#Eretz Yisroel

[rabbiaharon]

As we stand, within the 10 days of repentance, from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur, it is fitting to stress the importance of tefillah (prayer) and its role within Judaism. While there is some dispute among poskim whether or not tefillah is a scriptural command, or whether it is rabbinic, there is an agreement that the obligation to pray every day, as well as the current text of the siddur is rabbinic. However, the actual obligation to communicate with Hashem, to praise him, and to ask for one’s needs is scriptural. Thus, while the rabbinic obligation is fixed and limited, the overall idea of tefillah is unlimited, as a person has an opportunity every minute to connect with the divine. One can delve much deeper into this by learning “Shoresh Mitzvas HaTefillah” (The Root of the Commandment to Pray) in Derech Mitzvosecha (Path of Your Commandments) by the Tzemach Tzedek (the third Rebbe of Chabad). We also believe that there is no need for “intermediaries” which stand between a person and G-d, contrary to what is often believed by adherents to other religions referred to by scholars as “abrahamic”.

The idea that a direct connection is available to the Ribono Shel Olam (Master of the World) is a fundamental belief of judaism. While there are many examples of the idea of “intermediaries” having its own place in our faith, such as one midrashic interpretation of the angels ascending and descending upon the ladder in Yaakov Avinu’s dream, we believe that a person need not rely on this natural procedure, but can simply reconnect their soul to its source and pass a signal directly. The ease of this is, of course, affected by a person’s intentions when coming to pray, as well as their location and the time of day or time of year. There are places and times when tefillos are more likely to be accepted, such as at the gravesites of the righteous, praying with a quorum of 10 jewish men (a minyan), or at the Temple in Jerusalem. Likewise, there are times, such as right after halachic midnight on every night of the year, as well as during the 10 days of repentance - and especially Yom Kippur (and on Yom Kippur, especially at the time of Neilah, by the end of the day, just before sunset), and praying at the same time that the local community is praying. At these times and in these places, it’s easier to cross the wires, so to speak, and connect your neshama directly to the high voltage current coming down from above, at least long enough to send a signal up the line. This isn’t only spoken about in chassidic discourses and kabbalah, but also in nigleh in dozens of locations (The revealed aspects of the Torah) For example, in Masecta Berachos 7b, the talmud describes a situation where one cannot make it to the shul. The gemara states that ideally the individual should gather a minyan to daven at their house, and if they are unable to do so, at least they should daven at the same time as the community does. The gemara then continues on 8a “מאי דכתיב ״ואני תפלתי לך ה׳ עת רצון״. אימתי עת רצון — בשעה שהצבור מתפללין” - “‘May my prayers to you be at an auspicious time.’ What is considered an auspicious time? The time that the community is praying.”

At all times, and especially those, one can pray in their own words, in a translation to whatever language they understand, or they can use a traditional text (nusach), and they will fulfill their scriptural obligation to connect with the Ribono Shel Olam. That said, there is a powerful advantage to praying using a real nusach- based on whatever your family custom or personal custom is (whether sefard, ashkenaz, mizrachi, chassidic, or the like). Even when praying at an auspicious time and place, one’s prayers can be compared to a trip through the forest at night. To follow the paved path - a traditional nusach - will guarantee your safe arrival home (i.e. connecting with your soul’s source), because even with no light (i.e. no understanding of the Hebrew you are reading), one’s feet can tell the difference between a paved road and untamed brush. By making up the words to your own prayers (trying to cut your own path through the forest in the dark), or using words someone else recently decided to come up with (following a slightly cut unpaved worn area), or using abridged versions (trying to follow a broken and fragmented paved road - all in the dark, should you not understand your words) of the nusach, one complicates the procedure, making it more difficult (although of course not impossible) to connect to the level you want to reach.

