Beyond Orthodox Conversion to Judaism

"Remember what Amalek did to you by the way when you came out of Egypt" (Deuteronomy 23:17)

 The Torah at the end of the parsha tells us that we have to remember what Amalek did to us. This is of such importance that on the shabbos before Purim we read these three verses as a Torah obligation! What is so significant that we must remember what Amalek did to us?

If we go back in history, we see that the Jewish people were on the biggest roll of their lives. They saw the miracles that occurred in Egypt with their decimation; they witnessed the sea split and the Egyptians die and ate the manna that was given to them in the desert.

After seeing G-d face to face and receiving the Torah the people of Amalek strike. At first glance this makes no sense because who would want to start up with the Jewish people at this time?

Since the people of Amalek didn't believe in the supernatural or of miracles, they didn't think twice about attacking the Jewish people. How could they if at this time, the Jewish people could have annihilated them at the level they were at?

There is a parable given to explain this. It is as if one person enters a very very hot bath. Even if he goes in, he will get severely burned but at the same time, he will cool it off a little bit for the next person. The next person will do the same thing for the person after him until the water is warm enough to go in.

The people of Amalek understood what they were facing. They attempted to cool off the Jewish people, even if it meant sacrificing many of their own people. The danger of Amalek is that they spread doubt into the world; doubt of an existing G-d who runs the world.

Unfortunately that has continued throughout history where there are many who believe that G-d not only doesn't have control over his creation but in fact does not exist. The Torah tells us explicitly that we must work to the best of our ability to counteract this.

We do this by keeping the Torah and its mitzvos and bringing light to the world. Even though G-ds ways are hidden in this world, we have to publicize and make known to the world of His existence.

Just over the last few months with all the rocket attacks on Israel, G-d's presence can surely be seen. Of all the missiles sent in from Gaza, 80% hit open areas where 10% were knocked down by the Patriot missiles. That means that roughly 10% of all rocket fire hit something in Israel and caused damage.

These are missiles that are very accurate. Very hard to say statistically that 80% will hit open areas even if you are shooting from 5 miles away. G-d is here running the show, we just have to be able to see His hand in action

Even this one small thing gives us strength and answers the "doubts" of all the Amalekites in the world today. This brings G-d's rule to the world which eliminates the heretical thoughts of Amalek and the like.

Shabbat Shalom

"Rabbi Elazar ben Azaryah said, 'When there is no Torah there is no proper conduct, when there is no proper conduct there is no Torah. When there is no wisdom there is no reverence; when there is no reverence there is no wisdom. When there is no knowledge there is no understanding; when there is no understanding there is no knowledge.When there is no bread there is no Torah; when there is no Torah there is no bread."

The first part of the Mishna explains that one must learn Torah to perfect one's character traits. The reason is because the Torah speaks at great length about character traits one must emulate to reach their spiritual potential.

The book of Genesis tells story after story about our forefathers and the great character traits they possessed. The Torah throughout the book of Numbers explains some of the failures of the Jewish people to inject in the future generations the importance of adherence to G-d's laws!

If we don't work on our character development, how can we learn Torah? This means that these two things go hand in hand. IF we see a Torah observant Jew steal or do other things that are in direct violation of the Torah, what does that say about his Torah learning?

We could say that a person is human and makes mistakes and will grow from them. That is true but at the same time, we see that his learning is not up to par and that individual does not actualize what the Torah wants from him!

The next part of the Mishna explains that without wisdom there is no reverence and vice-versa. When one learns and acquires wisdom, we realize how much we don't know which should humble us. The more we learn, the more we see how small we really are in the context of the world at large.

At the same time, if one has wisdom but does not incorporate reverence with that, an individual is then doing mental gymnastics. This means that the learning really has no relevance to their lives and they don't put it into action.

Learning is about doing and embellishing it. It is not like another academic subject, it is our life! Our goal is to incorporate these ideas in our lives and pass our priceless heritage onto our children.

The next part of the Mishna explains how much we have to concentrate on our learning to be able to understand it. We cannot just give a superficial overview of what the Torah tells us but we have to try and understand its depths to the best of our ability.

If we don't, then our learning will only become confusing and won't have the impact that it should. This is why it is important to have good teachers that can explain these things to us so we can explore the intricacies of Torah!

The last part of the Mishna tells us that when there is no bread there is no Torah and without Torah there is no bread. If we don't have money or a livelihood, how can we learn Torah? We have to make our best effort to put food on the table.

At the same time, we have to realize that even if we have ample livelihood, what is it worth without Torah? Torah is the essence of our lives; livelihood is just a means to be able to survive in this world but it is not the essence of who we are. We often forget this!

"Judges and officers shall you make in all your gates which the L-rd your G-d gives you throughout your tribes and you shall judge the people with righteous judgement" (Deuteronomy 16:18).

