Over רפואה מן התורה
Healing from the Torah

Shabbat Shuvah ~ Parashat Ha'azinu
~ We are Designed to Listen ~

Deuteronomy 31;1-32:32 

By Rabbi Adam Ruditsky

     L’Shanah Tova!  Although different, I do hope everyone had a good Rosh Hashanah.  We are now in the days called the yamim noraim, the days of awe, a time when we take extra notice of ourselves and ask the hard questions that demand both chesbon hanefesh, inward reflection, and t’shuvah, outer correction.  It is a time in the Jewish liturgical calendar of self-betterment, spiritual refinement, and ritual involvement.  We hear on Rosh Hashanah in preparation for Yom Kippur the prayer Unetanneh Tokef, "Let us now relate the power of this day's holiness, for it is awesome and frightening,” a prayer that also includes the words, מִי יִחְיֶה וּמִי יָמוּת, “who will live and who will die.”  Here, we must realize that when we are dead we can no longer hear that inner-voice that moves us to act.  Saying that this is simply the arbitrary will of God misses the power of those words, instilling more fear rather than an awareness of life.
     This reminds me of a story about a Rabbi who was walking home late one night after giving a lecture at the village synagogue and was drawn by the light of a flickering candle in a window of the town's shoe repair shop.  When the Rabbi looked in he saw the shoemaker working tirelessly on shoes by the light of that same candle.  The Rabbi thought this was wrong, so he knocked on the door and rebuked the shoemaker saying, “how can you let this work dominate your life when at this time of night you should be home with your family.”  The shoemaker became the teacher and spoke to the Rabbi’s misjudgment saying, “as long as the candle burns, Rabbi, there is still time to mend.”  As long as the candle of our souls continue to burn we do live and have the opportunity to mend ourselves and the world around us.  Between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is Shabbat Shuvah, the Shabbat of return. On Shabbat Shuvah we read Parashat Ha’azinu that begins by saying, “Give ear, O Heavens and I will speak, and may the earth hear the words of my mouth.”  The word Ha’azinu (הַאֲזִינוּ), “give ear,” is followed in the same verse by v’tishma (וְתִשְׁמַע) meaning to “hear,” the listener and the hearer are the heavens and the earth and not Moses and the people. What does this mean?  Ibn Ezra writes, “I have suggested that the human soul is a bridge between the spiritual and the corporeal,” the human neshama links the heavens and the earth together, allowing our physical self to listen to and return to our spiritual voices.
     Ha’azinu is understood to be a song of Moses who is calling upon heaven and earth to testify against Israel’s deeds, both for the good and the bad, but it is more than that, it is about the nature of Israel themselves. In the Midrash, from Deuteronomy Rabbah 10:4, Israel is considered to be both like the “stars of the sky,” but also the dust of the earth,” recalling Israel’s place in the physical world while in connection with God.  Ibn Ezra in saying that the neshama (soul) is the “bridge” between the spiritual and physical worlds that relates to the individual.  Moses was that soul according to that same Midrash.  Rabbi Samuel ben Nachman taught that Moses “held office in two provinces,” which he would unite as one.  Moses  “was born of earth but he became great in heaven,” understanding that each province was incomplete without the other, Moses calling “on both of them, the heavens and the earth.”  Looking back and the narrative of Adam and Eve, the first two people of God in Israel’s story, we learn that their role in the physical world was to care for Eden although it was compromised when they chose not to listen to their inner voice, their neshamot (souls), which was the bridge between heaven and earth.
