Rabbi Levin's Blog

  “Be Holy.”  What is your first thought when you hear these words?  What do the first words, and the name of this week’s parsha, Kedoshim – “Holy,” teach us?  Probably how to meditate. How to pray. How to reach up to the spiritual worlds and connect to our souls. Is that not what is holy?   Well, when we read the Parsha we see many seemingly basic laws of how to behave toward others. Respect your parents. Don’t cheat with weights and measures. Don’t steal. Don’t lie. Don’t withhold an employee’s salary. Don’t be corrupt in judgment. Judge others favorably. Love your fellow as yourself. Don’t embarrass people. Love the convert and don’t offend them. Be moral in family life and intimacy.  Holiness in Judaism is not about escaping the mundane world. It is about being involved in the world in a holy way. And that is accomplished primarily in our human interactions.  There is an underlying theme that we see when it comes to how to treat another human being. When it comes to giving advice a

  Once a year, and only once a year on Yom Kippur, the Kohen Gadol (High Priest), and only the Kohen Gadol, would enter the holiest slave in the world, the Kodesh Hakadashim (Holy of Holies). This is the subject of the beginning of this week’s Parsha, which describes at length the order of the service of Yom Kippur by Aaron in the Sanctuary and later by his descendants in the Holy Temple.  The Holy of Holies was a unique room, the ultimate expression of Hashem’s presence. The entire Holy Temple was a “home for Hashem on earth,” and many visible miracles happened there every day. Examples include the fire on the outdoor altar not being extinguished by rain, the pillar of smoke rising from the burning offerings never being blown by the wind, and several more enumerated by the Sages in Pirkei Avot.  In the Holy of Holies the miracle was on another whole level. Let me explain. There is nature, and then there is beyond nature, the miraculous. When water covers the sea, that is nature. W

  Pesach is the “Festival of our Freedom.”  A basic interpretation is that we were freed from slavery in Egypt. This week we sat at the Seder table for two nights, eating Matzah and drinking wine while reclining, to celebrate that freedom.  But the truth is that the “Festival of Freedom” is much more than a celebration of this great event, as monumental as it was. Pesach brought not just physical freedom from slavery and oppression but also freedom as a state of mind and a state of being.  The Talmud talks about the fact that the Jews rushed to get out of Egypt. They were in such a rush that they didn’t even allow their dough to rise and instead baked Matzah. Now this is a little strange. Pharaoh had been subdued and was begging them to leave. They could have taken as much time as they wanted. Yet they “rushed out of Egypt.”  In addition, how long does it take to let dough rise?  Could they not have taken another half an hour to bake some regular bread?   The answer is that they

  One of the remarkable things about Pesach is that Jews have observed it continuously through the ages. In happy times and in frightening times, in wealth and in poverty, and even in the Gulags and concentration camps, Jews always held a Seder in one way or another and managed to observe Pesach to the best of their ability.  The story of the slavery in Egypt and our miraculous Exodus endures today as a story of freedom. Freedom from slavery and oppression, freedom from restrictions that hold us back from fulfilling our full potential as children of G-d. Even in the harshest times,  we found comfort in the knowledge that exile must come to an end and Hashem is always with us. As we say in the Vehi She’amda song, in every generation they stand against us to destroy us, but Hashem saved us from their hands.  It is admittedly hard sometimes to realize that Hashem really is here with us. And we have all kinds of questions:  Why? How could this happen?  What will happen tomorrow?  Is Ha

Why are Jewish boys circumcised?  This pillar of our faith, for which our people have made major sacrifices through the ages, originates with our father Avraham.  Hashem appeared to him when he was 99 years old and told him to circumcise himself.  One of the blessings we say at a Bris is: Blessed are You... Who has sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us to bring [this child] into the covenant of our father Avraham.”  We are obviously associating the bris with Avraham’s incredible act of connection to Hashem. Yet if we look at the Mishneh Torah, Rambam’s codex of Jewish law, we find that he derives the Mitzvah from this week’s Parsha, Tazria.  In his list of the positive Mitzvot he writes: “[Mitzvah] 215: To circumcise a son, as [Vayikra 12:3 ] states: ‘On the eighth day, the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised.’ “   It seems as though the source of the Mitzvah is not from Avraham but rather from a commandment given much later, to Moshe at Mount Sinai.  So which is

  One of the more shocking stories in the Torah is the story of Aaron’s reaction to the sudden death of his sons, Nadav and Avihu.   The Mishkan (Sanctuary) had been built.  Moshe practiced the service with Aaron, the High Priest, for seven days.  Now, on the eighth day, the first day of the month of Nisan, about a year after the Exodus from Egypt, Aaron performed the service.  The hoped-for miracle happened.   Fire came down from heaven and consumed the offerings. The nation was ecstatic.  It’s hard to imagine the emotion of the moment - the realization of a dream of seeing Hashem’s revelation on earth.  Nadav and Avihu got so caught up in the excitement and spiritual fervor that they took incense and burned it, something that was holy, but not part of the planned service.  Their souls leapt out of their bodies and they died. Now think about the impact on their father, Aaron.  At this momentous occasion, two of his four sons die right in front of him.  The Torah (Vayikra 10:3) tells u