This Shabbos we discussed parsha Ki Tisa and commentary by Rav Yeager. We discussed the upcoming holiday of Pesach, along with commentary by Rav Malamed. This Shabbos we had a special kiddush for the yeirzeit of Yaki's father.
As you know, this past week was Purim. My grandmother’s name was Esther, obviously a main character in the story, and I thought of her as I was celebrating. The one place my grandmother always spoke about was Haifa, and this week I was thinking about my grandmother and how happy she was that I visited Haifa on my last trip to Israel. Then on this Shabbos, right after Purim, Haifa came up again, as Yaki spoke about his father who use to live there.
We gathered for a special Kiddush to honor and remember Yakki’s father Yakutiel Yehudah Ben Yaakov. Yaki has told us incredible stories of his dad, about how he survived the holocaust and was one of only a few survivors among his brothers and sisters. This Shabbos, Yaki spoke more about his father and all of his good deeds.
His father would always have an open house on Shabbos, and this is a tradition that Yaki has continued here in Memphis. Yaki spoke about how his father lived in Haifa and would help keep the community together. This can be a very difficult thing to do with all the different opinions and groups that were there, but his father was able to get it done, and was very well known for his role.
Yaki spoke about the practice on Purim of giving a half-shekel. Hashem created a world in which we often see 2 halves forming a whole. Some examples of this are man and woman, body and soul, physical and spiritual, right and left. Norm pointed out how the parts of the brain work in pairs. By giving a half-sheckel we all contribute our half to form the whole of our community. Yaki spoke about how his father supported this concept, and how it is important for everyone to participate regardless of one's income or status in society.
David gave a dvar Torah on how the holidays correspond to the events of our life. Pesach corresponds to our birth. Shavuous corresponds to our barmitzvah. And Rosh Hashanah corresponds to our getting engaged.
Purim corresponds to the world to come. We discussed how Pesach is the new year for Jews, and Rosh Hashanah is the new year for the world.
This Shabbos we discussed the definition of spirituality as a connection to something greater than ourselves that we can’t sense physically. We discussed how we are all made up of a body and soul, and how the soul returns to the source of its creation when the body expires. Once a soul has been released from the physical body, we can still elevate and bring joy to this soul, as we did today at our get together to honor Yaki's father.
We gathered for a special Kiddush to honor and remember Yakki’s father Yakutiel Yehudah Ben Yaakov. Yaki has told us incredible stories of his dad, about how he survived the holocaust and was one of only a few survivors among his brothers and sisters. This Shabbos, Yaki spoke more about his father and all of his good deeds.
His father would always have an open house on Shabbos, and this is a tradition that Yaki has continued here in Memphis. Yaki spoke about how his father lived in Haifa and would help keep the community together. This can be a very difficult thing to do with all the different opinions and groups that were there, but his father was able to get it done, and was very well known for his role.
Yaki spoke about the practice on Purim of giving a half-shekel. Hashem created a world in which we often see 2 halves forming a whole. Some examples of this are man and woman, body and soul, physical and spiritual, right and left. Norm pointed out how the parts of the brain work in pairs. By giving a half-sheckel we all contribute our half to form the whole of our community. Yaki spoke about how his father supported this concept, and how it is important for everyone to participate regardless of one's income or status in society.
David gave a dvar Torah on how the holidays correspond to the events of our life. Pesach corresponds to our birth. Shavuous corresponds to our barmitzvah. And Rosh Hashanah corresponds to our getting engaged.
Purim corresponds to the world to come. We discussed how Pesach is the new year for Jews, and Rosh Hashanah is the new year for the world.
This Shabbos we discussed the definition of spirituality as a connection to something greater than ourselves that we can’t sense physically. We discussed how we are all made up of a body and soul, and how the soul returns to the source of its creation when the body expires. Once a soul has been released from the physical body, we can still elevate and bring joy to this soul, as we did today at our get together to honor Yaki's father.
We continued our learning from Rav Yeager this Shabbos. We discussed how the Beit Midrash is the holiest place, and how Shabbos is the holiest time. We discussed the idea that Shabbos is a reflection of a piece of our soul.
