Can we do תפילות prayers for:
Rabbi Wein and Torah.org?
So that through them The האור Light, רפואה The Healing and The ואהבה Love of ישועת יהוה Yeshuath YHWH may come back to הארץ The Land of Israel?
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Parshas Pinchas
The Most Precious Commodity
A further count of the Jewish
people is recorded for us in this week’s parsha. Though the numbers
match almost exactly to the count that was reported in the at the
beginning of the book of Bamidbar, the Torah nevertheless goes through it again in great detail and with precision. All of the commentators to the Torah have struggled to find meaning in this counting of Israel once again.
Equally troubling is the fact that over the decades of Israel’s
sojourn in the desert no material change in the amount occurred. It
seems that the Torah, early on, wished to inform
us of the few in number that would characterize the Jewish people
throughout its millennia long history.
The Jewish people, over the last seventy-five years, have yet to
make up the numbers it lost during the Holocaust. The count in this
week’s parsha illustrates the struggle of the Jewish people to survive
demographically. God promised us that we would be the smallest in
numbers of all peoples and at the same time He ordained us to build
families and guarantee our existence demographically from one generation
to the next.
The low birth rate and the high number of intermarriages among many
sections of Jewish society are harmful to our continued existence. Yet
the high birth rate and demographic growth within the religiously
observant Jewish communities in Israel and worldwide offer us a window
of hope and optimism. The simple truth is that Judaism cannot survive
without there being Jews. Our task is to provide those necessary
individual Jews to the Jewish nation as a whole.
The Torah counts people. Except for the
necessary public accounting of the wealth collected and spent on the
Mishkan construction and its artifacts, and the priestly vestments, we
do not find another detailed count of money or wealth in the Torah.
People are the most important items in Jewish life. And even people are
never counted directly – only indirectly through coins, sheep, etc. –
for what number can truly encompass the value and quality of an
individual person.
There is a tendency in the world to count wealth, to see wealth as
the most important commodity in national or personal lives. I recall
that as a rabbi in Miami Beach decades ago I witnessed hundreds of
retired people queuing up in front of the local banks four times a year
to have their interest dividend recorded in their savings account
passbook.
As is usual, there were people who pushed and shoved and attempted
to force their way to the head of the line. People were expendable to
these pushers and shovers - the physical count of money, which their
savings passbook represented to them, prevailed over simple basic human
consideration for other people.
Not so in the view of the Torah. For us people count the most. From the Torah’s
repetitive counting of the Jewish people, we become aware that people,
for us, are truly the most precious commodity. With this in mind we
certainly should strive to act accordingly, based upon the values that
the Torah has implanted within the Jewish people over the ages.
Shabat shalom,
Rabbi Berel Wein
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Rabbi Berel Wein- Jewish historian, author and international lecturer
offers a complete selection of CDs, audio tapes, video tapes, DVDs, and
books on Jewish history at www.rabbiwein.com |
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Please Say Yes to Abba Yahweh and His Laws special in
this time when Abba Yahweh is 'testing' us:
Hab 1:12 Art thou not mikedem
(‘everlasting’
also said of Moshiach, indicating Moshiach’s eternal divine nature: Dan 7:14 And there was given Him (Moshiach) dominion,
and honor, and sovereignty, that all people, Goyim, tongues, should
pey-lammed-chet. [1] (worship as deity) (see Dan 3:12, serve, reverence as
deity Him (Moshiach). His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not
pass away, and His (Messianic) Kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.] see Michah
5:1[2];)
Yahweh
Elohai (my Elohim) Kedoshi (my Holy One)? We shall not die. Yahweh, Thou hast
appointed them (these Chaldean) for mishpat (ordinance); O Tzur, Thou hast
ordained them (these Chaldean) for reproof.
(Please
read the whole book of HaNavi Habakuk?)
Please take it serious what Abba Yahweh is telling us in:
Deu 18:15 Yahweh Eloheicha (your Elohim) will raise up unto thee a Navi
(prophet) from among thee, of thy achim (bretheren), kamoni (like me.....
Exo 32:30 The next
day Moshe said to the people, "You have committed a terrible sin. Now I
will go up to Yahweh; maybe I will be able to atone for your sin."); unto
him ye must listen;
Deu 18:16 According to all that thou
desired of Yahweh Eloheicha (your Elohimin) Chorev (to be burnt dried up,
ruined, wasted) in the Yom HaKahal (day of the congregation), saying, Let me
not hear again the voice of Yahweh Elohav (your Elohim), neither let me see
this eish hagedolah (‘great fire’) any more, that I die not.
Deu 18:17 And Yahweh said unto me, They
have well-spoken that which they have spoken.
Deu 18:18 I will raise them up a Navi
(prophet) from among their achim (brethren), like unto thee, and will put My
words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.
Joh
10:18
No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have samchut
(authority) to lay it down, and I have samchut to receive it again. This
mitzvah I received from HaAv (the Father).
Deu 18:19 And it shall come to pass,
that whosoever will not listen unto My words which he shall speak Bishmi (in My
Name), I will require it of him.
Joh 8:28 Therefore, Rebbe, Melech
HaMoshiach said to them, When you perform the hagbah (lifting up) of
the Ben HaAdam, you will have da'as (knowledge) that Ani Hu [YESHAYAH
41:4; SHEMOT 3:14-16], and from myself I do nothing, but as HaAv (the Father)
of me taught me, these things I speak.
[1]
Dictionary of the Talmud. M. Jastrow p. 1178 פלח
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