Podcasts about jewish people

26-year-old Eliyahu David Kay HY"D, an immigrant to Israel from South Africa was murdered in a Jerusalem terror attack on Sunday morning. Four other Israelis were wounded in the attack, one seriously, which was carried out by a well-known Jihdaist Hamas supporter who lived in Jerusalem. The assailant sprayed Jews with bullets as they made their way to the Western Wall for morning prayers. On today's Israel Uncensored with Josh Hasten, Josh discusses this horrible incident and says that even with all the pain, Israel is strong, and the Jewish People are here to stay.

This lecture is in honor of Dr. Sherman Minkoff. ABOUT THE EVENT: The Hebrew School I attended as a child taught us about every catastrophe that befell the Jewish People. It was a tale of endless destruction, persecution, and exile. But left out of the story they told us was the best part — the miraculous capacity of the Jewish People to turn catastrophe into opportunity, and tragedy into creativity. The Jewish talent for renewal, re-invention, and resilience can give us hope for our future. ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Rabbi Ed Feinstein is senior rabbi of Valley Beth Shalom in Encino, California. He serves on the faculty of the Ziegler Rabbinical School of the American Jewish University, the Wexner Heritage Program, the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem and lectures widely across the United States. He is the author of several books, including: Tough Questions Jews Ask – A Young Adult's Guide to Building a Jewish Life, (Jewish Lights, 2003), was chosen for the American Library Association's Top Ten Books on Religion for Young Readers and a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award. Jews and Judaism in the Twenty-First Century: Human Responsibility, the Presence of God and the Future of the Covenant (Jewish Lights, 2007) was also a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award, Capturing the Moon (Behrman House, 2008) retells the best of classic and modern Jewish folktales. Most recently, Chutzpah Imperative! – Empowering Today's Jews for a Life that Matters (Jewish Lights, 2014), offers a new way to “do Judaism,” Rabbi urges us to recover this message of Jewish self empowerment, or chutzpah, to reshape the world. An engaging lecturer and storyteller, Rabbi Feinstein unites the ancient Jewish love of ideas with the warmth of Jewish humor. -- DONATE: www.bit.ly/1NmpbsP​​​​​​​ For podcasts of VBM lectures, GO HERE: www.valleybeitmidrash.org/learning-library/ www.facebook.com/valleybeitmi...​ Become a member today, starting at just $18 per month! Click the link to see our membership options: www.valleybeitmidrash.org/become-a-member/

The Orthodox world has often stressed the importance of kiruv - that is, working to help non-Orthodox Jews become Torah observant. But Rabbi Yonah Bookstein, the rabbi of the Pico Shul in Los Angeles, wants to make a distinction between kiruv and outreach; he personally stresses the latter in his important work with Jews across the spectrum of religiosity. What does that mean? How can we avoid being judgmental when we believe that Torah Judaism represents the proper way to actualize Judaism in our lives? What is defined as successful outreach - and are the terms “success” and “failure” even appropriate at all? Scott spoke with Yonah about these and other important topics regarding the future of outreach. (Make sure to check out part two of this interview, dropping later this week, where Rav Yonah talks about his experiences in reaching Jews through Shabbat Tent at music festivals across the country, how music festivals can be compared to the Jewish People in the desert as seen from Bil'am's viewpoint - yes, really - and what music festivals have in common with Matan Torah - yes, really, again.) Please listen to and share the podcast, and let us know what you think on the Orthodox Conundrum Discussion Group on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/groups/432020081498108). Thanks to all of our Patreon subscribers, who have access to bonus JCH podcasts, merch, and more - we appreciate your help, and hope you really enjoy the extras! Visit the JCH Patreon site at https://www.patreon.com/jewishcoffeehouse. Check out https://jewishcoffeehouse.com/ for the Orthodox Conundrum and other great podcasts, and remember to subscribe to them on your favorite podcast provider. The site will also help you learn about creating your own podcast. Music: "Happy Rock" by bensound.com

In this week's parasha Vayetze , we read about Yaakov being swindled by Lavan time and time again. Yaakov worked in good faith for seven whole years, anticipating marrying Rachel. Lavan had clearly agreed to give Rachel to Yaakov in exchange for that work, but then when the time came to make good on his end of the deal, Lavan deceivingly switched Rachel for Leah. A regular person most probably would have gone into a rage if that happened to him, demanding that he get what he worked for. Yaakov Avinu, on the other hand, accepted his fate with emunah and worked an additional seven years for Rachel. And Rashi writes the second seven years were with the same good faith as the first ones. Yaakov was also swindled numerous times regarding the wages due to him for his work the last six years there, and he never took revenge or let up on his own efforts in work. How was Yaakov able to act with such superhuman strength for the 20 years that he was in Lavan's house? The sefer Vaveh Amudim writes, it was obviously his emunah. Yaakov knew with certainty that Lavan had absolutely no power to hurt him in any shape or form. Hashem wanted him to marry Leah before Rachel, and Hashem was going to give him the exact amount of money he was supposed to make. There was no reason for him to get angry at Lavan because Lavan was just the messenger. It is true, Lavan used his free will to try to harm Yaakov, but Yaakov knew if it wasn't Lavan, it would have been someone else doing it. The decrees of Hashem always come to fruition. What difference does it make who the messenger is? And although it appeared that Lavan was successful in all his trickery and plans to uproot Yaakov, in truth, he was paving the way for the entire Jewish nation's ultimate redemption, exactly the opposite of what he was trying to accomplish. On that night that Lavan switched Leah for Rachel, Rachel did one of the greatest deeds ever performed. She gave over the simanim to her sister Leah to prevent her from embarrassment. Rachel was willing to give up her husband and watch her sister take him instead. The midrash tells us, this act is going to be the catalyst which arouses Hashem's mercy to give us our final redemption from this galut . The midrash says, at the time of the destruction of the Beit HaMikdash, the Avot and Moshe Rabbenu came before Hashem to plead with Him to save the Jewish People. They each told Hashem about different heroic acts that they performed in their lifetimes, hoping that in those merits Hashem would save their children, but none of them qualified, until Rachel Imenu came and told Hashem about this act, saying she wasn't jealous of her sister, so Hashem shouldn't be jealous, kavayachol, when His people worship avoda zara . At that moment, Hashem's mercy was aroused, and He said, For what Rachel did, I will eventually bring the Jewish People back to Eretz Yisrael. Lavan thought, through his swindling he won, but in the end, evil never wins. Hashem was behind the scenes the whole time, using Lavan to give Rachel this opportunity to shine and to give Yaakov this opportunity to display his emuna. Yaakov left Lavan's house with a full family, with a tremendous amount of wealth and left us with life lessons to learn from. Hashem is always in charge. Nobody can help or harm us. There is no reason to get angry at the messenger and, anyway, everything that happens is for our ultimate good. Shabbat Shalom

Although Hashem told Avraham that through Yitzchak the Jewish People will have continuity, Yitzchak and Rivka were barren. In the beginning of this week's parasha, Toldot , it speaks about Yitzchak and Rivka each praying hard for Hashem to give them a baby and the Torah testifies that Hashem granted them children specifically because of their tefilot. This means, there may be certain gifts that Hashem wants to give a person and it's in that person's destiny to have, but He holds back from giving the person until he prays for them. That is in the person's best interests because prayer connects him to Hashem like no other way. The tefila of Yitzchak is called atira , which the midrash says is lashon “c hatira” , which means to tunnel. The midrash explains with a parable of a prince who was tunneling into his father's palace to try to get some gold. His father, the king, loved his son more than anything and when he heard his son was tunneling in, he started tunneling from the inside until they eventually met in the middle and the father happily gave his son all the gold that he needed. Sometimes we wish we could just go and “take” things from Hashem when we need. It is then that we have to realize that Hashem wants to give us those things more than we want to have them. When we come to Him with heartfelt prayer, He meets us halfway, kavayachol , and is so happy to give us what we need. If it is not good for us, He's not going to give it to us, but if it is, it'll be our prayers which bring it down. I read a story in the Machon Shaar HaBitchon about a man in Israel who was going through a difficult time financially. Rosh Hashsanah and Sukkot were approaching and he barely had enough money to buy food for his family. The holiday season would be very expensive and he had no idea where he was going to get the money to pay for everything. He spent a long time saying Tehillim with a lot of emotion and tears. He beseeched Hashem to please send him an avenue or a messenger to provide him with the funds that he needed. He also prayed that day for Hashem to help strengthen his emunah and bitachon in the fact that Hashem is the only One who could help him. After a while, he felt much calmer. Later that day, he attended a wedding of a very wealthy man and many of the guests there were wealthy as well. He sat at a table with a group of men who could all easily afford to help him without making a dent in their wallets. Perhaps I should ask if anyone at the table would be willing to help me , he thought, but he quickly dismissed that thought, embarrassed to act like a poor beggar there in front of everyone. Then, in his mind he thought, I don't need these people anyways, Hashem could help me in a much more dignified way. Suddenly. He saw an old friend from school that he hadn't seen in 20 years. That friend no longer looked like the yeshiva boy he knew him as. This friend made his fortune but had lost some of his spiritual wealth in the process. The friend greeted the man and asked him what he was doing in life. The man replied he was learning Torah in the Mir Yeshiva. His friend's eyes narrowed, “Do you really believe in that kind of lifestyle?” He asked. The man confidently answered he was so happy spending his days learning Torah and there was nothing he would rather be doing more in his life. He mentioned that financially it was a struggle but his wife and family were behind him and were content with the low income lifestyle they were leading. The friend looked at him, struggling to absorb what he just said. Those few heartfelt words caught him by surprise and it looked like he felt that perhaps he had been missing out without having Torah in his life. They parted from each other but later that night that friend came back to him and said, “Listen, could I make a deal with you? I'll support some of your learning if we could share its merits.” The man agreed. From that day on, this friend sent him 2000 shekels a month, which helped him cover all the expenses which he needed to be covered. Hashem sent this man a yeshua the day that he prayed for it. The money was good for him to have and Hashem wanted him to have it. He just waited for His precious child to come to Him through prayer so they could connect in a way that was going to be beneficial to him. Shabbat Shalom.

We discuss the difference between Avraham who kept the Mitzvos based upon his own devices and the Jewish People who accepted the Torah at Mt. Sinai. We present the perspective of Rabbi Avraham Grozinsky in his Toras Avraham.

I read a mashal which conveys a very important lesson. A tree was once asked how come when it gets hit by an ax, we don't hear any cries coming from it. Yet, when the very same ax hits a pole made out of metal, there is a very loud cry that can be heard from a distance. The tree answered, “The reason is because I am wood and the ax is metal and we have no connection with each other, so the pain it tries to inflict upon me doesn't hurt so much. But when metal hits metal, they are in the same family; they are brothers. And when a brother gives pain to a brother, it hurts so much more.” The Jewish People are one family, we are all brothers and sisters and, therefore, when one Jew hurts another, it's very painful. And when there's even a closer relationship, like a blood relative, the pain caused from a machloket can be unbearable. We are all yearning for Mashiach . Chazal have told us that machloket is holding him back and, unfortunately, there are still so many people that have animosity towards each other, especially amongst family members. There is always a reason why someone believes his situation is different and he is allowed to be in a machloket . And that is one of the reasons why we are still in exile. Many of the family disputes have resulted over monetary issues, whether it is a family business that broke up with one side feeling cheated, or a family member tampering with an inheritance, or family members being bitter that one of them has more than the others and is not helping the others who are in need, and the list goes on. We must constantly remind ourselves, no matter what the causes seem to be, our financial status is determined only by Hashem. Nobody could take money that is destined for us. Even when it seems that someone used his free will to take money that was supposed to be ours, it's not true. If we're meant to get it, Hashem will give it to us one way or another. No one can take what's ours. Our job is to use our emunah to always maintain peace and harmony. That is the goal – shalom. If we have to give up money to maintain shalom, it only makes the mitzvah that much greater. Giving up money for shalom is a great feat. If the money was meant for us, we'll get it back and if it wasn't meant for us, it wouldn't have stayed with us anyway. A man I know recently told the following personal story. When his father passed away, he and his siblings received a copy of the will. Regarding the estate, the father left an overwhelming majority of the money to this man, his son, while the other siblings were to divide the rest equally. He was the only boy, and he had multiple sisters. Understandably, all of the sisters and their families were very angry over this division and they had a lot of resentment toward their brother. He knew he was entitled to the money because that was the wish of his father, but he also knew that it would result in an everlasting family machloket . He said he had a big decision to make – take the money and lose his family or give away the money and keep his family. His father was a wealthy man and there was a lot of money at stake here. He decided that if he would have a family machloket , it would only cause the Shechina to become distant from them and without the Shechina , there would be no blessing in the money anyway. He hired a lawyer and redivided the entire estate equally, surrendering $7 million to maintain shalom. Today, he has a wonderful relationship with all of his siblings and their families. P.S. Within a year of his decision to give up that money, he made a business deal that earned him a totally unexpected profit of over $7 million. The way it happened made it so obvious that Hashem was blessing him for the efforts he made to maintain shalom. He tries to relate this message to as many people as he can – keeping shalom keeps the Shechina close to a person and with the Shechina we have beracha . Machloket drives away the Shechina and without the Shechina we have nothing. We could all internalize this lesson to try and bring about more peace between our brothers and sister in Klal Yisrael and, all the more so, in our immediate families.

