Rabbi Levin's Blog

  (Dedicated to the memory of Rachel bat Yosef Shmuel. Beloved wife, mother, grandmother, teacher and friend. She passed away on Erev Shabbat and was laid to rest surrounded by her family and many, many friends in the Holy Land.) Chukat, the Parsha we read and study this week, talks a lot about death. Miriam and Aharon, two of the three greatest siblings of our people, pass away. And Moshe is informed that he will not live to take the Jewish People into Israel.  The Parsha begins with the laws of the “Red Heifer.” This was the cow that was slaughtered and then burned, and its ashes mixed with “living” spring water. The mixture was sprinkled on a person who had come in contact with a corpse, twice over a period of seven days, and he or she would then immerse in a Mikvah and thus be purified from the Tumah (ritual “impurity”) that came from contact with the corpse.  There is a fascinating Midrash that recounts a discussion between Hashem and Moshe. Hashem taught Moshe t...

  Sameness as opposed to true equality.  (I wrote about this a few weeks ago.)  Do we all need to be the same in order to be equal?  Is difference a path to division?  Is sameness the path to unity?  When we delve a little deeper into the story of Korach and his rebellion against Moshe, the theme of his argument was that unity means that we should all be the same.  As the verse says (Bamidbar 12:3): Korach and his people “assembled against Moses and Aaron. They said to them, ‘You take too much upon yourselves, for the entire community—all of them—are holy, and G-d is in their midst. Why do you raise yourselves above G-d’s assembly?’” Korach felt that there should be no hierarchy in Judaism, we should all be the same.  We are all equally holy, he said, and should all equally be able to do the work of the High Priest.  He felt that Moshe had unilaterally set up the divisions for the aggrandizement of himself and his close family members.  ...

The faith and resilience of the Jewish people is remarkable. Once again another Haman has vowed to wipe us out. His threats continue as he is being routed. But his threats come with missiles that target men, women and children, and have unfortunately caused a lot of destruction. Every life lost is an entire world.  Every person injured and every building destroyed is a tragedy. And the suffering extends to the entire nation.  I have many friends and relatives in Israel and they are all very tired. Woken up by sirens every night; running to shelters where they can’t sleep; and the general stress of living under fire takes its toll. Like so much of our humor that comes from oppression, a new pithy post said: Am Yisrael Chai, but I’m dying to get some sleep. Yet in my conversations and correspondence I hear people talking about the great miracles that we are seeing all the time. There is a powerful feeling of faith and gratitude to Hashem. We know that we will survive. We kno...

I took a group of our staff to Yosemite the other day.  It’s one of the perks I offer for dedicated young people who come here from other places, in this case Israel, and devote themselves to our children and community for a year or for a few months.  Halfway there, one of the teachers asked me if I have an itinerary or would just drop them off and let them find their own way once we got to the park.  (They obviously had no idea what to expect in Yosemite.)  I told them not to worry, they will see some amazing sights, including “some waterfalls” they  had heard about.  They trusted me and got what they had hoped for and more. This got me thinking about what we read in the Parsha this week about the Jews wandering in the desert for 40 years, on their way from Egypt to Israel.  Well, they didn’t actually wander for 40 years.  They camped in 42 places along the way.  In some places they stayed for a day or two, sometimes for a month or two, and ...

Is sameness a good thing?  How about hierarchy?  Equality is the word nowadays, but what does true equality mean?  The Jewish nation was created with a hierarchy.  The 12 sons of Jacob, also called Israel, were the original “B’nai Yisrael.”  Jacob gifted Yosef a double portion, as the first-born of his beloved wife Rachel, making his two sons Menashe and Efraim heads of separate tribes.  Of the 13 tribes, one stood out, the tribe of Levi.   The Levites were chosen to carry the portable Sanctuary through the desert, and serve in the Temple as guards, singers, doorkeepers and more.  They lived in special cities and guided the people.  The leader of the Jewish people, Moshe, was from the tribe of Levi.  They stood out in their faithfulness to Hashem in Egypt and throughout the journey in the desert, by circumcising their children and following the traditional lifestyle passed down by Jacob.  They did not participate in the Golden ...

Hashem gave the Jewish people the Torah.  We are taught that He chose us to receive the Torah.  In the blessings we say every morning and upon being called to the Torah, we say “Who chose us from all the nations and gave us the Torah.”  It seems as if the Torah was an exclusive gift that Hashem chose to give specifically to us as opposed to the other nations. Slight problem:  Our Sages teach that Hashem offered the Torah to every nation!  When Moshe blessed the people before he passed, he said the following Devarim 33:2):  “G-d’s presence came from Mount Sinai to meet them. He shone forth to them after coming from Mount Se’ir. He appeared after coming from Mount Paran.  What was He doing on Mount Se’ir and Mount Paran?  This is the Biblical source for the teaching that Hashem first offered the Torah to all the nations.  The nations didn’t want the Torah because it interfered with their lifestyles.  The nation of Eisav said they live by t...