THE MOST IMPORTANT WORD

The First Commandment is not simply a preamble.It indicates a specific order to be fulfilled: recognizing God as your ELOQEJA (אלוקך).

In its simple form the word ELOQIM is usually translated by “God.” But in the Tora  this same word ELOQIM sometimes should be understood as “Creator” and other times it must be understood as “Sovereign”, “Supreme Authority”, “Lawmaker”.

Let’s see a couple of examples:

The first verse of the Tora Genesis 1: 1 says “In the beginning ELOQIM created the heavens and the earth.” In the creation account the word ELOQIM, which is repeated 35 times, always means  God / Creator.

THE TEMPTATION OF SELF SUFFICIENCY

But a few chapters later, in Genesis 3: 5 the same word ELOQIM acquires a different meaning: When the snake wants to tempt Eve to eat the fruit of the forbidden tree says: God does not want you to eat this fruit because He knows that the day you do it “you will be like ELOQIM, you would know good from evil.” In this verse the Tora clearly does not use the word ELOQIM as God / Creator. The snake does not tell Eva that when she eats the forbidden fruit she will have super-powers or she will perform miracles. In this context, as the snake itself clarifies, ELOQIM refers to an ethical, moral and legal dimension. “If you eat the forbidden fruit – the snake hints – you will have the power to know by yourself the difference between what is right and what is wrong, and you will no longer need God to know how to proceed.”   God is not just the Creator. God is also ELOQIM: the REFERENT of what is right and what is wrong.

The word ELOQIM with this meaning is very common in the Tora.

I will present one more, very important example of the word ELOQIM meaning God / Sovereign.

SHEMA ISRAEL

In Shema Israel we say: “HaShem is our ELOQIM HaShem is one“. The Sages of the Talmud explain that when saying this verse we must “accept the yoke of the Divine Reign” (קבלת עול מלכות שמים). That is, we should mentally recognize God as the “only” Sovereign, and therefore, we mentally accept to submit ourselves to His laws. Again, this is not a theological issue. It is not about accepting that God exists: that goes without saying! The Shema Israel is about declaring that God is our Sovereign. That we accept His laws, voluntarily.

This last point is critical: The Ten Commandments were not “imposed” by God upon the Jewish people. Six days before the Ten Commandments were revealed, God proposed to the Jewish people to celebrate a covenant: The Children of Israel will be God’s chosen People, God will grant them the land of Israel and will guarantee that the Jewish people will be “treasured” by Him (= will never disappear). The Jewish people, on the other hand, recognize HaShem as our Sovereign and therefore accept the Tora as our National Constitution. The Ten Commandments are the first “formal” laws that the people of Israel receive as part of this covenant. And that’s why the Ten Commandments begin with the presentation of God as our Sovereign.

MENTAL FREEDOM

Finally, a very important point to understand the First Commandment. The Jewish people were enslaved by Pharaoh for 140 years (according to Maimonides). After those 6-8 generations of brutal slavery the Hebrews were absolutely programmed to obey Pharaoh.  Pharaoh decided not only what to do with the time of the Israelites: he also decided at will if a Jew would live or die. The mental submission was absolute. The grandchildren and great-grandchildren of slaves no longer had neither the will nor the imagination to rebel or disobey. Fear absolutely paralyzed them. It is challenging, if not impossible, to imagine the difficulty of the Jews to mentally free themselves from the yoke of Pharaoh and his guards who exercised total physical and emotional control over the Hebrews. With this historical context as a background, we must reread the First commandment as a call for the psychological freedom of the Jewish slaves: You are no longer under the jurisdiction of Egypt. You no longer have to fear Pharaoh. I have delivered you, I have rescued you and I have chosen you as My people, and You have agreed to enter into a covenant with me. From now on, it is no longer  Pharaoh, but “I HaShem, who is Your new Sovereign.”

