THE EMPTY TENT

This week’s Haftarah, Roni Aqarah (Yeshayahu 54), presents an extraordinary image of redemption, the Geulah. The prophet speaks to Yerushalayim, which during the exile that followed the destruction of the Bet Hamiqdash had been left desolate, like a mother who suddenly finds herself alone in her tent—her home—without her children. But now, Yeshayahu tells Yerushalayim, everything is about to change! Your children are coming back, and there will be so many of them that you will need to make some renovations to the house: “Harchibi meqom aholekh”—”Enlarge the space of your tent.” In other words: pull out the stakes, move them much farther apart, expand your home, and extend its boundaries, because they are already coming…

The prophet gives her that instruction—but no one returns. The poor woman is still without her children; the city remains completely empty and desolate, and now utterly disappointed. But Yeshayahu tells her: al tachsokhi—”Do not make your tent smaller.” Do not lose hope that one day your children will return. Yeshayahu understands that after a loss, the temptation is to make yourself smaller: to shrink the tent, not to get your hopes up, not to take too many risks, not to nurture false expectations. In the name of Bore Olam, the prophet asks her to prepare a larger home and wait. Her children will return. In multitudes. But that “soon” would have to wait a very long time before becoming reality.

For centuries, we read this prophecy as a utopia, a dream beyond dreams. Jews scattered throughout the world prayed to return to Tziyon.

But eventually our tefilot were answered: once again, we have our State of Israel—the expanded tent that Yeshayahu prophesied.

Many waves of Aliyah were triggered by terrible circumstances: pogroms, persecution, antisemitism, wars. Millions of Jews arrived in Israel because they could no longer remain where they were. It was not a choice: someone or something was chasing them and pushing them—forcing them!—toward Israel.

RETURNING BY CHOICE

But there is another kind of Aliyah, with a unique merit of its own: Aliyah by choice. When a Yehudi does not flee to Israel, but deliberately moves toward Israel. When he or she voluntarily leaves behind a good and stable life because he wants Medinat Israel to become his home and the home of his children.

This is the kind of Aliyah—Aliyah motivated by conviction rather than convenience—that we experienced in my community a couple of weeks ago. A group of seven families, together with their children, made Aliyah to Israel! I know these families extremely well: they are my congregants, my students, my friends. All are successful professionals or businessmen living very comfortably in Great Neck in beautiful, comfortable homes. Their families are established here; they have excellent schools, stable jobs, and an extraordinary community life.

As good Sephardic Jews, the value and importance of family and extended family are paramount. The pain of physically separating from siblings and parents—and taking their grandchildren away from them—has been the most difficult, painful, and heartbreaking part of this entire process. But when the conviction is so strong, one feels that these enormous sacrifices are being made with the hope that, BE”H, the path is being prepared for the rest of the family to eventually come to Israel as well. And when that happens, their integration will be easier because they will already have family established there.

Paying the very high price of sacrificing comfort and familiarity, and facing the challenges of uprooting themselves, these young families from our community decided to become part of Yeshayahu’s prophecy and return to Israel’s expanded tent. They chose Raanana, a beautiful city with excellent schools for their children and first-rate healthcare. There they will begin building their future.

I believe this awakening began, ironically, after October 7, when the war began—a war that still has not ended. We witnessed a religious awakening among less religious Jews, and a renewed interest in Israel among Jews who were already religious. I never thought this would happen. Great Neck is one of the places with the highest percentages of Jewish residents anywhere in the United States—a place where, when you walk through the neighborhood, it seems that 90% of the homes have a mezuzah. It is a place where absolutely nothing is missing for a full Jewish life… (except for “Israel”).

THREE POWERFUL IDEAS THAT STAYED WITH ME

When these young families said goodbye, some of the husbands shared a Debar Torah at Seudah Shelishit and, directly or indirectly, explained what had led them to make this decision.

I will repeat some of these ideas in my own words.

MITSVOT MADE IN ISRAEL

There are 613 mitsvot in the Torah. According to the calculation of the Chafets Chayim, 271 of them can be observed today outside Israel, and an additional 26 can be fulfilled in Erets Israel—a total of 297. Many of the remaining mitsvot cannot be fulfilled today because they depend on the Bet Hamiqdash, the qorbanot, the service of the kohanim, or other conditions that no longer exist.

Those additional 26 mitsvot are not “difficult” to fulfill in Great Neck. They simply cannot be fulfilled there. A man with a small garden in Raanana can fulfill Torah mitsvot that no Jew in New York can fulfill, no matter how wealthy, observant, or learned he may be.

