Over the past few months I've been having conversations with leading thinkers, intellectuals, innovators and philanthropists for a BBC series on moral challenges of the 21st century. Among those I...
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Daily Reading
Over the past few months I've been having conversations with leading thinkers, intellectuals, innovators and philanthropists for a BBC series on moral challenges of the 21st century. Among those I...
Read MoreDaily Quotes
“I would say that the surest measure of a man’s or a woman’s maturity is the harmony, style, joy, and dignity he creates in his marriage, and the pleasure and inspiration he provides for his spouse.”
– Dr. Benjamin Spock
“Marriage is the most natural state of man, and… the state in which you will find solid happiness.”
– Benjamin Franklin
“Plant and your spouse plants with you; weed and you weed alone.”
– Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Daily Sources
Oh, maidens of Zion, go forth
And gaze upon King Solomon
Wearing the crown that his mother
Gave him on his wedding day,
On his day of bliss.
It shall be a sign for all time between Me and the people of Israel. For in six days Hashem made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day He ceased from work and was refreshed.
– Exodus 31:17
The exclusive nature of the gift of the Sabbath is documented in the verse “between Me and you, it is an eternal sign.” (Exodus 31, 17) Clearly, the day was granted only to the Jewish people. We relate to God like a bride to a bridegroom. Therefore, the first Sabbath observed by the Jewish people at Marah, when the manna fell (or rather, did not fall) was like a betrothal; the Sabbath on the occasion of the revelation at Mount Sinai represented the wedding canopy. The visible sign, chibbur of this union is the Sabbath, much like the wedding band received, worn and treasured by the bride. The Friday night prayer, i.e. the benediction attah kidashta You have sanctified, reflects these thoughts. The Friday night prayer is like kidushin, betrothal, the Sabbath morning prayer yismach Moshe represents the wedding ceremony. The Minchah prayer atta echad stresses the union that has been achieved between Israel and its God.
Daily Goals
The revelation at Sinai was the defining moment of The Jewish People. How we understand the giving of the Torah depends on how we see the relationship between God and the people He chose to be His special witnesses on earth. The metaphors the prophets use are many. God is, among other things, artist, creator, king, master, warrior, shepherd, judge, teacher, redeemer and father. From the point of view of God-as-king, the Torah is the code of laws He ordains for the people He rules. From the perspective of God-as-father-and-teacher, it represents the instructions He gives His children as to how they should best live. Adopting the image of artist-creator, Jewish mystics throughout the ages saw the Torah as the architecture of the universe, the deep structure of existence. Of all the metaphors, however, the most lovely and most intimate is of God as husband, with Israel as His bride.
From this perspective, the Torah is more than a constitution and code of laws, more than a set of instructions or even the metaphysical DNA of the universe. It is a marriage contract – a token and gesture of love.
When attraction, that most fleeting of emotions, seeks to perpetuate itself as love, it takes the form of marriage: marriage as covenant, in which both parties pledge themselves to one another, to be loyal, steadfast, to stay together through difficult times as well as good and to achieve together what neither could do alone. A marriage is created not by force or coercion but by words – the word given, the word received, the word honored in faithfulness and trust. There are such things as the laws of marriage (the respective responsibilities of husband and wife), but marriage of its essence is more than a dispassionate set of obligations and rights. It is law suffused with love, and love translated into law. That, according to this metaphor, is what the Sinai event was.
The story of Hosea is one of the strangest of that great chain of visionaries we call the prophets. It is the story of a marriage. The prophet married a woman called Gomer. He was deeply in love with her. We can infer this, because of all the prophets, Hosea is the most eloquent and passionate on the subject of love. Gomer, however, proved faithless. She left home, had a series of lovers, was serially unfaithful, and was eventually forced to sell herself into slavery. Yet Hosea, caught between anger and tender longing, found that he could not relinquish his love for her.
In a flash of prophetic insight, God leads him to understand that his own personal experience mirrors that between God and the Israelites. He had rescued them from slavery, led them through the wilderness and brought them to their new home, the land of Israel. But the people proved faithless. They worshipped other gods. They were promiscuous in their spiritual attachments. By rights, says God, I should have abandoned them. I should have called them (as the prophet called his third child) Lo-ammi, “you are not My people”. Yet God’s love is inextinguishable. He too cannot let go. Whatever the people’s sins, He will bring them back into the desert, scene of their first love, and their marriage will be renewed.
Daily Videos
For a more in depth look at the Mikvah ritual watch The Gift of Mikvah https://youtu.be/cMvr5CQe_Y0
Torah gives each and every one of us the ability to take our raw potential and transform our beings into the likes we have never imagined! God tells each and every one of us “I made this world for you.” Take Your God-given gifts and the things that make you tick, the things that bring you joy, and turn My world into The Garden of Eden it was meant to be!
Torah gives each and every one of us the ability to take our raw potential and transform our beings into the likes we have never imagined! God tells each and every one of us “I made this world for you.” Take Your God-given gifts and the things that make you tick, the things that bring you joy, and turn My world into The Garden of Eden it was meant to be!
