Missionary Renegade: "What to Look for in a Spouse" from The Chabad Magazine in New York, New York, United States for Thursday, Menachem Av 14, 5776

Friday, August 19, 2016

"What to Look for in a Spouse" from The Chabad Magazine in New York, New York, United States for Thursday, Menachem Av 14, 5776 · August 18, 2016

"What to Look for in a Spouse" from The Chabad Magazine in New York, New York, United States for Thursday, Menachem Av 14, 5776 · August 18, 2016
Editor's Note:
Dear Friend,
What makes a good spouse?
We are fast approaching 15 Av, once one of the happiest days on the Jewish calendar. The Talmud tells us that many years ago the “daughters of Jerusalem would go dance in the vineyards” on the 15th of Av, and “whoever did not have a wife would go there” to find himself a bride.
“Raise your eyes and choose!” they would call out as they danced. “Don’t fix your eyes on beauty. Set your eyes on upbringing. ‘Charm is a lie, and beauty is vain; but a woman who has reverence for the L‑rd, she’ll be praised.’ (Proverbs 31:30)”
These young ladies knew the secret to lasting love. Looks, money, glitz, glamor are all secondary. The main thing is what’s going on inside. A G‑d-fearing, kind, giving, reliable, and intelligent spouse is a partner with whom to build a home and grow old.
Let those of us who are married look inward and find these qualities within ourselves and our spouses. And let us bless those of us looking for a spouse that they find one with the values of the maidens of Jerusalem.
The Chabad.org Team

The Un-Battle
Marriage is not a power struggle, and the home is not a battlefield. To give in does not mean to relinquish power, and talking things over does not mean you are entering negotiations.

The two of you comprise a single entity—a couple. What is good for one is good for the other. When you come to a decision, it is the decision of both of you as one being. Do it not as a sacrifice but as a gift, not as a defeat but as a triumph of love.[Hitkashrut no. 70.]This Week's Features

Printable Magazine

What Goes Down Must Come Up
The Rebbe on why the 15th of Av attracts so much joy

Adam and Chava: The First Relationship
Four paradigms for the archetypical marital relationship are expounded from a single Torah verse.
By Asher Crispe

Watch (24:08)

The Power of Torah Study
Why it’s like hugging G-d
By Shifra Sharfstein

Watch (51:44)

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On The Calendar
The 15th of Av: Love and Rebirth

The 15th of Av is undoubtedly a most mysterious day. A search of the Shulchan Aruch (Code of Jewish Law) reveals no observances or customs for this date, except for the instruction that the tachanun (confession of sins) and similar portions should be omitted from the daily prayers (as is the case with all festive dates), and that one should increase one’s study of Torah, since the nights are begining to grow longer, and “the night was created for study.” And the Talmud tells us that many years ago the “daughters of Jerusalem would go dance in the vineyards” on the 15th of Av, and “whoever did not have a wife would go there” to find himself a bride.
And the Talmud considers this the greatest festival of the year, with Yom Kippur (!) a close second!
Indeed, the 15th of Av cannot but be a mystery. As the “full moon” of the tragic month of Av, it is the festival of the future redemption, and thus a day whose essence, by definition, is unknowable to our unredeemed selves.
Yet also the unknowable is also ours to seek and explore.
Other Languages: Français | Español | עברית | Русский | Deutsch | Português | Italiano© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.

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On The Calendar
14 Facts You (Probably) Did Not Know About Jewish Weddings
1. Mini–Yom Kippur

A person’s wedding day is comparable to his or her personal Yom Kippur, on which all sins are forgiven. In fact, many follow the custom of fasting on this day.
2. Under the Stars

Photo: Flash90
The wedding takes place under an open sky, with just a flimsy canopy (chuppah) covering the bride and groom. Among other things, this signifies the open home they plan to build together.
3. The Ring Is Crucial

Photo: Chaim Perl Photography/Chaimperl.com
The simple gold wedding band that the groom gives the bride during the ceremony is more than just a sign of marriage. Rather, it is through accepting the ring (or any other item of worth, for that matter) that the bride effects the marriage.
4. All Written Up

The marriage contract (ketubah) enumerates the husband’s obligations to his wife during the marriage (conjugal, material and emotional), as well as afterwards (she gets compensated in the event of divorce or the husband’s death).
5. A Couple

(c) Coby Engelhart
The marriage is finalized in an act known as nisuin, in which the wife demonstrates her new status as a bride. This is expressed by standing under the chuppah, being alone as a couple, and even the fact that the brides wears a veil.
6. Smash!

(c) Coby Engelhart
The wedding ceremony comes to an end with the groom smashing a glass with his foot, a reminder that our Holy Temple is in ruins and that our nation remains fractured. Even in our most joyous moments, we must remember that our world is far from perfect.
7. A Gift

The bride traditionally gifts the groom a new prayer shawl (tallit). In some communities he wears it under the chuppah, and sometimes it is draped over both him and the bride.
8. Dancing Before the Bride

(c) Coby Engelhart
Dancing before the bride is considered an especially meritorious act, even taking precedence over Torah study. The Talmud enumerates how various sages would dance before brides with myrtle branches, torches and other accessories. Today, wedding dancing includes burning hats, silly hats and entire genre of silly stuff known as “wedding schtick.”
9. Sing Her Praises

(c) Coby Engelhart
It is customary to praise the bride to the groom, telling him what a beautiful, graceful, capable and wonderful wife he has. What to do if she is lacking in certain qualities? The sages have an answer: Stress the qualities she does have.
10. A Joining of Souls

What exactly is everyone celebrating? The Kabbalists teach that the husband and wife are each two halves of one soul. At their weddings, the two finally join—and they are whole for the first time.
11. Put Out Extra Tables

(c) Coby Engelhart
It’s traditional to put out lots of extra food and settings, so that people in need will feel comfortable joining the celebration and partaking of the feast.
12. Big Bread

Photo: Chaim Perl Photography/Chaimperl.com
In many circles, the feast officially begins with the groom reciting the Hamotzi blessing over a giant braided challah bread.
13. Seven Days of Fun

The celebration continues for seven days. Any time the bride and groom break bread together with a quorum of 10 men, the Grace After Meals is followed by Sheva Brachot—seven blessings said over glasses of wine, which the bride and groom then drink.
14. Like Royalty

(c) Coby Engelhart
“The groom is akin to a king,” goes the saying of the sages, and the same goes for the bride. So think twice before asking the bride to pass you a piece of sushi. She’s a queen this week, and deserves to be treated as such.© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.
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Your Questions
Why Pray With Our Feet Together? by Yehuda Shurpin

Angel Feet
The Talmud tells us that when we pray the Amidah, we should resemble the angels, about whom it is said, “Their legs were a straight leg . . .”1 Since angels appear one-footed, we similarly align our feet so that they appear as one.2
Likewise, when we say the Kedushah prayer, in which we sanctify G‑d with the very words used by the angels, we place our feet together.3
Like the Kohanim
According to an alternative opinion found in the Jerusalem Talmud, we pray with our feet together to appear like the kohanim (priests), since our prayer is in place of the offerings they would bring in the Holy Temple. When the kohanim would walk about the Temple, they took dignified baby steps; the heel of one foot would not extend beyond the toe of the other.4 Keeping our feet together is reminiscent of that gait.
Some explain that the traditions are essentially one, as the kohanim themselves kept their feet together to resemble the angels. Taking baby steps was the closest they could come to the stationary angelic pose.5
Only G‑d Can Provide
Beyond the two reasons mentioned in the Talmud, some say this pose demonstrates that no one but G‑d can provide for our needs. When we put our feet together as if they are bound, we show that we are completely helpless without G‑d.6
Reaching Higher
One reason for modeling the angels when we pray is that we may generally be occupied with our own thoughts and mundane activities. Prayer is a time to push away all distractions and focus solely on connecting to G‑d. Thus, we try to emulate the angels, who are egoless and recognize that there is nothing at all besides G‑d.7
Opening the Gates of Heaven
Noting the Talmudic teaching that we pray in a fashion similar to the angels, the Zohar says, “The Holy One, Blessed Be He, tells the angels, ‘If you see people who are exceptional in their prayers by putting their feet together in the same fashion that you do, open the gates of heaven for them so that they may enter.’”8
May all of our prayers, including the ultimate prayer for the final redemption, be answered speedily! Amen!
Rabbi Yehuda Shurpin responds to questions for Chabad.org's Ask the Rabbi service.
Artwork by Sefira Ross, a freelance designer and illustrator whose original creations grace many Chabad.org pages. Residing in Seattle, Washington, her days are spent between multitasking illustrations and being a mom.
FOOTNOTES
1.Ezekiel 1:7.
2.See Talmud, Berachot 10b.
3.Terumat ha-Deshen 28. See also Shulchan Aruch ha-Rav, Orach Chaim 95:1.
4.Jerusalem Talmud, Berachot 1:1.
5.See Perishah on Tur, Orach Chaim 95. See also Chiddushei Hagahot ad loc.
6.Mahari Abohav, cited in Beit Yosef on Orach Chaim 95; see also Chiddushei Aggadot ha-Rashba on Talmud, Berachot 10b.
7.Chidushei Aggadot ha-Rashba ibid.; see also Beit Yosef ibid.
8.Zohar 3:229b.© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.
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Your Questions
What to Look For in a Soulmate? by Aron Moss

Question:
Things have been a bit slow in the romance department of late, so for the first time ever I contacted a matchmaker. They asked me what I am looking for. I don’t want to seem fussy, but I don’t want to settle either. So what’s the best way to go about defining whom I want to date?
Answer:
Here’s what you should do:
Take a piece of paper and a pen, and write down everything you are looking for in a match.
Scrunch up the piece of paper.
Throw it away.
Take another piece of paper, and write down your three most important values and beliefs.
If you hear of a good person who shares your values, forget about all other prerequisites and date them.
It is absurd to think that the way to find your soulmate is to first describe them in detail, and then seek someone who fits your description. How are you supposed to describe someone you never met? How are you supposed to know what you’re looking for in the first place?
You say you’re an outgoing type, so you need someone outgoing. Really? What difference will it make to your relationship? You love rock climbing, so you need someone with a sense of adventure. Why? Can’t you go climbing with your climbing friends?
Our personalities don’t need to be the same. Our hobbies don’t need to match up. Our values do. An outgoing rock climber who doesn’t share your family values and beliefs about the world may be great company for holidays, but not a great partner for life. But an introverted chess player whose vision for their future and outlook on life matches yours—might just click perfectly.
When you approach dating with a checklist, you are waiting to strike the other person out. That is not real openness. Rather, come to the matchmaker with simple expectations: “I know I am looking for a good, kind person who shares my values and beliefs. On this I am clear.
“As for everything else—personality type, interests, intellectual leanings, how loud or soft they speak—I have no idea what I need. But I am open to finding out. Surprise me.”
Aron Moss is rabbi of the Nefesh Community in Sydney, Australia, and is a frequent contributor to Chabad.org.
Artwork by Sefira Ross, a freelance designer and illustrator whose original creations grace many Chabad.org pages. Residing in Seattle, Washington, her days are spent between multitasking illustrations and being a mom.© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.