But there is something more—and even more important. Rashi, quoting the Sifre, explains that even in exile we must continue observing the mitsvot so that they will not be “new” to us when we return to our land. In other words, the mitsvot keep us connected to the road home:

וְשַׂמְתֶּם אֶת־דְּבָרַי — אַף לְאַחַר שֶׁתִּגְלוּ הֱיוּ מְצֻיָּנִים בַּמִּצְווֹת, הַנִּיחוּ תְּפִלִּין, עֲשׂוּ מְזוּזוֹת, כְּדֵי שֶׁלֹּא יִהְיוּ לָכֶם חֲדָשִׁים כְּשֶׁתַּחְזְרוּ. וְכֵן הוּא אוֹמֵר (ירמיהו ל”א): הַצִּיבִי לָךְ צִיֻּנִים.

“Vesamtem et debarai”—Even after you are exiled, continue to distinguish yourselves through the mitsvot: put on tefillin, place mezuzot, so that they will not seem new to you when you return.

Ramban takes this idea much further:

כִּי עִיקַּר כָּל הַמִּצְוֹת לַיּוֹשְׁבִים בְּאֶרֶץ ה׳

“For the essential fulfillment of all the mitsvot is for those who dwell in the Land of HaShem.” (Ramban, Vayiqra 18:25)

Outside Israel, we remain fully obligated to observe the mitsvot—tefillin, mezuzah, Shabbat—but their natural home, the place where they reach their fullest meaning, is Erets Israel. A Yehudi in exile is like a flower growing in a greenhouse. The forest—the natural environment of that flower—is the Land of Israel.

I want to go to Israel because it is the natural place where all the mitsvot can be fulfilled as the Almighty intended them to be fulfilled.

PRAYING OR MOVING?

Three times a day, we ask HaShem to gather us back and pray that “our eyes may behold Your return to Zion.”

But praying without doing anything is like asking HaShem for parnasah—sustenance—in Barekhenu while making no effort to work. We pray for HaShem to crown our efforts with success, not to replace them. When we say Refaenu—”Heal us”—we do not pray instead of going to the doctor. We pray while also doing everything in our power—our hishtadlut—to become healthy. If we simply pray and refuse to go to the doctor, we are responsible for what happens to us!

What, then, is the difference between praying for sustenance and health and praying for the Geulah?

Every day we ask HaShem in Teqa beshofar gadol lecherutenu: “Gather us from the four corners of the earth.” HaShem has already heard our prayers and granted our request! The gates are open, and we can return to Israel.

To continue praying for something that has already been granted to me, while doing nothing about it, is not prayer.

It is procrastination.

When Moshe stands praying to HaShem while the people of Israel are trapped between the Red Sea in front of them and the Egyptian army closing in from behind, HaShem tells him: “Ma titsaq elai? Dabber el Bene Israel veyissa’u!” —”Why are you crying out to Me? Tell the Children of Israel to move forward!” Rashi explains: this was not the time to prolong prayer. It was time to move.

There is a time to pray, and there is a time to act. At that moment, HaShem was telling Moshe: Stop praying. Move forward. Step into the sea. You do your part—and leave the rest to Me.

I want to live in Israel because HaShem has already answered our prayers. Now it is my turn to do my part—and move.

WAITING OR NOT WAITING FOR THE MASHIACH?

The great merit of living in Israel, like the merit of any other mitsvah, lies in bechirah chofshit: freedom of choice. And the more difficult the choice, the greater its merit. If someone forced me—or paid me—to go to minyan every morning, it would not be the same as choosing to go myself. And if going to minyan requires me to sacrifice some comfort because I sleep a little less, or costs me some income because I work a little less, then the merit is even greater. The greater the sacrifice involved in choosing to perform a mitsvah, the greater the merit of fulfilling it. As Ben He He teaches in Pirqe Abot (5:23): lefum tsaara agra—”According to the effort is the reward.”

I want to go to Israel by my own choice. Out of conviction. Even if it costs me. I do not want to leave because one day it may become dangerous to remain in Great Neck. I do not want to flee from where I live because I can no longer afford health insurance while healthcare there is free. Because then it would not be my choice—it would be my convenience.

Rabbi Yehudah HaLevi (1075–1141), in his famous book The Kuzari, presents a very harsh and embarrassing warning to Jews who were able, but unwilling, to return to Israel. The King of the Khazars asks the Rabbi: What happened during the Second Temple period, when the Jews prayed to God to return them to Israel, and then, when this became possible in the days of Cyrus (or Achashverosh, Y.B.), they chose to remain in exile—while, ironically, continuing to pray for God to return them to Tziyon?

The Kuzari’s response to this attitude was very severe:

“This sin—the failure to return to the Land of Israel when we had the opportunity—is what prevented the Divine plan from reaching its fulfillment during the Second Temple period. The prophet Zekhariah anticipated that all the Jews would return: ‘Sing and rejoice, daughter of Tziyon’ [for God is once again in His land, Zekhariah 2:14], and that when the majority of the Jewish people returned to Israel, the SHEKHINAH, the Divine Presence, and prophecy would return to Israel! The Yehudim were expected to return voluntarily to their land. But incredibly, this did not happen, and only some Jews returned [the poorest among them]. The great majority remained in Babylon [Persia], in a voluntary exile, because they were unwilling to separate themselves from their worldly affairs, their mansions, and their businesses.”

