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HEBREW TABERNACLE CONGREGATION June 13, 2009 D’var Torah
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Jesse Rodkin is a 7th grader at the Center School. He was born
and raised in Washington Heights and has attended Hebrew School at Hebrew Tabernacle
for the past six years. Jesse loves ultimate frisbee, camp, music, art,
fishing in the Catskills, his dog (Lucy) and MOST of his teachers at Center
School. Jesse looks forward to his Bar Mitzvah and to Hebrew High School next
year. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
In the beginning of this week’s portion, Bcha’alotecha,
God was telling Moses what to tell Aaron: to mount the menorah and let the
light shine at the front of the lampstand. God then told Moses to take the
Levites from among the Israelites and cleanse them. Moses would sprinkle them
with water of purification and go over their bodies with a razor. Then, all
of their clothes would have to be washed and after that there would be a
sacrifice: One bull for the sake of sacrifice, and another for each sin
performed by the Levites. Then God said that all of the Levites were now his,
and they were going to work in the tent of meeting, replacing the work of the
first born sons. The whole of the Israelites did what God said to do and they
finished the cleansing process. God then said that every Levite of or above
the age of 25 has to work for the tent of meeting until they can retire at
the age of fifty. Moving on, God tells Moses about
Passover and what you have to do, but there are people who can’t celebrate
because they have touched a corpse, or because they are traveling, and God
tells them to celebrate on the same day but during the next month. Later,
the Tabernacle was set up, and a cloud was formed over it. When the cloud
moved, so would the Israelites. But when it stayed, the Israelites would
stay. This could go on for months or even years, but the Jews wouldn’t break
camp until God’s cloud moved away. God
later spoke to Moses and said to make two silver trumpets and when he blows
them in certain ways, different thing would happen. One big blast and
everyone comes to meet him. Two big blasts and only chieftains come to meet
him. One small blast and people in the east move forward. Two small blasts
and people in the south move forward. Finally on the twentieth day of the
second month of the year, the cloud moved, and the march, led by God through
Moses, started. Different tribes were in different orders, but they were all
going to the same place. Moses kept telling God to keep giving the Jews hope
and to keep moving on. The people started complaining and God got angry. God started
setting fires throughout the camps, as a punishment, and people kept
complaining anyway. They wanted meat! They were sick of having only manna to
eat. Once Moses begged and pleaded that the burden be taken off of him, God
finally gave the people what they wanted. They would eat like crazy people
for a month, but then, once everyone was satisfied, God cast a horrible
plague on the people. They grew sick and started dying. Later on, Miriam and Aaron were
gossiping about Moses’ wife, who was a Cushite woman. When they went to the
tent of meeting, God came down and talked to them about how Moses is his
loyal servant, who shouldn’t be gossiped about and then he left Miriam and
Aaron, Miriam covered in scales. They got Moses to ask God to cure her, but God
said to wait for seven days, and until then, shut Miriam out of camp. After reading my parsha, I was asked to
think about main themes from Bcha’alotecha.
One of the themes that I picked was repentance. We all know that once
a year, we are supposed to repent on Yom Kippur. We repent for sins committed
against God and people. But some
people think we should repent everyday. For example, according to the
Babylonian Talmud, Rabbi Eliezer said that one should repent the day before
you die. He was asked how a person can repent the day before he or she dies,
since they don’t always know the day before their death. He answered that
“because we don’t know, it is ‘All the more reason’ to repent everyday.” I
don’t agree with this, since I don’t think there is necessarily something to
repent about every single day. Besides, who wants to feel like everyday could
be your last one! However, I do think it’s important to say sorry and ask for
forgiveness from somebody when you have hurt them in some way. According
to the Babylonian Talmud, you can tell someone has truly repented if they
don’t commit the same sin twice, after being given the same opportunity
twice. I think this is partially true, and partially false. If someone had
only committed that one sin, and only had to repent for that one thing, then
this would be correct, but what if they also committed other sins? They would
have to be faced with an opportunity for every sin they had done, twice, and
then reject them all, which would probably be extremely difficult to do since
there would be so much temptation. Maybe avoiding the same situation a second
time should count too. I also think that if someone commits a
sin, it’s important that they pray for themselves for forgiveness, and not
ask others to do it for them, since that wouldn’t show that you truly
repented. On the other hand, I think
it would be good to pray for someone who is sick or in need of
something. In
my opinion, I think that if you have committed a sin, you have to repent for
yourself, by either asking forgiveness from God or from the person you hurt. Another
theme in my Torah portion is people’s relationship with God. We all have our own ideas about God and
what God might look like if we could see God.
For example, Rabbi Levi said that God was shown as a statue with many
faces looking only at the person looking back, while it is also said that
people have searched their whole lives, without finding any proof of the
existence, or non-existence of God. So without any proof of what God looks
like or even exists, it can be tough to have a relationship with God. I
think that it is possible to know God, but that it is impossible for
everybody to know God in the same way. Just as God appeared as a statue with
many faces, each person saw a different face, based on his or her thoughts
and beliefs about God. God’s face could appear as a father, mother, friend,
nephew, and anything else people could think of. Another
interesting theme is how the Jewish people keep their faith. Even though they
have been conquered, exiled, and so many other bad things including being
murdered, they still kept faith in their God instead of anyone else’s god. I
don’t know why they would keep faith in their God for any other reason
besides the fact that they felt like they knew God in some way. No one would
go through that much stuff for a stranger. Personally,
I have mixed feelings about whether God exists or not. Sometimes I think God
could’ve made everything. Even if God didn’t make the Earth and all of its
inhabitants, and maybe evolution made it instead, what made the big bang that
started it all? I think that God had to begin something at one point in time.
Other times I think, if God existed, why would we have so much havoc in the
world? Why would we have had two world wars, and other wars going on right
now? If God cared enough to create us, wouldn’t God care enough to not let us
be destroyed? These are questions I still think about. But, over all, I think the main
message in my parsha is that God will listen to you, as long as you listen to
God. I would like to take
this opportunity to thank Rabbi Weiner, Cantor Simmons and my tutor Sandy
Horowitz for helping make today possible. I would especially like to thank
Connie Heyman for running a great Hebrew School and giving me six great years
of Jewish education. I would also like to thank my dad for helping me with my
speech and my mom for helping me learn my Hebrew prayers. But most of all, I
want to thank my whole entire family for always being there for me, and
always letting me know that I have a shoulder to lean on. Shabbat Shalom!
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