Articles with the tag: vayelech

The “revealed” Is Still Our Task (29:22-28)

Many of the articles that comment on this week’s catastrophic tragedies (Sept 11, Twin Towers) begin with the sentiment, “Words fail us at this time…”  Subsequently, the writer disregards his own inhibitions and spouts forth what he imagines are his own unequalled insights. I, on the other hand, am fully aware that I have nothing original to add, so I hope you will not be disappointed if I simply quote an ancient Biblical verse and a story that occurred some five decades ago.
Moses, in his final days, warns his fellow Jews of dire days that are bound to come. “Sulphur and salt, a conflagration of the entire Land…like the upheaval of Sodom and Gomorrah.” I am sure that everyone…

Continue reading The “revealed” Is Still Our Task (29:22-28)

The Torah Song (31:1)

After having successfully transmitted 612 commandments, Moses issues the final mitzvah. What will be Judaism’s closing charge? What is the ultimate rule?  “Write down for yourselves this song, and teach it to the people of Israel; put it in their mouths, that this song may be my witness within the people of Israel.”
At first glance, the “song” referred to is simply the chapter immediately following, “Listen, O heavens, and I will speak; Hear, O earth, the words of My mouth.” Our Sages however understood it differently; interpreting it as mitzvah #613: to write a Sefer Torah. As the Talmud puts it, “Though a parent left us a scroll of Torah, it is still our duty to write one ourselves.”...

Continue reading The Torah Song (31:1)

Until He Stopped...he Went (31:1)

I’m dying. My old bones and frail body are racked by pain and disease. Nonetheless, I will myself to sit up in my bed and call my grandchildren to dress me.
“Sabbah,” they call out in alarm. “Please lie down. You’re too weak to go to the Mishkan. Take it easy!”
“Too old! Take it easy! If only you youngsters had been around on Moses’ final day. Then you would know that staying in bed is not an option. I remember it as if it happened just yesterday.
“I was a Levite, one of the Ark Bearers. Our family and Moses’ were kinsmen. No one had slept that night knowing that this was to be Moses’ last day among us….

Continue reading Until He Stopped…he Went (31:1)

The Mystical Cry of the Shofar

“הַיוֹם הֲרַת עוֹלָם - Today is the birthday of the world, today all creatures stand in judgment…” (Rosh Hashana liturgy; recited after Shofar blowing.)
First: Why blow a horn? Why is prayer not enough?
Second: Why is the Torah so cryptic? “It will be a day of sounding.”  Sounding what? The singular Biblical reference regarding sound is the Psalm, “Sound the shofar at the new moon.”
How do we know this means the beginning of the year?
The short answer: we always knew. One mystery solved.

Why is there no reference to Adam’s birth anywhere in the High Holiday prayers? All you find is, “Today is the birthday of the world.”
Perhaps (a revolutionary thought): The cosmos assumed reality only…

Continue reading The Mystical Cry of the Shofar