This cannot happen a second time.

I want to arrive in Israel before the Mashiach comes. I want to go to Israel through my own merit, by choice, and out of love for Bore Olam.

THE ONLY DEPARTURE WE SHOULD CELEBRATE

For those of us who remain here, the departure of these wonderful families and their children—52 people altogether—leaves us with mixed emotions. We will miss them, and even though our community numbers 1,200 families, their absence will be felt! But at the same time, we feel tremendous pride and joy knowing that they are now inside Yeshayahu’s tent.

It is the only kind of farewell that should be celebrated.

Because they are opening the way for those who may one day want to join them—by choice, or even by force.

To these seven families, and to all those returning to the land of our forefathers, we pray that HaShem accompany them through this enormous step; that their adjustment be easy; that they find in Israel a true home; and that their children and grandchildren grow up deeply connected to Am Israel and Erets Israel.

“Harchibi meqom aholekh.” Make more room in your tent, Israel: your children are coming home.

This is a summary of an article by Dr. Guy Bechor, published in “Gplanet,” August 13, 2026

Israel needs more soldiers. This is probably one of the most obvious conclusions of the past three years of war. Thousands of Israelis have spent an enormous portion of their lives in miluim — away from their jobs, their businesses, their studies and, above all, their families. There are soldiers who have accumulated 300, 400, even 500 days of reserve duty. It is admirable, but it is also tremendously unfair and, in the long run, unsustainable. The same families cannot be expected to keep paying the price of defending the country indefinitely.

This is the context in which a new technological revolution may take on extraordinary importance: the development of an Israeli “robot army.”

We are not talking about science fiction. During the war in Gaza and Lebanon, Tzahal already began deploying unmanned systems on a large scale: drones, remotely operated ground vehicles, small robots that enter tunnels and buildings, platforms for carrying equipment and evacuating the wounded, and, among others, the enormous D9 “Panda” bulldozer, which can clear paths and operate in dangerous areas without directly exposing its operators. The goal is very simple: whenever possible, the machine goes in first, and the soldier goes in after.

Dr. Bechor explains that Israel currently faces a shortage of roughly 12,000 conscripted soldiers, including thousands of combat troops, while the pressure keeps growing on those already serving in the reserves. Robots will not eliminate that manpower shortage. But they can become an extraordinary force multiplier: allowing fewer soldiers to carry out certain missions and, above all, keeping human beings from unnecessary exposure to danger.

Robots can already clear routes suspected of containing explosives, inspect tunnels, run patrols, transport ammunition and supplies under fire, and take part in reconnaissance operations. Every one of these tasks performed by a machine potentially means several fewer soldiers exposed to the enemy — and more personnel available for the missions that truly require human intelligence, judgment, and decision-making.

The next step will be far more ambitious. Tzahal’s new program calls for the systematic integration of robotics and artificial intelligence across the ground, air, and naval forces. In the near future, groups of robots and drones will be able to share information with one another, recognize obstacles, and operate in coordination, while human beings retain control of the fundamental decisions.

But there is an essential caveat. Technology can never replace the human being. October 7 proved that cameras, sensors, and sophisticated electronic systems are of little use when interpretation, vigilance, or decision-making fail. It must be acknowledged that even a robotic army probably would not have completely prevented the invasion from Gaza. Robots can detect threats faster and save lives, but they cannot replace human leadership and responsibility.

For Israel, then, this revolution is not about replacing our soldiers. It is about protecting them, multiplying their capabilities, and allowing many of them to finally return sooner to their jobs, their wives, their children, and their homes.

The Torah dedicates three entire chapters to a pagan sorcerer hired by the king of Moab to curse Israel with his spells. Apparently, this is proof that divination and sorcery exist and work…

But the key to understanding what the Torah thinks of this individual lies in how the text refers to him. Contrary to popular opinion, the Torah and our Sages did not call Bil’am a prophet, but “Bil’am son of Beor, the sorcerer (or diviner).” In the book of Yehoshua (13:22) the Hebrew word qosem is used — the same term that appears in the list of occult divination practices presented in this week’s Parashah (Devarim 18:10). And the Sages say it explicitly in the Talmud (Sanhedrin 106a): Bil’am qosem hayá — “he was a sorcerer.”

For Maimonides, Bil’am was like the character of Voldemort in Harry Potter: the most feared dark wizard of his world, the name everyone pronounced with fear, the sorcerer to whom was attributed the power to curse and destroy with words. With one fundamental difference: Voldemort is a fictional character in a fictional world where magic works! Bil’am was a real character in a real world, where magic does not work. His reputation was that of Voldemort; his “power,” that of any illusionist and manipulator. His profession, his international fame, and the fees that Balaq was willing to pay him belonged to the industry of deception and illusionism that we have just described. And Balaq was the perfect client: a terrified king, willing to pay any price to try to destroy Israel.

