- פרטים
-
קטגוריה: Parashat Hashavua
-
פורסם בשלישי, 01 דצמבר 2020 18:47
-
נכתב על ידי Super User
-
כניסות: 876
Portion Ruh Aiy - a month before Rosh Hashono
The portion brings us the word of G-d saying
" I set before you ... The Blessing ... and the Curse "
"! and as Rebbe NACHMAN says " the Blessings ALL come from Israel
And according to one Rabbi ( and thank you Sam for sending me his blog)
The blessing and the curse are Both – you guessed it – Israel!
Blessings for us because it was only OURS for three thousand years so far
And the Curse - that the nations of the world spend so much time and energy - and cash - trying to destroy us -
because we are the proof that they do NOT follow the ways of G –dliness (My interpretation)
They say we are a curse
Because they do Not Know How to create a world of peace and harmony
While the Torah does and says so in THIS PORTION:
"seek its Spirit " ( L shichno Tid re Shu) - and Rashi says it means the
Spirit of SHILOH- (where our Tabernacle stood 369 years!)
the Shiloh Civil War Battle certainly NOT
May we all learn to SEEK ITS WAYS of PEACE – starting this New Elul Month!
And prepare for a great new Jewish New Year in a month!
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Andy Eichenholz
- פרטים
-
קטגוריה: Parashat Hashavua
-
פורסם בשלישי, 01 דצמבר 2020 18:47
-
נכתב על ידי Super User
-
כניסות: 876
Portion Eiy kev : How long can I LISTEN to this?
Here we are again in Arad for a few days - one of the strongholds of Judea's monarchy -
and one of the ancient sites excavated by my Professor Yochanan Aharoni
(I also worked at his excavation of Be air Sheva not far away)
Lots of complaints in the car - until we got to the wonderful Lookout over the Dead Sea at the end of town
(Arad has a healthful climate like Arizona - but it's DESERT - rock and sand)
Why didnt they just listen when I said " follow the sign pointing to Masada by the Back Route "?
The portion this week starts out
"If you will just (eiyKev tish me oon) Listen"
What is the word EiyKev doing in the middle?
I believe one translation is " listen to the SIGNs Attentively "
(Rashi and the Bal Haturim have differing explanations - but the WORD caught their attention too!)
What can you learn from this word in this place?
What happens at the end of town
when you see the Dead Sea and the Hills of Moav (Jordan) before you
and nighty Masada is there off to the left?
You know, you can complain all your life,
or you can use All Your Prowess to Pick a few good stocks and get out quickly
OR
You can listen to Moses in the portion-
You can Follow the Signs to the beautiful Land and Life of Milk and Honey
( end of sixth Aliya? )
Shabat Shalom
Rabbi Andy Eichenholz
- פרטים
-
קטגוריה: Parashat Hashavua
-
פורסם בשלישי, 01 דצמבר 2020 18:46
-
נכתב על ידי Super User
-
כניסות: 1052
Portion VaEtCHaNan:What, the 10 Co mmandments again ? (and Tu B'Av)
What? You say you know all that stuff from before?
and WHY does the Torah repeat these commandments here?
I don't know how many readers can recite the Ten Commanments by heart,
AND
I don't know how many can recite the SCRIPT of the MOVIE (10 Commandments) either
BUT
I bet you never heard THIS teaching before
(From Rav Neria) that when it talks about NOT Murdering - What About Accidental Homicide?
The punishment ordered is the perpetrator must be exiled to one of the
Levite cities in Israel set asidefor the "Golus" (exile)
And Rav Neria brings down the Medrash that says
(Exile not being enough) the Courts MUST send this person's TEACHER/RABBI
along into EXILE WITH HIM (until the proscribed time to go home)
To teach what? OBVIOUSLY SOMETHING WAS LACKING before
and the Rebbe MUST TEACH the VALUE of LIFE etc
Okay - the Shma is also in this portion - Okay - it's the basic Statement of Faith
So what with all these 613 Mitzvot AND Rabbi Additions?
