Miller's Musings Parshas Haazinu: What Are You Doing Here?

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לעילוי נשמת

לאה בת אברהם

ולרפואה שלמה לנפתלי מאיר בן אסתר

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MILLER’S MUSINGS

האזינו פרשת

What Are You Doing Here?

The song of Haazinu, delivered by Moshe just before his soul was returned to its Creator, is one that encompasses all of Jewish history.  In it he tells of how the Jewish people were chosen by Hashem and treated as His beloved nation. How they will betray Him and He will hide His face from them.  And how there will ultimately be a reconciliation when He will avenge his children and bring them back home where they belong.  The Posuk tells how the Jews will have “forgot the Rock Who gave birth to you”, a phrase that, like many others in this Parsha, requires some urgent elucidation.  

The creation of man was something infinitely wondrous in so many ways.  Endowing a being of flesh and blood with something so G-dly as our divine soul.  Entrusting mere fallible mortals with the power to choose between good and bad, illumination and destruction.  Forming us with the intention to eventually bestow upon us the most precious gift of all, the blueprint for all existence and the manifestation of Hashem’s very thoughts; the Torah.  Only Hashem, in His infinite wisdom, could make such a judgement.  But there were those Angels that vehemently opposed His decision and expressed their fervent disapproval of such a notion.  “What is a frail human being!” they proclaimed.  How could You want to create something with the horrific deeds such as those that they will perform!  Fortunate are we that Hashem persisted, punishing those who protested and bringing us into being regardless.  This is what is being referred to in this Posuk, says the Ohr Hachaim, who translates it not as “You forgot” but as “you weakened the Rock who gave birth to you”.  For by rejecting the path He created you for and refusing to follow Hashem’s will, you are undermining the entire purpose of your birth that the Rock, Hashem, despite protestations, deemed you worthy of. 

  

There are many reasons to follow the Torah and comply with Hashem’s wishes for us.  He is the Ultimate Good and hence His commands must be the supreme best for us.  A life of Torah is one full of meaning, every waking hour and even when we sleep.  But perhaps the greatest reason, that we must constantly remind ourselves of, is that this is what we were created for.  It is our purpose in existing and the sole reason for which He saw fit to form us out of nothingness.  Do what He asks of us and we are fulfilling the purpose of the entire creation, justifying His faith in us and making our existence worthwhile.  Discard the intention that He had for us and we are proving those Angels to have been accurate in their opinion of us and are making ourselves unworthy of His conviction in our merit.  We have spent so much time the past weeks reaffirming our belief in His having fashioned us, being our King and us having a role in this world.  But the work does not end there.  We must remind ourselves constantly why we are here and what this means for our daily living.  We were created for a purpose.  Hashem believed in us enough to do so.  Let us not let Him down.   

*May this Shabbos remind us of the days of creation and why we were created*

לעילוי נשמת לאה בת אברהם  

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Miller's Musings Parshas Vayelech: Bring The Kids ALong

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This week's Miller's Musings is sponsored

לעילוי נשמת

לאה בת אברהם

ולרפואה שלמה לנפתלי מאיר בן אסתר

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MILLER’S MUSINGS

 וילךפרשת  

Bring The Kids Along

All the Jewish people gathered together in the Beis Hamikdosh.  All there to witness the king’s recital of the Torah for the mitzvah of Hakhel.  It must have been an awesome sight to behold and one which would provide inspiration and wonder in equal measure.  Man, woman and child were required to come witness this event, all for different reasons.  But it is the rationale behind the children coming that I would like to discuss.  For the reason given is in order to grant reward to the ones who bring them.  But if there is an intrinsic purpose in the youth being there, then wouldn’t that be reason enough?  And if there is no inherent reason for their presence, then what would the reward be for?  Just for carrying them there without any actual objective to their attendance!

The mitzvah of Hakhel took place every seven years and entailed far greater depth than merely a mass gathering of the people, even in such a holy setting and as part of such a sacred occasion.  In fact, says Reb Yitzchok Hutner zt’l, the entire process was in essence a reenactment of the giving of the Torah at Sinai.  It was able to somehow convey the power and majesty of that unparalleled experience and impact on those present accordingly.  The Rambam in fact talks of the need for the people there “to listen…like the day it was given at Sinai” and to “see himself as if he was now commanded about it and heard it from the mouth of Hashem”.  Once we have said this we understand the need for children to be amongst the onlookers.  For if it is to truly emulate the Divine Revelation at Sinai, it must include all those who witnessed that event, which of course included even the youngest of the Jewish people.  This was the basis for the reward the ones bringing them received.  Because it allowed Hakhel to truly reflect the single greatest event in human history; Har Sinai.   