So how is it explained that his words came true? Maimonides answers this in the Guide for the Perplexed (Moreh Nevukhim, II:45). The Torah says: “Vayasem HaShem davar befi Bilam” — “And HaShem put the words in Bilam’s mouth” (Bamidbar 23:5). The biblical text does not say that HaShem revealed Himself to Bilam, nor that Bilam saw or understood anything. It says that He put words in his mouth. Bilam’s tricks and illusionism produced absolutely nothing: HaShem used him as an instrument, despite his arts, not thanks to them.

And the subtle but clear message for those who read the Torah carefully is pronounced by Bil’am himself, in the middle of his forced blessing: “Ki lo nachash beYaakov velo qesem beYisrael” — “[now I realize, says Bil’am] that there is no magic in Yaakov nor sorcery in Israel” (Bamidbar 23:23). The most famous sorcerer of the ancient world, hired for a fortune to curse Israel, ends up publicly announcing that his own profession does not work! The Torah did not need a sermon against the industry of divination: it quoted the most prestigious sorcerer in the market, who confessed that his product did not exist.

THE TWO DESIRES

There are two things human beings have always wanted and never been able to have. The first is to know what the future holds. The second is to control it. And around those two desires — or anxieties — an entire industry was built, from antiquity onward: charlatans who claimed they could see the future, and others who sold solutions that supposedly could change it.

Our Parasha deals with both. And it does so with a list. The Torah does not settle for a general warning: it enumerates one practice after another. “There shall not be found among you anyone who passes his son or his daughter through the fire, or who practices divination, a soothsayer, a reader of omens, a sorcerer, an enchanter, one who consults spirits, a medium, or one who inquires of the dead” (Debarim 18:10–11). The first item on the list is surprising: passing a child through fire does not seem to be an act of divination. What is it doing at the head of a list of diviners and sorcerers? Maimonides explains it in the Guide for the Perplexed (III:37), and his explanation is an X-ray of how this mechanism worked. The promoters of this cult spread a terrifying threat: if a father did not pass his son through the fire, that son would die! It was religious corruption in its most brutal form: manufacture the fear, then present yourself as the owner of the solution. A father did not subject his child to that ritual out of pagan fanaticism. He did it out of fear, to save him. The most monstrous practice on the entire list was born not from the desire to know the future but from the other desire: to control it. It was the extreme case of the amulet. The sorcerers of Baal had discovered that a parent’s fear for his child’s future is one of the easiest forces to exploit. And the logic that follows repeats itself again and again: identify a person’s fear, and sell him a solution no one can verify.

IT IS DANGEROUS BECAUSE IT IS A LIE

Many people assume these practices were forbidden because they were considered “dangerous.” That this was black magic, that it worked, that it had real power, and that this power came from a dark place best kept at a distance. Maimonides says exactly the opposite, and he says it with no diplomacy whatsoever. In the Mishne Torah, in the laws of Aboda Zara (chapter 11), after describing each of these practices one by one, he writes that “all these practices are lies and falsehood.” And he adds that whoever believes in them, thinking they are true and wise but that the Torah forbade them anyway, “is nothing but a fool, lacking understanding.”

For Maimonides, the pagan diviner was not a spiritual enemy with dark powers. There was no power coming from the wrong side: there was no power at all. And once you understand that, the subject stops being supernatural and becomes deeply human. The diviner was a swindler of the worst kind, because he preyed precisely on people at their most vulnerable: a frightening diagnosis, a marriage falling apart, a business going under, a child who has lost his way. He showed up exactly when someone was ready to believe anything and pay any price to recover hope. What he sold was not information about the future. He sold false hope to someone who desperately needed real hope.

HOW THE TRICK WAS DONE

It is worth understanding where the impression that the diviner “got it right” came from. Some people have an enormous natural talent for reading another person: watching a face, catching a gesture that lasts a fraction of a second, noticing where someone’s breath catches, hearing how the tone of voice changes when a certain subject comes up. That ability exists and it is real, but there is nothing supernatural about it. Good salesmen have it too, and so do good poker players. And on top of that comes suggestion. The one who read palms, or cards, or the bottom of a cup did not need to say anything precise. Broad statements were enough — statements that could apply to almost anyone: “I see a problem with someone close to you.” “There is something from the past that was never resolved.” “I see a big change coming.” The listener filled in the blanks with his own life. Afterward he remembered the diviner’s “hits” and forgot everything he had missed. The work was done by the victim, not by the diviner.

