Not all quotes today; here's something written by the very hand of Joel.

I went canoeing on the South Saskatchewan River with my friend Paul Daniel this week. We started in Saskatoon on Sunday morning, and ended in St. Louis on Wednesday morning. A good adventure. It's nice to get out of the city sometimes.

Now it's almost Shabbat. I must help my mother prepare. Gut Shabbes!

When you shall come into the land, and shall have planted all manner of trees for food... Three years shall it be "orlah" unto you: it shall not be eaten. On the fourth year, all its its fruit shall be holy for praisegiving to God. And in the fifth year shall you eat of its fruit, that it may yield to you its increase... (Leviticus 19:23-25)

Thus the fruit tree passes though all three basic Halachic (Torah-legal) states: the forbidden, the sanctified, and the permissible.

The fruit tree can therefore be seen as representative of the whole of creation, which likewise is divided among these three categories. There are, for example, foods that are forbidden to us (e.g., pork, meat with milk); foods whose consumption is a mitzvah---an act that sanctifies the food, elevating it as an object of the divine will (such as matzah on the seder night); and foods that are spiritually "neutral"--eating them is neither a transgression nor a sanctifying act. The same applies to clothes (the forbidden shaatnez; the mitzvah of tzitzit; and ordinary clothes); speech (gossip and slander; the holy talk of prayer and Torah study; talk of everyday matters); sexuality (adultery and incest; the mitzvah to "be fruitful and multiply"; ordinary marital life); money (thievery; charity; legal business dealings); and to every other area of life.

Otherwise stated: there are elements of our experience and environment that God commands us to reject and disavow; elements that we are empowered to sanctify by directly involving them in our relationship with God; and finally, there are elements which, even as they serve as the "supporting cast" for our fulfillment of God's will (e.g. the food that provides us with the energy to pray), remain ordinary and mundane.

In light of this, would it not have been more appropriate for the three stages of the fruit tree to follow an order of increasing sanctity--i.e., the forbidden, followed by the permissible, and culminating in the holy? Instead, the Torah legislates three forbidden years, followed by a year in which the fruit is sacred and its consumption a mitzvah, after which the fruit becomes ordinary food! Even more surprising is the fact that the fruit of the fifth year is presented as the product and goal of the first four: for three years you shall abstain from a tree's fruit, says the Torah, and on the fourth year you shall sanctify it, so that on the fifth year,"it may yield to you its increase." Keep from transgression and sanctify the holy so that you should have a lot of ordinary fruit to eat!

In truth, however, the ultimate purpose of our lives lies in the realm of the "ordinary". Only a small percentage of the world's leather is made into tefillin; only a small part of a community's man-hours can be devoted to prayer and Torah-study. The greater part of our lives falls under the "spiritually neutral" category: elements that, even as they serve a life that is predicated on a commitment to the divine will, remain ordinary and mundane components of a material existence; elements whose positive function does not touch them deeply enough to impart to them the "holiness'' that spells a manifest and tagible attachment to the Divine. But it is in this area that we most serve God's desire for "a dwelling place in the lowly realms"--that the ordinary landscape of material life should be made hospitable to His presence, and subservient to His will.

(The Chassidic Masters)

Speak to all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say to them: You shall be holy, for holy am I, Yahweh, your God. (Leviticus 19:2)

Rabbi Chiyya taught: This section was spoken in the presence of a gathering of the whole community, because most of the essential principles of the Torah are appended to it.

Rabbi Levi said: Because the Ten Commandments are included therein:

1) "I am the Yahweh your God," and here it is written, "I am the Yahweh your God" (19:3, et al).

2) "You shall have no other gods before me," and here it is written, "Nor make to yourselves molten gods" (19:4).

3) "You shall not take the name of the Yahweh your God in vain," and here it is written, "And you shall not swear by My name falsely" (19:12).

4) "Remember the Sabbath day", and here it is written, "And keep My sabbaths" (19:3).

5) "Honor your father and your mother," and here it is written, "Every man shall fear his mother and his father" (19:3).

6) "You shall not murder," and here it is written, "You shall not stand by the blood of your fellow" (19:16).

7) "You shall not commit adultery," and here it is written, "Both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death" (19:10).

8) "You shall not steal," and here it is written, "You shall not steal, [neither deal falsely, neither lie one to another]" (19:11).

9) "You shall not bear false witness," and here it is written, "You shall not go about as a talebearer" (19:16).

