Keeping Torah and Values in Focus
The week after Pesach, it’s hard to obtain yeast. Sourdough was gotten rid of before the holiday. Fleischman didn’t invent a way to make dry active yeast yet. You had to get rid of all your starter dough.
Easiest thing to do is skim the yeast off of beer. (The term for this yeast layer is “barm”, for what it’s worth.) Problem is, that’s way too much. So, you put some metal into the dough, as metal slows down yeast. Likely a key — right size, handy.
The chaburah at Zelmele’s Kloiz is now learning Derashos haRan, the third derashah. I wanted to continue a conversation we had there, in light of today being Tish’ah beAv. The following is based on...
The Medrash about Qorach rhetorically asking of Moshe why a tallis that is made of tekheiles would need one more tekheiles thread for tzitzis ties the mitzvah of tzitzis to the next story in the Chumash – Qorach. The words of the parashah about tzitzis tie it to a slightly earlier story – the meraglim. ,,,
[A] custom arose, as recorded by the Radvaz, to come to Nabi Samwil, the traditionally identified location of his gravesite, tonight, on his yahrzeit. A bit north of Yerushalayim. And there children would get their first haircuts. When Shemu’el was weened, he was sent to the Mishkan to live. And he was a nazir, who did not cut his hair his entire life. So there is a logical connection between Shemu’el haNavi and haircuts. Also moved into the Mishkan after he was weened and he grew up there, thus giving the navi a connection to toddlers turning into boys, as well.
When Moshe counts the Jews, each man of military age contributes a half-sheqel … One of the Ran’s themes in his first derashah is the idea that a compound will generally be superior to the components. … The Ran continues that what is true for elements and compounds is true for individuals and the community. … There is a similar theme to the step of Yachatz in the Seder.
Don’t picture a single jar of oil found amidst the rubble. The Beis haMiqdash wasn’t trashed, it was perverted into a Temple of Zeus. … That single jar oil needed to be searched for because it had been hidden. Who hid it?
So, Adam saw the return of darkness, the same darkness the opening medrash identified with the spiritual decimation attempted by the Hellenists in the years before Chanukah. He mourned and fasted for 8 days. We have 8 days, but with an opposite theme — mourning and fasting are prohibited, and praise and gratitude dominate. And in both cases, the message was only seen in retrospect, the next year.
There is one major difference: Adam concluded that the darkness and the return of light was just “the natural cycle”. In Chanukah, we initiated the light manually, and Hashem responded with a miracle. Where Adam saw Hashem’s Light in nature, we see Him bestowing it in a covenantal union with us.
Adam was the start of this world. The Jewish People were given the Torah, handed a burning torch, to bring light to the world that follows.
Wednesday night (Sep 28th, 2022) the Beyond Meaningful Relationship – Relationshipful Meaning chaburah chaburah discussed Rav Wolbe’s essay titled “Frumkeit”, found in Alei Shur vol II, pp 152-155. (Warning: he actually comes out against!)
Wednesday nights (September 14th and 21st, 2022) the Beyond Meaningful Relationship – Relationshipful Meaning chaburah completed our study of Rav Dessler’s Qunterus haChessed.
Wednesday night (August 24th, 2022) the Beyond Meaningful Relationship – Relationshipful Meaning chaburah continued our study of Rav Dessler’s Qunterus haChessed chapters 4 through 6 (pp. 35-39)…. This week we saw how …[g]iving leads to love, far more than the other way around.
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