בס״ד Where There's A Will that listening may in fact be a Jewish students to worthwhile exercise, chances over a Shabbat and there were There's A Why are you won't be impressed. lectures by leading Weekly Why do certain people find Once we stop resisting and and religious academics. satisfaction in Judaism while accept that there is inherent Once a young man shouted 7 July – 13 July, 2019 others are bored stiff? Why is 4 Tammuz – 10 Tammuz, 5779 validity, suddenly Judaism back at the lecturer, "How can Torah: Numbers 19:1 - 22:1 faith exciting for some and makes all the sense in the you expect me to put on Haftorah: Judges 11:1-33 irrelevant for others, a joy for world. tefillin if I don't believe in PARSHAT CHUKAT one guy and an absolute G‑d?!" The speaker calmly burden for the next? One It is a psychological fact that We have Jewish replied, "First put on tefillin, fellow cannot imagine going we can grasp that which we Calendars. If you sincerely desire to and I promise you will see would like one, to work without first putting that you really do believe in on his tefillin and the other understand. But if there is a please send us a subject in which we have no G‑d." letter and we will hasn't seen his tefillin since his bar mitzvah 40 years ago. interest, we will walk into We all have a G‑dly faith send you one, or mental blockades regularly. inside us. It just needs to be ask the / This woman can't wait to get Calendars The sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, revealed. As illogical as it Chaplain to contact to shul and the other can't wait to get out. Why? Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak may sound, if we start by

us. Schneerson, says this explains observing a mitzvah, we find This week we read about the why some very astute that our faith will follow

Do you have family ultimate mitzvah of faith, the on the outside businessman may sit at a through and begin to blossom. Red Heifer. It is a statutory struggling? class and find himself It has been shown to be true Please contact or commandment whose reason struggling to grasp basic again and again. If we are not have them contact still remains a mystery. I must principles of rabbinic interested, no answer will be our office to learn admit, to take the ashes of a reasoning. Why is it that the good enough. If we are more about our red heifer and sprinkle them same person who can concoct genuinely searching for truth family programs. on a person so he may attain brilliant schemes in the and we are objective, there are You and they are spiritual purification is, boardroom fails to follow ample and meaningful indeed, rather mind-boggling. Family Programs not alone, we are straightforward logic in the answers. here to help. According to the Midrash, the Talmud class? The answer,

by Rabbi Yossy Goldman Almighty promised Moses says the Rebbe, is that this We offer free Grape that to him He would reveal businessman is really not that How To Live Like Ash Juice and Matzoh the secret meaning of this interested in the subject. But And Water for you to be able to mitzvah, but only after Moses if it was half as important to It is the most difficult law in make the blessings would initially accept it as a him as making money, he the Torah to understand. It every Shabbos. Divine decree. If he would might well become a rosh defies logic, and it inherently Please have your first take it on faith, thereafter yeshiva! contradicts itself. King chaplain / Rabbi rational understanding would So, in the same way that G‑d Solomon, the wisest of all contact us to enroll follow.The truth is that there told Moses that he could come men, could comprehend every (available to all are answers to virtually every commandment except this

Grape JuiceMatzah & to comprehend the meaning prisons). question people may have of the Red Heifer but only one (Tanchuma, Chukat 6). It about Judaism. Intelligent Hyman & Martha Rogal Center after he accepted it, similarly is the law of the red heifer. 5804 Beacon Street skeptics I meet are often today, those who genuinely Yet, all you need to know for Pittsburgh, PA 15217 amazed that what they had wish to understand Judaism your spiritual life lies in this 412-421-0111 long written off as empty will succeed, but only if they one law. Fax: 412-521-5948 ritual is actually buy into the product on some The opening words of the law www.alephne.org philosophically profound, [email protected] level first. of the red heifer, whose ashes with rich symbolic meaning. were mixed with water and But the skeptic has to be ready When I was studying in sprinkled to purify the ritually to listen. You can hear the yeshiva, I would always try to impure, are: “This is the most eloquent, intellectual attend the annual "Encounter decree of the Torah.” This law explanation but if you are not with Chabad" weekends for captures the essence of all that mentally prepared to accept university students. These were organized to expose the Torah wants to teach. We

