz poignantly suggests that we should disagree with the prophet; Rachel must not stop crying!

Drawing together these ancient insights and contemporary understandings, we arrive at a profound conclusion.

Pain and unfairness are often parts of our existence, and it is imperative to recognize the power of empathy towards ourselves and others – acknowledging Rachel’s pain is the turning point in this scene. At times, finding meaning in suffering can arguably be more crucial than escaping the pain.

It is unconscionable that our pain goes unseen, unredeemed, not mattering. It cannot be. Sometimes, it only hurts for a while, and sometimes, it never resolves, and the pain persists with no apparent meaning or payoff. This compelling sentiment is intimately associated with Rachel.

This is further echoed by the prophet Malachi, whose words close out the Tanach, the last prophecy; there will be ultimate reconciliation between all things – וְהֵשִׁיב לֵב־אָבוֹת עַל־בָּנִים וְלֵב בָּנִים עַל־אֲבוֹתָם.

The prophets reassure us that there is a divine counter for every tear and every scrape; the tears are not forever; redemption will come for Rachel’s children, and they will all come home together in the end. The potential for a brighter future always remains regardless of the depth of current struggles.

Today, we might be sad, but one day soon, all will be made right.

High Holy Days Redux

6 minute read
Advanced

As the leaves begin to turn and the air carries the crisp promise of autumn, Jews around the world prepare for the High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the days of judgment and atonement.

As the sacred words of our liturgy call out, these are the moments when destiny hangs in the balance. As one of the most moving prayers asks of us, will the year ahead hold health or sickness,  safety or insecurity, laughter or tears, power or helplessness? The very books of life and death lie open, awaiting a verdict.

These prayers have stirred and moved our people for generations since antiquity and retain their emotional sharpness. For many, it is a powerful time.

However, there’s one problem staring us right in the face: the central premise upon which these days seem to be built just isn’t true.

One might argue that a linear universe governed by straightforward principles and predictable outcomes reflects Divine wisdom and control. In a linear world, moral choices are clear; if we make amends and do better, then everything will be okay. Many people believe this, and we should let them!

But for everyone else, this is an age-old problem thinkers have engaged with and been troubled by – theodicy, the problem of evil. Why do bad things happen to good people?

Or, to frame it differently, why don’t bad things happen to bad people? After all, it’s the central premise of the High Holy Days.

If you take a cohort of the objectively nastiest people and conduct a longitudinal study monitoring them over a few years, most would probably not face cosmic retribution; they would continue to live and perhaps even flourish. In many cases, life would go on for them, devoid of any tangible form of the kind of divine justice promised by the High Holy Days. This incongruence challenges the philosophical underpinnings of our beliefs and, on the most basic fundamental level, offends our innate sense of fairness and balance and can leave us feeling spiritually adrift; why bother with the exercise of making amends if it doesn’t make a difference?

But taking this presumption to its logical conclusion reveals its critical weakness. That’s not how the universe works; that’s not how it’s ever worked, or at least not since the prophets stopped speaking.

In reality, most bad people will make it to next year, and some of the best will be gone too soon. This has always been true; that’s just how it goes. If you get caught up in questions like this, it’s easy to miss the forest for the trees.

In all of our stories, none of our heroes, from Avraham to Moshe, seem to exist in a universe that operates with linear justice; it’s actually a key part of understanding their stories correctly. Even for the perfectly and completely righteous, life doesn’t suddenly become easy or straightforward.

And yet, the worldview of a universe governed by linear justice is openly endorsed by the liturgy — sin and punishment, cause and effect, action and consequence. This model doesn’t resonate with anyone paying even the slightest attention to the world around them and the people in it.

In a universe of swirling complexity where every particle dances to the rhythm of quantum mechanics and uncertainty principles, the notion of linearity seems almost quaint. Complexity is all we know, inviting us to engage with life’s ambiguities and explore its mysteries, driving our spiritual and moral development. In the intricate landscape of real life, the simple black-and-white nature of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur openly invites our questions.

In a universe that plainly doesn’t operate with reflexive linear justice, how can we honestly engage with the central premise of the High Holy Days?

The question is far too good; it has stood the test of time.

But perhaps part of the answer is rooted in a perspective shift, moving from an objective view to a more personal angle, our subjective spiritual experience. Belief in reward and punishment is one of Judaism’s basic core tenets; it is compatible with the factual observation that the universe is more complex than a human mind can grasp, a humbling teaching the Creator intimately shares with Moshe.

But while the mechanics and metaphysics lie beyond our reach, the archetypes of atonement, justice, reward, and punishment are accessible and useful tools for moral and spiritual growth.

The question of linear justice is based on cause and effect, but the unspoken part of the equation is associated with time; someone did a bad thing last year and didn’t repent, and they’ll get to next year just fine! Even if they get struck by lightning in twenty years, that’s not the notion suggested by our prayers. This link invites us to examine not just how we understand justice but also how we understand time.

In our basic primary experience, we perceive time as a line – from then to now, birth to death. Linear time is deeply ingrained in our cultural, philosophical, and scientific narratives: beginning, middle, and end. It offers predictability and order.

But this sense of order is a convenient fiction, a heuristic that makes a complex universe more digestible. A linear universe could never capture the multi-layered, infinitely nuanced essence of the Divine. It would lack the depth and subtlety that make our moral dilemmas fertile ground for growth and transformation. The linearity we attribute to time and justice is subjective and limited, and there are other ways to perceive time.

Rather than perceive time as a simple line, we also understand time as something cyclical, where events repeat in patterns, with seasons and cycles. When we celebrate a birthday or anniversary, there is a sense of renewal, a revived manifestation of the original event. You were born one day some time ago, but the energy or force that gave life to you is special, and we mark it every year in the present, even though the day you were born is still anchored in the past – a temporal loop. Every birthday is a new start, a fresh count of your life, which aligns with the notion that time is not strictly linear but contains pockets of cyclical or even spiral-shaped significance.

The very building blocks of life as we know it, DNA, isn’t linear – it’s a double helix, an interlocking spiral.

Life is about cycles, not lines, a spiral galaxy forever rotating yet never returning to the exact same point. When we think of justice, judgment, time, and life itself as cyclical, like seasons of the year or phases of the moon, we can make room for regeneration, renewal, and the sanctity of imperfection.

Rosh Hashana isn’t just a commemoration of the anniversary of Creation; it reinvokes the Creative energy and forces that gave rise to life and all things, renewing our existence and endowing the New Year with freshness and vitality.

The notion of Teshuva aligns with cyclicality. We shouldn’t idealize the notion of a clean slate wiped to zero. Repentance isn’t a simple linear departure from the past and saying sorry; you will still be you. Repentance is a form of spiritual regeneration, what one thinker called the eternal return. It is a step forward but also a step inward; the most updated version of you would not make those same mistakes.

As we beat our chests as an act of contrition, we remember that our world is not just one of brokenness but also one of continual creation, where each end marks a new beginning, every fall is an invitation to rise, and every step of repentance is a step in our never-ending journey toward realizing human and Divine love in the ongoing struggle toward becoming better versions of ourselves, year after year, cycle after cycle.

The universe isn’t governed by linear justice, but neither are Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur moments in linear time. They are recurring points on the spiral of the universe, offering us opportunities for self-examination and growth. Each turn of the spiral provides a new perspective on the same recurring challenges and themes of our journey through it. Each year invites a new opportunity for a deeper and more nuanced understanding, enlarging the High Holy Days from specific moments in linear time into recurring opportunities for growth and reflection in cyclical time,

In this view, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are a breath of life welcoming the new year to come, profound moments of human and cosmic regeneration, our souls invited to dance to the rhythm of an ancient melody that is heard every year for the first time.

Life is complex, not linear, but you probably know which way your words and deeds are oriented – towards life or death, towards health or sickness, towards laughter or tears. These become not final verdicts but periodic reference points in the cyclical adventure of the rich tapestry that is the wild complexity of life in our universe.

Take the opportunity the High Holy Days present to reflect and redirect. With purpose and intention, step into the next iteration of the cycle with freshness and optimism – towards life, towards health, and towards laughter.

It’s going to be a Happy New Year.

Mistakes Were Made

3 minute read
Straightforward

As the Torah wraps up its story, it records every stop between Egypt and the border of the Promised Land. When Moshe retells the story of their journey together, he does the same thing.

It’s a nice recap, but it seems odd on closer inspection.

Some of the stops were simple rest stops where nothing relevant happened. On a road trip, the gas station and toilet break aren’t part of the itinerary; many of these stops are the functional equivalent, and yet Moshe saw fit to include them.

Far more surprisingly, he lists the places they screwed up. He names and shames each one; the places they clashed with Moshe and defied God, the places they worshipped idols, the places they surrendered to materialism, and the places they succumbed to desire.

It’s surprising because humans don’t usually emphasize or highlight failures; we typically avoid the stigma and negativity associated with talking about failure.

Imagine reminiscing with your significant other about that restaurant where you had a huge argument. Or that Pesach you insulted your mother-in-law. They’re not the kind of things that lend themselves to reminiscence.

One conventional answer is that our actions impact our surroundings; our actions have a ripple effect in the world that leaves some residual mark or impact that lingers on our environment, for better and worse. That’s probably true.

But there is a simple yet profound teaching here.

To learn from mistakes.

King David famously states that his sin was constantly before him in his mind’s eye. It’s not a perpetual guilt complex; the word he uses is related to the notion of mistakes. Better than forgetting past mistakes is recalling them.

There is deep wisdom in recalling failure.

You mustn’t forget your mistakes; you must learn from them.

There’s a popular folk saying in hard times; if everyone were to put their bundle of challenges into a pile and everyone head to claim one, most would choose their own.

The conventional explanation is based on a preference for familiarity; better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.

But perhaps there is something more profound hiding in plain sight.

It’s an acknowledgment of our individual paths in life. Your challenges and mistakes are the building blocks of what makes you uniquely you; you are your story. To pick someone else’s story is to stop being you and be someone else entirely.

Picking and choosing is impossible; your story is yours, and theirs is theirs. Our trials and our errors shape us uniquely, weaving the tapestry of our existence.

Your bundle of challenges and tribulations isn’t just yours because it’s familiar; if there is a Creator and Providence, your challenges are, so to speak, designed for you. When the universe puts you in a challenging situation, that challenge has your name on it; it is destined and meant for you.

We ought to humbly remind ourselves that sometimes the circumstances win and judge others accordingly.

The Torah teaches this wisdom by acknowledging the places our ancestors faltered. It reminds us to remember that happens, and it’s something we do too; there’s no need to pretend otherwise. It’s part of our story on a national level; it’s part of the human condition. Failures must be integrated into the story of our life.

It’s not an ascending narrative that tells a story of things getting better, or a descending narrative tells a story of things getting worse. It is an oscillating narrative that tells a story of ups and downs, triumphs and failures, joy and despair, growth and regression. There were terrible, painful times, but we got through them. There were the best of times we enjoyed; they didn’t last, but we survived no matter what.

Everyone makes mistakes. Some minor, some not. Some are recoverable, some not. Don’t forget them. Recall them so you can learn from them, and perhaps others will be able to as well.

Mistakes are part of life, and the Torah integrates them into the human story because even in mistakes, there exists within them the possibility of redemption.

Learn from mistakes. Just remember they don’t all have to be yours.

Calm Among Chaos

3 minute read
Straightforward

Our sages hold Ahron up as the avatar of peace who loved and pursued peace. He is the embodiment of relationships, mending not just spiritual rifts but interpersonal ones as well.

But what was there to fight about in the desert?

There was no struggle for resources and no conventional economy or business to provoke competition or incite envy. They ate magic food and drank magic water, and their clothes were auto-dry cleaned nightly.

There wasn’t much to fight about.

R’ Meilech Biderman highlights the fundamental truth that even when there isn’t anything much in particular worth fighting about, some people will still be inclined to create conflict. Some people don’t need legitimate grievances to sow argument and discord; they will incite strife over the most trivial and inconsequential things.

Korach is the Torah’s example of this; more privileged than most, but someone else has a little more. So one evening, he rouses a mob for open rebellion and challenges Moshe.

How would you respond to such public and baseless humiliation?

Moshe doesn’t take the bait to engage or finish the debate there and then. He calls for a public trial the next morning for all to see, and the story continues the following day.

Rashi notes that instead of engaging, Moshe stalled for time in the hope that Korach and his followers might reconsider and repent, abandoning their challenge and averting the impending catastrophe. But only one person did.

Out of the multitude enflamed by Korach’s uprising, only one person sees through the illusion – On Ben Peleth. His moment of clarity doesn’t arrive through divine revelation or philosophical insight but through a simple conversation with his wife. She asked him a straightforward question: “What’s in it for you?” Whether it was Ahron or Korach as the leader, he’d still only be a disciple, so what did he stand to gain from participating in the dispute? For this, our sages herald her as a woman whose wisdom is constructive – חַכְמוֹת נָשִׁים בָּנְתָה בֵיתָהּ.

But the thing is, there is nothing profound whatsoever about her position. It’s common sense! Anyone is capable of cost-benefit analysis; there is nothing wise about it, yet our sages set this wisdom as the gold standard to aim for.

R’ Chaim Shmulevitz insightfully suggests that wisdom doesn’t always lie in complex philosophies or grand revelations; sometimes, wisdom is remembering and applying simple truths in complex situations. It is not wisdom in the traditional intellectual sense but a different, no less valuable, sort of wisdom: the wisdom of practicality, of understanding human nature, of being grounded in reality, holding onto common sense when the world around you is caught in a storm of confusion.

Moshe doesn’t respond in the heat of the moment, and On Ben Peleth’s wife wouldn’t allow her husband to act in the heat of the moment. These examples offer us a pragmatic approach and grounded understanding of approaching conflict. In the heat of the moment, when our judgment is clouded by emotions, controversy, and mob mentality, it is wise to hit the pause button; it is wise to return to fundamental truths to assess the situation.

These examples encourage us to search for wisdom in simplicity and remind us that not every battle is ours to fight, and guide us toward individual and collective calm amid the storm. They underscore the importance of strategic thought and action in high-stakes situations, which often present an amplified version of reality, forcing us to confront the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous nature of our existence. In an unbalanced situation, remaining calm demonstrates resilience and personal strength. Maintaining a cool head in these moments is a form of embracing this reality and accepting the world as it is rather than as we wish it to be. Our calm can influence those around us, promoting a collective equanimity that can transform potentially destructive situations.

Moshe’s pause didn’t save everyone, but it saved one family from catastrophe, whose story is a reminder of the importance of maintaining a cool head in high-stakes situations. It illuminates our potential to choose differently, to course correct, and take a step back from the precipice, even when we find ourselves on the verge of disaster. It invites us to recognize the wisdom in everyday pragmatism, the strength in quiet resilience, and the potential for redemption even amidst the most turbulent storms.

Remembering simple things in difficult moments is not simple.

It’s wise.

Nostalgia Redux

5 minute read
Advanced

Life comes at you fast.

The days fly by, and the pressures and responsibilities mount. This deadline, that presentation, the big test. Health, relationships, kids, finances. The further out you go, the more complex and uncertain it all gets. There’s rarely someone who can share your unique load, and it’s a lot to handle. But that’s what being a grown-up is in the modern world.

Changing times and complex, pressure-filled moments can trigger feelings of loneliness, social exclusion, and meaninglessness, and our instinct is often to look backward, to take a trip down memory lane and seek solace in the past, recalling happier, simpler times. Personal nostalgia can provide comfort and a sense of continuity; collective nostalgia can foster a sense of community and preserve cultural history. Sitting with an old face, or visiting an old favorite spot, can bring the feeling of the good old days flooding back. This phenomenon is not unique to the modern era; it’s a profoundly human predisposition that transcends time and culture.