The Rambam (Maimonides) cites verses to support his argument and says
“The truth is, that every one of the 613 mitzvot is meant to either teach (5 ideas) a true idea, remove a false idea, create a just society, train people in good manners (middot), or to keep people away from bad habits.”
(Moreh Nevuchim Part 3, 31 - quoted from Yeshiva Simchat Shlomo))
So never worry about repeating a Torah Law - because
More than the Rambam's explanation -
you can find ALL those (5) reasons in most of the Commandments
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Andy Eichenholz
- פרטים
-
קטגוריה: Parashat Hashavua
-
פורסם בשלישי, 01 דצמבר 2020 18:46
-
נכתב על ידי Super User
-
כניסות: 1602
Portion of Torah Masay from a Judean Mountaintop
So the Almighty gives Borders to Israel- to
The Land -
And the People
And then the Fourth Book of Five ends with 5 weddings!
We don't know how old the five Very Smart sisters that got married were,
but after their meeting with Moshe Rabaynu-
Our Master teacher-
They all matched up pretty quickly
And
We are not sure where they lived once the Israelites entered the land
But they probably lived on lush mountaintops like this one I'm having coffee on now!
It is ALWAYS a lush land when OUR people are here
and it is ALWAYS DESOLATE when others steal it from us - like for the last 2000 years -
UNTIL WE RETURNED!
So remember the Land - and Come
And remember to try to FAST tishaBav a week from Sunday,
in Memory of the Evil Invaders who destroyed the land and exiled our people - but are GONE!
We must ALSO do our part in PROTECTING this Gift from the Almighty
which has always been a blessing to the World as well - since Abraham 3000 years ago.
Shabbat Shalom
Happy New Month and it should be a healthy one
Rabbi Andy Eichenholz
- פרטים
-
קטגוריה: Parashat Hashavua
-
פורסם בשלישי, 01 דצמבר 2020 18:45
-
נכתב על ידי Super User
-
כניסות: 991
Portion Matot in Israel - did Moses kill him?
In this portion we are coming into Israel after 40 years in the deserts "and the war games begin"?
(Sound familiar from the movie? But it's from G-d - like everything).
Almighty tells Moses - knock off the Midianites -
they recently caused you 24000 casualties - and maybe a lot of VD -
they are always going to be a problem.
So was Moshe afraid? is that why he sent Joshua to fight..?
Is Moses just in charge of "Getting Close to Unity of Israel with The Holy Spirit?" Or was he a warrier too?
Rule numbe r 1 of Israel : Torah People Land and Spirit-Holiness - it's all How to bring All Israel Together?
We learn it from Moses - and ALSO how to run a Holy War.
Offer peace - but when attacked - we MUST DEFEND OURSELVES.
(No matter what commie-liars and Arab Terrorists say about Israel - WE ARE THE ONLY MORAL FORCE IN THE MIDDLE EAST!)
What do we need today? First strengthen - not weaken - our people like 3000 years ago
( to conquer and protect the spirit and the land ).
Detractors and BDS and college vendettas paid for with Arab Oil Money must be stopped.
The best way is to VISIT ISRAEL AND SEE THE TRUTH!
So was Moses not trained in Pharoah's Palace to fight?
Did he not knock off the Egyptian who was beating up the Israelite?
When he ran away from Egypt - did he not save the Ethiopians in a war and be elected their king?
So the Medrash tells us - Moses fought Bilam-the-curser-prophet -
in a Harry-Potter-Like battle - and slayed him to prevent curses
for the rest of Israel's 14 years of battles under Joshua's leadership!
Recent History - The British created the country of Jordan on the Eastern Bank of the Jordan River - to keep it away from th Jews who were promised it in the Palestine Mandate after WWI.
Ancient History - that part of Israel was conquerred after the Midianite War - but tribes there
were exiled about 140 years before the area of Judea was emptied of Jew by the Babylonians.
Rabbi A Theory - the first exile happened but it also paved the way and eased
the way of our people who were exiled to the same area - Babylon. Iraqi Jews lived there until 1950 or so!
