We rely on God’s protection, but we have to remember that first we have to prepare for the worse. Without God’s protection, we would have been destroyed long ago.

This week’s Torah portion reminds us of something very important, especially in a time when we think so much about the situation in Israel. We may ask: if we are the chosen people, why do so many difficult things happen to us?

The answer is that being chosen was never a promise of an easy life. God did not choose us so that everything would be handed to us on a silver platter. He chose us so that we would strive to become better. And striving to become better is never easy. In fact, growth usually comes through challenge, struggle, and responsibility.

If life were always simple, we would become lazy. We would stop pushing ourselves. We would stop asking the hard questions. In many ways, that is one of the lessons of the Talmud. The Talmud is filled with discussions not because people are perfect, but because they are not. Its pages are full of questions like: what happens when people are supposed to do one thing and instead do another? How do we respond? How do we correct? How do we return to the right path? The Torah teaches us to deal with real human beings, not imaginary perfect ones.

We see this idea in the wilderness as well. After the splitting of the Sea, one might think the Jewish people would simply move forward in total faith and peace. But that is not what happens. There is complaining at Refidim, anxiety over water, and immediately afterward comes the attack of Amalek. The message is clear: if you want a good life, you have to work for it. If you fall into complaint and weakness, the world does not stand still. Real enemies appear, and real tests come.

At the same time, the Torah teaches that while we must act, prepare, and defend ourselves, ultimately our protection comes from God. At the Seder next week we will say that in every generation there are those who rise up against us to destroy us, but the Holy One, blessed be He, saves us from their hand. That does not mean we sit back and do nothing. It means that after we do what is required, we remember that the final outcome is in God’s hands.

There is a striking example from World War II. When Rommel was advancing through North Africa and threatening Egypt, the Jews in the Land of Israel feared that the Germans might reach them. Plans were made for what to do if that happened. Yet the Chief Rabbi reassured people that the Germans would not make it. At the same time, Jewish volunteers in the Pioneer Corps were helping the British army by laying pipelines in the desert. To test the pipes for leaks, they ran salt water through them. When Rommel advanced suddenly, the British retreated so quickly that the system was not switched back to fresh water. German soldiers, desperate for water in the desert heat, drank the salt water and became violently ill. An army cannot fight effectively under those conditions. In that sense, one can see both human effort and divine providence working together.

That is the lesson. We do what we must do. We prepare, we build, we defend, we pray. But in the end, we know that God is the One who watches over Israel.

Something to think about.

The 3 pilgrimage holidays of the Jews represent our maturing process after leaving Egypt. Passover we were children, Shavuoth we studied God’s purpose for us and Sukkot, we are a mature being ready for the world.

Pesach is the first of the shalosh regalim, the three pilgrimage festivals: Pesach, Shavuot, and Sukkot. They are always presented in that order, and there is a deep logic to it. In a sense, they represent the maturing of the Jewish people.

Pesach is the beginning. We leave Egypt and begin to become a nation, but we are not yet fully formed. We are like a small child. With a small child, you do not begin by offering endless choices. First, you provide identity, structure, and foundation. You say: this is who you are, this is your heritage, this is your way of life. That is Pesach. It is the birth of the Jewish people and the beginning of their education.

Then comes Shavuot. If Pesach is childhood, Shavuot is the next stage of growth, when the child begins to understand the deeper meaning of what he has inherited. On Shavuot we receive the Torah. Now the Jewish people move beyond freedom alone and begin to learn what that freedom is for. We are no longer only leaving slavery behind; we are accepting the discipline, values, and responsibilities of a Torah life.

Finally comes Sukkot, which represents maturity. By this stage, we are secure enough in who we are to bring that identity out into the world. On Sukkot there is an expansive, outward-facing quality. We rejoice publicly. In many communities we dance with the Torah. We welcome guests. We bring holiness out of the synagogue and into the street. This is the mark of a mature people: not insecurity, but confidence. We are grounded enough in Torah that we can engage the wider world without losing ourselves.

