Part of The Yom Haatzmaut Project
1. Irrigation ~ Breathing life back into a dead land.
When Zionist idealists first arrived in Israel it consisted of parched desert wasteland, and intolerable swamps. The State of Israel created an ingenious irrigation system that allowed thousands of trees and crops to flourish. Even now, the government has completed the Israeli National Water Carrier, which brings water from the Sea of Galilee, in order to further increase the amount of land cultivated in the country.
2. Israel’s various rescue operations ~ Saving Jews and bringing them home.
From the 1991 Operation Solomon in which 14,500 Ethiopians were covertly airlifted to their awaiting brothers, to the 1676 rescue of high jacked Jews in Entebbe, this country refuses to allow Jews to suffer, anywhere.
3. Shmita ~ Rebirth of Hilchot Ha’aretz.
After hundreds of years of not being able to fulfill and experience of beauty of “The Shabbos of the Land,” The State of Israel’s existence has allowed for the reinstating of a huge halachic obligation and privilege.
4. World Crisis Aid Relief ~ Tikkun Olam.
Despite the size and lack of money in the country, Israel never fails to be one of the first country’s represented at a tragedy relief scene. During the aftermath of disasters such as the Tsunami, Hurrican Katrina, and various famines throughout Africa, the familiar Magen David Adom is among the rubble. Israel continues to provide food and medical attention for the greater global community in need.
With so many details, so many materials, and so many measurements, the 21st century Jew has to ask, “Where do I fit in to Parshat Terumah?” The endless instructions for building the Bet Hamikdash are somewhat overwhelming, but the parsha’s first pasuk is key to finding yourself amongst the construction:
“… they shall take to Me a portion, from every man whose heart wills him, you shall take My portion” (Exodus 25:1)
His heart? What on earth does this have to do with one’s heart? After all, the service done in the Bet Hamikdash seems so… ceremonial and material oriented. And yet, part of the mitzvah in donating to this place is of an emotional nature. A few psukim later, the Torah says something else puzzling:
"They shall make a sanctuary for Me, so that I may dwell among them. According to what I will show you, after the form of the Tabernacle and the form of all its vessels, and so shall you do." (Exodus 25:8)
Why doesn’t the Torah say “among IT” if it’s referring to the sanctuary? The gemara says that the Torah specifies “them” to mean the people themselves, the people of every generation. Does this mean we are violating a major mitzvah de’oraita (from the written Torah)? How can we possibly observe this mitzvah today?
Each one of us is a Bet Hamikdash.
Just like the temple was a multilayered building, a physical place that housed the essence of the spiritual reality, our bodies house our Neshamot. The korbanot (sacrifices), songs, and services performed in the Bet Hamikdash were the ways in which the Jews served Hashem and nurtured their relationships with Him. For us, it is through our actions, the melacha of daily life that we nurture our neshamot (our holy of holies) and serve Hashem. This is both an internal and an external mitzvah. This service cannot be “faked” or only carried out through the mitzvot parallel to the actions that were done in the bet hamikdash, this service must be felt. Strange that a commandment is demanding of how we feel, but similar to teshuvah, our hearts are essential to the completion of this mitzvah.
Rabbi Akiva Tatz says that there are two ways to kill your neshama. You can destroy it by poisoning yourself with mitzvot lo ta-aseh (negative mitzvot), or you can starve it by not doing mitzvot aseh (positive mitzvot)… both aspects are key to serving Hashem in your own personal Bet Hamikdash today. You cannot connect to Hashem by simply not doing anything wrong. The Bet Hamikdash was a place of activity, people literally traveled days to reach the temple in order to serve Hashem. It was a tangible reminder that Hashem’s presence in the physical world is constant. Today, our work is really cut out for us because our awareness of Him is completely dependant on our own actions.
The Kabbalah explains that between Ein Sof (Hashem himself) to the world and reality that we live in, there are many different worlds. Each one becomes less and less transparently spiritual, with more and more layers of physicality masking it. By our world, Hashem is almost entirely hidden (Olam, the word for “world” has the same soresh as “ne-elam” meaning hidden). But He is just as present in this world as the others. Only the layers which cloak him are thicker and harder to peel away. The poet Raphael Simon wrote, "To fall in love with God is the greatest of all romances; To seek him, the greatest adventure; To find him, the greatest human achievement."
That is our mission, and our challenge. Each person does this in his or her own way, and anyone else’s journey would not satisfy another’s. It is both an incredibly personal and private experience, as well as a communal one which cannot be completed without every single person together. In the Bet Hamikdash each individual was responsible for bringing their own sacrifices during the year, but come Yom Kippur, the Kohen Gadol entered the Holy of Holies, and he alone begged for forgiveness on behalf of the entire nation. The risk was death. Today we must each straddle the same line between worshipping Hashem through our individual temples (our bodies and neshamot), and accepting the fact that we are not complete as individuals without the Bet Hamikdash.
May we all open our hearts in order to receive Hashem’s love, and in order to give Him our own. I hope to see everyone in The Bet Hamikdash any day now… Shabbat Shalom!
Have you ever felt an emotion so intense, so powerful, that it physically hurt you? It’s strange how fine the line is between love and hate, awe and fear, ecstasy and pain. The ultimate example of an overpowering experience is of course, Matan Torah.