  The Discussion Continues on the Future of the Jewish People by three Israeli Visionaries. Part III   Menachem Alexenberg Mel Alexenberg is an artist who creates artworks at the interface between art, science, technology, and culture. His artworks explore interrelationships between digital age art and Jewish consciousness, space-time systems and electronic technologies, participatory art and community, high tech and high touch experiences, and responsive art in cyberspace and real space. His artworks exploring digital technologies and global systems are in the collections of more than forty museums worldwide. Alexenberg is Founding Dean of a new School of Art and Multimedia Design at Netanya College. He is the author of the book: The Future of Art in the Digital Age: From Hellenistic to Hebraic Consciousness. Dr. Yitzhaq Hayut-Man Recent discoveries of "The Gospel of Judas' have spurred on intrigue into the "a lost disciple' of Jesus. Rabbi Moshe Dror reviews a new book ˜The Truth about Judas Iscariot' by Dr. Yitzhaq Hayut-Man. Dr. Rabbi Moshe DrorFuture Bible Commentary   Can artwork, not just text serve as commentary on the Bible? Dr. Rabbi Moshe Dror has launched a regular commentary on the Hebrew Bible at IsraelSeen.com, using the artwork of Philip Ratner and others. Ponder anew what the Almighty can do in the trans modern age. Some of the points covered in the discussion are:   Connectedness Tao/Zendo Visual Thinking Encoding the Spiritual Tradition   Avraham and his 8 children The East Cyberspace and Real Space in Israel   Tfillin/Acupuncture Judas Meditation   Vision of Unifications Multi-Dimensional Awareness And More

Question about whether God has a covenantal interest in the unbelieving Jewish people today, who are distinct from the believing Jewish remnant. Does God have a covenantal interest in the unbelieving Jewish people today that includes the biblical homeland and the unbelieving Jews, who are distinct from the believing Jewish remnant?

On this episode, Host Jeremy Lindenfeld chats with Rebecca Kessler and then his friends Jake Squire and Perry Budd, to discuss their journeys toward anti-zionism. Zionism is the belief that Israel belongs to the Jewish People. They tackle the importance of intentionally differentiating between Judaism and Zionism, and the pain that they went through when first questioning Zionism. Rebecca Kessler supported Israel because that's what she was taught during her upbringing in Boca Raton and now in her 30's, Kessler has moved away from that position. Jake Squire is a Jewish man who has recently begun to question his Zionism. Perry Budd is a master's student at USC and former writer and researcher for The Borgen Project, where he reported on international political economy and American foreign policy. Match Volume is an interview-based podcast that presents the perspectives and experiences of the impressive and passionate. It is not a news podcast, though it often discusses current events and issues relevant to its listeners.Theme music by Polina Cherezova.

Michael L. Brown is the founder and president of FIRE School of Ministry in Concord, North Carolina, Director of the Coalition of Conscience, and host of the daily, nationally, syndicated talk radio show, the Line of Fire, as well as the host of the apologetics TV show, ìAnswering Your Toughest Questions,î which airs on the NRB TV network. He became a believer in Jesus 1971 as a sixteen year-old, heroin-shooting, LSD-using Jewish rock drummer. Since then, he has preached throughout America and around the world, bringing a message of repentance, revival, reformation, and cultural revolution. He holds a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Literatures from New York University and has served as a visiting or adjunct professor at Southern Evangelical Seminary, Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary (Charlotte), Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Fuller Theological Seminary, Denver Theological Seminary, the Kingís Seminary, and Regent University School of Divinity, and he has contributed numerous articles to scholarly publications, including the Oxford Dictionary of Jewish Religion and the Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament. Dr. Brown is the author of 27 books, including, Our Hands Are Stained with Blood: The Tragic Story of the ìChurchî and the Jewish People, which has been translated into more than twelve languages, the highly-acclaimed five-volume series, Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus, a commentary on Jeremiah (part of the revised edition of the Expositorís Bible Commentary), and several books on revival and Jesus revolution. His newest books are The Grace Controversy: Answers to 12 Common Questions (2016), Breaking the Stronghold of Food: How We Conquered Food Addictions and Discovered a New Way of Living (2017, with Nancy Brown) and Saving a Sick America: A Prescription for Moral and Cultural Transformation(2017). Dr. Brown is a national and international speaker on themes of spiritual renewal and cultural reformation, and he has debated Jewish rabbis, agnostic professors, and gay activists on radio, TV, and college campuses. He is widely considered to be the worldís foremost Messianic Jewish apologist He and his wife Nancy, who is also a Jewish believer in Jesus, have been married since 1976. They have two daughters and four grandchildren.

Michael L. Brown is the founder and president of FIRE School of Ministry in Concord, North Carolina, Director of the Coalition of Conscience, and host of the daily, nationally, syndicated talk radio show, the Line of Fire, as well as the host of the apologetics TV show, ìAnswering Your Toughest Questions,î which airs on the NRB TV network. He became a believer in Jesus 1971 as a sixteen year-old, heroin-shooting, LSD-using Jewish rock drummer. Since then, he has preached throughout America and around the world, bringing a message of repentance, revival, reformation, and cultural revolution. He holds a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Literatures from New York University and has served as a visiting or adjunct professor at Southern Evangelical Seminary, Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary (Charlotte), Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Fuller Theological Seminary, Denver Theological Seminary, the Kingís Seminary, and Regent University School of Divinity, and he has contributed numerous articles to scholarly publications, including the Oxford Dictionary of Jewish Religion and the Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament. Dr. Brown is the author of 27 books, including, Our Hands Are Stained with Blood: The Tragic Story of the ìChurchî and the Jewish People, which has been translated into more than twelve languages, the highly-acclaimed five-volume series, Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus, a commentary on Jeremiah (part of the revised edition of the Expositorís Bible Commentary), and several books on revival and Jesus revolution. His newest books are The Grace Controversy: Answers to 12 Common Questions (2016), Breaking the Stronghold of Food: How We Conquered Food Addictions and Discovered a New Way of Living (2017, with Nancy Brown) and Saving a Sick America: A Prescription for Moral and Cultural Transformation(2017). Dr. Brown is a national and international speaker on themes of spiritual renewal and cultural reformation, and he has debated Jewish rabbis, agnostic professors, and gay activists on radio, TV, and college campuses. He is widely considered to be the worldís foremost Messianic Jewish apologist He and his wife Nancy, who is also a Jewish believer in Jesus, have been married since 1976. They have two daughters and four grandchildren.

“The only people capable of threatening the future of the Jewish people are the Jewish people.”

Prophetic Vision in the 21st Century: The Message of Neviim Rishonim: The Story of the Book of Shmuel The Series will focus on how Shmuel Hanavi, the author of the Book of Shoftim sent us many messages for our times. The Series will be dedicated in Memory of הרב ירחמיאל בן אהרן מאיר.

It's always a joy to speak with Rabbi Ron Goldberg!  Rabbi Ron was raised Jewish. While in High School, Ron did two things Jewish people are not supposed to do. First, he began sneaking out to church. Second, he read the "forbidden" Jewish New Testament. As a result, Ron met the Jewish Jesus. In 1985 he spent several months in deprogramming where 2 counselors tried to get Ron to reject Yeshua as Messiah. This was unsuccessful and he has spent his life helping people meet the Jewish Jesus.   Some of Rabbi Ron's Experience:​Jews For Jesus Summer Campaign 1990Mentored & ordained by Jonathan Bernis.‘Hear O Israel' Outreach in Russia & IndiaLed a Messianic Congregation for 16 yearsCo-host of Messianic radio show for 5 yearsTaught in churches/colleges since 1986Trains people in sharing the Good News with Jewish PeopleIn this broadcast Rabbi Ron shared an update of what's happening with his family.   We are excited to have him at Congregation Shema Yisrael next Saturday, October 30 for our 10:00 AM service!Enjoy!

Michael L. Brown is the founder and president of FIRE School of Ministry in Concord, North Carolina, Director of the Coalition of Conscience, and host of the daily, nationally, syndicated talk radio show, the Line of Fire, as well as the host of the apologetics TV show, ìAnswering Your Toughest Questions,î which airs on the NRB TV network. He became a believer in Jesus 1971 as a sixteen year-old, heroin-shooting, LSD-using Jewish rock drummer. Since then, he has preached throughout America and around the world, bringing a message of repentance, revival, reformation, and cultural revolution. He holds a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Literatures from New York University and has served as a visiting or adjunct professor at Southern Evangelical Seminary, Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary (Charlotte), Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Fuller Theological Seminary, Denver Theological Seminary, the Kingís Seminary, and Regent University School of Divinity, and he has contributed numerous articles to scholarly publications, including the Oxford Dictionary of Jewish Religion and the Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament. Dr. Brown is the author of 27 books, including, Our Hands Are Stained with Blood: The Tragic Story of the ìChurchî and the Jewish People, which has been translated into more than twelve languages, the highly-acclaimed five-volume series, Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus, a commentary on Jeremiah (part of the revised edition of the Expositorís Bible Commentary), and several books on revival and Jesus revolution. His newest books are The Grace Controversy: Answers to 12 Common Questions (2016), Breaking the Stronghold of Food: How We Conquered Food Addictions and Discovered a New Way of Living (2017, with Nancy Brown) and Saving a Sick America: A Prescription for Moral and Cultural Transformation(2017). Dr. Brown is a national and international speaker on themes of spiritual renewal and cultural reformation, and he has debated Jewish rabbis, agnostic professors, and gay activists on radio, TV, and college campuses. He is widely considered to be the worldís foremost Messianic Jewish apologist He and his wife Nancy, who is also a Jewish believer in Jesus, have been married since 1976. They have two daughters and four grandchildren.

Akeidas Yitzchak. An event that continues to shape the Jewish People, giving us endless zechuyos and molding our collective character for all time. What sets the Akeidah apart from, l'havdil, some of the death cults of our enemies? What was the purpose of the test? Why was Avraham's response so mind blowing? And why is it not considered Yitzchak's trial as well? The Anatomy of a Nisayon provides the answers to these questions, as well as a thought-provoking analysis of the reasons and purpose of the challenges we face in our own lives. In this Shmuz Rabbi Shafier explains his practical, three point survival guide, giving us much needed clarity, chizuk and understanding to withstand the darkest moments of our lives.

