When You Need to Borrow Your Father
A Talmudic Debate on the Daily Schedule in the Temple and its Psychological Application
- March 3, 2012
- |
- 9 Adar 5772
Rabbi YY Jacobson
3093 views- Comment Call-in
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Dedicated by David and Eda SchottensteinIn the loving memory of Alta Shula Swerdlov. And in honor of Yetta Alta Shula, "Aliyah," Schottenstein
Class Summary:
For well over a millennia, Jewish spiritual life revolved around the myriads of ritualistic services conducted in the Tabernacle, and later, in the Temple. The Torah describes in minute detail each item, artifact, garment, service and sacrifice that was part of Temple worship." "Today, many of these methods of worship seem foreign, ceremonial, and outdated.
Yet nothing can be further from the truth. In Jewish tradition, the heart of man is the Temple of G-d; every rite and ritual performed in the Temple exactly parallels a spiritual journey in the psyche of the human being. In this class, we will analyze the cleaning of the Menorah, the daily animal sacrifice, and the burning of incense, and discover the profound spiritual and psychological implications of a Talmudic debate regarding their order in the daily service of the Temple.
Categories
Rabbi YY Jacobson
- March 3, 2012
- |
- 9 Adar 5772
- |
- 3093 views
Dedicated by David and Eda SchottensteinIn the loving memory of Alta Shula Swerdlov. And in honor of Yetta Alta Shula, "Aliyah," Schottenstein
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Zeesy -10 years ago
Torah and Science
By finding G-d in the minutae of mitzvos, we declare that G-d is One. One means in the higher, perfect world as well as in this lower, imperfect one.
By uniting the upper waters (Torah) and lower waters (science), through proper study, we demonstrate that Hashem is One. Torah can be healing or otherwise, depending how you study. Science studied for its own sake--can metame the mind, but when studied to reveal Hashem, or for parnassa, becomes a mitzva.
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yisroel -10 years ago
great
this shiur was and is really great , i feel my heart and mind are bing filled with a great deal of intelect Thank you.
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Chaim Gershon -13 years ago
Other Discussion
http://www.avakesh.com/2011...
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Joe -13 years ago
Yishar Koyach
Rabbi Jacobson Thank you for the amazing class just thinking that the Rebbe spoke to us about this just few week before the stroke brings chills, thank you so much
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Admin -13 years ago
Response to Previous Comment
Last year there was no Tetzaveh class
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can you post last years class -13 years ago
can you post last years class as well
can you post last years class as well
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Admin -13 years ago
Do you have a father?
Many a psychologist has ventured to say that one's relationship to G-d will largely be formed by his/her initial relationship with their first authority figure: their father.
Meaning, if the predominant emotion you feel for your father is fear, then that will be your paradigm for your relatonship with G-d. If you feel uncoditionally accepted and loved by your father, you will fell the same by G-d.
Do you agree with this?
Join our Facebook Discussion:
http://www.facebook.com/The...
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Kayo, Tokyo -13 years ago
Very Practical
Baruch HaShem
It was very practical shuir.
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Kayo, Tokyo -13 years ago
This is why
Baruch HaShem
This is why I can not stop Yiddish Kait.
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great stuff -13 years ago
i cant get enough
rabbi jacobson, i love your shiurim they are AMAZING. so insightful, nothing else exists like it.
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Mehdi -13 years ago
Very moving!
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Kayo -14 years ago
Inspiring
Baruch HaShem,
It is such an inspiring speech. Todah.
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Avi -15 years ago
An insight by Rabbi JB Soloveitchik
Related by Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveichik in a lecture at the Lincoln Square Synagogue, New York, May 28, 1975.
I recall an experience from my early youth. Let me give you the background of that experience. I was then about seven or eight years old. I attended a cheder in a small town on the border of White Russia and Russia proper.. The town was called Khaslavichy; you certainly have never heard of it. My father was the rabbi in the town. I, like every other Jewish boy, attended the cheder. My teacher was not a great scholar but he was a Chassid, a Chabadnik. The episode I am about to relate to you took place on a murky winter day in January. I still remember the day; it was cloudy and overcast. It was just after the Chanukah festival, and the Torah portion of the week was Vayigash (Genesis 44:18-47:27). With the end of Hanukah ended the little bit of serenity and yomtovkeit (holiday spirit) that the festival brought into the monotonous life of the town's Jews.
