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Yitro 5765 Kabbalat HaSiddur
by Rabbi Dr. Barry Leff
Congregation B'nai Israel
Toledo, Ohio
The most precious gift from God to the
Jewish people is the Torah.
When we put the Torah away, we sing a
song calling it a “tree of life to
all who cling to it.” The mystics say
that the Torah sustains the entire
world and that it contains all the
secrets of the universe, of the worlds
above as well as our world.
In this week’s Torah portion, Yitro, we
read the story of God giving the
Torah to the Jewish people. Moses climbs
the mountain, God descends to
the mountain, and there, in one of the
most important moments in the
spiritual history of the world, God
gives Moses the Ten Commandments,
engraved on two stone tablets,
symbolizing their eternal significance.
It is said that the Torah is God’s most
precious possession. If you were
going to lend your most precious
possession to someone, you’d probably
want some kind of security, some kind of
pledge, so that you know they
would take good care of it. When someone
who is poor wants to borrow
money from the bank, the bank will often
require a co-signer. A guarantor
that the loan will be paid.
There is a midrash (Shir haShirim Raba
1:3) that says when God was ready
to give Her most precious gift, the
Torah, to the Jewish people, She also
wanted a “guarantor.” God said “I’m
giving you my precious Torah, bring
me a good guarantor, and I’ll give it to
you.” The people of Israel said,
“we’ll give you our ancestors, Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca,
Rachel, and Leah, they’ll vouch for us
and be our guarantors.” God said,
“what kind of guarantors are they?
You’re promising to give me something
which is already mine. They are already
committed to me. You give your
ancestors, who have already lived and
died serving me, and you haven’t
given me anything.” So the people tried
again. They said, “how about the
prophets?” God said “the prophets!
Forget it. I’ve got some real
problems with some of those prophets.
Look at what it says in Jeremiah,
‘the prophets prophesied by Baal,’ a
false idol. I’m not going to take
the prophets as your guarantor. So the
people tried again. “Master of
the Universe, our CHILDREN will be our
guarantors.” God responded, “now
you’re talking! Your children will make
a great guarantor. For their
sake, I will give you the Torah.”
What makes children acceptable to God as
a guarantor, as a promise, when
our ancestors and our prophets were not?
God is giving us His most precious
possession—the Torah. The only worthy
guarantor, therefore, would have to be
our most precious possession—our
children.
But there is another reason. Why does
God want a guarantor for the Torah?
It’s because what God wants is that the
Torah will continue. Torah is NOT
something that’s all God. Torah
represents that connection between God and
Man—as symbolized by the connection
between God and Moses at Mt. Sinai.
The care that God wants taken is that we
will keep that connection alive.
That Torah will continue to be a bridge
between God and Man. And if Torah
is going to be a bridge between God and
Man, our ancestors can’t guarantee
that this will be the case—it’s not
enough that your great-grandfather was
a rabbi, and our prophets can’t
guarantee that this will be the
case—people have ignored prophets ever
since they started prophesying.
The only thing that can assure that
Torah will continue to connect the
Jewish people to God is our children.
The last Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem
Mendel Schneerson, z”l, said that we
relive this Midrash all the time here in
America. At a farbrengen, a
Chasidic gathering and discourse, he
said “You go to a Jew who is not
observant -- a little traditional but
not very religiously observant. And
you ask him, "So what about the Torah?
You're a Yid. Do you learn Torah?"
He says, "Torah? I have a father who's
eighty years old and he's in a
religious nursing home and he has a
shiur three times a day. Isn't that
enough? My father's such a religious
Jew." And he'll point to his dining
room and he'll show you a picture of his
zeide in Europe with a long white
beard.
When you tell him that this is good for
his father, but what about him?
Then the American Jew says, "Well, what
about my Rabbi? You should see my
Rabbi. He can daven Minchah by heart,
without a Siddur even. He's such a
tzaddik, so righteous. And I've seen him
rattle off verses from the Torah.
I pay his salary. And my father in the
old-age home, I pay for him there.
So I have a portion in my father's
Gemara in the nursing home and I have a
portion in my Rabbi's sermons. He's so
learned, he gives such nice sermons,
and I pay my dues."