When G-d first spoke to Abraham and commanded him to leave his homeland and move to what would become known as the Land of Israel, He made several promises, including, "Va'abarechecha Mebarecheka, U'mekelelcha A'or" – "I shall bless those who bless you, and those who curse you, I shall curse." G-d assured Abraham that those who bless him and his descendants would be blessed, and those who curse him and his descendants would be cursed. The Or Ha'hayim Ha'kadosh (Rav Haim Ben-Attar, 1696-1743) notes the different sequences in the two parts of this phrase. When it comes to those who bless Abraham, G-d promised, "I will bless those who bless you," mentioning first His blessing, and then the blessing which people give to Abraham. But in the next part of the verse, G-d says, "those who curse you, I shall curse" – mentioning first the curse which people would try to place on Abraham, and then that G-d would curse them. What is the reason for these different sequences? The Or Ha'hayim explains that the first phrase – "I shall bless those who bless you" – means that G-d would bless people who bless Abraham even before they actually utter the blessing, as soon as they intend to bless him. Those who curse Abraham, however, would be cursed by G-d only after they actually utter the curse. And thus G-d stated, "I shall bless those who bless you" – indicating that they will be blessed even before they pronounce their blessing to Abraham" – and "those who curse you, I shall curse" – indicating that they will be cursed only after cursing Abraham. Why would those who bless Abraham or the Jewish People be rewarded even before they actually pronounce the blessing, whereas those who curse Abraham or his descendants are punished only after pronouncing the curse? The Or Ha'hayim offers a number of explanations, one of which is that people need to be blessed in order to grant blessings to others. The blessings that people would confer upon Abraham or upon the Jewish Nation will not be effective unless those people have themselves been blessed. Therefore, G-d assured Abraham that He would grant blessings to all those who intend or wish to bless him or his descendants. These blessings will then grant them the power to bless Am Yisrael. This is the meaning of "Va'abarechecha Mebarecheka" – that G-d will bless those who wish to bless the Jewish People, empowering them to give us their blessing. The more we desire to bring blessing to other people, and to the world, the more G-d blesses us with this ability. If we truly strive to bless and give to the world, then we will receive G-d's blessings to enable us to do so.

Democracy in Question? is brought to you by:• Central European University: CEU• The Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy in Geneva: AHCD• The Podcast Company: Novel Follow us on social media!• Central European University: @CEU• Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy in Geneva: @AHDCentreSubscribe to the show. If you enjoyed what you listened to, you can support us by leaving a review and sharing our podcast in your networks!  BibliographyBurg, A (2018). In Days to Come["A New Hope for Israel"]. Israel: Nation BooksBurg, A. (2016). The Holocaust Is Over; We Must Rise From Its Ashes. UnitedStates: St. Martin's Publishing Group.Burg, A (2012). Very Near to You: Human Readings of the Torah, Jerusalem,Israel: Gefen Pub House.Elkana, Yehuda (1988), ‘The Need to Forget'. Ha'aretz.Hirschman, A (1970). Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms,Organizations, and States. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.GlossaryJewish Agency (for Israel)The Jewish Agency since 1929 provides the global framework for Jewish people, ensures global Jewish safety, strengthens Jewish identity and connects Jews to Israel and one another. Source:Benjamin NetanyahuBenjamin Netanyahu, Israeli politician and diplomat who served as Israel's permanent representative to the United Nations in the ‘80s and twice as his country's prime minister (1996–99 and 2009–21) and was the longest-serving prime minister since Israel's independence. Source:Nation LawIsrael as the Nation-State of the Jewish People informally known as the Nation-State Bill  or the Nationality Bill, is an Israeli Basic Law largely symbolic and declarative in nature,passed by the Israeli Parliament (Knesset) on 19 July 2018. The legislation declares that Israel is the historic homeland of the Jewish people, and that “the right to exercise national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish people.” It establishes Hebrew as the official language of Israel and downgrades Arabic to a language with “special status”. The law also asserts that Jewish settlement—without specifying where—is a national value, and promises to encourage and advance settlement efforts. Source:Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT)The OPT consists of the West bank (including East Jerusalem) and Gaza. Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza during the 1967 war. The launch of the 1993 Oslo peace process between Israel and the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) led to the creation of  the Palestinian Authority (PA). Source:Targeted prevention or targeted killings by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF): Targeted prevention occurred in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict against persons accused of carrying out or planning attacks on Israeli targets in the West Bank or inside Israel. Source:Yehuda Elkana (1934-2012)Yehuda Elkana was a historian and philosopher of science, the third President and Rector of Central European University (1999-2009), an Auschwitz survivor who became an international scholar and public intellectual with a deep commitment to open society. He was an academic pioneer, leading CEU for nearly half the life of the University. Source:Green LineIsrael's territory according to the agreed 1949 Armistice Demarcation Line encompassed about 78% of the Mandate area, while the other parts, namely the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, were occupied by Jordan and Egypt respectively. The 1949 Armistice Lines between Israel and its Arab neighbors came to be known as The Green Line. Source:'73 WarYom Kippur War, also called the October War, the Ramadan War, the Arab-Israeli war of October 1973, or the Fourth Arab-Israeli War, was initiated by Egypt and Syria on October 6, 1973, on the Jewish holy day of Yom kippur. It also occurred during Ramadan, the sacred month of fasting in Islam. The war was launched with the diplomatic aim of persuading Israel to negotiate on terms more favourable to the Arab countries. The Six-Day War in 1967, the previous Arab-Israeli war, in which Israel had captured and occupied Arab territories including the Sinai Peninsula and Golan Heights was followed by years of sporadic fighting. When Anwar Sadat became President of Egypt  shortly after the War of Attrition (1969–70) ended, made overtures to reach a peaceful settlement if, Israel would return the territories it had captured. Israel rejected those terms, and the fighting developed into a full-scale war in 1973. Source:Peace with Egypt known as Camp David AccordsCamp David Accords, agreements between Israel and Egypt signed on September 17, 1978, that led in the following year to a peace treaty between those two countries, the first such treaty between Israel and any of its Arab neighbours. Brokered by U.S. President Jimmy Carter between Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and officially titled the “Framework for Peace in the Middle East,” the agreements became known as the Camp David Accords because the negotiations took place at the U.S. presidential retreat at Camp David, Maryland. Sadat and Begin were awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1978 for their contributions to the agreements. Source:IntifadaIntifadah, (“shaking off”), either of two popular uprisings of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza aimed at ending Israel's occupation of those territories and creating an independent Palestinian state. The first intifada began in December 1987 and ended in September 1993 with the signing of the first Oslo Accords which provided a framework for peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. The second intifada, sometimes called the Al-Aqṣā intifada, began in September 2000. Although no single event signaled its end, most analysts agree that it had run its course by late 2005. The two uprisings resulted in the death of more than 5,000 Palestinians and some 1,400 Israelis. Source:Oslo accordsThe Oslo Accords were a landmark moment in the pursuit of peace in the Middle East. A set of two separate agreements signed by the government of Israel and the leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)—the militant organization established in 1964 to create a Palestinian state in the region—the Oslo Accords were ratified in Washington, D.C., in 1993 (Oslo I) and in Taba, Egypt, in 1995 (Oslo II). While provisions drafted during the talks remain in effect today, the relationship between the two sides continues to be marred by conflict. Source:  

The Ireland Antisemitism Report has just been published, and it states: The research draws several important conclusions: ➢ In Ireland, anti-Jewish racism spreads within the corridors of power and unlike in the UK or US, appears to be as much driven from the top down as the reverse. ➢ Some Irish politicians are obsessed about attacking Israel and Zionism, treating it in a manner different from the way they treat all other international issues. ➢ Irish politicians share material that is clearly fake and that comes from social media accounts that are blatantly antisemitic... ..."The report confirms the findings of previous research. It establishes beyond doubt the indivisibility of anti-Zionist protest and antisemitism. Antisemitism in all its guises must be called out." - So how does one call it out? Executive Director of the Ireland Israel Alliance (IIA), Jackie Goodall, joins Tamar and tells her what she and other activists in Ireland are doing to defend Israel. She also shares her own story on why she, who is not Jewish, takes up this unpopular fight for the Jewish People. Check out their website at: https://www.irelandisrael.ie/ The Tamar Yonah Show 12OCT2021 - PODCAST

I was hoping Jonny Gould's Jewish State would feature more live events. But for the pesky pandemic, this would've been a much more frequent occurrence already. So it's with a great pleasure that this episode records a wonderful night in aid of Jewish Blind and Disabled as I took to the JW3 stage with Robert Rinder. In this frank conversation, Rob reveals how his hit daytime show, Judge Rinder was pitched as a remake of 70s courtroom drama, Crown Court. He also discusses the life changing attitudes which came from his deeply moving episode of “Who Do You Think You Are”, which chronicled his grandfather's miraculous escape from a Nazi death camp. It's not too late to make a donation to Jewish Blind & Disabled. On the night we raised a phenomenal £95,000 in the room. Donate now at https://www.jbd.org/donate Support Jonny Gould's Jewish State: Paypal: https://www.paypal.me/JonathanLGould

There is a statement in Chazal, Baba Kama, daf 60, "כיון שניתנה רשות למשחית להשחית, אינו מבחין בין צדיק לרשע", which means, once Hashem gives permission to a destroying angel to destroy, it does not distinguish between good people and bad people. On the surface level, this sounds like a frightening statement, as if to say a tzaddik could get hurt without deserving it. The mefarshim, however, explain otherwise. Everybody has a certain amount of sin, even tzaddikim, but Hashem in His infinite kindness delays the consequences of the sin in the hope that the people will do teshuva. This statement is saying that when Hashem gives the destroyer permission to destroy, it is able to administer the consequences even to the tzaddik, which he deserves, without giving him that extra time for teshuva. But it is important to know, Hashem is in charge of the destroying angel as well and nothing happens unless it is His will. In the mabul, the entire world perished, but Hashem wanted to keep Noach and his family alive, as well as all the animals. Some explain, it was Hashem Himself who brought the mabul, not the destroying angel, and therefore Hashem distinguished between the tzaddik and the rasha. Others explain, Hashem told Noach to go into the teiva, because that was a place where the destroying angel did not have authority. The same concept is brought up during makat bechorot in Mitzrayim where all the firstborn Egyptians died but the Jewish firstborns remained alive. Some say Hashem Himself brought the plague, so He Himself distinguished between the Mitzrim and the Jews. Others say Hashem told the Jewish People to stay inside, a place where the destroying angel did not have authority over. Either way, it was and is Hashem who makes all decisions, and nothing ever happens to a person if it's not the will of Hashem for him, whether it is a bodily injury or the loss of money, it's always Hashem. In the beginning of September, the residual effects of Hurricane Ida were felt in the New York area. Many homes were destroyed, some people reported up to 12 feet of water inside their homes. There were people with valuable merchandise in their basements, losing hundreds of thousands of dollars from the flooding. There were other homes that were not affected at all. In fact, there were homes next door to each other, one completely flooded, and one untouched. Of course, we have no idea of the workings of Heaven, why Hashem does what He does. But we do know that although the hurricane barreled through the city, it wasn't just whoever was in its path got affected. It was whoever Hashem determined needed to be affected got affected, and for the best reasons possible. But nothing happened haphazardly. A man who recently built a new home in Brooklyn told me he was in his New Jersey house for the summer when the hurricane hit. That day, his wife needed to be in Brooklyn and she got delayed there. She called him in the early evening saying she didn't want to drive back as she was exhausted and heavy rain was expected that night. He told her, although in the thirty years they have been married, his wife has never stayed alone at home without him, this time he told her to stay. That night, she locked all the doors and put on the alarm. Some time later, the alarm went off. She went downstairs and saw water was coming from the outside into their basement. It was a very large, fully furnished basement in a brand new home. She called her husband who told her to go outside and check the source of the flooding, and see if it could be stopped. She opened the front door and went outside and, without realizing, the front door closed behind her and was locked. Now, she was stuck outside in the pouring rain. What seemed to be a bad situation got much worse. The only way back into the house was a padlock on their garage door, but the garage was at the bottom of a slope and the water was piled up many feet there, making access impossible. Her husband told her to call the contractor who built their home, asking him what to do. He answered the phone although it was late at night and told her there was a drain by the garage which must have gotten clogged. He advised her to go there, stick her hand in the water and try to pull out the debris that was clogging the drain. She followed his instructions and a few minutes later, all the water went down the drain and stopped coming into their home. The basement was saved with close to no damage at all. The man told me, it's clear for whatever reason Hashem did not want my home to be flooded that night. Firstly, he made my wife stay in Brooklyn, out of the ordinary. Secondly, she got locked out of the house, which forced her to call the contractor and discover the remedy. Everything that happens is determined only by Hashem, and so we should always feel comfortable knowing that for sure whatever happened was the best outcome possible.

