Rabbi Levin's Blog

  One of the things, our Sages said, that helped the Jews in Egypt merit the Exodus from Egypt, was Shabbat observance. This merit will also help bring the redemption from our current exile. In honor of the Parsha Vaera, where we read about the beginning of the process of redemption, I would like to reprint a story that was published today by Rabbi Mordechai Lipskier.  He wrote that he heard the story from Rabbi Moshe Raitport, who heard it first hand. A few years ago, a woman called the Shomrei Hadas Funeral Chapels in Brooklyn to arrange her husband’s funeral. “Before going ahead with the arrangements, I have a request to make. May I tell you a story?” This woman had gotten married in the early 1940s in Brooklyn. It was difficult for a Shabbat observer to hold down a job, so like many other Jews, her husband was pink-slipped from one job after the next. (They would often take a job on Monday, and when they refused to come on Shabbat, they were fired.) Their struggle worsened...

By Rabbi Yosef Levin | Last year there was nothing we could do. The great holiday of Shavuot was coming, a time when historically every Jew, man, woman and child, including infants, attends the reading of the Torah. Just as when Hashem gave us the Torah at Mount Sinai 3,333 years ago everyone was present, we recreate that every year. But there was grave danger to life in the streets; the deadly COVID virus closed the Synagogues and prohibited gatherings. In Torah human life takes precedence to almost anything else, so we stayed home to protect life. Here we are a year later and once again our people are facing a grave danger. The virus threat is subsiding and gatherings are happening again, but a different type of threat has reared its ugly head. Once again the enemies of the Jewish people are trying their utmost to destroy Israel, and their friends around the world are spewing their venom unabashedly in the streets of civilized countries. Obviously any direct action has to be left...

  There is always a lot more than meets the eye in the Torah.  Beyond the simple meaning, word usage reveals many hidden secrets, and these have been recorded in the Oral Torah.  An example is the beginning of the second Parsha of this week’s double Parsha reading: “If you walk in My commandments… ( Im bechukotai telechu)” What follows is a list of the many blessings that Hashem promises.  Commandments are not optional.  Throughout the Torah we see words like “command the Jewish people,’ or “tell the Jewish people that they shall…” etc.  While in context perhaps it makes sense to say that the reward is conditional, so the simple meaning is that if we walk in the commandments we will receive the reward, nevertheless there is something to learn from the opening “If you walk in my commandments.”  Perhaps the wording could have been “Walk in my commandments and I will give…”  The term “walk in” My commandments is also a little strange.   In the ...

By Rabbi Yosef Levin | Love your fellow as yourself – perhaps the most famous words in the Torah.  We read them in the Torah this Shabbat.  A great ideal that I think every group and religion espouses, at least officially.  But what does it mean really?  How is it possible to truly love a stranger as we love ourselves?  For some of us the question is:  how can we love our acquaintances or some family members as we love ourselves?  They are after all not me!  The Torah is not a book of suggestions or lofty poetic concepts.  The Torah – literally translated as teaching - is our guide to life on earth as is expected of us by our Creator, the “user manual for the world,” so to speak.  So this means that the commandment to love our fellow is real and expected of each of us. We can gain some insight into the answer by understanding the story the Talmud tells about the great sage Hillel.  A person came to him and asked him to teach him the...

 Rabbi Yosef Levin |  “The Ethics of Our Fathers” (in Hebrew Pirkei Avot) is a tractate of Mishna with six chapters full of fascinating advice and insights into living an ethical life.  It is customary to study this tractate on Shabbat between Pesach and Shavuot, one chapter for each of the six Shabbats.  In fact, the original Mishna has five chapters, and the sages of the Talmud added a sixth chapter – as they write “in the language of the Mishna” – in order to fill all of the six weeks. There are several reasons given for this study.  One is to prepare for the Giving of the Torah on Shavuot.  Our Sages taught that “derech eretz kadma Latorah” – ethical behavior comes before Torah. Therefore in the weeks leading up to receiving the Torah, we study ethics.  Another explanation is that as the world warms up in the spring and summer, our emotions blossom and we tend to be drawn to behavior that may not be so ethical, so we study Pirkei Avot to remind us ...