This helps explain the entire story of the Exodus. God did not take the Jewish people out of Egypt simply to free them from oppression. He took them out in order to teach them how to live. Again and again, when Moshe speaks to Pharaoh, the message is not merely, “Let My people go,” but “Let My people go so that they may serve Me.” Freedom was never meant to be an end in itself. Freedom was meant to lead to avodat Hashem, to serving God through mitzvot and through a Torah way of life.

And that is why God brought the Jewish people specifically to the Land of Israel. He did not place them on some distant island where no one would notice them. He brought them to the crossroads of the ancient world, where Asia, Africa, and Europe meet. The Jewish people were placed at the center of civilization so that the world could see what it means to build a society based on Torah, justice, holiness, and compassion.

So Pesach is not just the story of leaving Egypt. It is the beginning of a process: from birth, to growth, to maturity; from freedom, to Torah, to bringing Torah into the world.

Something to think about.

The month of Nisan we celebrate our freedom. We declare that we are in control of our destiny so long as we follow God’s commandments. That we determine our destiny, not the stars or anything else such as that.

This month of Nisan is unique. One of the reasons we do not say Tachanun is because Nisan is the month of redemption, the month of Pesach, the time when the Jewish people became free. In a very real sense, this is the beginning of the Jewish national year. Tishrei may mark the creation of the world and the creation of man, but Nisan marks the birth of the Jewish people as a nation.

That is why the first mitzvah given to the Jewish people as a people was the commandment to declare the new month: “Ha-chodesh ha-zeh lachem rosh chodashim” — “This month shall be for you the first of the months.” A free people must control its own calendar. A slave lives on the schedule of his master. A free person sets his own time.

But freedom is not acquired in a moment. You cannot take a nation of slaves and simply announce that they are free. They have to learn it, feel it, and live it.

That helps explain the remarkable command before the Exodus: the Jews were told to take a lamb, keep it before their homes for several days, slaughter it publicly, eat it, and place its blood on their doorposts. According to many authorities, the lamb was associated with Egyptian worship. In effect, the Jewish people were making a public declaration to their former masters: your gods have no power over us. We are no longer afraid. We are no longer slaves.

For the Egyptians, this was a humiliation. For the Jews, it was a test of courage. It was the first act of national self-respect. Before they could leave Egypt physically, they had to leave Egypt spiritually. They had to stop thinking like slaves.

So first comes Rosh Chodesh Nisan: the freedom to define time. Then comes Pesach: the freedom to shape destiny. In the ancient world, people believed their lives were ruled by the stars, by fate, by the whims of the gods. The Torah teaches otherwise. Israel is not bound by zodiac or destiny. We are called to live in covenant with God, and within that covenant we are responsible for our choices.

That is the key point: freedom does not mean license. Freedom means responsibility. The Torah is not a burden placed on a slave; it is the constitution given to a free people. On Rosh Chodesh Nisan and throughout this month, we are reminded that true freedom is not doing whatever we want. True freedom is living with purpose, dignity, and responsibility before God.

Something to think about.

We call the 1st of Tishri the “Jewish New Year”. This is wrong. The 1st of Tishri is when man was created. It is the beginning of the world. The Jewish New Year is the 1st of Nisan, when the Jews became a nation.

Rosh Chodesh Nisan: The Real Jewish New Year

There is a very common mistake people make: they call Rosh Hashanah the Jewish New Year in the absolute sense. But that is not really correct.

Why? Because Tishrei is the seventh month of the Jewish calendar. Nobody would place the beginning of a year in the seventh month. We would never say that July 1 is New Year’s Day on the secular calendar. So what is going on?

The Torah itself tells us the answer. In Parashat Bo, when the Jewish people receive their first mitzvah as a nation, God says: “This month shall be for you the first of the months”—referring to Nisan. In other words, Rosh Chodesh Nisan is literally the first month of the Jewish year.

The Gemara in Rosh Hashanah explains that Judaism actually has more than one “new year,” depending on what is being counted. Rosh Hashanah in Tishrei marks the new year for the world, the anniversary of creation—or more precisely, the creation of man. That is why we count the years from there. From the Torah’s point of view, the world reaches its purpose with the creation of human beings, because man is the one charged with giving meaning to creation.