Fr. Mike concludes the book of Esther and the book of Nehemiah by reflecting on the journey and resilience of the Jewish people thus far in the story of salvation.Fr. Mike explains how, in our lives, we don't always know how God is going to show up, but we know that he will be faithful. Today's readings are Nehemiah 12, Esther 9-11, and Proverbs 21:21-24. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/bibleinayear. Please note: The Bible contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.

The Jewish People make up just .2% of world population. How does a People that makes up virtually zero percent of humanity have such a huge impact on our world?Check out the Dear Rabbi Podcast at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dear-rabbi/id1565016262Episode Transcript:Mark Twain wrote, "If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but 1% of the human race. Properly, the Jew ought hardly be heard of, but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his commercial importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk. His contributions to the world's list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine, and abstruse learning are also way out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers."This 1% is a gross exaggeration. The Jewish people today actually make up way less than a percent. We make up 0.2% of the world's population. Now, math was never my strong point, but if we're going to round 0.2 to the closest number, that's zero. The Jewish people make up just 0% of world population. Now, how does a people who make up just 0% have such a huge impact on the world? As Mark Twain wrote, "The Jew ought hardly be heard of," and yet we cannot escape the fact that the Jewish people have contributed so much to our world. I'm Menachem Lehrfield, and this is Zero Percent, a podcast where we explore the enormous impact a tiny people has made that enhances and affects all of our lives on a daily basis.We will explore ancient wisdom for modern living. As the second president of the United States, John Adams, said, "I will insist that the Hebrews have done more to civilize men than any other nation. If I were an atheist and believed in blind eternal fate, I should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing nations." Whether you love the Jewish people or you hate them, it is very difficult to deny the impact that the Jewish people have had on the world, that the Jewish people have had on civilizing nations. I believe that we have access to the longest-running case study on success.Now, as a Jew, I'm so uncomfortable with the topic of Jewish success, and I know many others are as well. Whenever someone begins talking about how successful the Jewish people are, it naturally makes us uncomfortable, but it's hard to deny the numbers. No matter what your definition of success is, the Jew is over-represented. Perhaps the best benchmark of success is the Nobel Prize. It was established by the Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel in 1895. Nobel was most well-known for the discovery of dynamite. And at the end of his life, in his will he bequeathed all of his assets to be used to establish five prizes, which we now know as the Nobel Prize.And they'd go to individuals in recognition of cultural or scientific advances in six categories, literature, chemistry, economics, physics, world peace, and medicine. Between 1901 and 2020, last year, the Nobel Prize has been awarded to more than 900 individuals and organizations. Now, how many of those recipients would you expect to be Jewish? Being that the Jewish people make up just 0.2% of world population, we would expect 1.8 Nobel Prize laureates to be Jewish. That would be the proportionate number based on population. In fact, 208 Jewish people have won Nobel Prizes. 208 is an over-representation of more than 11,500%.That's huge, but it's not just in Nobel Prizes that we see such over-representation. Look at practically every arena that can be measured. Can you imagine the scientific world without the contributions of Einstein to modern physics or Freud to psychoanalysis or Asimov to robotics? The scientific world would be a completely different place. And let's say you're going to look at finance and economics as your benchmark of success. It's interesting to note that according to Forbes, Jews make up 22% of the world's top 50 billionaires, 33% of the world's top 15 billionaires, and 28% of the top 25, not to mention finance household names like Goldman Sachs, Rothschild, Warburg, Kohlberg, Kravis and Roberts, Wells Fargo.What would the world of technology look like without Intel's Andrew Grove and Leslie Vadasz, or Google without Sergey Brin and Larry Page, or Oracle's Larry Ellison, or Microsoft's Steve Ballmer, Dell's Michael Dell, Qualcomm's Irwin Jacobs, Facebook without Mark Zuckerberg or Sheryl Sandberg? And what about medicine? There's an old Jewish joke where a Jewish person is finally elected president of the United States, and he calls up his mother and says, "Mom, I'm the president of the United States. Are you going to come to the inauguration?" And she says, "Well, I've got nothing to wear." So he says, "Ma, I'm going to be the president. I'll get you a dressmaker. She'll make you a beautiful dress. Don't worry about that."And she says, "Well, I only eat kosher." He says, "Ma, I'm the president. I'll get you a kosher meal." She says, "Well, how am I going to get there?" He says, "Mom, I'll send Air Force One to pick you up. Just come to the inauguration." So she comes, and she ends up at the inauguration and she's standing there on the reviewing stand, and on her left are all the Supreme Court justices, and on the right is the president's cabinet. And the ceremony begins, and her son, the new president, raises his hand as he's about to be sworn into office, and his mother nudges the person next to her and says, "You see that guy with his hand up? His brother is a doctor."You may be familiar with the stereotype of the nice Jewish doctor, but it comes from somewhere. Throughout the world, consistently on lists of top doctors, you will find Jewish names. And that's not to mention the enormous Jewish contributions to medical research and pharmacology, including the invention of Prozac, Valium, the synthetic fertilizer, radiation, chemotherapy, the artificial kidney dialysis machine, the defibrillator, the cardiac pacemaker, laser technology, not to be confused with Jewish space lasers, the invention of blood transfusions and penicillin, the mammogram, the pill, vaccines against the deadly polio and hepatitis B and measles, not to mention the vaccinating needle itself.And we can't forget about the enormous impact that Dr. Albert Bourla, the CEO of Pfizer, has had in developing the world's first safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine. And Dr. Bourla is the son of Holocaust survivors. Today, Israel is on the forefront of medical innovation. Israel is the home to Teva, the world's largest generic pharmaceutical company. Israel is number one in the world for medical device patents per capita. The medical technology that's coming out of Israel is the stuff of science fiction. I don't know if you saw the ReWalk, which was featured years ago in the hit show Glee, but it's basically a bionic robotic exoskeleton which allows paraplegics the ability to walk and even run.Runners in London and Tel Aviv have actually completed marathons with the ReWalk. Here are paraplegics that thought they would never walk again, and they're running marathons thanks to Israeli technology. The PillCam, which allows doctors to see the inside of the digestive track without any invasive procedures or colonoscopies or anything. You just swallow a pill and they can see the inside of your body. Or this thing called Bio Weld, which is used now instead of stitches or glue, which uses cold plasma, and within minutes, it seals the wound and disinfects it with almost no scarring and no recovery time.And have you seen this thing called Bio-Retina? It's a technology that restores vision to people blinded by retinal disease. It's basically this tiny implantable device that's inserted into the retina in a 30 minute outpatient procedure, and it turns into an artificial retina that melds to the neurons in the eye. And it charges itself with this pair of glasses that it comes with. And if somebody is blind or visually impaired and that's not an option, there's another Israeli technology called OrCam, which is a camera that magnetically attaches to the side of a pair of glasses. You can barely even see it, and it reads text displayed on any surface, and it can also identify objects or specific faces or amounts of currency or anything that somebody who's visually impaired or blind would need to see.So it has this discreet earpiece which will basically, through audio, tell you everything that you would be seeing with your eyes. So blind people can interact with their world without the need of somebody else. It really gives them a sense of independence. There are so many successful cancer treatments coming out of Israel, and we can spend hours discussing the impact the Jewish people have had in the world of medicine. But let's say you want something a little lighter. Maybe entertainment is your benchmark of success. Well, if it is, six of the eight biggest Hollywood studios were founded by Jews. And still today, the rolling credits of almost every single movie can be confused for a Hebrew school roll call. It's just Jew after Jew after Jew.For full transcript please visit: www.joidenver.com/zeropercent/1---zero-percent

Fr. Mike offers a brief recap of today's chapter from Nehemiah, identifying the difference between those who were able to live in Jerusalem and those who were not. He explains the ancestral gifts that each tribe of Israel received and applies this concept to the vices and virtues of our families, as well as our freedom to adopt or reject them. Today we read from Nehemiah 11, Esther 8, 16, and Proverbs 21:17-20. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/bibleinayear. Please note: The Bible contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.

