Jewish Wisdom

In Parsha Tetzaveh, the Torah commands us to create clothing, special clothing, for Aaron and his sons, for the Kohanim. And the Torah says the reason for that clothing is l’kavod, for honor, or litifaret, and for beauty. Now, there’s no other mitzvah in the Torah that requires wearing special garments other than the garments of the Kohanim, the priestly garments.

So why do we need special clothing to perform a mitzvah? There’s something interesting about clothing — it’s really a dichotomy — because there are two Hebrew words for clothing, beged and malbush. Both of these words have derogatory connotations. Beged is the word for “boged”, for traitor, and malbush is same root as “busha”, embarrassment.

When was the first time we had clothing? It was after the sin of Adam and Eve. After they sinned, God made them these clothing, these pieces of clothing to cover their nakedness. Therefore, clothing represents the rebellion of man against God because of the sin, that original sin.

The words representing clothing are derogatory., while the clothing we are commanded to make for the Kohanim are for honor and beauty.

So there’s a big difference.

What are the lessons we can learn from this?

Well, first of all, most things in the world can be used for good or bad. So we have this clothing, which initially had a negative connotation, but we can take that clothing, elevate it into something holy, into a mitzvah, which is what the Kohanim do.

The Kohanim are taking clothing, which was used to rebel against God, and are elevating that clothing and making it into something holy, into a tool, into a vehicle of holiness, of connecting with God. Now, one of the reasons we said for the clothing was honor. And we know that clothing represents honor.

A judge wears a judicial robe, and that gives him honor in the eyes of those in the courtroom. An officer wears a dignified uniform, and that gives him honor. And as the saying goes, “clothing makes the man.”

So we know that clothing can give people honor. The purpose of the clothing for the Kohanim was not to give honor to the Kohanim per se, but it was to give honor to God, because the Kohanim were the channel which took the prayers and the sacrifices of the Jewish people and channeled them to God. They were like the pipe that brings water from one place to another.

That’s not to say that every person doesn’t have a direct connection to God, because every person does. But for some reason, God wanted to create these sort of conduits which would give more power to the Jewish people and help them elevate themselves and their prayers and their offerings to an even greater extent. So the first reason for the clothing of the Kohanim was for honor, for honor of God and honor of the Jewish people.

And the second reason was for beauty. And a lot of times, especially in modern days, we think of beauty as something just very superficial. And even in the negative context, like if you were going to describe someone and they might get insulted if you only call them beautiful, like, what about my intellect? What about my emotions, my spirituality? Don’t just focus on my beauty.

But the Torah is saying there is value, there’s great value in beauty. It’s important for a person to look their best. Yes, appearances are important in the Torah.

The Torah wants every person to look beautiful, because as we know, we were all created in the image of God. And so we want to project a beautiful image. And in fact, the Kohanim in the Beit HaMikdash were supposed to project that, an aura of beauty.

If a Kohen had a visible blemish, he was not allowed to serve in the temple service, because the Kohanim need to project beauty.

It’s an important lesson for all of us, because like being spiritual, being religious, is not a contradiction with taking care of your physical appearance and being beautiful. There’s no mitzvah in castigating yourself and looking poor and disheveled. That doesn’t bring glory to God. What brings glory to God is when we can look beautiful on our outside, but more importantly, on our inside, that we can project this aura of tiferet, of beauty, which is a combination of inner and outer beauty. And the Kohanim represented the best in us, the honor and the beauty.

That’s why we have to make special clothing for them, to help them represent this honor and beauty, to help elevate the Jewish people in their service to God.

So we all have a choice. We can use clothing as a form of rebellion, as a way of embarrassing ourselves, or even to cover up our embarrassment.

Or we can use clothing as a way to honor ourselves and honor God, and also beautify ourselves, but in a way that we can beautify our connection with God and serve him in the most honorable and the most beautiful way. 

We should all merit to be able to be beautiful and honorable on the outside and on the inside.

The post Parshat Tezaveh – The Priestly Garments appeared first on Jewish Wisdom.

A Chassidic story:

A wealthy merchant would regularly visit the Baal Shem Tov and would donate large sums of money for the Rebbe’s charitable causes. Eventually his fortune changed and his business failed, leaving him nearly penniless. When he went to visit the Rebbe again the Baal Shem, undoubtedly aware of the man’s dire straits, asked him for a huge donation of 400 rubles to aid the victims of an earthquake in the holy city of Tzvat. The man left upset and angry. How could the Rebbe be so insensitive as to request such a huge sum from him knowing of his financial hardships?

The man returned home and told his wife what happened. He then went out to think of a plan to raise the funds. While he was gone his wife gathered all the silver utensils in the house and went to the market to sell them. She brought back the coins and spent the entire evening polishing them. When the man returned home his wife presented him with a bag of coins.

The next morning the man brought the coins and gave them to the Rebbe. When the Baal Shem emptied the coins onto the table he was taken aback by their shining brilliance. He blessed the man and asked how the coins had gotten so shiny. The man had no answer.