Unfortunately most of the tribes from the first exile were lost for centuries -
and only the last 50 years or so we are finding remnants! All over the Far East!
With instirpretation from Rabbi Neriya and Rabbi Moshe Sofer the Chatam Sofer I infor us all:
The first exile of ten ttribes may have been because they wanted to settle the East Side of the Jordan-
and
They made a little light of the Almighty's promise to us of the Western side of the Jordan to the
"Sea" - and the Nachal Mitzrayim".
SO DON"T MAKE LIGHT OF THE MODERN MIRACLES OF ISRAEL! (And read the whole portion)
Shabbat Shalom and Love from Israel
Rabbi Andy Eichenholz
- פרטים
-
קטגוריה: Parashat Hashavua
-
פורסם בשלישי, 01 דצמבר 2020 18:45
-
נכתב על ידי Super User
-
כניסות: 958
Portion Pinchas in Israel (Balak in the Diaspora) - Celebrating a Holiday? With Sacrifice?
If you get an 8 day holiday what do you do?
Do you chill all through?
Do you BarBque?
Do you Try to do something different each day?
Do you connect to the world by checking out nature or traveling -
or do you chill out keeping the world out?
Is it all the same - all 8 days? OR DO YOU CELEBRATE A LITTLE DIFFERENT EVERY DAY?
Parts of this portion are read on every Jewish holiday. What about the rest of the portion? Does it have a lesson for all our holidays too?
The week's portion in Israel starts with a covenant - that Pinchas and his descendants will be Priests
(even though his Dad married a convert BEFORE Mt Sinai). DONT FORGET TO STAY HOLY _
It gives ANOTHER DIMENSION TO HOLIDAYS
Then the tribes are all COUNTED - because Every PersonCounts! DONT FORGET TO CALL YOUR FAMILY AND SAY YOU
LOVE THEM EVEN IF YOU ARE ON VACATION!
It continues with the Almighty telling Moses to Install Joshua as the Next Leader of Israel.
BECAUSE A DAY WITHOUT RESPONSIBLE CONNECTION TO THOSE WHO LOVE AND NEED YOU IS NOT A FULL DAY!
And the portion ends with relating to ALL the holidays and all their sacrifices -
ESPECIALLY THE HOLIDAY DAYS OF SUKKOT!
Each day of that SUKKOT holiday has a different celebration! (And a Whole Set of Hallel sung).
BECAUSE EVERY DAY COUNTS FOR EVERYONE!
and each day is shared with praying for ALL the nations of the WORLD - and SACRIFICING A LITTLE FOR THE WORLD's SURVIVAL
ALL JEWISH HOLIDAYS NEED TO BE INFUSED-and shared-
with a FULL set OF JOY-
So on your next vacation/holiday - make each day count - for something
connecting us to our people and from that to the world…the environment … the concept of Holiness
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Andy Eichenholz
- פרטים
-
קטגוריה: Parashat Hashavua
-
פורסם בשלישי, 01 דצמבר 2020 18:44
-
נכתב על ידי Super User
-
כניסות: 979
Portion Balak – My Bar Mitzva - and the Arabs in Israel
So this is my Bar Mitzva Portion, but I can never understand it. The world's greatest Israel hater (Balak the king) asks the world's greatest curser (Bilam the sorcerer) to help him knock off the Israelites before they get to Israel. Did he pay a down payment? Did they sign a contract? No!
Something is fishy here, and it gets fishier!.
There are offers of rewards by Balak, and there are limiting contractual phrases (like Bilaam saying "whatever the L-rd puts in my mouth I can say").
In my mouth? Is there a contract? Do anti-Semites believe their complaints - or is the truth that they use hatred to control others and push their greedy agendas?
G-d said "Don't go" to Bilaam. But then Bilaam gets the Holy One to change his mind. He is "allowed" to join Balak – but with some reservations? Doesn't sound like the G-d of Abraham Isaac and Jacob to me. And - Doesn't sound like the G-d who knocked off the Egyptian army at the Red Sea. !
