A Thought on Parshas V'zos Habracha

I am sending this out early in view of the fact that we will read this parsha on Friday of Simchas Torah in the Diaspora, and then Shabbos Bereishis follows the next day. I want to give a respectful salutation to the Panae'ach Raza whose works we have studied this past year and I do not want that lost in the rush of yom tov eruv Shabbos. So, I am going to provide this final Parsha Thought early so that all who have savored the great Panae'ach Raza can have a chance to say good bye, and still have some time to prepare to greet our new incoming commentary. "...af chovev amim kol kedoshav b'Yadecha...tuku l'Raglecha..." (33:3) "...You even loved nations, all their holy ones in Your hands...at Your feet..." This verse begins with a clause which is hard to translate, and harder to interpret. The word "af" generally means even, and the word "chovev" means to feel precious or fond feelings for, and "amim" means societies or groups of people. So, a literal rendering of the words would be "(You) even had precious feelings for societies". The object of the clause is not clear. Whom does HaShem regard so fondly? Why that fondness? Are there many peoples whom He has such love for? What is the "even"? Does it mean He has love even for those we would not expect Him to love? The Panae'ach Raza offers three perspectives. One is that the clause takes its context from the words which follow it, which read "all Your holy ones are in Your hands, under Your feet." This means that our clause refers to the nations of the world and portends that "even when Providence appears to favor other nations and the holy Jews are persecuted, we place our fate in Your hands, prepared to endure suffering for Your sake, and ready to sacrifice ourselves for Kiddush HaShem, placing ourselves in Your hands, ready to be trampled underfoot." The second interpretation he offers in the name of the Bechor Shor, whose writings we studied two years ago. That perspective is that the verse means "even when HaShem seems to favor other nations and the Jews are submerged within their ranks, subjugated by their powerful host nations, we continue to sanctify Your name. Although we may be a downtrodden small minority, the Jews perpetuate the ways of HaShem under the worst of circumstances and the world takes notice of our higher standard, making Your Name known." The last interpretation is in the name of "The Garden." Once before (parshas Re'eh a few weeks ago), he cited this source. At that time, I urged you to make note of it. Here he comes again, whomever or whatever he is. "The Garden" says that the verse means something very different. There are many nations across the globe. Each one of them offers up, spiritually, its holy ones, who find their way to Torah and convert. They are drawn to the Torah which was given to the Jewish nation, who stood at the foot of Mount Sinai and received Hashem's Holy Word. Our verse means "You have fondness for those nations who give their holy ones into Your Hands, where they merge with the Jews whose advantage was that they received the Torah from You at the foot of the mountain." According to this view, Moshe Rabbeinu in this verse is speaking about the Jews, including those who are destined to become Jews. This week, one of our good friends will be leaving LA to join his ba'shert who lives on the East Coast. He is a ger tzedek who was born in Japan, and made his way to Judaism. He has been learning Torah, fulfilling mitzvos, advocating for the Jewish people on a global scale, and will soon be building his own home in the Torah nation. We sadly and lovingly wish tzaetzchem le'shalom to Moshe Chaim ben Avraham Avinu. As we now understand our verse, HaShem looks fondly at the people of Japan, who have given us a holy soul to join with our own nation, who all serve HaShem through adhering to Torah from Sinai. ******************** This ends our year of study with Rabbeinu Yitzchak ben Yehuda HaLevi, the Panae'ach Raza. Many on our Parsha Thought group rank him among their favorites. He made his way into my heart and soul, particularly because he is at ease offering his own original approaches, which often fit perfectly within the actual wording of verses and are consistent with supportive teachings which he finds in the words of Chazal. He definitely took a more mystical or "remez v'sod" approach to these final parshios in Devarim, which some readers felt less drawn too. It may be that so much of Devarim is "review" or Mishna Torah, and so he offered herein this tangential flexibility, after the earlier four books of Chumash which he had addressed with more profound analytic thought. Regardless, I will miss the Panae'ach Raza and hope to return one day to delve further into his exciting work. Farewell my revered teacher and guide during this year's journey through Torash HaShem. I have learned very, very much from you, and your words will continue to inspire and enlighten me. So, as I write each year at this time, it is time to look for a new Rishon. We have merited study with Rashi, Ibn Ezra (short and long versions), Rav Saadia Gaon, Chezkuni, Rabbeinu Bachya, Rabbeinu Yona, Rabbeinu Avraham ben Rambam, Recanati, Radak, Seforno, Rashbam, Rabbeinu Efraim, Ralbag, Rosh, Rambam, Rabbeinu Chaim Paltiel, Bechor Shor, Rabbeinu Avigdor, Panae'ach Raza... Let us see what parshas Bereishis brings to our weekly parsha emails, with the loving help of HaShem. Good Shabbos. Good Yom Tov. D Fox