Parshat Bereshit - Exile and Return is a seminal Jewish theme we normally associate with Exodus and the narrative of the Jewish People. We discover this theme in the first chapters of Genesis and in so doing discover the Hebrew Bible's universal message regarding the trauma of birth, the anxiety of life and the rewards of creativity and expansion. Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/349788 Transcript: Geoffrey Stern  00:00 Welcome to Madlik disruptive Torah. And every week, we record half an hour of what I call disruptive Torah, where we kind of look at the Torah with a new lens and maybe from a new angle and try to share that sense of discovery with our participants. So thank you all for joining. And we are going to start with Bereshit. And for those of you who have been listening and participating in clubhouse, I think you already know that one of my favorite commentators is Rashi. He wrote a commentary on all of the books of the Torah, including the Talmud, the Mishanh, I just an unbelievable encyclopedic review of the Holy Writ of the Jewish people. But it's not the expanse, it's the detail and he always brings a midrash or a quotation that is absolutely insightful and actually kind of positions the whole discussion. So the first verse of the Torah we all know "In the beginning God created the heaven in the earth." And the first Rashi starts as follows: "Rabbi Isaac said, the Torah, which is the law book of Israel, should have started with Exodus 12: 2 the first commandment "This month shall be unto you the first of the months", which is the first commandment given to Israel. "What is the reason" asks this Rabbi Isaac "then that it commences with the account of creation?" Pretty good question. We'll discuss the question in a second and its premise. And he answers "because of the thought expressed in Psalms, "God declared to his people the strength of his works, in order that he might give them the heritage of the nations.".  Rashi continues, "for should the people of the world say to Israel, 'are robbers because you took by force the lands of the seven nations of Canaan', Israel may reply to them and say, from Psalms, all the earth belongs to the Holy One, bless be he. He created it, and gave it to whom he pleased, when he willed, he gave it to them. And when he willed he took it away from them and gave it to us." So Wow, what a way to begin studying the the narratives of the cosmology, the creation of the world, and our foreparents with a question of, well, what are we even reading this for? The Torah is a book of laws. It's a book that gives us the "hora'aot" the direction, the path that we should walk down. Why are we wasting our time with this mythology? And then he gives an answer, but let's stop for a second Rabbi and discuss the premise of his very question. Adam Mintz  03:09 The premise is very problematic. The premise is that the only purpose of the book is to teach us laws. Ramban, Nachmanidies, the great Spanish scholar who lived in the 1200s. he disagrees with Rashi, here at the beginning of the Torah immediately. He says that the purpose of the book of Bereshit, of Genesis is not to teach us laws, but it's to teach us moral cause. He has a great phrase, the phrase is "Ma'aseh avot, siman l'banim" "the actions of our forefathers our models to the children", and therefore that's the reason we have all the stories in Bereshit. Rashi seems to argue with that. Rashi seems to say that, no, it's not about morality, it's about law. And if you think it's about law, there's no reason for the book of Bereshit. So Rashi needs to explain that it's to teach us about our connection to the land of Israel. So in that very first Rashi, there actually is a fundamental question about the purpose of Torah. Geoffrey Stern  04:22 So I love the fact that you quoted  "Ma'aseh avot, siman l'banim" which literally as you say means "the are stories of oure foreparents. "siman" is a sign for the children. And of course, you could expand and say "avot" could also mean as in "avot melacha" or "Pikei Avot", it could mean the most basic primary principles. So the stories of our roots, of our beginnings are is a siman is a sign for its children. But in a sense, "sign" is very similar to myth. Meaning to say that even Ramban quoting this Talmudic phrase, there's almost the recognition that we're not just telling stories here that either the stories actually occurred but they have deeper symbolic meaning. Or it's not that important that every one of them occurred because the symbolic meaning is what drives us. And if you think about that for a second, I'm not sure that is that different from what Rashi ends up answering, which is okay, the reason we need this is because these stories justify the Jewish people's coming from another place and coming into the land that was at the time that they came in occupied by another people. And the ethical, moral, or you could even say political message, the "siman" that we are getting from these stories is that you know what, no one owns anything. The earth belongs to the Lord. And he can give and he can take and that's a big message, I think for life. But but really they're all kind of on the same page from the fact that none of them, correct me if I'm wrong, is interested or believes that these stories by themselves as a historical record, belong in our holy book, they have to symbolize something, they have to inspire us in some way. Would you agree to that? Adam Mintz  06:51 I would agree. Now, the idea of myths is a fascinating idea. I actually spoke about this right before Yizkor. There's the new book by Dara Horn. the book by Dara Horn is some title like people, "Why do people love dead Jews?" It's a provocative title. But she has a collection of essays. She raises the following idea, which is a great idea. You know, we're all brought up Geoffrey with the idea that the way that we all got our American names is our forefathers, our grandparents came to Ellis Island, and they only knew Yiddish. So they were asked by the by the representative at Ellis Island: "What's your name?" And they answered, "shoyn Forgesin", which means in Yiddish "I forgot". And the representative said, okay, your name is "Shawn Fergeson"And that's how everybody got their American names. They didn't know any English so they made up something and that became their American names. Dara Horn, the author points out that that is not true. We know that that's not true. What's true is that in the 1930s, we have multiple court records about Jews who actually went to courts in America, especially in New York, to change their names, because there was so much anti semitism in America, and they couldn't get jobs and they couldn't get into schools, and they couldn't get into colleges. And therefore they they asked to change their names. She said, Where does the myth come from? The myth comes from the fact that we as American Jews want to protect America, we want to protect the Jewish relationship with America. So therefore, that myth of Ellis Island is a much better myth than the truth. And I think Geoffrey, that's a very interesting idea here. When you talk about the myth of the stories in the book of Genesis. Did they happen? Did they not happen? The point is, it doesn't make any difference whether they happened or they didn't happen. But each one of them grapples with a moral issue. And not all of them are easily resolvable. Let's take Geoffrey the most difficult one of all, God says to Abraham, I want you to sacrifice your son. Now, the question is not whether that actually happens, or not, the question is why Abraham said, Okay, I'll sacrifice my son. What right did he have to sacrifice his son even at God's Word? So the entire book of Genesis is made up of these  "Ma'aseh avot, siman l'banim" these stories, these myths that come to teach us a moral lesson. So I think Dara Horn is really on to something, that sometimes the myth is more important. Then the fact because it comes to teach us something important. Geoffrey Stern  10:05 I think that's great. And clearly, these are myths that resonated, certainly when the Torah was edited, put together, and then re-read over and over again, these are myths that work picked for a reason. And then by simply being repeated so many times they take on a life of their own. And you get to see how different generations and different people react and interact with them. I have to say, as an aside here, that Elie Wiesel wrote a book on Rashi. And it struck Elie Wiesel that the first Rabbi that Rashi quotes is named Rabbi Yitzchok. And of course Rahi's name is Shlomo ben Yitzchak. So the truth is, this is a rabbi that comes from the Yalkut Shimoni it was not his father. But again, it does give another rendering to  "Ma'aseh avot, siman l'banim" that we are looking almost like a Rorschach inkblot at the same stories that were looked at, by our forefathers, our forbearers in the case of Judaism, by Christians, by Muslims, by scholars. And that's kind of fascinating, too, I just find that the term that the stories of our past are a sign to us is so so pregnant with meaning, and makes it all so exciting. And getting back to your point about the sacrifice of Isaac, you know, another way to look at myths, and we're gonna start talking about how the psychoanalysts looked at it is like a dream as well. And, you know, the thing about a dream, especially a nightmare, is it's made to resolve certain things, talking about it, hearing it, repeating it over and over again. And then we can manufacture the ending sometimes. So the ending does become important. So I've always thought that the punch line of the sacrifice, or the binding of Isaac was that he wasn't sacrificed. But that is a story that we are going to discuss in the future. What I want to spend the rest of today's discussion talking about is something that I thought about for the first time this year. And that is that when Rashi  brings up this point, that why do we need the stories? And he answers with a seemingly very provincial, national answer saying, well, it's in order that we should not be called colonizers, because we're going to come and we're going to, at a certain point in time, take this land that we admit, we are not originally from. And we need these stories to justify that land grab, so to speak. But what it really comes down to, and this is the insight that I want to spend the rest of the day talking about, is that the earth belongs to the Lord. And I would say, it's arbitrary that we own this, or we sit here or we live there. And then there's this other issue, which I really want to focus on, which is that none of us belong to a particular place in the sense we're all alienated from it. From the beginning of the Torah, we're going to see more than I think any of us ever expected. The theme of exile, over and over again in the first, just four chapters of Genesis. And Rashi is even here talking about this concept of exile and return that comes up much later in the narrative. But he brings it to the beginning of the Torah and that I think is not provincial is not partisan, but actually is one of the primary themes of the Bible. So in terms of the Bible itself, we all know that Adam in the second chapter, it has the story of man being created by himself. Maybe he was androgynous we don't know. But after looking for a helpmeet throughout the animal kingdom, God fashioned his rib in 2: 22 And it says, "and he had taken from the man into the woman, and he brought her to the man, then the man said, this one at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh, this one shall be called woman." So here you have this beautiful image of the unity of mankind of a man cleaving to his wife. And then it goes on to say, "for from men, she was taken. Hence, a man leaves his father and mother, and clings to his wife, so that they shall become one." So we have already in the second chapter, the first instance of this tension between being unitary, whole, complete, and being separated. And there's almost this sense of the separation is a necessary part of our identity. Ever think, and I'm not even talking about the amount of times in the process of creation itself. We had God is doing "havdalah" where he's creating by separating Earth from land, sky from the abode. Have you ever thought about it this way Rabbi Adam? Adam Mintz  16:21 Yeah, well, the idea of separating.... you brought up a whole bunch of different things here. Let's talk about the last thing, the idea of separating the entire story of the six days of creation, is the story about separating, separating night from day, light from darkness, animals from people, the sun and the moon, everything has its opposite. What do you make of that? Why do you think that's so important, that in the story of creation, everything has its opposite? Geoffrey Stern  17:03 Well, I think again, it gives us an insight into the biblical mind, the mind of the Bible's sense of God. And so many things about Genesis is about either dividing or choosing and when you choose, you also are selecting one thing and rejecting something else. It just seems so written in to the fabric. You can almost make the case that creation itself was not so much out of nothing, which is a Greek term, a modern term, but was this act of separating and repositioning. And it does become something that if you use it as a lens, enables you to understand much about the different narratives. In this particular case. I focused first upon man and wife, which is kind of, you know, the beginnings of society, separate from their father and mother, who is the father and mother of Adam and Eve. It's God in a sense, and of course, that story gets picked up a few verses later, in chapter three, when the famous Original Sin occurs. And at this point, God says to the woman, I will give you birth pangs, "b'etzev tilady", you shall give birth in pain, when you bear children, and your husband will rule over you, but also will struggle to pull crops from the ground, "by the sweat of your brow, shall you have bred to eat". Some of the modern day psychologists look at this whole story as the beginning of the "trauma of birth", that here, man was first created without those birth pangs. And he was first created without needing to separate the crop from the earth and to create creation, so to speak. And the first story of creation is this major separation where we are thrown out of the Garden of Eden. So again, everything that we've been talking about till now has focused on this separation. You can even call it alienation That we are torn apart. And that's how on the one hand, you could make an argument creation happens. But certainly it's the source of a lot of anxiety. Adam Mintz  20:12 I mean, there's no question that that's right. A couple of things you brought up, number one, the idea of Adam and Eve not having parents. But then you have the story in chapter three of the sin. And God really takes the position of Adam and Eve's parents in the sense that he's the one who reprimands them, and he's the one who punishes them. I was always wondering, Geoffrey, the rabbis say an amazing thing. The rabbis say that Adam and Eve were created, they were put in the Garden of Eden, but they never actually slept a night in the Garden of Eden. They couldn't even make it one night, before nightfall they had already sinned. Why do you think it is that there was somehow a need for the Torah to tell us that they sinned so quickly, that part of the nature of human beings is to sin? What do you make of that? Geoffrey Stern  21:16 Well, it's certainly the source or the intention of that type of explanation of the myth would come from the fact that it was it was just a taste, it was just so fleeting. And it happened in an instant. And I think that what I kind of come up with is, first of all, how final the divorce, how final the expulsion from the Garden of Eden was, you have these Cherubim, you have these angels with a sword, standing guard over it. It almost sounds as if it was part of the birth pang. It was a rupture, it had to occur, that everything that lies ahead, is after this fact. And that this story was there less to tell you about the bliss of the Garden of Eden, but more to focus you on the project that begins after the expulsion. That's my read. But it's true. We don't spend a whole lot of time on the pearly gates, the beauty of the Garden of Eden, it's almost as though On the flip side, the Torah doesn't spend much time, or any time at all, I would argue on describing a heaven. on describing a pearly end it's all about what lies ahead of us.. Adam Mintz  23:08 That point is such a good point. Because the Garden of Eden is much more important symbolically as the place where they will go back to, right? When we say when somebody dies, "b'gan eden t'he menuchatam"  that their resting place will be in the garden of Eden. So the Garden of Eden becomes a place we're going back to not a place that we spend very much time in. That's a fascinating idea. Geoffrey Stern  23:42 So that's a great segue for me to talk a little bit about the psychoanalytic analysts and Otto Rank, wrote two two books 10 years apart. One was called "The myth of the birth of the hero", and the other was called "The trauma of birth". And in the myth of the birth of the hero, he gives much credit to Freud and Freud actually, I wrote on this subject in a book he wrote called "Moses and Monotheism" and that is, and we'll discuss this when we get to Moses, is how almost to a "T" in every one of the ancient mythologies whether it's Romulus and Remus, or whoever. There's this story about the Royal heir, the prince who is expelled from the home, maybe it's because the father is afraid that he's going to come and usurp the throne, has to go out .... many times he's put into a raft through a boat,  is raised by animals or simple people. And then you have like Odysseus, a whole way of coming back. Ultimately, if you get to the Oedipus story, he then comes back and he kills his father. He gets his mother and all is resolved. And that's what Rank writes about in this "myth of the birth of the hero". But he makes a major change when he talks about "the trauma of birth". And what he says there is that there's something even more primal, then this, Oedipus and this hero, and what that is, we are all born of women, so to speak, we all are ruptured and thrown into the world. And we are separated from that warm place of our origins. And unlike the Oedipus myth, he claims and I think he's right, and that's why I'm bringing it up now is that it doesn't necessarily or it does necessarily not get resolved. In other words, none of us can go back into the womb. And he brings the Cherubim outside of Eden, because he does see the creation of Eve from Adam, as a way to, to kind of detour around the birth of of humans as it actually occurs. And he does talk about taking the apple off the tree as giving birth to it and separating it. And what he talks about is the whole sin, the whole original sin that all of us human beings have to try to address and not necessarily resolve is this original disruption in our lives. And what argues is that you do not go back to Eden. And I do think you're absolutely right, that we talk about "Gan Eden Mi'Kedem". And we talk about in our prayers going back to Eden, but Eden does not feature as much in Judaism as in Christianity, the Fall does not feature as much. But certainly, there's this sense that the trauma of birth is something that we can't put back, you can't put the genie back inside of the bottle. And that's what kind of is intriguing to me. And again, when we look at myths, some myths, you can wrap with a bow, and they resolve themselves, and others are ones that are just the human condition that we have to deal with. Adam Mintz  27:29 Yes, that is right. And you say that here in the in the very beginning of the Torah, we're really introduced to different kinds of myths. Now we talk about myths. Then you talk about the story of fratricide where Cain kills Abel. That's very much not a myth. That feels very real, doesn't it? Geoffrey Stern  27:56 Well, it absolutely does. But thank you for bringing it up. Because that, I would say is the fourth instance, in our parsha this week, where we have this sense of being a wanderer on the earth, the punishment that Cain gets goes back to the same thing that happened with Adam. It says, If in Genesis 412, it says, "If you till the soil, it shall no longer yield its strength to you." So this birth process will no longer be natural. And then it says you shall become a ceaseless wanderer on the earth. "Na v'nad ti'hiye b'aretz" Then he goes on to say that I "geyrashta" I will divorce you from the face of the earth. And it uses the phrase that we discovered in Deuteronomy at the end of the story, and it goes "umipanecha Ester" and I will hide my face from you. So again, these themes that we thought developed all the way at the end, were there all the way at the beginning as kernels. And then finally, where does Cain go to live and This to me is discovering humor in the Bible as well. "veYashav b'eretz Nod", and he settled he dwelt in the land of Nod.  Nod is the same word for Na v'nad", that is he settled in the land of wandering. Adam Mintz  28:05 Which means he never settled.   Geoffrey Stern  29:34 He absolutely never settled. He felt responsible for death, he had that guilt. And again, you can say yes, it's a real story. It's not a myth. But if you look at it in terms of all of the narratives that we've seen in Genesis, so far, through this lens, in the first four chapters, it's all about being sent into exile, alienated from one's source ripped away from whether it's the tree, whether it's the father, be it God or one's parents.... cleaving on to each other, to me, it just is so amazing that even though we're not talking about the story of the Jewish people that Rashi focused us on to, the idea is in humanity is this same trope of, of literally from the beginning, we are separated. And if you ask the same question that Rashi asks, from that perspective, then the answer is it needs to start here, because the journey is all about somehow regaining that unity that  wholeness, that, that completion. So what what I also discovered is this amazing essay by Bialik, and it's called "Jewish Dualism". And he looks at all of Jewish history, he picks up on where Rashi left off. And he says that, you know, we've been out of the land more than we've been in it. Every time we've left, we've expanded, we've grown. He talks about "a group which adapts itself to the ways of life of the whole world, but nonetheless remains a people dwelling apart." And that's part of the other narrative. And he talks about this strength that it gives us. And I think he wrote it in the same year, as Otto Rank, wrote his book, and they both come to an interesting conclusion. And that is that it's not all a negative thing, that from each expansion and contraction from each exile and return. We enrich ourselves and we enrich others. And Bialik, who is considered the poet Laureate of Zionism, even ends his essay with the following statement, which is mind blowing, he says "And who knows, perhaps after hundreds of years, [of living in the State of Israel], we will be emboldened to make another Exodus, which will lead to the spreading of our spirit over the world, and assiduously striving towards glory." So he really sees it as a pathway going forward of enrichment that is intrinsic to the biblical project. And Rank talks about artists and philosophers and religionists who are able to take this trauma of being born against one's will being passed out and separated from one's natural mother parents from God from this sense of unity and he sees it also as a potential for amazing creation. And He therefore doesn't call the hero the hero anymore he calls it the artist which is kind of fascinating to me so I really do think that the the question is a good one Why do we read these stories? It's a question we all have to ask ourselves and how we answer it really says a lot about ourselves and the direction we want to go in but certainly having multi generations talk about the same texts like Rashi and his father Yitzchok and like you and I and like our listeners is part of the creative project which I think brings us together so anyway, I just love discovering these themes of exile and return so early in the mythological narrative, and I hope you do as well.   Adam Mintz  34:11 What a good star Geoffrey. We thank everybody enjoy the parsha Bereshit, and we look forward to continuing Noach next week. And we look forward to a great year of studying parshiyot together with you on Madlik. So thank you, everybody. Shabbat Shalom and enjoy the parsha.

