Excerpt Browser

This page displays the full text of excerpts.  When viewing a single excerpt, its “Share,” “Switch Article,” and “Comment” functions are accessible.

DEUTERONOMY — 11:18 place

DEUT524 The Rabbis taught: "And you shall place" ["vesamtem"] -- "sam tam" [a perfect drug]. Torah is hereby compared to a drug of life, the Holy One Blessed be He saying to Israel: "My sons, I have created an evil inclination, and I have created Torah as its antidote. If you occupy yourselves with Torah study, you will not fall into its hand" (Kiddushin 30b)

SHOW FULL EXCERPT

DEUTERONOMY — 11:18 soul

DEUT525 … in Duties of the Heart, Rabbi Bachya ibn Pakuda provides several contemplations that he says will stimulate humility. One of these is to contemplate the inevitability of death and the ensuing decay of the flesh. If you think about and deeply contemplate the reality of your own mortality, any tendency to arrogance will be deflated. Chanting, visualization, and contemplation imprint notions so deeply within as to be written on our hearts, becoming part of our very flesh. Even things we learn intellectually require this sort of additional process if they are to really become integrally woven into our natures. The Torah alludes to this two-step process when it instructs us, with respect to God's commandments, to "lay up these My words in your heart and in your soul" [this verse]. The Alter of Novarodok reflects on this need for "sensory learning" to bring about real change and says that if a person toils only with his mind, then he will not really have fostered change, as will surely become apparent when he encounters a challenging real life situation…

SHOW FULL EXCERPT

DEUTERONOMY — 11:19 children

DEUT526 Are grandparents responsible for teaching their grandchildren? … “And you shall teach your children” (Deuteronomy 11:19), from that I only know that I must teach my children; how do I know that I must also teach my grandchildren? Because the Torah says, “and make them known to your children and to your children's children” (Deuteronomy 4:9). Babylonian Talmud, Kiddushin 30a. In our own day, this implies that grandparents have a duty to help their children provide a Jewish education for their grandchildren. That includes providing a Jewish model for their grandchildren, especially if they are the product of an interfaith marriage. For grandparents who have greater financial resources than their adult children as well as fewer economic responsibilities, this duty also includes paying the tuition (or part of it) for their grandchildren's Jewish day school or religious school education, camp, or youth group. Grandparents may feel good about themselves in doing this, but not too good: after all, they are simply fulfilling their Jewish legal duty!

SHOW FULL EXCERPT

DEUTERONOMY — 11:19 sons

DEUT531 From here it was derived that when a child begins to speak, his father should speak with him in "the holy language" and teach him Torah; and if he does not do so, it is as if he would bury him, it being written: "And you shall teach them to your sons to speak in them… so that your days will be multiplied and the days of your children" -- and the positive implies the negative (Sifrei)

SHOW FULL EXCERPT

RSS
First470471472473474475476477478480482483484485486487488489Last
Back To Top