Sunday, October 14, 2018
Over the recent holiday of Succot, my great grandson Zev came to Israel and stayed with me in my home for almost two weeks. Since he is only six months old he naturally brought his parents with him, also very dear to me but certainly not as cute as Zev. It has been many years since I had such a young baby reside with me for that length of time. I had forgotten the wonders that accompany a baby during its first year of life.
The great Rabbi Yisrael Lipkin of Salant famously observed that there were three basic lessons in life that one could learn from observing a baby – it is always busy, is always ready to be happy and when it is uncomfortable and desires something, it cries. Anyone...
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Sunday, October 14, 2018
The pace of the narrative of the Torah abruptly changes with the events described in this week’s reading. Until now the Torah has dealt with large periods of time and many many generations and different numbers of human beings and nations. It concerns itself apparently with a broad overview of the origins of human civilization and of the formation of societies, tribes and nations.
Its narrative confirmed the idea expressed so vividly in the story of the building of the tower of Babel, that the individual human being was relatively unimportant in the grand scheme of things and that individuals mattered little in the development of the course of civilization and nation building. All of...
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