Miller's Musings Parshas Ekev: Don't Forget Your Toothbrush...or Torah

בס''ד

Miller’s Musings עֵקֶב  פרשת

Don’t Forget Your Toothbrush Torah

There is nothing as important to Jewish continuity as our children’s education.  The transmission of our Torah values and teachings is the linchpin of the Jewish people’s endurance throughout the centuries.  This week we are directed to be a link in this chain and to teach Torah to our children.  Our question this week is why when talking about speaking Torah we are asked “to speak in them”, rather than to “speak them” and parenthetically why the recipient of this teaching seems to be concentrated exclusively on our children, when in fact we are obliged to impart Torah wisdom to anybody we have the chance to do so to? 

There are many ways and many opportunities for teaching Torah, but to be truly successful there are two preconditions, alluded to by the verses we have just referred to.  The first is that Torah not just be something that one teaches and something very much peripheral to who we are, but rather something that is an integral part of one’s own life.  When you are trying to instil Torah it must be from “within” Torah.  It must be that you yourself are endeavouring to be the embodiment of those lessons you are edifying to others.  This is perhaps the meaning of speaking “in them”, it is giving over the Torah from within the confines of our own Torah existence.  The second prerequisite is that the beneficiary of the lessons be someone that we instruct with the same impulse that we do for our own children.  Just as the sole motivation behind our child-rearing is for their betterment, so must any influence we bring on others be only driven by the desire to improve their lives.

Chances are we are now spending more time with our families than we normally would and in places and circumstances perhaps unfamiliar to us.  The opportunities for imbuing each other with the values we cherish are many and it is not always about the obvious ways of doing so.  Teaching is not always best achieved in the formal manner. Rather we can find occasions to give over what is most important through responding to situations in the right way, bringing up Torah viewpoints in unusual settings and perhaps educating other communities by our behaviour about what it really means to be a Jew.  Holidays bring the prospect of showing what we believe in, not just talking about it.  In this manner we will be once again taking something enjoyable, precious yet mundane and turning it into something enjoyable, precious and sublime.  It is a chance to transform our holidays into our holy-days.

May the holiness of Shabbos radiate throughout our week, wherever we are. 

לעילוי נשמת לאה בת אברהם

Miller's Musings Parshas Vo'eschanon: Five Star Holiday Standard

Entering the Promised Land was the culmination of everything the Jewish people experienced since their servitude in Egypt through their forty year sojourn in the desert.  Yet it did not come without its dangers, especially during the time when they would conquer the land and their spiritual defences would be lowered.  The Rambam tells us that when Moshe informs them that in the land there will be “houses full of good things...and you will eat and be satisfied”, it teaches us that during a war for a mitzvah purpose, the Jewish people were permitted to eat even forbidden foods.  This allowance then appears somewhat incongruous with the next statement which enjoins them to “Beware, lest you forget Hashem!”, surely a different message to what has just been legitimised!  

The allowance the Jewish people were given at times of war is just another example of the truth that even given the many obligations placed on us, the Torah understands that we are human beings with imperfections, limitations and drives that may sometimes be beyond us to restrain.  Yet there are still consequences of these momentary acquiescences.  The forbidden food may have been sanctioned at this time but such food has intrinsic negative impact to a person’s neshomo and one’s belief system, and this required extra care to ensure it did not have this long lasting repercussions, hence the continuation with the warning not to forget Hashem.

This is a time when many minds turn to holidays and the freedoms they bring.  People’s standards tend to slip somewhat when they are away from their usual routine, perhaps a distance from their community and in a generally more uninhibited frame of mind.  Whether in this instance Hashem deems it beyond a person’s free will to act differently is of course entirely dependent on the person and the situation in which they find themselves.  This is for each and every person to judge individually.  What one cannot forget however is that even momentary lapses in one’s values can have more wide-ranging effects on oneself and one’s family beyond the holiday itself.  A holiday is of course a time for relaxing, a rest from the pressures of everyday life and hopefully for bonding with one’s family.  It can be of tremendous worth to a person and family’s emotional wellbeing, but it does not provide a carte-blanche for unrestricted behaviour and relinquishing of all our principles.  A holiday is a break from the monotony of life not the meaning of life.     

