D'var Torah by Dr. Kalman Stein, Interim Head of School
Dear Hebrew Academy Community:
This week and even more so during the month of Cheshvan which begins in the coming days we transition from the busy and exciting days of Yamim Nora’im, Sukkot and Simchat Torah to the daily rhythm of “real life,” unpunctuated by festivals, feasts, or even fast days.
Ein Yaakov, a medieval compilation of Talmudic Aggadah, reports that Ben Pazi, one of the sages of the Talmud, argued that a sentence which we will be reading next week on Rosh Chodesh is the most important sentence in the Torah. That verse—surprising at first glance—is the commandment to bring the Korban Tamid, that is, to offer a lamb as a sacrifice each morning and each evening. We certainly know that the ritual of sacrifice in the Mishkan and later in the Beit HaMikdash was central to Jewish life and observance for a thousand years. But why would one consider this Mitzvah to be the most important precept in the Torah?
The answer, of course, is that the challenge of observant Jewish life, of adherence to Halakha, is religious consistency, the requirement to perform the same Mitzvot again and again, day after day, even during the humdrum days of Cheshvan when, unlike the first three weeks of Tishrei which we’ve just experienced, each day is pretty much exactly the same as the day before or the next day. Perhaps that is the true meaning of Mar Cheshvan, the Bitter Month of Cheshvan. It is bitter not in a sense of sadness but rather in terms of how hard one needs to work to maintain a sense of religious excitement, of closeness to Hashem, during a month which does not offer us special and unique religious observances.
Perhaps our ancestors had this in mind when they set up the annual cycle of Torah reading. Each year on the Shabbat immediately following the Chagim of Tishrei we read Parashat Bereishit which marks the beginning of the world and a new beginning for each of us. Bereishit reminds us that as the days grow shorter and (in much of the world) colder, as the spiritual high of the holidays threatens to dissipate, each of us has a new opportunity to commit him/herself to bring holiness and spirituality into every aspect of our everyday mundane and ordinary existence.
Shabbat Shalom,
Dr. Kalman Stein
Interim Head of School