What is the purpose in this strange story? And the purpose for today?
So my Bar Mitzva was on Thursday July 4th so family members wouldn't have to drive on Shabbat. I read the Torah, someone took a movie of my grandfather having an Aliyah – and ever since then I have wondered why that was my Portion.
So this week a son of friends called me before his unit gets settled in to Gaza. Great kid! And I shared what I had studied that evening from the Mahara"l of Prague. (I paraphrase here).
Bilaam pronouned curses that our Houses of Worship and Study be separated from the heart of the Israel-Almighty relationship – but the curses were turned into ETERNAL BLESSING for ALL Jewish Houses " Mah Tovu Ohalecha Yaakov…".
And his cursing of the homes of Israel was turned into blessings by the Almighty - "Mishkenotecha Yisrael" - they were and shall be blessed.
So who knows how to turn the curses of people who attack us into eternal blessings?
Reb Shlomo Carlebach ztz"l, taught us that when he went to Israel in 1967 after the Six Day War, that the Arabs he met in the former Jordanian Egyptian and Syrian territories were HAPPY that Israel won that war. The previous bosses kept them impoverished for their own purposes.
G-d's miraculous victory gave us an opportunity to forge friendships – and to turn curses into blessings of cooperation!
Okay – so politicians did not share Rabbi Carlebach's vision, and here we are today...
So today (Friday) one of my neighbors asks advice for a family member who married an Israeli Arab criminal and is estranged from her family.
So I said "Invite them – and him - over. I would like to meet them." He shrugged me off saying "You are American and grew up with gentiles and blacks and irreligious Jews – but here that won't work."
:So that's IT! It is my connection to the Portion of Balak!
Know the curses out there. There is the curse - BUT there is the promise that the Almighty can overturn every curse and forge them into blessings.
Someone I know subsidizes an art program for school kids from a rabidly anti-Jewish Arab town. Maybe that's their part in transforming hatred into cooperation. Maybe my part is now to meet the Arab criminal and make it possible for the children to be reunited with their people - and make the father a friend of Israel?
May we all live up to the opportunities in these times of Balaks and Bilaams. We have to somehow defeat the anti-Semites, and to put in some efforts to turn the cursing into blessings.
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Andy Eichenholz
- פרטים
-
קטגוריה: Parashat Hashavua
-
פורסם בשלישי, 01 דצמבר 2020 18:44
-
נכתב על ידי Super User
-
כניסות: 942
Portion Chukat in Israel So you call that a War?
When Joshua brought the Israelites into Israel there were seven years of war.
One Canaanite tribe made peace with Joshua.
Some families made peace with Israel. But those wicked controlling kings....fought in until King David's time.
But in this week's portion we see the Edomites refusing passage and refusing to even sell or trade with Israel or Moshe.
Then King Sichon refused the same and Attacked Us! What nerve from some abuser who conquered that land from our cousins!I
So we beat them And G-d let some of our tribes settle there.
And with King Og the same. After they attacked and we won, some tribe settled there.
Were they afraid that they couldn't allow monotheism living nearby?
Or are some regimes so abusive that they just control and squeeze their own people by using violence as their only means of government?
Sound like Hamas and Hezbollah and Iran ...And Syria?
In the Diaspora we read about Korach and his rebellion against Moses - and against G-dliness and Torah.I Holy trouble makers.
In Israel our portion ends on the beginning ... The beginning .... Of it being SAFE to be Israelites!!!
One fellow at prayers this AM remarked on all the DUALities in Judaism.
Even our bodies have 2 equal sides! One war with Sichon wasn't enough but right away another war with Og!
He also remarked on that "DUELing " in our history ...
But OUR duels are supposed to be for teaching Holy Ideals
And even when getting physical they have Holy Results!
Someone once complained at Rabbi Carlebach s Shul about Israeli soldiers - and the Rabbi got MAD!
Reb Shlomo Carlebach said all Israel are holy...
