?Father, bless us all alike with the light of Your countenance.?
?These are the laws that you must set before them.? (Exodus 21:1) Rashi explains: ?Set before them - like a table set with food ready to eat.? We must learn Torah in such a way as to understand the reasons for the laws and their explanations. As is known, the Torah is likened to food. Just as a person needs food to sustain his body, so does he need spiritual nourishment to sustain his soul.
Our holy Torah is the spiritual food of the Jewish People. As the Prophet Amos said (8:11), ?Behold, days are coming, says the L-rd G-d, when I will send a famine in the land. Not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the L-rd.? Just as the table must be set with delicious foods and condiments, so must the Torah be made appetizing for those who study it. We actually pray for this when we say, ?L-rd our G-d, make the Torah?s words pleasant in our mouth.? (From the blessings said before reading the Torah)
Today, the Jewish people are in great need of unity and spiritual strengthening, and these will surely come about only through a return to our holy Torah. The Torah is the heritage of our whole people: ?Moses prescribed the Torah to us, an eternal heritage for the congregation of Jacob.? (Deuteronomy 33:4) It is not the heritage of any particular political party, or of private individuals. Rather, the Torah was given to all of Israel, as we say before we learn Torah, ?Blessed are You? who chose us from all the nations and gave us the Torah.?
In order to bestow the Torah upon the entire Jewish people, in order to bring them close to Torah and religion, we must, with love and faith, make the Torah that we learn and teach like a set table, full of delicacies that will prove savory to the hearts and minds of the myriads of our Jewish brethren. We must educate towards love of the Torah and towards honoring those who study and teach it. By such means, we will merit to see the fulfillment of our request: ?Father, bless us all alike with the light of Your countenance, for with that light You have given us a living Torah.? (From the daily prayer, the Shemoneh Esreh).
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Rabbi Dov Begon is founder and head of Machon Meir institutions.
Machon Meir is an Israeli educational institution and Hesder yeshiva dedicated to Jewish learning BeAhava UbeEmunah (with Love and in Faith), in the spirit of Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook, the late Chief Rabbi of the Land of Israel. Students at Machon Meir, Israelis and new immigrants, come from religious and non-religious backgrounds, and learn in Hebrew, English or Russian. The Machon can be contacted through its website, http://www.machonmeir.org.il/.
?These are the laws that you must set before them.? (Exodus 21:1) Rashi explains: ?Set before them - like a table set with food ready to eat.? We must learn Torah in such a way as to understand the reasons for the laws and their explanations. As is known, the Torah is likened to food. Just as a person needs food to sustain his body, so does he need spiritual nourishment to sustain his soul.
Our holy Torah is the spiritual food of the Jewish People. As the Prophet Amos said (8:11), ?Behold, days are coming, says the L-rd G-d, when I will send a famine in the land. Not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the L-rd.? Just as the table must be set with delicious foods and condiments, so must the Torah be made appetizing for those who study it. We actually pray for this when we say, ?L-rd our G-d, make the Torah?s words pleasant in our mouth.? (From the blessings said before reading the Torah)
Today, the Jewish people are in great need of unity and spiritual strengthening, and these will surely come about only through a return to our holy Torah. The Torah is the heritage of our whole people: ?Moses prescribed the Torah to us, an eternal heritage for the congregation of Jacob.? (Deuteronomy 33:4) It is not the heritage of any particular political party, or of private individuals. Rather, the Torah was given to all of Israel, as we say before we learn Torah, ?Blessed are You? who chose us from all the nations and gave us the Torah.?
In order to bestow the Torah upon the entire Jewish people, in order to bring them close to Torah and religion, we must, with love and faith, make the Torah that we learn and teach like a set table, full of delicacies that will prove savory to the hearts and minds of the myriads of our Jewish brethren. We must educate towards love of the Torah and towards honoring those who study and teach it. By such means, we will merit to see the fulfillment of our request: ?Father, bless us all alike with the light of Your countenance, for with that light You have given us a living Torah.? (From the daily prayer, the Shemoneh Esreh).
--------------------------------------------------------
Rabbi Dov Begon is founder and head of Machon Meir institutions.
Machon Meir is an Israeli educational institution and Hesder yeshiva dedicated to Jewish learning BeAhava UbeEmunah (with Love and in Faith), in the spirit of Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook, the late Chief Rabbi of the Land of Israel. Students at Machon Meir, Israelis and new immigrants, come from religious and non-religious backgrounds, and learn in Hebrew, English or Russian. The Machon can be contacted through its website, http://www.machonmeir.org.il/.