Category Archives: Jewish Thought

Parshas Ki Sisa – 13+13=1

Beginning with Hashem’s name stated twice, the “thirteen middos”(“aspects” or “attributes”) of Hashem’s compassion and love are sourced in our parsha.

The formula was taught to Moshe Rabbeinu by Hashem Himself after the sin of the golden calf.  Its pertinence then is obvious, but the thirteen middos are for the future, too. 

“When trouble comes upon the Jews because of their iniquities,” Hashem told Moshe (Rosh Hashanah 17b) “let them stand together before Me and recite” them. 

Oddly, the same phrase “thirteen middos” is used in an entirely different and seemingly unrelated context. Namely, for the list, cited by the Sifri in Rabbi Yishmael’s name, enumerating the “hermeneutical” rules shehaTorah nidreshes bahem, by which laws are derived from the Torah’s words.  Some of that methodology, more completely known as the “Thirteen Middos Through Which the Torah is Interpreted,” is logical, some of it not obviously so; all of it comprises a sacred part of Torah Shebe’al Peh, the Oral Law, itself.

That both the expressions of Hashem’s benevolence and of the hermeneutical principles number thirteen, and that both are described as “middos,” is intriguing.  And meaningful.

The Creator, to our limited perception, seems to present two different “faces.”  On the one hand, He is the Merciful, Life-Giver, Forgiver and Bestower of blessings.  And, on the other, He is the Lawgiver, instilling the laws of nature in the universe, and charging humanity with the foundational “Noachide” laws – and Klal Yisroel, with the laws of the Torah.  

Christianity’s founders were disturbed by that seeming dichotomy, and embraced the Creator as Merciful, but considered the Torah’s “ceremonial and judicial” laws to be no longer binding. 

But Judaism recognizes that the same Creator is the Source of both love and demand.  He is “Avinu Malkeinu,” “our Father and our King” – both a merciful Parent and a demanding Sovereign. The Source of mercy and patience is the very same Source of law and obligation.  

Indeed, Divine law itself is a product of Divine mercy, as the laws we have been given  reflect Hashem’s concern for our own ultimate wellbeing.

A fact that might be reflected in the fact that the sum of the two thirteens is twenty six, the gematria, or “letter value” of Hashem’s “name of rachamim,” His name of mercy.

© 2022 Rabbi Avi Shafran

Parshas Tetzaveh – Flour and Oil in the Afternoon

One of the two places in the Torah that mandate the offering of an olas tamid twice a day, once in the morning and once in the afternoon, is in our parsha (Shemos 29:39).

Rabi Yehoshua ben Levi (Berachos 26b) maintains that our daily tefillos of Shacharis and Mincha correspond to the offering of those two sacrifices (with Maariv corresponding to the overnight burning of the olos’ meat).

We are so accustomed to the names of our daily tefillos that an obvious question may not, but should, occur: Why is the afternoon prayer called “Mincha”?

A mincha offering, consisting of flour and oil, accompanies both the morning and afternoon daily olos. So why would the word for that offering be tapped as the name, specifically, of the afternoon prayer?  Following the pattern of the other daily tefillos, whose names reference their times of day, one would expect it to be called acharei tzaharayim, or, following the Torah’s words, bein ha’arbayim.

In Melachim I, 18:29, in the account of the false prophets of Baal, the word mincha is indeed used to refer to the afternoon tamid: “And they pretended to prophesy until the time of the sacrifice of the mincha.” That certainly reflects our usage of Mincha as the tefilla corresponding to the tamid shel bein ha’arbayim. But it begs the question of why. Why should the afternoon korban olah – and, thus, its corresponding tefilla – be defined by its accompanying flour/oil offering? 

An assortment of answers are offered, but each is problematic. One approach, though, might be suggested by the other opinion in Berachos 26b, that of Rabi Yosi, who maintains that our three daily tefillos were initiated by the avos, as a word signifying prayer is used in the Torah regarding each of them.

In that approach, Mincha corresponds to Yitzchak.  While all of the avos had flocks of sheep, only Yitzchak is described as having engaged in agriculture: “And Yitzchak sowed in that land, and he found in that year a hundredfold, and Hashem blessed him” (Beraishis 26:12).

So perhaps that informs the choice of the word for the “land-grown” sacrifice brought with the tamid, the mincha, for the tefilla he initiated.

© 2022 Rabbi Avi Shafran

Terumah – Space, Matter and Meaningfulness

The building of the Mishkan, according to a beraisa in Middos and the Sefer Habahir, mirrors the creation of the world. Both accounts in the Torah, in fact, evidence parallel wordings.

