Rabbi Shaya's Thoughts

Why all the Appeals?

Thursday, August 25, 2022 - 3:07 PM

In the days leading up to the High Holidays and during the High Holidays season, it is customary to give more charity than usual. The reason for this is that since these 40 days—the month of Elul and the ten days from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur—are the Days of Judgment when we are being judged, we want to …?

What are we trying to do? Can we buy off G-d to be kinder to us on our Day of Judgment? By giving a few dollars to charity, all our mistakes during the year will just be washed away? Is Judaism that superficial?

For starters, in this week’s Torah portion, Re’eh, we learn not only about the mitzvah of charity, but more than that, we learn about the attitude we should have toward the mitzvah: If you are asked to help a person in need, don’t hold back. Open your hand and give!

People can take this mitzvah too far and give more than they can afford, so the rabbis established a rule, that we should not give more than 10%. But if our hearts really desire, we can give as much as 20% of our annual income per year.

Yet, when it comes to this time of year, the time of judgment, even these restrictions ease and one can give more charity. What are we trying to accomplish?

When it comes to the Day of Judgment, there are two approaches that we can take.

A - G-d is the Judge, but He is a compassionate judge, a judge filled with kindness. Therefore, the more kindness and compassion that we show to others, the more we receive in return.

B - G-d looks into our virtual bank/mitzvah account, and the more mitzvot we have there, the better results we will have.

The first approach is focused on revealing within G-d a feeling toward us, while the second is awakening within us a desire to come closer to G-d.

After all, isn’t this the whole idea of the High Holidays?

So back to our original question of, “we want to…what?” The more we give of our hard-earned income, the more we can accomplish both of our goals.

As we celebrate Rosh Chodesh this weekend, welcoming the new month of Elul, going in to the 40 days of repentance and preparation for the High Holiday season, may we accomplish what we set out do, with flying colors.

Can We Bribe G-d?

Thursday, August 18, 2022 - 3:42 PM

There is a well-known saying: “If you love chicken that much, then don’t eat it.” In other words, you eat it because it’s not the chicken that you love, it is yourself that you love, and you love the
way chicken tastes. However, if you actually loved the chicken itself, you would not eat it. Obviously, this idea makes our lives very complicated. For example, if I say I love you, does that
mean that I love myself and I am selfish and I only love you to satisfy my own needs? Can I love another person without any ulterior motives? Is it even possible to say “love you” without the
“I?” Are we splitting hairs here?

The reason we should be thinking about this question is because of this week’s Torah portion, Eikev, where Moses tells us that we cannot bribe G-d with our good deeds. But then the Midrash
tells us not to worry, because G-d Himself makes an exception and does take bribes in one case, and one case only, when it comes to Teshuva, repentance.

Are we splitting hairs here?

Well, what is the process of repentance? There is the person who sinned and there is the sin itself. Within the world of sins, there are sins that can be rectified (example: an object that was
stolen can be returned), and there are sins that cannot be easily fixed (example: the stolen object was destroyed and can no longer be returned).

When we talk about the idea of “repentance,” are we referring to the person who sinned and do we mean to say that they have to regret their action, while their sin can continue to exist? Or do
we need to make sure that the sin itself is eradicated from the world as well?

To clarify the question at hand, what if a person regrets their actions but doesn’t do anything about it when they could? For example, they stole goods and had the opportunity to return
them, but they don’t. Is their regret meaningless, or just incomplete? How about if what they stole is impossible to return since it was destroyed; does that mean that they have no chance
for repentance ever, since it is impossible to rectify their action by returning the stolen goods as they no longer exist? If so, what is their path to return?

This is what the Midrash means when it says that G-d takes bribes. G-d knows what is in one’s heart. Let’s put the technicalities on the side. Sure, if we can get to the finish line in our effort to repent, we should. However, if we don’t, it doesn’t mean that we have not started. G-d who knows what is going on in our hearts and minds, is bribed by those thoughts and feelings of
regret and repentance. So even if we didn’t finish the process, the fact that we started is so meaningful to Him, that he changes His mind and forgives us in advance!

Just like a bribe can change a judge’s mind, so too, can our Teshuva. Even just starting the process can change G-d’s perspective about us, and He will look favorably toward us.

Don’t bribe G-d with your deeds. Bribe Him with your heart.

Best Practices for Effective Learning

Thursday, August 11, 2022 - 10:14 AM

Many adults have limited time to learn new information, yet our desire to learn is there. We are thirsty for new ideas, concepts, and even skills. So, it is important for us to develop effective strategies and methods to accumulate this knowledge in a timely fashion.

Speed, of course, is not the only issue. We want to retain the information we have learned and internalize what we have learned so that it becomes easy to recall at a later date.

