Rabbi Levin's Blog

  The Jews are in the middle of the desert and Hashem tells them to build a Mishkan (Sanctuary).  They needed many materials like gold, silver, copper, wool, and precious stones.  All of that was no problem.  They had emptied Egypt out of all its riches when they left, in payment for the many years of forced labor. But the walls of the Mishkan were to be made of huge wooden beams.  (For some reason that I can’t fathom, all the English translations say it was acacia wood.  Our sages taught that they were cedar beams.)  Where do you come up with a stockpile of 15-foot beams in the middle of the desert? Rashi tells  a fascinating story.  Our forefather Yaakov (Jacob) saw with prophecy that when his descendants left Egypt, Hashem would tell them to build the Mishkan in the desert.  When he traveled to Egypt to reunite with his son Yosef, he planted cedar saplings there, and told his children to pass along the message to the next generations ...

What can you buy with half a shekel?  Certainly not a sheep or a bull.  Yet, when the Holy Temple stood, the Jews would contribute a half-shekel coin to a general fund which made them participants in the hundreds of communal offerings that were offered daily in the Temple – including Shabbat and the holidays.  What a deal! This is not the subject of this week’s Parsha, Mishpatim.  But in addition to the weekly Parsha, we read an additional Parsha this week – Parshat Shekalim. This is the first of the four special Parshas relating to Purim and Pesach.   Parshat Shekalim relates the Mitzvah incumbent upon every Jewish household to give a half shekel annually to the Temple to be used for the public offerings.  Because this donation took place during the month of Adar, we read this special portion on the Shabbat before Rosh Chodesh Adar.  (If Rosh Chodesh Adar falls on Shabbat, we read it on that day.) The Torah says (Exodus 30:12):  …each one sh...

  How do you define “covet?”   Like most people, when I first learned the tenth commandment - “Do not covet” (in Hebrew “lo tachmod”) – I understood it as desiring something that someone else has.    But I soon realized that it could not be so straightforward.   The Ten Commandments are written twice in the Torah. The first time is in this week’s Parsha, Yitro, when the Torah recounts the Sinai revelation, and the second is in the book of Devarim, when Moshe recounts the story to the nation before his passing.    The final commandment (“do not covet”), is expanded upon in the second telling, Moshe’s repetition of the Commandments (Devarim 5:18), he says: “…you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor shall you desire your neighbor's house…”  The Hebrew word for covet is “tachmod”, but the word for desire is “titavve.”  Two different words.  So obviously, to covet is not to desire.  So what is the meaning of “do not covet?...

  Manna from Heaven.  Every night for 40 years the Jewish people would go to bed in the desert without any way to obtain food for the next day.  In the morning, when the dew evaporated, there was a layer of fresh food for them to eat that day.  It was a white substance in the shape of coriander seeds which could be cooked or baked.   Its default taste was like honey glazed doughnuts (without the calories!), but it could taste like just about anything they wanted it to. They were not allowed to leave any over for the next day, and if they did it would rot and become wormy.  The Talmud points out that this caused them to always feel hungry.  When Moshe was recounting the history of their journey in the desert before he died, he said (Devarim 8:16) : “[Hashem] fed you Manna in the desert in order to afflict you (make you hungry).”  The Talmud comments on the seeming contradiction in the verse – fed you and made you hungry, and says that there is a di...

I’m on an airplane again. This time, returning from a shiva visit to the family of Sandy Klugman, of blessed memory, in Seattle. Sandy and her late husband Elliot were pillars of our community for many years. Today’s Dvar Torah is dedicated to her memory. In order to get the Jews out of Egypt there was no need for ten plagues. Moshe could have just led them out while Pharaoh stood by helplessly. In order to punish the Egyptians, Hashem could have skipped the first nine and gone straight for the Killing of the Firstborns. The main purpose of all the plagues, the Torah tells us, is for the world to know that Hashem exists and that He controls every aspect of nature.  The Zohar (the foremost book of Kabbalah) states that Hashem is “above above without end and below below with no limit.”  While it appears to us that the world is separate from the Divine and runs itself, the Divine energy that is beyond all of creation is also the life-source of everything in existence.  Scien...

  Sometimes when you read the Torah, you scratch your head and say “what?”  At the beginning of this week’s Parsha (Exodus 6:3) ,  Hashem says to Moshe:  “I appeared to Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov with my name Kel Shakai, but with my name Havaye (yud kei vav kei) I did not make myself known to them.”   (Incidentally, if you look in the Torah, you will see that the names of G-d are different from how I just wrote them.  This is intentional.  There are seven names of Hashem that we are forbidden to destroy, or even to mention, unless it is part of a Torah verse or organized prayer.  We therefore pronounce and write them differently.  “Kel” is written alef lamed, Shakai is written shin dalet yud, and the name we call Havaye is written yud and hei and vav and hei, or yud kei vav kei.) So Hashem is saying to Moshe that until now, the name Havaye was not revealed.  Only now, that the Jews have been slaves and mistreated in Egypt, Hashem ...

  I’m on a plane traveling from Denver to Salt Lake City. Thank G-d this trip is for two very happy events. Last night Jasmine Joshua, who lived in our house for over three years while she was going to school in Palo Alto, got married to Dovid Braslawsce. It was a beautiful wedding. Tomorrow my new grandson Zippel will with Hashem’s help have his bris in Salt Lake City. Dena and I are thrilled to share the nachas for both.  Today is the Yahrzeit of my grandmother, the holy Rebbetzin Mariasha Garelik. She must be having a lot of Nachas in Gan Eden. As I settled into my seat on the very full plane, I was thinking that we find a connection and a lesson in the weekly Parsha to every event that happens in the world, there must be some connections here.  Sure enough there are references in our Parsha to weddings, bris, and my grandmother’s yahrtzeit (well, in a more general way). Wedding: Amram, the leader of the Jewish people in Egypt, did not want to bring children into a wor...