But nostalgia can have a negative shadow when it gets to the point of idealizing the past and avoiding reality. We see this reflected in the experiences of the Jewish People in the Torah, their struggles mirroring our own. Stuck in the desert wilderness with no natural food or water, their nostalgia for Egypt expresses itself in their repeated pining to return to Egypt.

But we know the Egypt story better than that. They were neither safe nor happy!

The Torah documents Egypt as a sustained and systematic crime against humanity, with a litany of atrocities and human rights abuses. Without any embellishment from Midrash, the plain text of the narrative reports some of the worst possible human experiences: enslavement, violence, infanticide, and organized genocide as a form of population control.

They were liberated from all that by the Creator with open miracles, sustained by magic food from the sky and an enchanted spring sheltered by supernatural clouds.

What insanity possessed them to want to go back to Egypt?

We must remember that if they were insane, they wouldn’t have been held responsible for their outburst, and their story would be irrelevant to sane readers. They weren’t insane; they were human, like us, and humans get nostalgic sometimes.

Of course, some level of nostalgia is normal. We exist within dimensions that give us a certain degree of spatial freedom; left and right, up and down, backward and forwards. We can re-organize the space we move around in, thereby increasingly turning it to our advantage; humans have largely mastered the physical environment.

But when it comes to time, we are stuck to just one dimension; forcibly and inevitably pushed into a single direction into an unknown future that we observe from the infinitely tiny sliver that we call the present, a brief instance of conscious awareness that almost instantaneously slips away to become the past. In the dimension of time, there is no going back, no going left or right; there is not even standing still. No matter how much we struggle, no matter how much we resist, we are utterly at the mercy of time.

It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop. As such, time is also a source of existential dread. We fear the future, both in the sense that it is unknown and that it will inevitably and unstoppably impose itself on us, helpless and defenseless.

So we experience a nostalgia trip, an escape for a fleeting moment, retreating to the good old days.

But in such instances, nostalgia can become an avoidance mechanism, pulling you away from dealing with present realities and future uncertainties, and it becomes toxic nostalgia, poison in the plainest sense, preventing the possibility of progress and growth. Longing for an oversimplified and idealized past is just a means of coping with feelings of disorientation or powerlessness in the face of challenging complexities and uncertainties in the present and future.

What’s more, since nostalgia is inherently oriented towards simpler and unambiguous emotions and times, overuse of it as an emotionally regulatory strategy in a complex world is sure to backfire. Anchoring to the past instead of grappling with the present and working towards a better future is a recipe for catastrophe – and it can happen to all of us.

And the good old days aren’t even what you think they were; nostalgia can distort our perception of reality. The scientific understanding of memory is clear that memory is not a perfect record of past events but a reconstruction influenced by current knowledge, beliefs, and emotions. This can lead to a distorted, romanticized view of the past where we remember things as better than they were, a golden age that reflects our hopes and fears, obscuring the complexities and contradictions of our actual experiences.

Nostalgia is a seductive liar; our memory isn’t always so honest.

In their wild distortion, life in Egypt may have been awful, but at least it was predictable. Magic food and water are disappointing and unsatisfying, and what if it all stopped tomorrow? That’s not a way to live!

So they reminisce about the crunchy cucumbers and fragrant meat stews and forget the babies drowned in the river; selective memory is a feature of nostalgia.

They long to regress to an immature state, the learned helplessness and mediocrity of captivity. They experience fauxstalgia, false nostalgia, and idealize a past that never was, with a corresponding refusal to embrace the positive changes of the present and take responsibility for their future.

These stories showcase the allure of nostalgia and its incredible power to revise history and reality while simultaneously removing us from the present so the moment passes us by; we should not make the same mistake.

Too often, leaders talk about declinism, which sounds like when people talk about those kids these days; things aren’t what they used to be; things were better back in the day.

It’s not true.

One of the great tragedies of European Jewish history was the burning of twenty-four wagons of sacred texts; today, every person with an internet connection has instant access to the most complete library of Jewish literature ever assembled.

The great yeshivas of pre-war Europe combined didn’t come close to the headcount of even one of the famous yeshivas of our day. How many mothers and children regularly died in childbirth? How many people died of hunger and poverty? How many illiterate generations lived and died with easily treated illness?

Rashi described his crushing poverty as a millstone around his neck; how many people would sponsor him if he lived in our day? How many blood libels, crusades, expulsions, and massacres? While the only acceptable level of anti-Semitism is none, the anti-Semitism of our time is laughably trivial compared to the history books.

If our ancestors could choose any time to be alive, they’d probably pick ours.

We live in a time of plenty. Sure, there are plenty of excesses, but by any standard humans can measure, there has never been so much Torah study, charity, community advocacy and support, and general safety and security in Jewish history.

There is no precedent for our time, but there’s a precedent for not living in the moment. Nostalgia is an illness for people who haven’t realised that today is tomorrow’s nostalgia – אַל־תֹּאמַר מֶה הָיָה שֶׁהַיָּמִים הָרִאשֹׁנִים הָיוּ טוֹבִים מֵאֵלֶּה כִּי לֹא מֵחכְמָה שָׁאַלְתָּ עַל־זֶה.

We are not living in a time of decline. History is taking shape, and we make the same mistake as our ancestors in the wilderness if we pretend otherwise. We are blessed to live in a time of abundant ascendancy; we’d better notice so we can actively participate.

We are decades into the Jewish Renaissance, and the world has changed; some people’s eyes are wide shut, still fighting battles they lost a long time ago. Some people are still fighting the internet; everyone’s been online for years. Some people are still fighting the State of Israel; it’s three generations old and arguably the greatest supporter of Torah in history. Does a flaming Beis HaMikdash need to fall out of the sky before we acknowledge we’re not in medieval Europe anymore? Stuck in the past with no precedent, they don’t have the toolbox to offer relevant guidance for the present moment.

Through our stories, we live with the ghosts of our ancestors. Through their example, we can learn what they could not. We can excuse our ancestors, who carried generational trauma from lifetimes of normalized atrocities.

But what’s our excuse?

Banish the ghosts or redeem them.

People wish there was a way to know you’re in the good old days before you’ve actually left them. This is that moment; wake up and take it in.

The Golden Age of Judaism isn’t behind us; we’re living in it.

Truth Redux

5 minute read
Straightforward

The universe is a competitive place, and every creature is in an existential struggle to survive. As Darwin showed, the fittest to survive adapt best to their circumstances, using all tools at their disposal.

Everyone is trying to get by, so what wouldn’t you do to pass the test, get the job, win the relationship? People always exaggerate and lie on resumes, interviews, dates, and sales pitches. It’s a strategic tool for gaining an advantage, no different from how a predator utilizes camouflage to catch its prey. In the context of individual survival and success, so the thinking goes, all is fair.

The only trouble is that it’s dishonest. While some people navigate the world that way anyway, most people are uncomfortable lying.

But consider a more commonplace scenario, the most trivial interaction we encounter daily. How are you doing today? I’m fine, thank you.

It’s not always so true, is it? You might be tired, stressed, and worried. You are feeling hurt or sad about that thing. You’re not always okay, but you say you are and soldier on.

Our sages identify the quality of truth as the signature of the Creator, a profound suggestion that truth is not just a moral or ethical principle but a fundamental building block of the universe woven into the fabric of reality.

The Torah lists many laws and prohibitions; our sages saw value in establishing protective fences around the kind of things that tend to lead to boundary violations. There is one glaring exception – dishonesty. The Torah prohibits deception under a multitude of circumstances but, uncharacteristically, also sees fit to expand the boundary and instructs us to distance from dishonesty generally – מִדְּבַר שֶׁקר תִּרְחָק. If you know some of the Torah’s stories, this makes sense.

Throughout the Torah, dishonesty appears as a consistent signature of its antagonists. The snake is the archetypal trickster whose deception assimilates Creation back into the formless chaos. Ephron does business with Avraham as a crook. Esau presents himself to his father with false piety. Lavan swindles Yakov, not to mention his own daughters, out of years of peace and happiness. Joseph’s brothers cover up his abduction by faking his death. Pharaoh’s slavery started by cheating the Jewish People with phony work quotas; he flip-flops about letting them go. Korach masks his self-serving ambition to foment a populist revolution. Bilam denies his goals to God and himself in pursuit of power and wealth. Among many issues with the infamous scout report about the Land of Israel, the scouts were biased and dishonest in their presentation of their experience.

But we don’t require the Torah to reveal that dishonesty is bad; it’s easy to explain, and there are so many reasons!

You have more to gain from keeping your home than stealing your neighbor’s; not stealing is a social contract that mutually benefits all. Everyone hates getting cheated or deceived, so lying or stealing is at least hypocritical and violates Hillel’s Golden Rule of all things – don’t do to others what you wouldn’t want them doing to you.

As a matter of principle and outside of the consideration of benefits or consequences, lying is wrong because it hurts the person being manipulated and violates and ignores their autonomy; that person cannot and would not otherwise consent to be lied to or interacted with under false pretenses. If you could have achieved your goal without the lie, you would not have had to lie. Humans are created in the Divine image; violating the autonomy and dignity of another also compromises your own.

What’s more, the societal implications of dishonesty are far-reaching. Our society is based on a foundation of mutual trust and honesty, and the only way to obtain any benefits from deception is in a world of trust and honesty; dishonest people hide in the camouflage of the much larger crowd of honest people – שְׂפַת־אֱמֶת תִּכּוֹן לָעַד וְעַד־אַרְגִּיעָה לְשׁוֹן שָׁקֶר. If we understand ethics to be universal standards of conduct, deception is self-evidently unethical because it would devalue and erode the foundation of mutual trust and honesty to the point that no one would trust anybody, and there would be no further benefits to dishonesty.

Truth is a cornerstone of civilization and the reality of our primary experience. Honesty builds trust, so people can rely on each other’s words and actions, cooperating and collaborating, prerequisites for a society to function effectively. Without honesty, trust breaks down, leading to suspicion, conflict, and a lack of cooperation. Rules and laws depend on honesty to maintain stability and order; justice can only exist with truth and accountability. Relationships require honesty to establish understanding, respect, and mutual support. Business and commerce can only happen in an environment of honesty. Simply put, people can only lie in a world of truth, the world we know – אֱמֶת וּמִשְׁפַּט שָׁלוֹם שִׁפְטוּ בְּשַׁעֲרֵיכֶם.

Beyond human culture, the consistency inherent to scientific principles and the laws of physics of the universe itself is an expression of truth, the signature of the Creator that makes the universe go – אֱמֶת מֵאֶרֶץ תִּצְמָח וְצֶדֶק מִשָּׁמַיִם נִשְׁקָף. Unsurprisingly, the Torah places such a strong emphasis on honesty.

No dishonest scales at work, don’t deceive your business counterparts, don’t testify falsely, keep your word, and a litany of others, with a general rule to avoid dishonesty. Truth is the world we know, the Divine signature. Healthy people are truthful people; we don’t want to lie.

Are those everyday white lies a violation of Divine truth?

In context, everyone readily understands it’s probably polite fiction, a form of basic social lubricant. Communication is about more than words; it’s a convention of how humans interact. Conventions are subjectively followed when there is a general expectation that others will also follow them. Social grease is not dishonest when it’s what people expect; deception is only deceptive when the intent is deception. When you respond that you’re okay, you’re not lying, even though it’s not true. No one is looking for, nor expecting, a truthful report on your life; it’s a social handshake, nothing more.

Our sages even went as far as permitting outright falsehood under certain circumstances for the sake of peace. Does the dress make her look fat? You will hopefully understand that her question is not intended literally; the wise here recognize an unspoken invitation for reassurance. It’s not dishonest to give the reassuring response you’re being implicitly asked for. Telling her she’s beautiful, or saying you’re okay, isn’t lying. It’s not even polite compliance with the request; it is fully aligned with truth and perpetuates life and all Creation.

As the school of Hillel taught, don’t tell the bride she’s ugly! Use your common sense, be normal – תְּהֵא דַּעְתּוֹ שֶׁל אָדָם מְעוֹרֶבֶת עִם הַבְּרִיּוֹת.

In our daily lives, we are constantly navigating the complex landscape of truth and deception. We tell white lies to maintain social cohesion, and some of us encounter more harmful forms of dishonesty.

Cultivate a habit of honesty in your life; be mindful of the words you speak and the actions you take. Strive for authenticity in your relationships and integrity in your efforts. Even small acts of honesty contribute towards a culture of trust and respect.

Truth is more than just a moral principle – it’s a fundamental aspect of existence, the divine signature. In a world that can often seem full of deception and dishonesty, be a bearer of truth, showcasing the divine signature in all aspects of your life.

Because truth is not just about what we say to others – it’s also about being true to yourself.

Never Give Up

3 minute read
Straightforward

On the holiday of Shavuos, it is customary to read the Book of Ruth, a story set in the harvest season with a vivid depiction of one woman’s unwavering commitment to Judaism, thematically echoing our own renewed dedication to our faith during this period.

The story is about a family’s unrelenting stream of adversity and setbacks and Naomi and Ruth’s attempts at navigating them. Ruth faces a series of formidable challenges: she must reconcile her Moabite roots with her newfound Jewish identity, depart from her homeland with no intention of return, cope with the death of her husband, grapple with the loss of her fortune, establish herself in a foreign land, struggle with poverty while seeking food and provisions, and finally, present herself to Boaz.

Each of these challenges would have been independently formidable. Yet, Ruth faced them all in succession, compounding their severity and making success not just improbable but nearly impossible. Some of these were especially hard because widowed women are a vulnerable class, especially in that era.

We experience only one outcome, but risk means many other potential future outcomes could have come to pass. We ought to recognize the essential nature of challenges; not every person can overcome every hurdle they face. Everyone’s journey is unique, colored by their personal circumstances, resources, and strengths, and we ought not to judge when people cannot surmount the difficult obstacles in their lives. Far better to hope that life never rolls the dice against you than to believe everything will just work out.

Despite her significant loss and her daunting transitions, Ruth did not surrender to despair or choose the easier path. She consciously decided to persist, adapt, and carve her path forward. Remarkably, amidst all the uncertainty and hardship, Ruth’s journey ultimately led her to a place of security and belonging, and everything sort of worked out in the end.

R’ Shlomo Freifeld teaches that this is the most important lesson the Book of Ruth has to offer; to never give up hope, to believe that there is some kind of order or plan to the universe, and that everything will work out in the end.

The notion that one must never give up is an empowering message, a testament to human resilience, hope, and the transformative potential of perseverance. Ruth’s story speaks of an individual who, against all odds, chose not to give up. She held on steadfastly, not just to her own survival, but to her commitment to her mother-in-law, Naomi, her new faith, and her new people. Her persistence eventually led her to Boaz, establishing her as an important figure in Jewish history and a founder of the House of King David.

But never giving up doesn’t mean what you think.

Ruth gives up a lot, nearly everything in fact.

Ruth gives up her identity as a Moabite woman, a princess, her ancestral beliefs, her safety and comfort, and the person she was and might have been. She gives up these aspects from a place of freedom and power; she doesn’t stubbornly stick to an old path that no longer serves her. Rather, she undergoes a transformative journey, embracing new alignments and beliefs that reflect her authentic self more accurately; she forges a new path with courage and determination. Her resilience is nuanced; it’s not about resisting change but embracing it.

In other words, she gives up on plenty; but she never gives up on herself.