Hashem came down to this world and bestowed upon us the most precious gift mankind will ever receive.  Yet we have an obligation to continue this transmission, throughout the generations, passing on the Torah’s teachings wherever and however we can. This commandment to carry our children along with us, communicates to us the essential role that our children must play in this transmission.  It is not enough to hope they will pick up where we left off, but we must actively take them with us.  We must do whatever it takes to ensure they experience the Torah in a way that sweeps them up in its truth, beauty and profundity.  We must utilise whatever approach has the most impact on them in the most positive way possible, and give careful consideration to what that approach may be.  If we are not thinking as individuals and as a community about our children, we are leaving a gaping chasm that any number of corruptive influences are waiting and willing to fill.  Let’s bring them along and fill it with Torah so that our future as a people is ensured until Moshiach is here and we witness His revelation once again and the whole world sees it too.   

  

*May this Shabbos be as wondrous to our children as it is to us*

לעילוי נשמת לאה בת אברהם  

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Miller's Musings Parshas Nitzovim: With All of You

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לעילוי  נשמת  דבורה בת רחל

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Miller’s Musings

נצביםפרשת 

With All Of You

On the day of his death, what else would a man of the spiritual magnitude of Moshe focus on, other than the betterment of his people?  His parting words concentrated on channeling all the Jewish people’s energies towards making the right choices based on their responsibilities as the people of Hashem.  The Parsha begins with the words “You are standing today, all of you, before Hashem”, before declaring the nature of the covenant between the Jewish people and their G-d.  The fact that they were “before Hashem” is always the case and hence patently obvious. An elucidation of its necessity is therefore required.

                                                                                                                                                                                                       

I think we can say with absolute certainty, that the Chofetz Chaim was a man of tremendous faith and belief in Hashem. But it is brought down in Bilvovi Mishkon Evneh, that when he felt any manner of slight weakening of his spiritual level, he would review the sections of the Torah that relate to the creation of the world.  It is of course impossible to say that he even for one moment possessed even the minutest amount of uncertainty about Who brought the universe into existence.  Yet he read over those passages in the Torah because he understood that ultimately all failings of our service of Hashem is rooted in some dilution of our belief in Hashem, His creation and our being His created ones.  This is not to say that he was not certain of this truth, but perhaps it was to some degree, on his level, not as entirely absorbed in every fibre of his being, as it may have once been.  And this is what he needed to rectify.  Perhaps this too is what Moshe was telling the people.  You are here today to form an everlasting bond with Hashem.  To keep His commandments and follow His word.  You can live up to this pledge and succeed in this task that is such a privilege to fulfil.  But the key to your success is being standing “before Hashem” at all times.  To know with all your mind, body and soul that He is there.  If you truly know this, you cannot go wrong.

                                                                                                                                                                                                   

The message we must take is incredibly powerful and has tremendous repercussions for our entire service of Hashem.  It points to the source of all of our deficiencies and the root cause of every error that we make that goes against the Torah’s teachings.  Throughout the year, when we slip up, and especially now, when we are searching for routes back to Hashem, we must give some time to considering the basic quality of our own belief in Hashem.  For if we believed as we should, absolutely, unconditionally and in every single part of our being, how could we ever fall and how could we ever lack the will to achieve what we must?  We must not be afraid of our weaknesses in this area, nor succumb to the Yetzer Horah’s attempts to accentuate what is common to all and merely requires strengthening.  Moments of frailty do not indicate an overall failure.  Yet knowing the power and effects of this vulnerability compels us to improve, support and intensify our belief in Hashem, so that we not only know it intellectually, but feel it at every moment, in all we do and with all our heart.  

*May our rest on Shabbos deepen our faith in Him*

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Miller's Musings Parshas Pinchos: Becoming of You

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לעילוי נשמת לאה בת אברהם

and should be for a רפואה שלמה for

יהודה זאב בן ברכה אלכסנדרה גילה    

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MILLER’S MUSINGS

פנחספרשת 

*Becoming of You*

Many profess to desire peace, but perhaps do not know the true meaning of the word. What looked like an act of war by Pinchos, in skewering the two members of royalty, was in fact performed to bring about peace.  In the face of such immoral behaviour from one supposed to be an example to all, peace between the Jewish people and Hashem could only be restored through the drastic action that Pinchos took.  This helps us understand the suitability of a covenant of peace as a reward, but it still doesn't tell us exactly what one is.  Let us try and understand the nature of this gift.