     In that Midrash God responds by saying that the soul will find rest “under the Throne of Glory,” connecting the fullness of the neshama to heaven and earth alike.  In another Midrash, from Genesis Rabbah 1:4, we learn that there are six things that preexisted in heaven before the creation of the earth, those being the Throne of Glory (the place of God), Torah, Israel, the Patriarchs (and of course the Matriarchs), the Beit haMikdash (the Temple), and lastly, t’shuvah (repentance).  If humankind was created in God’s image (cf. Gen. 1:27), then humankind is “hardwired” to exist between heaven and earth just as was Moses.  Looking again at Adam and Eve we find that they broke their relationship between heaven and earth when they neglected their neshamot , but how?  Taking Torah and t’shuvah, which preexisted humanity that is created בְּצֶלֶם אֱלֹהִים (B’tzelem Elohim, in the image of God), humankind therefore exists in the physical world with an innate awareness of spiritual behavior and ethics within them.  Although another conversation, Adam and Eve were perhaps more guilty of the denial by “bearing false witness” to God and themselves (cf. Ex. 20:12), spurning the need for repentance that Jewish tradition affirms was created before the physical universe/world (Talmud, Nedarim 39b).  We are fashioned spiritually to lean toward t’shuvah, recalling the words of the Psalms that say, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise." (Psalms 51:16-17).  Adam and Eve contained Torah and t’shuvah in their neshamot, and with both heaven and earth as their witnesses, they acted against each.
     Judaism in not a religion that focuses on sin and repentance, like Christianity, but during this season each year it does and is not bashful about doing so.  There is a story about Abraham who has a disagreement with his father about the power of idols.  In the story Abraham attempts to feed the idols wheat and when they cannot eat he smashes them to pieces. When he is confronted by his father Abraham tells him that the idols had a food fight, his father responded by saying that was impossible because idols do not live.  Abraham listened to his neshama that bridged heaven and earth, looking at the idols for what they were, idols of the physical world had no place in his spiritual one.  That is what it means, t'shuvah from the sin of the physical world to embrace the power of the spiritual one.  Back to Ha’azinu, Moses is led up to Mt. Nebo to look at a land he will not enter in the physical world, although like the Midrash taught “he became great in heaven.”  Shabbat Shuvah is a part of our physical world where we listen, v’tishma (וְתִשְׁמַע),  to “hear,” but it is a part of our spiritual world when we ask heaven to listen as well, ha’azinu (הַאֲזִינוּ), “give ear” to our neshamot (souls) that seeks t’shuvah.  We hear physically, because that is how we are fashioned, but during this time of year we are reminded that we are also designed to listen to our inner spiritual voice, recalling that “as long as the candle burns … there is still time to mend,” each of us charged with the task to figure out what deserves our attention in our return.