With all the challenges we face these days, and what we’ve experienced over the last year, we should all be careful with the mitzvah of tefillah, to each at their own level. And may our prayers be at an auspicious time! May they be received before the Ribono Shel Olam like the cries of children for their father, for revealed good in every part of our lives. In the merit of this, Hashem should fulfill for us the posuk (verse) “And I will bring them to my holy mountain, and rejoice with them in my House of Prayer, their offerings received with delight upon my altar, as my house will be called a house of prayer for all the nations.”

Gmar Chasima Tova.

–

Rabbi Aharon

[soon-palestine]

[todaysjewishholiday]

17 Tammuz 5784 (22-23 July 2024)

The Roman siege of Jerusalem in 3830 brought a brutal end to four years of rebellion against the Roman occupation of Judaea and Galilee. Eretz Yisroel had been under some form of foreign occupation for almost the entire period since the end of the Babylonian captivity, from the Persians to the Seleucid Greeks to the Romans, and had the history of the successful Maccabee Rebellion to look back on, which had ended with the closest thing to Jewish political autonomy during the whole second temple period.

The rebellion began in 3826, one of several rebellions against the excesses of Nero’s reign, including others led by Roman provincial governors. It combined Jewish religious objections to being governed by a polytheistic empire with widespread rage at the brutality of Roman military occupation and excessive taxation. The rebellion brought together nearly all classes of Judaean society and all the major socioreligious factions of Jewish life, with even the staunchly apolitical Pharisees throwing their support behind the rebellion. However as the conflict raged on the ideological and class differences of the Jewish combatants led to brutal internal strife which weakened the effort to cast off Roman tyranny.

The chaos throughout the Roman Empire during this period led to hope of Roman withdrawal and retrenchment to smaller imperial borders, especially when Vespasian, who had been leading the Roman assault on the rebels, took a large portion of his forces back to Rome to seize imperial power at the end of the bloody year of the four emperors in 3829. But the Romans were determined not to lose any of their subjugated territories, and Vespasian soon sent reinforcements back to his sons Titus and Domitian. The tide then turned against the rebels.

The seige of Jerusalem began just before Pesach in 3830, when the city’s population was swelled by Jewish pilgrims from across the Roman and Parthian empires. These visitors were trapped within the city’s walls with its permanent inhabitants, severely straining the city’s stockpiles of food and water. Disease and hunger were as deadly in the siege as the foreign army, and Jerusalem’s defenders soon turned on each other as tensions and rivalries reached the breaking point and every faction sought to blame the others for the horrible situation.

It was on the seventeenth of Tammuz that the Roman armies broke through the third and final defensive wall around the city. By the end of the month Jerusalem had been almost entirely leveled in a series of fires that broke out during the Roman massacre of much of the surviving population. Nearly a hundred thousand Jewish survivors were forced into slavery and taken elsewhere in the empire. Scholars estimate that less than ten percent of Jerusalem’s pre-war population remained in the area by the end of the year. The revolt’s suppression had brought untold horrors upon Judaism’s holiest city.

The seventeenth of Tammuz soon replaced the ninth of Tammuz, which was the anniversary of the Babylonian army’s breach of Jerusalem’s walls at the end of the thirty month siege of the city, as a sunrise to sunset fast day. Because the Roman destruction of the Beit haMikdash occurred on the same Hebrew date as the Babylonian destruction of the temple built by Solomon, there was no need to change the date of that observance.

The period from the seventeenth of Tammuz to the ninth of Av is known as the Three Weeks, and is observed in many Jewish communities as a mourning period for the physical and spiritual exile created by the destruction of both temples. Communities that consider post-exilic rabbinical Judaism to be a superior development to the sacrificial order and which celebrate the cultural vibrancy of diaspora Judaism over the longing for return are correspondingly less likely to emphasize the Three Weeks.

[is-it-shabbos-yet]

This morning while my husband was at shul, my 4yo and 3yo made an elaborate game that they were going to Eretz Yisroel on a plane. They packed their backpacks and arranged our dining room chairs to be the plane. (They even put a smaller seat so they could take their baby sister, too.)

