Does G-d Want Us To Enjoy Ourselves?
The message is mixed. "This is the way of Torah," proclaims the Ethics of the Fathers. "Eat bread with salt, drink water in small measure, sleep on the ground, and live a life of hardship." Contrast that with Rabbi Chizkiah's declaration (Jerusalem Talmud, Kiddushin 4:12), "A person will have to answer for everything that his eye beheld and he did not consume."
So which is it? Does G-d want us to enjoy ourselves, or not?
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Matot-Massei
Numbers 30:2--36:13
Week of July 23-29
Fathers and husbands, vengeance and war spoils, east and west, tribalism, havens for inadvertent murderers, and the forty-two stations in the journey of life--plus what it all means according to sages and mystics from Moses to today....
The Parshah in a Nutshell
Full Parshah Summary with Commentary
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| FROM THE CHASSIDIC MASTERS |
Shabbat
Why did the Creator have to speak in order to create? Wouldn’t it be so much more wonderful if we were all just a thought?
Actually, we are. That’s how things started off. The Torah begins with a bet--the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet. It starts at the second part of the story. But before our "spoken" world there was a world that came into being by Divine thought--and never left that place.
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The Shofar and the Wall
The rabbi abruptly turned away from me, but not before he cast a glance at the prayer stand at the left end of the alley. I understood: the shofar is in the stand. When the hour of the blowing approached, I walked over to the stand and leaned against it. I opened the drawer and slipped the shofar into my shirt.
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Bitachon
Are you hero or victim? The hero convinced the disease can never touch him? Who never cries nor feels the fear, the panic, the regrets that are also part and parcel of his condition?
Or are you the victim, certain that he will be among the worst of the statistics? Who never encounters his bravery nor feels the transcendent power of rising above and banishing death from his consciousness, if only for a moment?
Neither have bitachon.
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The Abnormality of Jewish Life
We feel secure when our physician tells us that our test results are "normal", or when the principal assures us that our child's behavior is that of a "normal" teenager. People intuitively equate normal with good. In fact, normal is very bad.
The ultimate fact of life in this universe is the second law of thermodynamics, which states that energy tends to dissipate, and structure and order tend to deteriorate into randomness. This is normal. According to the second law of thermodynamics, a person achieves normalcy when the molecules that comprised his being are in thermodynamic equilibrium with the environment, which is to say he is dust.
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Our Marriage With G-d
The vows taken between G-d and the nation of Israel can be compared to the vows taken by a groom and his bride.
Towards The Land
The 42 journeys in our Parsha relate to 42 stages of leaving Mitzrayim (Egypt).
The Clock
The two innkeepers had no idea what a treasure fell into their hands.
THE REBBE: 50 YEARS
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