#parsha — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #parsha, aggregated by home.social.
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Avram is no gung-ho superhero, no conquerer, no Superman, no Rambo. He is stricken with anxiety, with self-doubt, with conflict, with blame. The crushing weight of responsibility sits on his shoulders - After an exhausting night of defending the carcasses of sacrifice, "a great dark dread descended upon him." Rashi says this is representative of the woes and gloom of the Jews in exile. But for Avraham, he is as a nation, a people within himself - with all the internal struggle that that entails. More on that come Parsha Vayera!
After all that, he'd be forgiven for being an overly-serious grinch. But this founding patriarch is no self-aggrandising pompous stoic! His very first action under the name Avraham is to laugh in the face of God and doubt the efficacy of his loins!
I don't have a blog, but I'm starting to see the appeal.
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#mazeldon #jewdiverse #parsha #parshah #ParshahThoughts #torah #torahstudy #lechlecha
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The plagues that afflict the Pharoah and his household - the very ones Avram feared would kill him - are on account of Sarai. And that which Avram acquires thanks to her is from the Egyptians: The Jewish nation will be strangers among them for many years to come, and yet it is their riches that helped sustain the creation of Am Yisrael.
And so what is his response to the King of Sodom's offer of possessions for persons? "You shall not say, ‘It is I who made Avram rich.’" Because that would be a falsehood - Avram was made rich by many before him!
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#mazeldon #jewdiverse #parsha #parshah #ParshahThoughts #torah #torahstudy #lechlecha
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In turn, they are sustained by the tents he pitches, the altars he builds, the lives he saves, the nation he will birth. It is worth mentioning that the first time Avram is told of the land being assigned (Bereshit 12:7), it is assigned only to his offspring, not directly to him. His name will be made great, but the great name in question is the one he will be given. The goal he is pursuing is one he will never personally witness.
And so it goes on, with Sarai's support - "Please say that you are my sister, that it may go well with me because of you, and that I may remain alive thanks to you."
"And because of her, it went well with Avram; he acquired sheep, oxen, donkeys, male and female slaves, jennies, and camels." (it is worth mentioning that according to Midrash, this bounty includes Hagar!)
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#mazeldon #jewdiverse #parsha #parshah #ParshahThoughts #torah #torahstudy #lechlecha
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After a very satisfying hour of Torah study...
A Layman's Thoughts on Parsha Lech-Lecha:
I begin with an aside: Gematria and that sort of number-coincidence thing aren't really for me, but it feels worthwhile to at least mention that in the year that Israel turned 75, this is the parsha where Avram is mentioned as being 75 at the start of his journey. Now, on with the show.
Selfless In Every Sense, or; The Model Of The Torahic Hero
Everything Avram achieved was supported by someone else.
Everything Avram achieved was in support of someone else.
He is selfless in both senses of the word - without others, he is nothing, but they too are sustained by his actions."Go forth from your native land, your father's house." His upbringing, and indeed his entire adulthood, shaped him. This is a 75 year old man with 75 years of life lessons and personal influences. The self-made man is a myth!
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#mazeldon #jewdiverse #parsha #parshah #ParshahThoughts #torah #torahstudy #lechlecha
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"This is the book of face to face.
In it, curved throat of god brought close."- from we who desire by Sue Swartz
https://jort.link/www.benyehudapress.com/books/we-who-desire/(We just put this poem in a forthcoming newsletter at the end of the Torah cycle, so it's a good time to sign up: https://jort.link/www.benyehudapress.com/join-our-email-list/ )
#Jewish #Mazeldon #JewishBooks #Newsletter #Poetry #PoetryCommunity #Parsha #Deuteronomy
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CW: Jethro vs. Abraham
According to the Midrash of our Sages, Jethro, who is honoured to have this Sabbath's Parshah named after him, discovered God on his own, through a method of trial and error.
Scripture reports him declaring: "Now I know that the Lord is is greater than all other gods, for the very thing with which they had contrived, turned up over them."
In order to be able to make such a statement in credibility, he had to try first to worship all other gods in the world, and find them lacking.
This brings to mind the way through which our ancestor, Abraham, discovered God. According to the Midrash, he saw the sun rise in the east and reign supreme among the hosts of heaven during the day, so he worshipped the sun. When the sun disappeared at sunset, he realized his error, and seeing the moon rise and reign supreme among the other hosts of the night skies, he worshipped the moon.
When Abraham saw the moon vanish at dawn, he said to himself: "Can such a magnificent palace [meaning the universe] be without a leader?" God then revealed Himself unto him and said: "I am the leader of the palace."
I asked today at the Shabbat table, why God didn't appear in a similar manner to Jethro at the beginning of his spiritual journey, allowing him to blunder through the worship of countless, useless idols.
Answer 1: Jethro should have learned from Abraham's experience. There is no need for every person to go presonally through the experience of searching for the true God, if he has such good precedents.
Answer 2: When Abraham realized his second mistake, he didn't choose a 3rd false option, but stopped his search, in perplexity. This is the key to true revelation. Jethro, on the other hand, kept trying blindly every available option.
I think the difference between Abraham and Jethro goes deeper. Abraham was motivated by the need to serve a Higher power. He sought for the most supreme power in order to worship it. That was why, when he realized that he lacks the means by which to find the true answer, he didn't try any available option. He sought the ultimate truth.
Jethro, on the other hand, sought a deity whom he could gain benefit from. A deity powerful enough to help him in return to his service. That was why he tried any available idol, and only despaired of each when he made sure it was utterly powerless. He didn't care if his idol was worthy of his worship or not--all he wanted was a relationship that worked.
Of course, since he was sincere in his search, he eventually found the true God. He is lauded as Moses' father-in-law, and his partnership with the People of Israel is honorably recorded at length in Scripture, including Balaam's prophecy about his descendants surviving until the end of days.
Shavua Tov, and thanks for reading this! Your thougths and comments are welcome, and of course please boost this if you liked.
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I first heard this #Midrash from the late Nechama Leibowitz, Z"L in a class I took with her in the summer of 1995. It says the #Jews in the desert weren't able to drink the water in Marah because "כי מרים הם" wich is normally translated as, "because the waters were bitter". This Midrash reinterprets the words to mean, "Because the people were bitter". Out attitude colors the way we see the world in so many ways! #parsha #torah #mazeldon
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#parsha #Moshe is standing at the #BurningBush, #God exhorts him to remove his shoes because it is holy ground. I always wondered about this idea, what is the relationship between being barefoot and holiness? Then it occurred to me that by taking off his sandals in the middle of the desert his feet would be exposed to the hot sand, rocks, and thorns etc. That's the idea, holiness is feeling the pain and suffering of others around you. This is what God wanted him to understand. #mazeldon #torah
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This week's #Torah #parsha #kasha: #Eisav was considered a master of "Honour thy Father and thy Mother" - so why did he marry Yehudith and Bosmath, the Knaani girls that so embittered his parents? Eisav only took his parents wishes into account after the #struggle over the #brachos was over, when #Yaakov had already fled to Padan Aram. Only THEN did he marry Mohalath, #Yishmael's sister.
If Eisav was such a groise mechabed av, why didn't he take his parent's wishes into account from the get go?
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This week's #Torah #Kasha #Parsha #LechLecha #Judaism
In #yeshiva, I learned that promises of good or rewards in #Tanakh are guaranteed, but promises of punishments are not neccesary, they 're like warnings. So for example when #Hashem promises success through the #Navi, it's guaranteed, but if He promises #exile, it's possible to avoid it.
If so, then why did so many #Rishonim try to calculate the #400years of slavery? Why didn't they just say "The warning no longer applied after ~200 years"
