As explained before, the blessing haGomel is recited as a public expression of gratitude to God.

HaGomel therefore, should be said in the presence of a minyan (ten men). Although technically you can say haGomel in any instance where a Minyan is present, the custom is to recite birkat haGomel when the Sefer Tora is read.

Let us now explain in what circumstances is appropriate or justified to say haGomel.

There is a fundamental difference between Sephardim and Ashkenazim regarding the recitation of haGomel. For the Ashkenazi tradition, haGomel is recited only when one recovered or was saved from some sort of a life-threatening situation. For the Sephardic custom, haGomel is recited in four scenarios (imprisonment, illness, traveling, sea crossing) even when one’s life has not been compromised.

Examples:

According to the Sephardic custom haGomel is recited for any illness that required bed-rest. The Shulhan ‘Arukh (219: 8) explains that even if one’s life or health has not been compromised, if the illness or the medical treatment required bed rest or hospitalization, haGomel should be recited. According to this custom if one was sick with the flu or a stomach virus, etc. and had to spend even one day in bed, he should say haGomel. Many Sephardic Jews follow the custom of the Ben Ish Hay who slightly disagrees with the Shulhan ‘Arukh and says that the recitation of haGomel is required only if one had to be in bed rest at least for three days.

According to the Ashkenazi tradition, haGomel should be recited only when one has recovered from an illness or after a medical procedure that carries some risk of life. For example, pneumonia or an infection that, if had not been treated could have involved a life threatening situation. Rabbi Eliezer Melamed gives another illustration of the application of Ashkenazi custom. He says that for a surgical procedure that required local anesthesia (=anesthesia applied only in the area of the body that will be operated) one should not say haGomel. But if the surgery demanded general anesthesia, then haGomel should be recited, because regardless of the disease’s risks, general anesthesia carries a surgical risk. He also clarifies that the general rule for the Ashkenazi custom is that haGomel should be recited when one has recovered from an illness which is serious enough to justify transgressing the Shabbat.

As the reader can see, there are many customs regarding the details of the recitation of haGomel. It is recommended therefore, that each individual follow the traditions already established in his or her own community.

A “Berakha” is a statement, a formula by which we bless God.  First, we need to clarify what does it mean to “bless God” ? Usually, it is the one with a higher merit or the authority who grants the blessing to the needy. So, what does it mean that we “bless” God? In Hebrew “Blessing God”, unlike blessing another human being, simply means that we acknowledging God as the source of all our blessings.

For example: When we say a blessing before eating a fruit: barukh Ata HaShem… bore peri haets, we are saying, “I acknowledge, I declare, that YOU are the Creator of the fruits of the tree.

All the bearakhot share the words Barukh Ata haShem…   which should never be translated as “Blessed BE You, HaShem”, as if we would be wishing God to have something He lacks ח”ו;  but “Blessed ARE You, HaShem…” in the sense of “You ARE the source of …..”.

The berakhot are recited mainly for three different functions.

1. Birkot hanehenim, are the blessings we recite before we enjoy a  material event, even simple, routinary occurrences . For example, before we eat, drink, or enjoy a pleasant aroma we say a berakha acknowledging God as the source of that material blessing.

2. Birkot haMitsvot, these are the blessings we recite when we perform one of God’s commandments.  For example, before we fix the mezuza in the doorpost we “bless God” saying asher qiddeshanu bemitsvotav vetsivanu liqboa’ mezuza. “It is YOU HaShem the One Who sanctified us with His Mitsvot, and it was YOU the One Who ordered us to place a mezuza in our doorposts.” In other words, I’m declaring that the reason I’m doing this act is because I’m following YOUR commands.

3. Birkot haShebah, are the blessings of praise.  We also use the formula of a berakha barukh ata hashem  to praise HaShem for the multitude of events, occurrences in the past and in the present, that we know of or that we experience every day. Again, we declare that YOU HaShem are the source of these events. And by reciting a blessing we train ourselves to perceive HaShem’s subtle and invisible intervention in our lives. Illustartion: All birkot hashahar, the blessing we say in the morning when we wake up, belong to this category. We bless haShem, for example, saying that He “restores life to the lifeless bodies”, in other words, when we wake up in the morning we realize, thanks to this berakha, that our inert bodies were inert and passive (see this) but now, HaShem has given us our souls back.

