TorahParsha

Change is Spiritual

for Parshat Tzav

 

The priest must put on his priestly linen garment when he serves in the Temple and must remove his garments when he leaves. Then, he shall put other garments on. In such a flux of garments, of inside and out, of coming and of going, such a man must know that life can change. Perhaps it is precisely such a man who is most able to serve before God.

 

 

Shabbat Shalom,

Abe

www.TorahParsha.com

from Abe, thought for Parshat VaYikra

The piece below is from 2008. I've written an expansion of it in this week's New York Jewish Week. - Abe

 

  

The Hidden Things are for God

i
God explains how the Children of Israel may bring sacrifices to Him in His dwelling-place. So He brings the Children of Israel in to His hidden realm.

*
Soon God describes atonement-sacrifices for sins of unlawful hiding. Like the case of the man who keeps his neighbor's lost object, denying that he holds it. And like the case of the man who, hiding what he knows, does not stand witness in court.

*
The hidden things are for God, a later verse says. 

If we are to enter into God's house, into His realm, then we join Him in His burden over hidden things. 

ii
Cain killed his brother, Abel, and hid him in the ground. 

God asked Cain: Where is Abel, your brother? and Cain answered Him: Am I my brother's keeper? 

*
But now we share the hidden realm with God. 

Cain's answer is not possible any more.

 

 

___

Shabbat shalom,

Abe

www.TorahParsha.com 

Direction

for Vayakhel-Pikuedei

 

Moses cannot enter God’s Tent, because God’s presence of cloud is in it. 

 

Then we are told: this cloud guides the people as they wander through the Desert.

God’s presence is not a home for the righteous: it is a guide for how we move through the world.

 

___

Shabbat shalom,

Abe

www.TorahParsha.com

 

What if we have no leaders?

 

for Parshat Ki Tisa

 

i

Moses takes too long

coming down  from the mountain

up with God.

*

The people feel helpless

and they say to Aaron:

You

make a new god for us.

*

Aaron molds a calf from gold

and the people dance before it,

saying:

This is the god

who has taken us from Egypt.

*

When God forgives the people at last,

He tells Moses:

three times a year

the people must come to Me,

to My Temple.

 

ii

If Moses was the way to God

and Moses is lost,

what can the people do?

So they make a new god

to be close to them.

 

iii

But God says:

You have misunderstood.

Everyone can come to Me.

Everyone must come to Me.

My Temple doors

are open wide.

 

 

_______

Shabbat Shalom,

Abe

Originally shared in 2013

www.TorahParsha.com