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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.

The Binding of Isaac Redux

5 minute read
Straightforward

The Binding of Isaac, the Akeida, is one of the most challenging stories in the Torah. Our best and brightest sages and philosophers have grappled with it since time immemorial, and with good reason.

The Torah is the source code for what we understand to be moral. Yet God asks Avraham to murder his son, and the Torah confronts the reader with a fundamental question: can God ask us to do something immoral and wrong?

The story concludes with a retraction of the notion that Avraham would need to follow through and kill his son in God’s name. God is impressed that Avraham doesn’t withhold his son, and we come to understand that God does not ask us to do the unethical. In stopping Avraham at the very last moment, God drives home the point that there is no sanctity in child sacrifice and death; this God is different. This God is the God of life.

But while the ending is illuminating, how we interpret the story until the reversal matters.

To be sure, there is a diverse spectrum of legitimate discourse; we should evaluate the relative standing of teachings by their lessons and values. The ramifications of what we teach our children are enormously consequential, so we need to get it right.

If we think about God’s instruction and say that up until the final moment, God truly meant it and only then changed His mind, then it destroys our conceptualization of universal ethics and morality because they are ad hoc and fluid; morality is only whatever God says it is from one moment to the next.

If we were to think that Avraham had no hesitation in sacrificing his son and that he regretted not being able to obey God’s command, then the whole story makes no sense. Child sacrifice was common in that era – if Avraham were willing to murder his son, it would destroy the entire notion of sacrifice! More pointedly, if Avraham was all too willing to murder his son, it would destroy Avraham as a role model, and it would be perverse to teach children that this is what greatness looks like. Should we be proud if one of our foremost ancestors was an eager child-killing barbarian?

But of course, apart from the fact these interpretations leave us in moral turpitude, they also make no sense in the broader context of the Torah, which explicitly condemns child sacrifice on multiple occasions.

By necessity, we need to reject the notion that Avraham truly wished to sacrifice Yitzchak. The story only makes sense if it was hard – excruciatingly hard, and fortunately, that’s very much the story the Torah tells. At no point does the story suggest that this is easy for Avraham, and actually, quite the opposite.

Until this point in Avraham’s life, his commitment to life and commitment to God were in perfect harmony – God wanted Avraham to be good to others, and he was. Now that God asked him to sacrifice his son, he had a dilemma because his two great commitments were no longer in alignment:

וַיֹּאמֶר קַח־נָא אֶת־בִּנְךָ אֶת־יְחִידְךָ אֲשֶׁר־אָהַבְתָּ אֶת־יִצְחָק וְלֶךְ־לְךָ אֶל־אֶרֶץ הַמֹּרִיָּה וְהַעֲלֵהוּ שָׁם לְעֹלָה עַל אַחַד הֶהָרִים אֲשֶׁר אֹמַר אֵלֶיךָ… בַּיּוֹם הַשְּׁלִישִׁי וַיִּשָּׂא אַבְרָהָם אֶת־עֵינָיו וַיַּרְא אֶת־הַמָּקוֹם מֵרָחֹק… וַיִּשְׁלַח אַבְרָהָם אֶת־יָדוֹ וַיִּקַּח אֶת־הַמַּאֲכֶלֶת לִשְׁחֹט אֶת־בְּנוֹ – And He said, “Please take your son, your favored one, Yitzchak, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the heights that I will point out to you…” On the third day, Avraham looked up and saw the place from afar… And Avraham sent his hand and picked up the knife to slay his son. (22:2,4,10)

The Ran highlights that God never commanded Avraham to sacrifice his son; God only requests it – “Please” – קַח-נָא. This is not an instruction that demands obedience; it is a request that does not mandate compliance.

As Avraham struggled with turmoil about the position he was in, he looked up and saw the mountain in the distance –  וַיִּשָּׂא אַבְרָהָם אֶת-עֵינָיו וַיַּרְא אֶת-הַמָּקוֹם–מֵרָחֹק. The Nesivos Shalom notes that there is a reference to one of God’s names, the Omnipresent, the attribute that God is everywhere and the place of all things – הַמָּקוֹם. In this reading, the whole affair felt wrong to Avraham. He’d opposed human sacrifice pagan worship his entire life, yet here he was, about to destroy his life’s work and snuff out his family legacy. He felt alienated and distanced from God – וַיַּרְא אֶת-הַמָּקוֹם–מֵרָחֹק.

The Torah uses remarkable imagery to characterize what happened in the story’s dramatic crescendo. Avraham does not simply pick up the knife; he “forces his hand” – וַיִּשְׁלַח אַבְרָהָם אֶת-יָדוֹ, וַיִּקַּח אֶת-הַמַּאֲכֶלֶת. The Torah dissociates Avraham from his disembodied hand because Avraham was resisting what he was doing.