In 1949, the psychologist Bertram Forer demonstrated something very similar experimentally. Thirty-nine students were each given a supposedly personalized analysis of their personality. In reality, they all received exactly the same text, composed mostly of sentences taken from an astrology book: statements general enough that almost anyone could recognize himself in them. The students were impressed by the supposed accuracy of the analysis. Only later did Forer inform them that everyone had received the same result. This phenomenon is known today as the Forer effect, or the Barnum effect: our tendency to interpret vague, general statements as if they described our own life specifically. For a fortune teller, that human tendency is pure gold!

AMULETS

The second desire, controlling the future, had its own market: amulets, objects with “powers,” metaphysical remedies. And here Maimonides is even harsher, because he is no longer talking about the pagans of Canaan. He is talking about a practice that once existed among Yehudim and that, B”H, has disappeared: in those days, certain charlatans would write on the parchment of the mezuza the names of angels and supposedly sacred names, to reinforce the “protection” of the home. Maimonides says that such people are among those who have no share in the World to Come. And he explains why: “It is not enough for them that they have nullified the mitzva [the mezuza becomes pesula, invalid, if other texts are written within its text ]; these individuals turn a great mitzva — which expresses the unity of the Name of the Holy One, blessed be He, the love of Him and His service — into an amulet for their own benefit, because in their foolishness they think this will help them with the vanities of this world.”

In the same chapter 11 of Aboda Zara, he says something similar about using verses of the Torah to heal the body: whoever does this is among those who deny the Torah, because he turns the words of the Torah into a remedy for the body, when they are a remedy for the soul. Maimonides’ logic is always the same. The mezuzah is a constant reminder of God’s existence and unity, not an insurance policy against burglars. And the moment a mitzva becomes a “device” for obtaining something, it stops being a mitzva and turns into a pagan amulet.”

Rabbi Isaac Delouya (הרב יצחק דלויה) was born in Spain in the second half of the fifteenth century. The year is unknown. Nothing survives of his childhood, his teachers, or his life before 1492. What survives is his name, and his name is a place. “Delouya” is “de Loja” — from Loja, the fortified town in the province of Granada. Some branches of the family locate the village in Navarra and spell it Loya. Either way the name carried a return address, and the family kept it for four hundred years after there was nothing to return to.

The name appears in writing well before the expulsion. A copy of Rashi’s commentary on the Torah produced in 1346 gives its scribe as Rabbi Yosef Delouya, son of Rabbi Isaac Delouya. A fifteenth-century Tanakh manuscript lists Rabbi Yosef ben Yehuda Deloya and Rabbi Shelomo Deloya among its earlier owners. These are not our Rabbi Isaac. They establish something else: that this was already a family of scribes and book owners, in Spain, generations before the ships.

Marrakesh, 1496

Rabbi Delouya reached Marrakesh around 1496, four years after the expulsion, with a group of exiles who came at the invitation of the city’s ruler.

That ruler was not a sultan. This matters, because later accounts routinely make him one. Marrakesh in 1496 was not the capital of Morocco and not yet Saadian. Hintata Berber chiefs had come down from the High Atlas in 1359, taken the old Almohad capital, and governed it as an independent principality. They were still governing it when Rabbi Delouya arrived. The Saadians would not take the city until 1524, and would not make it their capital until the following year. So the man who invited the exiles in, and the man who later threatened to throw them out, was a provincial Berber emir running a city that had seen better centuries.

No one knows how many Jews left Spain for Morocco. Estimates run from twenty thousand upward, and serious historians decline to guess. Fes absorbed the largest share. Marrakesh took fewer, but enough to change it.

Two communities in one city

The Jews already living in Marrakesh were called toshavim, the settled ones. The newcomers were the megorashim, the expelled. They did not blend.

The differences were visible from across a street. The megorashim dressed European — trousers, shirts, hats. The toshavim wore the long Moroccan robe. The megorashim spoke Spanish. The toshavim spoke Judeo-Arabic and Berber. And the megorashim arrived with a full liturgical inheritance, melodies included, which they had no intention of trading for anyone else’s.

When the exiles asked to pray in the local synagogue — the one named for Rabbi Mordechai ben Attar, in the old Jewish quarter — they were refused. The stated reason was that their style of prayer was different. The unstated reason was probably closer to what refusal usually means: the locals were watching a group of confident, educated, well-organized foreigners arrive, and they could see where that ended.

So Rabbi Delouya built his own. The synagogue of the exiles was known in Moroccan Judeo-Arabic as Slat l-‘Azama, and it is still standing, still in use, in the Marrakesh mellah. Tradition dates its founding to 1492. That date is generous — the mellah itself was not created until Sultan Abdallah al-Ghalib ordered the Jews into a walled quarter in 1557 — but the congregation predates the building, and the congregation was Rabbi Delouya’s.

The covenant of rain

Marrakesh sits at the edge of dry country. Everything there depends on water coming down off the Atlas on schedule.