People rigidly stick to jobs, places, and relationships that don’t work because they don’t want to give up. But as one writer put it, you can never cure structural defects; the system corrects itself by collapsing. Failure is not a dead-end; it is a necessary precursor to building something stronger and more aligned that can ultimately survive.

There are moments the universe calls us to venture into the unknown, endure the trials that come our way, and persist until we reach our own growth and transformation.

Like Ruth, there are some things you should be happy to give up and let go of, but like Ruth, never give up on yourself or your values.

Slept In At Sinai

3 minute read
Straightforward

Have you ever overslept for something important?

That early morning wakeup for the final exam, to catch a flight to the long-awaited vacation or the big wedding day.

For most people, it’s pretty hard to oversleep the morning of anything important; it’s hard to get any sleep on the eve of such anticipated moments. The anxiety that keeps you up all night is the same anxiety that bolts you straight out of bed come morning.

And yet, our sages teach us that that’s precisely what happened to the Jewish People camped at the foot of Mount Sinai; they had been eagerly awaiting Moshe’s return with the Ten Commandments, the culminating moment of Creation, and they overslept.

This anecdote is one of the sources of the treasured custom of staying up the night of Shavuos immersed in Torah study. When the Creator offers you a piece of eternity, so the thinking goes, who really needs to sleep? If you knew tomorrow was the second coming of the Creator or Mashiach, you wouldn’t be getting any sleep.

And yet, in this telling, the spiritual awakening of the Jewish People and humanity starts with a snooze!

Let’s remember that in this multitude of millions of men, women, and children who overslept is the litany of greats and sages who appear in the Torah. Miriam, Elazar, Itamar, Nadav, Avihu, Pinchas, Caleb, the tribal chiefs, and the sages.

How did everyone oversleep?

The Arugas HaBosem suggests that the intuition that such a thing doesn’t happen naturally is correct; it was a supernatural slumber, the kind the Creator sets on the first man – וַיַּפֵּל ה’ אֱלֹהִים  תַּרְדֵּמָה עַל־הָאָדָם וַיִּישָׁן.

R’ Meilech Biderman teaches that the Creator deliberately establishes the archetype of Torah at Sinai in this way, establishing for all generations that you can be late, tired, and still half asleep but still be invited and expected to attend the awakening at Mount Sinai.

You might believe you’re not ready, and you might even be right, but readiness isn’t a requirement.

What’s more, the sense of tiredness and unpreparedness was not just an internal sensation of their bodies and consciousness; it manifested externally in the real world as well. When they woke and showed up at the foot of the mountain, they encountered an environment shrouded with darkness, cloud, and fog – חֹשֶׁךְ / עָנָן / עֲרָפֶל.

The darkness and fog at Sinai are the uncertainty, mystery, and awe that often accompany profound spiritual experiences. The Chiddushei HaRim teaches that this is not a potential obstacle to our spiritual experience that must simply be overcome; it is an integral feature and part of the essential nature of the work we are called to do. The mountain was obscured in the way the path forward on the journey of our spirit is often obscured; they showed up just the same.

In a world where it’s all too easy to feel distant or disconnected from our heritage, our spirituality, or even from each other, the act of showing up can be a profound statement of commitment and engagement. The Jewish people overslept, but they still showed up to receive the Torah. It was dark and foggy, but they were there, ready to engage and participate, without being perfectly prepared. Both these teachings reject the notion of being perfectly prepared or fully awake to engage. They suggest that the act of engagement itself, of showing up, is valuable and meaningful, even if we are not perfectly prepared.

Uncertainty and mystery are often part of our spiritual journeys. We may not always feel fully prepared or awake. We may feel unsure, lost, tired, or even afraid. But the act of showing up, of being present and ready to engage, is the first and most important step towards connection, meaning, and growth.

We, too, can show up and engage with our spirituality, even in the face of uncertainty and mystery.

You might be late to the party, but you’re still invited.

Nobody’s Perfect

4 minute read
Advanced

Temple service is vital to the Torah’s conception of religious life; priests, sacrificial worship, and purity were at the front and center of daily living.

The Mishkan and Temple were monumental communal endeavors, embodying the pursuit of perfection in every aspect. Both structures boasted awe-inspiring aesthetics and intricate design, featuring the finest precious metals and gemstones. Each architectural feature was meticulously crafted, with each detail carefully honed to achieve unparalleled beauty and precision.

The priests were facilitators of the people’s religious experiences; their role was to assist the public with performing their rituals and maintaining the sanctity of sacred spaces and things. As such, they were expected to embody an idealized form of physical and spiritual purity.

The sacrifices in each sacred ritual were held to the highest standard of perfection, free from any injury or impairment. The offeror, offering, and priest each required careful monitoring to ensure perfect purity; even their thoughts and intentions had to be perfectly pristine.

The Torah discusses these at great length in substantial detail, utilizing the imagery and language of perfection to emphasize their importance. Perfection is ubiquitous in the Temple service; any contamination, deviation, or flaw in any part disqualified the whole. Everything had to be perfect.

On this backdrop of perfection, the Torah states that priests with disabilities are excluded from performing the Temple service:

דַּבֵּר אֶל־אַהֲרֹן לֵאמֹר אִישׁ מִזַּרְעֲךָ לְדֹרֹתָם אֲשֶׁר יִהְיֶה בוֹ מוּם לֹא יִקְרַב לְהַקְרִיב לֶחֶם אֱלֹקיו – Speak to Aaron and say: No man of your offspring with a defect shall be qualified to make the offering to his God throughout the ages. (21:16)

Although such individuals were permitted all other rights and privileges of priesthood, including handling, receiving, and consuming the priestly gifts, they weren’t allowed to perform the Temple service. Even today, there can be a question of whether individuals with disabilities can participate in the priestly blessing or count towards the minimum number required for public prayers.

Modern society emphasizes the inclusion and value of all individuals. While some aspects of inclusion might be more controversial, the inclusion of individuals with disabilities is not. Today, it is an esteemed and popular activity for young adults to volunteer, visit, and care for individuals with special needs; the charities, camps, and organizations supporting them and their families are rightly celebrated, and volunteer spots are competitive and prestigious.

We proudly believe in inclusion, and the people who live and breathe it are some of our finest; the Torah’s emphasis on the Temple’s perfection and exclusion of priests with disabilities is a little uncomfortable. It puts a fundamental law in the Torah at odds with a mainstream sensibility that makes a lot of sense; the suggestion that something is bad or wrong with individuals with disabilities is highly offensive.

Why does the Torah exclude people with disabilities?

Sacrificial rituals are mechanisms for people to express their devotion, gratitude, and repentance to the Creator. As R’ Shimshon Raphael Hirsch explains, humans are moral agents responsible for their actions. By bringing a sacrifice, you utilize your ability to act and choose, demonstrating a willingness to stop doing bad things and rededicating your actions and choices towards good things. By offering a perfect animal, worshippers demonstrated their commitment to providing their highest and best possible selves.

In other words, the sacrifice is a selfless act that symbolizes the transformation and change in the human. The rituals are not magic formulas that must be performed perfectly to have an effect; they are symbolic representations that promote spiritual growth and self-improvement.

It is essential to recognize that cultural and historical context plays a vital role in our experience and perception of perfection.

The simple reality is that until only recently, discrimination and social prejudice against people with disabilities and special needs have been commonplace; some societies went so far as to legally ban their presence in public spaces. The basis for this was that the physical state was often associated with or considered a reflection of spiritual condition, so physical deformities were sometimes perceived as a reflection of spiritual imperfections.

If a critical part of sacrificial rituals is about dissociating from flaws and imperfections, an injured animal or assistant might obstruct the introspection, self-reflection, and spiritual growth the rituals are intended to stir – not because they are intrinsically bad in any conceivable way, but simply because that’s how they are experienced.

In the same section of the Torah’s treatment of priests with disabilities, the Torah commands perfect sacrifices, and presents a basis; a requirement that the offering be something that people find acceptable and favorable – לִרְצֹנְכֶם / כֹּל אֲשֶׁר־בּוֹ מוּם לֹא תַקְרִיבוּ כִּי־לֹא לְרָצוֹן יִהְיֶה לָכֶם. This is not just reasonable logic; it introduces an element of subjectivity at the very outset of the discussion, that perfection is not an absolute standard.

What’s more, our sages teach that an individual with unusual facial features or skin pigmentations is not permitted to say the priestly blessing with his brothers. Yet, they allowed numerous exceptions when people are accustomed to the person or condition – reinforcing that what people do and do not find unsettling is subjective, not absolute.

The Torah’s exclusion of priests with disabilities isn’t a standalone judgment but a subjective mirror reflecting its audience’s cultural and historical context.

It’s not correct to conclude that all the Temple processes must be perfect because humans must be or seem perfect. Nobody is perfect, and nobody ever will be; there is no need to pretend.

But perfection in the context of the Temple is a symbol of aspirations, ideals, and the people we want to be, symbols can be perfect, and the instruments, symbols, and tools ought to be as perfect as possible.

The Torah’s law excluding priests with disabilities from performing the Temple service is not a statement on the worth or value of individuals with disabilities or the relative perfection of humans; it simply illustrates the symbolic nature of priestly services.

It’s crucial not to compromise on dreams and ideals; they are the rocket fuel for everything that matters, most especially the people we hope to become. Today, one of our shared ideals is creating more compassionate and inclusive communities that understand and embrace the experiences of individuals with disabilities and special needs. We probably have a deeper appreciation of the dignity and value of every individual than our ancestors might have. We recognize that individuals with disabilities or special needs are no less perfect than anyone else because nobody is perfect.

But the Torah’s emphasis on perfection never meant that we should expect ourselves or others to be perfect in every aspect of life. It simply reminds us that we should strive to uphold our highest ideals to the best of our abilities while still recognizing and embracing the inherent flaws and imperfections that make us human.

Regulations Redux

4 minute read
Intermediate

Speed limits, traffic lights, parking meters, building codes, dress codes… it’s easy to see rules as restrictive forces in our lives, reducing individual freedom and personal choice.

The Torah is brimming with laws and rules, so it’s a critique one can aim at Judaism with some merit and one that has long been raised by seekers.

There are so many rules, and they stack up fast! Eat this, not that, fast then, do this, you can’t do that, wear this, you can’t wear that. And it goes on and on.

Why can’t we just do whatever we want?

The opening story of Creation about the dawn of humanity centers around the imposition of a rule, don’t eat from this tree, and humanity’s unwillingness to follow the rule – they did it anyway. This first choice to defy a rule reverberates through humanity’s future, highlighting the need for balance that all subsequent laws try to achieve.

There’s a plausible reading here where God is cruel and tantalizing, teasing His creatures by pointing at the beautiful tree they are forbidden to enjoy; the language of prohibition and denial is right there, and it identifies God as the maker and enforcer of a system with arbitrary rules that humans are destined to fail.

But the story that follows about Noah and the Flood is a story about what happens in a world with no rules – total anarchy where everyone is a barbaric savage who pillages and plunders. In Noah and the Flood, we see a world without rules, which leads to chaos and the collapse of civilization, and the unmaking of the world. As our sages teach, where there is no law, there is no justice, and where there is no justice, there is no peace.

No serious person believes that radical anarchy would be sustainable, a total free-for-all where Darwinian principles of survival of the fittest govern the day. Doing anything you want isn’t a utopian dream; it’s a dystopian nightmare. Every human society at all times in all places has understood that humans need rules and norms; ancient and primitive societies had rules and norms we might object to, but they had rules and norms just the same. The existence of rules and norms is a foundation of human society – no one gets to do whatever they want.

Rules form boundaries that enable and facilitate safe human relations by asserting how to interact, preventing infringement on others or abuse or depletion of a thing. Rules are a basic civic requirement.

Beyond the philosophical, this extends to the essential nature of reality; our universe is a universe of rules, built and run according to rules, the laws of physics that govern energy and matter.

The religious aspect of doing whatever we want is based on the notion that observant Jews are missing out. Sure, there are many things observant Jews can’t do or enjoy – bacon, cheeseburgers, lobster, and pepperoni are allegedly some of the big ones.

Yet the Midrash teaches that it is wrong to believe that the Creator denies or prohibits us from the joys of life in any way. Rather, the Torah asks us just to regulate our instincts and stop them from running wild in order to maintain balance in our lives, from greed, hunger, and revenge, to tribal loyalty and sexuality.

Humans break when overindulged – people everywhere abuse and hurt, cheat and steal, get obese and sick, and tirelessly waste years of life on sexual pursuits. These negative impacts aren’t the product of liberty; they’re different forms of addiction and brokenness.

The earliest classical philosophers recognized that freedom without discipline leads to self-destruction; the Torah presents rules that foster virtue and guiding instincts to serve life’s higher purposes.

Like all cultures and societies, the Torah has lots of rules. And like all cultures and societies, some make more sense than others.

But like all rules and laws, they keep us safe and stop us from getting out of control. They help regulate our enjoyment of life; they enable everything else.

Rules like honoring parents remind us that life’s most important bonds need care,  self-restraint, and respect.

The laws of sexuality regulate that family relationships are inappropriate if combined with sexuality.

The laws of Shabbos are endless; you learn something new every time you learn the laws of Shabbos. But the existence of Shabbos changes and elevates how we experience time – it’s not Saturday, a day off work; it’s Shabbos! Moreover, Shabbos has kept generations of families and Jewish communities eating, singing, and praying together for life. Far from deprivation, they enable a life filled with intentional moments and offer positive freedom, transforming ordinary acts into opportunities for spiritual connection.

The Torah permits a carnivorous diet, which could reasonably be construed as unethical; it asks us to limit our diet to animals with certain features that must be slaughtered humanely. If the Creator is the gatekeeper of Creation, it’s not obvious that we should be able to eat living creatures at all! But otherwise, the Torah allows us to enjoy the vast majority of human cuisine prepared in accordance with our culture.

What’s more, when taken together, the rules of kosher keep the Jewish People distinct and separate from the world. They elevate the most basic instinct to consume into a religious act, saturated with meaning and purpose. As the Chasam Sofer notes, the kosher laws open with what Jews can eat, the permission, not the prohibition.

As the Meshech Chochma notes, the Creation story isn’t about a negative restriction on a tree; it’s about a positive command to eat literally everything else in Creation and fill the world with people, broad and permissive, perhaps even indulgent and hedonistic, with one caveat.

The Creator sanctifies human desire with the very first command – the directive to eat and procreate suggests that even our most basic instincts serve God’s purposes. Although there’s a caveat, even several, the Torah’s claim is that God is the gatekeeper of that permission; that’s what “Creator” means. If we accept the premise of a Creator, why would we feel entitled to the entire universe?

Beyond the aspect of a legal obligation, the fact that Jews observe a rule or practice makes it a cultural norm, unspoken but socially agreed on, and therefore sanctified by the collective consciousness of all Jewish People.

The Torah has lots of rules and laws. But those laws come from the Creator of Genesis; the God who creates life, loves life, commands life to thrive, and wants that life to love and enjoy.

We do this thing, we don’t do that thing. No one gets to do whatever they want, that’s not how the world works. We live in societies built on the rule of law, in a rule-based universe.

In a universe built on order, the Torah’s rules transform existence into an offering of meaning. Rules aren’t so bad.

Unanswered Prayers

4 minute read
Straightforward

Have you ever wanted something so badly that you just kept praying and didn’t stop?

Most people have had a time they desperately wanted something, that if they got it, they’d never ask for anything again; to resolve the issue, find the right one, make a recovery, for the thing to work out okay. People pray hard in those moments, with more intention and hope than all the other times the stakes aren’t so high.