May this Shabbos bring rest and restoration. 

לעילוי נשמת לאה בת אברהם

Miller's Musings Parshas Devorim and Tisha B'Av: All in the Past?

בס''ד

No one likes to be reminded of their past indiscretions.  The ignominy of having your previous wrongdoings reiterated is never a pleasant experience and for one to do so to another, there must be just cause.  In our Parsha Moshe spends a great amount of time reminding the people of their sins throughout their sojourn in the desert.  This requires some thought to understand Moshe’s motive, especially considering that most that remained at this time, were not those that had committed the transgressions that he spoke of, having died before reaching this momentous point in their history.

Recounting someone’s previous sins can serve a number of purposes, not all of which are justifiable.  If however one’s intent is to provoke positive action for those being reminded of the past, then to do so is appropriate and necessary.  The people about to enter the land may have grown complacent with their status, thinking that those who had erred so terribly are long gone and that they are a new breed who would never sink to such levels.  Perhaps Moshe’s intention was to shake them from this way of thinking.  By reviewing the nation’s mistakes he may have been asserting that in essence they are really no different to those who previously erred so tragically, and if they do not act with extreme caution, the mistakes of the past may become the errors of the future. 

Many find Tisha B’Av a challenging day to experience as we should.  If we are honest with ourselves we may conclude that the root cause of this lack of feeling towards what the day means, is because we are actually quite content with the way things are.  Why should we mourn the loss of the Beis Hamikdosh when we see nothing wrong with the status quo? Reb Shimshon Pinkus zt’l explains that the power of Tisha B’Av is in our contemplation of the past and how it informs the future.  We may think that now is a time of peace and tremendous religious freedom, but it was not long ago that people thought in a similar vein only for these ideas to be crushed amid destruction and slaughter.  History has taught us that everything can change in the blink of an eye and Tisha B’Av is here to remind us of this and to instil within us the knowledge that the only true way to bring an end to all suffering is through changing ourselves and the world around us, allowing Hashem to bring the ultimate redemption through the perfection Moshiach will bring.     

May this Shabbos pave the way for our Deliverance and be our last in Exile. 

 

לעילוי נשמת לאה בת אברהם

 

 

 

 

Miller's Musings Parshas Matos-Masei: The End is the Beginning

בס''ד

When visualising the City of Refuge for those who inadvertently kill another, one could really let one’s imagination run wild.  One can envisage the victim’s family pursuing the murderer to wreak revenge on their fallen brethren with the killer fleeing for his life towards his only chance of survival.  A battle for freedom.  A race against time.  Besides for this rather thrilling depiction of what may have transpired there, there are many details involved in this complex mitzvah that require elucidation. One of which is why it is only after the death of the Kohen Godol that the murderer can leave the City of Refuge with the allowance for retribution for the family of the victim revoked?

The Kohen Godol was a major figure within the Jewish nation.  Before the appointing of his position became corrupted, he was an individual of extreme piety and tremendous significance to every Jew.  When he died, explains the Abarbanel, it shook every person to their very core.  If even one so pious and exalted still eventually met their end, then the acknowledgement that death comes to us all will help to comfort the one mourning for their relative and assuage his desire for vengeance for the loss he has felt.  He will see that for whatever the reason may be, his relation too was meant to die and he will reconsider the importance of revenge in the great scheme of things.

Death is part of life.  For the time being at least, there is no escaping it.  Many choose to ignore this fact because of the implications that it generates, yet there comes a time for everyone, when someone dies or some tragedy occurs, when this reality can no longer be disregarded. It is at this point that a person perceives their own mortality and it is hopefully at this point that a person begins to understand the futility of so much we aspire for and the senselessness of so much animosity we harbour towards others.  Pirkei Ovos tells us to repent one day before you die which, due to our ignorance as to when this might be, compels us to consider every day as if it were our penultimate one on this earth.  This is not to invoke in us feelings of constant trepidation, but to help us realise what the true priorities in life are.  Life is finite, this is perhaps the most important reality of our existence.  Let’s embrace rather than ignore that knowledge and live our lives in the knowledge of what truly matters.  It may be that there is nothing that can teach us as much about life as death.   

May this Shabbos live within us and we truly live within it. 

לעילוי נשמת לאה בת אברהם