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Parshah
Four Stages in Torah Learning by Nechoma Greisman

You shall teach them thoroughly to your children, and you shall speak of them when you sit in your house and when you walk on the road, when you lie down and when you rise up. (Deuteronomy 6:7)
Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, offered a very insightful cosmic explanation of this verse. When learning Torah, there are several levels and there are several stages. At every stage of a person’s existence, Torah is part of it.
“When you are sitting at home” is the status of the soul above, prior to its descent below into this physical world. There, in heaven, the soul sits before G‑d and constantly learns Torah.
Alternatively, the verse could be interpreted as the status of a person in the womb, which may also be called “sitting at home.” When a woman is pregnant, the Talmud tells us, the child in the womb is taught the entire Torah. Moreover, “a candle is kindled above its head, and it sees from one end of the world to the other.” The first stage in the verse thus refers to the period of a person’s life, before he is born, when he is wholly and totally occupied with learning Torah.
The next stage, “when you are going on the road,” refers to the time when the soul descends from the world above to the world below, from level to level, until it enters a physical body in this lowly world. Here, through Torah study in this world, it learns how to progress (“walk”) in spiritual matters, and even in material matters when they are for the sake of Heaven. This is not really the natural place of the soul, whose real habitat is above. When the soul is born into a body, it has to learn to deal with a new world and nevertheless remain faithful to G‑d. This is the mission of the soul here in this world.
As the soul leaves its heavenly abode and is born in the earthly sphere, it must go through a number of descents. At each level, it is taught the Torah as appropriate to that level. Once the child is born in this world, you must start teaching him, “In the beginning G‑d created . . .” That’s a much lower level than it was capable of learning before it was born. So the Torah then has to be adapted to the soul in a body. But the end result of the soul’s descent into this world, where it learns the Torah of this world and does the physical commandments, is that the soul achieves an ascent to beyond the level where it stood prior to its descent into this world. The descent is for the sake of a much greater ascent.
The next stage is “when you lie down.” This is the day on which a person’s soul is recalled to its supernal realm, when he lies down in his grave.
When a person dies, nothing material that he acquired in this world goes with him. His house, his car—he leaves it all behind. Nothing that he amassed in his earthly existence goes into the grave. But his Torah and his good deeds do accompany him.
While the soul is in heaven, it is learning Torah.
The next stage—“And when you rise up”—referring to the era of the resurrection of the dead. This too, is one of the fundamentals of our faith. No matter how long one has been in his grave, they will awaken with the Resurrection at the time of Moshiach. Then, the Torah will again be on a totally different level. There won’t be all of the limitations that make it so difficult for us now to learn Torah.
Why is it so hard for us to learn Torah now? Because we have so many other things on our minds. How can we sit all day and learn Torah? We just don’t have the time or the ability, or there’s so much else that’s distracting us. When Moshiach comes, all of these other things that are weighing us down and preventing us from truly concentrating—even just the idea of physical tiredness and all the other things that are hindrances to true Torah learning—will not be problems in the times of the Moshiach.
In addition when Moshiach comes, the Midrash states that “a new Torah will come forth from Me,” which means that all of the secrets of the Torah which had been hidden for all the years of exile will be revealed. In other words, not only will we be different, but the Torah itself will be of a much, much deeper and clearer and higher quality than anyone has ever known. May it be speedily in our days.
By Nechoma Greisman, based on the teaching of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, of righteous memory.
Nechoma Greisman was an educator, counselor and speaker who reached thousands of women through her classes and books. Tragically, at the age of 39, hours after giving birth to her tenth child, Nechoma was taken from this world, leaving an enormous and irreplaceable loss to Jews worldwide.
Artwork by Sefira Ross, a freelance designer and illustrator whose original creations grace many Chabad.org pages. Residing in Seattle, Washington, her days are spent between multitasking illustrations and being a mom.© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.
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Parshah
Shema: ‘Pay Attention!’ by Lazer Gurkow

Shema Yisrael
The most well-known verse in the Torah is the declaration of Jewish faith, Shema Yisrael, “Hear O’ Israel, G‑d is our Lord, G‑d is one.”1 It is part of our liturgy and is recited as many as four times a day. It is the verse declared by countless Jews who faced death at the hands of the Babylonians, the Romans, the Crusaders, the Cossacks, and , more recently, the Nazis, who murdered 6 million Jewish men, women and children in Eastern Europe during the Holocaust. And it all begins with the word, Shema—“listen,” “pay attention.”
It is admittedly not the only time this word is used in the Torah, but it is the only prayer in our liturgy that begins with this word. It is so important that G‑d wants to make sure we are indeed paying attention. Before it begins, He tells us to ignore every distraction and to listen. Make sure you get it. Pay attention.
Kavanah
It is ironic but true that when we are called to concentrate, we often find it difficult to do so. It is hard to pay attention on command. We can focus all day long, but the moment we are specifically asked to accomplish a task, we can stumble, hesitate, lose the direction we need. When we are told what to think, we stop thinking. When we are told not to think, ideas start brewing.
Prayer is one of those times when we are commanded to pay attention. We are told that prayer is “devotion of the heart.”2 When the people in ancient times repented by rote, G‑d appeared to the prophet Joel and said: “Return to me with all your heart. Rend your hearts, not your garments.”3
Yet it is difficult to pay attention during prolonged prayer. The mouth mumbles and the mind wanders. Before long, only our mouths are praying, but our hearts may be all over the place.
Rabbi Adin Even-Israel (Steinsaltz) uses a wonderful metaphor to describe the problem. Imagine, he wrote, that someone built a beautiful house and filled it with expensive furniture; however, he forgot to attach a roof. The house looks wonderful, but by the next rainfall, it will all go to ruin. Similarly, we gather in the synagogue, open the prayer book and read the words, but if our minds aren’t focused, if we are open to distraction—like that missing roof—then the distractions will fall in and ruin our prayers.
Another metaphor that he offers is inviting your boss to dinner. Suppose, hoping for a promotion and wanting to make a good impression, you invite your boss to dinner. Except you suddenly have a scheduling conflict. So you set the table, put out the food, and leave a sign on the door to explain your absence and to invite your boss to make himself at home. The dinner is there, the guest has arrived, but the head of the table is missing.
So, too, the prayer is there, the book is there, the synagogue is there, but if the mind isn’t focused, the head is missing.4
This is why we need to be jolted back to our prayers from time to time. It is not surprising that the mind wanders, but when we notice that it’s doing so, it is incumbent on us to bring ourselves back. This is the deeper meaning of the word, Shema. Listen. Pay attention. You might have been distracted for the last few minutes, but this is important; now it’s time to focus.
Gather Your Soul
A more mystical way of putting it is to gather the scattered dimensions of our soul.5 The word Shema means to listen, but it can also mean “to gather.” It is only used in this context on rare occasions,6 but it is one of the word’s alternate meanings.
When we speak of our faith in G‑d, we want it to permeate every level of our being. We want to declare our faith with our minds, emotions and psyche. We want it to percolate through our thoughts, words and actions. We want it to reach our inner depths. It comes from the essence and should be all pervasive.
Shema: Gather all the elements of your being and proclaim as a single organism that G‑d is one.
Welcome Home
The Baal Shem Tov taught that we are, where our thoughts are.7 If I am thinking about home, I am at home. If I am thinking about Spain, I am in Spain. If my thoughts are in Australia, that is where I am.
A well-known rabbi would stand at the exit of the sanctuary after prayer to bid everyone a good day. He once noticed that one of his congregants was distracted during prayer, and when he greeted him later at the door, he said: “Welcome home.” The man was surprised because he hadn’t traveled anywhere. But the rabbi explained, we are where our thoughts are, and during prayer your thoughts were all over the world. You have now returned home.
Indeed, during the course of prayer, we might visit multiple cities. Part of us might be in Israel, another part in Romania and yet another part in Cleveland. You might have touched down in Europe, passed over Asia and paid a visit to New Zealand.
If, at that moment, someone tells you listen, it would be in vain. How could you listen to one person in one place if you are in so many places?
This is why Shema has two meanings. First, to gather; then to listen. Gather your thoughts and all your dimensions, so that you are in one place and ready to focus. Now that you have returned, now that you are here, welcome home. We are about to declare our faith in G‑d. G‑d is our Lord, G‑d is one. So Shema, pay attention. It is time to listen.
Rabbi Lazer Gurkow is spiritual leader of Congregation Beth Tefilah in London, Ontario, and a frequent contributor to The Judaism Website—Chabad.org. He has lectured extensively on a variety of Jewish topics, and his articles have appeared in many print and online publications. For more on Rabbi Gurkow and his writings, visit InnerStream.ca.
FOOTNOTES
1.Deuteronomy 6: 4.
2.Sifri on Deuteronomy 11: 13.
3.Joel 2: 12-13.
4.Hassidur V’hatefilah, chapter on Kavanah.
5.Likutei Torah, Devarim p. 11, as elucidated by Rabbi Shlomo Y. Zevin in L’Torah Ul’moadim.
6.For example, see Samuel I 15: 4.
7.Keter Shem Tov, Kehot, New York, Additions, ch. 38.© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.

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Vaetchanan In Depth
A condensation of the weekly Torah portion alongside select commentaries culled from the Midrash, Talmud, Chassidic masters, and the broad corpus of Jewish scholarship.

Parshat Va'etchanan In-Depth

Deuteronomy 3:23-7:11

Parshah Summary

The Parshah of Va’etchanan (“And I Beseeched”) continues Moses’ “Repetition of the Torah,” begun in last week’s reading.
In the closing weeks of his life, Moses speaks to the new generation of Jews who are about to enter the Promised Land and implement their mandate to serve as G‑d’s chosen “nation of priests” and “holy people,” a mandate which they received at Sinai forty years earlier (the generation which Moses took out of Egypt having died out in the desert). Moses recalls the great events that forged the people of Israel—the exodus from Egypt and the giving of the Torah at Sinai—which this generation experienced as children and youths, or which they heard about from their parents. He repeats the laws and teachings which he taught them during the past 40 years, and reiterates the fundamental principles of the Torah. And he warns them against abandoning the Torah amidst the abundance and plenty they will enjoy in the Land.
Va’etchanan includes some of the basic texts of Judaism, including the Ten Commandments (as repeated by Moses), the Shema (which proclaims the oneness of G‑d; the duty to love G‑d, and to study His Torah and teach it to our children; and the mitzvot of tefillin and mezuzah), and Moses’ prediction of the exile and the eventual redemption.

Moses’ Prayer

In the opening verses of our Parshah, Moses describes his failed efforts to revoke the divine decree that he not enter the Land himself:

I beseeched G‑d at that time, saying: “You, O G‑d, have begun to show Your servant Your greatness and Your mighty hand; for what G‑d is there in heaven or in earth that can do according to Your works, and according to Your might?

“I pray You, let me go over and see the good land that is beyond the Jordan, that goodly mountain and the Levanon.”

But G‑d was angry with me for your sakes, and would not hear me. G‑d said to me: “Enough! Speak no more to Me of this matter.

“Go up to the top of the summit, and lift up your eyes westward, northward, southward and eastward, and see with your eyes; for you shall not cross this Jordan.

“Instruct Joshua, encourage him and strengthen him; for he shall go over before this people, and he shall cause them to inherit the land which you shall see.”

Life Defined

Moses now launches into the theme that pervades this Parshah: If the people are to survive in the Land, and survive as a people, the Torah they received at Sinai is the key:

Now therefore hearken, O Israel, to the statutes and to the laws which I teach you to do, that you may live, and go in and possess the land which the L‑rd, the G‑d of your fathers gives you.

You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor shall you diminish it, that you may keep the commandments of the L‑rd your G‑d which I command you.

Indeed, the essence of life is attachment to G‑d through the fulfillment of His commandments:

Your eyes have seen what G‑d did because of Baal Pe’or: for every man that followed Baal Pe’or, the L‑rd your G‑d destroyed him from among you.

But you who cleave to the L‑rd your G‑d are alive, every one of you, this day.

The Specialty of Israel

The Torah, Moses continues, is not only the Jew’s lifeline of connection to G‑d—it is also our mission to humanity:

For this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, who shall hear all these statutes, and say: Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.

For what nation is there so great, that G‑d is so near to them, as the L‑rd our G‑d is in all things for which we call upon Him? And what nation is there so great, that has statutes and laws so righteous as all this Torah, which I set before you this day?

The revelation at Sinai must remain uppermost in the nation’s collective memory:

Only take heed to yourself, and guard your soul diligently, lest you forget the things which your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life; teach them to your children, and your children’s children:

The day that you stood before the L‑rd your G‑d at Horeb, when G‑d said to me: Gather Me the people together, and I will make them hear My words, that they may learn to fear Me all the days that they shall live upon the earth, and that they may teach their children.

