Hertz p.180
Soncino p.296
Shabbat ends in London at 4.50pm
| Sidra Lite | |
| Sidra Insights | Rabbi Boruch Davis |
| The Morning blessings | Rabbi Daniel Roselaar |
| 13 Tevet | Rabbi Yisroel Fine |
| Maybe you are not Ashkenazi | Rabbi Meir Salasnik |
| Israel - Alef to Tav, Tet - Joseph Trumpeldor | Simon Goulden |
| Riddle of the Week | Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis |
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It was an impressive procession: Joseph, his brothers and their families, the elders of Pharaoh's Court plus other Egyptian notables, accompanied by a full cavalry of honour. When they arrived in Canaan, the inhabitants had clearly never seen anything like it. "Aivel Gadol leMitzraim - a great mourning for Egypt", they declared.
Jacob had suffered much in his life. But now, on his final journey, his sons carried out his last wish: to be re-united with his wife, parents and grandparents in the Cave of Machpelah, Hebron. Jacob had come home.
And Joseph? He had also come home to Hebron. It was from there that he had been sent to 'seek the welfare of his brothers' at the tender age of 17.
He too had suffered: his brothers had sold him into slavery, and he had subsequently spent 12 years in prison in Egypt before his sudden rise to power as the Viceroy of Egypt. Joseph had since been re-united with his family, and for 17 years Jacob's sons had lived as a united family. But now Jacob was dead and Joseph was "returning to the scene of the crime" for the first time.
The Ba'al Haturim says that on the way back from the funeral, Joseph went and looked at the pit into which his brothers had cast him. That would have required quite a detour, since the pit was located near Shechem, towards the north of the country, whereas Hebron is in the south, closer to Egypt. The midrash tells us that Joseph went for the best of motives: "to thank G-d for the miracle of saving his life in that place".
But that was not how his brothers would have seen it. Although Joseph had been reconciled with his brothers many years previously, perhaps he had wanted to preserve the peace during his father's lifetime.
Lu yistamenu Yosef, they said, perhaps Joseph will hate us, and repay us for all the evil which we did to him. (50:15). The word yistamenu means to 'carry the hatred'. It is the same word which the Torah uses to convey the deep hatred of Esau towards Jacob: Vayistom Esav et Yaacov, and Esau harboured hatred towards Jacob. Esau was waiting for his father to die, then he intended to kill Jacob.
Worried that Joseph might have had similar intentions, the brothers sent a message to him that part of Jacob's will was that Joseph should forgive their terrible sin. Rashi says that this was untrue, but defends the brother's story by saying that it is permitted to distort the truth for the sake of peace.
To avoid a misunderstanding leading to fear and animosity, it might also have been better had Joseph not visited the pit.
The story ends with Joseph displaying great generosity of spirit to his brothers, as he seeks to allay their fears. The many lessons from the Joseph story serve as a guide in our own relationships.
Birchot Hashachar - The Morning Blessings
According to the Talmud (Berachot 60b) as a person gets up in the morning he should say a series of appropriate blessings in tandem with his actions. Thus, when he open his eyes he should say the berachah Pokeiach Ivrim, when he gets dressed he should say Malbish Arumim, and when he puts on his shoes he should say She'asah Li Kol Tzorki. Nowadays the custom is to recite these berachot at the beginning of the morning service. The author of the Shulchan Aruch maintains that these berachot should only be said if they are personally applicable to the one saying them.
Accordingly, a blind person should not recite Pokeiach Ivrim. However, the Rama disagrees and is of the opinion that these berachot were not formulated to reflect an individual's personal situation. Rather, they reflect the general human condition, and thus a blind person should recite this berachah.
An additional berachah in this sequence of blessings is one that praises G-d for not having created us as gentiles - since gentiles are unable to become close to G-d by fulfilling the mitzvot. The Rambam and most early authorities used the text Shelo Asani Goy and this is the wording that is found in most siddurim. However, the Singers' Prayer Book has replaced the word Goy with Nochri based on the assertion in R' Seligmann Baer's Avodat Yisrael (which formed the basis for the text in the SPB) that the former term usually refers to an entire nation, whereas the latter term refers to an individual gentile.
A Talmudic version of this berachah is formulated in a positive sense -She'asani Yisrael ("Who has made me a Jew"), and this text was endorsed by the Vilna Gaon.
13 TEVET
This day, corresponding to January 1st 1627, marked a turning point in the history of Hebrew printing. It was on this day that the Hebrew printing press, founded by Rabbi Menasseh ben Israel in Amsterdam, published its first work - a siddur. He discarded Italian type replacing it with his own, which became dominant all over Europe. Amsterdam now replaced Venice as the centre of Hebrew printing in Europe.
His name, however, will forever be inextricably linked with the resettlement of the Jews in England. He was not only a learned Rabbi and a brilliant preacher but also a physician, scholar and statesman. Influenced by Aaron Levy, a Marrano traveller who claimed to have discovered a remnant of the 10 Lost Tribes in North America, Menasseh was convinced that if Jews could be readmitted into those countries from which they had been excluded, the Messiah would soon come. England, from which Jews had been excluded since 1290, attracted his attention.
