Category: Rabbis blog

Yisro The Midrash teaches that the Patriarchs and Matriarchs kept the entire Torah before the Torah was given! How are we  to understand this? Surely there are commandments which they could not possibly keep? For example the Exodus had not happened so how would they know to eat Matza? And even if they did eat Matzah surely its meaningless as at the end of the day it reminds us of the actual Matzah they ate in Egypt and upon Exodus? Furthermore if they kept the Torah prior to the giving of the Torah then what is the purpose of the revelation at Sinai!? This question is addressed in most elaborate form by the mystics and contains some of the deepest secrets of our Torah. But I will attempt to give a very brief answer in broad brush strokes. When we say the Patriarchs/Matriarchs kept the Torah we mean that they perceived and recognised the spiritual root of each Mitzvah and based on this they were...

Click here to listen to Rabbi Bergson 4 min thought for Shabbat "Choosing how we seeing things" Connection to the Parshah: Can we hear the song of life? Can we perceive the music of our existence? Can we look at life as coming from an infinite God that we cannot wrap our minds around? When we choose to see life as an invitation to connect to our Creator then our only response is to sing with unadulterated joy. When every moment of "being" is seen as pregnant with depth of purpose - then we become enthralled by life, "dancing" with joy and enthusiasm. Hashem is Haya Hoveh and Yihyeh (Was,Is and Will Be)- transcending time. When we connect to Him through the Torah and Mitzvot we too connect to eternity! This is the deepest Joy that exists. This is the concept of Shabbat Shira. When Hashem split the sea this was more than just saving the Israelites on the one hand and destroying the Egyptian enemy on...

Parshat Bo - Dealing with our "inner Pharoahs" Please follow link to listen to dvar Torah In honour of shabbat Parshat Bo - Mental Health Awareness Shabbat - Shabbat Shalom...

Vaera - Exposing Coverups In Vaera we are introduced to the ten plagues.  There is a famous question as to the need for ten plagues. If the purpose of the plagues is to extricate the Israelites from Egypt then surely an Omnipotent God is able to do this with one plague? If the plagues were just a punishment as Abraham was told at the Covenant between the parts "And also the nation that they will serve will I judge, and afterwards they will go forth with great possessions", then again one plague could suffice? The answer is that the plagues are more than just punishments. They are pedagogic tools to teach Egypt and the civilised world about the very nature of God that they denied. Recall that by plague number three - Lice- Pharaohs' necromancers unable to replicate the miracle, acknowledged that this "is the finger of God". In Hebrew the word used for God is Elokim which represents God who powers nature (Elokim=86 which = Hateva meaning...

Shemot - Too much light! Moshe Rabbeinu encounters Hashem at the burning bush* where Moshe engages God in a long involved dialogue where he attempts to initially reject his spiritual mission as saviour of the Jewish people. The structure of the dialogues runs as follows 1) God introduces Himself as the God of the Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, expresses His intimate knowledge of the affliction and suffering of the fledgling Israelite nation and challenges Moshe to be the emissary of God to take His people out of Egypt. Moshe fascinatingly attempts to reject the mission with a number of arguments: 2) "Who am I?" The first "excuse" is based on Moshes humility. 3) God responds "I will be with You" + sign that God is with Moshe - worship God on the mountain 4) Moshe responds "But I wont know how to answer the people when they ask for your name" 5) God introduces his undefinable essence "I will be what I will be". Plus God teaches Moshe about the ineffable name the Tetragrammaton...

Vayechi- Kindess of Truth, Legacy & Eternal Life We learn this week of the tremendous Mitzva of attending to all the funeral requirements of a person who has passed on from this world. Jacob is about to pass away and he calls Joseph to adjure him to make a solemn oath to bring his body back to the land of Israel to be buried alongside his wife Leah in the Cave of Machpela in Chevron. (One explanation of the name Machpela is that it means doubles as it houses the 4 doubles Adam/Chava Abraham/Sarah Isaac/Rebecca & Jacob/Leah) He describes this act as a "kindness and a truth". But what is truthful about a kindness? Rashi (citing a Midrash) explains that the kindness we do for the dead is a "kindness of truth because one does not look forward to reciprocation". However the Talmud in Moed Katan rules that "He who eulogises will be eulogised; he who buries will be buried". So on a basic level there is still...

Vayigash Essay - Jewish Fusion the long read (for the shortened version skip to the Blue font at the bottom) The Theme of Parshat Vayigash is the reconciliation of the brothers with Yosef who is now 'prime minister' of Egypt. Ironically it is outside of the land of Israel that this reunification takes place. The schism between the the brothers (in particular the sons of Leah) and Yosef is not a one off  story in the Torah. This division plays out throughout Jewish history. In fact the sages understand the special He-goat offering of Yom Kippur to be an ongoing  atonement for the sin of the sale of Joseph. In the liturgical section that relates the story of the 10 Martyrs in the period post the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans, the sages depict the Roman Emperor as using the Sale of Yosef as a pretext to the torture and brutal murder of the sages: The Emperor asked the sages what is the law if a...

Miketz- (Chanukah Theme) The Infinite importance of small things The Menorah (Chanukiah) we light today commemorates the Menorah that was lit in the Temple which was a fulfilment of a Godly command (Bamidbar 8:1 see below) The Menorah was one of the key components of the Bet Hamikdash. But does God really need our light? God transcends His creation. He is beyond the trivialities of existence. On a broader level we can develop this question on the whole of the Torah and its myriad of Mitzvot and Halachot? In particular, the ritual aspects of Judaism are filled with many details some quite technical. Does God really care about our ritualistic actions? Yet Chanukah an entirely ritualistic aspect of Judaism is beloved by all Jews regardless of their religious level. This must represent something deeper and powerful about the Jewish soul. Let's explore: There is a stunningly beautiful Midrash (most likely written down approx. 12th century) that explores this theme in the context of the command to light the Menorah...

Vayeshev - The Exile Within The wisdom of Gematria - that Hebrew letters and words are also numerical codes that contain profound meaning and depth -  is rather misunderstood . Many think that the the numerical equivalences between words are mere coincidence, or made up, or at best a cute way to play with Hebrew words but not a true part of our Jewish tradition. The truth is that Gematria is a serious science with a complex set of rules that have been passed down the ages for thousands of years. For example Rabbi Jacob Ben Asher (1269 Germany - 1343 Spain) known as the Baal Haturim after his famous  Halachic treatise - the precursor to the Shulchan Aruch by Rabbi Yosef Caro in the 16th Cent- wrote a commentary on the Torah specifically focussed on uncovering the hidden messages found in the Torah through Gematria. This includes acrostics, formation of letters, word patterns and so on. Sometimes entire sentences form a Gematria.  It is...