When they "arrived" in Eretz Yisroel, they immediately went to "the Kotel" to daven. My 4yo kept asking me questions about E"Y, like, "Do they have bathrooms there?" "Do they have shoes there?"

Yep kiddo, they sure do. 😂😂😂

[wenevergotusedtoegypt]

How do you make sense of the war or explain it to children if they were to ask?

Really depends on the age and how much information they already have when they ask. 4yo is barely aware of the war. I think at one point earlier on we told him something like, "some bad people hurt Jews in Eretz Yisroel," and in school they have done things like davening or giving tzedaka in the merit of Eretz Yisroel, but it really hasn't been necessary to go further than that at this age and with the limited news he has been exposed to. I know the children of one of my friends came home from school talking about bombs, so obviously in that case there was another layer to address...but they're also older. I don't know what the discussion they had was.

[mybeautifulchristianjourney]

The 10 Commandments

1 And Moshe called kol Yisroel, and said unto them, Shema, Yisroel, to the chukkim and mishpatim which I speak in your ears today, that ye may learn them, and be shomer to do them.

2 Hashem Eloheinu made a Brit with us in Chorev.

3 Hashem made not this Brit with Avoteinu, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive today.

4 Hashem talked with you panim b’panim in the har out of the midst of the eish,

5 (I stood between Hashem and you at that time, to show you the Devar Hashem; for ye were afraid by reason of the eish, and went not up into the har) saying:

6 I am Hashem Eloheicha, Which brought thee out of Eretz Mitzrayim, from the bais avadim.

7 Thou shalt have no elohim acharim before Me.

8 Thou shalt not make thee any pesel, or any temunah of anything that is in Shomayim above, or that is in Ha’Aretz beneath, or that is in the mayim beneath ha’aretz;

9 Lo tishtachaveh (thou shalt not bow down thyself) unto them, nor serve them; for I Hashem Eloheicha am an El Kannah, visiting the iniquity of the avot upon the banim unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me,

10 And showing chesed unto thousands of them that love Me and are shomer over My mitzvot.

11 Thou shalt not take the Shem of Hashem Eloheicha in vain; for Hashem will not hold him guiltless that taketh Shmo in vain.

12 Keep shomer Shabbos to set Shabbos apart as kodesh as Hashem Eloheicha commanded thee.

13 Sheshet yamim thou shalt labor, and do all thy work:

14 But the Yom HaShevi’i is the Shabbos of Hashem Eloheicha: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy ben, nor thy bat, nor thy eved, nor thy maidservant, nor thine ox, nor thine donkey, nor any of thy cattle, nor thy ger that is within thy she’arim; that thy eved and thy amah may rest as well as thou.

15 And remember that thou wast an eved in Eretz Mitzrayim, and that Hashem Eloheicha brought thee out thence through a yad chazakah and by an outstretched zero’a; therefore Hashem Eloheicha commanded thee to be shomer Shabbos on Yom HaShabbat.

16 Honor thy av and thy em, as Hashem Eloheicha hath commanded thee; that thy yamim may be prolonged, and that it may go well with thee, in ha’adamah which Hashem Eloheicha giveth thee.

17 Lo tirtzah (thou shalt not murder).

18 V’lo tinaf (neither shalt thou commit adultery).

19 V’lo tignov (neither shalt thou steal).

20 V’lo ta’aneh v’reacha ed shav (neither shalt thou bear false witness against thy neighbor).

21 V’lo tachmod (neither shalt thou covet, desiring) thy neighbor’s wife, neither shalt thou covet thy neighbor’s bais, his sadeh, or his eved, or his amah, his ox, or his donkey, or any thing that is thy neighbor’s.