Local tradition holds that the emir, watching the friction between his old Jews and his new ones, threatened to expel the newcomers. Rabbi Delouya asked him to let them stay, and offered terms: in exchange for guaranteeing the rights of the megorashim, he would pray for rain whenever the city needed it. He put it in writing. That year, in Tamuz — the dead center of the dry season, when nobody expects rain and nobody prays for it — the emir called in the promise. The rain came.

The story is preserved among the Jews of Marrakesh, not only within the family, which is worth noting. It is also the kind of story that attaches itself to a founder, and it should be read as what it is: a community explaining to itself why it was allowed to exist.

The judge

The friction did not last. Within a few years the local Jews recognized the depth of Rabbi Delouya’s learning and appointed him ab bet din, the head of the rabbinical court of Marrakesh — the highest halakhic office in the city, handed to a refugee by the people who had shut him out of their synagogue.

What followed in Marrakesh followed almost everywhere the Sephardim landed. The exiles were absorbed numerically and won culturally. Two developments accelerated it. Sixteenth-century Marrakesh became a destination for anusim returning openly to Judaism, which fed the Spanish-speaking side. And many of the megorashim worked in weapons manufacture, supplying the Moroccans against the Portuguese, which made them worth protecting. In time the Iberian exiles held the community’s leadership for generations, and the local Jews adopted Sephardic liturgy and Sephardic practice.

What they kept

A few of the customs the megorashim of Marrakesh defended, some of which outlived the community itself:

Weddings on Wednesday. The local Jews married on almost any day. The megorashim married on Wednesdays only, following the Mishna.

The Castilian clause. In their ketubot the megorashim stipulated explicitly that any dispute would be settled ke-minhag Kashtelyanush — כמנהג קאשטלייאנוש, according to the custom of the Castilians. They wrote Spain into the marriage contract.

Shabbat Chazon. On the Shabbat before the Ninth of Ab, other Jews restrained themselves — no wine, no meat, no festive clothing. The megorashim of Marrakesh observed the Shabbat without restriction. Their reasoning was a family tradition on a national scale: their ancestors had not been in Jerusalem when the Second Bet haMiqdash fell, because they were already in Spain. The claim is not provable, and it is not absurd. Ovadia’s prophecy names the exiles of Jerusalem “who are in Sepharad,” and Targum Yonatan renders Sepharad as Spain.

Qaddish at Minha. They recited qaddish after the reading of the Sefer Torah at Minha on Shabbat, exactly as it is recited after the Torah reading on Monday and Thursday. The custom held. It is still their practice today.

Chalaq

The sharpest disagreement was about meat.

After an animal is slaughtered its organs are inspected for any defect that would have killed it within twelve months. The lungs are the vulnerable ones. Cattle swallow thorns, nails, scraps of metal, and a perforated lung renders the animal terefa. The complication is sirkhot — adhesions, fibers on the lung surface. The Talmud treats a fiber as evidence of a perforation.

Rabbi Yosef Caro ruled accordingly in the Bet Yosef and the Shulchan Arukh: the lung must be smooth, chalaq, with no adhesion at all. Others disagreed — not with the Talmud, but with the inference. If the fibers are gone by the time the lung is examined, removed in the handling, they were not the fibers the Talmud forbade. In that case the lung is inflated and submerged, checked for leaks the way one checks a tire. No leak, no perforation, kosher.

Meat from an animal whose lungs were clean is chalaq, or chalaq Bet Yosef. The other is merely kasher.

Rabbi Delouya held the lenient position, and Marrakesh held it with him into modern times.

The economics are not incidental. Adhesions are common, and where the animals belonged to the Jews, discarding every affected carcass meant hefsed merubbe, ruinous loss to the butcher or the community. Where Jews bought animals from gentiles and slaughtered them on the owner’s farm, a rejected animal simply went back — still fit for the Muslim market — and the loss was somebody else’s. Geography shaped stringency. It usually does.

Today all Sephardic communities follow the Shulchan Arukh and eat only chalaq red meat.

The meeting with Ribbi Yosef Caro

No clear records show Rabbi Yosef Caro visiting Morocco. His life ran from Toledo, Portugal, the Ottoman Balkans, and then Safed from 1536 until his death in 1575.  Still, the Delouya family tradition holds that Rabbi Yosef Caro came to Marrakesh, met Rabbi Delouya, and that the two argued the question of chalaq — and the qaddish at Minha — and that neither moved the other.

It is a revealing legend. A small community in a provincial North African city, holding a practice against the most authoritative code Sephardic Jewry ever produced, did not tell itself that it had never heard of Maran. It told itself that its rabbi had stood in front of Maran and not given way. That is not a story about kashrut. It is a story about the right of a community to its own tradition, told by people who understood exactly what they were up against.

After

Rabbi Isaac Delouya died around 1590. He was buried in Marrakesh, and pilgrims still come.