Rav Moshe Feinstein in Derash Moshe asks why does it say for you, it would seem superfluous here. Rav Moshe learns that a person has to be a judge over himself to see if his actions are good and fitting in this world, He also has to "police" himself to see if he is doing what the "judge" wants him to!

This is how a Jew is supposed to look at the world. How can I better serve my creator? How can I guard myself against transgression? How can I better defend myself against the evil inclination and succeed against it?

Although this is how we should live everyday, we take more stock of our actions during the month of Elul as we prepare for Rosh Hashanah. We are preparing ourselves for the ultimate judgement which will effect our lives!

During this time, we examine and reexamine what we have been doing and what we could possibly do better. We will take on extra stringencies to show G-d we want to reach higher spiritual levels as we prepare for these awesome days.

The Rambam in Hilchos Teshuvah (laws of repentance) tells us that we have to look at our everyday life as if the scale is hanging in the balance between good and evil and my action right now will determine if the scale goes to one side or the other. We may think that our actions don't matter or are insignificant but in reality they have the ability to change the world!

G-d gave us a pure soul and we have to do our best to guard it against the impurity of the physical world! We have to tune into our spiritual selves keeping and guarding the Torah to the best of our ability. We are human and make mistakes but even so, we have to brush ourselves off, get up and continue again in our quest for spiritual potential!

We are guarding our precious soul for the "judge" who has given it to us. May we use these precious days to give our judge the proper respect and love He deserves!

Shabbat Shalom

"He used to say: 'Everything is given on pledge, and a net is spread for all the living (none can escape divine justice) ; the store is open and the storekeeper (G-d) allows credit; the ledger is open and the hand writes; whoever wishes to borrow may come and borrow, but the collectors go around regularly every day and exact punishment from man, whether or not he realizes (that he is punished for his sins); they have good authority on which they can rely, since the judgement is just;  and all is prepared for the banquet (the reward for the righteous is assured).

The first part of the Mishna explains that whatever we have in this world is loaned to us and we shouldn't think that we will pass it on to our kids or our loved ones. The reason is because everything belongs to G-d and He can decide to take it away if He chooses. This is the reality which we must live by.

Rabbenu Yonah gives us a parable with which to understand this. A person walks into a certain place and doesn't find anybody there. He walks into a house and finds a table set up and on it many delicacies of food and drink. He eats and drinks and says, 'All this I have merited and I will do with it what I wish! He doesn't realize that someone else must have brought it there and in the end he will have to pay back what he benefited from'.

This means that even though we are given free reign to live as we want, we will have to give an accounting for our actions after we die. Even in justice G-d has mercy and He will judge a person measure for measure.

The rest of the Mishna explains in terms of a shopkeeper and credit that he gives to his customers. They come and borrow on credit but at the end, they still have to pay. This is a parable to life in this world.

We are given the opportunity to enjoy this world and everything inside it. We have to know how to do that! G-d has given us instructions in the form of the Torah that guide our everyday life from when we wake up in the morning until we go to sleep at night.

If we use the world properly, then everything is good; the rain will come in its proper time,there will be peace in the land... If we don't do what we are supposed to do, then there is strife and evil runs rampant.

Everyone has to take stock of their lives and try and change to live as G-d wants to do. There are repercussions for our actions as well. We will only understand to what extent after death when G-d shows us what we did in our lives and what we had the potential to do,

Woe to the person that had great potential and wasted it on their desires in this world. G-d gave us a great world where we could strive to great spiritual heights.. Let's use it properly and grab it!

"You shall not add to the word  which I command you, neither shall you diminish it, that you may keep the commandments of the L-rd your G-d which I command you , Your eyes  have seen what the L-rd did because of Ba'al Pe'or: for all men that followed Ba'al Pe'or, the L-rd destroyed them from among you." (Devarim 4:2-3)

Rav Moshe Feinstein z"l in Derash Moshe asks what is the connection of not adding or subtracting from the mitzvos to serving Ba'al Pe'or? He tells us that the mistake of Enosh and his generation was that they thought serving idols was a sanctification of G-d's name.

After all, if G-d created the stars, planets..and they are so big and serve a tremendous purpose in our solar system and galaxy, then G-d must have put them there for us to worship as well. This does not mean we don't need to worship G-d but these creations that come from Him are also worthy of worship!

The problem is that G-d never gave us a command to worship them. Not only that, they are adding on to the mitzvos that G-d has given us and that is part of the fundamental mistake they made. This led to G-d being forgotten and these other creations being worshiped entirely!

How far that generation and future generations fell! They recognized that G-d created the world and everything in it. They also thought that these things were so incredible that they could be worshiped as well.

In essence these things were worshiped and G-d was forgotten about! This Rav Moshe continues, led the Jewish people to even worship the idol of Ba'al Pe'or. They added on to mitzvos that had no business being added on to!