As far as the boys from the cheder were concerned, a long desolate winter lay ahead. It was a period in which we had to get up while it was still dark and return home from the cheder with a lantern in the hand of each boy, because nightfall was so early. On that particular day, the whole cheder, all the boys, were in a depressed mood -- listless, lazy, and sad. We recited, or I should say chanted mechanically, the first verses of Vayigash in a dull monotone. We were simply droning the words in Hebrew and in Yiddish. So we kept on reading mechanically: Then Judah approached him [Joseph].... My lord has asked his servants, saying: "Have you a father, or a brother?" And we said to my lord: "We have an old father, and a young child of his old age..." Permit me to use the interpretation of the Targum Yerushalmi of the words yeled zekunim ("a young child of his old age"), namely a talented boy, a capable, talented, bright child. "We have an old father, and we also have a talented little child." The boy, reading mechanically, finished reciting the question: Ha-yesh lachem av? Do you have a father? and the reply: Yesh lanu av zaken ve-yeled zekunim katan, We have an old father, and a young child of his old age. Then something strange happened.
The melamed (teacher), who was half-asleep while the boy was droning on the words in Hebrew and Yiddish, rose, jumped to his feet and with a strange, enigmatic gleam in his eyes, motioned to the reader to stop. Then the melamed turned to me and addressed me with the Russian word meaning "assistant to the rabbi," podrabin. Whenever he was excited he used to address me with this title, "assistant to the rabbi." There was a tinge of sarcasm and cynicism in his using the term, because this Chabad chassid could never forgive me for having been born into the house of Brisk which represented the elite of the opposition to Chassidism. Although I must say that I cannot accept responsibility for this fact because it was an accident of birth. Then he said to me: "What kind of question did Joseph ask his brothers, Ha-yesh lachem av? Do you have a father? Of course they had a father, everybody has a father! The only person who had no father was the first man of creation, Adam. But anyone who is born into this world has a father. What kind of a question was it?" I began, "Joseph . . ."
I tried to answer, but he did not let me. Joseph, I finally said, meant to find out whether the father was still alive. "Do you still have a father," meaning, is he alive, not dead? If so, the melamed thundered back at me, he should have phrased the question differently: "Is your father still alive?" To argue with the melamed was useless. He began to speak. He was no longer addressing the boys. The impression he gave was that he was speaking to some mysterious visitor, a guest who had come into the cheder, into that cold room. And he kept on talking. Joseph did not intend to ask his brothers about avot d'isgalyim. I later discovered that this was a Chabad term for parenthood which is open, visible. He was asking them about avot d'iscasin, about the mysterious parenthood, the hidden and invisible parenthood. In modern idiom, I would say he meant to express the idea that Joseph was inquiring about existential parenthood, not biological parenthood. Joseph, the melamed concluded, was anxious to know whether they felt themselves committed to their roots, to their origins. Were they origin conscious?
Are you, Joseph asked the brothers, rooted in your father? Do you look upon him the way the branches, or the blossoms, look upon the roots of the tree? Do you look upon your father as the feeder, as the foundation of your existence? Do you look upon him as the provider and sustainer of your existence? Or are you a band of rootless shepherds who forget their origin, and travel and wander from place to place, from pasture to pasture? Suddenly, he stopped addressing the strange visitor and began to talk to us. Raising his voice, he asked: "Are you modest and humble? Do you admit that the old father represents an old tradition? "Do you believe that the father is capable of telling you something new, something exciting? Something challenging? Something you did not know before? Or are you insolent, arrogant, and vain, and deny your dependence upon your father, upon your source?" "Ha-yesh lachem av?! Do you have a father?!" exclaimed the melamed, pointing at my study-mate. I had a study-mate who was considered a child prodigy in the town. He was the prodigy and I had the reputation of being slow. His name was Isaac. The melamed turned to him and said: "Who knows more? Do you know more because you are well versed in the Talmud, or does your father, Jacob the blacksmith, know more even though he can barely read Hebrew? Are you proud of your father?
If a Jew admits to the supremacy of his father, then, ipso facto, he admits to the supremacy of the Universal Father, the ancient Creator of the world who is called Atik Yomim ('He of Ancient Days')." That is the experience I had with the melamed. I have never forgotten it.
