Yeshiva
Beit Midrash
- Torah Portion and Tanach
- Vayikra
- Tazria
So why are they put together in the same Sedra?!
The Lubavitcher Rebbe offers great insight to this strange combination of emotions, perfect for chodesh Nisan which begins this week!
To understand, he says, we have to say a few words about the concept of reward & punishment. Both words are misleading; a much better term to use would be "consequences." Hashem does not seek to harm us, or even to "pay" us for adhering to His will. But he does want us to come to the realization that A) Everything he commands us to do in our lives is for our own good, not His; and B) There will be consequences that perforce will flow from whatever choices we make and, whether "good" or "bad", these consequences will help to steer our neshama to its rightful place.
When a person does not act in a G-dly fashion, & slanders others around him, he is really harming himself. People will start to avoid him, so that they do not also become the victim of his diatribes. He will lose friends, become a loner, & he will fall into depression & bitterness.
But there is a cure for this. When the Torah declares such a slanderer tamei, ritually impure, he is put into quarantine, apart from the community. There, in isolation, he can begin his rehabilitation process. Because he is now alone, with no one to speak to, he will physically not be able to slander anyone! He will think long & hard about why he has been set apart from others. He will hopefully grasp the truth about the error of his ways, & this will start him on the road to being a more perfect person. This, in turn, will result in more blessings flowing to him.
As his faults shrink, his good midot will undoubtedly expand & it will be a "win-win-win" situation - for him, for his fellow Jews & for Hashem!
This is the connection to the opening part of our parsha, the link to the subject of conception & birth. The consequences of our actions allow us to achieve a spiritual "rebirth," to regain some of that pristine innocence which we had when we first came into this world as a neshem Hashem, a breath of G-d. Our souls will be cleansed & we will emerge, literally, a new person!
Rabbis in Midrash
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Various Events FOR WHOM NOT TO VOTE
Rav Zvi Yehuda Kook stressed that Israeli politics is G-dly, so I have no problem answering this common question on a Torani blog. Also, Free-Will is a G-d-given right and obligation, to "destine one's fate" (R. Soloveichik, Kol Dodi Dofek, 67), so I obviously don't tell others how to vote. But once not a few (especially young) have already asked, a couple of personal words from experience and thoughts from chazal & Rav Kook which may be of help to others, mainly for whom NOT to vote.
P'ninat Mishpat Fallout from Failure to Install Elevator – part II
based on ruling 85007 of the Eretz Hemdah-Gazit Rabbinical Courts