How do we do so?

In this week’s Torah portion, Va’etchanan, we read the famous portion of Ve’ahavta, the paragraph following the Shema prayer. In that paragraph, there is a verse that says: V’shinantam L’vanecha, V’tibarta Bam, teach your children so that they will be fluent in their learning. The question that jumps out at us is: Logically, we should be told to learn for ourselves first before we are commanded to teach our children. After all, how can we teach if we don’t know anything ourselves yet? Common sense tells us, buckle up and learn so that you can teach your children. Yet that is not what the Torah tells us to do. It says just the opposite: Teach your children so that you will be fluent. Or to rephrase the verse—By teaching your children, you will become fluent in the Torah.

Aha. So here lies the secret to effective learning:

1 – Teach others so that you must learn for yourself first. Not only don’t you want to feel uneducated when you are explaining an idea to another person, you want to sound well versed on the subject. Well, there is only one way to be educated—learn the subject well. When you have to teach, you not only prepare better, you come to know the subject matter better. As the saying goes, a teacher learns more from their students than the student learns from the teacher.

2 – Learn like a child learns. When a child learns, they don’t come to the subject with preconceived conclusions. Their minds are open to listen and to learn. They are like a sponge that takes everything in. If adults can learn with open minds, not only are they more willing to learn more ideas, they are able to remember better as well, as they are not filtering the ideas first.

3 – Have a healthy dose of humility. Children don’t think they know everything. They come to the classroom humbly, ready to learn. When they ask questions, it is not for the purpose of proving themselves right as much as for finding out what is the truth, what is the right answer. They don’t need to be right; they want to know what IS right.

When we, as adults, approach learning as children do, our conversations and debates on a subject will be more civil, profound, and meaningful. We will remember the subject matter better, and it will not be about who is right but about what is right. If we are reading a book with an open mind, we will be able to retain the information better when we read as a child reads, with humility and a willingness to learn something new, knowing that there is something here that we do not know.

When we continue to study this way, we will be effective learners and teachers.

Can a Blessing be Too Big?

Friday, August 5, 2022 - 11:31 AM

This past week, the lottery reached the third-highest amount in history, more than 1.3-billion-dollars in jackpot. Winning that amount of money in one lump sum, or even in installments, is a huge amount of money. True, it is not an infinite amount of money, but in one’s mind, it is close.

This makes us wonder: G-d promised the Jews many times that we will number as many as the grains of sand on the seashores, or the stars in the sky … a blessing that refers to an infinite growth of the Jewish people. These blessings were given to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who at the time were just a few families, but receiving these blessings from G-d meant that the Jews will grow many times over.

Yet, in this week’s Torah portion, Devarim, Moses blessed the Jewish people so that they would grow a thousand times in number. The Jews assumed that Moses was extending G-d’s blessing to them and were frustrated as it sounded like a limitation rather than an expansion. G-d blessed them so that they would be as numerous as the sands on the seashore and now they are only going to be a thousand times their size? To them this seemed like a reduction to the blessing—only a thousand times in size—not an enlargement to the blessing, many thousand times.

Let’s take a closer look at G-d’s and Moses’s blessings. If you really want to get technical, you could figure out how many people could fit on the seashores of the world. You could calculate how many miles of beach there is, and how much space each person needs to stand, and you could come up with a number—a very large number. And when it comes to the stars, the number will be even larger. Astronomers put the overall number in the vicinity of 200 sextillion stars. A very large number, but a number, nevertheless.

On the other hand, Moses looked at the Jewish nation of about two million Jews, and blessed them to be a thousand-fold, i.e., that they should grow to be a nation of two billion people. Although this is an astronomical number, the Jews felt that this was a limitation to their growth. How can one compare two billion to two hundred sextillion?

Moses, the ever-practical leader, answers the Jews in a two-fold answer. A- He is not G-d, he is just like them, a human being, and when a human internalizes a blessing from G-d, they have to bring it down to the human level and make it relevant to their lives, and then B- figure out a way to lift the blessing up to a higher level, to the original intent of what G-d had in mind.

Moses was, and is, our teacher and guide. He represented the quintessential level of “understating” (bina). However, as it is explained in Kabbalah, higher than that is the level of “wisdom” (chachma). Moses is teaching us to not just look at the number of Jews, at our quantity, but to look at our quality.

G-d’s blessing to the Jewish people—that we should be like the stars and the sand—is about more than just numbers. It is about contributing to society. It is about making an impact in the world around us.

Every single day when we wake up in the morning, we should remind ourselves that true, we may be small in numbers, but we are not small in our impact. What am I doing today to make my mark?