YeshivaThe torah world Gateway
Beit Midrash
- Torah Portion and Tanach
- D'varim
- D'varim
Personal opinion and passion are key to the service of God according to Jewish tradition. Judaism does not condone "holy rollers" in its midst but the entire idea of the necessity of kavanah/intense intent in prayer and the performance of mitzvoth speaks to a personal view of the relationship to God and Torah and a necessary passion and viewpoint. Everyone is different and therefore everyone’s view of events also is different one from another. Thus everyone’s service of God and Torah, albeit within the parameters of established and recognized halacha, must contain nuances of personal difference. The importance of the Torah emphasizing to us that the book of Dvarim is Moshe’s personal record of events is to stress to us this recognition of individuality that exists within every human being and how that affects one’s view of everything, spiritual and physica, in life. Moshe’s recorded personal anguish at witnessing the sins of Israel in the desert is a greater indictment of those sins than just the description and listing of the sins themselves would have been. Life is personal, never objective. Moshe’s personal view of the events of the desert makes these events real and tangible to us. We are also involved in the narrative because of our empathy with Moshe. This is what makes the entire book of Dvarim so real and important to us. People speak to people. Moshe speaks to us.
Rabbis in Midrash
Lessons
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Moreshet Shaul Hashem Is your Shadow – part I
Based on Siach Shaul, Pirkei Machshava V’Hadracha p. 420 – an address from 1941
P'ninat Mishpat A Non-Contractor in Changing Times – part I
(based on ruling 85128 of the Eretz Hemdah-Gazit Rabbinical Courts)
Moreshet Shaul Our King on Rosh Hashana, Our Father on Yom Kippur.
Based on Aroch Siach, p. 221 (Rav Shaul Yisraeli)
P'ninat Mishpat A Non-Contractor in Changing Times – part II
(based on ruling 85128 of the Eretz Hemdah-Gazit Rabbinical Courts)
Moreshet Shaul Hashem Is your Shadow – part II
Based on Siach Shaul, Pirkei Machshava V’Hadracha p. 420 – an address from 1941
Parashat Hashavua Happiness for the Right Reasons
[With painful longing, we share these divrei Torah from our co-Rosh Kollel for close to 40 years, Harav Moshe Ehrenreich zt”l.]