אָנֹכִי ה ’אֱלֹקיךָ אֲשֶׁר הוֹצֵאתִיךָ מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם מִבֵּית עֲבָדִים

I, God, am your Sovereign, the One who rescued you from the land of Egypt, from the house of slaves
Exodus 20: 1

COMMANDMENT OR PREAMBLE?
The First Commandment sounds a bit ambiguous. Why? Because unlike the other nine commandments it is not formulated in the imperative mode, as an order or a precept. It seems more like a presentation. God tells His people (according to the traditional translation): “I [am] HaShem, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of slaves.” This text does not seem to indicate something we have to do or stop doing, as in the case of “Honor your parents”, “Do not steal” or “Do not kill.” It is not transmitting a direct order.
That is why the Rabbis have long debated the nature of this commandment. For some, the first commandment does not express a specific precept but a preamble: God introduces Himself to the people before reveling them the commandments.
Other rabbis, such as Maimonides, argue that the First Commandment indicates a specific precept, despite not being formulated in the imperative mode. We will try to understand it, then, the way this famous Rabbi explained it.

HOW MANY COMMANDMENTS ARE THERE?
In the Talmudic tractate of Makot the Rabbis explained that there are 613 precepts in the Tora. 611 of them were transmitted to the people of Israel through Moshe (Moses), while the remaining two were transmitted “directly” by HaShem (God) to the Jewish people. And those two precepts are: the First and the Second commandment (אנכי ולא יהיה לך). What reveals that these two commandments were transmitted “directly” by God is that these are the only ones formulated in the first person of the singular: “I am HaShem your God”, “There will be no other gods for you before Me.” From the Third Commandment it is Moshe who addresses the people of Israel, and the reference to God is in the third person: “You shall not carry the Name of God in vain,” instead of “You shall not carry My Name in vain”. According to this Talmudic text, the First Commandment is not a mere preamble, but a formal biblical precept. In his famous book Sefer haMitsvot, the work that presents the 613 precepts of the Tora, Maimonides mentions the First Commandment as the first law (Mitsva) of the Tora.
Following this idea our next question will be: What is the specific order that this commandment is expressing when it says “I am HaShem your God”?

THE FIRST DECLARATION OF FAITH?
Traditionally it is assumed that the First Commandment, viewed as a precept, expresses only our duty to “believe in the existence” of God. I want to offer another interpretation. Adding one additional element, very relevant to our days.
But first, let’s recall that the belief in the existence of God can be seen as an idea implied in this text: when transmitting the Ten Commandments God is addressing the people of Israel in the first person! Is it necessary, then, that while God is revealing Himself to His people, He commands them to believe in His existence?
And one more thing.
There is an explicit biblical reference that states that the Jewish people had already assimilated collectively the idea of “belief in God”. The Tora says that when the Red Sea opened for the children of Israel to pass and then it closed over the Egyptians, Jews finally experienced a real belief in God’s existence (that is, emuna).
ויושע ה. And God saved Israel on that day from the Egyptians. And Israel saw the Egyptians dead by the sea. And [when the people of] Israel perceived the great portent that God had made against the Egyptians, the people feared God, and [then the people] believed in God and in Moses his servant ” EXODUS 14: 30-31.

PSYCHOLOGICAL FREEDOM

Seeing the lifeless bodies of their powerful oppressors on the seashore, the Jewish people were also able to free themselves from the psychological intimidation implanted in their minds by the Egyptian guards and soldiers, who until then decided, as if they were gods, which Jew would live and which Jew would die. When they saw that their Egyptian masters were mere mortals, the Children of Israel freed themselves from the “mental intimidation of the Egyptians” and reagin the possibility to fearing God and believing in Him.

Coming back to the First Commandment, what we just explained would confirm that “belief” in God was already part of the new mental reality of the Jews before receiving the Ten Commandments. And if “belief” in God had already been assimilated, what was the First Commandment teach them?

To be continued…

ולקחתי אתכם לי לעם והייתי לכם לאלקים

Shemot 6: 7

In a couple of weeks, when we get to Parashat Yitró, we will read in the Torah what might be considered his best known text: the Ten Commandments.