But Nisan marks something different. It is the national new year of the Jewish people. It is the beginning of our redemption, the month in which we were taken out of slavery and began to become a nation.

That itself teaches a profound lesson. The first mitzvah given to the Jewish people is the mitzvah of sanctifying time. Why? Because a slave does not control time; a free person does. A slave lives according to the schedule of his master. A free people must be able to define, sanctify, and elevate time.

So Rosh Hashanah asks: Why was the world created?
And Rosh Chodesh Nisan asks: Now that the world exists, what are you going to do with it?

We were not redeemed from Egypt simply because God wanted to free an oppressed nation. There were many oppressed peoples in the world. We were redeemed for a purpose: to become a people that brings God into the world through Torah and mitzvot, and to show what it means for a nation to live by God’s laws.

That idea is reflected even in modern Hebrew. Many people use the word dati for “religious,” but that word itself is borrowed. Increasingly, some prefer to say Torani—not merely “religious,” but defined by Torah. Torah is not just about private ritual; it is about how a Jew lives, and even how a Jewish nation should conduct itself.

So when we celebrate Rosh Chodesh Nisan, we should remember what it really means. This is the month of redemption, the birth of the Jewish people, and in the Torah’s own language, the first month of the year.

Rosh Hashanah commemorates the creation of the world.
Nisan commemorates the creation of our mission.

That is something worth thinking about.

The Torah says that when a leader sin. It assumes that the leader will make a mistake. It is the nature of the position. He then has to bring a sin offering to atone for his mistake.

This week’s parsha discusses the various offerings that were brought in the Mishkan and later in the Beit HaMikdash. Among them is the korban brought for an unintentional sin. For the average person, the Torah speaks in the language of “if” he sins. But when it comes to a leader, the Torah changes its language. It says, “when a leader sins” — not if, but when.

That is a remarkable insight into leadership. The Torah is telling us that leaders will make mistakes. Not because they are bad people, but because leadership requires action, judgment, and constant decision-making. A leader cannot sit on the sidelines. He has to decide, he has to act, and once you act, sometimes you get it wrong.

You can see this even in modern times. Look at presidents before and after they leave office — the job ages them. Leadership is not a nine-to-five position. It is 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Problems do not wait for business hours, and neither can a leader.

Perhaps that also helps explain an interesting detail about the sons of Yaakov. Yosef, though one of the younger brothers, died relatively young compared to the others — at 110. Binyamin outlived him. Yosef was the viceroy of Egypt, carrying enormous responsibility, dealing with crisis after crisis, famine, politics, and family turmoil. Leadership has weight. Responsibility has a cost.

The Gemara mentions four people who died only because of the decree that came through the serpent: Binyamin ben Yaakov, Amram avi Moshe, Yishai avi David, and Kilav ben David. What is striking is that these figures are known to us בעיקר because of who they were related to, not because they stood at the center of great public action. Binyamin, for example, is important, but in Chumash he is mostly acted upon rather than acting.

The message may be this: it is easier to avoid sin if you do very little. If you never take risks, never lead, never decide, never step forward, you can avoid many mistakes. But that is not leadership. Leadership means responsibility, initiative, and action. And once a person acts, mistakes become inevitable.

That is why the Torah says “when the leader sins.” It assumes that the burden of leadership will sometimes produce error. But the greatness of a Jewish leader is not that he never fails. It is that he takes responsibility, admits the mistake, and brings the korban.

Even David and Shlomo, great kings of Israel, stumbled. Greatness in Torah is not perfection. Greatness is accountability.

That is something worth thinking about:
The person who does nothing may avoid mistakes, but he also avoids greatness.
The leader, by contrast, may stumble — but he is the one who moves history forward.

Moses was the humblest of men. This might sound strange but if you asked him, he would have said that he did what had to be done. That he just happened to be in place at the time.

A Quick Devar Torah on Parshat Vayikra

This week we begin the book of Vayikra, the book of Leviticus. The very name of the parshah already teaches us an important lesson. One of the first words in the parshah is “Vayikra” — “And He called.” But in the Torah scroll, the final letter, the aleph, is written small.

