Tag: Sinai

The foundations of a Jewish life may be discerned in three outstanding works of Jewish art that I had the pleasure to preview for the Kestenbaum auction scheduled for March 30, 2004.

I was transfixed the first time I saw Moses und Aron, the 1933 opera by Arnold Schoenberg.

It is 30 years this month since I spoke in Madison Square Garden and had the zchus (merit) to launch Hineni, our Kiruv-Outreach organization. In those days, the Jewish world was very different. Kiruv - outreach was virtually unknown, so I knew that something different had to be done to awaken our people.

Special Note: In last week's column, I published a letter from a ba'alas teshuva of Russian descent. She wrote that her parents, having been raised in a communist totalitarian society, were atheists. In Russia, her parents were professionals, but here in the United States, they were unable to find employment in their given fields. This made them very bitter, and was the cause of much anger in her home.

In last week's column, I published letters from two women who complained that they were experiencing crises in faith. One, a single woman in her early forties, an only child of Holocaust survivors, was devastated by the illness and subsequent death of her mother (her father had passed away some years earlier). 'What happened to all my prayers?' she asked.

QUESTION: I recently read your Daf Yomi column (JP, June 13, 2003), where you cited the Chikrei Lev's comments regarding the standard of 'Sinai' in Torah study, that is, having extensive knowledge of the Torah. He stated that this is not as important today because the Mishna has been recorded.My question is: Was the Mishna not recorded in Rashi's time? Commenting on the first verse in Parashat Bechukotai, Rashi notes (based on Sifra) that "Im bechukotai tele'chu" means "shetih'yu amelim baTorah." In yeshiva I was taught that this means that one must toil with much effort to learn and understand Torah. If so, how can one not be expected to have an extensive knowledge and yet be amel baTorah?Zvi Kirschner(Via E-Mail)

QUESTION: I recently read your Daf Yomi column (JP, June 13, 2003), where you cited the Chikrei Lev's comments regarding the standard of 'Sinai' in Torah study, that is, having extensive knowledge of the Torah. He stated that this is not as important today because the Mishna has been recorded.My question is: Was the Mishna not recorded in Rashi's time? Commenting on the first verse in Parashat Bechukotai, Rashi notes (based on Sifra) that "Im bechukotai tele'chu" means"shetih'yu amelim baTorah." In yeshiva I was taught that this means that one must toil with much effort to learn and understand Torah. If so, how can one not be expected to have anextensive knowledge and yet be amel baTorah?Zvi Kirschner(Via Email)

Sometimes, messages come to us from the most unexpected sources. While, Baruch HaShem, there is currently a substantial upsurge in commitment to Torah and mitzvos, and statistics demonstrate that the Orthodox community is experiencing an unprecedented resurgence, sadly, there is also a flip side to this story.

The linchpin of the 1979 peace treaty between Israel and Egypt ? and the basis for Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula ? was that the Sinai would be demilitarized, and a natural "no-man's land" of sorts would be created between the two countries. However, a proposed U.S. missile deal with Egypt threatens to negate this vital element of the military balance that has obtained for more than two decades.