A new mishnah - an animal that is in danger of dying should not be slaughtered on yom tov. Or rather, there must be enough time in the day to eat from the meat after the slaughtering. Also, if you slaughter an animal out in the field, you can't bring it home as you usually would on a weekday. Plus, comparable stipulations regarding how garlic and onion are to be eaten, to avoid the appearance of being a glutton. Likewise, drinking. Plus, taking care with eating lupines - which are to cut off the feet of the enemies of Israel (ahem, Israel itself). And more - character traits of the Jewish people as a whole. Beginning, of course, with being strong-willed. Do the rules of the Torah subdue that nature? Does that nature allow the Jewish people to handle the Torah? Plus, another appearance of workday in the use of a particular chair, with exceptions - including Yalta.

The prophecy read as the Haftara for Shabbat Hol Ha'mo'ed Sukkot is from the Book of Yehezkel (chapters 38-39), and it foresees a series of major battles which will take place in the Land of Israel before the arrival of Mashiah. Yehezkel describes how two nations will fight against one another in the Land of Israel, though it will not directly involve the Jewish People. The Malbim (Rav Meir Leibush Wisser, 1809-1879), his commentary to Yehezkel, explains that these wars will be waged between the kingdoms of Edom (the kingdom founded by Esav) and Yishmael – meaning, between the western, Christian world, and the Arab world. This will occur, the Malbim writes, after the Jewish People return to the Land of Israel, and the kingdoms of Edom and Yishmael will fight against each other for control of Jerusalem. We see this prophecy's fulfillment gradually unfolding in our times, as the Jews have returned to the Land of Israel and established sovereignty there, and tensions are building between the West and the Arab world. This war will result in an enormous number of casualties, and will be followed by the arrival of Mashiah, who will bring peace and serenity to the world, and under whose kingship all mankind will recognize and serve the one, true G-d. The question arises as to why this prophecy is read on Sukkot. What connection is there between the war of Gog U'maggog and the festival of Sukkot? The answer is found in a remarkable observation made by the Gaon of Vilna (Rav Eliyahu of Vilna, 1720-1797) regarding the special sacrifices brought over the course of Sukkot. As the Torah outlines in Parashat Pinhas (Bamidbar 29), a large number of animals were offered as the Musaf sacrifices each day of Sukkot. These included a total of seventy bulls, which, our Sages teach, were offered on behalf of the seventy gentile nations. The sacrifices also included one goat brought each day of Sukkot as a sin-offering. The Gaon of Vilna noted that two different expressions are used to refer to these goats. The goat offered on the first, second and fourth days of Sukkot is referred to by the term "Se'ir Izim," whereas the goat offered on the third, fifth, sixth and seven days is called simply, "Se'ir." The Gaon explained that the word "Se'ir" on its own alludes to Esav, who was also called by the name "Se'ir." The term "Se'ir Izim," by contrast, refers to Yishmael. Now on the first, second and fourth days of Sukkot, a total of 35 bulls were offered (13 on the first day, 12 on the second, and 10 on the fourth). This same number of bulls were offered on the third, fifth, sixth and seventh days (11 on the third, 9 on the fifth, 8 on the 6th, and 7 on the seventh). The Gaon explained that all the gentile nations are aligned with either Edom or Yishmael, such that exactly half of the 70 bulls offered on Sukkot correspond to Edom, and precisely half correspond to Yishmael. Understandably, then, we read the prophecy of the war of Gog U'maggog on Sukkot – because the sacrifices offered on this holiday reflect the historical tension between the two kingdoms of Edom and Yishmael, who will wage this fierce battle. Our Sages have taught us that prophecies predicting blessing and prosperity will always be fulfilled, whereas prophecies of calamity and tragedy can be averted through Teshuba (repentance). It thus follows that the dreadful war of Gog U'maggog – which, according to some commentators, will result in 60 million casualties, and according to others, in the death of one-third of the world's population – can be avoided. By reaffirming our commitment to faithfully obey the Misvot, study Torah and perform acts of kindness, we will, please G-d, be worthy of protection from this war as well as from all crisis and hardship, Amen.

What happens in a person's life has already been decided–his lifespan, his children, his livelihood. But lest a person think that things can't be changed; when Hashem told Avraham that he is going to have a child, Avraham replied, “But I see in the stars that I can't have children.” Hashem then taught Avraham a lesson that we hold on to very tightly until today. He lifted Avraham above the stars and told him, You are not bound by decrees – אין מזל לישראל – Jews can rise above the mazal . This applies to us receiving blessings and this applies to our performance of mitzvot. The Torah tells us, Avraham was sitting by the door of his tent in the heat of the day. We know he was hoping that people would pass by so that he could do the mitzvah of hachnasat orchim . When Hashem saw how badly Avraham wanted to do that mitzvah, He sent three angels in the form of men. Avraham ran to serve them and did the mitzvah to the best of his ability. The question was asked, those angels were coming anyway, like Chazal teach us – one was to heal Avraham, one was to inform Sarah that she was going to have a child, and one was going to destroy Sedom. So what exactly did Hashem do for Avraham when He saw how much he desired to do the mitzvah? The answer is, Hashem transformed those angels to look like ordinary people and that gave Avraham the ability to earn immeasurable rewards by serving guests in his very weakened state. Which means, what was destined to happen that day was that angels were going to come on a mission and give Avraham information, but when Avraham desired to do the mitzvah of hachnasat orchim so badly, he changed the entire course of history. Chazal tell us, because Avraham served his guests bread, Hashem gave the Jewish People mann in the desert for 40 years. Because Avraham served his guests water that day, Hashem gave the Jewish People the be'er that accompanied them for 40 years in the midbar . And because Avraham stood over his guests, serving them, Hashem gave the Jewish People the Clouds of Glory to stand over them during their 40 years in the desert. What would have happened otherwise, we don't know. But we do know that Avraham changed the destiny of his children's lives because of his great desire to do a mitzvah. We have the ability, every day, to turn an ordinary day into an extraordinary day through our deeds and desire to do the ratzon Hashem. Rabbi Yitzchak Weiss was a dayan and he authored the famed work Minchat Yitzchak . He lived in our times, passing away at the age of 87 in 1989. The sefer Va'veh Amudim writes that when Rabbi Weiss was ready to get engaged, his mother discovered that the girl had certain physical blemishes, and she told her son it wasn't for him. The young Rabbi Weiss said to his mother, “If I end it now it is going to embarrass her, and I don't want to do that to another person. I'm okay with it. Let's move forward.” Rabbi Weiss married her and they had one child together named Rav Berish who eventually became the Rosh Hakahal of the Satmar community in Manchester. He recently passed away at the age of 90, yehi zichro baruch . From this one child, Rabbi Weiss had hundreds of grandchildren and great-grandchildren, many of whom are enormous talmidei chachamim . The Rabbi's wife passed away in the Holocaust at a young age and, although he got remarried, he never had another child. He discovered he wasn't able to have children, but in the merit that he married his first wife and refused to do something that would embarrass her, Hashem changed his course of destiny and blessed him with a child and generations of children after him. We are never bound by destiny. Our good deeds and tefilot can bring salvations and blessing to ourselves and to our children עד סוף כל הדורות .