You came near and stood under the mountain; and the mountain burned with fire to the heart of heaven, with darkness, clouds and thick darkness.

G‑d spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the voice of the words, but saw no form, only a voice.

He declared to you His covenant, which He commanded you to perform, the Ten Words; and He wrote them upon two tablets of stone.

G‑d commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and laws, that you might do them in the land into which you go over to possess it.

Sans Form

One of the most important lessons of Sinai is the negation of idolatry, for there it was revealed to man that G‑d transcends the physical, transcends form itself:

Take therefore good heed to yourselves, for you saw no manner of form on the day that G‑d spoke to you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire—

Lest you become corrupt, and make a carved idol, the similitude of any figure, the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any beast that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, the likeness of any thing that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the waters beneath the earth;

And lest you lift up your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun, the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, you should be misled to worship them and serve them—which the L‑rd your G‑d has allotted to all the nations under the whole heaven . . .

Take heed to yourselves, lest you forget the covenant of the L‑rd your G‑d, which he made with you . . . For the L‑rd your G‑d is a consuming fire, a jealous G‑d.

Moses Predicts the Exile

When you shall beget children, and children’s children, and you shall have remained long in the land, and shall deal corruptly and make a carved idol, the likeness of anything, and shall do evil in the sight of the L‑rd your G‑d, to provoke Him to anger:

I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that you shall soon utterly perish from off the land into which you go over the Jordan to possess it; you shall not prolong your days upon it, but shall utterly be destroyed.

G‑d will scatter you among the nations, and you shall be left few in number among the nations where G‑d shall lead you. There you shall serve gods, the work of men’s hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.

From there you will seek the L‑rd your G‑d, and you will find Him, for you will seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul.

When you are in distress, and all these things are come upon you, in the latter days, you willreturn to the L‑rd your G‑d, and you will hearken to His voice.

For the L‑rd your G‑d is a merciful G‑d; He will not forsake you, nor will He destroy you, nor forget the covenant of your fathers which He swore to them.

The Revelation at Sinai: “There Is None Else”

The revelation at Sinai, says Moses, was an event unique in human history:

For ask now of the days that are past, which were before you, since the day that G‑d created man upon the earth, and from the one side of heaven to the other: has there been any such thing like this great thing, or has anything been heard like it?

Did ever a people hear the voice of G‑d speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and live?

Or has G‑d ventured to go and take Him a nation from the womb of another nation—by trials, by signs, and by wonders, by war, by a mighty hand, by an outstretched arm and by great terrors—according to all that the L‑rd your G‑d did for you in Egypt before your eyes?

Moses proclaims what is perhaps the most radical statement of Judaism:

To you it was shown, that you might know, that the L‑rd, He is G‑d: there is none else beside Him.

This the people saw at Sinai; and this awareness they are to cultivate in their minds and hearts in the ordinary “today” as well:

Know this day, and consider it in your heart, that the L‑rd, He is G‑d in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath: there is nothing else.

Moses Establishes Cities of Refuge

A short break in the narrative describes how Moses established three “cities of refuge” on the eastern side of the Jordan, “that the slayer might flee there, who should kill his neighbor unawares, and who hated him not in times past; he shall flee unto one of these cities, so that he shall live.”
(These are the lands which Moses conquered from the two Emorite kings, Sichon and Og, and upon which he settled two and one-half of the twelve tribes of Israel: the tribes of Reuben and Gad, and half of the tribe of Manasseh.)

Moses Repeats the Ten Commandments

Moses called all Israel, and said to them: Hear, O Israel, the statutes and laws which I speak in your ears this day, that you may learn them, and keep and do them.

The L‑rd our G‑d made a covenant with us in Horeb. G‑d made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us, indeed us, who are all of us here alive this day.

G‑d spoke with you face to face on the mountain, out of the midst of the fire (I stood between G‑d and you at that time, to show you the word of G‑d; for you were afraid by reason of the fire, and went not up to the mountain), saying:

[1] I am the L‑rd your G‑d, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.

[2] You shall have no other gods beside Me. You shall not make for yourself any carved idol, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the waters beneath the earth. You shall not bow down to them, nor serve them, for I the L‑rd your G‑d am a jealous G‑d, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate Me, and showing mercy to the thousandth generation of those who love Me and keep My commandments.

[3] You shall not take the name of the L‑rd your G‑d in vain: for G‑d will not hold guiltless he who takes His name in vain.

[4] Keep the Sabbath day to sanctify it, as the L‑rd your G‑d has commanded you. Six daysyou shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the L‑rd your G‑d: on it you shall not do any work—you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your manservant, nor your maidservant, nor your ox, nor your ass, nor any of your cattle, nor your stranger that is within your gates, so that your manservant and your maidservant may rest as well as you. Remember that you were a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the L‑rd your G‑d brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the L‑rd your G‑d commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.

[5] Honor your father and your mother, as the L‑rd your G‑d has commanded you; so that your days may be lengthened, and that good befall you, in the land which the L‑rd your G‑d gives you.

[6] You shall not kill.

[7] You shall not commit adultery.

[8] You shall not steal.

[9] You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

[10] You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife. Neither shall you desire your neighbor’s house, his field, his manservant, his maidservant, his ox, his ass, or anything that is your neighbor’s.

The People Ask Moses to Intervene

As Moses mentions above, he “stood between G‑d and you at that time” at the people’s request, because they feared direct contact with G‑d. Now he relates what happened in detail:

These words G‑d spoke to all your assembly on the mountain, out of the midst of the fire, the cloud and the thick darkness, with a great voice which was not again. He wrote them on two tablets of stone, and delivered them to me.

It came to pass, when you heard the voice out of the midst of the darkness, and the mountain burned with fire, that you approached me, all the heads of your tribes, and your elders; and you said:

“Behold, the L‑rd our G‑d has shown us His glory and His greatness, and we have heard His voice out of the midst of the fire; we have seen this day that G‑d does talk with man, and he lives.

“Now therefore, why should we die? For this great fire will consume us: if we hear the voice of the L‑rd our G‑d any more, then we shall die. For who is there of all flesh that has heard the voice of the living G‑d speaking out of the midst of the fire, as we have, and lived?

“You go near, and hear all that the L‑rd our G‑d shall say, and speak to us all that the L‑rd our G‑d shall speak to you; and we will hear it, and do it.”

G‑d heard the voice of your words, when you spoke to me. G‑d said to me: “I have heard the voice of the words of this people, which they have spoken to you; they have well said all that they have spoken.

“Oh, if only that there were such a heart in them, that they would fear Me, and keep all My commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with their children for ever!

“Go say to them: Return again to your tents.

“But as for you, stand here by Me, and I will speak to you all the commandments, and the statutes, and the laws, which you shall teach them, that they may do them in the landwhich I gave them to possess it . . .”

The Shema

Hear O Israel: the L‑rd our G‑d; the L‑rd isone.

You shall love the L‑rd your G‑d with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your might.

These words, which I command you this day, shall be upon your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall speak of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down and when you rise up.

You shall bind them for a sign upon your arm, and they shall be as tefillin between your eyes. You shall write them upon the doorposts of your house, and on your gates.

Warnings

Our Parshah concludes with a series of warnings. You are entering a land of plenty, says Moses to the people, where you will receive

“great and goodly cities which you did not build, houses full of all good things which you did not fill, hewn-out wells which you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees which you did not plant.

“When you shall eat and be replete, beware lest you forget G‑d, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.”

As for the idolatrous inhabitants of the land,

"You shall make no covenant with them . . .Neither shall you make marriages with them: your daughter you shall not give to his son, nor shall you take his daughter to your son. For they will turn away your son from following Me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of G‑d be inflamed against you, and He will destroy you speedily.”

Make sure to eradicate all vestiges of idolatry from the Land,

For you are a holy people to the L‑rd your G‑d: the L‑rd your G‑d has chosen you to be a special people to Himself, above all peoples that are upon the face of the earth.

G‑d did not set His love upon you, nor did He choose you, because you are more in number than any people; indeed, you are the fewest of all peoples. Rather, because G‑d loves you, and because of His keeping of the oath which He had sworn to your fathers, has G‑d brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

Know therefore that the L‑rd your G‑d, He is G‑d, the faithful G‑d, who keeps the covenant and truth with those who love Him and keep His commandments to a thousand generations; and repays them that hate Him to their face, to destroy them. He will not be slack to him that hates Him; He will repay him to his face.

You shall keep the commandments, the statutes and the laws which I command youtoday to do them.

From Our Sages

I beseeched G‑d at that time (Deuteronomy 3:23)

Prayer is called by ten names: cry, howl, groan, song,encounter, stricture, prostration, judgment andbeseeching.
[These synonyms for prayer are derived from: Exodus 2:23–24, Jeremiah 7:16, Psalms 18:6, Deuteronomy 9:25, Psalms 106:30 and Deuteronomy 3:23.]

(Midrash Rabbah)

Prayer is called by [thirteen] names: cry, howl, groan, stricture, song, prostration, encounter, judgment,entreaty, standing, appeal and beseeching.
[The additional synonyms in this Midrash are fromGenesis 25:21, Psalms 106:30 and Exodus 32:11.]

(Sifri)

I beseeched G‑d at that time (3:23)

Moses prayed 515 prayers—the numerical value(gematria) of va’etchanan, “and I beseeched”—to be allowed to enter the Land.

(Midrash Rabbah)

When Moses saw that the decree had been sealed against him, he went and drew a circle and sat inside it, and said: I am not moving from here until You nullify the decree! . . . He then wrapped himself in sackcloth and covered himself with ashes, and stood in prayer and supplication before G‑d until the heaven and the earth and the very laws of creation began to tremble, and said: Perhaps the time has come for G‑d to destroy the world? . . .
What did G‑d do at that moment? He announced at every gate of every heaven and at every gate of every court that Moses’ prayer should not be admitted . . . for the voice of Moses’ prayer was like a sword that slices and rips, and which nothing can stop . . .
Said Moses to G‑d: If You will not allow me to enter the Land, allow me to [enter] as a beast of the field, which grazes on the grass and drinks water and sees the world that way—let my soul be as one of those!
Said G‑d: “Enough!”
Said Moses to G‑d: If You will not allow me to enter the Land, allow me to [enter] as a bird that flies in the air to all four corners of the earth to collect its feed, and in the evening returns to its nest—let my soul be as one of those!
Said G‑d: “Enough!”

(Yalkut Shimoni)

Moses said to G‑d: Master of the Universe! Joseph’s bones are entering the Land, and I shall not enter?
Said G‑d to him: He who admitted to his land is buried in his land; and he who did not admit to his land shall not be buried in his land. Joseph admitted to his land when his master’s wife said (Genesis 39:14), “See, they have brought us a Hebrew man . . . ,” and he did not deny it; on the contrary, he said (ibid. 40:15), “I was abducted from the land of the Hebrews.” Therefore, he shall be buried in his land. You, however, did not admit to your land when the daughters of Jethro said (Exodus 2:19), “An Egyptian man rescued us from the shepherds,” and you heard this and were silent. Therefore, “you shall not cross this Jordan.”

(Midrash Rabbah)

You, O G‑d, have begun (3:24)
Said Moses to G‑d: Why are You doing this to me? “You have begun”—You began it all by coming to me in a flame of fire from within the thornbush. . . . After raising me up, You cast me down from my greatness?
Said G‑d to him: But I have sworn [that you shall not enter the Land]!
Said Moses to Him: “You have desecrated”—when You so desired, did You not violate Your oath? Did you not swear that You would annihilate Your children when they worshipped the golden calf, and then, [when I appealed on their behalf,] did You not retract Your oath?
[The Hebrew phrase Moses uses, atah hachilota, translates both as “You have begun” and “You have desecrated.”]

(Midrash Rabbah)

You, O G‑d, have begun to show Your servant Your greatness (3:24)

Moses was G‑d’s faithful servant, the greatest of the prophets, the recipient of the Torah from G‑d. Yet after 120 years of the most G‑dly life ever lived, he sees himself as only having begun in his relationship with G‑d!

(Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov)

That goodly mountain and the Levanon (3:25)

“The goodly mountain”—this is Jerusalem; “the Levanon”—this is the Holy Temple.

(Rashi)

But G‑d was angry with me for your sakes (3:26)

G‑d said to Moses: You can’t have it both ways. I have already nullified My decree and upheld yours. I said: “I shall destroy them” (when Israel worshipped the golden calf), and you said, “Forgive them”—and your desire prevailed. Now, if you wish that your desire, “Let me cross over,” should be upheld and My decree (that you not enter the Land) be nullified, then you must retract your “forgive them”; if you wish “forgive them” to be upheld, then you must retract “let me cross over.”
When Moses heard this, he proclaimed: May Moses die, and a hundred like him, and not a fingernail of one of them be harmed! . . .
When Moses approached death and the children of Israel did not appeal to G‑d on his behalf that he should enter the Land, Moses gathered them together and began to rebuke them. He said: One man saved 600,000, and 600,000 cannot save one man!

(Midrash Rabbah)

Instruct Joshua . . . for he shall go over before this people (3:28)

G‑d said to Moses: Such is the way of the world—each generation has its teachers. Until now it was your portion to serve Me; now has come the portion of Joshua your disciple.
Said Moses to G‑d: Master of the Universe! If it is because of Joshua that I must die, let me become his disciple.
Said G‑d to him: If that is your wish, you may do so.
So Moses arose early in the morning to Joshua’s door, and Joshua was sitting and teaching. Moses bent his frame and covered his mouth, so that Joshua did not see him. . . . All of Israel came to Moses’ door, but found him at Joshua’s door, and Joshua was sitting and Moses was standing. The people said to Joshua: “Joshua! What has happened to you, that Moses our master is standing and you are sitting?” As soon as Joshua lifted his eyes and saw this, he immediately tore his garments and cried and wept: “Master! Master! Father, my father and lord!”
Said the people to him: “Moses our teacher! Teach us Torah.”
Said he to them: “I have not license.”
Said they to him: “We shall not leave you!”
Then a voice came forth from heaven and said to them: “Learn from Joshua!” and they accepted it.
Joshua sat at their head, Moses to his right and the sons of Aaron to his left; he sat and taught, and Moses did not understand his teaching.
After they stood up, the people of Israel said to Moses: “Moses our teacher, explain the teaching to us.”
Said he to them: “I know it not,” and Moses was stumbling and failing.
At that moment, he said to G‑d: “Master of the Universe! Until now, I asked for life. Now, my soul is placed in Your hand.”

(Midrash Tanchuma)

But you who cleave to the L‑rd your G‑d are alive, every one of you, this day (4:4)

The wicked, even in their lifetimes, are considered dead. . . . The righteous, even in death, are considered alive.

(Talmud, Berachot 18a–b)

G‑d is the exclusive source of life; hence life, by definition, is connection with G‑d. A “life” of disconnection from G‑d is pseudo-life—life devoid of all but its most superficial illusory shell.

(The Chassidic Masters)

You came near and stood under the mountain (4:11)

This teaches that G‑d overturned the mountain upon them like an [inverted] cask, and said to them: “If you accept the Torah, fine; if not, there shall be your burial.”
Rabbi Acha ben Yaakov observed: This resulted in a strong legal contest against the Torah (since it was a contract entered into under duress). Said Rava: But they re-accepted it (out of their own, uncompelled choice) in the days of Ahasuerus, as it is written (Esther 9:27): “The Jews confirmed and accepted”—on that occasion they confirmed what they had accepted long before.

(Talmud, Shabbat 88a)

G‑d commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and laws

From here is derived that it is forbidden to receive payment for teaching Torah: just as I (Moses) taught you the Torah free of charge, so too must you teach it for free.

(Talmud, Nedarim 37a)

From there you will seek the L‑rd your G‑d, and you will find Him (4:29)

The Torah stresses that when you seek G‑d from there, from your place of exile “among the nations,” you will find Him. For G‑d is to be found everywhere, and every corner of His creation can serve as the vehicle to reach Him. If divine providence has dispatched you to a certain place and life, your surest path to Him is from there.

(Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov)

There is none else beside Him (4:35)

If the eye were allowed to see the spiritual vitality flowing from the utterance of G‑d’s mouth into every creation, we would not see the materiality, grossness and tangibility of the creation, for it would be utterly nullified in relation to this divine life-force . . .

(Tanya)

There is none else beside Him (4:35)
Rabbi Binyamin Kletzker, a chassid of Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, was a lumber merchant. One year, while he was adding up the annual accounts, he inadvertently filled in under a column of figures: “TOTAL: Ein od milvado (‘There is none else beside Him’).”
A fellow chassid admonished him for his absentmindedness. “Don’t you know, Reb Binyamin, that everything has its time and place?” he admonished. “There’s a time for chassidic philosophizing, and a time to engage in worldly matters. A person’s business dealings are also an important part of his service of the Almighty, and must be properly attended to.”
Said Rabbi Binyamin: “We consider it perfectly natural if, during prayer, one’s mind wanders off to the fair in Leipzig. So what’s so terrible if, when involved in business, an ‘alien thought’ regarding the oneness of G‑d infiltrates the mind?”

(Told by the Lubavitcher Rebbe)

You shall know today (4:39)

The foundation of all foundations, and the pillar of all wisdom, is to know that there is a First Existence, who brings all existences into being; that all existences of heaven and earth, and between them, derive existence only from the truth of His existence.

(Mishneh Torah, Laws of the Fundamentals of Torah 1:1)

In the heavens above and the earth below (4:39)

Surely we know that the heavens are above us and that the earth is below our feet; why couldn’t the Torah, whose every word and letter is measured, simply say “in the heavens and the earth”?
But here is a lesson in how we are to approach the heavenly and earthly aspects of our own lives. In all that pertains to the heavens, to our spiritual achievements, we must look upwards, to those greater than ourselves, and strive to emulate them. But as regards our earth, our material possessions and attainments, we must look below us, to those who have less than we do, and be grateful for what we have.

(The Lubavitcher Rebbe)

I am the L‑rd your G‑d (5:6)

Because G‑d appeared to them at the Red Sea as a mighty warrior, at Sinai as a sage teaching Torah, in the days of Solomon as a handsome lad, and in the times of Daniel as a compassionate old man, G‑d said to them: Just because you perceive Me in many guises, do not think that there are many gods; rather, it is I who was at the sea, I who was at Sinai, I who is in every place—“I am the L‑rd your G‑d.”

(Midrash Tanchuma)

I am the L‑rd your G‑d, who has brought you out of the land of Egypt (5:6)

Would it not have been more appropriate for G‑d to say, “I am the L‑rd . . . who created the heavens and the earth”?
But G‑d the creator is the G‑d that Israel shares with the rest of creation. At Sinai, G‑d did not speak to us as the author of nature, but as the executor of the miraculous Exodus. For at Sinai we forged a covenant with G‑d in which we pledged to surpass all bounds of nature and convention in our commitment to Him, and He pledged to supersede all laws of nature and convention in His providence over us.

(The Chassidic Masters)

Keep the Shabbat day (5:12)

In Exodus 20 (where the Ten Commandments are first written), it says, “Remember the Shabbat day.” “Remember” and “keep” (which represent the imperative and prohibitive aspects of Shabbat) were expressed in a single utterance—something which the human mouth cannot articulate and the human ear cannot hear.

(Talmud, Rosh Hashanah 27a)

Six days shall you labor . . . (5:13)

This, too, is a divine decree. Just as the people of Israel were commanded to rest on Shabbat, so too were they commanded to work on the other days of the week.

(Mechilta D’Rashbi)

Six days shall you labor, and do all your work (5:13)

Is it then possible for a person to do “all his work” in six days? But rest on Shabbat as if all your work is done.

(Mechilta)

Honor your father and your mother (5:16)

There are three partners in man: G‑d, his father and his mother. When a man honors his father and his mother, G‑d says: “I consider it though I had dwelt among them and they had honored Me.”

(Talmud, Kiddushin 30b)

(The Midrash points out that the Ten Commandments were engraved on two tablets—five on the first and five on the second. The first tablet contains mitzvot that are “between man and G‑d,” while the commandments on the second tablet govern the relationship “between man and man.” This means that as the fifth commandment, “Honor your father and your mother,” belongs to the category of “between man and G‑d”!)
more)

Honor your father and your mother (5:16)

In Leviticus 19:3 it says, “Every man, his mother and father should fear.” For it is revealed and known to G‑d that a person adores his mother more than his father, and that he fears his father more than his mother. G‑d therefore set the honor of one’s father first, and the fear of one’s mother first, to emphasize that one must honor and fear them both equally.

(Talmud, Kiddushin 31a)

You shall not kill (5:17)

How were the Ten Commandments given? Five on one tablet and five on the second tablet. This means that “Do not kill” corresponds to “I am the L‑rd your G‑d.” The Torah is telling us that one who sheds blood, it is as if he has reduced the image of the King.
To what is this analogous? To a king of flesh and blood who entered a country and put up portraits of himself, and made statues of himself, and minted coins with his image. After a while, the people of the country overturned his portraits, broke his statues and invalidated his coins, thereby reducing the image of the king. So too, one who sheds blood reduces the image of the King, as it is written (Genesis 9:6): “One who spills a man’s blood . . . for in the image of G‑d He made man.”

(Mechilta)

You shall not kill. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal (5:17)

When Moses ascended to heaven, the angels protested to G‑d: “What is a human being doing amongst us?”
Said He to them: “He has come to receive the Torah.”
Said they to Him: “This esoteric treasure, which was hidden with You for nine hundred and seventy-four generations before the world was created, You wish to give to flesh and blood? . . . ‘What is man, that You are mindful of him, and the son of man, that You take notice of him? . . . Place Your glory upon the heavens!’” (Psalms 8:2–5)
Said G‑d to Moses: “Answer them.”
Said Moses: “Master of the Universe! I fear lest they consume me with the breath of their mouths.”
Said G‑d: “Hold on to the Throne of Glory, and return them an answer.”
Said Moses: “Master of the Universe! This Torah that You are giving to me, what is written in it? ‘I am the L‑rd your G‑d, who has taken you out from the land of Egypt.’”
“Have you descended to Egypt?” asked Moses of the angels. “Have you been enslaved to Pharaoh? So why should the Torah be yours?
“What else does it say? ‘You shall have no other gods.’ Do you dwell amongst idol-worshipping nations? What else does it say? ‘Remember the Shabbat day.’ Do you work? . . . What else does it say? ‘Do not swear falsely.’ Do you do business? What else does it say? ‘Honor your father and your mother.’ Do you have parents? What else does it say? ‘You shall not kill, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal.’ Is there jealousy among you? Do you have an evil inclination?”
Straightaway the angels conceded to G‑d . . . and each one was moved to befriend Moses and transmit something to him. Even the Angel of Death, too, confided his secret to him . . .

(Talmud, Shabbat 88b)

[For another version of this dialogue, click here.]

With a great voice which was not again (5:19)

The Hebrew phrase velo yasaf, which we have translated “which was not again,” can also mean “which did not cease.” Thus there are various meanings to this verse. One meaning is that the revelation at Sinai was a one-time event, never to be repeated in history (Rashi; Ibn Ezra). Other meanings are: that it was an extremely powerful voice that spoke without interruption (unlike a human voice, which must pause for breath—Targum; Rashi); that it did not cease, in the sense that all subsequent prophets prophesied from that voice, or in the sense that it did not confine itself to the Holy Tongue but reverberated in mankind’s seventy languages (Midrash Rabbah); that it did not “repeat”—i.e., it had no echo (Midrash Rabbah).

