Rabbis' Blog

Shainy’s grandfather, Rabbi Avraham Karp was a venerable scholar who taught Talmud to generations of students, young and old. He was an extraordinary teacher and the recordings of his Talmud classes continue to attract a following over twenty years after his passing.

Once when one of his students was visiting him at home, a Jew who had recently immigrated from the Soviet Union arrived for his regular Hebrew reading session with Rabbi Karp. He never learned to read Hebrew in Communist Russia and was eager to make up for the lost opportunity.

The visiting student asked Rabbi Karp if it was really necessary for a sage of his caliber to tutor this gentleman in a subject even a child could teach. Pointing to the large Taludic tome on his table and then to the Hebrew Alphabet booklet, Rabbi Karp passionately answered, “This is Torah and this is Torah!”

In this week’s parsha Va’eschanan Moshe teaches the Jewish people the “Shema Yisrael.” The paragraph of six verses recited twice daily which serves as an essential meditation to keep us focused on our relationship with G-d.

Torah study is the foundation of this relationship and the “Shema” communicates this important mitzvah to us in a seemingly roundabout manner: “You shall teach them (the lessons of the Torah) thoroughly to your children.”

True, in order to teach Torah you must first study Torah yourself, but why could the “Shema” not simply state “You shall study Torah” and then add a few words about the importance of education? Even more perplexing, Maimonides and the Code of Jewish Law both begin the section about the laws of Torah study with the obligation to teach children before recording the details of one's personal study obligations. Doesn’t personal study come first?

Children are impressionable and open to new vistas. Capable of absorbing what they are taught without bias or agenda. They are curious, available and excited to learn new things. Torah study, at all ages and stages in life, must be the same. 

When studying the Hebrew Alphabet, at any age and stage in life, one must accept the information and learn how to conform with the ground rules of Hebrew reading. The same is true about all levels of Torah scholarship. Even Torah innovation has ground rules and parameters. Instead of forcing Torah to conform with our biases and agendas we must allow Torah to enlighten us and inform our worldview. As the famous Chassidic saying goes, “You studied Torah - but what did Torah teach you?”

Torah study can and should always be a youthful experience. Through surrendering yourself to the Torah lessons you learn, you’ll be uplifted, enlightened and inspired.

After a 15 month break due to Covid we recently restarted Havdalah services at Chabad on Saturday nights 20 minutes after the conclusion of Shabbat. We pray evening services, recite Havdalah, sing a song and settle down with refreshments to watch the weekly segment of the Living Torah series with inspirational teachings and stories of the Rebbe produced by Jewish Educational Media.

Last week we watched a brief excerpt from an interview of a fellow who was struggling with his wife’s insistence to start keeping a kosher home and other Jewish practices. One evening he accompanied his wife to an audience with the Rebbe and asked the Rebbe in writing why G-d really cared if the dairy spoon mixed a pot of chicken soup. Does G-d really care about all the nitty-gritty details of Jewish observance? What’s all the angst about?

“I don’t understand your question,” the Rebbe responded. “Mitzvot are not for G-d. They are for us. So that we should be able to have a relationship with G-d.”

Here was a Jew annoyed about his Jewishness and uninterested in the whole concept of observance, and the Rebbe tells him that  by wrapping Tefillin and eating a kosher sandwich he will be nurturing his relationship with G-d, even before he studies the entire Torah and achieves spiritual greatness. Is it possible for your run-of-the-mill Jew to have a real relationship with G-d?

This week we begin learning the fifth book of the Torah “Devarim.” You will notice the genre is vastly different from the first four books of the Torah. While the others are written in third-person (“G-d spoke to Moses”) this one is written in first-person (“G-d spoke to me”).

The fact that every word in the Torah was transcribed by Moses through divine communication is foundational to Jewish  belief, but the change of tone in Devarim is symbolic of a profound aspect of our relationship with G-d.

Torah was given to bridge the truly insurmountable gap between mortal physical human beings and our creator. The first four books were written as a transparent divine communication that uplifts us from the mundane and physical experience, allowing us to experience spiritual transcendence. The fifth book speaks in the language of the human experience, signaling that a relationship with G-d can be achieved even while still entrenched in the mundane and ordinary physical experience.

Through wrapping Tefillin, lighting Shabbat candles, eating kosher and giving charity you develop a real relationship with G-d despite your lack of spiritual feeling and experience. If you feel the same after doing a mitzvah, you’re still on the right track, because G-d is genuinely present in the human experience as well, not just in spiritual transcendence.

Saturday night and Sunday we will observe Tisha B’av - commemorating the destruction of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem around 2,000 years ago. The Holy Temple was a space where Jews experienced spiritual transcendence on a daily basis and since its destruction much of the spiritual pomp and ceremony of Judaism ceased.

Devarim teaches us however that  we continue to have a genuine and profound relationship with G-d even in our bleak and dreary exile. Even without feeling it, each time we do a mitzvah we prepare our world for an era of true global peace and tranquility, with the rebuilding of the Holy Temple through Moshiach, may it happen immediately.

It’s travel season and everyone flying domestically will tell you that Americans are traveling extensively this summer. Planning for trips is fun, but it’s the unexpected things that happen on the way that make them most memorable and meaningful.

My kids still talk about the time we got stuck in Vicksburg, Mississippi overnight due to a broken axle and the ten hours we sat in stand still traffic in the middle of Texas during the massive snow storm earlier this year.

These unexpected situations are caused either by external circumstances or clumsy errors, but in the end we often look back at them with appreciation.

In the second parsha we learn this week - “Masei” - Moshe describes the 40 year journey the Jewish people just concluded, starting with the exodus from Egypt culminating with their imminent arrival to the Land of Israel at the Jordan River. He records the 42 places the people encamped along the way and the mention of some of these places brings back some haunting and traumatizing memories.

The place where they complained about the heavenly food G-d sent them every morning and the site where the horrendous debacle of the spies that delayed their arrival in Israel by 39 years went down, just to mention two of them. Nevertheless, all of the encampments are called “journeys with which the Israelites left Egypt.” They were all part of a process of leaving Egypt and reaching the Promised Land.

How can the bitter memories of the Golden Calf or the Korach rebellion be integral to their epic desert journey to Israel? Are these encampments considered points of progress in the process of freedom from Egpytian slavery to settling in the Holy Land?

Here’s the catch. From the very beginning to the very end G-d was always with them. Even in the darkest moments of treason and heresy, the divine cloud representing G-d’s presence never left the Israelite camp. Because G-d’s covenant is eternal and even the gravest mistakes can be fixed, serving as the stepping stones for even greater and unanticipated spiritual growth and achievement.

The Baal Shem Tov explains that the life each individual experiences here and now is a spiritual microcosm of the itinerary of the Israelites’ desert journey over 3,000 years ago. The soul descends from heaven into the spiritual wilderness of this physical reality and is faced with the challenge of choosing right over wrong and good over evil, day in and day out.

Like our ancestors we stumble and falter, sometimes due to external factors and at times due to our own forced errors, but we must remember that G-d is always with us at every point of our journey, waiting patiently and lovingly for us to work through it all until we reach our ultimate goal. To prepare the world for the era of Moshiach when true peace and tranquility will reign for all, through increasing our Torah study and Mitzvah observance one step at a time.