Following his arrival to these shores in September 1655, he published a pamphlet in which he pleaded not only for the readmission of the Jews to England, but for the abolition of discriminatory laws and permission to practice their religion openly. He presented his petition in person to the Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell in November 1655, and following a National Conference a month later a recommendation was made that Jews should be readmitted, albeit under the most restrictive conditions.
In the event no official permission was ever granted but, following war with Spain, Cromwell accepted a petition that Marrano Jews in England were not Spaniards but members of the Jewish Nation, and the resettlement of the Jews in England thus became an established fact.
He died in 1657 at the age of 53 and was buried in Holland.
MAYBE YOU ARE NOT ASHKENAZI
The definition of who is Ashkenazi and who Sephardi is not clear-cut. Many Eastern European Jews were descended from families who had left Spain or Portugal at the time of the expulsions at the end of the 15th century. This article relates to two such families, the Epsteins and Horowitzes. Two brothers who lived in 13th century Barcelona were Aharon HaLevi and Pinchas Halevi. They were grandchildren of the Razah, Rabbi Zerachiah Halevi, known, by the name of his book, as the Maor. He, in turn, was descended indirect male line from Samuel the prophet.
A descendant of Pinchas in the 15th and 16th centuries, Yeshaya, took the name Horowitz from a town in Bohemia. Possibly his most famous Rabbinical descendant was Rabbi Yeshaya Horowitz (1565-1630), known as the Shelah from his work, Shnei Luchot HaBrit. Other Rabbinical Horowitzes included Eliezer, the Noam Megadim (d.1806), Rabbi Yitzchok Yaakov Horowitz, the Chozeh (Seer) of Lublin (d.1815), Pinchas Horowitz, author of the Hafla'ah, Naftali, the Rebbe of Ropshitz and the Rebbes of Boston. Some Horowitzes are called Ish-Horowitz, literally a person from Horowitz. Dependent on location, the name has gone through various pronunciations and spellings, Horwitz, Horowicz, Hurwitz and Gurwitz among them.
Aharon HaLevi used to be credited as the author of a book explaining the mitzvot, called Sefer HaChinuch. A descendant of his took on the surname of Epstein or Eppenstein from the town Eppenstein in Germany.
Among the most famous Rabbis of the family were Rabbi Yechiel Michel Epstein, author of the Aruch HaShulchan, and his son, Rabbi Baruch HaLevi Epstein (1860-1941), author of Torah Temimah. I am told that the sculptor Jacob Epstein was also a Levi and of the same Spanish origins. But not all Epsteins are of this family. Many non-Levites, on being expected by the civil authorities to take a surname, chose Epstein, because it was a well-known Jewish name, making it one of the most popular of Jewish surnames.
Please email me any comments.
A look at some more people, ancient and modern, who feature in many Israeli street names
Tet - Joseph Trumpeldor
Born in the northern Caucasus, Trumpeldor was strongly influenced in his youth by a nearby farming commune established by followers of Leo Tolstoy. The idea of collective living became merged with his Zionist idealism andhe dreamed of establishing - and defending - agricultural communes in Eretz Israel.
Drafted into the Russian army, he lost an arm in the Russo-Japanese war. In1912 he made aliyah and worked for a while at Kevutzat Deganyah, helping to defend the Jewish settlements in the lower Galilee. When World War I broke out, he was deported to Egypt for refusing to join the Turkish army. In Alexandria, he called for the formation of a legion of volunteers drawn from other deportees to join the British and help liberate the country.
He became the deputy commander of the "Zion Mule Corps", which participated in the Gallipoli campaign of 1915. Between 1915 and 1919 Trumpeldor spent time in Britain and Russia, promoting the organisation of Jewish regiments to fight the Turks and Jewish self-defence units to protect the settlements. In 1919 he returned to Eretz Israel and in January 1920 was called to the northern Galilee to help organise the defence of the settlements against fierce Arab attacks. On March 1 he was mortally wounded whilst defending Tel Hai: his dying words were: Ein davar, tov lamut be'ad arzenu ("Nevermind; it is good to die for our country").
Trumpeldor was buried near Tel Hai, and in 1934 a memorial was erected at his gravesite. His story served as an inspiration to both the pioneering socialist and right-wing youth groups. One of the largest and most successful of the latter was named: Betar, an abbreviation of Brit Trumpeldor.
Last week's questions:
1) The melody "yedid nefesh" is well known from the Friday evening service. In which berachah will you find the word "yedid" (friend)?
Answer:
At a brit, in the berachah recited before naming the baby.
2) EXTRA CHALLENGE
When is it permissible to give a man an aliyah at Shacharit but not at Mincha on the same day, when absolutely nothing has changed between one service and the next?
Answer:
According to the Mishnah Berurah, if a Fast Day falls on Monday or Thursday and a man has already broken his fast before Shacharit, he may receive an aliyah for Shacharit, seeing as we would have leiened anyway. For Mincha, however, he may not be called up, seeing as the only reason we lein is because it is a Fast Day (O.C.566:5).
This week's question:
1) Prove: Even though Moses never entered the Holy Land, he often had a close-up view of Chevron.
2) EXTRA CHALLENGE
In what rare situation, while not in Shul, must a person purposefully say the same berachah several times in a row, without allowing one recitation to cover all the instances?
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