Gmar Chatima Tovah, may you be sealed for good in the book of life 

Rosh Hashanah - Abraham an image of Recreation

Over רפואה מן התורה
Healing from the Torah

Rosh Hashanah 

Genesis 22:1-18
By Rabbi Adam Ruditsky

     My teacher, Rabbi Ed Feinstein, tells the story of a young man who approached the bema after a particular service and looked at the Aron, the Torah Ark, longingly.  R’Feinstein escorted this young man to the Aron, opened the Ark and handed him a Torah to hold.  Upon holding the Torah the young man broke down in tears, in the process of restoring his life, this one single event of holding the Torah unleashed a power that touched him in the deepest of ways regarding his innermost being.  Rosh Hashanah is an event, it happened once historically and is then celebrated yearly on the same day, the first day of Tishrei, but the process of relating to it that began with Elul will continue to Yom Kippur and beyond.
     Rosh Hashanah, called in Torah זִכְרוֹן תְּרוּעָה (zikron t’ruah) or יוֹם תְּרוּעָה (yom t’ruah), a memorial trumpet or the day of the trumpet, means the head of the year and is the first of the chagaim of the Jewish festival cycles, tradition teaching that Rosh Hashanah celebrates the creation of the world.  On this day we pray, “Today, the world is born! Today shall stand before you all the beings of the cosmos, whether as your children or your servants. If as your children, show them your mercy, Like a mother toward her children. If as your servants, then our eyes are turned toward you in great anticipation that you may be gracious. Rendering judgment for the good, on our behalf, as clear as light of day.”  We blow the shofar in solidarity with the day to hail our existence as part of the creation itself.  But will also hail this day for the chance to recreate ourselves once again.
     A Midrash (Gen. Rabbah 8:5) regarding the advent of humanity is worth noting.  Here the angels of chesed (mercy) and tzedek (righteousness) differed in opinion from and the angels of shalom (peace) and emet (truth).  The angels of chesed and tzedek lobbied to create humankind because they do “merciful and righteousness deeds,” whereas the angels of shalom and emet lobbied against human creation, because they are “full of falsehood and never ceases quarreling.”  In making the choice, God chose to go ahead and create humankind believing that people can be, according to Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, “better and less destructive,” recalling that God called the creation of humankind “very good” (Gen. 1:31)  The story of the young man shows that to be so, and here in Genesis 22, read on the 2nd day of Rosh Hashanah, Abraham becomes the image that reveals how humanity can recreate themselves if they choose.  How so?
     Abraham had a role, an especially important role indeed.  Abraham got to play the role of that higher humanity that God gambled on.  Abraham is under the impression that God wants him to sacrifice his own son, and as clarifying his reluctance in a Midrash, it is Isaac as opposed to Ishmael since he loved them both (Midrash Tanchuma, Vayeira 22).  Prior to this we read in the same Midrash, “The Holy One, blessed be He, said to Abraham: I have tried you nine times, and you underwent those trials successfully; now endure this final trial so that men may not say the earlier trials were of little consequence.”  How was this a trail?  What was this lesson that Abraham had to learn?  Rashi writes that God “did not say, ‘Slay him’, because the Holy One, blessed be He, did not desire that he should slay him, but he told him to bring him up to the mountain to prepare him as a burnt offering. So when he had taken him up, God said to him, “Bring him down” (Genesis Rabbah 56:8… a trial was) Never God’s intent!”  Rabbi Sacks gives 4 reasons why this could have never been a trial to sacrifice Isaac by Abraham.  First, it was a pagan practice (i.e. Moloch).  Second, how could Abraham be a father of all nations if he acted this way?  Third, how can a father be willing to sacrifice one child and let the other live?  And finally, in Judaism God does not ask the unethical (think Pharaoh and midwives).  But still, Abraham seems willing to do what he perceives God has asked of him.