The Kotzker suggests that even to the musculoskeletal level, the cumbersome description of Avraham’s belabored muscle movements truly expressed and mirrored God’s desire that Yitzchak would remain unharmed – כָּל עַצְמוֹתַי תֹּאמַרְנָה.

Lastly, R’ Shlomo Farhi notes that Avraham’s entire characterization in this story is lethargic, illustrating the slow heaviness with which he moves through the story. But lethargy runs counter to everything we know about Avraham up to this point! He is introduced to us as someone who eagerly and enthusiastically goes where God tells him, runs after guests to invite them in, and hurries to feed them. In this story, he is in stark contrast with his energetic, vibrant self because he faces the greatest challenge of his life, antithetical to and incompatible with his very being.

Of course, we know how the story ends. God would never ask us to do something unethical. But how we tell the story matters as much as how it ends.

This gut-wrenching story of moral turmoil is held in the highest esteem by humans and by God. And that’s because it wasn’t easy. It is not a story about blind faith and obedience but the opposite.

It is all too rare that we face a moral choice that is truly black and white. Most of the time, it’s not a starving orphaned widow with cancer whose house burned down knocking on the door asking for help. Far more often, we face a difficult choice between competing ideals, none of which will resolve the situation in a manner that perfectly aligns with an established code of ethics or norms.

Will we tell the truth and be honest when confronted, or keep a secret and loyally honor a promise? Will we prioritize individual needs to significantly help a few or communal needs to support many adequately? Will we be just, fair, and equal in our relationships, or will we be compassionate and merciful based on each circumstance? Will we prioritize the present or the future?

We would do well to remember our role models. They weren’t primitive people but refined humans doing their best to navigate a complex world ethically. And while civilization may have changed in form, it hasn’t changed in substance, and humans haven’t changed much at all.

Doing the right thing is hard enough, but you must first identify the right thing, which is far more complex. It gets to the core of our mission in life, and we must take strength from the stories of our greats – this is the way it’s always been, and we must persevere all the same.

Quite tellingly, we read this story on Rosh Hashana. Sure, we read it in part to recall the great merit of our ancestors, and perhaps that is a complete reason.

But maybe it can also remind us that the greats also struggled, and struggles are the precursor of greatness.

What Is Shmini Atzeres About?

2 minute read
Straightforward

The Gemara in Rosh HaShana identifies the festival of Shmini Atzeres as a separate festival in its own right to Sukkos.

Why then, do we refer to the three festivals, when there are in fact four? The other festivals also have clearly stated reasons, commemorating specific events. What is Shmini Atzeres? What is the function of atzeres a chag?

The Nesivos Shalom explains that there are several unique aspects to the day. The Gemara in Sukka teaches that after the 7 day festival of Sukkos, Hashem says “stay a little longer so that I can enjoy your company some more”. In Kabbala, it is identified as the day where the final judgement is delivered and carried out. We also make it the day where we complete and restart the Torah cycle and dance and rejoice.

Why do these events happen on Shmini Atzeres particularly, marking it as different from other festivals, deserving its own category?

The answer can be found in exploring what the significance of the number 8 is. The Maharal explains that the number seven includes everything cyclical, physical and natural. There were 7 days of creation, corresponding to all of the nature contained within. The number 8 supersedes what comes before, 7, and refers to the metaphysical and spiritual, anything supernatural. It is a state above nature.

Anywhere the number 8 is mentioned it refers to a supernatural event. The Mishkan entered regular use on its’ 8th day, which the Gemora in Shabbos discusses as being a day where the prescience of God was so palpable that the whole area shone. Circumcision is done on the 8th day after a child is born. He becomes a fully fledged Jew.

So Shmini Atzeres isn’t like the other 3 festivals. It’s a day of supernatural exposure to God that it can’t be categorised together with the other festivals – all of which are 7 days or less, indicating their operation within nature. It is a day where we mark the completion of God’s gift to us, the Torah.

The other festivals celebrate a particular event in history, such as leaving Egypt. But Shmini Atzeres is a day of such joy that the Sages compared it to the happiness one experiences on their wedding day. All the festivals are a build up to the culmination that is Shmini Atzeres.

Starting at Selichos, the prayers of Ellul, we open the Ark for prayer. On Rosh HaShana this develops into opening the Ark many times, and on Yom Kippur, this develops further at to taking several Torah scrolls out and parading them, and the concluding service has the Ark kept open the entire time. On Hoshana Rabba we take out all the scrolls and stand at the front.