The family became a rabbinic dynasty — dayanim, darshanim and rashe yeshiva of Marrakesh for three centuries, down to the great emigration of the twentieth century. The documented line begins with Rabbi Meir Delouya (c. 1600–1680), a preacher and biblical commentator whose method resembles Abarbanel and Alshikh, and continues through his son Rabbi Isaac Delouya the second (c. 1635–1711), ab bet din and rosh yeshiva of Marrakesh, whose students included Rabbi Shelomo Amar and Rabbi Avraham Azulai. The family’s own records concede that Rabbi Meir was not the son of the first Rabbi Isaac but several generations removed, and that the names in between are lost.

The Torah commands the appointment of judges in every city of Israel. Judges must be righteous and impartial, and they may not accept any form of bribery.

Idolatry, in all its forms, is forbidden and punishable by capital punishment. Sacrifices offered to God must be free of blemishes.

Jews are obligated to follow the rulings of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish Supreme Court. A sage with legal authority who publicly teaches against a decision of the Sanhedrin — as opposed to an ordinary citizen who simply disagrees — commits a capital offense.

The Torah establishes the laws of the Jewish king. The guiding principle for a Jewish king is that he must act with the awareness that God is the true King of Israel. The human king is subject to limitations, designed to keep him conscious of his true role. He must not accumulate horses — the symbol of military power — nor take many wives, nor amass great personal wealth. The king is required to write his own Sefer Torah, the constitution of the Jewish people, and to carry that copy with him at all times (as if, in today’s terms, the president of a country were required to carry a copy of the National Constitution permanently in his pocket). This ensures that the monarch remains humble and constantly remembers that his primary duty is to observe the Torah and uphold God’s Law throughout his domain.

God chooses the Cohanim to serve Him in His Sanctuary. “God is their inheritance,” meaning that the Bet HaMiqdash will be “their territory” (their second home, as it were). Therefore their tribe, the Levites, will not receive a specific territory in the Land of Israel like the other tribes. How, then, will the Cohanim and the Levites support themselves? The Priests and the descendants of the tribe of Levi would devote themselves to teaching Torah, and would be sustained by a series of contributions given to them by the people (in Hebrew, matenot kehuna: “priestly gifts”): certain portions of the meat of specific sacrifices, the teruma of the harvest, the first fruits of the land, a share of the shearing, and so on. The Levites, for their part, receive the people’s tithe.

The Torah strictly forbids divination, sorcery, magic, and the prediction of the future. Maimonides maintains that all these divination practices, such as astrology, are illusory — mere tricks and deceptions — since paranormal phenomena are fictitious, and often manipulated by charlatans to deceive and exploit ordinary people. In ancient times, these practices were deeply rooted in idolatry and pagan culture. The Torah instructs us to place our faith and trust in the Creator rather than trying to decipher the future.

We, the Jewish people, have the privilege of being guided by the Torah. God also sends us His prophets to convey His words, just as He did with Moshe. The prophets God sends have the mission of warning the people when they stray from the path of the Torah. Naturally, their words must be heeded. However, the Torah also warns about those who falsely claim to speak in God’s name. These false prophets do not warn the people about their wrongdoings. Instead, like skilled demagogues, they reassure the people and criticize the true prophets, accusing them of being alarmists and pessimists. A false prophet can be recognized when he advocates suspending or altering one of the Torah’s commandments.

The Torah underscores the obligation to establish cities of refuge for cases of unintentional homicide (a modern equivalent would be someone who kills another person accidentally, in a traffic accident). Moshe orders three additional cities to be set apart, joining the three he had already designated on the other side of the Jordan: six in total.

For a civil or criminal trial to result in a conviction, the testimony of at least two witnesses is required. Those who give false testimony receive the same punishment they sought for the accused.

Toward the end of the Parasha, the Torah describes some of the laws of war and the protocols of a military campaign. For example: who is exempt from military service? As the soldiers approach the battlefield, one of the Cohanim must address them, assuring them not to fear the enemy, since God supports the army of Israel in its conflicts. Then the officers announce who must return home: someone who has recently become engaged and is about to marry; someone who has built a new house and has not yet lived in it; someone who has planted a vineyard and has not yet enjoyed its fruits. The officers also advise anyone suffering from anxiety or panic to withdraw from the battlefield, so as not to demoralize the other soldiers. Before engaging the enemy, a peace proposal must be extended. Only if the enemy rejects this offer does the conflict begin. In the case of the Canaanite nations, the Torah commands that these populations be completely eradicated to prevent assimilation into pagan cultures; Maimonides clarifies, however, that they too were first offered peace: if they agreed to abandon idolatry and its practices, they were not attacked.

The Parasha concludes with a description of the legal procedure to be followed when a corpse is found in an open field and the perpetrator remains unidentified: the elders of the nearest city must publicly declare that they bear no responsibility for that death.