22 These devarim Hashem spoke unto all your Kahal in the mountain out of the midst of the eish, of the anan, and of the thick darkness, with a kol gadol; and He added no more. And He wrote them in two luchot of even (stone), and delivered them unto me. — Deuteronomy 5:1-22 | Orthodox Jewish Bible (OJB) Orthodox Jewish Bible Copyright © 2002, 2003, 2008, 2010, 2011 by Artists for Israel International. Cross References: Genesis 15:13; Exodus 18:20; Exodus 19:1; Exodus 19:18; Exodus 20:2-3; Exodus 20:5; Exodus 20:21; Exodus 23:1; Exodus 34:17; Leviticus 19:11; Numbers 14:18; Matthew 5:21; Matthew 5:33; Matthew 15:4; Mark 2:27; Luke 13:14; Luke 18:20; Luke 23:56; Romans 7:7; Hebrews 8:9; Hebrews 12:18

Read full chapter

What are the Ten Commandments? What is the Decalogue?

[unsolicited-opinions]

Wrote this in 2019

At the public library yesterday, my 9yo pointed to the books a man was carrying and said "those are in Hebrew!"

Man: How did you know that?

9yo: I'm Jewish.

Man: How nice! I tell clergy that we must *bless* the Jewish people, who are beloved by God and will play an important role.

And I was like...oh, fuck. He's one of THOSE evangelicals.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Zionism

9yo: I know prayers in Hebrew and I can translate them. Baruch ata adonai, elohaynu melech ha'olam, blessed is G-d, ruler of the universe...

Man: Very good! You really should read the Gospels in the original Hebrew. See here?

Me: Um...weren't the synoptic gospels written in Greek?

Man: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were Jews.

Me: Hellenized Jews, yes...and the books of the synoptic gospels were not, according to Christian theological and historical scholarship, written by individuals. Or in Hebrew.

Man: Oh yes they were.

Me: Not according to the Jesus Seminar.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Seminar

Me: Any version of the synoptic gospels in your hand right now were translated INTO Hebrew FROM Greek by modern peoples, probably by those who dishonestly call themselves "Messianic Jews." Okay, take care- have a nice day!

I had been foolish to engage with this creepy dude, so I ushered the kids out the door and towards the car. He followed us all the way to our car, lecturing me on how I should read the Christian Bible in Hebrew.

Man: Would you like a copy of the Christian bible? I have some in my car!

David: No, thank you. I've read it a few times. I like Matthew best.

So we finally get to the car and I'm breathing a sigh of relief and feeling glad I behaved politely as I try explain to my 9yo why he was being so fucking aggressive/weird and he RAPS ON MY FUCKING CAR WINDOW, scaring the fuck out of all of us...to give me his card.

Man: I was just in Eretz Yisroel for Chag Chanukah. Have YOU been to Israel?

Me: [With some disbelief, struggling to remain civil] No. For a diasporan Jew to visit Israel feels too much to me like an endorsement of a government of which I do not wish to give the appearance of endorsing because they are hawkish right-wingers, corrupt assholes, and fundamentalists, the opposite of the way I was raised to understand living a Jewish life.

Man: You should go. You should make aliyah.

There was a long pause as I consciously took a breath and made the decision to control my volume and tone because my kids were listening.

Me: Please listen carefully. You are an aggressive evangelical Christian who is, uninvited, lecturing me in front of my children on how to be a Jew. Please understand that, historically, this is not surprising, not welcome, and not ecumenical. I am utterly uninterested in supporting the very worst of Christian eschatological ambitions or pretending that people like you care about the Jewish people. Please leave us alone now.

Man: [Pause] May G-d bless you and keep you.

Me: May you find peace avoid suffering...and stop believing you can offer blessings on G-d's behalf.

