This week's parsha raises a question that goes to the heart of Judaism, but which was not asked for many centuries until raised by a great Spanish scholar of the...
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Torah Reading
This week's parsha raises a question that goes to the heart of Judaism, but which was not asked for many centuries until raised by a great Spanish scholar of the...
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Daily Goals
This universe is constantly moving toward greater and greater disorder. In simple terms, this law of entropy means that things left alone will disintegrate, fall apart, and eventually disappear. Existence is only extant as long as there is a force supporting its existence.
The same is true of life itself. The normative state of living things is death. We humans are only alive because we are constantly making ourselves live. The body is dying due to lack of oxygen, but we are constantly breathing in oxygen to keep it going. The body is disintegrating, but we are replenishing lost cells every time we eat. The body is being tugged toward Earth by gravity, but we force ourselves to stand and sit upright. We are, in effect, continually pumping life into an inanimate collection of atoms that we call our body.
In this week’s Torah portion we are told: “Choose life, in order that you may live” (Deut. 30:19).
Spiritual life is as much a choice as physical life. Left alone, a person’s state will tend toward low moods – depression, selfishness, mindlessness, laziness and similar effortless states. Unless we actively choose to be alive, awake, energized and engaged in life, we will sleepwalk through the world.
We human beings are not naturally interested in being awake and alive spiritually. We must put in the exra effort to do so. If we wish to be alive, then we must choose life. Rosh Hashana is a time to wake up to life. We have probably been asleep for most of our year. The shofar is an alarm clock, beckoning us to wake up – to wake up and choose life, so that we can truly live.
Today In Jewish History
On this day in 1993 The Oslo I Accord was signed on the White House lawn in Washington DC. The accord was the culmination of secret meetings that had taken place in Oslo, Norway between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
The accord established the interim government of the Palestinian people, the Palestinian Authority or PA, and both sides recognized the other as a negotiating partner. This interim government was to last 5 years at which time a lasting agreement would be worked on between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Oslo I led to Oslo 2 in which details of Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza were discussed. The five years of Oslo passed, but little was done to build towards a lasting peace. In July 2000 then Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Arafat met at the Camp David Summit. Barak was willing to give up 99% of the territories conquered in past wars for peace. In the end, Arafat would not agree, bringing the Peace Process to a grinding halt, and leading to the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa Intifada in which some 1,000 Israelis and 4,000 Palestinians were killed.
The iconic picture from the White House lawn shows Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin and Yasser Arafat shaking hands, but interestingly enough it was their to-be successors Mahmoud Abbas, then PLO foreign minister, and Shimon Peres then-Secretary of State who signed Oslo I.
Daily Quotes
Daily Sources
See! I give you today (a choice of) a blessing and a curse. The blessing, when you listen to the commandments of God your Lord, which I command you today. The curse, if you do not listen to the commandments of God your Lord, and you deviate from the path which I command you today, in order to follow other gods which you did not know.
-Deut. 11:26-28
See I have placed before you today life and good, and death and evil … I call upon heaven and earth to witness against you, life and death I have placed in front of you, the blessing and the curse – choose life in order that you and your children can live!
-Deut. 30:19
See! I give you today (literally, I place before you’ a blessing and a curse. ‘Before you’ and not ‘on you,’ for no evil descends from heaven, rather it is placed before you. The choice is yours.
-Rabbi Chaim of Allepo (Torat Haham 419:3)
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