Recap for 13 Av 5773 (Parsha Va'etchanan)

This Shabbos we discussed what it means that we do not do work on Shabbos. We discussed the one type of work that is a Torah violation, but not a capital offense: lighting a fire. This is because Hashem did not create fire during the first six days of creation. Hashem did create the sun, but this is not the same as a fire, as there is no oxygen in space.

We discussed the parsha, known as Va’etchanan. In the parsha, Moses recounts the story of receiving the ten commandments at Mt. Sinai, and repeats the ten commandments to the people. Moses speaks to us on the importance of following the Torah and its commandments. We discussed how Hashem did not descend all the way down at Mt. Sinai, but that there is a distance between him and us.

This distance illustrates the fact we can never completely cling to Hashem. We do the best we can by imitating Hashem’s ways. We do mitzvah, such as visiting the sick and loving acts of kindness. These bring us closer to Hashem.  We follow the Torah as best we can.

We discussed how Hashem created a world in a way that would enable us to do all this mitzvah. David spoke some more about what his father would say with respect to the problem of evil and suffering in the world. The most perfect world has suffering so that we can do mitzvah and practice these character traits such as love, kindness and compassion. This is known as the virtuous response to suffering. If there was no suffering and we simply experienced well-being all the time, we would not know we were experiencing well-being because there would be nothing to compare it to. This may be another reason why there is suffering.

We discussed some more how Hashem gives all of us free will, and how some of us choose to not to do good and/or follow the Torah with this free will. If everyone automatically followed the Torah, then we would not have free will but would be robots and not human beings. Hashem wants us to make choices with free will, rather than automatically having choices made for us.

We discussed why “in the beginning” appears first before Hashem, and not the other way around. It would seem that first, Hashem had to create time itself. We never really answered this question.  Hashem exists outside of time and space. Since we live within time and space, it is very difficult to understand what it is like outside of time and space. Everything that exists in the physical world exists in time, so time would have to be created first.

We continued our discussion of work by non-Jews. If we own a company with a non-Jew, the non-Jew can work on Shabbos but must realize 100% of the profits from that day. We are allowed to own stock in a company that does business on Shabbos. However, if the company is primarily Jewish run and is open on Shabbos, we should divest of this stock.

Finally, David talked about how we will be discussing more topics from his father, including religion and science in coming weeks. We also talked about how we should love our fellow Jew even if they are not as religious as us. And we talked about all the accomplishments going on in Israel, but it is disappointing that some of the Rabbis are fighting with each other as they are.