[torahtot]

my sister was listening to the aveirah song today & i think the fact that it offers both "im such a tzioni, i sing hatikvah" and "i don't even like eretz yisroel" as examples of 'aveirot' would break some goyims' brains

[saltcherry]

.

terminally embarrassing to be a convert and a zionist. what level of indoctrination are you on. we have no ancestry connecting us to eretz yisroel, no family living there, we have no familial history of trauma from expulsions and pogroms and the holocaust, and no community childhood zionist indoctrination besides whatever we get in our home countries.

did hashem make you a Jew to give you power over others? is that what you took with you into the mikve? Is that what it meant to you to acknowledge that you were taking on yourself the knowledge of the centuries of persecutions of the Jews?

[i-can-kazoo]

Also, Eretz Yisroel ≠ the state of Israel. Anyone who purposely conflates the two has already shown their hand.

Lmao they deleted it

[todaysjewishholiday]

6 Sivan 5784 (11-12 June 2024)

Chag Shavuot Sameach! Today is the second of the Shalosh Regalim, the three Torah pilgrimage festivals on which the Israelites gathered to the Beit haMikdash. Shavuot celebrates both the barley harvest in ancient eretz yisroel and the covenant made between HaShem and the liberated Jewish people at Mount Sinai fifty days after their departure from bondage in Egypt.

Shavuot is a very joyful day, celebrated with sumptuous dairy foods and an all-night Torah study gathering called Tikkun Leil Shavuot. Unlike Pesach or Sukkot, Shavuot doesn’t continue for a full week. Because of Chag Sheni Shel Galuyos, the ancient tradition of adding an extra day to Jewish holidays in the diaspora to allow for the news of the new moon sighting to be spread from the Sanhedrin. While direct lunar observations haven’t been part of the Hebrew calendar in over 1500 years, an extra day is retained as a source of extra joy.

If Pesach is the great festival of freedom, Shavuot is the celebration of covenant. We are, and have been for as long as we know, a people of covenant. Whatever shape our Judaism takes, it is in relation to the covenant and ideals of promise to HaShem and to one another that flow from it. All the numerous debates of Judaism are about what that covenant means and what exactly it obligates us to do as a people. Happy Shavuot! May you have joy in your Jewishness today!

[wenevergotusedtoegypt]

For a while now I’ve been having a recurring theme in my dreams (the rest of the dream is never the same, just this one particular concept within it) of having an opportunity to go to the Kotel and trying to do so, but not actually making it there before the dream ends.

It has been 6 years since my last trip to Eretz Yisroel. 😭

[mybeautifulchristianjourney]

The 10 Commandments

1 And Moshe called kol Yisroel, and said unto them, Shema, Yisroel, to the chukkim and mishpatim which I speak in your ears today, that ye may learn them, and be shomer to do them.

2 Hashem Eloheinu made a Brit with us in Chorev.

3 Hashem made not this Brit with Avoteinu, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive today.

4 Hashem talked with you panim b’panim in the har out of the midst of the eish,

5 (I stood between Hashem and you at that time, to show you the Devar Hashem; for ye were afraid by reason of the eish, and went not up into the har) saying:

6 I am Hashem Eloheicha, Which brought thee out of Eretz Mitzrayim, from the bais avadim.

7 Thou shalt have no elohim acharim before Me.

8 Thou shalt not make thee any pesel, or any temunah of anything that is in Shomayim above, or that is in Ha’Aretz beneath, or that is in the mayim beneath ha’aretz;

9 Lo tishtachaveh (thou shalt not bow down thyself) unto them, nor serve them; for I Hashem Eloheicha am an El Kannah, visiting the iniquity of the avot upon the banim unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me,

10 And showing chesed unto thousands of them that love Me and are shomer over My mitzvot.

11 Thou shalt not take the Shem of Hashem Eloheicha in vain; for Hashem will not hold him guiltless that taketh Shmo in vain.