The pasuk says in Mishlei , שקר החן והבל היופי אשה יראת ה' היא תתהלל – loosely translated to mean the outer beauty of a person is not what impresses Hashem. Because that He created. What makes a person beautiful in the eyes of Hashem is the person's yirat Shamayim – his fear of Heaven. When it comes to this world, people get impressed by an expensive suit or dress. If we want to impress Hashem, then we make sure the garments we are wearing conform to the halacha . With the holiday of Sukkot upon us, we have an opportunity to perform an abundance of mitzvot and shine so brightly in front of Hashem. The Gemara says on the pasuk -זה קלי ואנוהו” -התנאה לפניו במצוות “- beautify yourselves in front of Hashem by performing mitzvot. The better we do a mitvah, the more beautiful we look to Him. We all want to find favor in the eyes of Hashem, adorning ourselves with mitzvot is the way to accomplish it. There are certain defects on an etrog which can disqualify it. The Chatam Sofer in his commentary to Masechet Sukkah, daf 36, discussed the issue of etrogim being handled by many people every day of Sukkot so that by the middle of Chol HaMoed , they have become bruised and discolored in different places. That potentially poses a problem since it is likely that some of those spots are not natural etrog colors. The Rabbi concluded, those spots are indeed kosher, since they are the result of the Jews fulfilling a mitzvah, they are testimony of the Jewish People's love for a mitzvah, and therefore, they are badges of the etrog's beauty and nobility. Beauty stems from spirituality, not from what we think is beautiful. The Gemara in Masechet Pesachim speaks about how much blood there was on the courtyard floor of the Beit HaMikdash when all the Jewish People were there slaughtering their Korban Pesach . The Gemara commented, it was a privilege and a compliment to the descendants of Aharon to be able to walk about with their feet dipped in blood up to their ankles, whereas normally, people would consider walking through blood something disgusting and not worthy of the holy service of Hashem. Since this was a testimony to the abundance of mitzvot being performed in the Beit HaMikdash , it was considered something so beautiful. It is brought down in halacha that if there is a berit milah to be performed on Rosh Hashanah, it should preferably be done after the reading of the Torah, before the blowing of the shofar . There is a custom amongst some, brought down by the Kaf HaChaim, citing the Taz, that if the mohel is the person that is going to blow the shofar, he does not rinse his mouth from the blood of the circumcision until after he blows the shofar. Since blowing the shofar with lips stained from the blood of the milah would combine the merits of the milah with the shofar, the sound produced from that will be so beautiful to Hashem. Let us appreciate the mitzvot that we have in front of us, living in the sukkah , shaking the lulav and etrog , being happy on the holiday. Let us perform them with great joy, realizing that they are what make us so beautiful in the eyes of Hashem. Chag Same'ach.

Parashat Ha’azinu 5782 – The Eternity of the Jewish People Moshe’s words in this week’s parasha contain both a sacred history of the Jewish people as well as a vision of their future, until the end of time. We will … Read the rest The post Parashat Ha'azinu 5782 – the Eternity of the Jewish People first appeared on Elmad Online Learning. Continue reading Parashat Ha’azinu 5782 – the Eternity of the Jewish People at Elmad Online Learning.

Learn more about our $20,000 Aliyah Initiative at https://blessingbroker.com/project/aliyah-initiative/ Today on the Blessing Broker Podcast, Chaim Malespin joins us to discuss the amazing things happening across the globe as Jewish people continue to be called to Israel. Chaim shares what his organization is doing to aid and support Jewish people who are returning, or "making aliyah". Blessing Broker is matching all donations towards our $20,000 goal, 100% of which goes towards our Aliyah Initiative, supporting our boots-on-the-ground partners in Israel who are aiding and supporting Jewish people who are making Aliyah. #Aliyah #BeTheBlessing #BlessingBrokerPodcast

This Shabbat, parshat Nitzavim , is the last Shabbat of the year 5781. It is also the final week of the seven haftarot of consolation that we have been reading. The Midrash says regarding these haftarot , which began with a message to the Jewish People after the destruction of the Beit HaMikdash , that Hashem told the prophets to tell us, נחמו נחמו עמי – that we should be consoled, but the Jewish People replied,ותאמר ציון עזבני ה' – they said that they felt like Hashem had abandoned them. And so the Nevi'im went back to Hashem and said עניה סוערה לא נוחמה – that the Jewish People were not consoled, until Hashem Himself said אנכי אנכי הוא מנחמכם – that He alone would come and console His People. The Jewish People were told the most beautiful words of nechama , קומי אורי כי בא אורך – arise and shine for your light has arrived – כי הנה החושך יכסה ארץ וערפל לאומים – even though there may be darkness covering the earth and dense clouds covering the nations of the world,ועלייך יזרח ה' – Hashem will shine upon you – וכבודו עלייך יראה. After hearing the words of consolation from Hashem, the Jewish People responded with the words in this week's haftarah, שוש אשיש בה' תגל נפשי באלוקי – they felt such a joy, a rejoicing with Hashem, feeling uplifted with Hashem. When Hashem consoles, it's a complete consolation. This past year has been a very hard year for our People at large. There are many people who are in need of consolation. The day is going to come very soon, b'ezrat Hashem, when we will see the fulfillment of the pasuk ובלע המוות לנצח ומחה ה' אלוקים דמעה מעל כל פנים – death will cease to exist and Hashem will wipe away the tears from every face. The Yerushalmi explains this to mean that Hashem is going to come to every single individual personally in all of His splendor and glory and He is going to console and comfort them for every hardship and tragedy that they suffered through. He will explain to each person why He needed to do what He did and everyone will see how it was all done with only love and compassion. The pasuk says כאיש אשר אמו תנחמנו כן אנכי מנחם אתכם – Hashem is going to console us like a mother consoling her son. Mefarshim explain, you can't compare being consoled by someone who knows what you're experiencing than from someone who doesn't. The consolation from Hashem will be like a widow consoling her son for the loss of his father. She knows what the son is feeling because she is feeling it as well. Her words will be impactful because the child knows his mother truly understands his pain and his feelings. The last pasuk of this week's haftarah says בכל צרתם לו צר – Hashem feels every ache and pain that we, His precious children, feel. He understands what we went through in the past and what we are going through currently and His consolation will truly console. Although we might not be able to see the good now in the pain we endure in this world, we can still trust Hashem that it's for the best and console ourselves with those thoughts. Tell Hashem we trust Him and accept His will, it's a very precious avodah that will help us immensely and give us great merits. We hope to see the ultimate nechama with the coming of Mashiach and the Geula Shelemah. Amen . Shabbat Shalom.

It is customary to add a number of special passages to the Kaddish recitation on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Specifically, the one reciting Kaddish adds, "Te'anu Ve'te'ateru Be'rahamim Min Ha'shamayim," praying that the congregation's prayers should be lovingly accepted by G-d, and he prays that G-d should open all the heavenly "gates" for the congregation ("Shaareh…Shaareh…Shaareh…"), whereupon the congregation answers "Amen."Unfortunately, people sometimes afford greater importance to these additions than to the basic text of the Kaddish. They answer "Amen" loudly and emotionally to the "Shaareh" prayer, but do not respond, or respond halfheartedly, to "Amen Yeheh Shemeh Rabba" and the other basic sections of Kaddish. It is important to remember that the essence of Kaddish is "Amen Yeheh Shemeh Rabba," and the special High Holiday additions are of secondary importance. While of course it is proper to answer "Amen" to the "Shaareh" prayer, one must not neglect the essential part of the Kaddish.A remarkable passage in the Pirkeh Hechalot underscores the special power and importance of answering "Amen Yeheh Shemeh Rabba." Rabbi Yishmael tells that an angel once invited him to come and see what was in store for the Jewish People, and the angel brought him to the inner chambers of the heavens. He showed Rabbi Yishmael a ledger, and Rabbi Yishmael saw that written in the ledger were all different kinds of crises and calamities decreed against the Jewish People. The angel warned that these were the decrees issued that day, and even worse decrees were going to be issued the next day. Sure enough, the next day Rabbi Yishmael was again brought into these chambers and saw that even worse calamities were written in the ledger – captivity, starvation and deadly wars. The angel told Rabbi Yishmael that in truth, even worse tragedies than those were decreed against the Jews, but when the Jews assemble in the synagogue and announce, "Yeheh Shemeh Rabba," these decrees never leave the heavenly chambers.We often fail to realize just how precious and powerful answering Kaddish is, as it can help ensure that evil decrees remain "locked up" in the heavens and are never unleashed against us.On the High Holidays, we are pleading for the annulment of harsh decrees that might be issued against us because of our sins. Therefore, especially on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, we must pay careful attention to ensure that we answer the Kaddish with full concentration and intensity.Summary: It is customary to add special prayers to the Kaddish recitation on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, but these additions should not distract our attention from the main body of the Kaddish and the requirement to answer "Amen Yeheh Shemeh Rabba."

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Rabbi Gary teaches the Jewishness of Christianity, In this episode, Gary continues to discuss the parables of Yeshua. This 1 minute radio feature will air on KKLA 99.5 in Los Angeles, beginning October 1, 2021, on Fridays during rush hour.

Different opinions exist among the Halachic authorities as the proper order of the Simanim – the special foods which we eat on the night of Rosh Hashanah as symbols of our hopes for the new year. These different opinions can be seen in the different orders that appear in the various Mahzorim. We will present here the view of the Ben Ish Hai (Rav Yosef Haim of Baghdad, 1833-1909), in Parashat Nisavim, but it must be noted that the order is not critical; even if one eats the foods in a different sequence he has nevertheless fulfilled the custom.The Ben Ish Hai rules that one begins with the date. One must check the fruit for insects, and then recite the Beracha of "Ha'etz," having in mind to cover all "Ha'etz" foods on the table. The "Yehi Rason" prayer should be recited only after one takes a bite of the food; otherwise, it would constitute a "Hefsek" (interruption) between the Beracha and the eating.One then eats any of the foods requiring "Ha'adama," having in mind to cover all foods on the table requiring "Ha'adama." At this point, one does not have to recite any more Berachot over the Simanim, as they have all been covered.One then eats the "Rubia," or, according to our community's custom, the "Lubia." Those who follow this custom to eat "Lubia" should recite in the "Yehi Rason" prayer the word "She'telabebenu." One then eats the "Karti" (which resembles a large onion), followed by the Swiss chard, gourd, pomegranate and then apple. Our custom is to omit the word "Ki'dbash" in the "Yehi Rason" prayer over the apple, and to recite, "Shana Tova U'mutka Me'reshit Shana Ve'ad Aharit Shana." The apples are followed by the sheep's head or fish head (depending on custom). In our "Yehi Rason" prayers on Rosh Hashanah, we use three different expressions in praying that our enemies will be eliminated: "Yitamu," "Yikaretu," and "Yistaleku." The Ben Ish Hai explains that these three prayers refer to three different kinds of enemies. The prayer, "Yitamu Oyebenu" refers to enemy nations who threaten the Jewish People; "Yikaretu Oyebenu" refers to the harmful spiritual forces which come into existence as a result of our sins; and "Yistaleku Oyebenu" refers to the "Mekatregim" – the angels that prosecute against us before the Heavenly Tribunal. One should try to have this in mind as he recites the various prayers.The Kaf Ha'haim (Rav Yaakob Haim Sofer, Baghdad-Israel, 1870-1939) writes that if somebody is unable to eat one of the Simanim, such as if it was not available, he does not like the taste, or he is concerned that it might contain insects, then he should look at the food and recite the "Yehi Rason" prayer. The concept of Simanim relates not to the actual eating of the food, but rather to using the food as a symbol of our hopes and prayers for the coming year, and therefore one may recite the prayer even without eating the food.Summary: The preferred sequence for eating the Simanim on the night of Rosh Hashanah is as follows: date, any "Ha'adama" food, "Rubia" (or "Lubia"), "Karti," Swiss chard, gourd, pomegranate, apple, sheep's head (or fish head).

Rambam says the Jews forgot how to blow shofar. How exactly does he understand this to have happened?

