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Written by Zalman Posner
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Monday, 25 March 2013 02:18 |
Almost a year has passed since Israel left Egypt. The Sanctuary has just been completed. Aaron and his sons bring the offerings that formally dedicate the Sanctuary. "And a fire came forth from before G-d... on the altar." But the festivities are suddenly and tragically interrupted -- two of Aaron's sons die.
Precisely what they had done to deserve their fate is not too clear. There are a number of Rabbinic explanations, and the Scripture itself seems to permit several interpretations. Withal, the implications in the original verse seem clear enough in their application to contemporary Jewry. "They brought before G-d a strange fire which He had not commanded them."
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Written by Levi Avtzon
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Tuesday, 19 March 2013 21:23 |
We all have moods. Moods that affect the clothing we wear (I am in the brown shoes mood today), the lunch we eat (apricot jelly and peanut butter sandwich), the music we listen to (classical), and almost everything else in our lives, from the way we wake up in the morning to the nature of our nighttime dreams. And when we act in regrettable fashion, we, of course, blame it on the mood: "I am just having a bad day. Too bad!"
Unfortunately, moods can sometimes infringe on our relationship with G-d, and with our fellows as well. "I am just not in the mood for prayer," "I'll put on tefillin tomorrow," "I am not in the mood for my kids," "I am in the mood of wasting five hours of my life surfing the Web."
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Written by Tali Loewenthal
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Friday, 15 March 2013 01:32 |
Does modern man and woman have any way to relate to the holy? Or is holiness, being close to G-d, something which eludes us because the pace of life is too fast, or because we are too materialistic, or because we are living in a secular society, or because times have changed...
According to Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi (1745-1812; founder of Chabad Chassidism), we can learn something about this from a phrase at the beginning of our Parshah. Ostensibly, it is speaking about "a person who wishes to offer an offering to G-d," in the sense of an animal offering -- something which would appear to concern only the times of the Temple. However, it is well known that each word of the Torah has several levels of meaning. The Hebrew word for "offer" and "offering" (yakriv/korban) also means "draw near".
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