Although a berakha is technically a plain declaration (or for Maimonides a “sworn declaration”), many or probably most of the blessings could be also classified as statements of appreciation and gratitude.

There is one blessing in particular that is known as the blessing of gratitude per excellence. And that is birkat hagomel.

Next Monday, BH, we will begin to explain what are we saying in this beautiful berakha.

There are several names by which we refer to HaShem (=God). The most prominent name is A-M-O-N-A-Y (reading D for the M). As you can see, one should be very careful not to write down any of the names of HaShem (technically, there are seven such names as per MT, Yesode HaTora 6:2) in its original way because we do not want to risk that, inadvertently, one would erase HaShem’s name, which is an explicit prohibition in the Tora “lo ta’asun ken….” (Deut. 12:3-4).

The name A-M-O-N-A-Y is also known in Hebrew as the Shem HaMeforash, which means, the ineffable Name of God (“ineffable” means: too great or extreme to be expressed with words).  In Latin the Shem haMeforash is known as the “tetragrammaton”, which means, the name of four (tetra) letters (gramma).

There is more to the Shem HaMeforash.

In the Tora every word is written without vowels. We know how to pronounce the words of our Tora thanks to the Mesora, the “Masoretic tradition”, which records and preserves the vocalization and punctuation (te’amim) of every word.

In the Mesora, the Shem haMeforash has three vowels. But these vowels do not indicate the original vocalization of the Shem haMeforash; rather, those three vowels indicate the way this Name should be read.

Confused?

Briefly, there are a few words in the Tanakh that for different reasons are written in one way and read in a different way. This event is known in the Mesora as keri ukhetib, which means: “Although this word is written in this way, you must read in this other way”.  To signal this variation, the consonants of the written word are vocalized with the vowels of the word that should be read.

In the times of the Bet-haMiqdash the Cohen Gadol (High Priest) pronounced the Shem haMeforash with its original vowels, a tradition that was known only to the High Priests. When the name of HaShem was uttered during Yom Kippur all the people of Israel would bow down and prostrate while saying out loud barukh shem kebod malkhuto le’olam va’ed, which means “May the Glorious Name of His Kingdom be blessed forever”.  This beautiful praise also served to maintain undisclosed the original pronunciation of the Shem haMeforash.

Rabbi Isaac Canpanton was born in Castilla, Spain (probably in Zamora) in 1360.  Rabbi Canpanton was known as “The Gaon of Castilla”. He witnessed the decline of Spanish Jewry, especially after the persecutions, mass-killings and forced conversions of the 1390’s, and the outrages of Vicente Ferrer y Ferrand Martinez.
Rabbi Canpanton directed the Yeshiba of Zamora for many years. He was succeeded by one of his disciples, rabbi Shemuel al-Valensi (=from Valencia) who headed this prestigious Yeshiba until the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492.
Rabbi Canpanton probably wrote many books, but today we only know of one of his books,  Darkhe haTalmud (“A Methodology of the Talmud). Darkhe haTalmud is a short book which teaches the proper methodology to study and teach Talmud.  Incidentally, it also shows the way the Talmud was studied in Sepharad for centuries.  This book affected the way the Sephardic communities studied the Talmud after the expulsion from Spain in Salonica, North Africa and the Middle East. Rabbi Ya’aqob Berab, for example, who was one of the luminaries of Tsefat (Safed) in the 16 century, taught Talmud in his prestigious Yeshiba, following strictly the methodology of Darkhe haTalmud. Rabbi Yaaqob Berab was the rabbi who ordained Rabbi Yosef Caro, the author of the Shulhan ‘arukh, with the renewed semikha. In the Bet Yosef (YD Siman 275), Rabbi Yosef Caro mentions rabbi Canpanton with much honor and respect:  “הרב הגדול החסיד הר’ יצחק קאפאנטו”ן ז”ל היה נוהג לעשות כן”.

Rabbi Canpanton lived a long life, 103 years. He died in Peñafiel, Spain,  in 1463.