But let’s back track a little. In the beginning of the parsha, Yitro, Moshe’s father-in-law suggests a justice system made up of multiple people. Until this point, Moshe had been both the sole leader and judge of the entire nation. Yitro introduces hierarchy, and therefore human bias into the law. The more people involved in a justice process, the more complicated it becomes. Later, when the Torah describes the justice system to be established, we see that it is absolutely essential to have more than one person deciding on a verdict. Why begin the parsha with this? Is it really that significant that Yitro should become famous for it? And how is it connected to The Revelation?
The entire series of events, from The Exodus to Har Sinai holds an extraordinary message, an eternal key for Bnei Yisrael. As a nation, we learn about Kedusha -- Holiness. We are told we are different - in mission, rules, and fate. More specifically we learn about the Kohanim, which teaches us that this idea of Kedusha also exists on an individual basis. The ultimate individual of course being Moshe. We also learn that Kedusha applies not only to people, but also to time and space.
It is through one of Hashem’s most beautiful gifts that we receive this lesson -- Shabbat. Shabbat is the Bet Hamikdash of time. It is the Zeevug (soul-mate) of Bnei Yisrael. It is our taste of the sweet future world. The Bet Yaakov says that Shabbat is in fact the completion of the creation of man. Animals were first created with only instinctual logic. When Hashem created the human being, Da’at (knowledge) permeated the world. Reason, emotion, truth suddenly existed in potential, in a seed called Adam. This gave us the power to distinguish, to understand the difference between right and wrong, light and dark, and most importantly, kodesh and chol. We are the vessels through which a spiritual reality could exist and be utilized.
Rabbi Kosowsky teaches in his Tefillah class that Kedusha is defined by OUR involvement in our relationships with Hashem, and in our actions in this world. Think about places that to this day we consider holy sites. You would think that Har Sinai would be blocked off by a red ribbon and visited by the thousands. But it’s not. Har HaBayit (the site of the Bet Hamikdash) on the other hand, is as Kadosh as can be. Why? Because the Bet Hamikdash was our service to Hashem. It was us being doers, being active members of our relationship with G-d. Midrash Tana’im on Devarim says that just because we refrain from melacha (“work”) on Shabbat, it doesn’t mean that Hashem doesn’t like melacha. In fact, our ability to act is beloved to Him. The Maharal writes in Pachad Yitzchak that the mitzvot of Shabbat are the expressions of love for Hashem that we cannot show by simply not doing melachot.
If Kedusha is the utilization of our potential than it is very much connected to Yitro’s justice system make-over. Bring in more people. Utilize more minds, more experiences, more perspectives. Yes, the more the complicated, but Hashem made us different for a reason. This world can not be enjoyed, healed, or uplifted without the unique actions and contributions of every soul. At Matan Torah, we experience Hashem directly for the first two mitzvot. It is so intense and powerful that the midrash tells us we were on the brink of death. And then Moshe steps in and acts as the middle man. Why did Hashem start the process one way if He knew it would be finished in another? Perhaps because we needed to understand that from the very beginning, our relationship was to be one of human involvement. The Torah, in all its wonder and mystery, can only be fully conveyed through the bodies and minds of human beings. Of us. We are the last piece of the puzzle. We are “the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything” as Douglas Adams sums it up so eloquently.
Again and again we learn how incredible our potential is, how fortunate we are for knowing it, and how much good we could accomplish if only we wanted to. Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira says, “Many people console themselves by saying ‘If I am not serving G-d as I should at least I have good aspirations. Many times my heart cries out in the pain of my distance from Him.’ But would the drowning man console himself with his desire to be rescued with his heart’s cry? What use is it if he doesn’t act to save himself and try to get out of the water?”
May we all have the strength and Emunah to discover our potential as individuals, as Jews, and as G-d’s beloved human beings. Shabbat Shalom!
Display Name : Leah Ciner
Gender: Female
Birthday: August 21, 1987 (26 Av)
HomeTown: Denver, CO
Current City of Residence: Jerusalem ~ Thank G-d
Favorite City outside of Jerusalem: Tzfat
Yeshiva/Seminary Attended: Machon Maayan, Nishmat
Occupation: nursing school student & madricha at Machon Maayan
Favorite Music: The Beatles, Ben Harper, Bob Dylan, Yosef Karduner, The Shins, Neshama Carlebach, Phish, Simply Tsfat, Coldplay, Zach Salsberg, Moshav Band, Dispatch
Favorite Book : The Hundred Secret Senses, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Trial of G-d, Souls on Fire, Everything is Illuminated, The Little Prince, The English Patient, The Kite Runner, Candide, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, The Glass Menagerie, Man's Search for Meaning, Candide
Freestyle description: Just trying to take full advantage of the gorgeous opportunities that Hashem has given me ~ living in Eretz Yisrael, studying nursing, and learning Torah... life is beautiful.
Random Questions: When you hesitate before hitting snooze on your alarm clock, are you being lazy?
No, I'm apparently capable of functioning normally in the mornings without actually being awake.
What's the earliest you've gotten up to watch cartoons and what did you see?
I used to wake up for Pinky & the Brain way before sunrise - I still think it's genius.
Have you ever drank your soda from a straw?
Hmmm... Carbonated drinks tickle my nose.
What is your dream vacation?
Sun. Ocean. Sand. Palm trees. No clocks.
Do you like hot sauce?
HAHA. No. But I overdose on salt...
Click here to view Leah Ciner's Posts