Much noted by meforshim is the change of object in the pasuk “And let them make for Me a Mikdash and I will dwell among them (Shemos 25:8).

The implication is clear: Building the Mishkan, called here Mikdash, is to result in Hashem’s “dwelling” within His people. We are to be mekadshei shem Shamayim in the world.

The idea of a structure somehow “housing” Hashem is something that even Moshe himself, the Pesikta tells us, found flabbergasting. It is simply beyond our ability to imagine.

But it leads, nonetheless, to an interesting thought. 

I claim no grasp of the “hidden things” understood by those initiated into the realm of kabbalah. But a mystical concept that is well-known, if also not truly comprehensible to us uninitiated, is tzimtzum, or “contraction” – Hashem’s intentional “withdrawal” at creation that allowed space, energy and matter – the physical universe – to come into being. 

The ultimate upshot of tzimtzum, however, involves the reason for the universe: man. Namely, Hashem’s granting humans free will, His “withdrawal” that allows us to act independently, to make – and be responsible for – our own decisions, good or bad.

So, at the universe’s creation, Hashem “withdrew” His omnipresence to allow for space, energy and matter; and He, likewise, contracted His omnipotence, allowing for human free will. 

And so, in our parshah, a parallel: “Make for Me a Mikdash” implies Hashem’s somehow “confining” His presence to an edifice; and the rest of the pasuk, and “I will dwell among them,” implies the specialness of the people, our responsibility to use our free will, born of His “withdrawal” from determining our actions, His granting us the ability to make choices, to meaningfully choose to be mekadshei shem Shamayim. 

Tzimtzum at the Mishkan and at the creation of the universe that the edifice parallels allowed, and continues to allow, for the existence of space, matter… and meaningfulness. 

© 2022 Rabbi Avi Shafran

Mishpatim – Mundanity is a Myth

What an abrupt transition, from the miracles and wonders of the earlier parshios of Sefer Shemos to this week’s list of prosaic, painstaking laws. 

But, just as every letter in the Torah is necessary for it to be kosher, so are life’s seeming banal interactions, in reality, opportunities for holiness. When we conduct our personal and business lives properly, not as rote or out of a self-generated sense of right or wrong but in fulfillment of Hashem’s commands, that is no different from the mitzvos that recall kri’as Yam Suf.

Anshei kodesh, “people of holiness” (Shemos 22:30), is our divine prescription. The Kotzker Rebbe is said to have remarked that “Hashem has more than enough angels; He wants people of holiness.” He wants our humdrum human lives to be infused with holiness. 

A corollary of that thought lies in the realm of Hashem’s hashgacha, which covers our every experience. Not only when it’s readily evident, in seemingly “miraculous” happenings, but no less in our “mundane” lives.

A friend of one of our daughters once shared a powerful story with her, about a woman scheduled to fly to a distant city for an important job interview. The lady found herself stuck in unexpected traffic and arrived at the airport in barely enough time to park her car. She ran to the check-in counter, only to discover that she had missed her flight by mere seconds, and that there were no others that would get her to her interview on time. Dejected, she headed home.

Several hours later, the plane on which she was to have flown began its descent to its destination, the woman’s reserved seat empty… As the plane descended, there was some turbulence, and the captain told the passengers to make sure their seat belts were securely fastened…

And then, the plane… touched down, safely. The passengers disembarked. End of story.

The lady never discovered any reason for having lost the chance of the job, and ended up taking a less lucrative one in her home city.

But there was a reason. 

Whether we perceive it or not, there always is.

© 2022 Rabbi Avi Shafran

“Is Anybody There?”

“Is anyone there? Can you hear me?” You shout at the rubble of a collapsed building. No reply, but then… was that tapping?

You have an idea. “If you can understand me,” you yell, “tap once.” A single tap. “If you’re injured,” you then say, “tap twice.” Two taps. There’s someone there.

An apt metaphor for something very important. To read what, please click here.

Yisro – Consecrated Coercion

Last week, I offered the idea, based on the three Hebrew words, shiluach, yetziah and geirush, used to describe both the exodus account and a marriage’s dissolution, of Yetzias Mitzrayim as Klal Yisrael’s “divorce” from Egypt and Har Sinai, as its subsequent “betrothal” to Hashem.

The latter image, in fact, is clear from the Midrash Rabbah (Acharei Mos 20:10), which comments on the words “the day of his marriage” in Shir HaShirim (3:11): This, comments the Midrash, is Har Sinai.

