Q & A: Ke’chut Hasa’ara – Harsh Punishment (Part II)
Question: I find it very difficult to understand the punishment of death that was meted out to Rabbi Akiva’s students. If he was so great, we can assume that his students were of a superior caliber as well. How did they rate such a harsh punishment?
Zelig Aronson
Queens, N.Y.
Tuning In
Like in an election, the division of the land among the twelve tribes had to be supervised by officials who made sure that there would be no fraud involved in allocating the land.
Shavuot – Why Is This Night Different?
Pesach and Shavuot...represent the liberation of the body and the liberation of the mind, respectively.
Shavuot and the “Pintele Yid”
Shavuot commemorates the day when we all gathered at Har Sinai to receive the Torah, “as one person with one heart", meaning that we stood together in perfect unity. How tragic it is that it takes an attack from our enemies to make us feel unified.
Tzom Gedalia Lesson for Negotiators
The road to Gehinnom is paved with good intentions – such as the unwarranted benefit of the doubt that too-credulous well-intended leaders and negotiators give their undeserving counterparts.
Covenant & Conversation: Bamidbar: The Ever-Repeated Story
But the Torah is not mere history as a sequence of events. The Torah is about the truths that emerge through time.
An Early Second Night of Shavuot?
Since the case of early second night Yom Tov involves infringing on a holier day for the sake of a less holy one, it seems more analogous to davening Motzaei Shabbat Maariv and reciting havdalah after plag on Shabbat afternoon.
TORAH SHORTS: Parshat Bamidbar: The Discipline of Sanctity
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.— Proverb (widely attributed to Saint Bernard of Clairvaux)
A Central Theme of Shavuos
How do Torah scholars make more peace in the world?
The Spiritual Human Being
R’ Elazar states that all agree, though, that on the holiday of Shavuos, we are obligated to eat and drink because it is the day on which the Torah was given. R’ Shimshon Nachmani, the renowned Zera Shimshon, notes that this conclusion seems paradoxical. We would think that the day commemorating the giving of the Torah would be dedicated solely to spirituality, to Torah study.
What is the Deeper Purpose of Shavuos?
We do not simply remember what once occurred, we relive the experience as we tap back into the power of kabbalas haTorah.
Counting Heads & Counting Up
To deserve the name Numbers, this week’s sedra contains numbers galore – starting with a count of the adult male population of each of the 12 tribes, with a total of 603,550 men age 20 and up.
How To Be More Than The Average Joe
Shouldn’t Shavuot’s commemoration of Matan Torah mandate a spiritual celebration?
Is it proper to stay up all night learning on Shavuos if it will...
If one can embrace it without compromising the rest of the day, the experience of Torah learning on this night can deepen one’s connection to Torah for the whole year to come.
Gravity Defying Bread – Bamidbar
The total weight of the shulchan with the lechem hapanim was over 551 pounds.
Daf Yomi
Start And Final
‘Aleph Lamed Chol, Yud Keh Kodesh’
(Shavuos 35b)
Free Choice Does Not Come Free
The conflict between different parts of our mind and the denial of certain thoughts provide a tidy explanation for the contradictory ways in which people behave.
Yeru and Shalem – Yerushalayim
Yerushalayim was and always will be a city of unity — but unity of what? What do “Yeru” and “Shalem” each represent?
Punished for Keeping a Mitzvah
A promise is a promise and it'll only take me a minute, I can surely do this without any problems!
Pay or Replace?
If you wouldn’t have a spare copy, you’d have to pay cash, so it’s not fair to make me accept your spare copy!
Daf Yomi
Posthaste
‘And He Simply Uttered Bread’
(Shavuos 26b)
Q & A: K’chut Ha’sa’ara: Harsh Punishment (Part I)
Question: I find it very difficult to understand the punishment of death that was meted out to Rabbi Akiva’s students. If he was so great, we can assume that his students were of a superior caliber as well. How did they rate such a harsh punishment?
Zelig Aronson
Queens, N.Y.
Yom Yerushalayim: Our Gratitude and Prayers
In a city torn by conflict, we remember: Yerushalayim is meant to unite us – with each other, and with Hashem.
The Chronological Imagination
Words can injure and inspire. Words can bless or curse. Words can create new moral facts, such as when we make a promise.
50 Years – The Productive Life of Man
Indeed the laws of Shemittah were meant to be given at Har Sinai because the original plan was that we would enter the land of Israel a short while later, not forty years later.
The Good News: Parashat Bechukotai
Unlike the entry of the Israelites into the Promised Land, the return to Zion in modern times has been a natural event within the confines of nature.
The Limits of the Free Market: Behar-Bechukotai
“Torah study without an occupation will in the end fail and lead to sin.” Avot 2:2
The Land Wants Its Shabbat
One possible explanation that Rashi finds in the Midrash is that all of the general principles were received at Har Sinai; however, many of the specifics were taught by Moshe in the land of Moav immediately before the crossing of the Yarden.
TORAH SHORTS: Parshat Behar – Bechukotai: Faith, Famine, Feast, Food
Faith is not certainty. It is the courage to live with uncertainty.— Rabbi Jonathan Sacks
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