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Realizing that this was something no one was yet doing,, Rabbi Finman sent the missive to his mailing list of about 30 people. Requests from recipients friends came pouring in. The next week Rabbi Finman sent the e-Parsha to 100 people. Within a year more than 2000 people were receiving it. Today, more than 14,000 receive the e-Parsha weekly and the requests keep coming in.
Nitzavim 5785
Ki Savo 5785
Ki Tetsei 5785
Shoftim 5785
Re'eh 5785
Nitzavim 5785
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This week's YouParsha Netzavim https://youtu.be/1JURPwU3HTg Where Are We Standing?
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There is a verse in Parshas Nitzavim - Deuteronomy 29:9-30:20 - that states, "You will return to G’d, your G’d, with all your heart and with all your soul." In contrast to repentance (teshuvah), which we are here commanded to perform with all our heart and soul, we are commanded to love G’d not only with all our heart and soul, but also with "all your might," implying a love that transcends our normal emotive powers. What is the reason for this difference between these two seemingly similar commandments?
Love is an emotion. The Torah asks that our love for G;d be not only a function of our heart and soul, but that it also draw on the unlimited powers of connection to G’d that are rooted in our essential Divine consciousness. This is referred to as “all your might,” since love founded on our Divine essence is infinitely more powerful than love founded on emotion or intellect. Repentance is an act of going beyond oneself. We need to transcend self and seek a deeper, more essential layer of identity, in which G’'d means more to us than the indulgences to which we have become accustomed.
Once we find this transcendent consciousness, we must make it our normative consciousness, in order to preclude any backsliding into our previous levels of consciousness and associated behavior. The Torah tells us to elevate our love of G’d from normal to transcendent, it bids us to repent by making our transcendent relationship with Him into our normal one. The processes associated with repentance and love are directly opposite, the first ascending out of innate limitations and the second bringing transcendence into limited consciousness.
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An observant Jew was at Boston's Logan Airport waiting to board his flight to Los Angeles. It was an important business trip on which much depended, so he had been extra careful to get there on time. Finally, he boarded the plane, sat down and watched the doors close. Suddenly he remembered that he left his tefillin*in the terminal. He politely asked the flight attendant if he could go back and retrieve his tefillin, which were sitting just a few feet from the gate. She told him that once the doors of the plane closed, no one was allowed off the plane. The Chosid started screaming at the top of his lungs, "I am going to lose my tefillin!- I don't want to lose my tefillin!"
Finally, after making such a ruckus, the flight crew told him that they would let him off the plane, simply because he was a nuisance. But, even if it would only take him about 90 seconds for to run out, grab his tefillin and run back, they were not going to wait for him. He left the plane, resigned to not re-board. The date was September 11, 2001. The flight was United #175--the second plane to reach the twin towers of the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan. David's devotion to a mitzvah saved his life.
But this is not just about an individual. The terrorists original plot was for both towers to be struck simultaneously, in order to maximize the explosive carnage. Later it was learned that due to his tefillin tumult the takeoff was delayed, causing a space of 18 minutes between the striking of the two towers. This delay made it possible for thousands more people to escape alive from both buildings. Literally thousands, if not tens of thousands, of lives were spared because one Jew would not forsake his precious tefillin. ============================================
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