In the next few days I would like to study them together with you and thus be a little more prepared to understand them better.

THE EXIT OF EGYPT

When God announces to Moshe that He will rescue the people of Israel from slavery, He also says: “And I will take you as My people, and I will be His Eloqim for you” (Exodus 6: 7).

“And I will be your ” Eloqim” does not mean that God says that he will be our “God” in theological terms. As we will show later, the word Eloqim in this context means: Supreme authority. Legislator. Sovereign. The Tora often uses the word “Eloqim” to refer to judges, the highest judicial authority.

The people of Israel will become God’s chosen one, the bearer of the Divine Word. But this privilege does not imply more rights: it mainly means the obligation to live according to the laws and precepts that God, “our Legislator” establishes

QUESTION: How was this bilateral relationship established? In other words: When and how does God become our Eloqim?

ANSWER: Through a pact, in Hebrew “berit”, that was celebrated on Mount Sinai, on the 6th day of the month of Siván, 49 days after the Jews left Egypt. In this covenant, God offers to consecrate the nation of Israel as His people and commits to take care of it as their most precious possession (am segulá), i.e., guaranteeing its eternal existence, among other things. The Jewish people, for their part, commit themselves to obey God, and accept the commandments they already know, and in addition those rules that they still do not yet know (נעשה ונשמע). For the people of Israel there will be no other God and no other Law.

The terms of this covenant will be presented throughout the Tora and will include not just ten but a total 613 precepts or commandments, which the Jewish people will adopt, from now on, as its National Constitution.

The central part of the celebration of this covenant takes place when, for the first and only time, God revealed himself to all the people of Israel, to convey the Ten Commandments.

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

Despite its obviously “national” character (God is speaking specifically to the People of Israel) , the Ten Commandments are considered as the basic rules that any human society needs to survive and prosper.

The Ten Commandments do not contain abstract sayings. They don’t say: “You must be a good person” or “Listen to your heart.” Cliches can not work in the field of ethics. Men need clearer instructions to live and especially to live with others. Good intentions are not enough. Telling someone: “You have to be a good person” without giving more precise indications, it is like telling an individual “You have to be a good pilot” and expect that he will know what do do without taking any flying lessons.

The Ten Commandments, and I think this is the most important thing, are not still very relevant. They are eternal. They have never gone out of style or became unnecessary. When I teach the Ten Commandments the title of my class is usually: “The Game of the Ten Commandments”. This game is very simple. First I explain The Ten Commandments, one by one (and I never cease to be amazed at how little the common Jew knows about them). Then I ask my audience: Which of these commandments has expired? Which one of these laws has gone out of style, is NO longer relevant or necessary?

The answer?

A very long silence

THE INEVITABLE END?

The Jewish people were going through one of its worst crises. Jerusalem had been destroyed decades ago, in 586 BCE. Jewish refugees living in Babylon were assimilating at a galloping pace. They married pagan refugees; they no longer spoke in Hebrew; and they had begun to practice pagan rites. The land of Israel had almost no Jews. The Babylonians sent there pagans, from several conquered civilizations, and without a defined identity, to work the land and prevent its desertification. This new ethnic group, the Samaritans, who were now natives of Israel, were very comfortable in the Holy Land. The Babylonians had no intention to authorize the Jews, let alone encourage them, to return to their land. It seemed that the prophecy of Yirmiyahu (Jeremiah), who anticipated that God would bring His people back to Israel, was not going to be fulfilled…. Without a land and a Temple, the complete integration of the Jews into the Babylonian society was only a matter of time. The end of the Jewish people was, seemingly, imminent.

THE HEART OF THE KINGS, AS PER PROVERBS 21:1

And then a “miracle” happened. It was not a supernatural event like the opening of the Red Sea. It was a historical-military event, something that could be considered a “normal” historical development. In 538 BCE the Persians defeated the Babylonians and took their empire. A new emperor emerged: Koresh (Cyrus). At first, no one knew what Koresh policy with the Jews would be. But the uncertainty did not last long.