The Lubavitcher Rebbe dwells on this last interpretation: what is the significance of the fact that the divine voice that spoke the Ten Commandments had no echo?
But often, says the Rebbe, one may feel challenged by something in our lives or in our world that seems unresponsive, or even resistant, to the mission entrusted to us at Sinai. It may appear that one or another of the Torah’s precepts does not “fit in” with the prevalent reality. So the Torah tells us that the voice which sounded G‑d’s message to man had no echo.
An echo is created when a sound meets with a substance which resists it: instead of absorbing its waves, the substance repels them, bouncing them back to the void. But the voice of the Ten Commandments permeated every object in the universe. So any “resistance” we may possibly meet in implementing the Torah is superficial and temporary. Ultimately, the essence of every created being is consistent with, and wholly receptive of, the goodness and perfection that its Creator desires of it.

The L‑rd is one (6:4)

G‑d . . . is one, and His unity is unlike any other unity in existence. He is not “one” as in “one species” which includes many individuals. Nor is He “one” as in “one body” which includes various parts and dimensions. Rather, [His is] a unity the likes of which there is no other unity in the world.

(Mishneh Torah, Laws of the Fundamentals of Torah 1:7)

You shall love the L‑rd your G‑d . . . (6:5)

The Maggid of Mezeritch expounded on this verse, and asked: how can there be a commandment to love? Love is a feeling of the heart; one who has the feeling, loves. What can a person do if, G‑d forbid, love is not embedded in his heart? How can the Torah instruct “you shall love” as if it were a matter of choice?
But the commandment actually lies in the previous verse, “Hear O Israel . . .” The Hebrew word shema(“hear”) also means “comprehend.” The Torah is commanding a person to study, comprehend and reflect upon the oneness of G‑d. Because it is the nature of the mind to rule the heart, such contemplation will inevitably lead to a love of G‑d. If one contemplates deeply and yet is still not excited with a love of G‑d, this is only because he has not sufficiently refined and purified himself of the things which stifle his capacity to sense and relate to the divine. Aside from this, such contemplation by the mind will always result in a feeling of love.

(Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak of Lubavitch)

You shall bind them for a sign upon your arm, and they shall be as tefillin between your eyes (6:8)
While putting on the tefillin, one should have in mind that G‑d commanded us to inscribe [within the tefillin] the four passages [Exodus 13:1–10 and 13:11–16, andDeuteronomy 6:4–9 and 11:13–21] which speak of His unity and the Exodus from Egypt . . . and that He commanded us to place them on the arm opposite the heart, and on the head opposite the brain, so that we should submit the soul which is in the brain, as well as the desires and thoughts of our hearts, to His service . . .

(Siddur HaRav)

When one puts on the tefillin, one should first put them on the arm and then on the head. And when one removes them, one should first remove them from the head and then remove them from the arm.
Why is this so? I understand that one should first put on the arm-tefillin, since the verse states, “You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be astefillin between your eyes”; but from where do we derive that the head-tefillin are to be removed first?
Said Rabbah: Rav Huna explained it to me. The verse states “and they shall be as tefillin between your eyes”—they, in the plural—to imply that at any time that there is tefillin between your eyes, there shall be both (i.e. both the head- and the arm-tefillin).

(Talmud, Menachot 36a)

The deeper significance of this law:
The head-tefillin represents the mind; the arm-tefillinrepresents action. Both mind and deed are to be enlisted in man’s service of his Creator. Doing, however, must come first, as the people of Israel proclaimed at Sinai, “We will do and we will hear (comprehend).” Hence the law that the arm-tefillin is to be bound first.
Furthermore, while it is possible to conceive of a temporary state in which doing exists without understanding, understanding that is divorced from deed is utterly worthless. Hence the law that “at any time that there is tefillin between your eyes, there shall be both.” In the words of our sages (Talmud, Yevamot 109b), "Whoever says, ‘I have only Torah,’ does not have Torah, either.”

(The Lubavitcher Rebbe)

You shall bind them for a sign upon your arm, and they shall be as tefillin between your eyes (6:8)
What is inscribed in G‑d’s tefillin? The verse (II Samuel 7:23), “Who is like Your people Israel, one nation on the earth.”

(Talmud, Berachot 6a)

Torah law prescribes that we first tie the arm-tefillin on our arms and then set the head-tefillin upon our heads (see above).
G‑d’s tefillin, the people of Israel, also consist of arm-tefillin and head-tefillin. There are the head-Jews, the scholars and thinkers, and the arm-Jews, the doers. Both are precious to our Father in Heaven; both are integral to the role of G‑d’s “one nation in the earth.” But when G‑d ties His tefillin to reaffirm His bond with His people, He gives precedence to the “simple” deed, cherishing it above all else.

(Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov)

You shall write them upon the doorposts of your house, and on your gates (6:9)

When Onkelos the son of Kalonymus [a nephew of the Roman emperor Titus] became a proselyte (a convert to Judaism), the emperor sent a contingent of Roman [soldiers] after him, but he enticed them with words of Torah and they converted to Judaism.
Thereupon the emperor sent another Roman cohort after him, bidding them not to say anything to him. As they were about to take him away with them, he said to them: “Let me tell you just an ordinary thing: In a procession the torchlighter carries the light in front of the torchbearer, the torchbearer in front of the leader, the leader in front of the governor, the governor in front of the chief officer; but does the chief officer carry the light in front of the people [that follow]?”
“No!” they replied.
Said he: “Yet the Holy One, blessed be He, does carry the light before Israel, for the Torah states (13:21): ‘G‑d went before them . . . in a pillar of fire to give them light.” Then they, too, converted.
Again he sent another cohort, ordering them not to enter into any conversation whatever with him. So they took hold of him; and as they were walking on, he saw the mezuzah which was fixed on the doorframe, and he placed his hand on it, saying to them: “Now what is this?” and they replied: “You tell us, then.”
Said he, “According to universal custom, the mortal king dwells within, and his servants keep guard on him without; but in the case of the Holy One, blessed be He, it is His servants who dwell within while He keeps guard on them from without . . .”
They, too, converted to Judaism. The emperor sent for him no more.

(Talmud, Avodah Zarah 11a)

You shall write them upon the doorposts of your house, and on your gates (6:9)
The doorway is a sort of “no man’s land” between the home and the street, an area where these two realms overlap and interact with each other.
Two mitzvot are connected with the doorway: themezuzah and the Chanukah lights. The mezuzahpoints inward, while the Chanukah lights are oriented outward. The mezuzah serves to safeguard the home and define it as a sanctum of holiness and divine presence; the function of the Chanukah lights is to illuminate the street, to disseminate their message to places still untouched by the warmth and light of the Jewish home.
The mezuzah marks the doorway as the entrance to the home; the Chanukah lights exploit it as the gateway to the outside.

(The Chassidic Masters)

You shall keep the commandments, and the statutes, and the laws, which I command you today to do them (7:11)

“Today to do them”—and not to do them tomorrow; “today to do them”—and tomorrow to receive their reward.

(Talmud, Eruvin 22a)

Rabbi Jacob said: There is no reward for the mitzvot in this world . . .
[What is the proof for this?] In connection with the mitzvah of honoring one’s parents it is written, “In order that your days may be prolonged, and that good befall you” (Deuteronomy 5:16). In reference to the mitzvah of “dismissal of the nest” (to chase away the mother bird before taking the young) it is written, “That good befall you, and that you may prolong your days” (ibid. 22:7). Now, what if a person’s father says to him, “Ascend to the loft and bring me young birds,” and he ascends to the loft, dismisses the mother and takes the young, and on his return falls and is killed—where is this man’s good, and where is this man’s long days? But “in order that good befall you” means on the day that is wholly good; and “in order that your days may be long,” on the day that is wholly long.
Perhaps such things don’t happen? Rabbi Jacob saw an actual occurrence.

(Talmud, Kiddushin 39a)

Thus we have olam hazeh (“the present world”) andolam haba (“the world to come”)—two entirely different modes of existence, each confined to a world all its own. Our “present world” is the stage for deed and achievement, but without the possibility to enjoy the true fruits of our labor. On the other hand, the “world to come” is a place of ultimate reward, bliss and perfection, but one that precludes any further achievement on the part of man. The Talmud goes so far as to declare, “There is no reward for mitzvot in this world,” and regarding the world to come it quotes the verse (Ecclesiastes 12:1), “There will come years of which you will say: I have no desire in them,” and says: “This refers to the days of the messianic era, in which there is neither merit nor obligation.”
Why this dichotomy? Because a world in which the benefits of obeying G‑d’s commandments are self-evident would lack the challenge which makes their observance meaningful and worthy of reward. Conversely, a world in which the goodness of G‑d is manifest precludes truly meaningful accomplishment on the part of man. Thus our sages have said: “A single moment of teshuvah and good deeds in this world is greater than all of the world to come. And a single moment of bliss in the world to come is greater than all of this world” (Ethics of the Fathers 4:17).

(The Chassidic Mas

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Women
Mind Your Maxims by B. Schreiber

“There is nothing new under the sun,” King Solomon tells us in Proverbs.1
As a child, I found this a puzzling statement; however, I recognized its veracity soon enough. For one thing, so many of the adages I came across while growing up As a child, I found this puzzlingseemed to be based on sayings from Torah sages, especially those in Ethics of the Fathers. For example, the well-known aphorism attributed to American Indian folklore—“Don’t judge a man until you walk a mile in his moccasins”—echoes a teaching from our great sage Hillel: “Do not judge your fellow until you have reached his place.”2 Another one fromEthics of the Fathers, propounded by Rabbi Meir, is “Do not look at a vessel, but what is in it . . . ,”3 which closely resembles the [later] popular dictum, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.”
In every language and culture, many other great sayings remind us of the earlier credo of Judaism’s greatest Torah leaders.
During one of those philosophical flashes that mark adolescence—when inspiration flits through young, searching minds like a dizzy butterfly—I challenged myself to come up with a novel maxim. Here is the result: For a fuller life, eat and speak sparingly, but sleep substantially.
If you’re thinking this is hardly innovative, I agree—in retrospect, that is. At the time, I would probably have argued in defense of my supposedly original thought. But looking at my yellowing journal entry now, I realize that the ideas I expressed are Torah-based. There’s an allusion to the Rambam’s advice on physical health, with intimations of the Chofetz Chaim and other Torah scholars and sages, though I’m not sure exactly how aware of this I was at the time.
It occurs to me that the reason I didn’t explicate my homemade maxim is that my younger self was unable to carry through with a discussion about topics antithetical to adolescents. Teenage me, for example, had an insatiable appetite (and a metabolism that could tolerate it!), spoke on the phone endlessly, and was far too occupied to “waste time” sleeping. But somewhere in my mind, there seems to have been an awareness of a more sensible lifestyle, resulting in this formula for a successful life.
Amazing how a few decades (okay, not just a few) can change the picture: As a teenager, I probably felt quite virtuous to think about such high ideals. As an adult, though, it’s rather bothersome to consider striving towards them. After all, getting enough quality sleep is too often an out-of-reach luxury, eating in moderation can be an unwelcome challenge, and counting your words becomes more of a chore than counting calories.
However, I feel compelled to probe one of the ideas expressed in my self-constructed maxim. Because my work deals with words—whether delivering and listening to them, or reading and writing them—I’ll focus on the directive to speak succinctly.
Our sages enjoin us to deliberate before speaking. In Ethics of the Fathers, Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel says: “. . . I was raised among the sages, and I have found nothing better for oneself than silence; . . . one who talks excessively brings on sin.”4 Isn’t this a powerful statement? Imagine being surrounded, as Rabbi Shimon was, by Torah scholars like the Men of the Great Assembly, whose every word was graced by Torah wisdom. And yet, Rabbi Shimon chose to impart this particular instruction.
I can guess what you’re thinking: Indeed, it’s significant and meaningful—but silence is so . . . so silent! That’s precisely the point. If we’re honest with ourselves, we can probably concur that, overall, less unpleasantness occurs as a consequence of remaining silent. Just consider the benefits: Confidential information stays secret; feelings and dignity are protected; and we bring joy to our Creator for following the Torah commandments not to hurt our fellow man. The possible downside of looking foolish for a while wanes in comparison to these substantial gains.
It’s certainly a trial to exercise restraint if we’re provoked, but keeping in mind the Talmud’s principle of l’fum tzara agra (“according to the effort is the reward”) should help alleviate the utter frustration we might feel when we’re holding ourselves in check. The Talmud teaches that “the entire world exists only in the merit of the person who restrains his words at the time of a quarrel.”5 Imagine, then, the extent of the merit of a person who is embarrassed in public but refrains from responding in a similar manner!
There’s an oft-repeated incident in my family that drives home this point. My uncle was a Holocaust survivor whose wife and children perished in the war. Though he remarried, there was unfortunately no progeny. A landsman (person from one’s hometown) who had immigrated before the war became his confidant. Watching his friend working in his butcher shop, Uncle Shalom once noticed that he was disposing of several gergalach (chicken necks). Tearfully, Uncle Shalom told him that his daughter had favored this part of the chicken, which some customers had no use for. From then on, the butcher had a package ready for him along with his weekly order.
Once, the butcher had to go to a freezer in a basement storage area to bring the package to Uncle Shalom. Meanwhile, an impatient customer yelled at my startled uncle in Yiddish: “You survivors are always expecting privileges in exchange for your sad stories. For shame!” Uncle Shalom paled but remained silent, and the shouter stormed out. Another customer, recognizing Uncle Shalom’s merit, promptly asked my uncle to bless him for livelihood. Uncle Shalom bestowed a warm blessing, and lo and behold, a short while later this man did get a better-paying job.
Although As a child, I expected neat, happy endingswe’ll never know how much influence Uncle Shalom’s blessing really had, the incident affected our family profoundly. What has stayed with us is the realization that while the hurtful words may have been uttered for various reasons, Uncle Shalom’s nonresponse spoke louder than any retort possibly could have.
As a child, I expected neat, happy endings, so I asked my father why Uncle Shalom’s earnest prayers for children—and ours on his behalf—hadn’t been answered. He explained that although we finite beings cannot understand our loving Father’s ways, we can be sure that no deed goes unnoticed, and no prayer is unheard.
This became my guiding principle, the ultimate maxim to live by.
B. Schreiber, M.A., is an English teacher, writer and editor whose stories and essays have appeared in various publications. She lives in Jerusalem with her family.
Artwork by Sefira Ross, a freelance designer and illustrator whose original creations grace many Chabad.org pages. Residing in Seattle, Washington, her days are spent between multitasking illustrations and being a mom.
FOOTNOTES
1.Proverbs 1:9.
2.Ethics of the Fathers 2:4.
3.Ethics of the Fathers 4:20.
4.Ethics of the Fathers 1:17.
5.Talmud, Chullin 89a.© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.