12 Keep shomer Shabbos to set Shabbos apart as kodesh as Hashem Eloheicha commanded thee.

13 Sheshet yamim thou shalt labor, and do all thy work:

14 But the Yom HaShevi’i is the Shabbos of Hashem Eloheicha: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy ben, nor thy bat, nor thy eved, nor thy maidservant, nor thine ox, nor thine donkey, nor any of thy cattle, nor thy ger that is within thy she’arim; that thy eved and thy amah may rest as well as thou.

15 And remember that thou wast an eved in Eretz Mitzrayim, and that Hashem Eloheicha brought thee out thence through a yad chazakah and by an outstretched zero’a; therefore Hashem Eloheicha commanded thee to be shomer Shabbos on Yom HaShabbat.

16 Honor thy av and thy em, as Hashem Eloheicha hath commanded thee; that thy yamim may be prolonged, and that it may go well with thee, in ha’adamah which Hashem Eloheicha giveth thee.

17 Lo tirtzah (thou shalt not murder).

18 V’lo tinaf (neither shalt thou commit adultery).

19 V’lo tignov (neither shalt thou steal).

20 V’lo ta’aneh v’reacha ed shav (neither shalt thou bear false witness against thy neighbor).

21 V’lo tachmod (neither shalt thou covet, desiring) thy neighbor’s wife, neither shalt thou covet thy neighbor’s bais, his sadeh, or his eved, or his amah, his ox, or his donkey, or any thing that is thy neighbor’s. — Deuteronomy 5:1-21 | Orthodox Jewish Bible (OJB) Orthodox Jewish Bible Copyright © 2002, 2003, 2008, 2010, 2011 by Artists for Israel International and the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Cross References: Genesis 15:13; Exodus 18:20; Exodus 19:18; Exodus 20:2-3 and 4; Exodus 20:17; Exodus 34:7; Leviticus 19:11; Numbers 14:18; Deuteronomy 29:1; Psalm 81:9; Matthew 5:21; Matthew 5:27; Matthew 5:33; Matthew 15:4; Matthew 19:18; Mark 2:27; Luke 13:14; Luke 23:56; Romans 7:7; Galatians 3:19; Hebrews 8:9

[dikleyt]

A dominant ideological current in Zionism has involved "negation of the Diaspora," the devaluing of everything Jews did and everything Jews have been since leaving Eretz Yisroel. This is essentially a form of self-rejection and self-hate, as our entire history is a part of us. We are not separable from it, and separating ourselves from it means deliberately mutilating ourselves, impoverishing our history and culture.

At the same time, a dominant ideological current in Diasporism has involved negation of the point of origin that makes the word "Diaspora" meaningful. To scatter oneself throughout the world implies that we were scattered from somewhere. That place was Eretz Yisroel. Our first language was Hebrew, and it remains a common language of the learned people of all Jewish communities, along with Aramaic. Our holidays revolve around Eretz Yisroel. It’s true that we have a process for accepting new people into the Jewish nation, but this process was already in place while we were still living in Eretz Yisroel, and is carried out through a justice system that comes down to us from that land, etc..

Ashkenazim developed a custom of only using Hebrew for religious purposes, and often applied this to Aramaic as well. This, however, is a purely Ashkenazi custom, and while our customs are important, they are not universal. In the Middle Ages, Sephardi scribes translated a host of secular works into Hebrew, and wrote a host of secular poems and other works. Italian Jews composed romances in Hebrew. I also believe we can abandon customs that are no longer suitable. We don't have to, but we can, and most of us have long ago abandoned this custom regarding Hebrew, beginning in pre-Zionist times with the Haskalic revival of Ashkenazi Secular Hebrew.

[tatzlumphoto]

On Jerusalem Street, Tzefat by tatzlum.photo Via Flickr: The Ancient City of Safed, Israel. January, 2018

[progressivejudaism]

[Image Description:  A black and white picture of Israeli hero and poet Hannah Senesh in an Israeli field.  The image reads:  “”There is one place in the world to which you do not escape, nor do you immigrate, you come home - the Land of Israel. -- Hannah Senesh (1921-1944)”