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Reminder: Ve’Tein tal U”Matar recitation begins tonight!
In this week's Email:
- RCA Updates
- In Our RCA Family
- Winter Missions to Israel
- A lot of Chomer Lidrush
- Manning the Media
RCA Updates
It has been another busy week at the RCA!
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Today I am in Pittsburgh visiting our chaveirim Daniel Yalkut and Yitzchak Genack.
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On Sunday, I represented the RCA, along with our officer Seth Grauer, at the Chabad Kinus HaShluchim Banquet in Edison, NJ as we paid special tribute, along with 6,000 other attendees, to R. Zvi Kogan, of Abu Dhabi, Hy”d.
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Last Wednesday featured our first Continuing Rabbinic Education session of the year with a must-watch presentation on AI and the Rabbi. Click here for the recording and the helpful AI-generated summary.
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Please note the important policy change, approved at our November 4th Executive Committee meeting, regarding the use of RCA credentials in connection to non-GPS conversions. This is a good opportunity to thank our Exec Comm for its work on behalf of the organization. Thank you!
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Our chaver Dov Schreier was featured on the latest Rabbanan podcast regarding his critical work for OU Kashrus. Take a listen! (login to Rabbanan.org is required)
In Our RCA Family
- Mazal Tov to Zvi and Shira Romm on the marriage of their daughter Miriam to Ephraim Gurell.
Winter Missions to Israel
Amid Israel's evolving landscape, we're mounting targeted missions to stand with our brothers and sisters ba'aretz. Despite the challenging (iy"H improving) environment, we remain resolute in supporting communities impacted by conflict. With the ceasefire in the North, our winter '25 missions will focus on areas devastated by Hezbollah's rocket fire.
We're organizing three strategic missions, each spanning a Tuesday and Wednesday (likely in the North), with an optional third day in the heart of the country based on participant availability and urgent needs. Missions will be limited to 6-8 participants. Mission dates: January 21-23, and February 11-13, 25-27.
Please click here to express interest in a spot.
Chomer Lidrush
Giving a parsha shiur? This week we’re including great material for shiurim (below) as well as our three ideas to turn your gears heading into the parsha.
1) Rav Lichtenstein on "Beis Elokim" and "Shaar HaShamayim"
A lot happens in our parsha – there’s quite a bit for a rav to focus on. In 1989, in a yeshiva sicha, Rav Aron Lichtenstein zt”l highlighted a pivotal point on Yaakov’s run from Esav: Shaken, he said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and the gateway to heaven.” Our world, Rav Lichtenstein said, is a place where we can feel the other-worldly, a transcendent religious experience.
… Let us examine this issue of the "gateway to heaven" and see whether it is an independent entity, standing alone, separate and disconnected from the concept of "house," or whether it is very closely bound up with the "house” … The significance of this distinction is more than purely halakhic. There is also a profound and fundamental spiritual concept at stake …
Heaven is not disconnected from earth: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Also, "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One" - there is no separation between God on earth and God in heaven; He is all One. The relationship between the transcendental God and the immanent God is self-contradictory. On one hand, it is completely impossible to grasp the essence of God, who fills the entire world with His glory and whose domain is the heavens above and the earth below. On the other hand, we pray towards the Beit Ha-mikdash – the house where God's presence dwells, only on earth!
The piece continues here.
2) Between Two Dreams
What’s a worse predicament for Yaakov Avinu – leaving behind your place in the yeshiva and your loving mother to flee from your own brother, who wants to kill you, or growing complacent with your material and spiritual successes?
In his Torah Today, Rav Pinchas Peli makes the case that Yaakov Avinu’s second dream – twenty-one years, a large family, and profound material success after the first one – shows Yaakov the real danger.
The first dream showed Yaakov that even while on the run from his brother – far away from home and the Ohel of Torah he so loved to sit in – Hashem was still with him: “He receives a message of Godliness, a promise of a great future. Upon awakening he proclaims: ‘This is an abode of God, a gateway to heaven!’”
But this later dream, the one that triggers him to flee from with his family from Lavan, seems to come out of nowhere, in the middle of all of Yaakov’s successes. Gleaning from the pasukim, Rav Peli suggests that having grown complacent – when all seemed to be “set” for him and his family – Yaakov knew it wasn’t just time to leave- it was time to run.
See this great piece at length.
3) Two Gems from Rav Soloveitchik
A) On Working Hard and Taking Responsibility:
“’שֵׁם הַגְּדֹלָה לֵאָה - the name of the elder was Leah.’ Leah is derived from the root lamed-alef-heh, to be tired — le’a or mile’a. For example, ‘וְנִלְאוּ מִצִּיּוֹת מִשְּׁתּוֹת מַיִם מִן הַיְאֹר, and the Egyptians will weary [in their efforts] to drink water from the Nile’ (Ex. 7:18). Leah was burdened with responsibility, which she conscientiously discharged, and as a result she was tired. This constructive fatigue is the sign of authority, of management, of power, of self-assertion. If man has no responsibility, he will never experience being fatigued after a day of constructive work. Self-assertive, constructive work to the point of exhaustion and fatigue is represented by Leah. This tendency towards self-assertion reflects the attribute of gevurah.” (Boston, 1974; see commentary on Haftarah of Lech Lecha – see this adaption in Mesoras HaRav Chumash, p. 219).