The unfolding chaos of America's withdrawal from Afghanistan is painful to watch. What does it mean to the region? What does it mean to Israel? When we have questions about the region, we turn to Geo-politics expert and master educator Miri Eisen. Mike and Liel asked her for context, perspective, and any possible reasons for optimism. Join us! Miri Eisen (Col. Ret.) The Israel Conversation by Masa Israel Journey is a weekly podcast produced by Matt Lipman, and hosted by Michael Unterberg and Liel Zahavi-Asa. Facebook page Masa Israel Journey strengthens the strategic bond between the Jewish People and the State of Israel, by providing every young Jew with the opportunity for a life-changing long-term experience in Israel. Masa offers hundreds of diverse semester to year long programs, as well as complimentary mid-length programs, with a focus on career development, Jewish learning, tikkun olam and Aliyah preparation. Please rate, review, share and recommend our podcast. If you have further questions about the events happening in Israel, please feel free to contact your Masa teacher.

The unfolding chaos of America's withdrawal from Afghanistan is painful to watch. What does it mean to the region? What does it mean to Israel? When we have questions about the region, we turn to Geo-politics expert and master educator Miri Eisen. Mike and Liel asked her for context, perspective, and any possible reasons for optimism. Join us!  (audio repaired) Miri Eisen (Col. Ret.) The Israel Conversation by Masa Israel Journey is a weekly podcast produced by Matt Lipman, and hosted by Michael Unterberg and Liel Zahavi-Asa. Facebook page Masa Israel Journey strengthens the strategic bond between the Jewish People and the State of Israel, by providing every young Jew with the opportunity for a life-changing long-term experience in Israel. Masa offers hundreds of diverse semester to year long programs, as well as complimentary mid-length programs, with a focus on career development, Jewish learning, tikkun olam and Aliyah preparation. Please rate, review, share and recommend our podcast. If you have further questions about the events happening in Israel, please feel free to contact your Masa teacher.

In the prophecy read as the Haftara for Parashat Ki-Teseh, the prophet Yeshayahu foresees the return of the Jewish People to its homeland. He turns to the Land of Israel and cries, "Expand the space of your tent, and the curtains of your residences shall be moved… Extend your ropes, and strengthen your pegs" (54:2). Whereas the land lay empty throughout the years of exile, the prophet promises that the time will come when the land will need to expand to accommodate the influx of Jews who will return. The Ben Ish Hai (Rav Yosef Haim of Baghdad, 1833-1909) offers a deeper explanation of the words, "Vi'ytedotayich Hazeki" ("strengthen your pegs"). The plain meaning, of course, is that this refers to the pegs used to bind the ropes of the tent to the ground. As the tent expands, the pegs need to be strengthened to hold down the extended ropes. The Ben Ish Hai, however, adds that a peg is shaped like the letter "Vav," and the prophet here exhorts us to strengthen our commitment to the quality represented by this letter. He explains that if the letter "Vav" is removed from the word "Kadosh" ("sacred"), the result is the word "Kadesh" – referring to a harlot, the diametric opposite of holiness. The letter "Vav," then, signifies the difference between decadence and sanctity, our maintaining proper standards of purity and morality so we attain Kedusha, rather than becoming the opposite, Heaven forbid. For this reason, the Ben Ish Hai notes, Yosef was dressed with "Bigdeh Shesh" (flax garments) when he was appointed vizier over Egypt (Bereshit 41:42). The word "Shesh" (flax) also means "six," alluding to the letter "Vav," which in Gematria equals 6. Yosef embodied the quality of "Yesod," of resisting temptation to maintain purity, and thus he is described as being clothed with "Shesh," the letter "Vav," the attainment of Kedusha. The Ben Ish Hai explains that this is the meaning of the prophet's charge, "Vi'ytedotayich Hazeki." He is telling us that in order to earn our final redemption, we must strengthen our "peg" – the letter "Vav," our commitment to maintaining our standards of Kedusha. This is a struggle that must be waged as we prepare for our final redemption. It is no coincidence that in our times, as we inch closer to the arrival of Mashiah, we face unprecedented challenges particularly in this area, the area of purity and Kedusha. Already the prophet Yeshayahu informed us that as our nation returns to its homeland in preparation for the final redemption, we will need to work very hard to strengthen our "peg," our commitment to the Torah's standards of purity. This challenge is an especially difficult one, but it is one which we must wage, with devotion and determination, confident that this struggle will bring us closer to our final redemption, may it arrive speedily and in our time, Amen.

Hebron Christian Podcast

The Kedushat Levy writes, at the beginning of this week's parasha Shoftim that Hashem desires to judge the Jewish People on Rosh Hashanah with an abundance of kindness and mercy, but first, we have to act to others with an abundance of kindness and mercy. As well, we have to judge our friends favorably, the same way that we want to be judged. One of the ways to accomplish this is to internalize the value of every single Jew. Rabbi Aharon Toyseg told, he once went to Rabbi Elya Rott to ask him if he should go into chinuch . The Rabbi replied with something that Rav Shlomke from Zvhil told him. He said, “Anyone involved in teaching Jewish children, it doesn't matter if it is a high level Gemara class to 12 th graders or Alef Bet to pre-1A. It doesn't matter if it's to boys or to girls, every teacher, before he or she wakes up in the morning to do their avodat hakodesh, gets a special message directly from Hashem. It's a one word message in Hebrew – Ashrecha , which means You are fortunate. And if a teacher would think before he or she goes into class of, let's say, 30 children, I know some of these children are smart, some are average and some have great difficulty comprehending, but there is one common denominator in all of them, they are each a precious child of Hashem and Hashem loves every one of them like an only to child. And it is those children I am about to teach. Then Hashem would tell that teacher Ashrecha two times.” He brought a proof from when Moshe Rabbenu was commanded to give over his leadership position to Yehoshua. Rashi writes, Hashem told Moshe to tell Yehoshua, “ Ashrecha – you are fortunate that you have the merit to lead the children of Hashem.” Rabbi Rott then added a mashal of his own. He said, “Imagine a great Rebbe with ten thousand students walking into his bet hamidrash with thousands of people standing in awe of him, analyzing his every move. And then suddenly, he stops and points to an avrech in the crowd, motioning for him to come towards him. The entire bet midrash of people would be watching to see what the Rebbe could possibly want from this man. The Rebbe then whispers to that young avrech, “Can you please learn with my son for an hour a day? I'll pay you for it.” The avrech would not just learn for an hour with the boy, he would learn for three hours. And he wouldn't care about the money because his greatest reward would be that he has the zechut of teaching the great Rebbe's son.” Rabbi Rott then concluded, “If you have an opportunity now to teach children, that means Hashem is choosing you to teach His children. How fortunate you are to have that responsibility.” The Rabbi left with great chizuk to go into chinuch . If we view each Jew as a child of Hashem, our attitude towards them would be one of great respect and admiration and it will automatically be easier for us to judge them favorably. Every father loves to hear good things about his children and therefore, besides judging Hashem's children favorably, we also should utilize the opportunity to speak highly of them. If we see a person doing a great act, we should say, “What a special nation you have, Hashem! Your children are amazing.” If we could train ourselves to speak favorably of others and judge them favorably, it will bring about more love in Klal Yisrael and it will bring great satisfaction to Hashem and b'ezrat Hashem will cause Hashem to judge us favorably as well. Shabbat Shalom.

The pasuk says in Yeshaya כי לקחה מיד ה' כפליים בכל חטאתיה , which simply means the Jewish People paid double for its sins. The Rabbis asked how to reconcile this pasuk with another pasuk in Tehillim which says כי לא כחטאינו עשה לו ולא כעוונותינו גמל עלינו , which means Hashem in His infinite kindness does not even take a single payment for our sins, instead, He erases numerous sins from our record with small afflictions. How could the pasuk in Yeshaya speak of us receiving double the amount of our sins if in Tehillim it says we don't even pay once? I once heard an explanation that, in reality, it's like it says in Tehillim , Hashem takes far less from us than what we deserve, but if we fail to understand that whatever happens is coming to us from Hashem for our best, then it seems as though we are paying double. Afflictions become so much more painful and so much more difficult to handle if we do not view them as an expression of Hashem's love. Indeed, the pasuk in Yeshaya does not say that Hashem gives us twice the punishment, but rather it say ‘ כי לקחה מיד ה – we have taken twice the punishment – it appears to be double because of our flawed perspective. Yes, there are times that people have to experience hardships for their best, but how it affects them mentally is their choice. A man told me, his daughter was in shidduchim and although she wasn't that old, he and his wife were a nervous wreck over it. They were worried and stressed over it all the time, especially when they saw her friends getting engaged while she, so to speak, was on the sidelines. This went on for two years. Then, after learning more about emunah, they decided to take on a whole new approach. They said to themselves, So what if our daughter's not married yet. Hashem blessed us with such a wonderful and special girl, she's so smart, she has such good middot, she's respectful, she's always happy, she has a great job. What's the big deal if she gets married later than others? From that day on, instead of complaining or feeling worried, they began thanking Hashem for giving them such a great daughter. Every day they would thank Hashem for a different aspect of their daughter. As a side note, this girl became engaged within two months of that change in attitude. But the point of the story is not the yeshua , it's the decision made by this couple on how they were going to deal with the affliction they were going through. Yes, it's hard to have a daughter not married and it is most definitely considered a form of yissurin , but the way people go through it is up to them. They didn't have to take double for what was considered to be not even single. A woman told me, she grew up in a Reform background and had very little connection to Judaism. Baruch Hashem, her son became religious and helped influence her as well. A few years ago, she discovered the topic of emunah and has read books on the subject again and again. She has had a very hard life and currently lives alone and, at the time I spoke to her, she was suffering from a broken limb but she was speaking as if she was the happiest person in the world. She knows everything that's happening comes from Hashem for her best and that has become part of her very essence. She loves talking to Hashem, her life has become so much happier from the emunah that she has learned. For whatever reason, part of her tikkun in this world is to experience different hardships, but she is in charge of how to view them and, baruch Hashem, she's as happy as can be. With the proper perspective, everybody can rise above their challenges and enjoy the wonderful life that Hashem has given them.

What is the most effective way to generate faith in G-d? What are proper and improper outreach techniques, and how can we avoid condescension when doing kiruv? When should leaders work within the system and when is it time to create new institutions? Are the Jewish People on the right or wrong path? These questions are important and pressing, and Scott spoke with musician, author, teacher, and spiritual leader Rabbi Shlomo Katz to hear his opinion about how best to address them. Please listen to and share the podcast, and let us know what you think on the Orthodox Conundrum Discussion Group on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/groups/432020081498108). Thanks to all of our Patreon subscribers, who have access to bonus JCH podcasts, merch, and more - we appreciate your help, and hope you really enjoy the extras! Visit the JCH Patreon site at https://www.patreon.com/jewishcoffeehouse. Check out https://jewishcoffeehouse.com/ for the Orthodox Conundrum and other great podcasts, and remember to subscribe to them on your favorite podcast provider. The site will also help you learn about creating your own podcast. Music: "Happy Rock" by bensound.com

Can we prove that the God of the Bible actually exists? Is there something that we can touch or see or comprehend—the reality of which will prove the existence of God? In this powerful episode, Kevin offers what he believes is tangible, quantifiable, objectively observable evidence that the God of Israel is real. IN THIS EPISODE: 00:00 | Intro 01:42 | Subjective evidence of God 05:02 | Objective evidence of God 07:27 | God's unbreakable promise to Israel 09:23 | God's faithfulness to Israel 12:57 | God's reputation tied to Israel 16:06 | Israel as a sign to the nations 19:50 | Fundamental importance of the Jews 23:34 | Conclusion WATCH ON YOUTUBE • https://bcpodca.st/y/ep6

Much of the debate surrounding the purpose of tongues speech is related to what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14:20-25. In this episode I unpack this difficult text to determine how it helps us understand why God has given this particular spiritual gift to the church.