A thought on Parshas Haazinu

"...ha'azinu ha'Shomayim...v'tishma ha'aretz..." "...listen, heaven...hear, earth..." (32:1) The parsha begins with Moshe's appeal to heaven and earth that they bear witness to his admonitions to the Jewish people. Ha'azinu, the parsha, is the prophetic song of Moshe, foretelling the Jewish future and the interactions which we will have with the nations around us, with HaShem, and with each other. The song, in a sense, began with parshios Nitzavim and Va'Yelech. It reaches its crescendo here. Back to our opening verse: Moshe asks that "the heaven" and "the earth" heed his words. Rashi's interpretation of this imagery is that Moshe is citing heaven and earth as "witnesses" which will always endure and thus will always serve as secure reminders to us, who are living beneath the heavens and reside on earth, that we have a mission to carry out and that we have been instructed and warned about our roles therein. The Panae'ach Raza, however, has a different interpretation than Rashi. He cites an aggadic view found in the writings of our sages which considers "the heaven" as a euphemism for the neshama, the heavenly part of each person. The term "the earth", in turn, is a metaphor for the mortal, corporeal part of each person that, like the earth itself, is material substance which has been taken, then formed, from the earth, as the Torah explained in the saga of genesis. With this view, Moshe is appealing to each Jewish person, asking that we take to heart and internalize all that he is forecasting and forewarning. We need to hear him with our souls. We need to hear him with our minds also. We need to be thinking about our spiritual future, and we need to be mindful of our physical future. Our mission is to function on earth appropriately, while concurrently aware that the world to come, where existence is on a spiritual plane, is dependent on how we live our mortal lives. We must know that we serve HaShem by observing those commandments which are decidedly spiritual and heaven-bound, yet by meanwhile maintaining our personal and interpersonal conduct in the manner which the Torah dictates. Our souls are engrossed in fulfilling the mitzvos "bein adam l'makom" while our bodies are attending to the "mortal virtues" which are mitzvos "bein adam l'chaveiro". This is the message Moshe seeks to convey in "listen, heavenly part of you... hear, mortal part of you..." The message to our souls and selves is entirely about mitzvos, as the Panae'ach Raza notes: the opening three words of "ha'azinu ha'shomayim v'adab'eira" - listen heaven as I speak - equal in gematria 613. Moshe laid forth all of the Torah commandments in appealing to each of us, body and soul. May this first Shabbos of 5775 be one of unifying our souls and our mortal selves in a balanced, consistent and stable manner. Good Shabbos. Good Year. D Fox