ספר דרכי התלמוד לרבי יצחק קנפאנטון

The book Darkhe haTalmud contains 15 short chapters. Most of them deal with methodological rules, to train the student to develop an active and critical study of the Talmud.  Rabbi Canpanton insists, for example, that the student has to read the text at least three times, paying very close attention to the language (diyuq) before he engages into any of the commentaries.  When the student reads the text he must ask himself several (=ten) questions: Who are the protagonists of the debate (the suguia)? What is the goal of this particular text? What novelty it comes to teach? etc. Only after that, he should proceed to read the commentaries. One of the most important didactic rules the book systematically presents is, in my own words, “anticipation”. Rabbi Canpanton teaches the student to read carefully the debates, the questions or the comparison between the texts and stop before reading further. Once the student understands the question, he must try to arrive on his own at the possible answers and solutions, anticipating the solutions the Gemara will possibly offer. This didactic rule is very effective because by trial and error the student learns to analyze his own thinking and eventually he will be able to integrate into his own mind the sophisticated Talmudic thinking.

Darkhe haTalmud also teaches some practical techniques to improve one’s memory and focusing abilities.

On chapter 12 Darkhe haTalmud examines the ways to study the commentators of the Talmud, for example, Nahmanides, Rishba. The author exhorts the reader to read the commentaries analytically, trying to discover what is the main novelty the author tries to teach.

On Chapter 14 the author clarifies some of the less known Talmudic terminologies.

The book is very short (less than 60 pages) , and written in a very easy Hebrew.
To download the book Darkhe haTalmud, click here.

הויאל והיות הגוף בריא ושלם, מדרכי ה’ הוא , שהרי אי אפשר שיבין או יידע והוא חולה צריך אדם להרחיק עצמו מדברים המאבדין את הגוף, ולהנהיג עצמו בדברים המברים המחלימים

Besides being one of the greatest rabbis in Jewish History, Moses Maimonides (known in Hebrew as haRambam) was also a world-renowned medieval physician.

He was born in Cordoba, Spain in 1135.

Not much is known about his medical education, but it is thought that he read a great deal and was familiar with classic and contemporary works on medicine.  He grew up in times of poor healthcare, with infant and child mortality leading to half the population dying before they were 10 years old.

Soon after he arrived in Egypt (ca. 1165) he was appointed as the court physician to the Regent of Egypt while the Sultan (Saladin the Great) was fighting the crusades.  According to a letter written to his student Yosef ben ‘aqnin,  his daily duties to the Sultan would last from first light until well into the afternoon. He would then come back home where a long line of  patients were waiting for him, “both Jews and Gentiles, nobles and common people… friends and enemies”. Maimonides would treat them, many times without expecting any retribution, until well into the night,.

Maimonides was a pioneer in one very important field: preventive medicine.  Preventive medicine is all about keeping good habits.  What and how to eat; the duty to working-out and maintaining a good hygiene; etc.

Maimonides says that if a genetically healthy person follows his advices he would live a long life and most probably will never need a doctor.

Most of his recommendations for a healthy life are found in the fourth chapter of Hilkhot De’ot of his Mishne Tora.

He wrote this chapter as a physician and as a Rabbi.  In the first Halakha Maimonides explains that the duty of taking care of our bodies is a religious obligation. A requisite to properly serve HaShem.

Hilkhot De’ot, 4:1

Since maintaining a healthy and sound body is among the ways of [serving] God – for one cannot understand or have any knowledge of the Creator, if he is ill – therefore, he must avoid that which harms the body and accustom himself to that which is healthful and helps the body become stronger.

As we have previously explained, our rabbis introduced two prayers for the rain in the ‘amida. One is barekh ‘alenu (the ninth berakha of the ‘amida), which is the blessing for our livelihood (parnasa). We ask God for “rain” and not for “customers” or “money” because in ancient times, when Israel was an agricultural society, everyone’s economy depended entirely on rain.  We ask HaShem to bless us with dew and rain which should come in a way of blessing (librakha). We request HaShem to give us rain in its time and in its proper measure. As it is written in the Shema’ Israel be’ito yore umalqosh, give us “in its proper time the strong rainfall (the first rain, which is very strong and helps to soften the land we need to plow) and then the soft rain, which is needed once the vegetation starts to grow (if we would get the mild rain at the beginning of the season, it will not be enough to soften the land.  And if we get the strong rainfall when the vegetation is growing, the rain will destroy the plants).

