YeshivaThe torah world Gateway
Beit Midrash
- Torah Portion and Tanach
- Shmot
- Vayakhel
- Torah Portion and Tanach
- Shmot
- Pkudei
In democracies, elections held periodically are meant to hold political leaders accountable. Though in practice this does not always work out, the theory of accountability is at least present in the society and the political system. In a dictatorship there never is any voluntary day of reckoning or demand for accountability. No one likes to be beholden to the judgment of others and therefore we see that in businesses, educational institutions, social agencies and religious institutions that mini-dictatorships abound. The prophets of Israel held the leaders and the people of Israel accountable to the moral teachings of the Torah and to God Himself, so to speak. Thus the prophets of Israel served as the necessary brake to an otherwise dictatorial, all-powerful monarchy. The rabbis of the Talmud were always careful to be aware that they were accountable for their decisions and behavior. Often times that sense of accountability focused on the presence of another individual rabbi to whom one somehow felt accountable. The great Mar Shmuel mourned the death of Rav by saying that the "person that I feared and was accountable to is no longer with us." The idea of accountability stretches over generations. We are all accountable for the past and for the future. And it is in that light that we will certainly be judged and that the accomplishments of our lifetime will be marked and assessed.
Rabbis in Midrash
Lessons
fast navigation
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.]