To relate what happened next, something totally unexpected, I am going to copy below what the Tanakh (the Hebrew Bible) says, literally, in its last 2 verses: “In the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, at the time that the Divine promise that Yirmiyahu had prophesied should be fulfilled, HaShem awakened [= inspired] the spirit of Koresh [Cyrus], king of Persia. And [Koresh] proclaimed this statement, which he also recorded in a document, saying. “Thus says Koresh king of Persia, HaShem, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build for Him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judeah. Whoever is among you of all his people, may HaShem his God be with him and let him go up [=back to Israel.’”

I would like to analyze the implications of Koresh’s proclamation:

Koresh recognized Israel as a people, a nation in exile, with a geographical and historical reference. Something that the many Jews had already begun to forget.

Koresh recognized that the Jews of Babylon had a historical right to the land Israel, which exceeded the right of the Samaritans who were brought there to work the land.

Koresh explicitly mentioned Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish people, the place where the “House of God”, the Bet haMiqdash, should be rebuilt.

Koresh not only declared and wrote a document expressing his willingness to rebuild Jerusalem for the Jews, and help them to live there in peace, protected from their numerous enemies. Koresh also took care of financing this project. He directed funds from the prosperous Persian Jewish community for this purpose, and contributed funds from his own royal treasury.

Koresh sent some of his guards to accompany the Jews who emigrated to Israel, to protect them on the dangerous roads, and he provided those who travel to Jerusalem with provisions, wood and other construction materials for the job.

Koresh exceeded the expectations of all Jews when he did this: The Babylonian king Nebukhadnetsar, who had destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem, took all the vessels of the Bet haMiqdash, the utensils and sacred objects made of gold and silver, to his royal treasure. Koresh, in an unprecedented act, restored all these vessels to the Jews, and sent them back to Jerusalem to be used again in the Bet haMiqdash.

It is interesting to note that King Koresh never claimed he was Jewish or of jewish descent. But as the Biblical text clearly says, he proclaimed that HaShem “had awaken his spirit” and inspired him to help the Jews to return to their land, rebuild it and defend it.

The prophet Yesha’ayahu (Isaiah) also referred to Koresh in chapters 44 and 45 of his book. Yesha’ayahu described Koresh as the king that God had crowned to help His flock to return to its original pasture lands: Israel.

What did President Donald Trump do for Israel and for the Jews since he was elected ?

President Trump recognized Jerusalem by Congressional Law as the indivisible capital of the State of Israel and moved there the US embassy.

President Trump canceled the nuclear agreement that President Obama signed with Iran, which was considered extremely dangerous for Israel.

President Trump imposed severe economic sanctions on the Iranian government to prevent the extremist regime from obtaining or developing nuclear weapons, and to stop its aggressive expansion in the Middle East. The state of Israel considers the Iranian regime as the greatest threat to its existence.

President Trump recognized Israeli sovereignty in the Golan.

President Trump recognized the legality of Jewish cities and towns in Judea and Samaria. No more “occupied territories”. 

President Trump ordered the suspension of economic aid to the Palestinian authority in Ramallah, and to UNRWA, for supporting terrorism. For that same reason he removed the representative of the Palestinian Authority in Washington.

President Trump encourages and fosters the normalization of diplomatic relations between Arab states (Emirates, Oman, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, etc.) and Israel.

President Trump enacted a new law against anti-Semitism in American universities.

לב מלך ביד ה’ על כל אשר יחפץ יטנו

The heart of the kings is in the hands of God, He DIRECTS [theIR HEART] at His will

Proverbs 21: 1

“More than 40 world leaders gathered in Jerusalem to honor the victims of Nazi extermination, on the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.”

Question: What is the most important part of this title?

