Rabbi Levin's Blog

The city of Jerusalem was under siege.  It was around the year 70 CE and the Romans wanted to control Israel from the river to the sea.  The prize was Jerusalem and the Holy Temple.  The sages and Torah leaders knew that all attempts at resistance were futile and would lead to total disaster.  They wanted to surrender to the Romans and save the people from the disaster that ended up happening. There were young Jewish militants who knew better.  No way were they going to allow themselves to be controlled by a foreign power.  They would stand up and fight regardless of what the sages said.  In the interest of protecting the people from the Roman onslaught, they burned down the massive storehouses of grain, oil and firewood that three philanthropists had donated.  Now the supplies that could have fed the city for 21 years were gone, and there was a deep famine. The great leader Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai knew that the end was near.  He had to get...

Why would Moshe repeat the Torah in 70 languages? Rashi tells us that before Moshe passed away, he repeated the Torah to the Jewish nation in 70 languages!  (Rashi Devarim 1:5.)  He was speaking to the Jews at the end of his life, preparing them for life without his leadership.  They were about to enter the Land of Israel under the leadership of Yehoshua.   After 40 years of Torah study in the cocoon of the desert, surrounded by miraculous clouds, eating miraculous bread and drinking miraculous water, the people were about to live a life of Torah practice in the real world.  So Moshe repeated the Torah in a way that was clear and relevant to them.  But why in 70 languages?  The Jews in the desert all spoke Hebrew and probably very few spoke any other languages. The Torah is much more than a history book or a book of laws.  In addition to being the world’s user guide, if you will, the Torah is the will and the wisdom of Hashem.  Meaning, ...

For 40 years the Jews wandered in the desert, making 42 stops along the way from Egypt to the edge of the Land of Israel.  Hashem promised Moshe that He would take the Jews out of Egypt and bring them to the promised land, but said nothing about all the detours!   The basic reason for the 40 year journey was that the spies who toured the land for 40 days frightened everyone, leading the people to cry and complain that they would not be able to live in Israel as G-d promised.  Hashem decreed that, as punishment, they would spend one year wandering the desert for every day that the spies toured the land.   As in all of the Torah, there is a deeper mystical explanation, as explained in Chassidic teachings – the “soul of the Torah.”  Let’s step back for a second and review why our mission in the world  is tied to the land of Israel.    Hashem created us with free choice in a world where the right choice is not always easiest.  The point of us liv...

We have had our fair share of tragedies.  We are not the only ones, but the way we mark them is unique, I think.  Close to 2,000 years have passed since the destruction of our Temple, and we act as if it just happened.  In fact the Talmud says that if the Temple has not been rebuilt in our generation, it is as if it was destroyed in our days.   Today, the 17 th of Tammuz, we fast, commemorating the breach of Jerusalem’s walls leading up to the Temple’s destruction.  But we don’t stop there.  Every day, at least three times a day, we pray for the rebuilding of Jerusalem, as we have been doing consistently for the past 2,000 years.  “May our eyes see Your return to Zion.”  “For we wait for your salvation all day.”  “Rebuild [Jerusalem] speedily in our days as an eternal edifice.”  These are passages from the daily Amidah prayer.   Our connection to Jerusalem, the Temple and the Holy Land of Israel has never wavered, and now more than...