Sometimes those prayers are fulfilled, and the perfect outcome materializes. There are countless books filled with such stories, and their popularity is a product of how inspiring they are and how they supply us with hope to not give up on our own dreams and wishes.

But what about all the other times when the hoped-for outcome doesn’t happen?

No one writes those books; no one would read those books. But it happens all the time.

It even happens to the best and brightest of us, to no less than Moshe himself. In his parting words to his people, he tells them how he prayed and prayed for God’s permission to enter the Land of Israel, the culmination of his life’s work and the only personal indulgence he ever asked for, but God bid him to stop. It wasn’t going to happen, and his prayers would remain unanswered; or at least answered in the negative, if that makes any difference.

Prayer isn’t a wish fulfillment scratch card game; unanswered prayers are a corresponding aspect of prayer that we must acknowledge, that some of them probably aren’t going to go exactly the way you’d like. For our intents and purposes, some prayers go to waste.

The Izhbitzer notes that all existence is wasteful. Entropy is part of all existence and our basic reality; the appearance of decay, randomness, uncertainty, and unwanted outcomes or outputs. Every interaction might have a desired or likely end goal or output, but there will be an inescapable by-product associated with it. Friction is a result of existing, where all effort takes a toll, the transaction tax of all things. In this conception, the Izhbitzer teaches, waste is not a bug; it’s a feature we need to reorient ourselves to.

Fruit and nuts have peels and shells, which we consider waste in terms of our goal of what’s edible; yet they’re fully functional in fulfilling their natural purpose of protecting the fruit. In reality, they are not waste matter in any real sense of the word; Parenthetically, this example deliberately utilizes the imagery of the shells and husks spoken of in Kabbalah – קליפה.

We are finite and limited; all we know is waste. You can be as energetic as you like, but in a couple of hours, you’ll be exhausted, your muscles will fatigue, and you will need to rest, eat, and sleep. When you sleep, your brain clears waste. When you eat and drink, your body will process the calories and nutrients, and you’ll need the restroom to pass waste matter. When you breathe, you breathe out waste gas, carbon dioxide. Our bodies and minds waste; all energy and matter eventually wastes.

It is significant that Pharaoh, the Torah’s great villain, claims to prove his divinity by pretending he did not pass waste; not producing waste indicates something genuinely supernatural, unlimited, and infinite.

The very first service of the day in the Temple was sweeping up the remnants from the day before:

וְהֵרִים אֶת־הַדֶּשֶׁן אֲשֶׁר תֹּאכַל הָאֵשׁ אֶת־הָעֹלָה עַל־הַמִּזְבֵּחַ וְשָׂמוֹ אֵצֶל הַמִּזְבֵּחַ. וּפָשַׁט אֶת־בְּגָדָיו וְלָבַשׁ בְּגָדִים אֲחֵרִים וְהוֹצִיא אֶת־הַדֶּשֶׁן אֶל־מִחוּץ לַמַּחֲנֶה אֶל־מָקוֹם טָהוֹר – He shall take up the ashes from the fire, which consumed the burnt offering on the altar, and place them beside the altar. He shall then take off his vestments, put on other vestments, and carry the ashes outside the camp to a pure place. (6:3,4)

The altar had a fire perpetually fueled with logs by crews round the clock, with a constant stream of sacrifices burnt in whole or in part. Slaughtering and burning animals is messy; there is waste, and the day would begin with a simple dust-sweeping ritual. Some ash would be scooped up and brushed into the floor cracks, becoming integrated into the structure of the Temple. The rest of the ash got carried to a designated quiet spot and deposited and buried, to be left in state. It wasn’t a competitive or glamorous job; it was janitorial and practical, starting the day by cleaning the workspace.

R’ Shamshon Raphael Hirsch notes that this ritual symbolizes how today was built on yesterday; we are yesterday’s children. We honor the past by starting the day with an acknowledgment, incorporating an aspect of it into our being, but most of it has to be left behind to move on and start the day fresh. We must build on and respect the past, but we cannot spend too much time and energy focused on the rearview mirror. Each day brings new challenges, obligations, and opportunities, and we must ultimately leave the past behind us.

The Izbhitzer suggests that this ritual acknowledges and affirms our unanswered prayers, the orphan prayers that get left behind. The day begins with a recognition that even the holiest efforts experience waste, friction, transaction tax, fatigue, and wear and tear. Nothing is lossless, even the best things. Something is always lost in translation; not everything can go the way we hope. But that doesn’t mean the efforts went to waste; the ritual itself refers to the uplifting of this waste – תרומת הדשן.

Some of our efforts and prayers turn to ash; unanswered prayers are a thing, and the Temple service began at dawn by sweeping and disposing of yesterday’s ashes.

Something might be wrong with the road we hoped to travel, or it might be perfect but not meant to be; the hopes and dreams of yesterday might not be the road we must ultimately take. For good reason, we pray on Rosh Hashana to be like heads, not tails. Memory and identity can be burdens from the past; you can live perpetually as yesterday’s tail and never live freely in the present.

R’ Shlomo Farhi teaches that there are places, people, and things that come into our lives and shape us for better and for worse; you can only move forward from the place and person you used to be. Those hard-won lessons are precious and something to be thankful for; uplifting of ashes. Be thankful, and let them go gently, so you don’t get stuck; disposal of ashes. Hold on to the things that deserve to be held on to, but hold on out of a renewed commitment to today and tomorrow – not because of inherited commitments from the past.

The thing you prayed for might have been the right thing to pray for yesterday, but today’s service calls for a fresh start or at least a fresh analysis.

We must cherish and honor our past hopes and dreams but ultimately let go and release them to face each day anew.

The Family Trees

3 minute read
Straightforward

The Torah opens with Creation and describes the emergence of life and all things in just a single chapter. It spends the best part of two entire books detailing the Mishkan, with meticulous and exhaustive details of the planning, production, and assembly of the portable sanctuary that served as the physical and spiritual center of Judaism until the construction of a permanent Beis HaMikdash.

The Torah’s primary construction materials list contained vast amounts of gold, silver, copper, and precious gems. If you had to say the one main thing the Mishkan was made of, you might say gold, used throughout the project, from finishes to furnishings.

But it’s not.

The Mishkan had no foundation and no roof, just curtains and drapes. The only solid structure came from its walls, which were made of wood:

וְעָשִׂיתָ אֶת־הַקְּרָשִׁים לַמִּשְׁכָּן עֲצֵי שִׁטִּים עֹמְדִים – You shall make the planks for the Tabernacle of acacia wood, upright. (26:15)

The people contributed precious metals and gems they’d brought from Egypt. But they were in the desert; where were they getting wood from?

Rashi highlights that the Torah typically refers to everyday items and general contributions in other instances uses but in the case of wood, uses the definite article – the planks – indicating a specific contribution – הַקְּרָשִׁים / קְּרָשִׁים. Rashi notes that this wood had been designated generations before; our sages teach that before our ancestor Yakov went to Egypt, he visited his grandfather Avraham’s home, took some trees from there, and took them to Egypt with him, making his children swear at his deathbed to take the trees with them when they left to build a sanctuary with.

R’ Yaakov Kamenetsky notes that Yakov didn’t just plant trees; he planted actualized hope in a physical and visual form accessible in the external world of tangible things. Enslaved in Egypt, his descendants would look at and tend to their grandfather’s trees, a promise and symbol that the hands that built pyramids and monuments for their masters would one day make sacred things and places for themselves; work that broke and destroyed could transform into work that built and united.

Yaakov knew his children would raise their eyes and cry in misery. They’d see trees that connected them to the roots of their history and would allow them a glimpse of his hopeful vision of a better, brighter future.

But hope for the future isn’t necessarily specific to trees; Yakov could have left them anything.

He chose to leave trees because trees symbolize life and vitality, seasonality, and natural energy, representing the cycle of life and death. Like trees, generations of death in Egypt would burst to life once more.

Our great ancestors had a tangible vision for what these trees could become and took concrete action to imbue them with meaning so that this vision would unfold in reality. Yaakov was a visionary, but his dreams manifested in the world of action.

This is the wood they used, and it’s ubiquitous – the Mishkan is made of this wood, the Ark is made of this wood, the table is made of this wood, and the large and small altars are made of this wood, too. The wood may be overlaid with metal, but it’s all made of this wood.

More pointedly, wood is organic and simple, unlike gems and precious metals. R’ Zalman Sorotzkin points out in a way that’s hard to overstate that wood is the invisible support structure of no less than the entire project. You might see gold everywhere, but gold is just the decorative overlay; that’s not where the support comes from. Support comes from the durability and enduring sturdiness of the wood – עֲצֵי שִׁטִּים עֹמְדִים. The gold is useless without the underlying strength of the wood that holds it up.

Sparkle and glamor catch the eye, but remember, it’s superficial only.

The boards must be assembled upright, not upside down, in the direction of the tree’s original growth, with the lower part of the board corresponding to the lower part of the tree. Even though the board is symmetrical, this law extends to every mitzvah that uses plants, such as Lulav and Esrog. R’ Joseph Soloveitchik notes that this instruction is a universal law; the way to grow something is with its feet planted on the ground with its head, heart, and spine aligned straight up a straight line, physically, spiritually, and emotionally aligned. You can’t put something together upside-down and expect it to work right; things must be upright to grow correctly.

The Mishkan was built out of Yakov’s hopes and dreams for his children, the promise they inherited about the places they’d go and who they could be. Those children passed on that dream to their children, who would build the Mishkan, but also to us, the children who would remember it.

Every breath of our lives fulfills countless generations’ hopes and prayers. They aren’t burdens; they can be building blocks of lasting meaning if we use them right.

The dreams and promises we inherit are priceless treasures.

One Is Plenty

3 minute read
Straightforward

Our culture is saturated with messaging about efficiency, instant feedback in real-time, and rapid scale and success. But as Steve Jobs said, overnight success stories take a really long time.

What appears sudden to others is the product of many invisible moments and a sustained commitment to pursuing goals and ideals. People who have experienced success will usually admit it was the culmination of a long journey of unseen hard work and dedication filled mostly with countless setbacks and perhaps the occasional win.

The Book of Esther starts slowly, with a lengthy prologue before it gets going, and even when it does get into the main story, the main story goes slowly, too. Before Haman rose to power, the story tells us the kind of person Mordechai was and what he was about – someone who showed up for Esther day after day:

וּבְכל־יוֹם וָיוֹם מרְדֳּכַי מִתְהַלֵּךְ לִפְנֵי חֲצַר בֵּית־הַנָּשִׁים לָדַעַת אֶת־שְׁלוֹם אֶסְתֵּר וּמַה־יֵּעָשֶׂה בָּהּ – And every single day, Mordechai would walk about in front of the women’s quarters, to know how Esther was doing and what was happening with her. (2:11)

After Haman’s rise but before his plot begins, Mordechai was still there every day, only now dealing with daily resistance, defending his refusal to bow to Haman:

וְכָל־עַבְדֵי הַמֶּלֶךְ אֲשֶׁר־בְּשַׁעַר הַמֶּלֶךְ כֹּרְעִים וּמִשְׁתַּחֲוִים לְהָמָן כִּי־כֵן צִוָּה־לוֹ הַמֶּלֶךְ וּמָרְדֳּכַי לֹא יִכְרַע וְלֹא יִשְׁתַּחֲוֶה … וַיְהִי כְּאָמְרָם אֵלָיו יוֹם וָיוֹם וְלֹא שָׁמַע אֲלֵיהֶם וַיַּגִּידוּ לְהָמָן לִרְאוֹת הֲיַעַמְדוּ דִּבְרֵי מָרְדֳּכַי כִּי־הִגִּיד לָהֶם אֲשֶׁר־הוּא יְהוּדִי – All the king’s courtiers in the palace gate knelt and bowed low to Haman, for such was the king’s order concerning him; but Mordechai would not kneel or bow low… When they spoke to him day after day and he would not listen to them, they told Haman, in order to see whether Mordechai’s resolve would prevail; for he had explained to them that he was a Jew.  (3:2,4)

The Sfas Emes highlights how only someone with the dedication and sensitivity to care day in and day out, who recognizes the value in showing up every day, will have the staying power to withstand the formidable challenge of swimming against a powerful current, resisting prevailing norms to face off with one of the most powerful villains in Jewish history.

But for the person with that kind of determination and perseverance, this story offers not just a recital of history but an assurance for the future that this sort of person will not bow – לֹא יִכְרַע וְלֹא יִשְׁתַּחֲוֶה. We all choose whether to bow to the forces of Haman in our lives or whether to go with the flow, getting dragged along through passive inertia.

The Sfas Emes notes that this promise is directed at us, the readers of the future, an assurance that in all times and places, there will always be a person who refuses to bow. When the story introduces us to Mordechai, the protagonist, it doesn’t even say his name, giving him a generic title, a Jewish man – אִישׁ יְהוּדִי. The unnamed Jewish hero can be anyone; in that time and place, his name was Mordechai.

Our sages suggest an alternate reading, not that there was a Jewish man, but that there was a single man, one person who could stand alone in the face of adversity – יהודי / יחידי.

One isn’t much, but in truth, one can be enough. One spark can burst into flame. One compliment can build newfound confidence. One date can turn into a lifelong relationship.

One person’s commitment to their ideals and courage to stand up for their beliefs can inspire others to stand with them. One person’s kindness or generosity can generate a ripple effect that influences everything else. One person can change the course of history and leave a lasting impact on the world.

Your choices and actions can extend far beyond yourself and deep into the lives of countless others and catalyze powerful transformation; even minor actions can produce significant results. One idea or action can make a difference.

As the story and this teaching remind us, Mordechai might have been the only one, but one person is all it takes.

One person is enough.

Sacred Fire

3 minute read
Straightforward

The Torah reports God’s instruction to Moshe to conduct a census of the Jewish People by counting adult males. The conventional methodology of counting is inappropriate for this task, and God orders Moshe to instead use a proxy for counting heads – a half-shekel fixed financial contribution per person. Count the donations, and that’s how many people there are – one step removed:

כִּי תִשָּׂא אֶת־רֹאשׁ בְּנֵי־יִשְׂרָאֵל לִפְקֻדֵיהֶם וְנָתְנוּ אִישׁ כֹּפֶר נַפְשׁוֹ לַה’ בִּפְקֹד אֹתָם וְלֹא־יִהְיֶה בָהֶם נֶגֶף בִּפְקֹד אֹתָם׃ זֶה  יִתְּנוּ כּל־הָעֹבֵר עַל־הַפְּקֻדִים מַחֲצִית הַשֶּׁקֶל בְּשֶׁקֶל הַקֹּדֶשׁ עֶשְׂרִים גֵּרָה הַשֶּׁקֶל מַחֲצִית הַשֶּׁקֶל תְּרוּמָה לַה – “When you take a census of the Israelite men according to their military enrollment, each shall pay the Lord a ransom for himself on being enrolled, that no plague may come upon them through their being enrolled. This is what everyone who is entered in the records shall give: a half-shekel…” (30:12,13)

In almost every instance the Creator speaks, the Torah doesn’t lead us to understand that this speech has any physical element, perhaps not even an audible sound. But in the instruction to count the Jewish People, the Torah uses language that is tangibly concrete and physical – זֶה  יִתְּנוּ –  “This shall they give.”

Sensitive to this nuance, our sages suggest that the Creator pulled a fiery coin in the form of a half-shekel from beneath the Divine Throne and showed it to Moshe – “This.”

We might understand the premise of a vision that helps Moshe practically understand the physical properties of such a coin. But the coin described isn’t a metal coin; it is a fiery coin.