The Torah is very specific of what we have to do and what we are not allowed to do. When we start adding on or detracting from the mitzvos, we are saying that we know better than Torah. Maybe this mitzvah doesn't apply today, or we have to make it fit in to the times we live in...However we want to define it, we only lose out when we try to add or subtract mitzvos!

We can see from the so called other movements what happens when you decide to play G-d and delete mitzvos from the Torah: assimilation and intermarriage. These are the two biggest things today that threaten the Jewish people from going into oblivion.

This is what the Torah is teaching us. We have to understand the mitzvos in their entirety and keep them to the best of our ability to sanctify G-d's name in this world!

Shabbat Shalom

"Everything is foreseen (by G-d), yet freewill is granted (to man); the world is ruled with Divine goodness, yet all is according to the amount of man's work"

The first part of the Mishna explains that G-d foresees everything we do. If this is true, how do we reconcile the next statement that we have freewill? After all, if G-d knows what we are going to do, how am I really free to do what I want?

The commentaries explains that we have the ability to do either good or bad. We have free choice to go in either one direction or the other. This does not contradict the fact that G-d knows what we are going to do. We still have to go out and do it!

The reason that G-d set up the world like this is so that we will get more reward for the positive actions that we do. If we were created only do His will, we would be robots. This is not what G-d wants! He put us in this world with different character traits, drives and urges to help us reach our potential.

These actions can also cause G-d's ire when we have not done what He wants us to do! Although the first man ate from the tree of knowledge, he made our challenges that much more difficult.

His intention was to bring the evil, so-to-speak inside of us so that we would have to constantly fight against our evil inclination. That way, when we were presented with different options of what do do in a particular situation, if we chose the right way, we would get even more merit for our good actions but at the same time suffer the consequences when we did the wrong thing.

The only problem with this, though is that the Talmud tells us that G-d calls him an apikorus (heretic). The reason being is that even though Adam may have been right in his thinking, nonetheless, it was not the way G-d established the world to be run!

This leads to the last part of the Mishna about G-d's judgement. G-d has tremendous compassion when looking at what man does. In reality, we have no one to blame but ourselves for what happens to us because ultimately we are responsible for our actions.

The only question is when we do something that G-d doesn't want us to do, how does He view it? He takes into account what the action was, why we did it and where we were holding at the time. He therefore judges us at the present time, not for what great things we may do in the future, thereby making the judgement harsher.

This is a tremendous act of chesed G-d does for us. Even though He may put us in precarious situations to see how we will react, nonetheless, He doesn't put us in a situation we can't handle! We are judged by what we do, not by what our future holds!

"These are the words which Moshe spoke to all Yisrael on the other side of the Jordan river in the wilderness over against Suf, between Paran, and Tofel and Lavan, and Hazertot and Di-zahav" (Deuteronomy 1:1)

Rashi explains that Moshe reminds the Jewish people of their sins through a hint and not directly because of the honor of the Jewish people. Rav Moshe Feinstein z"l asks in Derash Moshe  that there are also verses that specifically mention their sins like by the spies and in parshas Ekev the sin of the golden calf so why here are the sins only mentioned through a hint while other places they are spelled out clearly?

Rav Moshe explains those sins and punishment that are spoken about in great detail is because the Jewish people have to be reminded of the severity of that particular transgression. This, though was only for the previous generation but by the the present generation that did not do those particular transgressions, there is no need for them to be rebuked for what was done previously.

Therefore, they are mentioned only through a hint since the present generation also needs to be rebuked for the transgressions of the previous generation. The reason for this is because each person has to know that if they see someone else sins, they should not say that this person made a mistake and it could never happen to me because I know that this particular thing is forbidden in the Torah and I would never do it!

This person also has what to fear that he could fall in the same trap as his friend and also transgress unless he uproots those negative character traits that constantly prey upon him! A person should not rely on their knowledge or laurels that they could never find themselves in such a situation but they should increase their Torah study and mussar learning to constantly fight against their desires and temptations.

As long as we are not working and striving for this goal, then we are puppets in the hands of our evil inclination. Another thing that we learn out from here is that if we have the ability to rebuke someone, we should do so through a hint and not with harsh words.

We should also never remind someone of what they have done wrong in the past. This will not help them to correct their ways and change. Giving rebuke is something that has been lost in this generation as we do not know how to do it properly. We need to embrace people with an overflowing amount of love.

There was a person in the yeshiva of Radin who smoked on shabbos and was about to leave. The saintly Chofetz Chaim met with him, grabbed his hand and with burning tears just said the word shabbos. This made such an impression on the boy that because of how the Chofetz Chaim approached him, he did not profane shabbos again.

Although we may not be on the level of the Chofetz Chaim, we can still try and help others with positive reinforcement instead of trying to "help" them with harsh words and rebuke.

Shabbat Shalom