Shalom Friends;
This week, our Parshat HaShevua, Va’etchanan is being sponsored by Dr. Ari and Rivka Stern of Ramat Beit Shemesh dedicated in honor of their children and grandchildren — that they should all be matzliyach to do the Ratzon Hashem and for a refuah shleima for all of the cholim. To the Stern family, many thanks for your sponsorship and your continued kindnesses.
You can celebrate a Simcha — a birth, a Bar/Bat Mitzvah, a Chassuna or other Simcha event in your life, or commemorate a Yahrtzeit of a loved one, or for whatever other reason by sponsoring a Parshat HaShevua.
Please forward to your relatives and friends and encourage them to sponsor a Parshat HaShevua. And please be in contact with me with any questions, or for further details.
Best Regards,
Moshe Burt
olehchadash@yahoo.com
skype: mark.burt3
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The Haftorah for our Parshat begins:
“Nachamu, Nachamu Ami yomar Elokeichem” — “Comfort, comfort my people — says your G’d.” (Sefer Yishaiya, Perek 40, posuk 1)
This sentiment seems to be silent, but yet a theme of Parshat Va’etchanan.
This author excerpts from Rabbi Shmuel Goldin’s Parshat Va’etchanan Parsha summary, in his sefer “Unlocking The Torah Text,” Sefer Devarim (page 31) :
Towards the end of Parshat Va’etchanan, Moshe transmits a passage destined to become one of the best-known paragraphs of the entire Torah. Known… as the first paragraph of the Shema, this paragraph is the first of the Biblical texts recited daily by the Jew in fulfillment of the Mitzvah of Kri’at Shema, the recitation of the Shema. The passage opens with the powerful proclamation: “Shema Yisrael…” — “Hear O Israel: Hashem is our G’d, Hashem is the One and Only.” (Sefer Devarim, Perek 6, posuk 4 as rendered to English in the Artscroll Stone Chumash, page 973) and goes on to underscore a series of ideas fundamental to thought in Judaism.
Indeed, Rabbi Goldin relates that the Shema is (ibid, page 56) :
Among the first words learned at a parent’s knee and among the last recited when life’s journey ends, the verses… are more familiar to the Jew than any others in the entire Biblical text.
Most significantly, from a Halachic perspective, [the Shema] is… incorporated into the morning and evening tefillot of Am Yisrael. (Rabbi Goldin citing Mishna Brachot, Perek 1, posukim 1-5)
While clearly central to each of these Tefillot, the paragraphs [of the Shema] remain distinct from their surroundings. Their full or partial recitation constitutes the fulfillment of a foundational Mitzva, separate from tefillot… (Rabbi Goldin citing Rambam, Sefer HaMitzvot, positive commandment 10)
As this author wrote previously in the vort on Parshat Chukas:
So fundamental is the recitation of the Shema, that after the conclusion of World War ll, when various Jewish organizations went around to Europe’s churches and orphanages where Jews left their children to escape the Sho’a, when these individuals would recite the Shema, the young children would join in as The Shema was a fundamental of Judaism taught to children when they began to talk.
Rabbi Goldin now provides context, questions and understandings regarding the placement of the Shema within morning and evening tefillot (ibid, pages 64-65, 67-69) :
Although a distinct, separate obligation, the Mitzva of Kri’at Shema is not performed in isolation. Instead, the three paragraphs of the Shema are woven into, and recited as part of, central sections of the morning and evening tefillot.
Within these passages, man does not speak to Hashem at all. Hashem, instead speaks to man. The Shema consists of instructional verses, chosen from countless others in the Torah text, informing the nation of its responsibilities. Whatever benefits might accrue from the daily recitation of the Shema, they would seem separate and distinct from the experience of tefillah.
…The weaving of the Shema into the most central sections of tefillah remains difficult to understand. Why didn’t the Rabbis append the recitation of the Shema to the conclusion of tefillah? Why insert these Biblical passages at a point in the tefillot where they would seem to be an intrusion, breaking the flow of each tefillah…? What connection is there between the Mitzvah of Kri’at Shema and the tefillah experience?
[The] search for answers begins with the tefillot that surround and weave the Shema into both the morning and evening tefillot, Known as Birchat [Blessings of] Kri’at Shema, these tefillot are thematically connected to the passages if the Shema and are clearly referenced in the Mishna: “In the morning, one recites two Brachot before [the Shema] and one after it. In the evening, one recites two Brachot before [the Shema] and two after it.” (Rabbi Goldin citing Mishna Brachot, Perek 1, posuk 4)
…A review of the content of these Brachot [which surround the Shema]… reveals that, unlike the Shema itself, the Brachot are tefillot in the full, formal sense. Upon reciting these Brachot we find ourselves in the familiar territory of classical tefillot, where man reaches out to his Creator with majestic words of tribute and heartfelt appeal.
