Ki Sisa - Choosing Greatness

What does it mean when the midrash says that 'Hashem reviews the material four times before teaching the Torah to the people of Israel?' What is the depth of the idea that those who have fear of Heaven merit to have offspring who embody Torah? What is the idea behind the book of generations that was shown to Adam and contains the names of every great person that would ever live? Why did Avraham see a vision of all of the ups and downs of the Jewish people throughout their history? Is greatness something that is chosen with free will or predetermined?

Find out in this week's parsha podcast.

Running time: 28:27

Toldos - Clothes of Dominion

What were the special clothes that Rivka made sure Yakov wore when he stole the blessings from Esav? Why did wild animals become docile when they saw these garments? Why did Esav wear them whenever he served his father? How were they connected to Adam's naming of all the animals? Why did they give Adam dominion over all of the creations in the world? Why does Adam name all the animals right in the middle of the Torah's account of Hashem's creation of Eve? Why is Yakov sent to marry immediately after he receives the blessings? Why does Yakov include animal descriptions in his blessings of his children?

Find out in this week's parsha podcast.

Running time: 24:58

Nahama D'kisufa - Beating the Bread of Shame

Nahama D'kisufa is the Bread of Shame - which in the Ramchal refers to the experience we have when we receive something that we have not earned - a feeling of shame. But hey, don't you love getting a free gift? Where's the shame? Wouldn't you love to win the lottery? Where's the shame?

But it's the foundation of reality as we know it - we're here in this world to learn Torah and do Mitzvos, so we can 'earn' the light Hashem wants to give us; a light which would be too much to handle if we had not earned it.

But why is it called the 'Bread of Shame?' Why isn't it simply referred to as something like the 'uncomfortable principle?' Or something like that?

I realized today that the 'Bread of Shame' is actually a play on the passuk which speaks of the response Hashem gave to Adam's sin. He was told he would 'eat bread by the sweat of his face.' (actually it's literally 'sweat of his nose.') Whereas the bread he ate before in the Garden of Eden was given to him without any need for effort on his part - it literally grew on trees - now he would have to be involved in the process of bringing the bread from the earth.

But notice that it doesn't say he would have to work for his bread. It just says that he would have to sweat for it. It would require effort.

So what is the way out of the 'bread of shame?' The way out is through perspiration.

Naturally, we could think that this means that whereas before it came on its own, without any effort, now I must expend much effort to receive the bread.

But it's not so.

The bread that I receive is actually still received without effort. (Just go to the supermarket if you don't believe me!) But I have to sweat in order to remove the shame of receiving something without effort.

Before, in the garden of Eden, I could receive without feeling shame, without needing to earn it by putting in effort. It felt like it was mine. And it was, because as a child of Hashem, it is my birthright to have my needs provided for. (Look around at the animal world.)

But after Adam's sin, I still receive it for free - only after I earn it.

And I can earn it in different ways.

The chiddush here is that the effort and sweat I put in does not have to directly result in the bread I receive. The effort just takes away the shame.

I can also lose the shame by going through challenging circumstances. Or by going through a process of teshuva which brings me back to Hashem and aligns me closer to the original state of Adam.

Another chiddush that comes out of this idea is that the concept of nahama d'kisufa is a state which is only applicable post-sin of Adam. Previous to it, Adam and Eve could receive great blessings without feeling shame.

It's worth thinking about how this applies to the passuk which talks about their being unclothed and not being ashamed.

Perhaps thoughts for another time...

Re'eh - Hearing and Transcending

Why does the Torah speak about 'seeing' and 'hearing' in the context of our free will choices? What do we learn from the 'listening' that Adam did as opposed to Avraham? What is the depth of the concept of voice, sound and hearing? How does it relate to the mitzvah of blowing the shofar on Rosh Hashana?

Find out in this week's parsha podcast.

