Author: Shlomo Bar-Ayal

One of the things that many people forget is that if you want to instill morality in your children, you have to teach them morality. Otherwise, they will make up their own morality.

The Torah gives us blessings and curses. The blessings are the good things are what will happen if we follow the Torah. The curses are what will happen if we don’t. The worst curse is that we will be just like all other people. We will be a “normal” nation.

In order to serve God, we have to be free.  A slave has to do what his master dictates; he cannot fully serve both God and his master.

The Sabbatical year teaches us that God controls the world. With this in mind we have to do our best to make to support our families and community but in the final analyses it is God Who will determine if we succeed or not. But unless we strive God will not help us.

The goal of Biblical justice is to bring equilibrium to the world. That, while wrong doers should be punished, the punishment should not be too severe.

Today is the 33rd Day of the Omer. It is a day of celebration. The real story of the reason we mourn the first 33 days of the Omer is that Rabbi Akiva’s students died. The Talmud avoids the obvious reason since the Romans still ruled the land of Israel.

In this week’s potion we see the blasphemer. We might ask why his punishment was so severe. The truth is that he is very knowledgeable. That is what makes him dangerous. If he was just an ignoramus, he would not be a danger.

When blessing a holiday, we recite the blessing that God sanctifies Israel and the time. This is to teach us that God gave us the ability to set the calendar & He will abide by our decisions. It is a partnership.

The way to sanctify God’s name is to do something moral and/or ethical in his name. It is not necessarily an obvious commandment. It could be giving a grieving grandmother gloves on a cold night.

Throughout the Torah education of our youth is stressed. We have to teach them the Torah and why we do things. If we do not, then they will not continue in our path.