Yeshiva
Beit Midrash
- Torah Portion and Tanach
- Vayikra
- Shmini
My beloved grandson, Binyamin Gewirtz, the youngest of all of my beloved grandsons, is celebrating his Bar Mitzva this Shabat. Happily, parshat Shmini was also my bar mitzvah parsha. I remember that my father of blessed memory said to me in his synagogue sermon that Shabat that what I would make out of my life on the eighth day - after all of the bar mitzvah celebrations had receded was the important challenge in life. It is certainly correct that the challenge of the eighth day is the true challenge in life. I pray that the Lord grant my Binyamin all of the blessings of life but my main prayer is that he, like all of us, realizes that the challenges of life lie in the everyday mundane behavior which we can if we so desire transform into purpose and holiness. That is the message that is transmitted here in the parsha to Aharon and his sons. Steadfastness, belief, obedience to Torah law and Jewish values is what is asked of them. The seven days of celebration and dedication have ended and now the task of caring for the holy Mishkan is entrusted to them. And perhaps that is what the rabbis meant when they indicated that the two sons of Aharon who were killed in the Mishkan died because they were inebriated from wine. They were still in the seven days of celebration mode which had ended and not in the eighth day mode which now descended upon them. Such errors in life can be fatal and disastrous.
Rabbis in Midrash
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Hosha'ana Rabba FLYDUBAI & HOSHANA RABBA- ANI VAHU HOSHIA NA- I & HIM SAVE US
"Ani vaHu Hoshia Na", "I and Him, Save Us". We don't just pray to Him, but we also pray to and for ourselves that we should emulate and educate our children to have that instinctive altruism with which He created the world. President Trump seemed amused about Yaniv Hayon, our PLUMBER who confidently worked with G-d like Superman (he learned from a pilot on a TV show!) to save 174 lives on the Dubai hijacking, but we in Israel are totally accustomed already 78 years to our plumbers, teachers, garbage-men, rabbis, farmers & doctors being Hashem's shlichim! This is what Zionism is about.