Running time: 26:55

Shlach - Seeing Through the Lie

Why does Hashem respond so harshly to the Jewish people's lack of faith when they cry with the spies' report? Why were the Jewish people so afraid to enter Israel if they had just seen, and continued to see, the many miracles Hashem performed on their behalf? Why did they not believe they would continue to experience miracles? What is the parallel between this event and the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden? What is the difference between the spies that Moshe sent and the spies that Yehoshua sent 40 years later? What can one do, if one finds oneself in a place of distance from Hashem, in order to return to that relationship?

Find out in this week's parsha podcast.

Running time: 24:26

Shmini - Six, Seven, and Eight

Why is the mishkan completed on the same day as the creation of Man? What is the significance of the fact that it is both the sixth day of creation and the eighth day of the mishkan? What is the deeper concept of the numbers six, seven, and eight? How is the sadness of this day rectified? Where do we see these three numbers in the last day of Pesach? What is the significance of the silence of the Jewish people in the face of their Egyptian pursuers? How does the first day of Nissan connect to the 21st day of Nissan?

Find out in this week's Parsha Podcast.

Running time: 22:20

Moshiach Podcast 10

It's been a while since I really talked Moshiach. As will become clear to those who listen to the podcast, I have decided, for a few different reasons, to continue this series, albeit taking it in a slightly different direction than the last three episodes.

Here is the description from itunes:

Understanding Moshiach is really about bringing Moshiach. We discuss what Moshiach means, its roots in the times of Adam, and the things each of us can start to do to actually bring the world closer to that worldwide consciousness of God's presence.

Here is Moshiach podcast #10.

Running time: 42:27

The missing malchus (female aspect)

I wanted to share a deep thought that struck me early today. When one has a good grasp of the core concepts underlying Hashem's world, the ideas laid down in the deeper sources, one can see applications of those ideas in a very broad range of places. Perhaps the most essential concept is the balance between the male and female aspects of creation. These two aspects are in a constant state of disrepair, needing our actions to create the proper balance between them. The actions that do this are the mitzvos we do. This is indicated in the kabbalistic prayer many say before the performance of a mitzvah, "l'shem yichud kudsha brich hu u'sh'chintei" - "For the sake of the unity of the Male aspect of divinity and its female." This is a necessity as a result of the imbalance created through the sin of Adam and Chava, where the male and female aspects lost their perfect state of balance.

Generally, the male aspect is represented by the number six, and the female aspect is represented by the number seven. We see this in the six days of creation, which are the days of 'work' - the male aspect, and Shabbos, which is the seventh, the female dimension, of reflection, of malchus. Malchus means kingship, and it corresponds to the moon, which reflects the light of the sun. The sun is the male aspect, it is the keser, the crown, which the kingship of malchus reflects.

There is something that has long puzzled me, that I was thinking about this morning, and Hashem lit up my eyes with a deep insight I would like to share. We find that there are certain places where we only seem to have the six, without the seventh aspect. For instance, we find that there were twelve tribes of the Jewish people. This twelve corresponds to the twelve months of the year. The twelve months can be broken down into two parallel sets of six - from Nissan to Elul and from Tishrei to Adar. The day is split into twenty four hours - twelve hours for the day and twelve for the night. This can further be split into four sets of six hours. We seem to see that in the dimension of time there is a very strong male aspect, as indicated by the multiples of six. Where is the female aspect? And even if one would answer that Shabbos is the female aspect in time, where is the female aspect in each day?

In discussing a different topic with my chevrusa this morning, we spoke about the idea that the sefiros are what make up all of reality. Our physical bodies are made of the sefiros. The entire world is made of sefiros. Our souls are made of the sefiros. Even the dimension of time is made of sefiros. We see this indicated, for example, in the fact that we count through seven sets of sefiros from Pesach to Shavuos. We see this, also, in that which we mentioned that the week is made of seven days.

One of the places where this is brought to the fore, both in the temporal dimension, as well as the spatial dimension, is in the holiday of Succos. The first seven days of Succos correspond to the seven. (As an aside, the eighth day corresponds to the transcendant aspect of Binah, one of the first three sefiros. We are here discussing the lower seven.) This is the dimension of time. We find that the Succah, as well as the movements of the lulav, represent the aspect of space. The Succah surrounds us in all six directions - East, West, North and South, as well as above and below. The lulav is waved in six directions, as well. Where is the missing seventh aspect - the female dimension of malchus here?

