Rabbi Levin's Blog

  “Do not test G-d” (Devarim 6:16) .  “Test Me please with this, says Hashem” (Malachi 3:10) .  Isn’t this a direct contradiction?  The Talmud (Ta’anit 9a) is troubled by that question.  The answer the Talmud gives is that the verse in Malachi is giving us the one exception when we are indeed allowed to test Hashem.   That verse says: “ Bring the whole of the tithes into the treasury so that there may be nourishment in My House, and test Me please therewith, says the Lord of Hosts, [to see] if I will not open for you the sluices of heaven and pour down for you blessing until there be no room to suffice for it .”  In other words, while we may not test Hashem in general (details of that are for another time), when it comes to the blessings for giving tithes, it is appropriate to test. The above Talmudic discussion is based on two words in this week’s Parsha:  “Aser Te’aser” – Tithe you shall tithe, referring to the tenth of the produce, known a...

Gratitude. It’s something particularly at the forefront of my mind this week. I am writing this on Wednesday night as I prepare to return home from New York, where we celebrated the engagement of our daughter Esty to a wonderful young man, Rabbi Dovid Geisinsky. My heart is full of gratitude to Hashem for bringing us to this day. Gratitude is talked about a lot these days by psychologists as a way to achieve happiness. It has emerged as a powerful tool to overcome depression and despair. Well, as is the case with so many of our brilliant “recent discoveries,” it is a central theme in this week’s Parsha in the Torah. By the way, this past Shabbat I spoke on the theme of conflict resolution and the lessons the Torah teaches us about it in Talmud and Kabbalah. What I said was based on the teachings of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Schneerson, our Rebbe’s father, one of our greatest scholars, Kabbalists and leaders, who was exiled by the Soviets and passed away in exile on the 20th of Av, which we ...

  The voice that never ends… This is how the Torah describes Hashem’s voice at Sinai.  Moshe is repeating the story of the Giving of the Torah at Sinai (Devarim 5:19) :  “The Lord spoke these words to your entire assembly at the mountain out of the midst of the fire, the cloud, and the opaque darkness, with a great voice, which did not cease.”  They say that if you speak to Hashem you are religious, if you hear His voice speaking to you, you need to see a doctor.  What does “which did not cease” mean? There are several explanations, including that there was no echo.  You would imagine a “great voice” with mountains around would cause an echo, but this one didn’t.  An explanation for that is that the Torah is not separate from the world.  The whole idea of Torah is to permeate and transform the earth and stone etc, to be absorbed by holiness and to become a vehicle for Hashem’s will.   An echo is created when there is something that blocks the...

  “Hocheach tochiach et amitecha” – You shall surely [insert translation here] your friend.  Compared to the holy language of Hebrew, English is very clumsy, and it’s hard to encapsulate the true meaning of the word “Tochiach,” but the typical translations include words like “rebuke” and “correct.”   Halacha teaches us that, because we are responsible for one another, when we see someone going on the wrong path we should help them find their way back. The big question is: how do we guide them back?  We have all seen images and heard stories of  “very religious people” putting others down for their “sinful behavior” like violating the Shabbat or eating in non-kosher restaurants.  But, is this really religious behavior?  Is this the way the Torah intends for us to behave toward one another? Let’s take a look at how our greatest leader, Moshe, dealt with this issue.  This week parsha begins Moshe’s 40 day “sermon” to the Jewish people just before his...