Inspiration for the mind, heart and soul from the heart of Jerusalem.
Reflections on Yom HaAtzmaut 5771, given at Beit Knesset Kol Rina, Nachlaot, Jerusalem.
What can we learn from locusts?
In describing the severity of the Plague of Locusts, the Torah tells us, “…Before it there was never a locust-swarm like it, and after it there will not be anything like it” (Ex. 10:14). The Torah seems to be saying there never was and there never will be anything as severe. The apparent difficulty is that the book of Yoel, one of the trei assar or twelve prophets, describes a plague of locusts “great and numerous, its like has not been from eternity, and after …
This Shabbat we read the Four Expressions of Redemption (or, Four Redemptions), Exodus 6:6-7, which serve as the source for the Four Cups of wine at the Pesach Seder (Rashi to TB Pesachim 99b; TY Pesachim 10:1; Bereishit Rabbah 88).
What follows is a fifth expression, “And I will bring you to the Land…”So why don’t we drink a fifth cup of wine at the Seder?
1) According to one version of a beraitta in Pesachim 118a, we should indeed have five cups (Rambam, Rif, Ba’al HaMaor, Ra’avad to Rif), the fifth …
Original and insightful essays (in Hebrew) about the festival of Purim.
Mishteh Shimshon 5770
In our study of Torah, how are we we to view the Avot and other Biblical figures? Are they to be put on a pedestal? Are they infallible? Or, are they human beings like us, and subject to human frailty?