Answer: “in Jerusalem“

Why? The world’s leaders converged in Jerusalem, in what was the largest diplomatic event in the history of the State of Israel. But some leaders were not there. I do not mean the leaders of Iran or the Arab countries. I mean Poland. The Polish government wanted the commemoration of the Liberation of Auschwitz- where 1.1 million Jews were killed- to take place in Auschwitz. Auschwitz is located in the district of Oświęcim, which is Polish territory. In Oświęcim there are many monuments as well as a very significant place: the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum,  where according to the Polish government the ceremony should have been held.

What is the difference between celebrating the liberation of Auschwitz in Auschwitz or in Yad Vashem, Jerusalem?

The ceremony at the Auschwitz museum would have been a great honor towards the dead. Visitors could have watched and felt the very horror of the death trains. Seen the infamous piles of thousands and thousands of suitcases in which the prisoners brought their valuable possessions; of which they were immediately stripped. The burned pieces of the Tora scrolls, which some Jews, risking their lives, had carried with them to the camp. In Auschwitz, the main world leaders could have seen and felt everything the Nazis did to murder the Jews and destroy their legacy.

In Jerusalem, these VIP visitors saw something very different. They saw the children and grandchildren of the survivors of Auschwitz and the Shoa “live” in Israel. 

They saw that the descendants of the survivors built in Jerusalem a very modern light train that crosses the vibrant city from one end to another. The honorable visitors saw the thousands of passengers who daily take those trains to their jobs, their errands or their homes.

In Jerusalem they also saw that there are blonde Jews, brunette Jews, white Jews, and Jews of color. And that they speak French, Spanish, Russian, Ethiopian and Hebrew. They saw that millions of Jewish immigrants arrived with their suitcases to stay in the land of their ancestors, and that they are not planing to leave.

Visitors also saw that in Jerusalem the Tora is not in pieces, or burned, or in a museum. The Tora is alive. It is heard through all of the streets, corners and markets. It guides the steps, actions and thoughts of millions of citizens of Israel. And its voice resonates not in Latin but in its original Hebrew. Stronger than ever.

Commemorating the liberation of Auschwitz in Yerushalayim is a powerful message. The people of Israel are not in a museum. The Jewish nation rose from the ashes of Auschwitz and live now in the warm land that God had destined for His people.

Rabbi Yosef Bitton

THE TRAIN TO AUSCHWITZ

https://youtu.be/mNaGaknaalk

THE LIGHT TRAIN IN JERUSALEM

If a baby dies at birth or before completing 30 days of life, the relatives do not do or keep any mourning for the baby. The same rule applies to a baby born at seven months, even though the baby was in an incubator for more than a month. But if the baby dies  30 days or more days after birth, or if he or she died within 30 days of life, and it is possible to confirm that the gestation period was nine whole months, normal mourning (Ylalqut Yosef) is kept. In the Mashadi community, the tradition is that if a baby passes away less than 30 days after birth, the parents and family do not keep any mourning, independently of the the time of pregnancy