A Thought on Parshios Nitzavim-Vayelech

"...va'yashlichem el eretz acheres..." "...and He will cast them away to some other land..." (29:27) In parshas Nitzavim, we receive the foreboding warning that if we abandon the ways of Torah while living off the bounty of HaShem's Promised Land, we must anticipate exile and endless struggles to survive both as a people and as individuals. The Torah is quite blunt in describing the perils of dispersion among the nations of the world. This particular verse, however, is less clear, speaking about dispersion "to some other place." Moreover, the verse has two other atypical qualities: the word va'yashlichem - "and He cast them away" - is written in the Torah with an enlarged "lamed". Transposing that into transliterated Hebrew, this would look like this: va'yashLichem. In addition, based on how the word is pronounced, there seems to be a yud missing between that lamed and the kof which follows it. We rely on the masora - the implicit nekuda sound which we use to guide us in proper word pronunciation, and read it with a chirik sound as if that yud is actually present. What are the hidden messages associated with these cryptic allusions to being scattered to an unknown place, of an elongated letter, and of a "missing" letter? The Panae'ach Raza addresses this through the interpretative media of remez and sod. He offers that the message of the large lamed, which is both elongated and broadened, hints at the permanence, the magnitude, and the distance of the casting away of a multitude of Jews into a far off enduring exile. He suggests that this refers to the exile of the Ten (Lost) Tribes of Israel. Our rabbinic tradition is that they were sent wandering as captives far beyond the fabled "Mountains of Darkness" and across the Sambation River. Try as we might over the centuries, we have not succeeded in identifying either of those locations nor have we located our long lost brethren. India, the Himalayas, the Americas, other remote places, have all been scoured in fact and in fantasy. As our verse alludes, those tribes are off in "some other land", that land unidentified and untraceable. As for the missing yud, the Panae'ach Raza says simply that yud equals, in gematria, ten. It is to those ten tribes that the verse refers. They are not mentioned, they are not reckoned anymore among the ranks of the Jewish people...........because we do not know where or who they might be. The verse which follows our verse says "ha'nistar'os la'HaShem" - the hidden things are known only to HaShem. The Panae'ach Raza says that this further develops the mystery of our lost brethren. The secrets of redemption, of revelation of the identities of those hidden Jews, of the end of exile, remain concealed from us. They are known only by HaShem. We wait and wait for His Presence to be sensed once again by Jews in all places, and throughout the entire world. Good Shabbos, this final Shabbos of our year 5774. May the new year 5775 be ripe with blessings, and of panae'ach razim - revealed secrets. D Fox

A Thought on Parshas Ki Savo

"...es HaShem he'emarta ha'yom...HaShem he'emircha..." (16:17-18) "...today you declared yourselves to HaShem...HaShem declared Himself to You..." There is something about this word he'emarta/he'emircha which is atypical. Many great sages have offered interpretations and translations. What is the word's meaning? Is it an uncommon conjugation of the word "omer" which means "to say" or "to declare", and does it mean that "today you are declaring (something) to or about HaShem, and He is doing the same to or for or about us"? The Panae'ach Raza brings three interpretations. He begins with the notion that the word is a derivative of the word emer which means to exchange. We find in Tehillim 94:4 the phrase "yis'amru kol poal'ae aven" which in context suggests that this word has something to do with deception or substitution. On that idea, the Panae'ach Raza suggests that our verse means that "today you have switched from allegiance to the world's idols and have chosen HaShem, so too has HaShem set aside the multitude of the world's nations and chosen you as His people." The second interpretation used by the Panae'ach Raza is that this word is a conjugation of the word "amar" which means to speak. In context, the verse means that "today you have proclaimed that HaShem is your G-d, so too has He proclaimed that you are His." The third angle is that word comes from "emir" which means to elevate or exalt (I associate this word with the university where I was a professor for decades, where the campus was owned by the Emir of Kuwait. In Arabic, the word refers to a chief or a high official, and it has a similar connotation in Hebrew)(the United Arab Emirates are provinces which are owned and ruled by individual emirs, hence their land is known as an emirate.) With this third interpretation, the verse now would mean "you have exalted HaShem above all else, so too has He raised you above all the nations." The first interpretation, then, refers to the definitive move that we Jews make as a nation upon serving HaShem: we are making it known that we recognize His One-ness and are thereby rejecting all substitute faiths, doctrines and life systems which would cast a shadow on the purity of our religious beliefs. We have made a total exchange by buying in to Torah. The verse is speaking about that absolute and exclusive contract which has been constructed with HaShem. In the second interpretation, the reference is to the intimacy of our communication with HaShem. We speak of Him. We speak to Him. He speaks to us, designating the Jewish people as His own. The verse is speaking about reciprocity and attachment. The third interpretation addresses symbiosis: when we place HaShem before all else and we distinguish Him through sanctifying His name and law, we distinguish ourselves as well. We become elevated and amplify our spiritual stature when we value HaShem's law by making our world His Kingdom. When we place HaShem above all else, we transcend above all else as well. Wishing you a good Shabbos. D Fox