Why the small aleph?

One classic understanding is that this reflects Moshe Rabbeinu’s humility. At this point, Moshe is at the height of leadership. He took the Jewish people out of Egypt, led them through the splitting of the sea, brought them to Mount Sinai, received the Torah, and now stands at the inauguration of the Mishkan, the Tabernacle, where God speaks to him. If anyone could feel important, it would be Moshe.

And yet, Moshe remains the humblest of men.

That is the message of the small aleph: true greatness does not come with arrogance. A great leader does not see himself as the center of everything. He understands that he is there to do a job, to serve a mission, and to help his people.

That is why humility is such an essential trait in leadership. A leader must know that he is not permanent. He must prepare the next generation. Moshe trains Yehoshua to succeed him, because he understands that leadership is not about holding on to power forever; it is about making sure the mission continues after you are gone.

We see this again later with King David, who prepares Shlomo to take the throne. A true leader builds continuity. He knows that legacy is not what he says about himself, but what he leaves behind in those who come after him.

There is a famous story about a king who wanted something to remind him, both in times of joy and in times of sorrow, that life is always changing. He was given a ring engraved with the words: “This too shall pass.” That idea captures an important Torah truth. Good times do not last forever, and difficult times do not last forever either. Humility comes from remembering that we are here to serve God and do what must be done in the moment.

So how could Moshe be both strong and humble? After all, he confronted Pharaoh, spoke to God, and defended the Jewish people after the sin of the Golden Calf. The answer is that humility does not mean weakness. It does not mean thinking less of yourself. It means not thinking that your accomplishments make you inherently special. Moshe acted because the situation demanded it. He did what had to be done.

That is often what truly great people say. Veterans, heroes, and people of real courage often insist they did nothing extraordinary. They simply did what was necessary. That is real humility.

And that is the lesson of the small aleph in Vayikra:
A leader must be strong enough to act, wise enough to prepare the next generation, and humble enough to know that he is not the story — he is only serving a higher purpose.

Something to think about.

One of the offerings that we bring is the Thanksgiving Offering. When we read about it we see that we are required to bring a huge amount of food. It has to be eaten in one night. This forces us to share it with others. Making it a community affair.

This week we begin the discussion of the korbanot, the offerings that were brought first in the Tabernacle and later in the Beit HaMikdash. One of these is the korban todah, the thanksgiving offering, sometimes associated with the peace offering. It was brought when a person had something special for which to thank God—such as surviving a dangerous journey, especially a journey by sea. In fact, the same basic situations that later required the blessing of HaGomel are derived from this idea of thanksgiving.

There are two especially striking things about this offering.

First is the sheer amount of food involved. A whole animal—a goat, sheep, or bull—together with forty loaves of bread. That is a tremendous amount of food. And on top of that, it all had to be eaten that very night; nothing could be left over until the next day.

Now, most people could not possibly eat that much by themselves, even with their immediate family helping out. The Torah is teaching us something very important: when something good happens to you, you are meant to share that joy with others. The thanksgiving offering forces a person to invite friends, neighbors, and community members to join in. Gratitude is not meant to remain private. It becomes communal. When God does something good for us, we celebrate not only alone, but together with others. In that sense, it is very much like making a large kiddush after a simchah, where everyone joins in the joy and gratitude.

The second fascinating point is the teaching of the Gemara that in the days of Mashiach, all korbanot will cease—except for the thanksgiving offering. Why? Because no matter how elevated the world becomes, we will always need to express gratitude to God. Gratitude never goes out of date.

And if we stop to think about it, there is always much for which to be grateful. Even in difficult times, we still have blessings. Consider how much human life has changed. When I was growing up in the 1950s, if someone lived to age sixty, people would say he had lived a good, long life. Today, people regularly live into their eighties and beyond. We recently honored someone at a dinner who was close to one hundred years old, and that is no longer such a rarity. We should recognize the blessings God has given us through advances in medicine, technology, and so many other areas of life.