But then comes the crowning moment: Shmini Atzeres and Simchas Torah. We all dance with the Torah. It’s a day of such ecstasy and celebration that it is supernatural and thus categorised by the number 8, hence it’s name. It is truly in a category of its own, completely separate to the other festivals.

The Butterfly Effect

2 minute read
Straightforward

Yakov had a difficult life. He had fled his childhood home to live in hiding from his brother; he’d been cheated and overworked by his father in law; he’d been denied marriage to the love of his youth; he’d been betrayed by his firstborn son; he’d seen the rape of his daughter; he’d seen his children fight; he’d lost a son, missing and presumed death for 22 years; he’d seen his great love Rachel die in childbirth. This was not the future he had sought for his family.

When Yakov meets Pharaoh for the first time, he comments on how old Yakov appears, and Yakov laments his life:

וַיֹּאמֶר פַּרְעֹה, אֶל-יַעֲקֹב: כַּמָּה, יְמֵי שְׁנֵי חַיֶּיךָ. וַיֹּאמֶר יַעֲקֹב, אֶל-פַּרְעֹה, יְמֵי שְׁנֵי מְגוּרַי, שְׁלֹשִׁים וּמְאַת שָׁנָה: מְעַט וְרָעִים, הָיוּ יְמֵי שְׁנֵי חַיַּי, וְלֹא הִשִּׂיגוּ אֶת-יְמֵי שְׁנֵי חַיֵּי אֲבֹתַי, בִּימֵי מְגוּרֵיהֶם – Pharaoh said to Yakov, “How many have been the days, the years of your life?” Yakov said to Pharaoh, “The days of the years of my journeys are one hundred thirty years. The days of the years of my life have been few and miserable, and have not reached the days of the years of the lives of my forefathers, in the days of their journeys.” (47:8-9)

A good life is one of peace, understanding, and love. With such misfortune, he was understandably bitter. Yet once his family resettled in Egypt, his perspective changed:

וַיְחִי יַעֲקֹב בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם, שְׁבַע עֶשְׂרֵה שָׁנָה; וַיְהִי יְמֵי-יַעֲקֹב, שְׁנֵי חַיָּיו–שֶׁבַע שָׁנִים, וְאַרְבָּעִים וּמְאַת שָׁנָה – Yakov lived in Egypt for seventeen years, and Yakov’s days, the years of his life, were a hundred and forty seven years. (47:28)

Just 17 years after Yakov bemoaned his miserable life, Yakov had lived life to it’s fullest – וַיְחִי.

How did he re-frame his outlook?

The Nesivos Shalom explains that to tolerate suffering, it needs to be worth it. Yakov going to Egypt was the beginning of a dark period in the nascent Jewish people’s history, and he believed that he had failed. But reunited with his family, in harmony, he could look back and see that there had been a point, and it was worth it.

The butterfly effect describes the concept that small causes can have large effects. Every wrong turn down the broken road still led them to this point.

The maturity and introspection it took to recognise this could only happen once Yakov attained some form of peace. It gave value to everything he had been through, and he could finally be content and fulfilled.

The hand that writes history sometimes holds our hands too; if we only looked closer.

All You Can Be

2 minute read
Straightforward

Hashem’s very first communication with Avraham was the immense challenge to abandon all he had ever known:

לֶךְ־לְךָ מֵאַרְצְךָ וּמִמּוֹלַדְתְּךָ וּמִבֵּית אָבִיךָ אֶל־הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר אַרְאֶךָּ – “Go for yourself, from your land, your birthplace, and the home of your father, to the land which I will show you.” (12:1)

The instruction is quite odd because it focuses on leaving, not where Avraham has to go; moreover, the departure sequence is backward! When you travel, you first leave your home, then the neighborhood, and only lastly, your country.

Why does the story emphasize leaving, and in such a strange way?

The Sfas Emes explains that the hallmark of great people is that they actively seek challenges and opportunities. Avraham was the first person to intuitively understand God’s vision for humanity of ethics and moral consciousness.

But he couldn’t bring it into being in the stagnant place he grew up.

Avraham was going someplace new, to become something new. Old ideologies would have no place in this new vision, and they had to go.

The Nesivos Shalom observes how central the environments that nurture us are to our development and identity; the more familiar the environment, the greater the effect. So the order of God’s instruction isn’t the order of how we leave home, but it is the order of how home leaves us. You forget your national culture before the community you grew up in, and you can forget your community before you forget your family, and it sure is tough to unlearn the things you picked up as a child – מֵאַרְצְךָ וּמִמּוֹלַדְתְּךָ וּמִבֵּית אָבִיךָ.

R’ Yitzchak Berkowitz teaches that greatness and growth aren’t simply about going someplace or doing something. They fundamentally require us to leave the comfort zone, the familiar, and the supportive behind. To get where you want to go, you also need to let something go – לֶךְ־לְךָ.