But the Israeli soldiers - they are the Holy of Holies!
Could there have been a holocaust if we had an Israeli army back then?
Remember what Smokey the Bear says and repeat to others.
- פרטים
-
קטגוריה: Parashat Hashavua
-
פורסם בשלישי, 01 דצמבר 2020 18:43
-
נכתב על ידי Super User
-
כניסות: 1077
Portion Korach in Israel Shelach abroad : Levites fight ... and did Moses play the trumpet
Shelach talks about the spies Moshe sent because he was hoping the people would soon enter Canaan
Korach is the leadership dispute against Moshe and Aron in the desert.
Both portions can be better understood by the following story of the first Hassidic Rebbe – Mendele Vitebsker - to move to Israel
The spies were basically afraid to leave the desert encampment and fight for the Holy Land promised to the forefathers and the foremothers.
So they maligned G-d's Holy Promised Land – a sad way to get out of having to move on!
Korach just wanted to be the leader of the nation – with no plan except to rouse rebellion -was it ego?- after all the hard work was done already (getting the Israelites out of Egypt)!
Korach – He Attacked Moshe the humble one who ran from any honor -
to blow up his ego
So one of the stories about the "Vitebsker" Rebbe was
About how hard he tried to get to Israel in about 1780!
Mendele Vitebsker finally organized a few Hassidim and enough money to buy passage on a ship (no easy airplanes then).
On their way to Israel what happens? A horrible storm threatened to sink the ship and drown them all
So Reb Mende Stood on the deck and said out LOUD – into the face of the wind –
RiBonoShelOlam
Master of the Universe – and the SEAS!
I shied away from ANY honor my whole life,
And
I often suffered for the Honor of the Land of Israel
Now that we are close you want to drown us?!
SO THE SEAS QUIETED DOWN and SOON THEY REACHED LAND
For the Honor of Israel
And Moses?
Levites in the temple sing and blow the trumpets - and Moses COULD have done that!
InIn Talmud Eruchin it does not say for sure if Moshe blew those trumpets (and I beleive it was because of hishumility)
May all our seas quiet down and bring Shabbos Peace to the World and an ending of ego-driven-leadership struggles!
Shabbat Shalom
Rabi Andy Eichenholz
- פרטים
-
קטגוריה: Parashat Hashavua
-
פורסם בשלישי, 01 דצמבר 2020 18:43
-
נכתב על ידי Super User
-
כניסות: 1031
Portion Shelach in Israel
So last time I was early arriving in the Ben Gurion
airport (just a little)
So where does a Rabbi feel at home while waiting?
(remember there are 2). Obviohsly in the Shul!
So as people are coming and going
to catch planes but still want to pray in a Minyan
What's my job?
NOW Connect this question to the 2 portions of the Torah – the one read in Israel this shabbat and that read in the "exile" this week!
Beginning Portion Bu haAhzzLoat Cha (with the Mitzva of raising the lights of the Menora... )
To the End of Shelach exhorting us to Wear Tzitzits
And (not to turn away) Lo Taturoo
And Uzchartem (REMEMBER THE EXHORTATIONS OF THE ALMIGHTY)…
GOT ALL THAT?
...
So a Little Sefaradi guy is staring from OUTSIDE the airport shul (he later said he was from uzbekistan )… So I grab him
for a minyan
NO No, he says. I just want to buy a
SIDUR.
I forgot mine at home and I am going to Uzbekistan for two weeks!
Do I "sell" him one and give the money to the airport rabbi - I know his brother - or
offer him one of MINE, or
what?
Above I reminded us all "UZECHARTEM" – REMEMBER (to ALWAYS HAVE A SIDDUR AND TALIS WHEN YOU TRAVEL)
And to RAISE THE LIGHTS-
remind all those where you are going – about all the GOOD PRACTICES that you should NOT FORGET WHEN YOU ARE TRAVELLING THIS SUMMER.
To find out what I told him, you have to call… But Meanwhile
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Andy Eichenholz