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Yosef-mendel -6 years ago
Wonderful
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Barry -15 years ago
Tale of Two Pots
This Tale of Two Pots holds a very good lesson. I could paraphrase it as "look for the silver lining" and "turn the weakness or the fault into a strength."
I also like what "YYJ" above said. I was once told by a businessman that when he is successful, he never is quite sure why. But when he fails, he goes over that failure in his mind again and again, analyzing every step he took and learns from that failure.
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YYJ -15 years ago
To Chaim
It seems that even on Yom Kippur itself there are two levels. In the morning, before davening, we may still be standing in the "Abaye" mode. But later during the Avodah, the Jew is elevated to the higher level of Ketores which takes places in the middle of the cleaning of the lamps.
Is it clear?
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Me -12 years ago
Re: To Chaim
its very simple, there are certain parts of davening that we say every day, and therefor there is no reason to change it. that part speaks about the daily korbanos, and the fact that on yom kippur it was different does not mean we change it, because in truth that was the order according to abba shaul (or according to the beis yosef because that opinion was already spread out in the whole world).
However when we speak about yom kippur itself we say it the other way the way it was on yom kippur, cuz that's the point of the avoda, to teach us the order of yom kippurs korbanos, not the rest of the year, that is for before davening. and this concept of not changing something cuz usually its done different is very common. i hope i explained enough.
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Chaim Boyarsky -15 years ago
Still have a question on the class
Amazing class, as usual , I just don’t understand, why we say Abaya , on Yom Kippur,
If the Spiritual order is different on Yom Kipuur , should we not change the order of the davening in Abaye on Yom Kippur?
Very thankful for the classes. I look forward to them all week.
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YYJ -15 years ago
Flowers?
If we use our mistakes as lessons for future healing and growth, these become flowers planted from the "leaks." When we use our failures, frustrationz, and struggles as springboards for deeper levels of awareness, consciousness and sensitivity, they are converted into positive energy. This concept is similar to the discussion in chapter 27 of Tanya, where some of the most delicious meals are made via the bitter foods converted into a great dish, like salt and other bitter spices. Similarly, he says there, if the evil in us becomes a springboard for a confrontation with evil which subdues it, then the evil itself is now part of a delicious "dish" we present to G-d. I think this answers at least part of Dave's question as well, in a previous comment.
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F -15 years ago
question
When we see ourselves as the cracked pot that is leaking water (which is unfortunately how I see myself most of the time), where are we supposed to look to see flowers growing? When we lose our patience with our children or our spouse....or when we think we aren't fulfilling our potential in the ways we believe we could...or we when go through bouts of self loathing b/c we really think that we are failures... how are we supposed to flip that upside down and see positive outcomes? I don't understand the metaphor.....but would extremely grateful for this new tool to combat my, at times, verbally abusive yetzer hara.
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Izzy -15 years ago
Thank you
A big awesome thasnk you to David and Eda Schottenstein, G-d bless you!
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Elki -15 years ago
WOW1
I just listened to the shiur in its entirety without interruption. How elegantly you intertwined all the questions, enigmas of contridactory commnetators, depth found within names... and then go full circle until every point holds hands with the other. I find the story of Abba Shaul himself, the symbolism of his name both to a human parent and to G-d particularly moving.
I am intrigued the way you give multi-faceted dimensions to each source and idea - man within himself, relating to others, and the relationship between us and G-d.
Rabbi Jacobson, the shiur has become a very-much anticipated event every week, and you never disappoint.
Thank you again, and the sponsors.
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Dave -15 years ago
Clarity
Very beautiful. Is it possible to elaborate on the "how" of integration? Stating that "we must somehow learn" leaves it a bit vague.
thank you!
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joe -15 years ago
gevaldig
thank you so much, you need to do this 2 times a week
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joe -15 years ago
gevaldig
thank you so much, you need to do this 2 times a week
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Anonymous -15 years ago
My bet, it's there; as well as the deepest insight of human psycho you revealed for us. "A borrow father" is something that would never come to my mind from that perspective. Thanks.
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Anonymous -15 years ago
Where is my favorite joke from lifecast? I like it better!
