Rabbi Levin's Blog

What makes a great leader?  There are countless books on the subject, seminars and whole industries devoted to developing leadership.  I am struck by a sentence in this week’s Parsha that exemplifies the leadership that we see in Moshe, the leader of the Jewish people. Let’s look at the situation.  Hashem took the Jewish people out of Egypt with incredible miracles, including the plagues and the splitting of the sea. In addition to the physical miracles, the heavens opened, showing them Hashem’s light that is not normally seen on earth. Then came the revelation at Sinai, when Hashem Himself spoke to every single Jew.  His first words were “I am the L-rd you G-d.”   40 days later the people made a golden calf.  Everything that had been built was shattered.  The transformation from idol worshiping slaves in Egypt to a free nation devoted to serving Hashem was no more.  The journey, both spiritual and physical, toward establishing a holy land wa...

  Everything in the Holy Temple was glorious. The building itself, each piece of furniture was a beautiful piece of art made of precious materials, and even the utensils were made of silver and gold.  The Kohanim (priests wore magnificent clothes, especially the Kohen Gadol, (High Priest) who wore eight beautiful garments.  As the Torah states (Shemot 28:2):  You shall make holy garments for Aharon and his sons for honor and glory.” The central garment that the Kohen Gadol wore was the Choshen, which for some reason is commonly translated as Breastplate.  A more accurate translation would be heart covering, as the Torah states:  It shall be on Aaron’s heart.”  The Choshen was made of intricate weaving of four fabrics, blue, purple and red wools plus linen, each interwoven with fine gold thread. The reason for all this magnificence in the Temple, as explained by a great medieval sage in the book “Sefer Hachinuch,” is that human nature is such that we ar...

  “Make me a home and I will live there.” (Shemot 25:8 - paraphrased.)  A person needs a home to live in.  Without a home, the Talmud says, we don’t feel like a person.  But Hashem?  He needs a home?  Isn’t He everywhere?   And how could you even try to contain the infinite light of Hashem in a building?  King Solomon, during the dedication of the first Temple, said (1 Kings 8:27): “Behold the heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You; much less this temple that I have erected.”   I want to briefly suggest an answer on two levels.  Yes, Hashem is everywhere and there is no place devoid of His presence.  However, His presence is hidden from us, buried so to speak in nature.  We look at the world and we see physical things.  The Divine energy that animates everything is not visible to us, even though nothing can exist without it. The Holy Temple was an exception.  In the Temple there were miracles happeni...

  Imagine you are writing an anthology.  You are embarking on a new volume, discussing a whole new subject - laws.  Your opening sentence might be:  “These are the laws that apply in the following cases.”  You would not open with “And these are the laws.”  Yet this week’s Parsha  opens just like that.  Hashem tells Moshe:  “And these are the laws that you shall place before them,” and then proceeds to teach many laws about the day-to-day life of a Jew. While it is true that many chapters of Torah open with “and,” it would seem that this is a completely new subject, so why start with “and?” Rashi comments that although this is a new subject, the laws of daily life and commerce, it is also a continuation of the previous subject, the Commandments that were given at Sinai. “Just as the earlier commandments were given at Sinai, so were these.”  So this “and” carries a profound message. We don’t separate the great revelation at Sinai, when Has...

  What is the relationship between women and Torah?  This is one issue that I have heard people express concern about more than any other.  Let’s go to the beginning and see what the Torah tells us about this.   Before Hashem gave the Torah to the Jewish people at Sinai, He told Moshe to speak to the people and prepare them.  As the verse in this week’s Parsha says (Shemot 19:3): “Moses ascended to G-d, and the L-rd called to him from the mountain, saying, ‘So shall you say to the house of Jacob and tell the sons of Israel…’”  This is not just a poetic repetition.  Our Sages taught that “the house of Jacob” refers to the women, and "the sons of Israel refers to the men.   In other words, Hashem told Moshe to speak to the women first about receiving the Torah and then to the men.  One explanation for this is because it is the women who perpetuate Torah and Judaism.  The women are considered the pillars of our community.  It was in th...