3rd of Tishrei, 5786- Tzom Gedaliah- When studying Torah, always read the comments!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGADf89DBv0&t=48s

https://lyricstranslate.com/en/haaderet-vehaemunah-wondrous-power-and-faithfulness.html

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_of_Gedalia

Matching game: https://www.studystack.com/picmatch-672266

 

The chant!

 

Fruits:  https://www.learnhebrewpod.com/vocabularies/12/fruits

 

Mechalkel: https://www.sefaria.org/Siddur_Ashkenaz%2C_Weekday%2C_Shacharit%2C_Amidah%2C_Divine_Might?vhe=The_Metsudah_siddur,_1981&lang=he

 

 

 

Vayelech /Ha’azinu  and introducing the Mephorshim,  Mikra’ot Gedolot,  and more.

Quiz on Vayelech OR Quiz on  Ha’azinu

Bim bam video = vayelech- https://youtu.be/MYg58RK6j6E?si=xFhVuoZNCqFfhO1a

Commentary- it’s in the window (stained glass) Be a commenter!

First of all the comentators: Rashi

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDATOzHjm2w

Give me a two sentence explanation: Why start with Beresheet?  Why not start with the rules?

Comments on the first verse in the Torah.  Why so different?  Which one is the truth? 

How jews study Torah:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f8/Mikraot_Gedolot.JPG

 

https://jps.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/CommentBibleExcerpt.pdf

 

The first Comment Rashi makes on the Torah:

Rabbi Isaac said: The Torah which is the Law book of Israel should have commenced with the verse (Exodus 12:2) “This month shall be for you the first of the months” which is the first commandment given to the Jewish people. What is the reason, then, that it commences with the account of the Creation? Because of the thought expressed in the text (Psalms 111:6) “He declared to His people the strength of His works (i.e. He gave an account of the work of Creation), in order that He might give them the heritage of the nations.” For should the peoples of the world say to the Jews, “You are robbers, because you took by force the lands of the seven nations of Canaan”, our people may reply to them, “All the earth belongs to the Holy Blessed One; The ONE created it and gave it to whom God pleased. When God’s will was such he gave it to them, and when God willed God took it from them and gave it to us” (Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 187).

Three Generations later,  Nachmanides says something very different:

One may object (to Rashi) and instead say that it was indeed very necessary to begin the Torah with the chapter of “In the beginning God created” for this is the root of faith, and one who does not believe in this and thinks the world just exists denies the essential principle of the [Judaic] religion and has no Torah at all.  This answer is saying the process of creation is a deep mystery not to be understood from the [literal reading of the] verses, and it cannot truly be known except through the Mesorah going back to Moses our teacher who received it from the mouth of the Almighty, and those who know it are obligated to conceal it.

 

A few generations later,   Rabbi Ovadiah Ben Seforno has a different starting point:

בראשית, at the beginning of time; this is the first moment which is indivisible into shorter periods. There had not been a concept “time” previous to this, i.e. there had only been unbroken continuity.

Seforno is teaching that  “time” as one of the things created by God!

 

And not all that long ago,  R. Shimshon Rafael Hirsch,  went very deep in his first comment on the Torah, speaking about free will.

…and just as God freely rules God’s world, so God did also grant freedom to humanity, into whom God breathed a spark of God’s free being. With this spark, God gave humanity freedom over its small world, freedom over the human body and its forces, and placed humanity as the free image of the free God in the world ruled by God’s omnipotence….

Humanity, created by God, with all it’s  moral failings, has the capacity, with all it’s moral flaws, to achieve supreme moral perfection and rise to the moral ideal set before humanity by their Creator. The very possibility of human failings is part of human moral perfection; it is, in fact, the fundamental condition of human moral freedom.

With this freedom, both, the world and humanity will reach the highest goal of good, for which they were both created. For the God who set this goal for them created them both for this goal, through God’s almighty, unhindered, free will.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hebrew			English
אֲנִי			I
אַתָּה			you (m. sing.)
אַתְּ			you (f. sing.)
הוּא			He/Him
הִיא			She/Her
אֲנַחְנוּ			We/Us
אַתֶּם			You/Y’all (m. pl.)
אַתֶּן			You/Y’all (f. pl.)
הֵם			They/them (m. pl.)
הֵן			They/them (f. pl.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

VAYELECH

1.      This week’s Torah portion only has two commandments.  One of them is?

a.     Not to eat the Etrog

b.     To say the Amidah

c.     To Not work on Shabbat

d.     To not eat shellfish

e.     For the entire Jewish people to gather every 7 years for a super-massive reading of the Torah.

 

2.     Great!  But what’s the other one?

a.     Every adult Jew needs to go to Jerusalem once in their lives.

b.     Every Adult jew must fast on Yom Kipuur.

c.     Every adult jew must write a Sefer Torah (scroll).

d.     Every adult jew must pray to God  3 times a day.

e.     It’s a warning not to disturb the Ark of the Covenant.

 

3.     What?  But I don’t even know what you need to do that.  I mean,  you would need to know all the ______________ in the Torah

a.     Commandments

b.     Traditions

c.     Suggestions

d.     Holidays

e.     Calculus

 

4.     And to make it, don’t you need to use a

a.     Chisel

b.     Feather Quill

c.     Red-hot steel branding tool

d.     Steel tipped fountain pen

e.     A 9.8 petawatt argon laser

 

5.     And you need something special to write on,  namely

a.     Animal Parchment

b.     Plant Parchment

c.     Papyrus

d.     Archival paper

e.     Peizo-electric agar-agar

 

6.     And the ink!  Isn’t the ink special?  Itsn’t it made with…

a.     Gall Nuts

b.     Cow bile

c.     Onion peels

d.     Human tears

e.     Fried chicken skins

 

7.     Wait a minute,   don’t you need a professional to that,  a whats-it-called?

a.     A Hazzan

b.     A Moihel

c.     A Yibbum/Yevamah

d.     A Sofer/Soferet

e.     A Shabaknik

 

8.     And the time!  How could I do this, when it takes____ to finish one?

a.     Three years

b.     One year

c.     Six months

d.     One month

e.     You can silkscreen print the thing in an afternoon.

 

9.     Okay, fine, I could pay someone.  But that would cost

a.     The same as a Minecraft expansion pack

b.     The same as sponsoring kiddush lunch after a bar/bat/Bnei mitzvah at AES

c.     The same as a new SUV

d.     The same as a new house

e.     The same as a B-2 stealth bomber

 

10.  But what would be the point of my writing out an entire Torah scroll?

a.     I would have great Hebrew handwriting

b.     I would be supporting my local ink merchants

c.     I would be keeping alive the nearby parchment factory

d.     I would be showing I am smarter than everyone

e.     I would have spent hours studying or memorizing most of the Torah, and it would be in my mind and heart.