     In Genesis 22:15 we read, וַיִּקְרָא מַלְאַךְ יְהוָה, אֶל-אַבְרָהָם, שֵׁנִית, מִן-הַשָּׁמָיִם, “and the angel of the LORD called to Abraham a second time out of heaven” and tells him not to kill his son Isaac.  Did God’s mind change, or was it some misguided test of a father’s loyalty, only to be stopped by God’s intervention to make a point?  In response to this Abraham replied in a Midrash “Swear to me not to test me ever again, nor my son Yitzchak,” Rabbi Chama ben Rabbi Chanina saying, “this is the last test, which was as weighty as all the rest together, and if he had not accepted to [do] it, all would have been lost” (Genesis Rabbah 56:11).  This had to happen in other words for the sake of the human race, although the test for Rabbi Jonathan Sacks is ultimately about Abraham relinquishing possession of his son, Isaac, not about killing him.  The Akedah story (Gen. 22) for R’Sacks is set in a cultural back backdrop of whether or not Abraham would allow Isaac to be given over to God, meaning that Isaac would now stand as an equal with his father Abraham.   As such, R’Sacks concludes that this potential sacrifice that Abraham almost committed certainly shows what he was capable of, but the purpose of this Torah narrative was to make a point about life and “not death.”  Life is a reward, Rabbi David Kimchi wrote that the Angel of the Lord “called him (Abraham) a second time to inform him that as compensation for what he had just been prepared to do, God would compensate his children when the occasion would arise to do so,” in this case with Isaac’s life.  Abraham's reward would be for the generations that followed, including ours. Regardless of the fact that we can destroy, our true strength is that we can choose life, and help create it anew. 
     Was Abraham in battle with his past, or in seeking his future, were the remnants of his past an ongoing nuisance, or maybe an old tape that needed to be erased?  Upon Mt. Moriah the “Angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time out of heaven” because it has everything to with creation, the Angel of God wanted Abraham to be made new by finally breaking from his past, the recreated Abraham upon that mountain embraced the ram in the thicket, saying yes to life instead.  Abraham became the image for renewed humanity that day, his deepest convictions about life tested in a most dramatic way.  Rosh Hashanah is just not a holiday, but an opportunity, an opportunity to choose life, goodness, and the better way, calling upon our values of God as we seize the day to recreate ourselves in this new year.  In Genesis 22:11 it says, וַיֹּאמֶר, אַבְרָהָם אַבְרָהָם, “and God said, Abraham, Abraham,” but why twice?  This is about the Abraham of old as opposed to the recreated Abraham, a reminder of the inner battle between the evil and good inclinations, the plight of the human struggle that we all carry.  There are many things we can mention that are worth noting, such as the recent peace agreement made between Israel and their Arab neighbors or the need to usher in a year of a new kind of social equality, but Rosh Hashanah is ultimately about a newness that begins with us.  Therefore, may we on this Rosh Hashanah be recreated for good, and may we do our part to make our world better.