The answer is, as R' Aryeh Kaplan Z'l explains, that the center is the female aspect. The idea of the lulav is that there is a back and forth between the male and female aspects. Each time we wave the lulav, we bring together the six components of the lulav (1 lulav, 3 hadasim, 2 aravos) with the seventh component, the esrog (which represents malchus, the female). We wave this bundle in each of the six directions, each time bringing the bundle back to the center, which is the seventh - the point in the center. In the succah, we are surrounded on all six sides, and we are in the center, the seventh point.

If we extend this idea from the spatial dimension into the temporal dimension, we see something remarkable. In the aspect of time, we seem to only see the male aspect of sixes, as they keep recurring, with no evidence of the seventh aspect. The secret is that just like in space the seventh dimension is the center - where the person stands; so too in the dimension of time, the present moment is the female dimension. The fact that the female dimension is represented by the present moment is evidenced in the exemption that women have from positive commandments that are time bound. Women are not affected by the movement of time - their strength is in living in the present. They are, however, commanded in the time bound mitzvos of Shabbos, because Shabbos is the seventh aspect itself, that time of no movement, where everything is previously prepared - there is only to live in the present.

When Adam and Chava sinned, it created a powerful imbalance in the fabric of the spiritual realms, as well as the physical realms of space and time. This imbalance is reflected in every aspect of reality as a discord between the male and female aspects. The way it manifests is expressed by Hashem in His statement to Chava, "והוא ימשול בך" - "And he shall rule over you." As long as the world is in disrepair, the male aspect forcibly rules over the female aspect. Through the proper fulfillment of the Torah and its commandments, we bring the male and female aspects into their proper balance, where man and his wife are equal partners in reality. This is clearly expressed in the mitzvah of lulav, where we have the joining of the male and female aspects, which are waved back and forth between the male spatial dimension, and the female spatial dimension. This corresponds to the joining power of da'as. Da'as ('knowledge') is the glue that binds together the male and female dimensions, and it works through the back and forth between these opposite polarities of reality. This consistent back and forth motion yields a state akin to the androgynous dimension which Adam and Chava inhabited before they were separated from each other through the Nesirah process. This perfect balance was their state prior to their eating of the forbidden fruit, and will be our state when Moshiach comes and we return to that absolute balance.

In the meantime, we live in a state of disrepair, where the male dimension 'rules over' the female dimension at every level of reality. Our job in this world is to return these dimensions to their proper state of balance through the correct use of da'as - giving significance to each of the opposing aspects, bringing the seemingly paradoxical elements of male and female into a state of harmony. This is the back and forth motion of the lulav.

If we take this idea and apply it to the temporal dimension, we discover something remarkable. As we saw, the present moment is the female aspect of time, while the past and future can be said to be the male aspects of time. The current state of reality is that the male aspect 'rules over' the female. Thus, it is our natural state to be overwhelmingly aware of the events of our past and our projected future. This has the effect of robbing us of our present moment, of completely subduing the female aspect of time. The Torah, however, wants us to achieve the proper balance between the past and future (the male aspect) and the present (the female aspect). This means that we need to have a true and proper perspective on the value of each of these dimensions of time. When the past and the future are so powerful in our minds that we can not live in the present, we are living in a state that is the result of Adam and Chava's sin. When we give proper focus to the present, without allowing the past and (projected!) future to overly affect our present, then we are living in the desired state, which is akin to the state we will be in with the advent of Moshiach. This does not mean we should disregard our past or that we should not plan for the future. It means that we must have the right balance such that none of the aspects of time overtake the other.

When we develop this state of harmony between the male and female aspects of our lives, it brings more elements of the world into resonance with that future time, actively bringing us closer to the time period of Moshiach, when all of reality will be in a state of perfect harmony between its male and female aspects.