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Michal -15 years ago
Thank you
Thank you Rabbi Jacobson for another inspiring and moving shiur. I look forward every week to listen to you. May you go from strength to strength.
* Thank you David and Edda Schottenstein.
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יצחק -15 years ago
רבי יוחנן
בקידושין לא, ב שהובא בהשיעור מדמה אביי לר' יוחנן שגם הוא לא ראה אביו ואמו. וצ"ע לבאר מהי השייכות עם ר' יוחנן? ויש לעיין בספרי הקבלה על נשמתו של ר"י ואיך שזה משתקף במאמריו ושיטותיו וכולי.
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יעקב -15 years ago
אביי
בתורת לוי יצחק שעליו מיוסד כל הביאור על אביי, כפי שצויין בהשיעור וכן בהרשימה המצורפת להשיעור -- ות"ח ת"ח ע"ז -- לא נתבאר כמדומני השייכות דאביי, מקיף הרחוק, להיותו יתום, אלא מבאר השייכות עם השם אביי, אב, בחינת חכמה, לעומת רבא, רב, בחינת בינה. וכן מבאר השייכות עם הגמרא בברכות מח, א דאביי הראה להשמים ולא להקורה כמו רבא, כפי שנתבאר בהשיעור. ההוספה על בחינת יתום היא הוספה של המגיד שיעור שי', והוא באמת רעיון חדש ונפלא, וצ"ע אם יש לזה מקור, ואולי ע"ז נאמר אין משיבין על הדרוש. ואבקש מהשומעים לעיין בזה
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יצחק -15 years ago
יתום
אולי יש לקשר תוכן השיעור גם עם זמן הפורים, שחל בסמיכות לפרשת תצוה, ע"פ מ"ש במגילה על אסתר המלכה שאין לה אב ואם ומרדכי לקחה לו לבת. ואמרו חז"ל באסתר רבה, שבנ"י התאוננו לאחרי החורבן שיתומים היינו ואין אב, וע"ז אמר להם הקב"ה שיביא את הישועה ע"י אסתר שאין לה אב ואם, הובא ונתבאר גם באלשי"ך על מגילת אסתר. ולכאורה צ"ע בכוונת הדברים. דמה תועיל להם שהישועה מגיעה ע"י יתומה שאין לה אב ואם? ואיך זה עונה על הצעקה והאנחה שיתומים היינו ואין אב? ואולי יש לומר ע"פ השיעור ביאור חדש בזה, שבזמן הגלות בנ"י הם בבחינת יתומים, גלו מעל שולחן אביהם, ואז צ"ל בחינת אשר בך ירוחם יתום, בך דייקא, בך בעצמותך (כבלשון המדרש במק"א הובא ונתבאר במאמרי י"ב מוז עה"פ זה היום גו'), בחינת מקיף הרחוק, כיון שאין כאן גילוי דמקיף הקרוב, כמשנ""ת בהשיעור. וכיון שאסתר לא היו לה או"א, נרגשה אצלה בחינה זו דאלקות ומכח זה הגיעה הישועה. וע"ד משנ"ת בתו"א דרושי מגילת אסתר על נפלה בתולת ישראל לא תוסיף קום, דלאחרי הנפילה הכי חזקה מגיעה העלי' הכי גדולה, דאברהם ויעקב לא יכירנו ויאמרו ליצחק כי אתה אבינו, דאין כאן גילויים כי אם רק העצם, כמבואר באריכות בתו"א שם בנוגע להישועה בפורים. והדברים נפלאים, הפך והפך בה דכולה בה.
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Fievel -15 years ago
Geshmak, even without an ending
Very nice, enjoyed the combination of Gemorah and practical hashkafa!
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[email protected] -15 years ago
tonight's shiur
where do i find the 'CURRICULUM'?
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Joseph -15 years ago
Thank you
Thank you for this, and thank you David and Eda Sschottenstein so so much for this. It is so powerful and moving.
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Yosef -15 years ago
Curriculum
This curriculum is really beautiful. I studied it, it's great.
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Dovy -15 years ago
Old Lectures
is there a way to listen to old lectures from earlier parshious besides the recent videos. i wanted to listen to the one on parshas bo....
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Avigayil -15 years ago
Exciting
I am so looking forward! Thank you.
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Joe -15 years ago
Healing
What a healing message to me, thank you.
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