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From: heb_roots_chr@mail.geocities.com
Sent: Tuesday, May 27, 1997 1:47 AM
To: Hebraic Heritage Newsgroup
Subject: Torah Weekly - Bechukosai
Reply-to: ohr@jer1.co.il
From: "Ohr Somayach" <ohr@jer1.co.il>
To: " Highlights of the Torah weekly portion" <weekly@jer1.co.il>
Subject: Torah Weekly - Bechukosai
X-To: weekly@virtual.co.il
* TORAH WEEKLY *
Highlights of the Weekly Torah Portion
with "Fatherly Advice" Tidbits from The Ethics of our Fathers
Parshas Bechukosai
For the week ending 24 Iyar 5757
30 & 31 May 1997
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Overview
The Torah promises prosperity for the Bnei Yisrael if they will follow
Hashem's commandments. However, if they fail to live up to the
responsibility of being the Chosen People, then chilling punishments will
result. The Torah details the harsh historical process that will fall upon
them when Divine protection is removed. These punishments, whose purpose
is to bring Yisrael to repent, will be in seven stages, each more severe
than the last. Sefer Vayikra, The Book of Leviticus, concludes with a
detailed description of Erachin -- the process by which someone can make a
vow to give to the Beis Hamikdash the equivalent monetary value of a
person, an animal, or property.
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Haftorah: Yirmiyahu 16:19-17:4
To be `a Jeremiah' is to be a prophet of doom. For Yirmiyahu was the
archetypal harbinger of destruction.
In this week's Parsha the Torah enumerates the blessings for keeping
Hashem's mitzvos, and the dire warnings of what will transpire if they are
neglected. Similarly, in the Haftorah, Yirmiyahu warns of what will happen
if the Jewish People continue in their idolatrous ways, lacking faith in
Hashem and blindly placing total faith in man.
Yirmiyahu's words echo down the corridors of history.
`He who thinks that Berlin is Jerusalem... there will come a thunderous and
violent wind which will uproot him from his source.' These words, written
by Rabbi Meir Simcha Hakohen of Dvinsk, the `Ohr Somayach,' at the end of
the last century, are an uncanny prediction of the storm which was to
engulf Europe not many years later.
>From the moment of Hashem's irreversible covenant with Avraham, the
survival of the Jewish People becomes a natural imperative, no less than
the rising of the sun or the flowing and ebbing of the tides.
Anti-Semitism is a force placed into nature. Its sole purpose is to
prevent the Jewish People from disappearing into the melting pot of the
nations, and `annulling' the irreversible covenant with Avraham.
Assimilation is like a nuclear chain reaction. When a certain critical
mass is reached, then the atom bomb of anti-Semitism explodes.
The word in Hebrew for `holy' is kadosh, which means `separate.' The
essence of holiness is the separation of that which is holy from that which
is not.
When the Jewish People forget that their purpose is to be a holy nation,
separated from the other nations, then the non-Jewish world turns around
and reminds them of their purpose.
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Sources:
o Mousterpiece - Chafetz Chaim
o Win/Win - Rabeinu Bachya
o Anything Goes - Chidushei HaLev
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Written and Compiled by Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair
General Editor: Rabbi Moshe Newman
Production Design: Lev Seltzer
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in the Rich Hebraic Heritage of our Faith.
Eddie Chumney
Hebraic Heritage Ministries Int'l
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