A condemned city was one in which the majority of the inhabitants had turned to idol worship.   When certain conditions had been met it would be razed to the ground and its inhabitants executed.  Those who would follow the directives of the Torah and bring about its destruction were promised by the Torah that Hashem would "give you mercy".  The reason for giving this assurance was because a massacre and annihilation of this kind could easily imbue within a person a certain level of cruelty that they had hitherto not displayed. Their innate feelings of compassion could be somewhat eroded by being party to such devastation.  They were therefore blessed with the quality of mercy to counterbalance this effect and leave their humanity still intact and still very much instilled within their hearts.  This same logic applied with Pinchos, says the Netziv.  Despite having killed only for the sake of Heaven, a small semblance of callousness may have entered into his soul.  To counteract this Hashem made a covenant that peace would exist within his being, so that he would remain, as he always was, one whose essence was one of kindness, love and amity.                                      

The war within our soul between doing what is right and doing what is wrong, is normally waged upon the battlefield of our conscience. We strive to do what Hashem would want from us because that is the best way to live our lives.  But if we succumb to the wiles of the Yetzer Horah, we justify our actions with the knowledge that this is just a one-off that will not necessarily effect who we really are. We are not our mistakes and can always rectify them if necessary.  But following on from what we have said we must realise the permanence of such acts.  Their effects are immediate and deep rooted within us and can change our essential nature. Callous acts make us more callous.  Acts that display a lack of faith cause us to be less trusting of Hashem.  Of course the converse of this is equally true. Perform an act of kindness and one becomes intrinsically more kind.  Display great reliance on Hashem and conviction in His goodness and you transform into a person of superior belief.  There is nothing that cannot be reversed through sincere Teshuva but we must realise that our actions do define who we are and what we have done will determine who we will be. 

                                                                                                                            

*May we spend this Shabbos making us true keepers of Shabbos and its holiness* 

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Miller's Musings Parshas Bolok:It's good but it's not right

BS'D

The chief protagonists of our Parsha, Bilom and Bolok, were men who were seemingly unable to take no for an answer.  Bolok tenaciously pursued Bilom as the man to realize his nefarious scheme and Bilom repeatedly requested from Hashem consent to become a part of Bolok’s proposal.  Bilom, quite open about his limitations, states that even if he were given a house full of silver and gold “I would not be able to contravene the word of Hashem”. This in fact seems to mirror a similar oft said message of our forefathers, a tremendously high level.  So how are we to understand this statement coming from one as evil as Bilom?

                                                                                                                                                                                                       

It is the innate nature of a human being to like to get our own way.  As we grow and develop, we hopefully learn that this cannot always be the case, nor is it beneficial that it should be so.  There are factors that override our desires and preferences and mature individuals appreciate that and foster within themselves an ability to put others first.  As a Torah Jew, the primary priority must be the will of Hashem.  Bilom may have insinuated that this was how it was with him, but the mere fact that he asked again after initially being told no by Hashem, is a good indication that ultimately he was only interested in what he wanted and was loath to give up on his own wishes. A person like that, says the Saba MiKelm, will persist until a way is found to do what he always wanted and as we know “on whatever path a person wishes to go, on that path he will be led’.  Conversely, the forefathers were entirely different.  When they said they could never transgress the word of Hashem, they meant it.  Their goals were truly put aside to accomplish what it was Hashem desired of them.   

                                                                                                                                                                                                   

Doing whatever we want can perhaps feel fairly lovely, yet there is a rather irritating feeling of guilt that one can experience if this action appears to go against what Hashem wants from us.  ‘Fortunately’ we have a scheme that is often able to circumvent this problem by finding ways in which we can seemingly fully comply with Hashem’s instructions and yet still do what we want to do.  The word ‘seemingly’ here is the crucial one, because finding ways in which we are not actually contravening the Torah is not necessarily the same as doing what Hashem would like from us. With the Three Weeks almost upon us, there are those that look to avoid any direct transgressions of its laws but in doing so fail to appreciate that we are meant to feel emotions of grief and loss around this time.  If this period with our evasions do not produce this goal, then we are missing out on the whole point.  We may not be breaching the Shabbos in the way we spend it, but are we experiencing the holiness of Shabbos as it is meant to be?  These are but two examples, but there are many more when what we are doing is ‘okay’ but not actually accomplishing the intended purpose.  If we want to truly fulfil the will of Hashem, let’s make sure that we are genuinely doing just that.

                                                                                                                            

*May we experience Shabbos this week just as Hashem intended*

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