We finished the book of Bereshit. And this week we start the book of Shemot. The story is more or less known. Bereshit tells how the first Jewish “family”, bene Israel, was formed, while the book of Shemot tells us how the Jewish “people”, ‘am Israel, was formed.
The Tora is not a simple book. Among the things that make the Tora a unique book is that “behind” the main plot you can find hidden sub-stories interwoven with the main plot, but somehow independent of it. I will show you one. The story of Brotherhood vs. Envy
The tension between brothers is already evident from the beginning, Cain and Abel. In this case, envy is generated by looking for Divine attention. HaShem accepted Abel’s sacrifice and rejected Cain’s. And Cain, instead of striving to do it better, as his creator suggested, decided it was easier to kill (literally!) the competition.
Twenty generations later, Yishma’el, according to the Midrash, tried to kill his brother Isaac, Abraham’s favorite.
The children of Isaac, Ya’aqob and Esav, who were twins, compete from the womb for the birthright. After what happened with the blessing of Isaac, Esav threatened Ya’aqob with death. In the end there is a reconciliation between the brothers, but for the brotherhood to be maintained, the brothers, ironically, have to live apart from each other.
The point of highest tension between brothers comes with the sons of Ya’aqob. Yosef, who enjoys the favor of his father, awakens the envy of his brothers.  And this envy is transformed into hatred. And this hatred, into planning the murder of Yosef. In the end, they sell Yosef as a slave, a virtual death sentence.
Twenty years later, the brothers expressed their remorse for what they did and in a huge act of altruism Yosef forgives them. And thus, apparently, the cycle of envy and resentment between brothers, which began with the first inhabitants of the planets, comes a to closure.   But Bereshit is not finished yet. And the story of brotherhood continues. But now it improves The last brothers to be mentioned in Bereshit are the sons of Yosef: Ephraim and Menashe. For the first time it is the grandfather and not the father who assigns the birthright and decides to whom it belongs. Ya’aqob blesses them “putting Efraim, the youngest, before the older, Menashe.”
And when it seems that the wounds are going to reopen, and that Menashe is going to threaten, kill or sell Efraim … none of that happens. Menashe, despite having a valid reason to envy his brother, lives in peace with him. For the first time the love between brothers overcame the power of envy. Menashe successfully passes the test of fraternal envy and the book of Bereshit ends (for this reason, by the way, we bless our children with the blessing of Ephraim and Menashe, wishing them to be good children and also good siblings) .
Now a new book begins, Shemot. Which also has sub-stories interwoven with the main story. The main story tells that Moshe is assigned as the envoy of HaShem to rescue Israel from captivity. Moshe asks for help for his mission and HaShem sends him as his assistant… his brother Aharon! This is a big potential problem Aharon is the older brother. And according to the norms of those days, the older should be the leader of the family, for whatever was necessary …. Now instead, Aharon is going to be Moshe’s assistant, his shadow …
We all suspect now that envy will overcome brotherhood. The most optimistic might assume that Aharon is not going to get angry. Following the steps of Menashe, he will control his envy.But the Tora has a beautiful surprise reserved for us.The reaction of Aharon was unprecedented, and shows us the best of the humankind. Aharon not only that he does not envy the position of Moshe. Aharon is happy for Moshe וראך ושמח בליבו, “And when Aharon sees you, he will rejoice in his heart.”   The book of Bereshit began with fratricide: one brother killing the other. But with Menashe brotherhood evolved into harmony. What could be higher than the acceptance of the other’s success? Aharon changes the history of sibling rivalry by 180 degrees. And taught us one of the most beautiful lessons in life: learn to rejoice for the success of your brother. Be happy for another person’s happiness.

Every so often I wonder: as a Jew, to what kind of life should I aspire to live? How can I improve my connection with God? And once and again I reach the same conclusion: the secret lies in a verse from the book of Tehillim (Psalm 16): שויתי ה ‘לנגדי תמיד. With this verse, King David claimed: “I have set God in front of me, always”, with emphasis on the word “always”.

FEARING GOD

Having God in front of us means having God in mind. It means to visualize (without visualizing God, ח”ו) that He is seeing me.    Think for a moment of an employee that works at an important company. He handles money, solves conflicts and deals with customers. If the employee knows that his boss, the company’s owner, is constantly watching his every movement through the security cameras, this employee will hardly fall into the temptation to behave dishonestly with money that does not belong to him; or fighting with another employee; or disrespecting a customer. With time, the good behavior of this employee, which began as a reaction to being watched by the security cameras, would become his habitual behavior. As the saying goes in Hebrew: what begins as a habit becomes a second nature (הרגל נעשה טבע). 

Now we can better understand what King David said in Tehillim: if I am convinced that God sees what I do, hears what I say and knows what I think, I will be naturally inclined to do only what is right in the eyes of God. And as long as I don’t stop noticing that I am “being observed by God” I am surely immune from acting in ways I know are not proper. 