When the man returned home he told his wife what had happened at the Rebbe’s and asked her where she had found such shiny coins. The wife answered that the coins weren’t shiny when she got them. However, since she knew that they would be in the presence of the Rebbe, she stayed up for hours polishing them until they sparkled.

The Lesson

In a few weeks we will all stand in the presence of the All Mighty…Our Father, Our King. Even though we might be a bit dirty we should take this opportunity to polish ourselves up a bit so that we can shine before Him. Let’s pick one or two things that we feel we can “polish” in ourselves and work on them for the next couple of weeks. Even if we feel we won’t be able to keep it up for the long term at least we will be shiny and polished for the High Holy Days. It’s not hypocritical; it’s just taking one small step at a time and being the best we can be right now.

Here are a few suggestions: being nice to someone every day, appreciating your parents, studying a piece of Torah daily.

Please add your own suggestions in the comments…

** This essay can be found in Deep Waters: Insights into the Five Books of Moses and the Jewish Festivals

The post Elul – Preparing Ourselves for the Day of Judgement appeared first on Jewish Wisdom.

The Book of Devarim teaches us a very important life lesson about overcoming challenges and obstacles.

Devarim is different than the other five books of the torah because it is a monologue spoken by Moses during the last few days of his life, while the Jewish People were camped in the Plains of Moab on the eastern side of the Jordan River across of Jericho. In this book Moses explains, reviews and expounds upon the commandments and events recorded in the previous four books of the Torah. That is why the Book of Devarim is also called Mishneh Torah — the repetition of the Torah.

There are countless lessons and teachings we can learn from Devarim, but the lesson I’d like to focus on is the fact that the entire book is a monologue given by Moses. Yes, he’s the same Moses who stuttered so badly that he initially refused to follow God’s command for him to speak to Pharaoh to let the Jews out of Egypt. His stutter paralyzed him from acting, and only when God told him that Aaron would speak to Pharaoh for him did he agree to be the savior of his people.

But 40 years later we find Moses, in the Book of Devarim, delivering a speech several days long to the entire nation. What a change!

The lesson here is not that Moses underwent some miraculous event that cured his stutter. Rather, Moses faced his challenge and overcame it. It took him many years to do it, and it most likely was a mighty struggle, but in the end he succeeded in overcoming his challenge.

The truth is, all of our Patriarchs and Matriarchs and many of our greatest Jewish figures faced challenges and impediments that could have defeated and destroyed them. Abraham and Sarah could not bear children until they were in the nineties and hundreds. Isaac and Rebecca were barren for 20 years before they gave birth. Jacob had to work for Laban for over 20 years away from his home, and then he was faced with the death of his beloved Rachel and later the disappearance of his son Josef. Go through a list of Jewish heroes and role models and you will find people who faced immense challenges.

Why, then, did God give these people such challenges? To teach us that just like they overcame their challenges, so too does each of us have the power to overcome our own challenges.

In the Book of Devarim Moses teaches us that a person can overcome even the greatest challenge and obstacle. It might take years of hard work, but in the end, we can succeed.

The post A Life Lesson from Devarim appeared first on Jewish Wisdom.

A Yartzeit is the yearly anniversary (on the Hebrew calendar) of a person’s death.  The day is commemorated by the recitation of the Kaddish prayer by the children of the deceased, and by giving charity, performing good deeds and studying Torah. We commemorate the Yartzeits of parents, spouses, family members and great spiritual leaders.

As today, the 18th of Tammuz, is the Yartzeit of my mother (Yehudit bat Elimelech), I decided to share a personal insight into the idea of the Yartzeit.

In the US we commemorate the birthdays of great figures such as George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., to name a few. We don’t commemorate the day they died. Conversely, in Jewish tradition we never celebrate the birthday of a great personality, only the day of his passing — unless the birthday and day of death happen to be the same date, like in the case of Moses (the 7th of Adar). [1]There’s actually a tradition that dying on ones birthday is a sign of holiness. 

To answer to this question we need to analyze what a birthday and a Yartzeit really represent.

A birthday represents potential. When a baby is born, it has the potential to accomplish great things in life. But it also has the potential to do just the opposite. Imagine the joy that the parents of Adolf Hitler felt when they held their newborn baby in their arms for the first time. They saw a child with the potential to become a wonderful adult who would make the world a better place. At that moment they were absolutely correct. But they could never imagine, in their wildest dreams, the carnage, destruction, suffering and pure evil their little baby would thrust upon the world?

Birthdays represent potential, but that potential could develop into good or evil. There’s no way for us to know how that newborn will actualize his or her potential. Jewish tradition doesn’t commemorate the day of birth because we simply don’t know how that person will actualize their potential. We don’t know how their story will end.

When we commemorate a Yartzeit we reflect upon, and celebrate, the accomplishments of a person — what they did, not what they might have done. [2]The distinction between potential and accomplishment is echoed in a Talmudic dispute between the students of Hillel and Shamai relating to how we light the Hanukah menorah. Shamai taught that we … Continue reading

Potential is wonderful, but it is only worthy of celebration if it is actualized in a positive manner. Judaism celebrates accomplishment, not potential. Judaism teaches us to live a life of kindness and meaning, even if it means overcoming challenges and hardships that we might be born with. A life of unfulfilled potential is a life of wasted opportunity.

