Yeshiva
Beit Midrash
- Torah Portion and Tanach
- Shmot
- Mishpatim
The Torah study is dedicatedin the memory of
Rachel Bat Yakut Z"L
In answer to the first question, the Or Hachaim Kakadosh explains that the Torah comes here to prohibit activities that are not actually idolatrous, but nevertheless part of the culture of an idolatrous society. The Netziv explains further that there was a special danger of following a system that had been in place and had worked for the inhabitants of the land which the Jews would now take over. After their victory, they might find it appropriate to imitate the local forms of worship, redirecting those activities towards God. The Torah comes to teach us that in the Land of Israel, no foreign influences should taint the purity of Jewish life.
And yet, God allows these people, corrupt as they may be, to remain until they are replaced by Jews behaving in accordance with the Torah, since desolation and abandonment of the Land of Israel create such an undesirable situation.
It appears that God does not allow a vacuum in the Land of Israel. Foreign inhabitants of the land are only removed as their place is filled by Jews. And those Jews should be populating the land with lives and a society that are built on authentic service to God.
Rabbi Shaya Karlinsky , Jerusalem
Rabbi Karlinsky grew up in Los Angeles, arriving in Israel in 1968 to learn in Kerem B"Yavneh. Outside of two years spent in graduate school in Philadelphia, he has been in Israel ever since. He is the co-founder and Rosh Yeshiva of Darche Noam/Shapell"s and Midreshet Rachel, Yeshivot for English speaking college graduates and young professionals. Thousands of students have been educated there, and many hundreds of them are now living in Israel. Their website can be found at http://www.darchenoam.org
Shabbat Shalom.
Rabbis in Midrash
Lessons
fast navigation
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