IN JEWISH HISTORY can’t just ignore this law and move on to more July 7, 2019 – 4 Tammuz, 7779 “exciting” and “relevant” parts of the Torah. This is the Passing of R. Mendel Futerfas (1995). As a young man, R. decree of the Torah. But how is it relevant to us? We Mendel Futerfas (1906–1995) studied in the underground network have no Holy Temple, no actual offering of a red of Yeshivat Tomchei Temimim in Soviet Russia. He subsequently heifer. What does this law have to do with our modern, was given the task of obtaining the funds necessary to maintain the network of hidden classes, a mission fraught with danger of 21st-century lives? The purifying waters have two tremendous proportions. He later risked his life once again to primary ingredients: the ashes of the red heifer and oversee the clandestine escape of hundreds of Lubavitcher spring water. The ashes are the byproduct of fire, the Chassidim from the U.S.S.R. via Lemberg in 1946.As a result of polar opposite of water. In essence, the law is telling us these latter efforts, R. Mendel was caught and sent to work in the that our approach to spirituality must contain two Siberian gulags for eight years. After finishing his sentence, he was opposing forces. On the one hand, we must be like fire, denied exit from Russia for an additional eight years, until his which always reaches upward, expressing our yearning request was finally granted in 1963. He lived in London and then in to escape the confines of the physical reality and reach Brooklyn until his passing.R. Mendel was a legend in his time. His a higher place. On the other hand, we must be like dedication to the sixth and seventh Lubavitcher Rebbes, R. Yosef water, which flows downward, expressing the “return” Yitzchak and R. Menachem Mendel Schneerson, were unsurpassed, from spirituality to the physical world, imbuing the as were the lengths he was ready to go to assist a fellow Jew. He physical existence with spirituality. was known for his sharp wit and humor, and his well-attended Conventional wisdom teaches that to connect to the farbrengens were interspersed with life-lessons creatively deduced Divine, one must escape to a sanctuary or a from his experiences in Siberia mountaintop to meditate and pray, abandoning the July 8, 2019 – 5 Tammuz, 5779 challenges of materialism that present themselves in Ezekiel's Vision of the "Chariot" (429 BCE). On the 5th of everyday life. Tammuz of the year 3332 from creation (429 BCE), Ezekiel, among the only prophets to prophesy outside of the Holy Land, beheld a “Not true!” cries the red heifer. “You must also have vision of the Divine "Chariot" representing the spiritual water, which nourishes all life on earth. If you want to infrastructure of creation. connect to G‑d, you must find Him on this earth.” We July 10, 2019 - 7 Tammuz, 5779 must balance both extremes, mixing ashes into the Passing of Rabbi Pinchas Horowitz (1805). Rabbi Pinchas water, cultivating our spiritual life in order for our HaLevi Horowitz of Nikelsburg (1730-1805) was the rabbi of material life to become holy. Only by yearning to Frankfurt and the author of Sefer Hafla'ah and Sefer HaMikneh -- escape the confines of the earth can we imbue our life commentaries on the Talmud -- and Panim Yafot, an exegesis on on earth with meaning. the Torah. Rabbi Pinchas and his brother Rabbi Shmuel Shmelke Two people are on a flight home from their vacations. were students of the Mezritcher Maggid. They were amongst the Both are returning to a similar home, job, and lifestyle. first adherents to the Chassidic movement to hold rabbinic posts in The first person went on vacation to escape everyday Germany. The famed Rabbi Moshe Sofer, known as the Chatam reality. On the flight home, realizing that the paradise Sofer, considered Rabbi Pinchas to be one of his main teachers. Purim Ostroh (1792). The Jewish community of Ostroh (in what of vacation is over, facing the prospect of falling from is now western Ukraine) was miraculously spared when a Russian the intense pleasure of vacation to the mundane reality, army led by General Suvorov attempted to breach its walls, she is devastated. The vacation did nothing to improve claiming Polish insurgents were present inside. To commemorate her daily existence. In fact, she would have been better the miracle, the day of 7 Tammuz was established as a local day of off taking the money spent on vacation and using it to rejoicing, and a special scrollin which the story was inscribed was improve some part of her normal existence. The second read each year on this date.According to legend, two cannons that person went on vacation, not to escape his life, but struck the great Maharsha synagogue caused no harm. The two rather to enhance it. He realized that if he took some cannons were thereupon displayed in the synagogue for all to see. time off, he would return to his routine with greater (Yalkut Volhynia,issues 2–3) focus and passion. Friday, July 12, 2019 - 9 Tammuz, 5779 The same is true for our lives. We need to "go on Jerusalem Walls Breached (423 BCE). The Babylonian armies vacation." We need to devote some time every day to of King Nebuchadnezzar breached the walls of Jerusalem on the 9th escape from the mundane and immerse ourselves in of Tammuz in the year 3338 from creation (423 BCE); King spirituality. We need ashes, which represent the flame Ziddikiahu of Judah was captured and taken to Babylon (Jeremiah yearning to escape its wick. But our intention in going 39:5. A month later, the capture of Jerusalem was completed with on our spiritual vacation is not to escape the world, but the destruction of the Holy Temple and the exile of all but a small number of Jews to Babylon). Tammuz 9 was observed as a fast day rather to get recharged—to better accomplish our until the 2nd breaching of Jerusalem's walls (by the Romans) on the mission of mixing fire and water, of connecting heaven 17th of Tammuz, 3829 (69 CE), at which time the fast was moved and earth. By Rabbi Menachem Feldman to that date. (Talmud, Rosh Hashanah and Tur Orach Chaim 549)