A Thought On Parshas Ki Setze

"...ki kil'alas Elokim talui..." "...for a curse of Elokim is one hanging" (21:23) The Torah empowers the Sanhedrin to execute individuals who commit heinous acts. Moreover, that great Court in Jerusalem is commanded, in those cases, to hang the corpse of the executed person for a short time. However, our verse adds that this hanging, which follows execution which, according to halachic parameters, is rapid and humane (the Talmud details the procedures which were taken to assure that the sentence was carried out in order to fulfill the commandment but to prevent the condemned from physical agony), was not to be a prolonged event. The corpse could not remain overnight on the gallows, for this would be, per our verse, "kil'alas Elokim", cursed of or by or about HaShem. You can see from the ambiguity of my effort to translate that expression that it is begging interpretation. The Rishonim take differing perspectives on this expression. The Panae'ach Raza adds his view to that variety of interpretations. He offers, in his second perspective, that we need to picture the scene. On the one hand, we know that the Sanhedrin ruled during a time when the populace was G-d fearing and abhorred wrong doing. They adhered to the Torah, and would not tolerate those who willfully transgressed its mitzvos in public. This is where the phenomenon of execution came in. When an individual flagrantly demonstrated intentional violation of a specified set of abhorrent crimes and sins, with witnesses, and verbalized refusal to stop his crime or transgression, he was brought to judgement. Now, it is very important that we note that executions were quite rare - the Talmud writes that more than one in seventy years rarely occurred. When it did happen, the nation understood that this was essential justice, a verdict reached following long deliberation by a large group of compassionate and learned judges. There was no vigilantism and no impulsive killing. The nation knew that execution was more painful for the Sanhedrin than for the victim (the Talmud even writes that such executions had to be done in a manner which preserves the "golden rule" of "you must love your fellow as you do you yourself"). So - when the deed was done, the corpse was briefly hung but not left there on display. Why was that? The Panae'ach Raza suggests that to leave a corpse hanging for a long while, even over night, might draw public curiosity. People were bound to pass by and see the corpse without knowing the circumstances that had led to the verdict. They would focus not on the criminal record (which they did not know) but rather on the sight of a fellow Jew hanging dead. This would arouse compassion (in their not knowing the rationale) and then would ignite anger towards the judges. A judge is called, in the Torah, an elohim. (Worded differently, when we refer to HaShem as "Elokim", we are actually using the sanctified form of the generic word for judge. HaShem is "The Judge"). So, reasons the Panae'ach Raza, the people seeing the hanging corpse, ignorant of the history, would be angry at the court and would curse its judges. The Torah actually forbids one from cursing a judge, as it says (Sh'mos 22:27) "elohim lo ti'kallel." Hence, our verse forbids the Sanhedrin from letting a corpse remain hanging, for this will lead to the judges being cursed, obscuring the justification for bringing the culprit to justice in that way, which would be an affront to the Torah's Divine system. It would also whitewash the criminal by insinuating that the judges were cruel, uncompassionate and unjustified, which would desecrate the reality of the very pious sages who served G-d and nation. I read once that when the British justice system turned against Captain William Kidd, who had worked for England as a loyal privateer (and not as a criminal pirate) - although he was wrongly accused, tried without a real case against him, and sentenced for political reasons by officials and noblemen who later confessed their treacherous wronging of Kidd - he was put to death and his corpse was preserved and hung across the River Thames for three years as a "reminder" not to run afoul of the law. After a while, no one knew who that cadaver had been but only that the High Court had left his body on display for years, arousing the ire of the public. Kil'alas elokim talui. The concept of execution alarms us today, whether authorized by civil law or perpetrated by hate groups. The specter of a Jewish man being beheaded this week by "the caliphate" has horrified some, aroused the schadenfreude in others, and has been dismissed and downplayed through the denial and apathy of still others. It is a hard image for us to grasp in these "civilized" times. Understanding the halachic parameters of how and when the Sanhedrin exercised their authority and knowing that there were situations when the death penalty was essential, yet undertaken with great deliberation and compassion, not with brutality and drama, should help us respect and revere those who toil to adjudicate Torah law, not to revile them. Good Shabbos. D Fox