And from the Mechilta D’Rabi Yishmael on Yisro, which quotes Rabi Yehuda as explaining that “Hashem from Sinai came” (Devarim 33:2) conveys the image of “a groom going out to receive his bride.”

The chuppah at a Jewish wedding recalls (“bisachtis hahar,” Shemos 19:17) the mountain lifted over the head of the people at Sinai; the candles borne by parents, the lightning; the groom walking forward to greet his bride, the aforementioned Mechilta.

And the end of the birchas eirusin at a Jewish wedding refers to Hashem as having “sanctified His people Israel through chuppah and kiddushin.” Not “with the mitzvos of chuppah and kiddushin, but through those things themselves – namely, at Sinai.

But the mountain above the people is also understood by Chazal as a threat. Rav Avdimi bar Chama bar Chasa says that “Hashem overturned the mountain above the Jews like a barrel and said to them: ‘If you accept the Torah, good; but if not, there will be your burial’” (Shabbos 88a).

Although that intimidation was mitigated later in history, when, in the time of Esther and Mordechai, the people re-accepted the Torah entirely willingly [ibid], what is the significance of the coercion in the first place?

The answer may lie in Devarim 22: 28-29, where the law is set down in the case of a man who forces himself upon a young woman. He is fined the sum of fifty silver coins but also must (if the woman wishes) marry her and, unlike in any other marriage, cannot ever divorce her.

The implication for Hashem’s relationship with Klal Yisrael should be self-evident.

© 2022 Rabbi Avi Shafran

Help Preserve the Kotel’s Kedusha

The push to balkanize the Kotel Maaravi is, as its proponents readily admit, intended as a step toward legitimizing American-style “Jewish religious pluralism” in Israel. That would be a disaster, not only because of the notion’s inherent falsehood — that there are different “Judaisms” — but demographically too, since non-halachic “conversions,” “divorces” and the like have wreaked havoc on the unity of American Jewry.

What is more, the Kotel has always served as a unifier of Jews, whatever their backgrounds or beliefs — probably the only place on earth where so many different kinds of Jews pray side by side.

If you wish to register your chagrin at the plan to partition the Kotel, you can do so easily by visiting:

www.OneKosel.org

There is no charge for doing so, and, by sending the letter (or one of your own crafting), you can help show that a good part of “American Jewry” wants the status quo at the Kosel to be retained.

Tizku limitzvos.

Bishalach – A Decisive Divorce

Shalach, the root of the word of the parshah’s title, is used elsewhere regarding the exodus from Mitzrayim (e.g. shalach es ami).  So are the words yetziah (e.g. Shemos, 20:2) and geirush (e.g. ibid 11:1)

Intriguingly, each of those characterizations of our ancestors’ march from Egypt is also associated with… divorce. Vishilcha mibeiso (Devarim 24:2);  viyatz’ah mibeiso (Devarim 24:1); isha gerushah(Vayikra 21:7).

The metaphor telegraphed by that fact is clear. Klal Yisrael was virtually “married” to Mitzrayim, sunken to near its deepest level of tum’ah, and, with Hashem’s help, freed from that “marriage,” divorced, as it were, from Mitzrayim. 

The symbolism doesn’t stop there. When the divorce is finalized, Klal Yisrael gets re-married, this time, permanently, to Hashem, with Har Sinai over the people’s heads serving as a chupah. (Indeed, several marriage customs are associated by various sources with Mattan Torah – the chupah, the candles, reminiscent of the lightning), even the breaking of a glass, recalling the sheviras haluchos).

And that would dovetail strikingly with the prohibition against returning to live in Egypt (Devarim 17:16). Because a remarried woman, too, is prohibited from returning to her first husband (Devarim 24:4).

Even more interesting is the implication of the metaphor to the baffling Gemara in Sotah (2a) that asserts that a man’s “initial mate” is divinely decreed before his birth; and his second one, in accord with his behavior.

Because, in our metaphor, Klal Yisrael’s first “mate,” Egypt, was in fact decreed, to Avraham at the bris bein habisarim; and its final one, Hashem, was earned by the people’s behavior: their willingness to follow Moshe into the desert and declaration of naaseh vinishma at Sinai.

And a coup de grâce lies in how the Gemara paraphrased above describes the challenge of finding the proper mates: kasheh k’krias Yam Suf – “as difficult as the splitting of the Sea.”

© 2022 Rabbi Avi Shafran