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Women
Kool to Be Kind by Chana Scop

It wasn’t just an ordinary day. In fact, the day turned out to be extraordinary.
The sun was shining, and Chaim Boruch was“You got mail!” sitting at the table playing his favorite game on his iPad. The sound of the mailbox opened and closed, and the thud of a box landing on the doorstep brought kids with curious faces to the door.
Chaim Boruch’s 7-year-old younger brother eagerly looked to see who the package was addressed to, and saw the words: “Chaim Boruch Scop.”
“You’ve got mail!” shouted Sruly with excitement and delight.
The kids scrambled to the couch on the heels of Chaim Boruch, who was awkwardly balancing the large box with his weak arms—almost landing both the box and himself on the floor.
Chaim Boruch is part of a pilot program called “Kool to Be Kind,” where Chabad-run Gan Israel camps around the world partner with special-needs children so that these kids can become “virtual” campers. It’s an incredible opportunity to include children

with special needs who wouldn’t necessarily be able to participate in a typical camp experience. At the same time, the program encourages children in camp to be sensitive and thoughtful towards others.
I’m not sure who was more excited about the mail arriving—Chaim Boruch or his siblings. (Or maybe it was me.)

I looked at the scene, and within seconds I appreciated this team of happy commotion and love. Younger siblings helped Chaim Boruch open his gift from his “bunk” mates, all while Chaim Boruch experienced a moment that was simply all about him.
And not just all about him, but all about his essence. His pure, simple essence.
Chaim Boruch couldn’t unpack the box fast enough, and as we all shared our excitement with him, I couldn’t help notice the genuine happiness from the younger children. We sat together and read each card from the campers, looking at the photos of each new friend. Then he placed their gift to him—a brand-new battery-operated school bus—on the floor, watching it ride, beep and flash its lights.
I thought the scene couldn’t get any better. But it did.
At the bottom of the box lay a neatly folded camp T-shirt with the Camp Gan Israel logo on it, along with a matching baseball cap.

I’m not sure why these simple itemsI thought the scene couldn’t get any better. But it did. brought tears to my eyes. Was it my own memories of being a camper in Gan Israel as I started becoming more observant? Was it the nostalgia of singing and laughing, bonfires, overnights and challah-baking? Or was it the friendships made in camp that warmed my heart and that have stayed with me to this very day?
I swallowed hard and pushed aside the never-ending thoughts about his future and his friends . . . and simply soaked up the kindness.
And, in truth, just think about it.
One bunk in Ann Arbor, Michigan. One kid in Mill Valley, California. One dream come true. And one very KOOL opportunity to be KIND!

Thank you, Leah Cohen and Goldie Avtzon, who initiated the K2BK: “Kool to Be Kind” program. And thank you, Shternie Zwiebel, director of Camp Gan Israel Ann Arbor.
Chana is a proud wife and mother living in Mill Valley, California. She is inspired by the colors and textures of everyday life, and loves sharing her creative ideas with her community. Chana writes DIY projects, crafts and recipes celebrating her Jewish life and shlichus on her blog Chana’s Art Room, and is the co-director of Chabad of Mill Valley with her husband, Rabbi Hillel Scop. To read more about Chaim Boruch, and Chana’s journey, take a look at her personal special-needs blog, Life of Blessing.© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.
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Women
Aunt Mania’s Magic Slippers by Miriam Paltiel Nevel

Small things make a big difference in a child’s life.
I was an orphan. And I was shoeless. If my mother had been alive, she would have managed to see to it that I had shoes and clothing. I remember Mama cutting our old, worn clothing, picking out pieces of material that were still usable, and sewing new things for me and my brothers and, of course, for our father. But Mama had passed away when I wasI was an orphan, and I was shoeless 5 years old, leaving three orphans in the hands of an already overworked and overburdened father. Father didn’t have the headspace to consider that the clothes that Mama had sewn for me when I was 4 or 5 might not fit me when I was 7 or 8.
In Moscow, in our large yard, which is shared by a compound of several buildings, two girls—one with long blonde braids and the other with short red hair—are holding a rope. Each girl is holding one end of the rope and turning it, making it fly up high and then return to earth, while girls line up to take turns jumping over the rope at the precise moment when it lands on the ground. I get in line and wait for my turn. Finally, my turn comes. I approach the rope and try to jump. Ah! But I am partially flat-footed. I can’t jump. The other children shoo me away.
Next, I try to join the children who are playing hide-and-seek. This doesn’t work out either, as I am “it” all the time, and I can’t run fast and catch anyone. So the boys whistle me out of this game. Even at the sandbox, that refuge for those who are too small and clumsy to join more sophisticated games, I am persona non grata. It happened when, by accident, I broke a little red-headed boy’s beautiful sand mold, and he chased me, yelling, “Orphan, there is no one to take care of you,” and stuck his tongue out at me. That hurt me deeply. Somehow, I still hoped that my mother would show up in my life.
I climb the five dark flights of stairs back home. Our building has six flights altogether. I do not know how to count the flights, but I know that if I put my foot out in the darkness, and the foot feels that there are no more steps, then I have reached the last flight and I have to go back down one flight of stairs, and I then I will be home.
Once at home in my family’s room, I occupy myself either by sitting under the table and sucking my thumb, or by doing something that my mother used to do, so that I can be like my Mama. I take a rag from a pile in the corner, go to the kitchen, climb up on a chair to reach the water faucet and wet the rag. I go back to our room and begin to wash the floor. It almost feels as though she is here, ready to come in and tell me not to wet the floor.
I happily swish, swash and swoosh the wet rag all over the blond wood parquet. I am just about to crawl under the couch, wet rag in hand, when I hear the door hinges screech. The door opens, and there, standing on the threshold, is our Aunt Mania, my father’s sister, who lives many tramway stops away at the other end of Moscow.
My aunt closes the door behind her, walksI happily swish the wet rag all over the wood in, and leaning against a wall, she sighs loudly, “Uuhchh.” Then she takes two steps back to the door, leans on the doorpost and speaks to my mother’s soul. “A heavy burden you left me, Risa. It is hard for Berl, and it is hard for me.”
Next, Aunt Mania walks over to the couch where I am crouching, wet rag in hand, my face turned up to her. She sighs again, “Uuhchh,” puts her hands on my shoulders and pulls me up to my feet. The rag falls to the floor, abandoned.
Aunt Mania sits me down on a chair, and then sits herself down on a chair facing me, lifting her legs onto another chair. (As her legs are apt to swell when she is tired, she needs to rest them by putting them up on a chair.)
Aunt Mania sighs again, “Uuhchhh,” and begins to tear the newspaper wrapping off the package that she has brought. I am all eyes. I see one piece of newspaper pulled off the package and laid neatly on her lap, then another, and yet another. Finally, the thing that is wrapped inside the newspaper appears. (I was not accustomed to express my feelings or to talk about how I felt. But I can tell you now that I was beside myself with surprise and joy.) It is a pair of hand-knitted slippers that she had worked long and hard to crochet. The slippers are gray, and they have a beautiful blue trim all around the edges. A little blue bow decorates the front; an elastic hidden inside the blue trim makes the slippers easy to pull on and keep on.
My aunt hands her beautiful present to me. I pull the slippers on carefully. Oh, how wonderful they feel! How graceful they look!
Aunt Mania lifts her feet off the chair, lowers them to the floor and stands up. I put my feet on the floor and stand up as well, the lovely slippers on my feet. She draws me into her arms. “Tzurais gezunterheit,” she says in Yiddish. And suddenly, I have an overwhelming urge to smile, something I haven’t done for a long, long time. I beam a big happy Cheshire-cat grin that spreads from ear to ear, from top to bottom, lighting up my whole face.
Aunt Mania has to hurry to go to work, so she leaves. And I run down the five dark flights of stairs. Suddenly, my slippery slippers give way, and I begin to slide down the stairs, but I save myself by holding on to the banister.
Once outside, I feel something magical happening. So what if I can’t jump or outrun anyone, or if I don’t have flowery molds to build sand castles. I am not barefoot anymore; I have wonderful slippers that Aunt Mania knitted especially for me.
“Are they Cinderella shoes?” I askI feel something magical happening myself. “Or perhaps these are the magic slippers of a dancing princess from a story that my mother told me a long time ago, when she was alive?” The wind blows through my short cropped hair as I run. I fly, all over the big yard. It feels so good!
I don’t remember how long the slippers lasted. Maybe a day, maybe two days, or maybe many days after Aunt Mania gave them to me. All I remember is how I came home one day, pulled the wonderful slippers off my happy feet and saw that the bottoms of these magical slippers now had big holes.
The hand-knitted slippers had a brief physical life in my child’s world. But spiritually and emotionally, Aunt Mania’s slippers were a magical crossing for me. On that day, I crossed over from thinking that I would never be able to run to believing that I could fly like the wind.
Miriam Paltiel Nevel is a blend. She navigates between now and then.
Artwork by Sefira Ross, a freelance designer and illustrator whose original creations grace many Chabad.org pages. Residing in Seattle, Washington, her days are spent between multitasking illustrations and being a mom.© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.
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Story
Two Orphans and Their Wedding Presents

