Hanna's Dvar Torah

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Have you ever dreamed of a life where you don’t need to wake up early to go to work? A life where you could dedicate your time only to subjects that really interest you?

You are not the first one.

When the Jews approached the land of Israel, Moses sent spies to explore the land, in order to plan the best way to conquer it. The spies returned with a pessimistic report: the land is indeed good, but its inhabitants are very strong. They concluded that: “We won’t be able to overcome them”. The people started mourning until G-d got angry and decided that all this generation would stay in the desert for 40 years and only their children would merit to enter the Holy land.

But… these Jews had just seen with their own eyes the Ten Plagues, the Split of the Red Sea, the giving of the Torah. How could they question G-d’s power?

Chasidut explains the deeper meaning of the Jews’ unwillingness to enter the land of Israel:

As long as the Jews were in the desert, they had all what they needed in order to live with no effort. The bread (the Manna) descended from the sky. Miriam’s Well accompanied them miraculously throughout the desert. Their clothes were growing together with them. In this way, they could completely dedicate themselves to study Torah and do Mitzvot. But when they would enter Israel, all these miracles would stop. They would have to cultivate the fields, graze the animals and generally get involved in physicality. They would have the ability to study Torah all day anymore…

The Jews didn’t want that. They preferred to stay in the desert and continue this spiritual way of life. It sounds ideal. Why were they punished so hard?

G-d has enough angels that fulfil His will without making any mistake, since they don’t have the “evil inclination” that we humans have. When G-d created us, humans, He was looking for something different.

G-d wanted a material world, where the good is hidden and the human reveal it. This can only be through keeping Torah and Mitzvot in this physical world, without separating ourselves from material life.

Let’s think of a way to bring G-d close to the material world this week, by doing a Mitzva.

Shabbat Shalom!

Hanna

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One of the interesting rules I learned in my teaching studies is not to answer students’ questions. It is better to return the question and ask the student: what do you think? In the different classes I have taught so far, I saw it happening again and again. Most of the times, the only thing a child needs is some encouragement and/or direction. Returning the question to the students helps them get by themselves to the right answer, while improving their thinking skills so in the future, they are able to solve even problems that were never taught in the classroom.

This is exactly the message of the weekly Torah portion Behaalotcha. We learn about the lighting of the Menorah in the Holy Temple. The high priest who lit it daily had to make sure that every flame was lit well enough so it could continue to shine by itself, without external help.

Every one of us is like the Menorah – we have to shine and light the world around us. The Menorah consists of the body (the object) and the light. We too have our body and our soul. We always need to remember that our body is not the purpose, it is there just to serve the soul and allow its light to shine.

G-d “lights” us and gives us the power to accomplish His mission in this world. But we need to shine with our own light. This is why G-d gave us free choice and set up the world in a way that the right thing to do isn’t always easy. G-d gives us the power, but we need to decide to use it for the good.

When we help or teach someone, let’s have in mind to educate him/her in a way that in he/she will be able to stand on their own in the future .

Even when we are not in a friendly and encouraging environment, we can and must shine with our own special light.

Shabbat Shalom!

Hanna