A Thought on Parshas Shoftim

"...Anochi ed'rosh me'imo..." "....I shall exact judgement from him..." (18:19) HaShem is being very clear with us in this verse. He will send us prophets who instruct us in the Path of G-d, the Torah, and its structure of rules and prohibitions. We listen to those prophets. Moreover, the prophets must listen to themselves, and abide by everything that they themselves teach others. This verse declares that the prophet who will not adhere to his own teachings will be confronted with Divine judgement. You may have noticed that throughout Sefer Devraim, the Panae'ach Raza has approached the verses from the viewpoint of remez and drush, focusing more on hidden meanings and covert indications which signal unexpected insights and messages. He does this on our verse too. Recall that the Panae'ach Raza - Rabbeinu Yitzchak ben Rabbeinu Yehuda haLevi - lived in France during the 14th century. The cry of the French Crusaders was still echoing in the streets of Burgundy and the fist of Christianity still gripped the Jewish ghettoes. Hence, the Panae'ach Raza hints at hidden messages within the words of the verses, offering clarity to his students and giving them hope and encouragement. He begins here by writing simply "look at the ends of the words, then notice that the next verse prescribes execution for those who claim prophecy yet preach falsehoods or endorse idolatry." He then writes "and the words which I will now list for you all have the numerical equivalent of his name. Specifically, they are elohae nechar (strange gods), mechir kelev (bartering a dog for a sacrifice), hevel v'rik (worthless and void), and also the opening letters of v'al safam ya'ateh (conceal their mouths)." That was a very cryptic interpretation. What is the Panae'ach Raza getting at? I too will write with cautious allusion, in keeping with his style here. 1. "look at the ends of the words" - here the Panae'ach Raza refers to the use of sofae teivos, spelling out a word by using the final letters of a group of words. The sofae teivos of the three words in our clause are yud, shin, vov. As a compound, they spell Yeshu which was a name once given to men. 2. "the next verse prescribes execution (to the man masquerading as a prophet) - here the Panae'ach Raza suggests that such a man who might have been given that same name as was hinted to in the sofae teivos might be the subject of this adjacent verse. 3. "word list with equivalent numerical values" - here the Panae'ach Raza observes that those three phrases each equal 316 which is exactly the numerical value of that name. He understands that a false prophet is regarded by the Torah as having those same negative qualities as the name-value equals. Those would be "strange god, inferior substitute, without worth or substance". Each of those features and all of them together constitute the halachic attitude towards any forbidden aspect of idolatry. 4. "the opening letters" - here the Panae'ach Raza notes that this fourth phrase refers to something which casts infectious impurity and must be closed up. The "opening letters" refers to the use of roshei teivos, spelling out a word by using the first letters found in a cluster of other words. Those three words begin with vov, shin, yud which when in a compound comprise both that name again and the value of 316. With this astute working of the concealed aspects of our verse, the Panae'ach Raza sought to set his students straight about the Torah view of all that challenges our faith doctrines. We cling to the 613. We do not give regard to the 316. We firmly believe in HaShem Echad. Ain od Milvado. Good Shabbos. D Fox

