Shlomo's Thoughts on the Torah

The reason for a Jew to become a slave is that he is not able to pay his debts. But the Torah demands that he be set free in the 7th year. If he chooses to remain a slave he is punished because the Torah wants us to be free.

Lag B'Omer is a festive day throughout the Jewish world. But the truth is we are celebrating that in spite of all their attempts to assimilate the Jews into Roman culture, we are still here as Jews and the Romans do not exist.

The idea of letting the land lay fallow for a year is not about agriculture. It is about social cohesion. To remember that we are merely stewards of the land. God gives us the tools to work the land. What we do with these tools is what is important.

We tend to think that spirituality is between God and man. We forget that real spirituality can also be between man and Man. How we treat each other.

The Torah admonishes us in many places to teach our children the proper mode of behavior. We teach by example. If you practice what you preach your children will follow you. If not, then they will follow you as well.

The blasphemer behaved the way he did due to his anger over the way he was treated by others. They would remind him that he did not belong to a tribe because his father wasn't an Israelite. We have to be careful on such things otherwise they can lead to disaster.

The Torah admonishes us not to take God's Name in vain. Many will go out of their way so as not to swear in God's Name. It is a common Jewish tradition to say "without an oath" when we promise to do something.

The repeats the holidays over and over again. The question is why. Isn't once enough? The answer is that we have to remember why God took us out of Egypt and what our mission is.

The Torah states that a priest in the Temple has to be unblemished both physically and spiritually. This is because he represents the Jewish people to God and God to the Jewish people.

The Torah gives specific commands on how we are to be dressed. We do not wear proper clothes for God but for ourselves. We cannot show proper respect if we are not properly dressed.

When we look at this week's Portion, we see that the goal is to make the mundane holy. We do this by controlling our time. We should be cognizant of the limited time that we have and make the best use of it.

No matter how we count the Omer, Israel Independence Day falls in the middle of the mourning period. This is no accident. Israel Independence Day is the atonement for the sins committed by Rebbe Akiva's students during the Bar-Kochba Revolt.

The Book of Leviticus tells us about the Temple service. Yet it suddenly takes a detour to discuss societal issues. What we are being told is that the Temple is just a building unless we behave correctly toward our fellow man.

This week's portion of the Torah deals with the disease of Matzora. This is a disease caused by gossip. The lesson here to avoid malicious gossip.

Any thanksgiving offering that we bring is too much for one person to consume. Yet it has to be consumed by the end of the day. This forces us to bring our friends to celebrate. This shows that the Pascal Sacrifice is also a Thanksgiving offering.

The Seder stresses the idea that there will always be those who wish to destroy us. That the defense against these threats is our unity.

In the Seder we are admonished to set the teeth of the wicked son on edge. The reason is that the source of his being wicked are the words that he abuses.

The real message of the Passover Seder is that it is not an intellectual account of the story but an experiential one. We are meant to experience leaving Egypt.

We are required to bring a Thanksgiving Offering to the Tabernacle. This is to teach us to be thankful for what God has done for us. It is very easy to forget that God is the source for all that we have, including life.

The Torah first tells us what to do and then announces who will be the High Priest. This is to teach us that more important than who is doing the service, that the service should be done correctly.

One of the important aspects of what the Priests in the Tabernacle had to do was to carry the fire of the Altar from day to day. This is to teach us that if you want the next generation to follow you have to show them the way.

There were special offerings given by the leaders if they inadvertently made a mistake, both the religious leaders as well as the religious. The reason is that people will base their decisions on what they do and say.

The first commandment that the Jewish people received was to declare the 1st of Nisan to be the beginning of the Jewish year. Rosh Hashanah is the day that the 1st man was created. The 1st of Nisan is when the Jewish people became a people.

The sin offering is brought for an unintentional sin. That is something that happened but was not intended. It is not an accident but it caused damage either spiritually or physically. We are still responsible for our actions.

The Torah gives a lot of rules and laws on the sacrificial service. The reason is to avoid us falling into anarchy and losing sight of what the service is for.