Now, the first time rain is mentioned in the ‘amida, is during the second berakha we don’t ask or request rain or anything else from God. We praise Him. We state that God is Omnipotent (=infinitely powerful) and that He uses His powers to sustain, maintain, support, cure, deliver, nurture, and revive His creatures.
This is the context in which we say “the prayer of praise for the rain” mashib haruah, umorid haGeshem, “[HaShem, You are the One] who makes the wind to blow, and the rain to fall”. In this context we are not asking for rain, we are expressing our appreciation for the fact that HaShem created rain.  We perceive rain as part of tehiyat hametim, “God’s power to restore life” , because only thanks to the rain the dry-land revives, the plants grow again and the living creatures of the world stay alive.

Rain is critically important for our survival.  And praising God for “rain” should be nothing short of natural and spontaneous.  In our days, however, we do not really appreciate rain. This morning, for example, is raining in New York city, and you don’t see people are excited and thankful to HaShem about it.  On the contrary. I would say that 99% of people are actually annoyed by the rain.

What kind of praise then, would one say for something that feels an annoyance more than a blessing?

Tomorrow, BH we will explore some of the wonders of the mechanism of precipitation which should help us to gaining a more positive outlook at the miracle of rain, and hopefully be able to praise HaShem for one of His main blessings to mankind.

The day after the seventh day of Sukkot (also known as hosha’na rabba) we celebrate another Holiday: “Shemini Atseret” which  technically, is a different  and independent Holiday from Sukkot.

During Shemini Atzeret we do not have anymore the Mitsva of Lulab and Etrog.

As for the Sukka, in Israel during shemini atzeret the sukka should not be used. The meals should take place at home. If one would use the Sukka in Israel on Shemini Atseret it would incur into the prohibition of adding an additional Mitsva (lo tosif!).

In the Diaspora, however, because of the ancient calendar system, we still use the Sukka during the first day of Shemini Atseret, but without reciting any blessing.

As we explained yesterday, the end of Sukkot indicates the beginning of the new rain season.  This is why from the Musaf prayer of Shemini Atseret, we change the words morid hatal (You make the dew descend) for the prayer of the rain mashib haruah uMorid haGeshem, “You make the wind blow, and the rain descend.”

It is important to notice that at this specific point we are still not asking HaShem for rain. We begin by praising God for His wisdom and power to produce precipitation. By saying mashib haruah we are acknowledging God as the source of rain, and by extension, as the ultimate source of our livelihood.

In Israel the holiday of Shemini Atseret is also Simhat Tora.
Outside Erets Israel, as with any other holiday (=Yom Tob),  we celebrate the holiday for two days. The second day of Shemini Atseret is also known as Simhat Tora, when we celebrate the end of the annual cycle of Tora reading, and the uninterrupted beginning the new reading cycle, from Bereshit.

We sing and dance around the Tora, expressing our joy for being part of the people chosen by God to follow His Tora.

We should celebrate Simhat Tora with this real happiness:  “During Yom Tob a person should not drink too much… because drunkenness and frivolity is NOT part of the Mitsva of happiness, but foolishness and licentiousness…  and we were commanded to attain a level of happiness that is part of worshipping HaShem… and one cannot worship HaShem by frivolity and drunkenness”  (MT Yom Tob, 6:19).

As haRambam explained, a Jew does not need to get drunk to feel happy and/or to express this happiness. People who need to get drunk in order to feel happy do that because they want to “forget” who they are, turning off their senses and escaping the reality of their lives. We are AM ISRAEL, the chosen people. And even  when personally we might be living difficult times, we still derive immense happiness from the fact that we have the privilege to belong to the people of God.
Maimonides explains that our greatest joy derives from knowing that we have the privilege to serve God, as God wants to be served:  “The greatest way to worshiping God is by being happy because we are doing the commandments of God, and being happy because we love our God”  (MT H. Sukka veLulab, 8:15).