Neither one of those works for assuring
that Torah will continue to
connect Jews with God in the future. If
no one picks it up from your
father or your rabbi, that will be the
end of the line. For Torah to
continue to be alive, for Torah to
continue to nourish the Jewish people
as it has for thousands of years, it
needs to be handed down, from
generation to generation. You need to
take it yourself—and now I’m
talking to the parents, not the
children. Each of us needs to be engaged
in Torah. Studying Torah doesn’t only
mean reading the parsha of the
week, or trying to study some Talmud. If
you read “The Jewish Book of
Why,” or Joseph Telushkin’s “Jewish
Literacy,” or Anita Diamant’s “The Red
Tent,” or Rodger Kamenetz’ “The Jew and
the Lotus” you are studying
Torah—you are learning and growing in
your knowledge of Torah, and through
Torah your knowledge of God.
Today we have our third grade class here
for the ceremony of “Kabbalat
Hasiddur,” the receiving of the siddur.
This Shabbat is especially chosen
for Kabbalat Hasiddur because it is the
Shabbat where we read about the
giving of the Torah. By giving our
children their own siddurs today, we
are proving to God that our children are
our guarantors—that we are
fulfilling our ancestors’ commitment,
and our commitment, to pass on the
tradition to the next generation. As we
recited in the Shema a little
while ago, “and these words which I
command you this day, you shall take
to heart. You shall diligently teach to
your children.”
If we take these words to heart
ourselves, and strive to grow in Jewish
learning and observance, our children
will also take them to heart, and
they will pass it on to their children,
and we will find that today has
been simply one day in a long chain
going back to Moses at Mt. Sinai and
stretching forward to as long as the
Jews exist as a people.
May we as a community continue to
fulfill the words we said earlier this
morning in the Amidah: “l’dor v’dor
nagid godlecha,” from generation to
generation we will tell of Your
greatness.
Amen.
To view the archives, go to
www.neshamah.net
To join this email list, go to
www.neshamah.net enter your email address
and click "join now."
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Yitro 5765 Kabbalat HaSiddur
by Rabbi Dr. Barry Leff
Congregation B'nai Israel
Toledo, Ohio
The most precious gift from God to the
Jewish people is the Torah.
When we put the Torah away, we sing a
song calling it a “tree of life to
all who cling to it.” The mystics say
that the Torah sustains the entire
world and that it contains all the
secrets of the universe, of the worlds
above as well as our world.
In this week’s Torah portion, Yitro, we
read the story of God giving the
Torah to the Jewish people. Moses climbs
the mountain, God descends to
the mountain, and there, in one of the
most important moments in the
spiritual history of the world, God
gives Moses the Ten Commandments,
engraved on two stone tablets,
symbolizing their eternal significance.
It is said that the Torah is God’s most
precious possession. If you were
going to lend your most precious
possession to someone, you’d probably
want some kind of security, some kind of
pledge, so that you know they
would take good care of it. When someone
who is poor wants to borrow
money from the bank, the bank will often
require a co-signer. A guarantor
that the loan will be paid.
There is a midrash (Shir haShirim Raba
1:3) that says when God was ready
to give Her most precious gift, the
Torah, to the Jewish people, She also
wanted a “guarantor.” God said “I’m
giving you my precious Torah, bring
me a good guarantor, and I’ll give it to
you.” The people of Israel said,
“we’ll give you our ancestors, Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca,
Rachel, and Leah, they’ll vouch for us
and be our guarantors.” God said,
“what kind of guarantors are they?
You’re promising to give me something
which is already mine. They are already
committed to me. You give your
ancestors, who have already lived and
died serving me, and you haven’t
given me anything.” So the people tried
again. They said, “how about the
prophets?” God said “the prophets!
Forget it. I’ve got some real
problems with some of those prophets.
Look at what it says in Jeremiah,
‘the prophets prophesied by Baal,’ a
false idol. I’m not going to take
the prophets as your guarantor. So the
people tried again. “Master of
the Universe, our CHILDREN will be our
guarantors.” God responded, “now
you’re talking! Your children will make
a great guarantor. For their
sake, I will give you the Torah.”
What makes children acceptable to God as
a guarantor, as a promise, when
our ancestors and our prophets were not?
God is giving us His most precious
possession—the Torah. The only worthy
guarantor, therefore, would have to be
our most precious possession—our
children.
But there is another reason. Why does
God want a guarantor for the Torah?
