Yeshiva
Beit Midrash
- Torah Portion and Tanach
- D'varim
- Va'etchanan
- Shabbat and Holidays
- Jewish Holidays
- The Seven Weeks of Condolence
The parsha also deals with the Ten Commandments of Sinai. I have often thought that the repetition of this subject, which seemed to be adequately covered once in the Book of Shemot, teaches us an important lesson, which again may serve to be a source of consolation to us. The "first" Ten Commandments was given at the beginning of the Jewish sojourn in the desert of Sinai. There was no Golden calf, no complaints about the manna, no spies, no Korach, no plagues of snakes - nothing had yet occurred to diminish the light and aura of Sinai. Well, in such a perfect society there is no reason not to recognize the values and laws of the Ten Commandments as being valid and even necessary in practice. But now Moshe stands forty years later after all of the disappointments and rebellions, the backsliding and the pettiness, the death of an entire generation, and reassures us in the "second" Ten Commandments that all of those values and rules have not changed at all. The lesson of the immutability of Torah and Halacha is thereby engraved upon the Jewish heart and mind. Many things have happened to the Jewish people since Moshe’s speech before his death. Many have mistakenly thought that all of the changes in technology, economies, world orders, etc. have made the Ten Commandments, Torah and Halacha somehow less relevant. Moshe stands and speaks to us to remind us that the basic anchor of Jewish life and in fact of all world civilization lies in those words of Sinai. Everything has changed but human beings have not changed. And neither then has God’s instructions for us.
Ein Aya How Unclean Thoughts, Speech & Pornography Bring Depression & Loneliness
Ein Aya, Shabbat 2, 234
Rabbis in Midrash
Lessons
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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