10) "You shalt not covet... any thing that is your fellow's," and here it is written, "Love your fellow as yourself" (19:18).

(Midrash Rabbah)


------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You shall be holy (19:2)

Sanctify yourself also regarding that which is permissible to you.

(Talmud, Yevamot 20a)

The meaning of this is that since the Torah has warned against forbidden sexual relations and forbidden foods, while permitting relations with one's wife and eating meat and wine, the lustful person can find a place to wallow in fornication with his wife or wives and be of "the guzzlers of wine and the gluttons of meat", and converse at will of all licentious things (since no prohibition against this is specified in the Torah). He can be a hedonist with the Torah's permission. Therefore, after enumerating the things which it forbids entirely, the Torah says: "Be holy." Constrain yourself also in that which is permitted.

(Nachmanides)

The first dictum we heard from the Rebbe (Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi) was: "What is forbidden, one must not; what is permitted, one need not."

(Rabbi Mordechai of Horadok)

Come and see the contrast between the power of the Holy One, blessed be He, and that of mortal man. A man might put his things in a sealed purse whose opening is turned upwards, and yet it is doubtful whether they would be preserved or not; whereas the Holy One, blessed be He, fashions the embryo in a woman's internal organ that is not sealed and whose opening is turned downwards, and yet it is preserved.

(Talmud, Niddah 31a)

Another Amalekite feels the punishment of Yahweh: Hamas leader Abdel-Aziz al-Rantisi was assasinated by Israel today. Now, let me represent myself clearly. There are both spiritual and physical Amalekites. I don't know if anyone but Yahweh knows who the physical descendants of Amalek are today. But some of the spiritual Amalekites are very easy to spot. The members of Hamas are all modern-day spiritual descendants of Amalek. They do not fear God, and they kill Israelites. So, Baruch Hashem! Yahweh's right hand is exalted, Yahweh's right hand doeth valiantly!

In other news, today is Yom HaShoah, and the local synagogue is having a Holocaust Memorial service. I'm planning to go, to stand together with my brother Yehudah. Am Yisrael Chai!

So this week's Torah portion is Shemini (Leviticus 9:1-11:47).
In this portion we see the eighth day of the dedication of the mishkan, in which Aharon offers the required sacrifices, and blesses the people. Moshe and Aharon bless the people, and the glory of Yahweh appears to the entire people! Then Nadav and Avihu, the elder sons of Aharon, die before Yahweh, for bringing strange fire. Then the story gets more mysterious: Moshe gets angry with Aharon's younger sons for not eating the he-goat of the sin-offering, but Aharon speaks in their defense, and Moshe approves of what he says. After this we have the chapter about the laws of Kashrut. We learn about how Yahweh wants his chosen, sanctified people to eat. The reason we don't eat unclean foods?
Because, "I am Yahweh your God - you are to sanctify yourselves and you shall become holy, for I am holy; and you shall not contaminate yourselves through any teeming thing that creeps on the earth. For I am Yahweh Who elevates you from the land of Egypt to be a God to you; you shall be holy, for I am holy." Leviticus 11:44-45

He brought us out of Egypt and led us into to freedom! And in Messiah Yeshua we are free from the bonds of slavery to sin! And so we must be holy, because Yahweh has sanctified his people Israel from among the nations!
That's reason enough for me!

Where does the title of this weblog come from? From Torah!

"Remember what Amalek did to you on the way, as you departed from Egypt. How he encountered you on the way and cut down the weaklings trailing behind you, while you were faint and exhausted, and he did not fear God. It shall be that when Yahweh, your God, lets you rest from all your surrounding enemies, in the land that Yahweh, your God, gives you as an inheritance to possess it, you shall wipe out the memory of Amalek from under the heaven. DO NOT FORGET!!!" Deuteronomy/Devarim 25:17-19

"They (the gods) set the riddle and and then allow a seeming that can't be tested and can only quicken and thicken the tormenting whirlpool of your guess-work. If they had an honest intention to guide us, why is their guidance not plain? Psyche could speak plain when she was three; do you tell me the gods have not yet come so far?" -C.S. Lewis, from Till We Have Faces

My brother Jamie is setting up our super new 17" LCD computer moniter!

So, it worked! I'm in business. So, a little about myself: My name is Joel, and I live in the beautiful city of Saskatoon, in Canada. I'm almost 20 years old. I live at home with my parents, and my three younger siblings. The driving force of my life is my faith in the God of Avraham, Yitzchak, and Ya'akov.

This, if it succeeds, will be my first post.