It’s because what God wants is that the
Torah will continue. Torah is NOT
something that’s all God. Torah
represents that connection between God and
Man—as symbolized by the connection
between God and Moses at Mt. Sinai.
The care that God wants taken is that we
will keep that connection alive.
That Torah will continue to be a bridge
between God and Man. And if Torah
is going to be a bridge between God and
Man, our ancestors can’t guarantee
that this will be the case—it’s not
enough that your great-grandfather was
a rabbi, and our prophets can’t
guarantee that this will be the
case—people have ignored prophets ever
since they started prophesying.
The only thing that can assure that
Torah will continue to connect the
Jewish people to God is our children.
The last Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem
Mendel Schneerson, z”l, said that we
relive this Midrash all the time here in
America. At a farbrengen, a
Chasidic gathering and discourse, he
said “You go to a Jew who is not
observant -- a little traditional but
not very religiously observant. And
you ask him, "So what about the Torah?
You're a Yid. Do you learn Torah?"
He says, "Torah? I have a father who's
eighty years old and he's in a
religious nursing home and he has a
shiur three times a day. Isn't that
enough? My father's such a religious
Jew." And he'll point to his dining
room and he'll show you a picture of his
zeide in Europe with a long white
beard.
When you tell him that this is good for
his father, but what about him?
Then the American Jew says, "Well, what
about my Rabbi? You should see my
Rabbi. He can daven Minchah by heart,
without a Siddur even. He's such a
tzaddik, so righteous. And I've seen him
rattle off verses from the Torah.
I pay his salary. And my father in the
old-age home, I pay for him there.
So I have a portion in my father's
Gemara in the nursing home and I have a
portion in my Rabbi's sermons. He's so
learned, he gives such nice sermons,
and I pay my dues."
Neither one of those works for assuring
that Torah will continue to
connect Jews with God in the future. If
no one picks it up from your
father or your rabbi, that will be the
end of the line. For Torah to
continue to be alive, for Torah to
continue to nourish the Jewish people
as it has for thousands of years, it
needs to be handed down, from
generation to generation. You need to
take it yourself—and now I’m
talking to the parents, not the
children. Each of us needs to be engaged
in Torah. Studying Torah doesn’t only
mean reading the parsha of the
week, or trying to study some Talmud. If
you read “The Jewish Book of
Why,” or Joseph Telushkin’s “Jewish
Literacy,” or Anita Diamant’s “The Red
Tent,” or Rodger Kamenetz’ “The Jew and
the Lotus” you are studying
Torah—you are learning and growing in
your knowledge of Torah, and through
Torah your knowledge of God.
Today we have our third grade class here
for the ceremony of “Kabbalat
Hasiddur,” the receiving of the siddur.
This Shabbat is especially chosen
for Kabbalat Hasiddur because it is the
Shabbat where we read about the
giving of the Torah. By giving our
children their own siddurs today, we
are proving to God that our children are
our guarantors—that we are
fulfilling our ancestors’ commitment,
and our commitment, to pass on the
tradition to the next generation. As we
recited in the Shema a little
while ago, “and these words which I
command you this day, you shall take
to heart. You shall diligently teach to
your children.”
If we take these words to heart
ourselves, and strive to grow in Jewish
learning and observance, our children
will also take them to heart, and
they will pass it on to their children,
and we will find that today has
been simply one day in a long chain
going back to Moses at Mt. Sinai and
stretching forward to as long as the
Jews exist as a people.
May we as a community continue to
fulfill the words we said earlier this
morning in the Amidah: “l’dor v’dor
nagid godlecha,” from generation to
generation we will tell of Your
greatness.
Amen.
To view the archives, go to
www.neshamah.net
To join this email list, go to
www.neshamah.net enter your email address
and click "join now."
______________________________________________________________________
You are receiving this message because
you have requested information and
updates sent via email. If you no longer
wish to receive these emails,
please reply to this message with
"Unsubscribe" in the subject line or
simply click on the following link:
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_____________________________________________________________________
This message was sent by Reb Barry''s
Torah Commentary using
VerticalResponse's iBuilder (TM)
Reb Barry''s Torah Commentary
Congregation Bnai Israel
2727 Kenwood Blvd
Toledo, Ohio 43606
Read the VerticalResponse marketing
policy:
http://www.verticalresponse.com/content/pm_policy.html
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