L’shana Tovah u’Metukah, a sweet new year!

Parashat Nitzavim-Yayeilech - Our Season of Consolidation, Week 7 – Reconciliation

Over רפואה מן התורהHealing from the Torah

Parashat Nitzavim-Yayeilech

Deuteronomy 29:9-31:30
By Rabbi Adam Ruditsky

    Over these past few weeks we have been on a journey, one that began with compassion after Tisha B’Av, a spiritual journey that is asking us to reflect on words like awareness, recognition, reunion, rebirth, and rebuilding, related to ourselves, others, and God. Walking through Elul, the month of preparation, we have reached our final week of Consolation before Rosh Hashanah that is about הַשׁלָמָה (hashlamah), or reconciliation.  The word הַשׁלָמָה comes from the root word שָׁלֵם (shalaym), a word that carries the meaning of being “whole” or “complete,” even meaning “intact.”  In that spirit Moses writes in Deuteronomy 29:9, “you all are standing this day all of you before the LORD your God: your heads, your tribes, your elders, and your officers, even all the men of Israel, your little ones, your wives, and the stranger that is in the midst of your camp, from the hewer of your wood to the drawer of your water,” everyone from the heads of state to the hired help, everyone stands before God “complete” and equal.

     Let’s start by looking at this idea of “standing,” or nitzavim (נִצָּבִים).  A little later in this same chapter Moses speaks of the covenant that God made with Israel with “those that stand here with us this day … and also with those who are not here with us this day” (Dt. 26:14).  Here again, the word is to “stand” but this time it is omayd.  The word נִצָּב (nitzav) and עֹמֵד (omayd) are to “stand” in English but their Hebrew meanings make a difference.  The word nitzav can mean “to stand or to position oneself” whereas the word omayd will mean “to rise or to stand up,” the former a state of being with the later an act of doing.  It is like saying “stand your ground” as opposed to “stand and be counted.”  In the beginning of this double parshiyot Moses wants to establish that all those who are about to enter Canaan are having their own Sinai experience.  In Exodus we read that “Moses led the people out of the camp toward God, and they took their places at the foot of the mountain” (Exodus 19:16) where they stood (וַיִּתְיַצְּבוּ) but kept their distance (v. 17).  The root for וַיִּתְיַצְּבוּ is יִצֵּב (yitzayv), a word that appears to be related to נִצָּב (nitzav) since it means “to stabilize or to make firm, which is awfully similar to “to stand or to position oneself.”  40 years apart, one community encountered Sinai and the other is about to enter the land promised to their ancestors, each are told to stand firm in their moment.
     The word נִצָּב (nitzav) can also mean, “monument” or “statue,” things that are fixed upon their foundation, which for Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel is called a  “conventional image.”  A “real image” for R’Heschel is likened to a Catholic crucifix, the image represents a deity, whereas the “conventional image” is like a flag, the image is symbolic for something else.  In this parsha then, standing, (nitzavim,נִצָּבִים) is like the flag, it is just not standing upright per see, but standing up for something firm, like a conviction.  In the world of Mussar, Rabbi Paul Cohen says one is standing (nitzavim,נִצָּבִים) upon the idea of anavah (עֲנָוָה), or humility.  In Reform Judaism on Yom Kippur morning Parashat Nitzavim is read a second time.  The reason according to R’Cohen is that “Yom Kippur is liturgically a moment of deep honesty, reflection and repentance,” meaning that in order to be open “to self-reflection” and be “vulnerable” a person must have anavah.  R’Cohen goes on to write that anavah is not to be defined as “making oneself small,” but “recognizing that moment; to be present for it.”  Anavah is not based on a person’s social or economic station in life, but the equality of the human neshoma, which again is why in this parsha Moses spoke to all from the heads of state to the hired help who in unison said וְנִשְׁמָע נַעֲשֶׂה (na’aseh v’nishma), “we well hear and we will do.” The other side of hashlamah (הַשׁלָמָה) and anavah (עֲנָוָה), reconciliation and humility, is broken communities and relationships.
     In Deuteronomy 30:15 we read, “See, I have set before you this day life and good, and death and evil,” v. 16 teaching that is based on “God’s commandments, statutes and ordinances.”  It was Maimonides who taught that a person’s actions are established on הרשות בידו (harshoot b’yado), or feel-will.  In Torah a person can choose to do good or bad, have life or create death.  We can read the words of Deuteronomy 29:20 through that lens. It says, “the LORD shall separate him to evil out of all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant that is written in this book of the law.”  In the book of the law we read to love others as ourselves, take care of the windows and orphans, honor the immigrant as your own, stand for the common good, show gratitude for what has been given and what will be received, do not mistreat others financially or withhold from their needs, feed the poor, show fairness and do justice, all in the backdrop of giving thanks to God for life that has been given, celebrating that with the Shabbat and other festivals.  The opposite is hate, selfishness, isolation, ungratefulness, thievery, division, dishonesty, and reliance on an inflated sense of self.  In the language of Torah God had no room for this type of person because it was bad for the community (see Dt. 29:19 also), and while we might use different words and ideas, it is the same, mistreatment of others and an exaltation of self with a myopic worldview will end badly, creating bad and death between self, the community, and a connection to our understanding of God.     Like the generation that stood at Mt Sinai, and the generation that stood on the outskirts of Canaan east of the Jordan, today we stand about to enter 5781 with the celebration of Rosh Hashanah.  How will we enter that moment, what will we bring to it? How does the idea of reconciliation fit this time of transition into a new year?  These are the type of questions we are supposed to be asking right now.  Last week in Ki Yavo Moses taught to offer fruits from the land upon arrival, Ibn Ezra teaching it is not the best, but the first.  For Torah הַשׁלָמָה (hashlamah), or reconciliation, is not about being perfect but willing to become, something that begins with anavah, the humility to invite change and renewal. The Haftorah this week begins by saying,  “I will greatly rejoice in God, my soul will exult in my God who has clothed me with the garments of salvation.”  Salvation (יֶשַׁע) is the garment worn, that garment being the cloths of reconciliation and renewal, standing upon the firm foundation of our conviction for right and justice to make the world we live a better place by being better people. I hope you also think that is something to rejoice about.