Why was the coin made of fire?

Interactions with the Creator commonly feature fire as a standard building block of prophetic vision. Fire is immaterial, visible energy – not to mention dangerous and scary. The effortless control of fire is a powerful  symbol of the Creator’s total control over the elements and matter.

But our sages’ words teach far more than predictable cliche.

Tosfos point out that Moshe had seen money before and understood what a coin was; where he was struggling was the notion that something as mundane and terrestrial as money could affect the soul. The Kotzker suggests that the Creator pulls a fiery coin out from beneath the Divine Throne in response, not because there is power in currency, but in its fire – the fire and spirit that animate the giving is what have the redemptive effect on the soul. “This.”

The Noam Elimelech teaches that the point isn’t that the specific coin the Creator summoned was made of fire; but that all coin is fire.

Fire is technology, and its use depends on the user and the context. Fire can symbolize creativity, transformation, and destruction; it can mean heat and warmth or burning ruin. Money is also a form of technology, a medium of exchange that facilitate transactions and the exchange of goods and services. Like fire, each exchange is transformative and can be creative or destructive.

It’s not wrong to have money. It’s not wrong to want money. But it’s dangerous to love money, embracing the fire – that’s how you burn the house down. It’s essential to strike a balance; money is just a tool. It is not just a means to improve your own life but the lives of many others; love the goodness you can do with it.

Our sages teach that righteous people value their money more than their own bodies. R’ Meir Shapiro suggests that is because righteous people know how much they can do with it; how many poor families they can feed, and how many communal institutions they can support.

If all coin is like the fiery half-shekel everyone gave, we ought to remember that it symbolized the equality of all community members and was the symbol of their obligations to support the community and its institutions. Your giving must be broad and generous, animated with a spirit that sets your soul on fire.

Our sages teach us that the Creator pulled the coin from beneath the Divine Throne.

Remember that’s where it comes from – and be careful not to burn yourself.

Taking God’s Name in Vain

3 minute read
Straightforward

One of the Ten Commandments is the commandment against taking God’s name lightly:

לֹא תִשָּׂא אֶת־שֵׁם־ה’ אֱלֹקיךָ לַשָּׁוְא כִּי לֹא יְנַקֶּה ה’ אֵת אֲשֶׁר־יִשָּׂא אֶת־שְׁמוֹ לַשָּׁוְא – Do not take the name of the Lord your God in vain; for the Lord will not hold guiltless the one that takes His name in vain. (20:7)

This law encourages people to treat God’s name with reverence and respect, affirming that abusing God’s name shows a lack of humility and gratitude and is a way of disdaining the Creator’s power and authority. Practically speaking, observant Jews today do not pronounce God’s name as written and are careful in treating any document containing God’s written name, using substitutes instead, like Creator, Hashem, Lord, or God.

But what does it mean to take God’s name in vain?

Some people believe it to mean cursing. Others think it means casually swearing, like “I swear to God” or “God damn it.” Refraining from coarse and foul language is a good idea and a worthy struggle, but that doesn’t capture the essence of this law.

To be sure, swearing, in the old-fashioned sense, is partly covered. In any matter of doubt, a person would hold a religious article and swear in God’s name; the willingness to take an oath in God’s name with the implied invitation of punishment if the oath-taker was lying is taken to support the truth of the statement being sworn to.

But this is not the commandment against false oaths – that would be covered by the Tenth Commandment.

To do something in vain is to do something without success or result; Rashi narrowly suggests that this law is about a pointless invocation of God’s name, like swearing that the sky is blue. Everyone knows that – that would be taking God’s name in vain.

The Ohr HaChaim suggests a broader and more profound meaning to this law. The verb of the mitzvah means to carry or to bear; the prohibition is on bearing God’s name lightly, carrying it with you in deception. It means falsely invoking God to advance your own self-interest, being false with God or others in God’s name, or, in other words, holding yourself out as more pious and righteous than you are.

On Rosh Hashana, we read the story of Chana. Chana was married to a righteous man named Elkanah, who had another wife, Penina. Penina had children, and Chana did not. When it was time to bring a sacrifice in the Sanctuary, the whole family went to Shilo and enjoyed the festivities. Penina teased Chana about where her children were, and Chana cried and refused to eat. When Elkanah saw her crying, he tried to comfort her, but Chana would not be comforted. She went to the courtyard, silently poured out her heart in prayer, and was soon blessed with a son, the legendary prophet Shmuel.

We read this story in part because it illustrates the power of prayer, but it also shows something else.

Penina’s behavior is striking in its shocking cruelty. Her only saving grace is that she had the best intentions, which is that she wanted to push Chana to the point that she’d pray and be answered. And the story bears this out – Penina is indeed the catalyst.

The Kotzker highlights how her behavior was so monstrously evil that it could only have been for the highest and most sacred purpose, or, in other words, bearing God’s name in vain.

R’ Jonathan Sacks notes how much religious extremism and violence are committed in the name of God. As the Dudaei Reuven notes, all the most terrible crimes against humanity are carried out under the cloak of truth, justice, and uprightness.

If only it were as easy as substituting an “Oh my goodness” for an “Oh my God.”

Whenever a calamity happens, the proper thing to do is introspect and repent. But there will always be a clown who says it’s because of this or that: talking in shul, hair coverings, knee coverings, the gays, or whatnot. Next time you notice, note how they deceptively invoke God’s name to establish an in-group and out-group dynamic, virtue signal, and manipulate people to advance their agenda and control others – all with the best intentions.

Don’t tell a grieving family it’s part of God’s plan. Do not say or do awful things to others and claim it’s God’s will or what God wants. That’s using God’s name in vain.

Taking God’s name seriously demands that we audit and introspect ourselves for self-righteousness and any sense of self-serving holier-than-thou superiority. It is complex and requires us to live intentionally with decency, humility, and honesty toward others and ourselves.

The Rain Maker

4 minute read
Straightforward

After the daily morning service, most prayer books have a variety of additional prayers. One of them is Parshas HaMan, the section of the Torah that introduces the manna, miracle food from the sky that appeared when the Jewish People were starving and needed it most.

Our sages understand this phenomenon as the ultimate representation of the power over our livelihood and sustenance – Parnassa.

It’s a prayer people take extremely seriously as a ritual for merit related to our livelihood, and with good reason. Financial insecurity is one of a human’s most elemental and basic fears. It originates in the subconscious; every living creature fears going hungry.

The Beis Yosef says it’s a good thing to say every day, and Rabbeinu Bachya adds that whoever says it daily is guaranteed never to lack a livelihood. R’ Menachem Mendel of Rimanov established the popular custom of saying it on the Tuesday afternoon of Parshas Beshalach, the section it appears in, with a similar promise.

Some people believe in saying the prayer as the golden ticket to ultimate security.

But if we take a closer read of the story on its terms, we might be surprised by what it has to say to us.

First of all, the way the the story presents itself is that the Creator states at the outset that what will follow is a test of faith – הִנְנִי מַמְטִיר לָכֶם לֶחֶם מִן־הַשָּׁמָיִם וְיָצָא הָעָם וְלָקְטוּ דְּבַר־יוֹם בְּיוֹמוֹ לְמַעַן אֲנַסֶּנּוּ הֲיֵלֵךְ בְּתוֹרָתִי אִם־לֹא.

A big part of the test is to take only what your family needs – לִקְטוּ מִמֶּנּוּ אִישׁ לְפִי אכְלוֹ עֹמֶר לַגֻּלְגֹּלֶת מִסְפַּר נַפְשֹׁתֵיכֶם אִישׁ לַאֲשֶׁר בְּאהֳלוֹ תִּקָּחוּ.

Our animal instinct resists the notion of taking only enough for today; it wants to be acquisitive and gather a stockpile just in case. But however much or little people took, it was only ever just enough – וַיַּעֲשׂוּ־כֵן בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וַיִּלְקְטוּ הַמַּרְבֶּה וְהַמַּמְעִיט. וַיָּמֹדּוּ בָעֹמֶר וְלֹא הֶעְדִּיף הַמַּרְבֶּה וְהַמַּמְעִיט לֹא הֶחְסִיר אִישׁ לְפִי־אכְלוֹ לָקָטוּ.

What’s more, people ignored the explicit instruction against holding and stockpiling, and gather more than they needed – just in case! But it turned rotten and maggoty overnight – וְלֹא־שָׁמְעוּ אֶל־מֹשֶׁה וַיּוֹתִרוּ אֲנָשִׁים מִמֶּנּוּ עַד־בֹּקֶר וַיָּרֻם תּוֹלָעִים וַיִּבְאַשׁ וַיִּקְצֹף עֲלֵהֶם מֹשֶׁה.

R’ Meilich Biderman highlights how Dasan and Aviram, the ever-present villains throughout, try to be sneaky and gather a second helping of manna. Apart from their rebellious act being pointless because the manna goes bad, R’ Meilich points out how short-sighted and plain stupid it is, even beyond the context of magic sky food.

Because if there’s no fresh manna, then in the best case, they have enough to get them through tomorrow. Then what? What about the day after? They have broken the rules, acted selfishly and faithlessly, and aren’t better off; they still live with the same structural uncertainty as anyone else, with only the imagined safety of perhaps a day or two because that’s just how life works.

The story reminds us about the need to put in a certain amount of work every day – וְלָקְטוּ דְּבַר־יוֹם בְּיוֹמוֹ.

It reminds us that working on Shabbos is fruitless – שֵׁשֶׁת יָמִים תִּלְקְטֻהוּ וּבַיּוֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִי שַׁבָּת לֹא יִהְיֶה־בּוֹ׃ וַיְהִי בַּיּוֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִי יָצְאוּ מִן־הָעָם לִלְקֹט וְלֹא מָצָאוּ.

From the time Adam was cursed to work at the sweat of his brow, and today, arguably more than ever, humans have had to grapple with hustle culture, the idea that working long hours and sacrificing self-care are required to succeed. The Chafetz Chaim reminds us that people who collected more or less weren’t better or worse off than each other; everyone had just enough – וְלֹא הֶעְדִּיף הַמַּרְבֶּה וְהַמַּמְעִיט לֹא הֶחְסִיר אִישׁ לְפִי־אכְלוֹ לָקָטוּ.

We would do well to remind ourselves that our opportunities never come from where we expect and rarely do they look how we expect – וַיִּרְאוּ בְנֵי־יִשְׂרָאֵל וַיֹּאמְרוּ אִישׁ אֶל־אָחִיו מָן הוּא כִּי לֹא יָדְעוּ מַה־הוּא.

R’ Meilich Biderman reminds us that the nature of this story is likened to rain – הִנְנִי מַמְטִיר לָכֶם לֶחֶם מִן־הַשָּׁמָיִם. Humans don’t have the power to make it rain at all, much less the ability to make it rain in a particular amount or moment; act accordingly. We control our output but not the outcome; making a given amount of money isn’t within reach, but making ten phone calls is.

Taking an abstract view of this story, there are clear and relevant lessons we can conclude from a straightforward reading of Parshas HaMan. Perhaps the most significant part of the test represented by the manna is that it doesn’t solve for security at all; quite the opposite. It invites us to live securely within the insecurity – אַל־יוֹתֵר מִמֶּנּוּ עַד־בֹּקֶר.

The book of Jeremiah tells of how the people neglected the Torah in favor of work, believing they would have nothing to eat if they didn’t work relentlessly. Jeremiah held up the jug of manna to remind them that the Creator does not require much to work with to sustain us – כִּי לֹא עַל־הַלֶּחֶם לְבַדּוֹ יִחְיֶה הָאָדָם כִּי עַל־כּל־מוֹצָא פִי ה’ יִחְיֶה הָאָדָם

The best response to uncertainty is not a wild grasp at certainty; it is being fully present in the moment. Step up, survey the landscape, and make decisions even when uncertain. One of the great lessons of faith is the understanding that everything is going to be okay, even if we don’t know how.

Reciting the prayer or reading the story affirms where our security comes from: Above. It affirms what we must do daily – do the work to care for your family, but don’t take someone else’s portion. It affirms that you must do enough for today and be hopeful for tomorrow because there is no blessing to be found in hoarding today’s resources.

This story probably doesn’t have the power to give you riches, but it might give you something some of the richest can only ever dream of – enough.

As our Sages guided us, who is wealthy? One who celebrates and takes joy in what he has – אֵיזֶהוּ עָשִׁיר, הַשָּׂמֵחַ בְּחֶלְקוֹ.

On your quest to be the rainmaker, remind yourself regularly Who makes it rain.

The Unburning Bush

5 minute read
Straightforward

One of the most enduring and iconic scenes in the Torah is the episode of the burning bush.

It is noteworthy for the obviously supernatural, but it is also the turning point in the Exodus story. Having described the cruel extent of the Jewish People’s enslavement and suffering, the burning bush is the moment the Creator reaches out to Moshe to intervene, setting events into motion that permanently shape human civilization for the remainder of human history to this day.

Moshe had fled Egypt as a fugitive and had built a new identity and life as a shepherd in Midian. One day in the wilderness, he chased a stray lamb and had an encounter with the arcane:

וּמֹשֶׁה הָיָה רֹעֶה אֶת־צֹאן יִתְרוֹ חֹתְנוֹ כֹּהֵן מִדְיָן וַיִּנְהַג אֶת־הַצֹּאן אַחַר הַמִּדְבָּר וַיָּבֹא אֶל־הַר הָאֱלֹקים חֹרֵבָה׃ וַיֵּרָא מַלְאַךְ ה’ אֵלָיו בְּלַבַּת־אֵשׁ מִתּוֹךְ הַסְּנֶה וַיַּרְא וְהִנֵּה הַסְּנֶה בֹּעֵר בָּאֵשׁ וְהַסְּנֶה אֵינֶנּוּ אֻכָּל׃… וַיֹּאמֶר אַל־תִּקְרַב הֲלֹם שַׁל־נְעָלֶיךָ מֵעַל רַגְלֶיךָ כִּי הַמָּקוֹם אֲשֶׁר אַתָּה עוֹמֵד עָלָיו אַדְמַת־קֹדֶשׁ הוּא׃… וַיֹּאמֶר ה’ רָאֹה רָאִיתִי אֶת־עֳנִי עַמִּי אֲשֶׁר בְּמִצְרָיִם וְאֶת־צַעֲקָתָם שָׁמַעְתִּי מִפְּנֵי נֹגְשָׂיו כִּי יָדַעְתִּי אֶת־מַכְאֹבָיו… וְעַתָּה הִנֵּה צַעֲקַת בְּנֵי־יִשְׂרָאֵל בָּאָה אֵלָי וְגַם־רָאִיתִי אֶת־הַלַּחַץ אֲשֶׁר מִצְרַיִם לֹחֲצִים אֹתָם׃… וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹקים אֶל־מֹשֶׁה אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה וַיֹּאמֶר כֹּה תֹאמַר לִבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל אֶהְיֶה שְׁלָחַנִי אֲלֵיכֶם׃ – Now Moshe, tending the flock of his father-in-law Yisro, the priest of Midian, drove the flock into the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. An angel of the Lord appeared to him in a blazing fire out of a bush. He saw the bush in flames, yet the bush was not consumed… And He said, “Do not come closer. Remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you stand is holy ground…” And the Lord continued, “I have seen the plight of My people in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I am mindful of their suffering… Now the cry of the Israelites has reached Me; moreover, I have seen how the Egyptians oppress them… And God said to Moshe, “I will be what I will be.” He continued, “Tell the Israelites, “I Will Be,” sent me to you.’” (3:1,2,5,7,9,14)

Apart from the local significance of this story, this interaction is one of the Torah’s vanishingly rare instances of a theophany, a physical manifestation of the divine in a tangible, observable way, which is always accompanied by an upending of the natural order – the appearance of physics-bending supernatural properties.