More than two thousand years ago, Aristotle taught that happiness is not something we stumble upon by chance. A fulfilling life is built through daily choices, good habits, and strong character.

Jewish tradition expresses a similar idea: true happiness does not come from wealth, honor, or comfort alone, but from living a life of purpose, gratitude, kindness, and closeness to God.

Modern psychology increasingly confirms what both Aristotle and our sages understood long ago: lasting happiness is rooted in character.

1. Courage

A happy person is not someone without fears, but someone who does the right thing despite fear—whether in family life, business, or matters of faith.

2. Self-control

Real freedom means mastering our impulses instead of becoming enslaved by them. Discipline in eating, speaking, spending, and technology creates inner peace.

3. Generosity

Happiness grows when we learn to give—through charity, hospitality, and helping others—while maintaining balance and responsibility.

4. Excellence

Whatever we do, whether raising children, studying Torah, or earning a living, we should strive to do it with dignity and integrity.

5. A sense of purpose

A fulfilled person focuses on what truly matters: family, Torah, community, and the values that endure beyond temporary pleasures.

6. Kindness

Strength is not measured by anger but by the ability to respond with patience, compassion, and respect.

7. Honesty

A happy person knows his strengths and weaknesses. He neither exaggerates his accomplishments nor hides from his shortcomings.

8. Justice and fairness

True character means seeking what is right, not merely what benefits us personally.

9. Forgiveness

People who hold on to resentment imprison themselves. The ability to forgive and to overlook small offenses brings emotional freedom.

10. Humility

Humility is not thinking less of ourselves; it is recognizing that our talents and blessings are gifts entrusted to us for a greater purpose.

Por Fernando Mongelos para Clarín 

STEP DOWN ONE RUNG

Young people all over the world are finding it harder and harder to get married. And in the face of that difficulty, all kinds of metaphysical help appear: segulot, amulets, Tehilim lists with a guarantee. But they don’t always work.

Today I want to share a segula that does work — and it comes guaranteed by more than two thousand years of wisdom. It is in the Gemara, Masekhet Yebamot 63, and it consists of four words: נחית דרגא ונסיב איתתא — nachit darga unsib iteta — “go down one rung and take a wife.”

What the Sages are saying is this: don’t look for someone who is above you. Look for someone who likes you.

I once asked a single young man, past thirty, why he was still single when B”H there were so many good candidates around him. He gave me the same answer they all give me: “Rabbi, I need to feel attracted to the girl. And the girls I’m attracted to pay no attention to me!”

What he is saying, without realizing it, is that he needs someone one rung above him. A level of beauty higher than his own; sweeter than he is, more charming, better sense of humor, better family. And it never occurs to him that the girl one rung above him may be doing exactly the same thing: looking at the young men who are above her, or on her own rung.

There is the vicious circle. And it is a destructive one. If everyone is looking for an upgraded version of themselves, then no one is looking at the good people who actually are available. There is no shortage of candidates; the problem is that everyone is looking in the same direction — too far up.

There is a paradoxical phrase that is unfortunately not rare, and it sums up the whole problem: “I lost interest in her the moment I realized she liked me.”

A person who is interested in you is not worth less for being interested. It makes no sense to follow the conqueror’s instinct and chase the impossible girl. That is exactly the mechanism this segula comes to break.

“Go down one rung” — not below your level, but below where you were looking! So if you truly want to get married, repeat these four words three times, every night — nachit darga unsib iteta — and start searching in the right direction: someone at your level, someone who already likes you.

Suddenly you will discover that the candidates are not few.

Our Sages understood beauty in exactly the opposite way from how the modern world understands it.

For Greek culture — and for contemporary culture, which in this respect is Greece’s heir — beauty is an objective fact, already there before anyone falls in love. You fall in love because you found beauty.

But for the Jewish mind it is precisely the reverse: the perception of beauty is the result of love, not its cause.

“I don’t love you because I find you beautiful. I find you beautiful because I love you.”

The best example is our own children. The neighbor’s four-year-old girl may be adorable. But for me, there is no creature in the universe more beautiful than my daughter. Or my granddaughter. Why? Because I love her. And loving her, she seems to me the most beautiful girl in the world. I cannot see her any other way.

If beauty comes afterward, then the right question on a first date is not “Am I attracted to her?” but “Is this someone I could come to love?”

Most of the couples I know felt neither immediate attraction nor automatic rejection on their first dates. They were emotionally parve. And since the head said yes, they invested time in the relationship. The emotions were nourished by time spent together, by knowing one another, by sharing some things and debating others. And that is when the attraction arrived.

That is what’s normal. The other thing is what you see in the movies.

From here comes a very practical segula: if you are going out with someone of good middot and a good family, give the attraction time. Time, and getting to know the other person, do their work.