At the same time, however, the Brachot are clearly connected to the Shema. Carefully and consciously, the Rabbinic authors of these Brachot rework and expand upon the themes of the Shema, fashioning them into tefillah. To cite a few examples:
1. While the Shema proclaims Hashem’s oneness, the Brachot of the Shema lead the supplicant to praise the unity of Hashem’s physical and philosophical creations.
2. The commandment of Torah study repeatedly embedded in the Shema is transformed in the Brachot into a request for the wisdom to engage in such study.
3. The Shema’s focus on Hashem’s hand in history leads to appeals in the Brachot for “a new shining upon Zion” and an ingathering of the exiles from the “four corners of the earth.”
The Brachot of the Shema move from one realm to the next, Thematically rooted in the paragraphs of the Shema, they transform the themes of those Biblical passages into classical tefillot. Although they retain their identity as Birchat Kri’at Shema, therefore, these Brachot are ultimately governed by the laws that regulate the morning [and evening] tefillot, as a whole.
The Shema thus helps shape the very paradigm of Jews’ tefillot: a dialogue, not a discourse. Just as certainly as man speaks to Hashem during tefillot, Hashem speaks to man.
This discussion of the placement of Shema within morning and evening tefillot brings to mind a poignant (adjective: keen or strong in mental appeal) vort this author heard years ago in Beit Tefillah Yona Avraham between Kabalat Shabbat and Maariv given by Rabbi Raphael Willig.
On the words, “V’ahavt’cha al taseir mimenu l’olamim — May You not remove Your love from us forever,” Rabbi Willig spoke of this tefillah, in the context of history, regarding the Arab massacre of Jews in Hevron in 1929. Rabbi Willig told how, on the first night of Rosh Hashana of the year 5690, after Arabs had slaughtered sixty-seven Jews, ravaged and ransacked Jews’ homes and Shuls some twelve days prior, Bocherim at the Yeshiva in Hevron pronounced this posuk again and again repeatedly prior to the Bracha before their recitation of the Shema.
Rabbi Goldin concludes (ibid, page 70) :
Tefillah is tough. We find ourselves locked in a continuing struggle. Can we breathe new life into the same words recited day after day? Can we continue to approach a mysterious G’d, only to be answered with silence, never quite knowing if, when or how our tefillot will be answered? Can we, who live in a world governed by intellectual search, learn to open our hearts to an unfathomable Creator?
If the tefillah experience becomes a process through which we gauge our lives and our actions against the backdrop of our nation’s ongoing search for Hashem and Hashem’s reciprocal search for us, then our thrice-daily approach to the Almighty will acquire new and powerful meaning.
Rabbi Shimshon Raphael Hirsch notes that Hitpallel, to pray, this means to judge oneself… that a Jew’s tefillot “is not from within outwards, but from without inwards… to penetrate oneself, ever afresh again, with eternal, essential truths and facts. (Rabbi Goldin citing Rabbi Shimshon Raphael Hirsch on Sefer Breish’t, Perek 48, posuk 11)
May we, the B’nei Yisrael be zocha that our brethren — the refugee families from Gush Katif be permanently settled and be made totally whole — be totally restituted for all that was stolen from them, that the thrice expelled families of Amona be restored to their rebuilt homes and the oft-destroyed Yeshiva buildings in Homesh be rebuilt, all at total government expense; due to alt-leftist-agendized, supreme court legalized Yassamnik gunpoint. Baruch Hashem that our dear brother Jonathan Pollard is now in his third year at home in Eretz Yisrael and has embarked on a new chapter in his life. May Esther Yocheved bat Yechiel Avraham have an aliyah in Shemayim and may her spirit and memory continue to lift Jonathan to at least 120 years. May the MIAs be liberated alive and returned to us in ways befitting Al Kiddush Hashem — as with the return in April, 2019, via Russia, of the remains of Zachariah Baumel, as should the remains of the two chayalim from the Gaza War of nine years ago. May we have the courage and strength to stand up and physically prevent the possibility of Chas V’Challila any future eviction of Jews from their homes and prevent Chas V’Challila the handing of Jewish land over to anyone, let alone to enemies sworn to Israel’s and Judaism’s destruction and eradication. And may wesoon and finally see the total end to the Communist Chinese corona virus pandemic and all like viruses. May we fulfill Hashem’s blueprint of B’nei Yisrael as a Unique people — an Am Segula, not to be reckoned with as with “the nations” and may we be zocha to see the Moshiach, the Ge’ula Shlaima, as Dov Shurin sings; “Ki Karov Yom Hashem Al’Kol HaGoyim”, the Ultimate Redemption, bimhayrah b’yamainu — speedily, in our time”, — Achshav, Chik Chuk, Miyad, Etmol!!!
Easy Fast on Tisha B’Av, and Good Shabbos!
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Moshe Burt, an Oleh, is a commentator on news and events in Israel and Founder and Director of The Sefer Torah Recycling Network. He lives in Ramat Beit Shemesh.
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