Category Archives: Personalities

Noach – Get Your Own Dirt

It could have been a launch pad for a vehicle to reach the moon. Or a panopticon to monitor people over a large distance. Those are two of the suggested theories for why the people of Bavel sought to build an unprecedentedly tall tower. The first suggestion was put forth by Rav Yonasan Eibschutz; the second, by the Netziv.

Whatever the builders’ aim was, though, it was a development that, as the Torah recounts, merited divine interference. But the words introducing the endeavor are strange. The would-be builders said to one another:

“‘Come, let us mold bricks and bake them well.’ They then had the bricks to use as stone, and the clay for mortar” (Beraishis, 11:3).” What is the significance of their mode of construction?

In 1927, Tomáš Masaryk, then-president of then-Czechoslovakia and a leader friendly to Jews, visited the Yishuv in Eretz Yisrael and was received by its leader, Rav Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld.

According to the book about Rav Sonnenfeld, Ha’ish al Hachomah, one of the things he discussed with the European leader was the danger posed by technological advances. And he pointed to the pasuk above as an example of how such progress is often born of a misguided attempt to deny the ultimate importance of Hashem. The Bavel builders, he explained, shunned the natural stone available to them, opting instead for their advanced “brick technology.” In so doing, they were declaring their “independence” from the divine.

I’m reminded of the story of the group of scientists who inform Hashem that His services are no longer needed, that their knowledge of the universe now allows them to run it just fine themselves, thank You.

“Can you create life like I did?” the Creator asks. “No problem,” they reply as they confidently gather some dirt and fiddle with the settings on their shiny biologocyclotron.

“Excuse Me,” interrupts the heavenly voice. “Get your own dirt.”

Or, as Carl Sagan said, “If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”

The Pope Owes Jews an Apology

You can read why here.

Ha’azinu — When Bravado is Banned

It’s odd that, when Moshe Rabbeinu and Yehoshua transmit the shirah of Haazinu to the people, the Torah refers to Yehoshua as Hoshea (Devarim 32:44), his original name. Moshe, of course, had changed his eventual successor’s name 40 years earlier.

Rashi and others suggest that the use of Yehoshua’s original name alludes to the fact that, even as he was about to become the leader of Klal Yisrael, Yehoshua’s original name is used to show that he maintained the humility that had always been part of his character.

A twist on that observation is suggested by Meshulam Fayish Tzvi Gross (who had a weekly chavrusa in Kabbalah with Rav Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn; and who, as Herman Gross, patented several inventions).

In his sefer Nachalas Tzvi, Rabbi Gross calls attention to the differential of circumstances between when Moshe changed Yehoshua’s name and when, in our parshah, the latter’s original name is employed.

When Hoshea bin Nun was faced with the need to stand up to the other scouts of Eretz Cna’an, to have the independence, clearheadedness and courage necessary to state the facts about the land, Then, Moshe was telling Hoshea, who was exceedingly humble (as Sifri in Shelach notes), to recognize his greatness, his ability to oppose the other meraglim’s report, to not succumb to peer pressure, to have full confidence in himself.

Moshe expressed his hope that Hashem would aid him in that. And so he added a hint to Hashem’s name to Hoshea’s – saying, “May Hashem save you from the intrigue of the scouts” (Sotah 34b).

Now, though, as Moshe is preparing Yehoshua to lead the people into Eretz Yisrael, posits Rabbi Gross, the Torah uses Yehoshua’s original name pointedly, as a message to him – that the independence and bravado that were necessary back when the land was being scouted are not longer needed for – in fact, in a sense diametric to – the assumption of leadership.

A true leader needs what was Yehoshua’s essence: humility.

It’s a lesson that most contemporary leaders seem ignorant of, and would do well to absorb.

Ugly Fringes

We have Tucker Carlson to thank for creating some long-needed pan-partisan unity of late. To read how he managed that, please click here.

Slippery Slur

Did you know that the Torah says to vote for Kamala Harris? Or that she’s a radical socialist? Me neither. And what “socialism” encompasses might surprise you. You can read my thoughts on the matter here.

The UN’s ‘memories’ of antisemitic terrorism are painfully faulty

A piece I wrote about the U.N.’s sad decline (and worse) is here.

Eikev – Consumer Goods

It’s remarkable how prominent eating is in the Torah. The designation of which animals one may eat, the consumption of parts of all korbonos except olos, matza on Pesach, seudos on Shabbos and Yomtov… And yet, eating would seem to be an animalistic endeavor, something to be accepted as necessary, perhaps, but not awarded religious value.

But human consumption of food is qualitatively different from animals’ feeding. That is the essence of the words “[Hashem] subjected you to the hardship of hunger and then gave you mon to eat, which neither you nor your ancestors had ever known, in order to teach you that a human being does not live on bread alone, but that one must live on all the words of Hashem.”

That pasuk is often understood as meaning simply that our lives are made meaningful by following Hashem’s words. But its deeper meaning is something else: While we may think that our souls are nourished by the vitamins, minerals, proteins and fats in what we eat, the Torah is telling us that our true life nourishment comes from something ethereal, holy, that permeates our food, something instilled there by Hashem’s will. That was the lesson of the mon, that our lives’ engines and their fuel are not ultimately physical. It’s a concept philosophers call vitalism.

And the wordings of our birchos hanehenim hint at that fact : Shehakol nih’yeh bid’varo, borei pri ha’etz, hamotzi [by His decree] lechem. We don’t just say thank You for what we are about to eat but express the fact that the food is caused by, and imbued with, something divine, and that it is really that invisible element that provides us human life.

R’ Chaim Vital quotes the Arizal as saying that the highest spiritual level is accessible by concentrating on our brachos, because they are not mere expressions of gratitude but, rather, means of sublimating and refining the base element inherent in the physical stuff we are eating. “And he [the Arizal],” R’ Vital writes, “impressed the importance of that upon me greatly.”

Those of us who have been saying brachos from childhood too easily fall into reciting them by rote, often mumbling them without thinking much, if at all, about their words’ meanings.

We do well to watch and listen to the newly observant when they make brachos, and strive to emulate their concentration on what they are saying.