The Mesilas Yesharim observes that the most natural default state for living things is laziness. When animals aren’t trying to eat or reproduce, they typically won’t do anything at all to conserve energy. Entropy is a law of physics that dictates that everything deteriorates to its most static state over time, which is to say that idleness and stagnation are natural!

It’s hard to move and think outside the comfort zone, and we develop a self-image, the story we tell ourselves of what we can and can’t do. After all, if you can’t do it, it’s not your fault, and it’s not your responsibility! We have to let go of that – לֶךְ־לְךָ.

The standard expected of all Jews is nothing less than absolute, perfect dedication, and diligent moral consciousness. Yet, since that standard is a long way away from anything humans are capable of, we don’t even begin! We tell ourselves greatness is beyond us, so we don’t have to do anything.

That’s why more than God emphasizes the need to get somewhere; God emphasizes the need to get started – לֶךְ־לְךָ.

Get off zero, and get started. You might be surprised where you land up.

Mechanics Of A Nation

3 minute read
Straightforward

After the Golden Calf, Moshe gathers the people for a discourse:

וַיַּקְהֵל מֹשֶׁה אֶת כָּל עֲדַת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וַיֹּאמֶר אֲלֵהֶם אֵלֶּה הַדְּבָרִים אֲשֶׁר צִוָּה ה’ לַעֲשֹׂת אֹתָם’ – Moses gathered the whole community of Israel to assemble, and he said to them: “These are the things that the Lord commanded to do” (35:1)

He tells them certain laws of Shabbos, and collection for and initiation of construction of the Mishkan.

This occurred the morning after the Yom Kippur Moshe returned with the second Luchos. It seems likely that his first public appearance upon his return would include a notable message regarding their conduct. Yet he gathered them together to discuss Shabbos and the Mishkan. The Nesivos Shalom notes out how usually, an act, speech or instruction initiate an episode; this is the sole instance where וַיַּקְהֵל , getting people together, starts a story.

The Noam Elimelech explains that mitzvos were given to the nation, not individuals. This means that when a person sins, it is an act of rebellion, splintering from the nation, albeit momentarily. Redemption and forgiveness is attained by blending back into the nation. In the same way a harmony is a beautiful sound where no single voice is discernible, a tzibbur, the collective, is safe because an individual does not stand out.

Moshe defended the Jews to God, and argued that the Golden Calf was the act of rogue individuals, not the nation. Sin is an individual act – how could the nation be held accountable, regardless of how many had indeed sinned?

On his return, he saw to it that what he said was indeed true. The nation was whole and not fractured – he united them – וַיַּקְהֵל. This makes וַיַּקְהֵל unique as an opening.

The Nesivos Shalom proves this from what Moshe told them. He said of the laws that לַעֲשֹׂת אֹתָם – but the instructions for Shabbos that he mentions are to not light fire, and to not work. How is not doing something called לַעֲשֹׂת – to do?

Perhaps the instruction wasn’t discussing Shabbos at all; having conceded to Moshe’s argument, he received the instruction לַעֲשֹׂת אֹתָם – to make them, the Jews, into a united nation once again – וַיַּקְהֵל. Moshe was told to back up his claim!

This concept recurs over and over. When the spies were sent, the nation could not be absolved. They were sent in the capacity of the people’s representatives, and the generation died out. The Purim rescue occurred once the divided nation fought stood as one לְהִקָּהֵל וְלַעֲמֹד עַל-נַפְשָׁם. Korach’s error was not believing that the nation was more potent than the individual, claiming כולם קדושים.

Not to say that the laws Moshe spoke about were incidental to the purpose of gathering them. Far from it. They were chosen as both are incumbent on the nation, serving the same function, in contrast to more personal mitzvos,

The Midrash says that Hashem said to Shabbos that כנסת ישראל is its pre-ordained. כנסת ישראל is the Jewish national identity and consciousness, the supersoul of the nation. Shabbos observance is not down to the individual alone – it requires everyone’s input. Shabbos intrinsically unites Jews.

The Mishkan was selected for the discourse for the same reason. Everyone was required to make donation, buying a small stake in it. Covering the project costs with a few individual sponsors would not have served it’s purpose.

Both demonstrate the potency of a group over an individual. The parts in a machine are unremarkable – but together they achieve complex and sophisticated goals. Note how many mitzvos require groups to be adequately performed. The Nesivos Shalom says that we refer to Hashem as אבינו – our father – conceptually, obviously. If we identify with the nation, we can say אבינו.

We say in the Amida every day: ברכנו אבינו כולנו כאחד באור פניך – when everyone gets along, we can proudly say אבינו.