The message of the korban todah is simple but profound: never take blessings for granted. When something good happens, acknowledge it, thank God for it, and share that gratitude with others. A life of Torah is not only about asking God for what we need; it is also about recognizing what we already have and being truly grateful.

Something to think about.

The Torah lays down specific laws about the offerings we bring to the Tabernacle. They have to be legally ours is one of them. We are not feeding God. God looks at our intent when bridging the offering.

As we begin the book of Vayikra, the book of Leviticus, we enter a new stage in the Torah.

Up until now, in the book of Exodus, we were busy building the Tabernacle. Now, in Vayikra, we begin putting it to use. This book is largely about the Temple service and the korbanot — the offerings.

One of the most important things to understand is that the Torah introduces a major change in the way sacrifices were understood in the ancient world.

In many ancient cultures, sacrifices were made because the gods supposedly needed food. People believed the gods depended on humans to feed them.

If you read the Epic of Gilgamesh, which contains the ancient Mesopotamian flood story, the gods decide to destroy humanity because there are simply too many people and they are too noisy. There’s no moral dimension to the flood the way there is in the Torah. And at the end of the story, after the flood destroys humanity, the gods realize they made a mistake — they say, in effect, “We’re idiots. We just destroyed our own food supply.”

The Torah takes a completely different approach.

Nowhere in the Bible does it say that God eats the sacrifices. Instead, the Torah says God “smells the pleasing aroma.” That phrase isn’t about food. It’s about intent. God is looking at the heart and the intention of the person bringing the offering.

This is a major innovation.

Another innovation is that the offering must be legally yours. You cannot steal someone else’s animal and offer it to God. The korban must belong to you legitimately. In the ancient world this was not obvious at all, but the Torah insists on ethical ownership.

And the attitude of the person bringing the offering matters.

If it is a sin offering, a person must come with true contrition.
If it is a thanksgiving offering, the person should come with joy and gratitude.

The thanksgiving offering is especially interesting. It involves a whole animal, and it must be consumed that night. Now realistically, a person and even their immediate family cannot eat an entire animal in one evening. So what do you have to do?

You invite your neighbors and friends.

In other words, the offering becomes a community event. Your gratitude becomes something shared with others.

So one of the purposes of the korbanot is not just ritual. It’s about building community and recognizing that we depend on one another and ultimately on God.

We’re also approaching the month of Nissan, whose symbol is the lamb. Why the lamb?

Because the lamb is an animal that cannot defend itself. In the same way, we are reminded that ultimately we cannot defend ourselves without God.

We do our best, we make our efforts, but in the final analysis we recognize that everything is in God’s hands.

And that is one of the central messages as we begin the book of Vayikra.

Just a few thoughts for the start of the book of Leviticus — something to think about.

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This Shabbat is Parshat HaHodesh. We are getting ready for Passover. The first commandment that the Jewish nation received as a nation was to set the new month. This was to teach us that we will be a free people for the purpose of bringing holiness to the world.

This week we read Parashat HaChodesh, as we begin preparing ourselves for Pesach. The first mitzvah we received as a nation was the commandment to declare the new month. At first glance, that seems strange. Of all the mitzvot God could have given us, why begin with this one?

The answer is that a free people set their own time. Slaves do not own watches. They live according to the demands of their masters. God was preparing us for freedom, and the first step in becoming free was giving us control over time itself. By commanding us to sanctify the new month, God was telling us that we were no longer merely reacting to history—we were now meant to help shape it.

This also helps explain why, throughout the Torah, God repeatedly reminds us: “I am the Lord your God who took you out of Egypt.” We hear it at the beginning of the Ten Commandments, and in many other places as well. Why does the Torah emphasize the Exodus so often?

Because God did not take us out of Egypt simply because He had nothing better to do, or only because we were suffering. There were many enslaved peoples in the ancient world. Slavery, sadly, was the norm for most of human history until relatively recent times. God took us out of Egypt for a purpose: so that we would become a nation that shows the world what a godly society looks like.