In our experience, fire requires fuel to combust; that’s what generates flames. There is no such thing as burning without fuel because fire and burning are inseparable; they are the same thing.

A bush that doesn’t burn is cryptic, yet the symbol is deliberate; God doesn’t act gratuitously or because it sounds cool.

Why does God choose the form of a burning bush to communicate with Moshe?

God’s self-introduction is essential and, in a way, tells us a lot about what God wants us to know. God self-identifies as אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה, a complex form of the infinitive “to be.” It might mean “I am what I am,” or perhaps “I will be what I will be.”

The Midrash expounds on this conversation and says that when God seeks to be seen as compassionate, God is called Hashem. When God desires justice, God is called God. What that means, then, is that God is fluid and free-spirited, always in a state of being and becoming, transcending any single definition. We can not understand God as God is; we can only understand what God does. This is perhaps symbolized by the fire that was not sustained by the bush; God’s existence doesn’t depend on anything or anyone external, is fully self-sustaining, and is the source of all energy in the universe.

The burning bush is also a metaphor that contains the imagery and symbolism of Moshe’s place in everything to come. Moshe was in the desert, and God appeared before Moshe noticed; God was already there. God is there, and engages Moshe specifically because he notices the bush – וַיַּרְא ה’ כִּי סָר לִרְאוֹת וַיִּקְרָא אֵלָיו. What Moshe sees isn’t a burning bush but an unburning bush, a fire that doesn’t seem to consume the bush – מַדּוּעַ לֹא־יִבְעַר הַסְּנֶה.

The Zohar suggests that God’s message through the unusual properties of the burning bush is that fire will not consume the bush, and the fires of exile will not destroy Jewish people. With God’s protection, they would not be consumed. As the thornbush is the least of the plants, the Jewish People have historically occupied a low position in Egypt, and the burning fire is a symbol of oppression. The bush burning yet not being consumed symbolized that the oppressed people would be hurt but not destroyed by their enemies and that their hostility would be ultimately unsuccessful and fruitless.

R’ Shlomo Farhi suggests that this contains a crucial insight into what qualified Moshe, above all others, to be the lawgiver and redeemer of the Jewish People, trusted over all others. In times of difficulty, positive and upbeat people will attempt to focus and redirect their attention towards positivity; look on the bright side; it could be worse, it’s part of God’s plan – heads in the sand, ignoring and pretending away the pain of whatever is taking place. Pessimistic people can be fully consumed by how terrible and unfortunate it is, how bad things are, and how bad it hurts; the essence of who they are gives way entirely to the ordeal.

Neither is wrong, but this story teaches a third way. Moshe sees past the bush that is on fire; he sees a fire that does not consume, which, as applied to the circumstances of his people, suggests an attitude of recognizing that the devastating pain of his people falls short of total ruin. Moshe can hold the notion of their suffering in mind without a diminished understanding of the nature of what they were: in immense pain and suffering, totally on fire, and yet still fundamentally whole, that things were hard, but everything was going to be okay.

Moshe would not look away from a Jew getting beaten by a taskmaster, and he would not look away from Jews fighting each other. He didn’t ignore their hurt, nor did he magnify it. He didn’t say they’d be okay or to get over it. He didn’t passively witness any of those things; he actively engaged with them.

This encounter also reveals where God can be found. God is to be found in the wilderness, in the void, and in the middle of nowhere – בּמִּדְבָּר; in the middle of destruction, in the burning pain of exile – בֹּעֵר בָּאֵשׁ; and also nature and the low places – מִתּוֹךְ הַסְּנֶה. In other words, this symbol deconstructs any preconceived notions about God’s inaccessibility.

God tells Moshe to remove his shoes because the place he stands is holy soil; the Chafetz Chaim teaches that this statement is universal and stands for all people at all times – God can be found within every and any moment. A person who lives with the awareness that the place you stand is also the place God is found lives with the secret of creation – that the Divine is here with us here and now.

The burning bush symbolizes the Divine Presence before redemption. The Midrash teaches that God feels our pain and is a partner in our troubles. The burning bush is an image of God’s presence and protection in the face of danger and oppression and reveals where we can find God – in hard times and places.

Resurgence Redux

4 minute read
Straightforward

Some things are elastic, which means that when one variable changes, another one does too. In our everyday life, we recognize that when people want more or less of a product or service, the price will correspondingly flex, an example of economic elasticity.

In physics, when you coil a spring from its resting position, it exerts an opposing force approximately proportional to its change in length; the greater the force compressing the spring, the stronger the corresponding tension that will be released. Children quickly learn this when playing with rubber bands; the release of built-up energy is extremely powerful, not to mention painful.

There is also a certain elasticity in the world of spirit.

In stories, life, and all things, there is a moment of failure, a catastrophic fall from grace, the abyss.

It is inevitable; we live in a dynamic world, a fluid environment where failure is possible. On one reading of the Creation story, placing clueless people in a world of stumbling blocks all but guarantees failure. We try to do all sorts of great things and fall short. We fail. Whether to a greater or less extent, we fail and live in a world of failure.

Some failures are particularly acute.

The last chapters of the stories of Genesis revolve around failure. Yehuda has a catastrophic fall from grace, going from being the respected leader of his brothers to an exile, leaving his family, marrying a heathen, and losing his way entirely. Joseph has a corresponding fall from grace, being forced out of his family, trafficked into slavery, and finding himself in a prison dungeon. Something thematically similar happens in the Chanuka story, where the Greek empire occupied Israel and successfully suppressed Jewish practice to the extent that pigs were openly slaughtered as sacrifices to Zeus in the Beis Hamikdash.

But then something magical happens that follows these failures; transformation.

The Proverbs describe how righteous people stumble seven times and rise, and wicked people stumble on their evil just once and are done for – כִּי שֶׁבַע יִפּוֹל צַדִּיק וָקָם וּרְשָׁעִים יִכָּשְׁלוּ בְרָעָה.

The Metzudas David notes that in this conception, the definition of righteousness is in the rising, the wicked in staying down. The Kedushas Levi points out that the proverb still calls a person who falls righteous because it says the person rises after they fall – יִפּוֹל / צַדִּיק / וָקָם.

R’ Yehoshua Hartman suggests that part of what makes a comeback inevitable is the emptiness in the fall; the bland and hollow present contains the potential for a different future, the building blocks the future can be built out of.

As the Chozeh of Lublin teaches, it is the awareness and recognition of downfall that triggers the possibility of redemption – אַחֲרֵי נִמְכַּר גְּאֻלָּה תִּהְיֶה־לּוֹ.

The power of transformation is magical, but it’s entirely within our reach. Bilvavi Mishkan Evneh observes that failures are not an obstacle to growth but the source of it. In other words, every fall is a spring containing the energy of a comeback, a second wind, a resurgence, or an upturn. It often comes after exhaustion and complete deconstruction.

From rock bottom, the heart of darkness, Yehuda and Joseph rise from the abyss and climb higher than the rest in both the physical and spiritual worlds, even paving the way for the aspect of Mashiach they embody. Yehuda makes amends and rises to rule as king, and Joseph forgives his brother and rises to reunite and sustain them all. The Maccabees improvise with what little they have to re-establish Judaism permanently.

The Seder night embeds this profound lesson into a physical ritual with bitter herbs, the memory of our ancestors’ suffering; in the bitterness and inability to tolerate suffering any longer, the Chiddushei Harim recognizes the genesis and awakening of redemption, the beginning of the journey towards freedom. Just by identifying the problem, you are well on the way to a solution; as our sages teach, a question well asked is already half answered.

Nested here is a template for all change, reconceptualizing disorder as a catalyst for transformation and overcoming challenges.

Our sages affirm the power of a comeback; repentant people can get to places that no one else can – מקום שבעלי תשובה עומדים, אין צדיקים גמורים יכולים לעמוד. The Chafetz Chaim told R’ Elchanan Wasserman that Yakov made the unusual comment of needing to see Yosef before he died because the place Yosef would go after surviving his ordeals was far beyond the place Yakov would be.

Intuitively, the potential precedes all forms of the actual; our sages teach that Teshuva predates Creation. Our sages describe the integrated coexistence of God’s greatness within smallness, which perhaps we can perceive in the force to bounce back already existing in the moment of failure; the potential for greatness is present, even if not yet manifest.

We typically recognize a passive transition from darkness to light – מאפלה לאורה. R’ Yitzchak Hutner challenges us to realize within ourselves the transformative ability to actively create light from the very darkness itself – מאפלה לאורה. In R’ Hutner’s formulation, only fools believe that the rise is in spite of the fall; the truth is that the rise is because of the fall. Science bears this out; the force that makes the sun set is the same as the same one that will make it rise.

Change isn’t an external thing that happens passively, not some irresistible force. You are not a leaf blowing in the wind; what comes before is not the final form. You must surrender to the challenge, giving yourself wholly to it, annihilating the self that comes before, to return in the higher form that has risen to the occasion, death and rebirth.

The heights you can reach are directly linked to the contours of your failure.

You will fall; you can be sure of it.

You may even lose your spark.

But you will rise like the sun.

Living with Newness

4 minute read
Straightforward

One of the foundational skills children learn early on is how to read a clock.

What time is it?

It’s not simply a question of hours and minutes; there is something deeper to the question. If you know what time it is, you also know what to do. It’s morning, wake up and eat breakfast before school or work. It’s nighttime, time to wind down and go to sleep. The time of day, the time of year, the seasons, and the calendar all establish the boundaries and time frames upon which our world is built, with specific routines for morning, afternoon, evening, and night, summer, fall, winter, and spring.

Different cultures have established various systems and calendars to measure time. Today, most of the world uses the Gregorian calendar, a fixed calendar determined by how long the earth takes to make one complete orbit around the sun.

The Torah asks us to track time using the moon as a frame of reference; when people spot the new moon, they report it to the highest court, which declares the beginning of a new month – Rosh Chodesh. It’s not Rosh Chodesh because there’s a new moon, but because the Jewish leaders say so. It’s the very first commandment in the Torah, given to the Jewish People still enslaved in Egypt:

הַחֹדֶשׁ הַזֶּה לָכֶם רֹאשׁ חֳדָשִׁים רִאשׁוֹן הוּא לָכֶם לְחדְשֵׁי הַשָּׁנָה – This month shall mark for you the beginning of the months; it shall be the first of the months of the year for you. (12:1)

There are many mitzvos, so one has to come first. But why is establishing the lunar calendar through Rosh Chodesh the first mitzvah, as opposed to any other?

The story of the birth of the Jewish People begins at a time of stuckness, with the Jewish People systematically subjugated and oppressed, powerless objects with no choice or control over their circumstances.

Although slavery is illegal in most of the world, it persists today. What’s more, slavery isn’t just an abstract legal status or even just a phenomenon that still occurs in some dark corner of the world; it’s also a state of mind, body, and soul that can happen to anyone. Thankfully, we don’t have much primary lived with the experience criminal aspect of actual human trafficking, but if you’ve ever felt helpless, powerless, or stuck, you have experienced an element of slavery.

When we internalize that forces of change exist and that we have the power to harness and steer them, the possibilities are limitless. This moment can be different to the moments that have come before; this newness is the beginning of all newness – הַחֹדֶשׁ הַזֶּה לָכֶם רֹאשׁ חֳדָשִׁים רִאשׁוֹן הוּא לָכֶם לְחדְשֵׁי הַשָּׁנָה.

The Shem miShmuel explains that the power of the Exodus story is that its story of freedom on a national level offers us the opportunity to become free of the tendencies and troubles that hound us on a personal level. The sense of futility, powerlessness, and stuckness from being burnt out or overwhelmed is poison. With the power to change, hard times don’t need to be so scary anymore, and the world isn’t threatening; it can be full of exciting possibilities. It follows that the first mitzvah is the one that empowers us to change by giving us a symbol of change.

One preeminent historian has observed that the worst thing about history is that people try to correct the past. People try to save the past, which is impossible; you cannot go back to the past and save the people there or prevent past injuries. We only have the present circumstances and perhaps a hopeful look to the future.

But as much as stuckness can come from attachment to the past, R’ Nachman of Breslev teaches us to avoid dwelling too much on the future and focus on the present day and present moment. As R’ Hanoch Heinoch of Alexander teaches, we can attach ourselves to vitality by being present – וְאַתֶּם הַדְּבֵקִים ה’ אֱלֹקיכֶם חַיִּים כֻּלְּכֶם הַיּוֹם.

The Torah often speaks to us in terms of here and now – וְעַתָּה / הַיּוֹם. Our sages take these references to Teshuva, our capacity and power to change and repent – וְעַתָּה יִשְׂרָאֵל מָה ה’ אֱלֹקיךָ שֹׁאֵל מֵעִמָּךְ כִּי אִם־לְיִרְאָה. Because in one day, everything can change – הַיּוֹם אִם־בְּקֹלוֹ תִשְׁמָעוּ. As R’ Baruch of Mezhibozh teaches, forget the past; right now, be a Jew – וְעַתָּה יִשְׂרָאֵל!  The Chafetz Chaim takes this to be a reference to introspection – וְעַתָּה יִשְׂרָאֵל מָה ה’ אֱלֹקיךָ שֹׁאֵל מֵעִמָּךְ – what does this moment require?

It follows that our sages wisely guide us to seize every moment; if not now, when? As the Chiddushei Harim observes, every “now” has a different duty, calling for some new, renewed, or entirely other choice or deed. As R’ Ahron of Karlin points out, each moment has its resolution; each moment of existence is incomparably unique, never existing before in the history of Creation, and never to be repeated before becoming irretrievably lost forever.

As the Vilna Gaon points out, Moshe speaks in the present tense to offer us all the power to choose – רְאֵה אָנכִי נתֵן לִפְנֵיכֶם הַיּוֹם בְּרָכָה וּקְלָלָה. Rashi quotes a Midrash that every day, we should perceive our experience of Judaism as brand new – הַיּוֹם הַזֶּה ה’ אֱלֹהֶיךָ מְצַוְּךָ.

Even once a person has resolved to change, they can still be anchored by the weight of their wrongdoing. The Shinover Rav suggests that although the past can’t be undone, it can be creatively reinterpreted, in the way Yosef reframes a troubled past with his brothers to relieve them of their guilt – וְעַתָּה אַל־תֵּעָצְבוּ וְאַל־יִחַר בְּעֵינֵיכֶם כִּי־מְכַרְתֶּם אֹתִי הֵנָּה כִּי לְמִחְיָה שְׁלָחַנִי אֱלֹהִים לִפְנֵיכֶם. What happened then wasn’t so great, but that brought us to where we are, here and now, and you can only move forward from where you are!

The world tracks time using the sun; the Sfas Emes notes that the nations of world history rise and fall like the sun, lasting only when things are bright. The Jewish People track time using the moon, persisting in darkness, and even generating light among total blackness.

The very first mitzvah is the lunar calendar, the only calendar with a visual cue for changing times and a powerful symbol of change, a natural symbolic image of a spiritual reality. It’s not just an instruction to count the time but a commandment to rule over time and even natural phenomena. It is an instruction to live by and with the power of change and renewal. It is a mitzvah to live presently with this moment and make it count.

Every day, every week, and in truth, every moment, is brand new, brimming with freshness, vitality, and renewal.

