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Beit Midrash
- Torah Portion and Tanach
- Shmot
- Beshalach
In this week's Torah portion, "Bo", we learn about the plague of firstborns. A "firstborn" is the emergence of life; the magical moment when human beings become father and mother. In order to get out of the bondage of Egypt, one must strike at the "firstborn": not to just initially love the baby unconditionally, but during their continuous upbringing; not to get hooked on in initial success but to direct mental resources to perseverance; to feel renewal, not just at high points, but all along on the long and winding road.
The same idea is also found later in the Torah portion in which we are commanded to redeem the firstborn of the donkey "pehter chamor". We take the primal physicality (play on the Hebrew word for chomer) and take care not to wallow in it. In the last verse of the Torah portion, we are commanded to put these texts into the tefillin boxes, "and they [the sanctity of the firstborn in addition to the story of the Exodus] shall be a sign upon your arm and an ornament between your eyes" – every morning we tie this idea on the arm close to the heart and on the head; to imprint on both the heart and the mind – that no matter how long the road is, we will win. They will not beat us so fast.
Shabbat Shalom!
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Rabbi Haggai Lundin
Family and Society There Will Not Be A Civil War!
(Told to the students of the Hesder Yeshiva in Holon)
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.]
