This is the great challenge facing today’s halachic authorities: are their decisions made in a sterile vacuum in which every surprise is ignored and even suppressed? Or, are they made to stimulate a religious condition in which man will live in great awe, will grow, and will feel Halacha’s inner spirit? Are today’s rulings transformative, or do they promote stagnation? Shall we have prophetic Halacha, or petty Halacha?

A desert is a lonely place, completely forsaken. There is neither food, nor water, nor any other form of sustaining substance. There is only the unbearable sun and its heat.

One of man’s strongest longings today is the need for authenticity. We want to be ourselves, or to become ourselves. We admire children’s spontaneity, because they do not yet know how they “ought to be.”

“Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakai and the “Portable Fatherland

In a fascinating narrative in the Talmudic tractate of Gitin (56b), we are told that Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakai, outstanding leader of the Jewish people during the days in which the Roman Empire invaded the land of Israel, was confronted with a question of life and death.  Vespasian, who would soon become the new Roman emperor, had brought the Jews to total exhaustion after years of intensive battles. Yerushalayim had fallen, people were dying, there was nothing to eat and complete despair had overtaken the Jewish community. At any moment the (second) Temple would be destroyed.  There was no way the Jews could rid themselves   of the enemy, and only one question remained. Do they surrender and save whatever could be salvaged, or do they fight until the death without any hope or future?

The giving of the Torah is a declaration of war. It is a protest not only against the world of Avoda Zarah, idol worship and immorality but also a call to be “unreasonable” since the “reasonable” man adapts himself to the world while the “unreasonable” man adapts the world to himself and what we need to realize is that all progress depends on the “unreasonable” man.

When studying the last chapters of Shemoth (Exodus), we are puzzled by the great amount of detail and repetition in the instructions relating to the building and the architecture of the Mishkan (Tabernacle). While the Torah is normally very parsimonious in its words, here we find an overflow of seemingly repetitious words and an unusual emphasis on detail. Not the smallest nuance is left out, and nothing is left to human imagination. Preciseness stands out, and every pin and string is mentioned.

In the Pirke Avoth (Ethics of the Fathers 3:10), we find a rather exorbitant statement by one of the Sages: “Rabbi Dostai ben Yanai said in the name of Rabbi Meir:” Whoever forgets even one thing of his Torah learning, Scripture regards him as though he is guilty to pay with his life, for it is said: “Be careful and guard your life greatly, lest you forget the things you saw (at the time of the revelation at Sinai) with your own eyes, and lest they be removed from your heart your entire lifetime, and you shall inform your children and grandchildren of them, the day you stood before God, your God at Chorev…. ” (Devarim 4,9-10)