If you are interested in learning about Jewish mourning customs and dealing with a dying parent within the framework of Jewish tradition and spirituality, please read my book: Goodbye Mom: A Memoir of Prayer, Jewish Mourning and Healing.  [Amazon]

References[+]

The post Commemorating a Yartzeit [A Brief Insight] appeared first on Jewish Wisdom.

The first prayer in the Jewish siddur is recited when we wake up in the morning, while we’re still in bed.

Here is my translation of the prayer, from the original Hebrew:

Thank you, oh living and eternal God, for mercifully returning my soul to me, great is your faithfulness.

Let’s break down the prayer and dive a bit deeper into its meaning.

The first words of the prayer, and therefore the first words that are supposed to come out of our mouth to start our new day, are “thank you.” What a beautiful and meaningful way to start our day! We don’t start off by asking God for something — and there is so much for us to ask for. We don’t cry out to him, or complain, or kvetch. Instead, we say acknowledge the awesome gift of life that He has given us and say Thank You.

Our first thanks are directed to God, the giver of life. But think of all the other people we owe thanks to — our parents, spouse, children, friends, and even random people we interact with who show us kindness. If we direct our awareness to the kindness that others are showing us, then we will be motivated to express our thanks to them. The Modeh Ani prayer is training us to do just that. To be aware of the gifts we receive and then to thank the giver for those gifts.

In the prayer we thank God “for mercifully returning my soul to me.” This refers to the Jewish teaching that our soul leaves our body when we sleep at night, and is returned to us in the morning. In fact, the Talmud refers to sleep as 1/60 of death. We can leave the science of it aside and just focus on the idea that when we wake up for a nights sleep, it’s as if we are being reborn. We are given the opportunity to look at the world with fresh eyes and a fresh outlook. A person who can achieve this state of being, where everyday is a brand new opportunity, is truly blessed, and the God who provides him or her with that blessing is truly merciful.

The final part of the Modeh Ani prayer is a bit enigmatic — “great is your faithfulness.” At first glance the words seem to say that God is faithful or, in simple words, dependable. We can rely on God to be there for us. While this is true, it doesn’t quite fit into the original Hebrew text that reads, “Rabah Enumatecha” or “Great is your faith”.  Hmm…are we saying that God has great faith? In Himself? No, that can’t be right.

So whom does God have faith in? He has faith in us.[1]I heard this explanation from Rabbi J.J. Schachter who said it in the name of his father.

God has faith in us, that we will live another day in a positive manner, by doing good deeds and following His commandments. Like a parent who lets a young child carry a tray of glasses across the room for the first time. The parent knows that the child might fail and that the glasses might all come crashing down, but he also knows that in order for the child to learn he must give the child the opportunity to succeed and show the child that he believes in his ability to succeed. The parent will continue to closely monitor the child to make sure he doesn’t get hurt, but he will give the child the opportunity to succeed or fail, because he believes in the child’s potential to succeed.

He has faith in us, and for that we our forever grateful — and we thank Him for believing in our potential every day we open our eyes.

References[+]

The post Modeh Ani – The Jewish prayer of thanks first thing in the morning appeared first on Jewish Wisdom.

In this podcast episode Rabbi Singer discusses the weekly torah portion (parsha) of Vayakhel and explains a couple of major topics discussed in it. You can apply the important lesson you’ll learn from this teaching to your daily life.

The post Weekly Parsha: Vayakhel [Podcast] appeared first on Jewish Wisdom.

In this podcast episode Rabbi Singer discusses the famous song Dayenu that we sing at the Passover Seder and explains the true meaning behind it. You can apply the important lesson you’ll learn from this teaching to your daily life.

The post Passover Seder: The Meaning of Dayenu [Podcast] appeared first on Jewish Wisdom.

In this podcast episode Rabbi Singer discusses the fundamental theme of the holiday of Purim: Hiddenness. It is reflected in the absence of God’s name in the Book of Esther and the reason we dress up in costumes. You can apply the important lesson you’ll learn from this teaching to your daily life.

The post The Hidden Lesson of Purim [Podcast] appeared first on Jewish Wisdom.

In this podcast episode Rabbi Singer discusses the idea of focus. Based on a personal story, he explores the tension we all face when our thoughts are torn between focusing on trivial manner and important things like God, family and relationships. You can apply the important lessons you’ll learn from this teaching to your daily life.

The post Focusing on the Important [Podcast] appeared first on Jewish Wisdom.

In this podcast episode Rabbi Singer discusses the weekly Parsha (Torah portion) of Vayikra. The subject of this teaching revolves around the true meaning of the sacrificial service — Giving. You can apply the important lessons you’ll learn from this teaching to your daily life.

The post Weekly Torah Portion – Vayikra [Podcast] appeared first on Jewish Wisdom.