Rabbi Levin's Blog

If the Mitzvot apply equally to everyone, is there room for a person’s unique contribution? Which is more important, the individual or the collective? I am always moved by the Midrashic interpretation of an event described in Parshat Naso that addresses these important questions.   When the Mishkan (Sanctuary) in the desert was dedicated, the Heads of the tribes brought gifts for twelve straight days, a different tribal leader coming forward each day… to bring the exact same offering as the day before.    “The one who brought his offering on the first day was Nahshon the son of Amminadab of the tribe of Judah.  And his offering was one silver bowl weighing one hundred and thirty [shekels], one silver sprinkling basin [weighing] seventy shekels according to the holy shekel, both filled with fine flour mixed with olive oil for a meal offering. One spoon [weighing] ten [shekels] of gold filled with incense. One young bull, one ram and one lamb in its first year for...

  What is the most significant holiday on the Jewish calendar?  Pesach?  Chanukah?  Yom Kippur?  Perhaps they are the most observed, but arguably it is Shavuot.  Because without Shavuot there would be no Pesach or Chanukah or Yom Kippur.  They are all in the Torah (written or oral), and Shavuot is the day the Torah was given.   Our holidays are not just times to remember what happened in the past.  Our holidays are times to experience once again what happened the first time.  Because the spirit that brought about the holiday repeats itself every year on that day.  So just as 3,335 years ago, shortly after our ancestors left Egypt, they all stood at the foot of Mount Sinai and received the Torah directly from Hashem, so too today we recreate that experience.  True, we don’t hear the voice of Hashem speaking the Ten Commandments to us directly, but when we hear the same eternal words read from the Torah scroll, we imagine that we...

“I feel like I’m just a number” is not a great feeling.  We each have a name and an individual personality,  and yet, the fourth book of the Torah, Bamidbar, seems to reduce us all to numbers!   The English name for Bamidbar is “Numbers,” though the Hebrew translation means “in the desert.”  Nevertheless, in the Yom Kippur liturgy, we refer to it as “Chumash Hapekudim” - the Book of Numbers.  It would seem, therefore, that the idea of numbers is central to this book.  What is so great about being a number? We each have individual qualities and unique abilities.  Each of us was created and chosen by Hashem to fulfill a unique mission on earth.  We get credit for what we accomplish as individuals, and we strive to make specific contributions to our family, our community and the world. But there is another dimension to us.  This is our inner core, the essence of our soul.  On this level we are all equal.  Think of a parent who app...

  Why don't the Five Books of Moshe talk about reward in the World to Come? “If you follow My statutes and observe My commandments and perform them, I will give your rains in their time, the Land will yield its produce, and the tree of the field will give forth its fruit. Your threshing will last until the vintage, and the vintage will last until the sowing; you will eat your food to satiety, and you will live in security in your land. And I will grant peace in the Land, and you will lie down with no one to frighten [you]; I will remove wild beasts from the Land, and no army will pass through your land; You will pursue your enemies, and they will fall by the sword before you; Five of you will pursue a hundred, and a hundred of you will pursue ten thousand, and your enemies will fall by the sword before you… You will eat very old [produce], and you will clear out the old from before the new.” (Vayikra 26.) These are beautiful blessings, but material rewards have no comparison to the...

I messed up!  I missed out!  Or as they say in Yiddish, “s’is farfallen.” It’s over. All lost. How often do we say that in our lives?  How many regrets do we have?  Besides feeling upset and beating ourselves up, regret for what we have missed just depresses us. “I messed up so now I can’t [fill in the blank].” How do we handle this? Well, you guessed it - we have a holiday for that!   It’s called Pesach Sheini - the “second Pesach” - and it dates back to when the Jews were in the desert. Originally, the Jews were commanded to observe the holiday of Pesach, including offering the Paschal Lamb, on the 14th of Nissan. In order to partake in this sacrifice, the people had to be in a state of Tahara, ritual purity. Now, some of the Jews had been carrying coffins with the remains of Joseph and his brothers out of Egypt and were therefore not in a state of purity to fulfill this great Mitzvah. They felt that they had missed out on a life-changing spiritual opport...