The Miracle of Resolve

3 minute read
Straightforward

Although modern science has demystified the world, the world is still magical.

With a sense of wonder, you can look at the world as more miraculous than natural without saying there is a difference between the two and without disputing the scientific narrative.

Every breath you take, every sunrise, a child’s smile; these are the kind of things that are so commonplace that we overlook how special they are and take entirely for granted – וְעַל נִסֶּיךָ שֶׁבְּכָל יוֹם עִמָּנוּ וְעַל נִפְלְאוֹתֶיךָ וְטוֹבוֹתֶיךָ שֶׁבְּכָל עֵת עֶרֶב וָבֹֽקֶר וְצָהֳרָיִם.

If we can see the miraculous in nature, then the natural and supernatural are the same.

There is another kind of miracle though, things that are incredibly unlikely, and we naturally perceive these categories of miracles differently.

When we talk about an underdog winning against the odds or a remarkable comeback story, people also talk about miracles of the hidden kind. The history of the State of Israel, or someone recovering from a severe illness, can be spoken about in such terms.

The Chanukah story includes similar elements; the hidden miracle of an underdog defeating a formidable and vastly more powerful enemy – מָסַֽרְתָּ גִבּוֹרִים בְּיַד חַלָּשִׁים וְרַבִּים בְּיַד מְעַטִּים. While unlikely, it was not impossible; it was not openly miraculous or explicitly magical in the way freezing and splitting an ocean is.

The brave victors diligently searched for kosher oil to light the Menorah once more; the enemy had deliberately contaminated and sabotaged all the stores. But in a fortunate turn we could also perceive as miraculous, they discovered one last jar of oil, enough to last one day and night. This, too, was unlikely but not impossible.

They chose to use the entire jar for the first lighting and rededication, and their efforts were met with an open miracle; oil that should have burned for one day lasted eight days and nights, by which time they had been able to prepare more kosher oil. We live in a finite and limited universe where one day’s worth of anything does not last for eight; that’s how numbers and words work. One day’s worth of oil lasting for eight isn’t simply unlikely; it’s not physically possible.

Making a day’s worth of oil last eight days is an incredible display of the Creator’s power, unbelievable unless we acknowledge the magic of it.

Our sages explain intuitively that miracles are never redundant; the natural order is deliberate. The purpose of a miraculous military victory is obvious, perhaps even necessary, with the Torah and the future of the Jewish People in grave danger – כְּשֶׁעָמְדָה מַלְכוּת יָוָן הָרְשָׁעָה עַל־עַמְּךָ יִשְׂרָאֵל לְהַשְׁכִּיחָם תּוֹרָתֶךָ וּלְהַעֲבִירָם מֵחֻקֵּי רְצוֹנֶךָ.

What was the point of making the oil last longer?

The Sfas Emes explains that in terms of lighting the Menorah, it didn’t matter at all. They could have found a hundred jars of oil, or perhaps even zero – circumstances would have permitted the temporary use of any oil.

R’ Shlomo Twerski highlights the capacity of these heroes to hope and search for a jar of oil in the first place when malicious forces had done everything they could to snuff out any chance or possibility of success.

From the perspective of these brave heroes who stood up for the Jewish People, the miracle meant everything. A military victory might be a wink from Heaven that they were correct, as might be political and religious freedom, but the Chanukah miracle left no room for doubt that there is a power in the universe that gives spiritual victories sacred purpose and meaning. It was a smile from Heaven at their efforts; a thumbs up that their hopes and dreams were well placed and mattered.

We are awed by God’s power to shape the universe, but miracles aren’t the only thing that shapes the universe. The power of human desire can also shape the universe and awe the Creator to the point of upending the natural order; magic born of wanting, the miracle of human resolve.

The Chanuka Amida prayer doesn’t talk about God making oil last a long time; it celebrates the daring few who stood up to restore their religion to greatness – בָּאוּ בָנֶיךָ לִדְבִיר בֵּיתֶךָ וּפִנּוּ אֶת־הֵיכָלֶךָ וְטִהֲרוּ אֶת־מִקְדָּשֶׁךָ וְהִדְלִיקוּ נֵרוֹת בְּחַצְרוֹת קָדְשֶׁךָ.

We might take courage from their example that no matter the odds, there is always one last untainted source of light from which everything else can flow and grow; the lone jar, or what in Yiddish is called the pintele Yid. It means the dot of a Jew, the fundamental essence of Jewish identity, and is perhaps related to the concept of the incorruptible soul – חלק אלוק ממעל. This story and this imagery articulate clearly and plainly that there always remains some residual spark that cannot be lost or extinguished; it can only ever lie dormant, waiting patiently for as long as it takes to be rediscovered, to reignite and burst into flame once again.

The magic of Chanuka isn’t only in God’s power to shape the universe by making one day of oil last for eight. The magic of Chanuka is the example of our ancestors utilizing the power of human desire to shape the universe, the miracle of human resolve, something we all possess.

We light Chanukah candles to remember how powerful that truly is.

A World of Kindness

3 minute read
Straightforward

Aside from the obvious quality of our great ancestors as figures we look up to and learn from, our sages teach that specific individuals came to embody certain essential attributes. Even before mysticism, our sages associate Avraham with the virtue of kindness, so much so that he came to be recognized as the avatar, conduit, embodiment, and manifestation of God’s kindness in the world.

That God’s kindness is everywhere is arguably one of Judaism’s first principles. When God explains his attributes to Moshe, only one of them is “abundant,” kindness – וְרַב־חֶסֶד. The first blessing of the Amida praises kindness as God’s predominant form of interaction with the universe – גּוֹמֵל חֲסָדִים טוֹבִים וְקוֹנֵה הַכֹּל. It follows that Judaism’s first ancestor is the archetype of kindness, and the first blessing is named for him – מגן אברהם.

In mysticism, there is a paradox at the heart of our basic reality called the bread of shame – נהמא דכיסופא. It would be a degrading handout for souls to remain in Heaven, basking in the ethereal light for eternity. Our souls are placed into bodies so we can earn our piece of Heaven, and it’s no longer a handout. But the thing is, the notion of earning anything at all is an illusion – the system itself is a gift, the most significant gift of all – עולם חסד יבנה.

As the Mesilas Yesharim teaches, God’s entire purpose in Creation was to have a counterpart with whom to share the gift of God’s goodness. R’ Yerucham Levovitz asks us to recognize the kindness in every moment, from the air we breathe to the grocery store selling oranges – the fact it is a for-profit transaction does not change that the store objectively performs a kind deed by giving you something you want.

Avraham understood that we live in a world of kindness, but the people of Canaan did not share those values, so he sent his steward, Eliezer, to his ancestral homeland to find a suitable match for Yitzchak, his son, and heir. When Eliezer arrives, he prays for God’s kindness to grace his mission:

וַיֹּאמַר  ה’ אֱלֹקי אֲדֹנִי אַבְרָהָם הַקְרֵה־נָא לְפָנַי הַיּוֹם וַעֲשֵׂה־חֶסֶד עִם אֲדֹנִי אַבְרָהָם – And he said, “Lord, God of my master Avraham, grant me good fortune this day, and deal kindly with my master Avraham.” (24:12)

The Midrash highlights how people from the school of Avraham, the master of kindness, still look to God for further kindness. God’s kindness is essential; our sages say we’d fail at everything without God’s help.

The Beis Yisrael notes how in praying for kindness, Eliezer channeled his teacher and master by checking his ego. Feeling arrogant, confident, or self-righteous about such a sacred mission would be easy. It would be natural! He was sent by Avraham, one of the greatest humans to ever live, to find a suitable match – holy work – for Yitzchak, another one of our giants, to manifest the future greatness of Israel, bearers of the Torah, objectives of all Creation. Each element alone would be enough to get carried away, and rightly so!

But the way of Avraham is not to get ahead of yourself, holding onto groundedness and humility come what may – וְאָנֹכִי עָפָר וָאֵפֶר.

The Chiddushei Harim says that Avraham was a good teacher; Eliezer didn’t harp on his master’s merits and accomplishments and didn’t approach God with a sense of claim or entitlement. Indeed, one of the most shocking discoveries along your spiritual journey might be the realization that you don’t have a claim on the Creator; you’ve already been the recipient of abundant kindness any way you look.

But fortunately, God’s kindness is readily available, and God’s preferred mode of interaction with our universe, however masked it may be – חֶסֶד ה’ מָלְאָה הָאָרֶץ.

Avraham doesn’t just teach us the virtue of bestowing kindness on others; Avraham teaches the virtue of receiving kindness and recognizing the Creator as the Source of it all.

You are a grateful person, hopefully, thankful for your health, your family, and the things that get you by. You have been blessed!

But this story contains another lesson – even the spiritual world of Torah and mitzvos is a gift we must appreciate and continue to ask for, no matter how far we have already come.

Fear Redux; Faith Redux

7 minute read
Straightforward

In the context of religion, faith is a natural consequence of professing to believe in God. If there’s a Creator, there must be some plan, and so the thinking goes, we should have faith in it.

Faith means the notion of confidence or trust in a person, thing, or concept; in this case, the Creator – אמונה / בטחון.

But how we talk about faith doesn’t always make sense.

People get afraid and worried about everyday life, like whether they can afford to pay their bills or if their loved one will recover from sickness. The root of every human fear is the notion that we are fundamentally powerless against the forces of the universe.

There can sometimes be a toxic Emunah culture that stifles, suffocates, and squashes real people with real feelings. That sounds like when people say things like don’t worry, God has a plan, or it’s for the best, trust God, and have faith that everything will work out. As the famous song goes, the main thing is to have no fear at all – והעיקר לא לפחד כלל.

Whether spoken or unspoken or even in your own thoughts, there is an invalidation or judgment here; to the extent you feel doubts or fears, you really have to work on your faith because if you had faith in God, you wouldn’t feel afraid – because faith and fear are incompatible and mutually exclusive.

But is that so true?

Firstly, there is a basic problem with the notion that fear is intrinsically wrong. Although many fears are learned, the threshold capacity to fear is part of human nature, a subconscious biological instinct, which, like desire, does not lend itself to moral judgment; it’s simply the basic reality of our lived experience.

Fear is our response to a stimulus occurring in the present or in anticipation or expectation of a future threat perceived as a risk. The fear response arises from the perception of danger leading to a confrontation with or escape from or avoiding the threat, also known as the fight-or-flight response, which in extreme cases of horror and terror can be a freeze response or paralysis.

Fear is visceral and instinctual, hard coded into our DNA, predates human consciousness, and results from an external stimulus, not a character flaw. The survival instinct originates in the most primal parts of the brain – נפש בהמית.

This is a complete defense of feeling our fears.

Moreover, fear is one of the tools the Torah uses to obtain compliance from its readers – וְחָרָה אַף־ה’ בָּכֶם וְעָצַר אֶת־הַשָּׁמַיִם וְלֹא־יִהְיֶה מָטָר וְהָאֲדָמָה לֹא תִתֵּן אֶת־יְבוּלָהּ וַאֲבַדְתֶּם מְהֵרָה מֵעַל הָאָרֶץ הַטֹּבָה אֲשֶׁר ה’ נֹתֵן לָכֶם.

Fear is arguably why many people practice religion; Pascal’s wager argues that a rational person should live as though God exists because if God does not exist, a person only loses a little luxury or pleasure. In contrast, if God exists, a person stands to receive infinite pain or gain in Heaven and Hell.

But far more powerfully, the greats experienced fear too, as the Torah and our prophets testify, which should demolish any misguided self-righteous attempts at invalidating fear, whether in others, our children, or even ourselves.

Fear is not a negative emotion; it is not something we should avoid associating with our great ancestors. Fear is a human emotion, and our great ancestors were humans who felt fear and responded to those fears in ways we can learn from.

When God promises Avraham a grand future, Avraham wonders what God is talking about because, as a childless older man, he naturally experiences doubt, fear, and insecurity about the future – מַה־תִּתֶּן־לִי / בַּמָּה אֵדַע כִּי אִירָשֶׁנָּה. As beings bound by time, our existence is limited from one moment to the next; everyone worries about the future.

When Yakov and his family finally escape Lavan’s clutches, they are intercepted on the run by Esau with 400 warriors, and Yakov is afraid – וַיִּירָא יַעֲקֹב מְאֹד. He has good reason to be afraid – he can send gifts, give weapons to children, and send half the family a day ahead, but he understands the imminent reality that his family might get massacred – הַצִּילֵנִי נָא מִיַּד אָחִי מִיַּד עֵשָׂו כִּי־יָרֵא אָנֹכִי אֹתוֹ פֶּן־יָבוֹא וְהִכַּנִי אֵם עַל־בָּנִים.

When Yosef frames his brothers as part of his ruse to see if they regret his abduction and trafficking, they express fear when they begin to realize that they are entangled with a powerful person who poses a serious threat to them – וַיֵּצֵא לִבָּם וַיֶּחֶרְדוּ אִישׁ אֶל־אָחִיו.

When the young Moshe steps beyond the palace life of his childhood into the world of his people’s suffering, he steps in to save someone from an oppressive Egyptian officer, killing the Egyptian. Realizing that he has crossed the point of no return and stands alone against the might of the Egyptian empire, Moshe feels afraid – וַיִּירָא מֹשֶׁה וַיֹּאמַר אָכֵן נוֹדַע הַדָּבָר.

When Mordechai sends word to Esther about the new legislation authorizing the genocide of the Jewish People, he tells Esther to intervene and go to the king. But Esther doesn’t go immediately; she responds that going to the king without summons is a death sentence. She is afraid to risk her life, and Mordechai must persuade her to overcome those fears to save the Jewish People.

Let there be no doubt that we are talking about giants here, the greatest of greats, heroes of heroes. And they felt fears we can easily recognize as familiar.

It is cruel, not to mention incredibly self-destructive, to idealize a lack of fear.

As one great writer had a child ask his father, can a man still be brave if he’s afraid? Says the father with piercing clarity; it is the only time a man can be brave.

Toxic masculinity is a cultural pressure that says men shouldn’t cry or get scared; our Torah says they do.

As Fred Rogers taught, anything human is mentionable, and the mentionable can become more manageable. When we can talk about our feelings, they can become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary.

A core part of the Jewish mission is the pursuit of wholeness – תמימות / שלימות. It is an act of psychological violence to kill off the emotional aspects of another, or in the case of yourself, self-mutilation. When you cut away the parts of the self capable of feeling a wide range of emotional responses, people wind up disconnected from themselves and the people around them. You get broken people not emotionally in tune with themselves or their surroundings. By definition, wholeness must be compatible with the full spectrum of human emotion; one of the most important tasks of our era is to reconnect with and reunite the severed parts.

The life of our greatest heroes, even people who spoke with God, was an emotional life that was visited by fear and doubt. The difference between the best of us and the rest of us is what they did about it. The Torah’s stories reassure us that we’re not alone and that our feelings are natural and normal.

Fear and faith are compatible, and they exist along the same spectrum. Faith is not blind or mindless; the Torah testifies Avraham’s faith in the middle of his doubt and insecurity – וְהֶאֱמִן בַּה’ וַיַּחְשְׁבֶהָ לּוֹ צְדָקָה.

