ד״סב Torah The Little Things terrible, but what about the things. By Rabbi Mordechai "small details"? Are they as Wollenberg This week's Torah reading important to me? These and Weekly begins with the statement Me, You and Us Who is many other examples come to "Vehaya eikev tishme'un..." July 25-31, 2021 mind in our everyday lives, at more important, the Jew or the The literal translation is 16-22 Av, 5781 home and at work, in our Jewish people? Is "Because of your listening to business, financial and personal it Reb Yisroel or am Yisroel? Torah Reading: these commandments" (you In last week's parshah we read Eikev: Deuteronomy 7:12 - 11:25 will merit the blessings which dealings. It is all too easy to Haftarah: Isaiah 49:14 - 51:3 rationalize and justify a small- the first chapter of the Shema. the Torah goes on to scale violation of our This week, we read the second. PARSHAT EIKEV enumerate). The Yet there are so many word eikev can also mean principles, much more so than a We have Jewish "major" violation. Of course, a similarities between the two. In "heel." The fact, certain sentences are Calendars. If you large number of small commentator Rashi explains virtually identical. Why would would like one, that the verse is alluding to the quantities add up to a much please send us a larger quantity, even if they are the Torah, normally so cryptic, "light" commandments, the be so repetitious? If one letter and we will seemingly less seemingly insignificant by send you one, or themselves. But there is an examines the text closely, a important mitzvot which significant distinction between ask the additional reason why the Calendars people tend to "trample with "small details" are so the two chapters becomes Rabbi/Chaplain to their heels." The type of things immediately discernible. The contact us. important. A person has two which all too easily fall by the first chapter is in the singular wayside. We all know about the inclinations — the "good Do you have family inclination" and the "evil and the second is in the plural. "major" commandments, such Teach Torah to your son in the on the outside inclination" (yetzer as keeping kosher, or fasting first, and to your children in the struggling? on Yom Kippur, things like tov and yetzer hara) — those two inner voices that clamor for second. Put tefillin on Please contact or that. What about the smaller your hand in the first, and on have them contact our attention. The evil details? Are we as careful? This your hands in the second. our office to learn idea applies across all aspects inclination is very smart and But why the need for both? more about our of our lives. The quietest child devious. It does not come to a Why not use one or the other? family programs. — do we too easily ignore him person and say, "Go on, rob a bank," or a similarly large-scale Why a paragraph for each You and they are or her precisely because s/he is misdeed. Why not? Because it expression? The answer is Family Programs quiet and shy? What about all not alone, we are that G-d speaks to the those big multi-million dollar knows no decent person will here to help. fall for such a suggestion. So it individual, but G-d also speaks campaigns for this or that comes to a person and suggests to the community. He addresses cause? It is very good that some the Jew, and also the Jewish We offer free Grape causes get such high publicity a much more reasonable People. The first paragraph of Juice and Matzoh — but what about the causes sounding idea — why not add a the Shema teaches us that each for you to be able to nobody hears about? The few dollars to the expenses and every single individual is make the blessings "little" things which fall by the claim, after all you worked important, even critical, and every Shabbos. wayside? What about the hard, you deserve to get paid G-d addresses every individual Please have your workplace? Obviously I would more anyway, right? Once we fall for the lighter temptation, personally. The second chaplain / Rabbi never dream of embezzling our resistance has been eroded paragraph reminds us that there contact us to enroll from my employer. That is and it will be much easier to is also a sum of all the parts; (available to all clearly immoral and not right. become ensnared in worse and that together, individuals make Grape Juice & Matzah prisons). On the other hand, I need to worse behavior until we find up a community. And make a quick international ourselves falling into large- communities, too, are very Hyman & Martha Rogal Center personal call — surely nobody scale violations of our important. In some ways, we 5804 Beacon Street will mind. It's only a few