There once was an innkeeper who employed two assistants, a young boy and girl who happened to be orphans. When they grew a little older, the innkeeper thought that it would be a good idea for them to marry each other, a plan to which they both agreed. As they were very poor and lacked the money to make the wedding and to set up their new home, the kindly innkeeper provided them with a large sum to cover their expenses. The young couple took the money and traveled to a nearby town to make their purchases.
As they approached the village, they heard a loud commotion. As they approached the village, they heard a loud commotion.When they asked the local townspeople what was going on, they were told that a particular family had not paid its rent to the poritz (landowner) for quite some time. As a result, the entire family was being led to prison.
The orphaned bride and groom were overcome with pity. They immediately decided to try to ransom the poor family with the money they had been given, which happened to be the exact amount the family owed the poritz. The grateful family was released, and the young couple returned to their own town. They told the innkeeper that robbers had attacked them on the way to the store and had stolen all the money. The innkeeper then gave them more money to replace what had been stolen.
The date for the wedding was set, and guests from the surrounding area were invited. On the appointed day, just a short time before the chuppah was to take place, a carriage full of unexpected guests arrived. Inside were several Jews of regal and majestic bearing, who were obviously Torah scholars. These were, unbeknownst to anyone, the Baal Shem Tov and some disciples.
Alighting from the carriage, the Baal Shem Tov addressed the groom, although without revealing his own personal identity: “Mazal tov to you, nephew. I am your uncle. I came as soon as I heard you were to be married today.” One of the Baal Shem Tov’s disciples introduced himself as an uncle of the bride. Another explained that he was the groom’s cousin. Each one of the guests presented himself as a relative of the orphaned couple, who came to take part in their simchah. They were received with much joy, for no one had known that these relatives existed.
As “I hereby bequeath to them the poritz’s village!”was the custom of the time, part of the wedding revelry consisted of publicly announcing the gifts that were being bestowed on the newly married couple. When the Baal Shem Tov was asked what he was giving, he replied: “I hereby bequeath to them the poritz’s village!” This announcement caused the celebrants to laugh, for everyone thought he must have had nothing to give, and merely wanted to amuse the bride and groom. One disciple said he was giving the couple another poritz’s mill, a second disciple announced the gift of a different poritz’s river, and yet a third said he was giving a fourth poritz’s forest as a gift. Each announcement drew a ripple of laughter from the happy crowd, all of whom were having a merry time at the wedding celebration.
A short time after the wedding, the kindly innkeeper suggested that the young couple open their own inn in a neighboring village. Again he generously provided them with financial assistance, and helped them set up their own business.
Not long after the inn was opened, the couple was awakened one night by a knock at the door. Standing outside was a gentile peasant, who explained that he was the servant of a very wealthy and powerful landowner. He had been sent on a hunting expedition with the landowner’s son, and unfortunately they met with an accident. The horse pulling the huge winter carriage had slipped and fallen into a deep ravine, dragging the wagon and the young boy inside down into the gully. The horse and wagon were stuck in the snow—could the young innkeeper please help him rescue the child?
The young man immediately threw on his overcoat, reached for this lantern and shovel, and followed the servant off into the night. Together, the two of them managed to free the horse and carriage. The innkeeper carried the half-frozen child back to his house, changed his clothes, gave him warm food and drink to revive him, and put him to bed.
The next morning, the boy was well enough to go home, accompanied by his father’s servant. When they reached the poritz’s estate, they were given the most joyous welcome, for the landowner had sent out a search party to look for the boy, but had met with no success. Relieved by his son’s reappearance, the poritz nonetheless called for a doctor to examine the boy, who pronounced him fit, although weakened by the experience. He ordered that the youth rest in bed for a few weeks to regain his strength.
After the boy had totally recovered, the poritz decided to throw a party to celebrate. He invited many of his fellow landowners, and sought out the young Jew who had saved his son’s life, to invite him to the celebration as well. After the assembled landowners all had more than their share of fine wine, they decided to show their gratitude to the Jew who had been instrumental in the rescue by presenting him with their gifts.
The poritz, Each gave the young orphan the exact gift that had been promised by one of the mysterious guests . . .the father of the boy, got up and announced that he was giving one of his villages (the very village which had been promised by the Baal Shem Tov) to the astonished young man. Another landowner, not wanting to be outdone, stood up and declared that he would give his mill (the specific mill promised by the Baal Shem Tov’s disciple) as a gift. Another presented the young man with the deed to his forest; another, his river. Each gave the young orphan the exact gift that had been promised by one of the mysterious guests who had arrived the day of the wedding. The struggling orphaned couple had now become very wealthy.
This was, of course, the young couple’s just reward for the precious mitzvah of redemption of the prisoners, a deed that the saintly Baal Shem Tov had seen with his holy vision.
[Adapted by Yerachmiel Tilles from the rendition in Extraordinary Chassidic Tales (volume 1) by Rabbi Rafael Nachman Kahan, as translated from the Hebrew by Basha Majerczyk.]
Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov [“Master of the Good Name”], 1698–1760. A unique and seminal figure in Jewish history, revealed the chassidic movement, and his own identity as an exceptionally holy person, on his 36th birthday, 18 Elul 1734. He passed away on the festival of Shavuot in 1760. He wrote no books, although many contain his teachings. (Also referred to as “the BeShT,” from an acronym of Baal Shem Tov.)© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.
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Lifestyle
The Best Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies by Miriam Szokovski
This is my go-to cookie recipe, and I wanted to share it a while ago but I wasn't satisfied with the pictures, so I put it on hold. Now I've had a chance to re-shoot and I'm happier.

You can make this with a hand-mixer or a wooden spoon. Towards the end you'll want to mix with your hands just to bring the mixture together into a firm ball of dough.

I roll mine quite small, but you can definitely make them bigger. For the small ones, you'll get about 50 and baking time is 9 minutes. For larger cookies, you'll get about 30 from this recipe and baking time is 10-11 minutes.

It's very important not to over-bake these. They should come out of the oven still very soft and they will firm up as they cool.
Ingredients:
1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup butter/margarine
2 eggs
1½ tsp. vanilla extract
¼ tsp. kosher salt
3 cups flour (you may need up to ½ a cup more)
1 tsp. baking soda
2 cups rolled oats
2 cups chocolate chips
Directions:
Melt the butter or margarine.
Mix the brown sugar, white sugar and margarine together. Add in the eggs, vanilla extract and salt and mix to combine.
Add two cups of flour and baking soda. Mix until it resembles a loose batter. Slowly add in the third cup while mixing.Mix in the rolled oats, and if the dough still feels sticky, add some more flour (not more than 4-8 tablespoons).
At the very end, mix in the chocolate chips.
Roll the dough into small balls and place on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Leave some space between the balls of dough.
Bake on 350°F. For small cookies, bake for 9 minutes. For slightly larger cookies, increase the baking time to 11 minutes.
Yields: 50 small or 30 medium cookies

Miriam Szokovski is the author of the historical novel Exiled Down Under, and a member of the Chabad.org editorial team. She shares her love of cooking, baking and food photography on Chabad.org’s food blog, Cook It Kosher.© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.
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Lifestyle
Art: Wedding in the Shtetl By Eduard Gurevich

Eduard Gurevich studied in Ukraine’s famous art schools. He moved to Israel in 1990 where he devoted himself to painting Jewish-themed work. Eduard hopes that his artwork will lead people to a greater appreciation of the beauty of Israel and Judaism. His work has been exhibited internationally, and appears in private galleries in Germany, Canada, France, USA, Russia and Israel.© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.
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Jewish News
A Teen During Katrina, Emissary and Her Husband Help Flood Victims in Baton Rouge by Menachem Posner

Historic flooding in Louisiana has claimed five lives over the past few days, and has led to the evacuation and rescue of at least 20,000 residents. Here, a Baton Rouge neighborhood under water.
Mushka Kazen was just a teenager when Hurricane Katrina unleashed its vengeance on Louisiana and flooded her family’s hometown of New Orleans in the last week of August 2005. Back then she helped her Chabad emissary parents in a massive effort to assist residents as they struggled in the wake of the storm, trying to put their property and lives back together.
Eleven years later, she and her husband, Rabbi Peretz Kazen—the recent co-founders of Chabad of Baton Rouge, La.—are now part of community-wide efforts to help friends, neighbors and other residents as large swaths in and around the city that’s now submerged under swirling water.
The National Weather Service has reported more than 24 inches of rainfall in the past few days. Swollen rivers are expected to continue to rise. As many as 100 roads are closed in the state.
The floodwaters have been reported to have claimed at least five lives and displaced as many as 20,000 people, according to Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards. Another 10,000 people are in shelters. The Louisiana National Guard has mobilized some 1,700 rescue personnel to handle the ongoing situation.
On Sunday night, President Obama declared a state of emergency, and called for plans to assist in the response and recovery efforts.
“We had been expecting to host people for Shabbat,” says Mushka Kazen. “When our guests called on Friday to cancel due to the rain, we realized that things were rapidly getting worse.”
The Kazens packed up their two daughters and drove to New Orleans for Shabbat and the subsequent fast of Tisha B’Av. “We were driving through ponds of water on the streets,” recounts Rabbi Kazen. “And the roads that we took then are completely impassable today, so we are thankful to have gotten out when we did.”

Rabbi Peretz and Chaya Mushka Kazen arrived last year in Baton Rouge.
He and his wife have been in constant contact with their community. “More than a dozen people we know have been evacuated with minimal supplies,” reports the rabbi. “They need kosher food, clothing and other basics to tide them over in the short term. People at home are also not all able to get out, and everyone needs to know that someone cares for them. Some people need groceries; others need help with paying for their hotels or rentals. Right now, that’s our focus.”
As the extent of the devastation becomes clearer in the days and weeks ahead, the Kazens plan to provide some assistance to help people make their homes habitable once again.
Muska Kazen’s own parents—Rabbi Zelig and Bluma Rivkin, who have co-directed Chabad of Louisiana since 1973—were central to the Jewish efforts to help beleaguered residents of New Orleans overcome the flooding and related damage that shattered their city in Katrina’s wake.
Their efforts received national recognition when, on Sept. 21, 2005, President George W. Bush declared: “Rabbi Rivkin brought teams of students to New Orleans, and southern Mississippi, and other communities hit by the storm. He called in folks to help. He didn’t say, head away from the storm; he said, let’s take it right to the middle of the storm area to help people. They helped rescue stranded people; they distributed bottled water and self-heating kosher meals; they cleaned up and helped salvage homes; they provided spiritual support for those who lost loved ones. And one of those rescued from New Orleans put it this way: In the days after Katrina hit, Chabad saved lives.’ ”
“It’s going to be a journey for our community,” says Rabbi Kazen, “but we are here for each other, and I have faith that we will rise above whatever comes our way.”
Click to contribute to Chabad of Baton Rouge’s flood-relief efforts.