We discussed how we committed the sin of the Golden Calf, which resulted in Moshe breaking up the tablets. We discussed how hitting this “bottom” enabled us to go forward and reach higher heights in our spirituality. Moshe was able to speak to Hashem and communicate our wishes and desires. It’s amazing we were able to do this after having sinned, but the experience we went through helped us become more aware of Hashem and our role in the world.
This Shabbos we discussed our special role as Jews to represent and bring Hashem to the world. We discussed how we brought morality to the world, which is the idea that we should do what is right rather than do whatever we have the power to do. Although much of the world still lives by the principle of survival of the fittest, we believe in doing things based on right and wrong, as outlined in our Torah. We discussed how we brought monotheism to the world, and how much of the modern world we live in today is based on ideas that originated with Judaism.
We discussed how 30 days before any holiday, it is appropriate to ask questions of Torah scholars about the upcoming holiday. We are now within the 30 day period prior to Pesach, and we began our study of Pesach, and commentary on the holiday from Rav Malamed.
This holiday has a reputation of putting fear in people's minds, but actually we should be looking forward to Pesach and realize that preparation is only stressful if we make it so. It should not take hours and hours and hours to get our homes ready for this holiday. We discussed that, yes, the kitchen is going to take some work, but the other rooms should not be that hard, especially if we have not eaten chametz in these rooms.
We discussed why we eat matzah on Pesach. We discussed how bread can represent arrogance, with the rising dough analogous to our rising egos. We eat matzah to reject what the rising dough is symbolizing.
This brought up a very interesting question. If chametz is so bad, why do we eat it year round? The answer is that chametz can also represent our participation in the creation of the world. Hashem provides the raw ingredients of bread, and we do the rest of the work. The important thing, during the rest of the year, is to remember that it is Hashem that has provided us the raw material and tools, and not let our ego get the best of us.
We discussed some more about the importance of bringing spirituality to the physical world. If we only live in the physical world, we tend to never be happy with what we have and always want more. However, Judaism does not believe in rejecting the physical world completely and being abstinent from things. What we want to do, is use the physical world as a base, the same way our body is the base for our soul. Keep in mind that Hashem created a physical world to begin with and everything is here for a reason. However, we have a mission and purpose to channel physicality for spiritual purposes.
This Shabbos we discussed our special role as Jews to represent and bring Hashem to the world. We discussed how we brought morality to the world, which is the idea that we should do what is right rather than do whatever we have the power to do. Although much of the world still lives by the principle of survival of the fittest, we believe in doing things based on right and wrong, as outlined in our Torah. We discussed how we brought monotheism to the world, and how much of the modern world we live in today is based on ideas that originated with Judaism.
We discussed how 30 days before any holiday, it is appropriate to ask questions of Torah scholars about the upcoming holiday. We are now within the 30 day period prior to Pesach, and we began our study of Pesach, and commentary on the holiday from Rav Malamed.
This holiday has a reputation of putting fear in people's minds, but actually we should be looking forward to Pesach and realize that preparation is only stressful if we make it so. It should not take hours and hours and hours to get our homes ready for this holiday. We discussed that, yes, the kitchen is going to take some work, but the other rooms should not be that hard, especially if we have not eaten chametz in these rooms.
We discussed why we eat matzah on Pesach. We discussed how bread can represent arrogance, with the rising dough analogous to our rising egos. We eat matzah to reject what the rising dough is symbolizing.
This brought up a very interesting question. If chametz is so bad, why do we eat it year round? The answer is that chametz can also represent our participation in the creation of the world. Hashem provides the raw ingredients of bread, and we do the rest of the work. The important thing, during the rest of the year, is to remember that it is Hashem that has provided us the raw material and tools, and not let our ego get the best of us.
We discussed some more about the importance of bringing spirituality to the physical world. If we only live in the physical world, we tend to never be happy with what we have and always want more. However, Judaism does not believe in rejecting the physical world completely and being abstinent from things. What we want to do, is use the physical world as a base, the same way our body is the base for our soul. Keep in mind that Hashem created a physical world to begin with and everything is here for a reason. However, we have a mission and purpose to channel physicality for spiritual purposes.
This is a summary of what we discussed. No Halachic rulings are intended or should be inferred.
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