פרשת כי תישה / ט”ז באדר א’ תשפ”ב
The entire nation was punished for the sin of the Golden Calf. This is astounding when we realize that it was only a minority that committed the sin. Why was the whole nation punished? To teach us that silence in the face of evil is complicity in in evil.
פרשת כי תישה / ט”ו באדר א’ תשפ”ב
After witnessing the greatest miracles man had ever seen the Israelites chose to worship an idol that they had created rather than God who performed the miracles. This is perhaps the real reason that the Jews were punished, they refused to believe reality.
פרשת כי תישה / י”ד באדר א’ תשפ”ב
The ultimate defeat of evil is not just to survive but to survive in a way that shows they failed to destroy your humanity. As long as you follow God’s commandments evil is defeated. As long as a Jew celebrates being Jewish then the Nazis have been defeated again.
פרשת תצוה / ח’ באדר א’ תשפ”ב
The way that the Kohanim, (priest), presented themselves had to do with making the Mishkan, (Tabernacle), special to the average Jew coming to bring his Korban, (sacrifice). By making it an event we are avoiding making it mundane or common.
פרשת תצוה / ז’ באדר א’ תשפ”ב
The clothing of the kohanim (Priests) was simple and uniform. This is to teach them that they are merely servants to God and the people. That they are interchangeable. They are to be humble in their office.
פרשת תרומה / ג’ באדר א’ תשפ”ב
When Moses is shown the prototype of the Menorah for the Tabernacle, he notices that it is engulfed in flame. This is to teach us to approach being Jewish with a lust, not to be robots.
י”ב בשבט תשפ”ב / פרשת בשלח
The portion begins with the Jews being taken the long way to the Land of Israel due to the fear that if the Philistines were to fight the Jews then the Jews would flee back to Egypt. It ends with the Jews fighting Amalek. What happened in the middle?
We are travellin in Lithuania. It seems very fitting that we should be visiting this country during the Three Weeks.
The Three Weeks is ythe period between the 17th of Tamuz and the 9th of Av. That is the traditional mourning period for the destruction of the Holy Temple. (The 17th of Tamuz is considered to be the date on which the Romans broke through the walls of Jerusalem, that ws the beginning of the end of the Second Temple.)
I bring this up because Lithuania used to have a vibrant Jewish community. It was the intellectual center of the Jewish world for about 200 plus years.
In 1940 this all came to an end. First the Soviets invaded. Then on June 22, 1941 the Germans invaded. Within the three years of the German occupation 96% of the Jewish population of this country. The the Russians came back. They refused to allow any Jewish life to return to Lithuania.
What is left is a community that is totally ignorant of their own past.
So as we travel around this country, it is just sad to think about what was and what is.
I know that I haven’t blogged in a while.
Like many people I like podcasts.