As the Torah draws to the conclusion of its great story, Moshe hands over the reins to Yehoshua, and encourages him in front of the Jewish People, to be brave and strong in the face of fear; God tells Yehoshua the exact same thing – ‘חִזְקוּ וְאִמְצוּ אַל־תִּירְאוּ וְאַל־תַּעַרְצוּ מִפְּנֵיהֶם כִּי ה אֱלֹקיךָ הוּא הַהֹלֵךְ עִמָּךְ לֹא יַרְפְּךָ וְלֹא יַעַזְבֶךָּ / לֹא תִירָא וְלֹא תֵחָת / וַיְצַו אֶת־יְהוֹשֻׁעַ בִּן־נוּן וַיֹּאמֶר חֲזַק וֶאֱמָץ כִּי אַתָּה תָּבִיא אֶת־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל אֶל־הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר־נִשְׁבַּעְתִּי לָהֶם וְאָנֹכִי אֶהְיֶה עִמָּךְ.

As the Abarbanel teaches, there is no contradiction between fear and faith. Faith in God cannot make a person immune to the powerful natural emotional instinct of fear. Faith means that despite those fears, you act with your highest faculties, guided by Torah, reason, and knowledge, not by fear.

What makes our greats great is that while they sometimes felt afraid, they didn’t stay afraid. They didn’t live in fear or act from a place of fear. In the high-stress moments, they felt it, but it is never mentioned again; they choose to act with confidence, faith, security, and trust that there is a divine plan, the difference between feeling afraid and being afraid.

We see this played out in the aftermath of the scout report of the Land of Israel; the Jewish People are consumed with fear and terror that they will be massacred, that their women and children will be captured, and they want to flee back to Egypt. Too afraid to listen, Yehosua and Caleb’s reassurances fall on deaf ears – וְאַתֶּם אַל־תִּירְאוּ אֶת־עַם הָאָרֶץ כִּי לַחְמֵנוּ הֵם סָר צִלָּם מֵעֲלֵיהֶם ה’ אִתָּנוּ אַל־תִּירָאֻם.

Controlling your emotions doesn’t mean avoiding or denying complex or difficult emotions. It means doing things with your emotions as the passenger, not the driver. When a moment of anger, fear, or sadness comes, feel it, recognize it, and understand it, but don’t lose it. It is not the strength of the body that counts, but the strength of the spirit – אֵיזֶהוּ גִבּוֹר, הַכּוֹבֵשׁ אֶת יִצְרוֹ.

Avraham was right to be anxious about the future; Yakov was right to be scared his family would be massacred in the morning; Moshe was right that one man can’t resist an empire alone; Esther was right that going to the king without an invitation was a death sentence.

In more recent memory, the Jewish world of today is built on foundations laid by Holocaust survivors. These people experienced unthinkable horrors beyond even the greatest subject matter experts. It has been said of the generation that survived the terror of the Holocaust that it was perhaps the greatest act of faith by the Jewish People to trust God and have Jewish children once more.

When you’re afraid, it means you take a threat seriously. It’s pointless to try to stop feeling nervous. Instead, like our heroes, recognize it for what it is, a call to harness all your faculties on the task at hand. Like pain, worry when you don’t feel it.

Judaism and the Torah are situated in the world of action. We bear the timeless and consistent legacy of people who faced their fears and acted with boldness and hope, who felt scared in their darkness yet persisted until the light.

Our great ancestors took action, hoping things would work out, but not with any knowledge or certainty. As our sages point out, they often fear their sins and shortcomings. Their extraordinary acts of faith look like people who feel afraid but do their best to bring about a better outcome, which is well within our reach.

Courage is not the absence of fear but the triumph over it.

Take Responsibility

4 minute read
Straightforward

One of the core themes of the High Holy Days is God’s capacity for and predisposition towards forgiveness, culminating in the day designated and named for forgiveness, Yom Kippur.

But as much as we believe God will forgive anyone, we also believe in the prerequisite requirement to show up and take responsibility. As R’ Jonathan Sacks teaches, forgiveness can only exist where repentance exists, and repentance can only exist where responsibility exists.

Responsibility is a uniquely human quality; it suggests a duty or obligation that can sometimes be burdensome and make you uncomfortable. The Rambam notes that reward and punishment only make sense if humans have moral agency and free choice, or in other words, responsibility. Without choice, it would be unfair and wrong for God to hold you responsible for bad things you did because you were incapable of choosing otherwise; responsibility only exists alongside the ability to decide how to act.

Taking responsibility is the theme of one of the most prominent prayers of the High Holy Days, as well as the span of days before and in between, the Viduy prayer, where everyone publicly confesses a litany of misdemeanors, sins, and wrongdoings while they beat their hearts. There is something beautiful about the entire Jewish people publicly taking responsibility, acknowledging their failures and weaknesses together, and publicly undertaking to do better, even if you’re alone or with total strangers.

It’s beautiful enough that many communities have the custom of singing the confession prayer in tune. It’s not the most upbeat song, but there is an element of happiness and joy in confessing our failings.

The confession isn’t a performative theatrical ritual; honestly acknowledging that you did something wrong is the only way you can begin to fix it. Beyond being a key technical component of Teshuva, confession is how we take responsibility.

As R’ Shlomo Farhi reminds us, taking responsibility transforms how a slight is observed. If you go to a shopping center with piles of rubble, you won’t go back, but you’d feel differently if the store hung signs asking you to excuse their appearance while they undergo renovations scheduled for completion by April. The acknowledgment makes you more patient and forgiving that the experience was below expectations. 

By confessing to a list of severe transgressions that largely – hopefully – don’t apply to you, perhaps it makes it easier for you to acknowledge some of your genuine shortcomings and makes you a little more empathetic to those of the people in your life. We’re all human; like you, we have all made mistakes.

But perhaps beyond taking responsibility with the Jewish People, it’s also partly a confession of responsibility for the Jewish People; our sages teach that the Jewish People are responsible for each other, and we confess in the collective plural – אשמנו.

Who have we let down? For every lost soul, hurt soul, at-risk teen, and struggling family – how do communal structures and systems enable these outcomes, what does the community do or not do, and what can we do differently and hopefully better next time? Think whose pain you’re not seeing or hearing – בגדנו.

We ought to consider the advice we have given over the years, what guidance our leaders and institutions have given our brothers and sisters, and evaluate any negative consequences as part of our responsibility for others – יעצנו רע.

It can only be different or better if you take responsibility and do something about it. Not only is not knowing not an excuse; errors, omissions, and mistakes over things that aren’t your fault are a feature of the confession prayer itself –  על חטא שחטאנו ביודעים ובלא יודעים / בבלי דעת / בשגגה.

If whatever is wrong isn’t your fault, then you can’t do anything differently next time, and nothing can change; it would be impossible to move on and heal from anything wrong with you. You can only do better next time if you can take responsibility.

If you’ve seen two kids playing rough until they get hurt, you know it doesn’t matter if it was a mistake; head injuries don’t require intention, and nor do the things we all do that wind up hurting others.

And if you don’t take responsibility, you are performing empty confession theater, which, with a large scoop of irony, is also a part of the confession prayer – ועל חטא שחטאנו לפניך בוידוי פה.

Accept responsibility for your actions. Be accountable for your results. Take ownership of your mistakes – including the ones that weren’t your fault.

There’s nothing easy about taking responsibility for yourself – it requires enormous reserves of honesty and strength to confront the realization that you are the one who’s been holding yourself back this whole time.

When you take responsibility for yourself, you can stop relying on others to take responsibility for you. You should want to take responsibility for yourself, your life, your family, your friends, your community, and all the people who need you.

A group’s long-term success depends to a large extent on its leader’s willingness to take responsibility for failure; our sages praise people whose words God concurs with, citing the time Moshe intervened to save the Jewish People after the Golden Calf, acknowledging his people’s responsibility for the calamity, and taking responsibility for protecting them:

סְלַח־נָא לַעֲון הָעָם הַזֶּה כְּגֹדֶל חַסְדֶּךָ וְכַאֲשֶׁר נָשָׂאתָה לָעָם הַזֶּה מִמִּצְרַיִם וְעַד־הֵנָּה. וַיֹּאמֶר ה‘ סָלַחְתִּי כִּדְבָרֶךָ׃ – “Please pardon the sin of this people according to Your great kindness, as You have forgiven this people ever since Egypt.” And God said, “I have pardoned, as you have asked.” (14:19,20)

There is a good reason to sing the confession, and it’s the same reason we sing that repentance, charity, and prayer have the power to change the future.

The moment you take responsibility for everything is the moment you can change anything.

Sharing the Load

5 minute read
Straightforward

The Torah’s story traces the origin of the Jewish People, from the dawn of humanity, through our first ancestors and their families, to their eventual subjugation in Egypt. These stories revolve around the struggle to realize God’s promise for their children to live peacefully and securely in their homeland.

The homeland is a core driver of the Torah’s entire story; it’s where the story has been heading from the beginning. With the people stuck in Egypt, God rescues them by sending Moshe to overthrow the world’s most powerful civilization and empire with the aid of transparently magical and supernatural forces, which sustain the Jewish People through years of wandering through a barren wasteland until they finally make it to the border of the Promised Land. This is the culmination of the Torah’s story, and there is going to be a profound transition. 

They’ll have to fend for themselves to a much larger extent, and Moshe won’t be able to join. They won’t be wanderers anymore; they will be colonists and settlers. It’s been a long ride, but they have finally made it. 

The trouble is, no sooner than they’re even in sight of the place when a good twenty percent of the people decide that they don’t really want the Promised Land after all.

Clans from Reuven, Gad, and Menashe take a fancy to the wrong side of the border, which is just too perfect for all their sheep and cattle. So they ask Moshe if they can settle there and relinquish any claim to the Land of Israel, a request that seems as breathtaking in its audacity as its stupidity. 

They turn their back on the literal Promised Land God had promised them and their ancestors. They turn their back on the fulfillment of their ancestors’ hopes and dreams, the promise that was an essential part of their heritage and identity. They even turn their back on respectable values – our sages observe that they asked to build stables for their cattle before mentioning settlements for their children, suggesting that they cherished their money more than their own families.

What’s more, refusing the Promised Land is not just to choose a different physical path but, by definition, a very different spiritual path as well; they arguably turn their back on God in a certain sense. Years later, the Book of Joshua records a story where they have to prove that they still believe in the God of Israel – because that was in question to a certain extent.

Not to mention, entering the Land of Israel is a sensitive topic for Moshe. It’s the thing he is most desperate for, something he prayed countless times for trying to persuade God, and the one instance God refused Moshe and his prayers. These people have his dream within reach, and they don’t even want it!

It’s hard to overstate what a betrayal this was, and Moshe treats it as such. Perhaps the only reason it doesn’t end with the devastation and death that so many similar biblical stories have is that this group didn’t act impetuously; they sought guidance and permission from Moshe. But that doesn’t make the ask any less disturbing. And perhaps, in a sense, asking permission is worse because, at least in the other instances, they were hungry or impassioned!

This interaction is one of Moshe’s last – he’s not going to the Promised Land; he knows this is the end of the line for him, and this will be one of his final lessons. It’s unquestionably one of his most timeless and essential.

Moshe doesn’t take them to task for turning their back on the Promised Land, God, their heritage, their ancestors, or for overrating materialism. He could have set them straight on any or all of those counts, but he doesn’t.

He takes them to task for turning their back on their brothers:

וַיֹּאמֶר מֹשֶׁה לִבְנֵי־גָד וְלִבְנֵי רְאוּבֵן הַאַחֵיכֶם יָבֹאוּ לַמִּלְחָמָה וְאַתֶּם תֵּשְׁבוּ פֹה – Moshe replied to the clans of Gad and Reuven, “Shall your brothers go to war while you remain here?!” (32:6)

In this interaction, Moshe emphasizes the foundational concepts of brotherhood, collective identity, loyalty, and sharing the burden of responsibility.

From the beginning, Moshe’s core defining characteristic has been his loyalty to his people. When he sees someone getting beaten, he risks his life to intervene and protect an otherwise total stranger. He sees his people suffering for too long and boldly accuses God of gratuitous cruelty towards his brothers – לָמָה הֲרֵעֹתָה לָעָם הַזֶּה לָמָּה זֶּה שְׁלַחְתָּנִי. When they lose their way at the Golden Calf, God threatens their destruction, and Moshe sticks up for them, responding with his own threat – וְעַתָּה אִם־תִּשָּׂא חַטָּאתָם וְאִם־אַיִן מְחֵנִי נָא מִסִּפְרְךָ.

Nobody could be more qualified than Moshe to talk about loyalty, and no lesser than God testifies to Moshe’s fidelity, not just to his boss but to his people as well – עַבְדִּי מֹשֶׁה בְּכָל־בֵּיתִי נֶאֱמָן הוּא. In sharp contrast, the villainous Bilam is mocked as a faithless man loyal to nobody but the highest bidder – בלעם / בלא עם.

Our sages teach that all of Israel is interconnected – כל ישראל עֲרֵבִים זה בזה – suggesting not just connected or linked things, but something gestalt, a new entity, wholly integrated into itself. Our sages liken the Jewish People to a boat; if there is a hole in the hull, we recognize the entire vessel, not just the hull, is in danger and requires your immediate attention and repair.

This story is explicitly political; Moshe expressly rejects the individualistic mentality of self-interested autonomy and liberty. It is wrong to enjoy yours before helping your brothers get theirs; your duty and responsibility are to help them get theirs, too, and when we organize our societies, people with a libertarian skew ought to remember Moshe’s words.

The premise of Moshe’s rhetoric is that it is selfish to take without giving back, that it is a self-evident dishonor and disgrace to abandon your brothers to their fates without facing the challenge alongside them. Regardless of your personal beliefs, this orientation is why Chabad volunteers and kiruv professionals set up Jewish infrastructure across the planet and why Israeli citizens commonly take a firm stance on the central importance of national military service.

It is important to note that collective responsibility has an outer boundary; the notion of collective responsibility in guilt is fundamentally problematic and a critical ingredient in genocidal and totalitarian thinking – the Church used such reasoning to justify centuries of antisemitic oppression. The only proper basis for blame and fault is an individual’s moral responsibility, but collective responsibility can still be a helpful concept regarding proactive direction. We didn’t destroy the Temple; that’s not our fault. But we’re collectively responsible for why it hasn’t been rebuilt yet, and we can channel our energies to do better.

Moshe’s emphasis on the responsibility between brothers is the culmination of another central theme of the Torah; the Genesis stories open with Cain asking the existential, haunting, and unanswered question – “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Genesis tells the stories of generations of families that could not learn to keep each other until Yehuda breaks the cycle and risks everything to stand up and be a keeper for his brother Binyamin.

Moshe’s rhetoric in this story is another firm indication that, yes, you are your brother’s keeper, and if you missed that, you haven’t been paying attention. It’s one of the most important interactions you can have; remembering your brother might be one of the simplest rules in life, but it is certainly one of the hardest for us to practice. 

The distorted spirituality and wayward values reflected in the choice to refuse the Promised Land were problematic but somewhat tolerable for Moshe. But disloyalty to their brothers, any loosening of the connection and identity with the greater Jewish People, was a bridge too far.

You might not want to be so observant, or you might not want to sign up for the Israeli army; those might be reasonable personal choices – אַל תָּדוּן אֶת חֲבֵרְךָ עַד שֶׁתַּגִּיעַ לִמְקוֹמוֹ. But you can’t choose to avoid your contribution to the Jewish People’s well-being.

Make no mistake, there is a war out there. Our brothers and sisters are on the front lines battling the forces of assimilation, abuse, apathy, ignorance, illness, intermarriage, and poverty. You probably know your capabilities, and you may or may not have the skills and experience to be a front-line activist, advocate, coordinator, educator, or fundraiser. But honestly consider what you have to offer the Jewish People on any of those fronts, small or large, and remember what one of Moshe’s last teachings asks us.

Shall your brothers go to war while you remain over here?