principles. This is why the acknowledge the supremacy of Pittsburgh, PA 15217 dollars, right? Are we taking seemingly little things are so the individual; in others, 412-421-0111 advantage of someone else, community is supreme. Yes, Fax: 412-521-5948 even in a small, seemingly important — they must not be www.alephne.org there is a tension at play here. insignificant manner? Then trampled on, allowed to fall by [email protected] The Talmud captures these there is my relationship the wayside. By withstanding seemingly conflicting notions with G-d, my behavior as a the small temptations, we avoid when it examines why Jew, charged with maintaining the slippery slope that leads to humankind was created high standards in all aspects of greater transgressions and differently from the animal my life. Obviously I would remain true to our principles. kingdom. As described in the never do anything really Let us not forget the little IN JEWISH HISTORY Sunday, July 25, 2021 --- 16 Av, 5781 first chapter of Genesis, animals were created in herds, Sir Moses Montefiore (1885) while only one man and one woman were created initially. Sir Moses Montefiore was a religious philanthropist who worked Says the Talmud: This is to teach us that a) it was tirelessly on behalf of his brethren worldwide, and especially in the Land worthwhile for the Almighty to create the world for but a of Israel. He dispensed large sums toward charitable causes and founded single individual, and b) so that no human being could numerous establishments and institutions. Sir Montefiore traveled far and boast that his or her pedigree is better than anyone else's. wide to visit Jewish communities and interceded on their behalf before rulers such as Queen Victoria, Czar Alexander the Second, the Ottoman We all come from Adam and Eve, so you are no better Sultan, and the pope. He lived to the ripe old age of 100, passing away on than me, nor I than you. 16 Menachem Av 5645 (1885). Thus, from the very same event, the Torah teaches us this paradoxical lesson: on the one hand, the individual human Tuesday, July 27, 2021 --- 18 Av, 5781 being is king; while on the other, humanity reigns. Western Lamp Extinguished (c. 578 BCE) Every evening, the priest would kindle the seven lights of the menorah in The paradox finds expression in Halachah (Torah law) as the Holy Temple. Miraculously, although six of the seven candles would well. On the one hand, Torah law rules that we ought not burn out, the western lamp would remain lit until the following evening. to pay exorbitant ransom monies if an individual is taken During the reign of the idolatrous King Ahaz (father of the pious King hostage; this is to avoid rewarding and encouraging Hezekiah), this miracle discontinued. The first time the western lamp was hostage taking, so as to safegaurd the community as a found to have extinguished was on 18 Menachem Av (or, according to whole: we may save this one individual, but in doing so we other versions, 17 Menachem Av). (Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 580:2) increase the danger to the community. On the other hand, Torah law rules that should a dangerous enemy demand Wednesday, July 28, 2021 --- 19 Av, 5781 that Jewish leaders hand over to them a particular Passing of Rabbi Yaakov Culi (1732) Born in Jerusalem in 1689 (5449?), Yaakov Culi moved to individual lest they attack the entire community, it is not Constantinople, Turkey, where he found adequate facilities and financial permitted to sacrifice even one individual for the sake of backing to publish the scholarly output of his learned grandfather, Rabbi the community. Moses ibn Habib, including classics such as Get Pashut and Ezrat Nashim. So we need both sections of the Shema. In Torah, both are The brilliant young scholar quickly came to the attention of the chief rabbi paramount, the individual and the community. of Constantinople, Yehuda Rosanes, the undisputed leader of Sephardic Jewry at the time, and he was appointed to the beth din (rabbinical court). Why do I focus on this theme today? Because in Upon the passing of Rosanes, Rabbi Yaakov edited and published his late approximately five weeks time we will usher in the New teacher’s writings with his own additional glosses: Mishneh Lamelech on Year, and the ongoing tension between the single and Maimonides’s Mishneh Torah and Perishat Derachim. plural will manifest itself very blatantly. "Why must we Toward the end of his own short life, Rabbi Culi began work on the pay to pray?" some will demand. They will decry the Mea’am Loez, a compendium of rabbinic lore and commentary on all shameless commercialism of organized religion.