That is why the mitzvah of Rosh Chodesh comes first. Freedom is not just release from bondage; it is being given a mission. We are redeemed in order to live by God’s will, to sanctify time, and to build a society based on holiness, justice, and moral responsibility.

This idea is also reflected in the Haggadah. In many ways, the Haggadah is a crash course in Jewish history. It teaches us where we came from, what happened to us, and why our story matters. Interestingly, Moshe’s name is almost entirely absent from the Haggadah. He is only mentioned in passing. The focus is not on Moses, but on what God did. The message is that God is not only the Creator of the universe—He is also the God of history, guiding nations and shaping destiny.

Parashat HaChodesh, read before the month of Nisan, reminds us that redemption is near. Pesach is coming, and we must get ourselves ready—not only physically, but spiritually—to receive freedom properly.

And that freedom is not only freedom from slavery. It is also freedom from idolatry. When the Torah speaks about idolatry, it is not talking only about bowing to statues. In Egypt, Pharaoh himself was considered a god. The Exodus, therefore, is also an anti-tyrannical statement. We do not worship human beings. We do not bow to rulers. We bow only to God.

That same idea appears again later in the story of Purim, when Mordechai refuses to bow to Haman. As Jews, we worship God alone. Even in the Jewish monarchy, the king was never a god and never the ultimate religious authority. The prophets could rebuke the king and walk away, because the king himself was subject to God’s law. He could not claim divinity, and he could not serve as a priest, because that role belonged to a different tribe.

So all of this is wrapped up in Parashat HaChodesh and in our preparation for Pesach. Freedom means more than leaving Egypt. It means entering history as God’s people, living by God’s time, and refusing to bow to any power but Him.

Something to think about for Shabbat.

While building the Tabernacle we are required to keep Shabbat. The idea is that just as the Tabernacle is to bring God’s presence to the world so does Shabbat.

Shabbat Also Brings God’s Presence

This week’s parashah, Vayakhel, opens with an interesting command. The Jewish people are in the middle of building the Mishkan, the Tabernacle—the very place meant to bring God’s presence into the world.

Yet before the construction begins, the Torah pauses and commands the people to keep Shabbat.

At first glance this seems strange.
If the purpose of the Mishkan is to bring God’s presence into the world, why interrupt the discussion with the laws of Shabbat?

The simple answer is that Shabbat supersedes the building of the Mishkan. Even this sacred project must stop for Shabbat. But that explanation alone misses a deeper point.

Shabbat itself brings God’s presence into the world.

In Hebrew, the days of the week do not even have independent names. We say:

• First day
• Second day
• Third day
• Fourth day
• Fifth day
• Sixth day

All of them point toward one destination: Shabbat. The entire week is a preparation for that day.

But Shabbat is not important because it is convenient or rational. In fact, the ancient Greeks and Romans mocked the Jews for resting every seventh day. They thought Jews were lazy because we refused to work.

Yet the Torah insists on it—not only for the individual, but for the entire community. Servants must rest, workers must rest, everyone must rest. Shabbat proclaims that life is not only about labor and production. There is something higher.

When we keep Shabbat, we make a public statement:
God is present in the world, and our lives are organized around that truth.

There is a famous story from Washington Heights. A man opened a bakery that was kosher—except it stayed open on Shabbat. The local rabbis told him they could not give him kosher certification unless he closed on Shabbat.

He replied, “I don’t care. I’ll make more money being open seven days a week.”

But business was poor because the Jewish community would not shop there. Eventually he tried an experiment: he closed on Shabbat and obtained kosher certification.

Suddenly his business flourished.

He later said, “I was an idiot. I worked seven days a week and barely made money. Now I work six days, have a day off, and earn more than before.”

As Rashi comments, without Shabbat a person might work constantly and lose balance in life.

Shabbat reminds us that we are not just workers—we are human beings, part of a family, a community, and a relationship with God.

So the Torah pauses the construction of the Mishkan to teach a profound lesson:

Building a sanctuary brings God’s presence into the world.
But keeping Shabbat does the same thing.

Every week, when we stop working, gather with family and community, and honor Shabbat, we ourselves become the place where God’s presence rests.

Something to think about.