Shabbat Shalom                         

Parashat Ki Yavo - Our Season of Consolidation, Week 6 – Rebuilding

רפואה מן התורה

Healing from the Torah

Parashat Ki Teitzei

Deuteronomy 26:1-29:8
By Rabbi Adam Ruditsky

     

     The saying goes, “He that gives should never remember, he that receives should never forget.”  Rabbi Eliyahu Dressler wrote, “the quality of giving is inherent only in the person who is happy … with their lot.”  Every morning in Jewish prayer we say, “How good is our portion, how pleasant our lot, how beautiful our heritage,” asking us to consider the middah of Hakarat Hatov, or recognition of the good, hence gratitude.  There is a story in the Midrash about Reuven who experienced the pains of Egypt but also the delights of deliverance yet he had no gratitude.  Here, Reuven speaks about Egypt where they had dry clay for mortar to make bricks and now have to walk through the clay on the seabed in order to escape from Pharaoh and his armies who sought their lives; but we know how that ended.  In response God says to him “all of these miracles you now equate with evil.”  This Midrash from Exodus Rabbah 24:1 goes on to call them “Foolish people,” because for Reuven the power of Egypt took away his ability to show gratitude for his deliverance.

     As Moses continues to recount Israel’s past with an eye on the future he writes, “My father was a Syrian, about to perish, and he went down to Egypt and dwelt there, few in number; and there he became a nation, great, mighty, and populous.  But the Egyptians mistreated us, afflicted us, and laid hard bondage on us.  Then we cried out to the Lord God of our fathers, and the Lord heard our voice and looked on our affliction and our labor and our oppression.  So the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm, with great terror and with signs and wonders.  He has brought us to this place and has given us this land, “a land flowing with milk and honey”; and now, behold, I have brought the first fruits of the land which you, O Lord, have given me” (Dt. 26:5-10).  We must remember that Moses had a firsthand account of the pain of Egypt yet this short narrative focuses not on the memories of Egypt but the gratitude of their freedom and the land of promise that would be Israel’s home.
     So Moses writes, וְהָיָה, כִּי-תָבוֹא אֶל-הָאָרֶץ, אֲשֶׁר יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ, “And it shall be, when you come into the land which the Lord your God is giving you.”  Upon their arrival the wilderness generation was to show their appreciation by taking “some of the first of all the produce of the ground, which you shall bring from your land that the Lord your God is giving you, and put it in a basket and go to the place where the Lord your God chooses to make His name abide.”  The idea of giving sacrifices to God was not new to their culture, but what they learned in the wilderness was that it was not about appeasement but Hakarat Hatov, and that was to be their attitude in the new land as well.  Here is the problem, their ancestors ate fruit in Egypt just like they made mortar out of clay, so do we appeal to that same Midrash because somehow fruit can be turned into a bad omen instead of recognizing it’s as a gift from the ground?  That might silly, but let’s explore that for just a moment.

     Here it is not just about fruit from the ground but the fruit of the human spirit.  Rashi says that the fruit here is specific to the land making a distinction from the past, albeit from Egypt or the wilderness (see Rashi on Dt. 26:2), the earlier Targum Jonathan saying that these fruits were “the earliest first fruits which are ripe at the beginning.” The fruit was new, not recalling the past but with expectation of the future.  What else do we know about this fruit?  It says in Deuteronomy 26:4, בָּרוּךְ פְּרִי-בִטְנְךָ וּפְרִי אַדְמָתְךָ, “Blessed shall be the fruit of your body (belly), the produce of your ground,” further defining this fruit. It says in a later Midrash that the fruit of your womb means “let no evil come out of you that is not cursed by his deeds,” and the fruit of your ground means to not plant “idle seed.”  Although Ibn Ezra sees the plain meaning of the text as simply “the fruit of your belly i.e., your offspring,” since it will "come out of you,” I think the tradition of the Christian Bible about the “fruit of the spirit” is helpful.  The idea of the “fruit of the spirit” seems to reflect the words of the Prophet Isaiah who refers to “the spirit be poured upon us from on high,” with the New Testament attributing that to what Mussar came to call the human middot, they being “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”  Notice that in the language of the New Testament it is not “fruits of the spirit” but “fruit of the spirit” suggesting that all these characteristics are of equal importance.
     The “fruit of the spirit” includes goodness that results in Hakarat Hatov, or gratitude. But we also read in this parsha from Deuteronomy 28:18, אָרוּר פְּרִי-בִטְנְךָ וּפְרִי אַדְמָתֶךָ, “Cursed shall be the fruit of your body and the produce of your land.”  Was it the quality of the fruit, what changed?  The Kabbalists teach in the Zohar that the path of Torah purifies a person so they “would not stray to these,” these being the curses (Zohar, Pekudei 34:310).  The blessing was the fruit, the curse came when the fruit was either rotten or even worse withheld.  If the “fruit of the spirit” was not love but hate, not gentleness but division, or instead of goodness (Hakarat Hatov) selfishness,  the chaos that ensued in the end only brought bad upon the community.
     Israel was asked to give their first fruits, the best of themselves as they entered the land after 40 years of journeying through the wilderness.  But was the power of the past going to dictate their future that would then speak to the quality of their fruit given, not only from the ground but also of their own being?  This is not so farfetched as the Torah speaks both of physical circumcision and the circumcision of the heart (see Lev. 12:3 and Dt. 10:16).  Rabbi Eliyahu Dressler says that this type of fruit is related to our needs tied into the mitzvah of chesed, loving kindness.  This week is about “Rebuilding,” rebuilding in the new year with the hope of self-betterment, seeing an end to hate and injustice, the eradication of racial inequality, reuniting families and communities once again, loving and caring more than before,  not having to decide if the murder of a Trump supporter or of unidentified protesters on the street should have the same moral equivalency; fact is that one life is not more important than the other in this case.  Our Hakarat Hatov is medicine to the spirit and like with Israel of this parsha, who at least in theory were told not to let the power of the past control their future, we deserve to rebuild ourselves without yesterday holding us back for tomorrow.  Our fruit must always give thanks for what we have instead of dwelling on what we don’t. The clay of Egypt is not the same as the clay of goodness even if they look the same.

Shabbat Shalom