DOING HIS WILL

Knowing that God observes me not only protects me from being tempted to do what is wrong in His eyes, even when I am alone and nobody else sees me.  When I become aware that God is following me closely, I must assume that God is not indifferent to my life and to what I do with it. And this in itself is a very empowering idea: If He is noticing me, it is because I matter to Him. And since He knows my full potential, He also knows the great things I can achieve.  If I reach the level of feeling that God is watching me, and I don’t lose sight of this feeling, then I also have the greatest motivation to try and reach for what I can potentially become. And when, beyond believing in God’s existence, I become aware of His constant presence, then I will surely decide to make my will be His will: to spontaneously wishing to do whatever it is that He wishes me to do.

LOVING GOD

Finally, if God watches me, it is because I am a person of interest to Him. His interest in me cannot be a function of God’s benefit or any other earthly thing like that…  what could I possible give Him or benefitting Him? Thus, His interest in me is totally disinterested. And we, as humans, call this disinterested interest “love.” God cares about me because he loves me. As the Tora says, God loves us as a father loves his children. Is any feeling more powerful than knowing that you are loved? And God’s love, when one genuinely feels it, engenders a natural reciprocity. Those who, like King David, are able to feel that God loves them, in good times and in bad times, end up loving God back. And this begins a self-propagating cycle of being loved, and loving. Realizing even more tangibly how much one is loved, and then loving even more, etc. Just like a bride and groom, who cannot stop thinking about each other. In that state, when I realize that God watching me translates into His love for me, and for which I love Him back, my mind gets fixated on Him, the object of my love, and all material distractions vanish from the brain. This is how and when we reach King David’s spiritual level: שויתי ה ‘לנגדי תמיד

THE WORST ENEMY OF THE TRUE FAITH

What we just described is David HaMelekh’s formula for our spiritual growth, or, dare I say, a brief summary of the purpose of the life of a Jewish individual. Living under God’s eyes.  An knowing it. Fearing disobeying him for fearing to disappoint Him. Naturally wishing to act as He wills. Feeling loved by Him and loving Him to the point of not being able to stop thinking about Him…

There is only one problem. All what I wrote is relatively easy to explain with words. But it is very difficult to do. More precisely, it is incredibly difficult to act in this way with any sort of consistency. It is doable to “live under God’s eyes” for a few moments: while praying, while studying Tora (and sometimes even in those moments is difficult to focus). The greater challenge is the “always” Kind David was telling us about. Living aware of His presence “constantly”… How many people, apart from King David, can reach this level of a permanent awareness of God, without succumbing to the enemy number one of Emuna: being distracted from God’s Presence?

THE EXCEPTION

To be inspired to write this, I had only  to think of my dear mother-in-law, ORO BAT ESTER z”l.  She embodied King David’s motto: שויתי ה‘ לנגדי תמיד.  Without studying Gemara or Jewish philosophy, she articulated this facet of EMUNA, beyond words, with her permanent devotion to HaShem. Aware of God’s will that the needy be helped, she volunteered to be that vehicle for God’s will and assisted those who were truly needy people, those whom no one knows are poor, because they feel too embarrassed to ask.  
She understood God tends to those who need help, and so that is what she did: taking care of the sick, comforting the mourners, helping the widows, protecting the orphans or helping the brides to be.

I will never forget the immense gratitude and joy that she always showed for all that God gave her, which–for that uncommon humility that only those who are very close to HaShem feel–she never felt she deserved.

Knowing that God was watching her, and over her, she always acted with total and explicit acceptance of many and great difficulties she suffered, for which she never complained.

My dear mother-in-law lived permanently in the presence of God. And what is more (and uncommon): her behavior and her actions made others too notice His presence.…

Her life was dedicated to respect and love HaShem and His people; to love and care for her beloved husband Ribbi David Carciente z”l , and for their expansive and beloved family.

Today marks the seventh day following her departure from this earth.

May she be the inspiration for my children and grandchildren and for all those who wonder how to live in God’s presence.