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Beit Midrash
- Sections
- Chemdat Yamim
- Ein Ayah
- Shabbat and Holidays
- Shabbat
- The spiritual view
Ein Ayah: Shabbat is a totally holy day that is conducive to enjoyment and rest, and candle lighting adds peace and internal happiness. This is a good time to understand the truth-based success for body and spirit, which brings one eternal life and the tranquility enjoyed by the righteous during this fleeting life. This is in contrast to false success – material wealth, which most people chase without regard to the propriety of the means they use.
Oil is often used by Chazal to represent success (including Bava Kama 93a, Bava Batra 145b). A person can be represented by a wick trying to produce light with the help of oil. As long as one’s success is external and he does not absorb it efficiently, his heart will not be filled with happiness and he will not experience rest or an elevated life in its fullest sense. This is like a wick in oil that is not absorbed in a manner that gives light that brings the desired peace to the house. By demanding high quality light for Shabbat, we remind ourselves that we want success that impacts the individual properly, i.e., internally, as fitting for one who sets his path by the Torah’s true laws.
[We look for the identification of kik oil, starting with the seafarers’ opinion – a bird from the cities of the sea.] The cities of the sea are known for a low moral level and distance from Jewish connections (see Avoda Zara 17a; Gittin 11a). People travel there because they are good places to accumulate wealth. Thus these are places where a person is likely to have "success" that damages one’s spiritual status and connection to Torah. This is like oil that is poorly absorbed in a wick. A Jewish home should reject this, as it merits tranquility when based on the type of purity and modesty that are fostered by a beautifully lit Shabbat home. Seafarers, who know about ethical deterioration, identify kik as belonging to a bird of the cities of the sea.
Another problematic success, besides chasing after wealth, is success limited to one’s imagination. While a person may externally imagine that riches and wildness will make him happy, he internally realizes these matters’ hollowness and is internally sad with them. Grapes of the vine often represent happiness (see Shoftim 9:13). A cotton plant resembles a grapevine, explaining why cotton is called tzemer gefen (the wool of the vine). However, its produce does not provide internal happiness like grapes but covers a person externally. Therefore, cottonseed oil represents another element of success without internal impact.
The biggest sign of meaningless success is that which is utterly fleeting, which is also a sign that it lacks internal connection. Jonah’s kikayon, the tree that grew overnight only to similarly wither, conveys this idea (Yonah 4:10). Those who gain material success are like that. Even life in this world is in general like the kikayon. Real light and success connects to the sanctity of Shabbat. Its holy, happy light comes to a person who acted properly – not through the birds of the cities of the sea, cottonseed, or a kikayon. We want happiness that is a result of hard work, purity, and honesty. We want success that is used to help the poor, strengthen Torah scholars, and merit true internal happiness in a way that lasts well after the kikayon withers. We want oil that gives beautiful light on Shabbat and thus straightens one’s path all week long.
Rabbis in Midrash
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The Land of Israel LGBT'S IN ISRAEL
The question was asked, how can one make Aliyah with the LGBT parades?
Kuzari -Rabbi Ari Shvat Kuzari class 7 - Five Accumulative Proofs of G-d
As a preparation for the Kuzari's classic proof of G-d from the mass-revelation at Sinai, we start here with 5 other directions to strengthen our belief which also contribute to what the Kuzari will present as well.
Ein Aya Muscle & Meaning: The Dual Nature of Gevurah (Physical Strength)
Is physical strength and fitness a necessity or an ideal? Although it if often totally overlooked among topics of Judaism, Rav Kook writes that it clearly is also a necessity to deter the many enemies of Israel, but even in Y'mot HaMashiach, in the Messianic era, to a certain extent, it's ideal continues even after our enemies will have been finished off.
Chukat "HOW ENTEBBE STOLE THE BICENTENNIAL
The Difference Between Historic & Eternal"
As we approach America's 250th birthday, it's worth remembering her 200th Bicentennial birthday, on Jul. 4th 1976, when Israel "stole the show" by shocking the world & miraculously saving 101 hostages in a foreign continent. As Pres. As Pres. Trump decides which countries get priority in his new Middle-East, it's worth reminding him of the difference between historic events and eternally historic ones. This obviously connects with this week's parsha, as well!
Kuzari -Rabbi Ari Shvat Kuzari class 6 - The Parable of the King of India
The advantages of testimony over circumstantial evidence or philosophical speculation.
Kuzari -Rabbi Ari Shvat Kuzari class 5- "Proofs of G-d"
This may be the most important class of the entire book, where we finally get to the Jewish proof of the existence of G-d and truth of the Torah. We should follow His own direction where He tells us how to get to Him: through the Nation of Israel: Jewish history, Jewish prophets (and today, prophecies fulfilled), and national reward & punishment towards Am Yisrael.
Ein Aya One Humanity, One Creator, One Jerusalem
Rav Kook innovatively and beautifully explains this aggadeta where our sages say that after Jerusalem was destroyed her cinnamon fragrance is only found locked in a particular kingdom's treasury.