A Thought On Parshas Re'eh

"...Re'eh Nosati lifnei'chem ha'yom..." (11:26) "...Look - I place a blessing and a curse before you..." Our parsha opens up with the sobering words that we have been given a world where the choice is all ours: we can live a meritorious life of bracha or we can make poor choices. When we follow the Torah and its commandments, we are promised a life of bracha. The Panae'ach Raza breaks somewhat from his style and instead of addressing the verse head-on, he offers an account, a story, of a conversation between a great ba'al Tosafos and an apostate. A min once asked HaRav Rabbeinu Nosson son of Rabbeinu Meshulam why the current exile of Jews in the Diaspora has gone on for so long, relative to the Golus Bavel - the Babylonian Exile - which was a punishment for Jews having served idols, the gravest of sins, yet that exile ended after only 70 years. In contrast, Jews have remained in exile now for over a millennium! The min insinuated that the Jews have been punished for so long because we rejected their deity. Rabbeinu Nosson responded: the idols and icons which the Jews created which provoked the Babylonian Exile did not endure. They did not last, and we eventually recognized the impermanence of avoda zara. The avoda zara which led to the destruction of the Temple and this exile which has followed, however, was that fellow Jews proclaimed themselves as god. "That person" and his disciples distorted the Divine prophecies and made an enduring religion out of being human avoda zara. This belief has endured and has become widespread, which makes it more severe than the manufacture of wooden and metal icons which don't last. This exile is more severe. Meanwhile, the author of the Garden (remember this source) responded differently: the exiles to Egypt and to Bavel each culminated in the destruction of a single nation - theEgyptians, and the Babylonians, whose civilizations deteriorated once our nation returned to our Homeland. The current exile is very different, for our people are scattered now across the globe. This is a very greatchallenge, for there is no rapid way to bring about the redemption whensome many cultures and civilizations are involved in keeping our people hostage. This exile will take longer to resolve. The Panae'ach Raza goes on to say that later on (13:3) when the Torah describes the "navi sheker" - the prophet who strays and instructs people to follow his own words, which were not given to him prophetically - we are meant to infer that if we cannot heed the words of a prophet who ceases authentic prophecy, we certainly are not to heed the words of "ha'me'taeh ha'gadol" - "the Great Misleader" - who was never a prophet of HaShem to begin with and whose acts were never in accordance with the Divine plan. Jews! Anachnu maaminim bnei maaminim. Keep the faith. Good Shabbos. D Fox

A Thought on Parshas Ekev

"...va'esnafal lifnei HaShem...v'esnafal...asher his'nafalti...va'espalal..." (9:18, 25,26) "...and I fell before HaShem... and I fell...as I had fallen... and prayed..." Moshe reviews the steps he had taken following the Maaseh Egel, which involved falling in contrition and pleading before HaShem, and praying and praying. Rashi explains that the latter two verses refer to the same event which is mentioned in the earlier verse, but Moshe aims here to tell us the exact scope of his prayers, through these recurrent descriptions of how he threw himself to the ground and pleaded for mercy. The Panae'ach Raza asks a piercing question. Why is it necessary for Moshe to review and to repeat that he undertook those detailed and powerful prayers? Earlier on in the Torah, following that tragedy which occurred at the foot of Sinai, we learned about the scope and content of those prayers. Why is it necessary here to review them and to describe them with three repetitive statements - "and I fell, and I fell, as I fell, and I prayed"? The Panae'ach Raza sees in Moshe's emphasis here "chachma gedola" - astounding wisdom. The tragedy was that the Jewish people created the Egel haZahav which was a most extreme form of collective iniquity. He prayed to HaShem and the people were pardoned. Moshe, however, did not want this to convey a grossly incorrect message, namely, that whenever someone sins that he or she can simply rely on subsequent prayer to fix the problem. Sin is serious. Prayer is serious. The former cannot be taken lightly and the latter cannot be viewed as a mere reflexive verbal remedy. Sin must be contemplated and regretted. Prayer, in turn, must be contemplated and must come from deep within the heart. Moshe reviews the sequence which he used in praying about the Egel, and the theme of his prayers is that HaShem not wipe out the nation lest the Divine Name be tarnished. This was the thrust of Moshe's plea and this seems to be the variable which led to HaShem forgiving us. Moshe makes repeated references to this so that the people would begin to understand that it was the specific concern of chilul Shem Shomayim which led to being pardoned; when there is no issue of HaShem's name being tarnished and instead, the matter of chait is one of its reflection on the sinner instead, there can be no guarantee that a cursory prayer or plea will erase the stain on one's soul. Moshe reiterated the details of where his employing a precisely focused prayer sequence seemed to bring the desired result so that all would infer that in more general circumstances, iniquity requires a very intense subjective prayer generated by each individual. Following a script or a text will not suffice when we need to turn to HaShem and plead for forgiveness. Good Shabbos. D Fox