B) Irrational Jew-Hatred, from Lavan to Paroah:
The Rav discusses Lavan’s malicious intentions towards Yaakov as described in. Lavan's use of plural language in threatening harm, says the Rav, shows his intent to harm not only Yaakov but also his own family, including his daughters and grandchildren; only divine intervention prevented him from carrying out this plan. Rav Soloveitchik compares Lavan to Paraoh, underscoring irrational hatred, which is framed as psychopathic, and indicative of a broader, deeply unsettling pattern of Jew-hatred throughout history. Such animosity often transcends reason, morality, and familial bonds. See Chumash Mesoras HaRav, p. 232-233.
A peek at the Rav’s language on this:
Laban proves that hatred of the Jew can reach psychopathic proportions. It is not only wrong from a moral point of view, but it is an abnormal, sick emotion from a psychiatric standpoint. Only madmen could have devised the Final Solution, the plan to exterminate every single Jew. The hatred of our enemies today is abnormal, and that is what is frightening. Laban was ready to kill his own daughters because they had adopted a God he did not understand; he felt so alienated from them that he kindled an insane hatred against his own children. (Festival of Freedom, pp. 121-123)
Shiurim
1) The Luz Bone - What is it?
Dr. Edward Reichman and Fred Rosner on the mysterious “Luz Bone” – a 14-page article abound with sources and insights.
2) The Luz Bone Continued: Meditative Prayer and Prayerful Meditation
Prof. Mark Verman on praying with the spine – that is, the function of the Luz bone in tefillah as seen by Chazal
3) Halacha – Getting Married Before Older Siblings
Rav J. Simcha Cohen (How Does Jewish Law Work?) has a brief but thorough treatment of this interesting shayla – timely for our parsha, of course.
4) Rav Zalman Nechemia Goldberg zt”l with a brilliant piece on Yaakov’s lying down on the rocks and working hard for the right virtues – even when it’s difficult, even when the reward is long coming.
Did our chomer help you over Shabbos? Want to see more or less of an idea?
Let us know!
Manning the Media
A piece from The Atlantic to cover the conversation in shul, something with which to reflect on America and the impact of its Jews, and some coverage and commentary from The Journal on the past week in Canada.
1) What They’ll be Talking About in Shul: The Ceasefire in Lebanon and What Will Be in Gaza
The Atlantic: How to End the War in Gaza, by Stuart E. Eizenstat and Dennis Ross (Paywalled? PDF here)
The ceasefire in Lebanon, as of writing, seems to be holding – if somewhat tenuously. The writers argue that the main elements of this deal can be borrowed to broker a similar peace in Gaza. Even if you disagree with some of the article’s premises (“Israel has repeated the mistake in Gaza that the George W. Bush administration made in Iraq and Afghanistan, and failed to marry its military action to achievable political goals at the outset.”), what will be in Gaza is a question that must be asked.
Veer away from politics but engage figuring out the future. (Of course, our tefillot for peace matter much more than the kiddush banter over which approach is best).
2) Something to Ponder: The Jewish Inspiration for Amsterdam and America
Commentary, America’s Words and Amsterdam’s Example, by (Rabbi) Meir Soloveichik
Rabbi Meir Y. Soloveichik’s reflections on the election, America, and Amsterdam in Commentary. Our favorite part, featuring Rabbi Sacks z”l:
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks recounted how, as a college student, he visited Washington for the first time and was struck by the fact that the memorials for great American figures featured not only images but words as well. The Jefferson Memorial, for example, features not only a statue of the author of the Declaration of Independence but also the words of the document that changed the world. David Chester French’s memorial for Lincoln houses not only the statue of an enthroned president but also the chiseled texts of the Gettysburg Address and the Second Inaugural. In contrast, Sacks continued, the statue in Westminster of Churchill—for whom words were somewhat important—contains only a single word: “Churchill.”
The point, Sacks explained, is that America was inspired by the Hebraic conception of covenant, of a nation dedicated to an idea. Only with this in mind can the story of Jews in America—and the American affection for Israel—be understood.
3) Something’s Burning in Trudeau’s Canada
The Wall Street Journal, by Mary Anastasia O’Grady
The columnist offers an overview and what’s-next of the Canadian Prime Minister’s behavior during and after last week’s events in Montreal as crowds protested against Israel, and, of course, against Jewish People as well.
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