The semi-submerged Louisiana State University campus in Baton Rouge© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.
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Jewish News
Once Forbidden, Historic Russian Translation of the Talmud Gains Steam by Dovid Margolin

An ambitious project to translate the entire Talmud into Russian has been announced in Moscow, with the first three volumes having been released this year. Pictured is tractate “Berachot” in two parts.
The 63 tractates of the Talmud were not allowed to be printed in the Soviet Union even once during the 70 years of its existence. An amalgam of Aramaic and Hebrew, the ancient text contains the teachings and opinions of hundreds of rabbis on the widest variety of subjects, including Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs, history and lore. Now, with the publication of three initial volumes, a historic effort to translate the entire Talmud with commentaries into the Russian language has been launched in Moscow.
For more than 1,500 years, the Talmud has served as the central curriculum of Jewish education, studied by children sitting around a single volume in a one-roomcheder, and white-bearded elders bent over a yellowing synagogue tome. Wherever Jews have found themselves, they have printed and studied the Talmud—the most famous and widely reproduced edition being that of Vilna’s Romm printing house, first published in the 1870s.
But the Bolsheviks wanted to silence the distinctive sing-song tune of talmudic learning that emanated from pre-Revolution Russian synagogues and schools, and so they banned it. In fact, they banned the printing of all Jewish religious texts. Until the 1980s, the last Chumash in Russia was printed in 1918 and the last volume of Torah scholarship in 1926—a slim commentary on Maimonides written by the rabbi of Poltava.
Now, the monumental task of translating the Talmud’s 5,422 pages into Russian has been undertaken by the Knizhniki publishing house, which is affiliated with the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia (FJC). When completed, it will be the first translation of the entire Talmud ever produced in Russian. Knizhniki has previously translated and published all six orders of the Mishnah, and is in the process of publishing Maimonides’ entire Mishneh Torah as well.
“We started with this current project three years ago, working out how we envisioned the layout and how we wanted to do it,” says Chabad-Lubavitch Rabbi Boruch Gorin, chief editor of Knizhniki. A concurrent effort had been started by Chabad Maor in St. Petersburg; Gorin found that their visions coincided, and so the two organizations decided to collaborate. The first half of tractate Brachot was published in January; the second half came out in May; and Makkot was released in the beginning of August.
“We hope to release about four volumes a year,” says Gorin. “If all goes well, the entire Talmud will be published in Russian within 10 to 12 years.”

The Federation of Jewish Communities’ (FJC) publishing arm, Knizhniki, has published 450 Jewish books. Here, “Dom Rebbe,” a translation into Russian of the Chassidic history book “Beit Rebbe.”
During the planning stages, critics suggested that it was a fool’s errand. If a Russian Jew was actually interested in the material, the reasoning went, they could learn Hebrew and Aramaic, and study in the original. Gorin says their Russian Talmud’s unexpected popularity and sales prove otherwise.
This is not the first project to translate the Talmud into Russian. Back in 1996, the pre-eminent Torah scholar, teacher and author Rabbi Adin Even-Israel (Steinsaltz) launched an effort to do in Russian what he had become so famous for: making the Talmud accessible to all Jews. Even-Israel—who in 2011 completed his 45-year effort to render the Talmud into Modern Hebrew, and whose trailblazing English-language edition is

almost complete—published tractate Taanit and portions ofBaba Metzia in Russian, and in doing so provided the first blueprints for similar efforts. His Russian edition of Taanit was republished by Knizhniki in 2011.
Gorin, who is also editor-in-chief of the Jewish literary magazine Lechaim, describes the Talmud’s translation as not only a religiously significant event for Russian Jewry, but a broader societal one as well. Soviet academic culture had a strong tradition of translating important texts from other cultures, and so for Gorin and the team working on this Talmud (the chief translator is Rabbi Reuven Piatigorsky), it has been important that the work be up to serious academic standards.
“We see a huge positive impact because of the high level of quality,” says Gorin. “There are a large number of people for whom this is intellectual and spiritual sustenance. When they did not have Jewish materials at this level, unfortunately, they looked elsewhere.”
Rabbi Berel Lazar, the chief rabbi of Russia, also heralded the newly published volumes: “This is an unprecedented project in the Russian-Jewish book publishing, and it is taking the development of Jewish life in Russia to a new stage.”
He adds that he hopes the new publication will enable “a deeper search for the truth” by all who study it.

Knizhniki hopes to release about four volumes of Talmud annually, concluding the project in 10 to 12 years.
Pro-Russian Jews, Not Anti-Soviet Politics
The first modern attempt to translate Jewish texts into Russian was undertaken by Professor Herman Branover in the early 1970s while the renowned physicist was still living in the Soviet Union. Following his emigration in 1972, Branover, a pioneer in the field of magnetohydrodynamics, was chosen by the Lubavitcher Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory—to become the head of the newly founded, Jerusalem-based Shamir Association for Jewish Professionals, as well as editor-in-chief of its publishing house.
“There was a stress on translating the fundamentals—the siddur, Chumash—the books needed to become acquainted with Yiddishkeit,” says the professor’s son, Brooklyn businessman Danny Branover. “Everything was coordinated very closely with the Rebbe.”

The Talmud translation was announced this summer at the FJC’s Yachad youth forum in Moscow.

Rabbi Alexander Barada, right, president of the FJC, speaks about the project at the youth forum. Next to him is medical ethicist Rabbi Dr. Avraham Steinberg and, at left, Rabbi Berel Lazar, the chief rabbi of Russia.
With most Russian-speaking Jews at the time living behind the Iron Curtain, the Jewish books being printed by Shamir were being surreptitiously delivered to the Soviet Union. Books such as This Is My G‑d, the Jewish primer written by Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Herman Wouk, as well as the many works of Aryeh Kaplan were seeping into the bloodstream of Soviet Jewry, with Branover’s translations proving to have a profound effect on growing circles of newly inspired Jews.
“I’ve met countless numbers of Russian Jews whose first exposure to Judaism was through those basic Jewish works translated and published by my father,” says Branover.
Although obvious sources of inspiration for Russian Jews, the Rebbe gave direct instructions to Shamir’s staff that the books should avoid the appearance of being anti-Soviet. During a 1977 private audience with one of Shamir’s founders, British businessman Peter Kalms (Kalms recalls the Rebbe’s suggestion that they both destroy their notes from the meeting so as to err on the side of caution), the Rebbe explains his reasoning in no uncertain terms.
“Your publicity and writing should be directed to those who speak Russian, not only Soviet Jews. It should not make the customs man hostile before he has seen what is inside,” the Rebbe told Kalms. “It should ... appear to be directed to Russian-speaking Jews living in other countries, so that when it is received in the Soviet Union, they will not have a pretext to find it anti-Soviet, as it is directed also to Jews in other countries.”

Attendees listen to the announcement of the project at last month’s youth forum. Publishing the Talmud, a foundational text in Jewish life, was forbidden during Communist rule in Russia.
The Rebbe’s additional instructions were that the books preferably not be printed in Israel, or at the very least, second editions be printed in countries with diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union. Additionally, if Shamir publications explicitly mentioned Russia—for example, when listing Shabbat candle-lighting times in large Russian cities—the Rebbe advised that the city names be mixed into a broader list of cities outside of the Soviet Union.
Throughout Kalms’ discussion, the Rebbe spoke of the need to light the spark within Soviet Jewry by teaching the fundamentals of Judaism they had so long been denied.
“Jewish people must survive even Bolshevism,” stressed the Rebbe. “It is not enough to dance once a year at Simchas Torah, but he must do something every day. [The Russian Jew must be taught] ‘Modeh Ani,’ not higher philosophy!”
With these published works, the flames of Torah study would continue to spread at the grassroots level throughout the Soviet Union. Following the Rebbe’s intricate guidelines, Shamir would publish 400 titles over the next few decades, printing some 12 million books in all.
Exported Around the World
Knizhniki’s offices and showroom are located in the heart of Moscow’s Marina Roscha district, a neighborhood that has in recent decades become the most identifiably Jewish in Eastern Europe. Sitting in a low-slung building between the seven-story Marina Roscha Jewish Community Center and the sprawling campus that contains, among other institutions, the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center, the Shaarei Tzedek social-services center and the Beit Shvidler Jewish day school, the publisher’s modest headquarters belies its impressive output.

Rabbi Boruch Gorin, chief editor of Knizhniki and editor-in-chief of the “Lechaim” Jewish literary magazine
Initially founded in 1992 as L’chaim Publishing House, it was rebranded Knizhniki nine years ago and began publishing at a completely different tempo.
Since 2007, it has published more than 450 books—not just books but beautiful books, ranging from illustrated editions of translated Yiddish poetry, books of Jewish literature and history, and colorful children’s books. That same year, Knizhniki launched the Library of Classic Jewish Texts, and has translated and published Chassidic classics such as Torah Ohr and Derech Mitzvosecha, as well as the 13th-century Sefer HaChinuch and Rabbi Jacob Ibn Habib’s Ein Yaakov.
In the process, the Jewish publisher has become one of Moscow’s most respected book publishers despite its ostensibly niche market.
And while there was a time in the not-so-distant past that Russian-language Jewish books were printed exclusively outside of Russia to be sent into the country, today Knizhniki’s books are being exported around the world, having become popular sellers in Israel and the United States.
“Our books are sold everywhere,” attests Gorin. “That the Russian-language student of Jewish texts exists has been proven without a doubt.”

Knizhniki has become one of Moscow’s most respected book publishers, despite its ostensibly niche market. Today, it prints everything from classic Torah texts to illustrated editions of translated Yiddish poetry, Jewish literature and history, and children’s books.© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.
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Jewish News
A Quest to Visit Every Jewish Inmate in America by Chabad.org Staff

Rabbinical students like Abba Wolosaw, left, and Saadia Weingarten, affiliated with the Aleph Institute, have been on the road this summer spending time with Jewish inmates at prisons around the United States.
The mattresses had been much thinner and harder in his former prison, which lacked air-conditioning and was full of gang activity. So why did L.S. (who is currently serving time in Kansas) want to transfer back there?
Because at that first correctional facility, he said, a rabbi would occasionally come to learn with the inmates—and it was an experience that L.S. held dearer than anything.
At less than 1 percent of the total prison population, Jews often feel even more isolated or alone behind bars even than most inmates. Following the call of the Lubavitcher Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem Schneerson, of righteous memory—the Aleph Institute established a summer program in the 1980s with the goal of ensuring that every Jewish inmate be visited at least once a year.
Three decades later, some 26 volunteers in 16 groups are currently traveling through 43 states, covering roughly 130 federal prisons, 400 state prisons and 10 county jails on a mission to reach as many incarcerated Jews as possible.
These volunteers provide nearly 4,000 incarcerated men and women with Jewish experiences, education, prayer, supplies and the comfort of knowing that they are not alone.
Rabbis Moshe Luchins and Menachem Mendel Munitz, now working their way through Nevada, describe meeting with an inmate and praying with him in tefillin. “He started to cry but couldn’t wipe away his tears since his other hand was shackled,” related the rabbis.
Feedback from inmates—often by old-fashioned pencil and paper, and sent in a stamped envelope—have been equally touching to the organizers. This one came from someone visited by a group currently traveling through the Deep South, through Alabama and Mississippi:
“I just want to thank you so much for the yeshivah boys that came to visit. It really lifted my spirits to know that I have such wonderful people looking out for myself and the others. I learned something new from them, and I appreciate that they took their time to come to the middle of nowhere.”

The summer program was established in the 1980s with the goal that every Jewish inmate be visited at least once a year. Here, Rabbis Avrohom Zecharia Fried, left, and Yakov Wilansky in Virginia.

A map of some of the states the volunteers will travel to; in this case, in the South going west, from Mississippi to New Mexico.

Weingarten and Wolosaw at the Arkansas border
Visitation coordinator Rabbi Avraham Y. Zajac asserts that such feedback motivates him to continue his work, planning itineraries and cutting through endless layers of red tape.
“It’s the responses and results [from the visits] that drive me,” he says. “I have a chance to read the reports and feedback, which is sometimes painful, sometimes inspiring and mostly grateful. I know that we are helping these ‘forgotten’ people connect. It’s about bringing them the little light they need to persevere in the darkest places.”
To learn more about the Aleph Institute’s summer visitation program, click here.

Rabbis Moshe Luchins and Menachem Mendel Munitz offer Jewish supplies and more to incarcerated men and women, along with the comfort of knowing that they're not alone.

A view from the West Coast route. Some 26 volunteers in 16 groups are traveling through 43 states, covering roughly 130 federal prisons, 400 state prisons and 10 county jails.

One group of young men drove a total of 3,843 miles across Texas and Louisiana, seeing 53 Jewish inmates. They put tefillin on 32 individuals (five for the first time).

Rabbis Yanki Greenberg and David Junik take off for their cities and states by plane.

Chabad.org Magazine - Editor: Yanki Tauber

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Missionary Renegade

Friday, August 19, 2016

"What to Look for in a Spouse" from The Chabad Magazine in New York, New York, United States for Thursday, Menachem Av 14, 5776 · August 18, 2016

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