✨🔍 Shelach; Shabbos Mevarchim 2025
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Building the Future
3 minute read | Straightforward
The Jewish People left Egypt and slowly made their way to the Promised Land. But the Promised Land had been settled already, and the Jewish People had to do some planning, so they sent scouts.
When the scouts got back from Canaan, they delivered a bleak report about the battles that lay ahead, and the Jewish People were devastated. They rued the day they ever left Egypt, that the arduous journey had been a colossal waste. If they were just going to die attempting to take the land, the thinking went, they’d be better off going back to Egypt with a new leader who was a little more realistic.
The aftermath of their poor response was that this lost generation would aimlessly wander the wilderness for nearly 40 years. Once these adults had all died, their children would have another go at conquering and establishing a new nation in the Land of Israel.
But something doesn’t quite add up.
The wrongdoers in the story are the scouts, who conspire to paint the Land of Israel as an impossible goal when it’s not. But while that’s the catalyst for the story going off the rails, the Torah is explicit that God’s punishment is not directed at the scouts but towards their audience:
בַּמִּדְבָּר הַזֶּה יִפְּלוּ פִגְרֵיכֶם וְכָל-פְּקֻדֵיכֶם, לְכָל-מִסְפַּרְכֶם, מִבֶּן עֶשְׂרִים שָׁנָה, וָמָעְלָה: אֲשֶׁר הֲלִינֹתֶם, עָלָי – “In this wilderness shall your corpses drop, all of you who were recorded in the lists from the age of twenty years up, you who have complained towards Me.” (14:29)
The people believed the scout report, coming as they did from established and trusted leaders, that the task ahead was impossible. The scouts ought to have known better, but how should the people have reacted to their leaders saying they were doomed? Bad news is bad! When people hear bad news from reputable sources, it is quite normal – expected, even – to react negatively. That’s why it’s called bad news!
Even if we say they overreacted and took it too far, how does the punishment fit the crime?
There have been many empires, nations, and states. Many had come before this story, and many have come since.
But the Jewish People are not just another member of that category; the Jewish People are in a class by themselves and unique in at least one respect.
The Jewish People in the Land of Israel, observing the Torah and living in the Divine Presence, are fundamentally and qualitatively different, with goals and values unlike any other. It is the culmination of a centuries-old hope and vision, with many careful and deliberate stops along the way. From Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov, through Canaan, Egypt, and Sinai, the Torah call us to build something that no one had seen or done before.
Yet even after witnessing the events of Egypt, the Red Sea, Sinai, the clouds, the manna, and the water, cared for daily as much as anyone can be by the hand of God Himself; in the face of even the slightest adversity, their worst inclinations get the best of them, revealing that these people never really left Egypt at all. Here they are on the threshold of greatness, and they only want to turn around and go right back!
God is so let down to the extent that God considers killing them all, even the children, illustrating the severity of this misstep. Not believing in their great mission was a failure they could not recover from, and the result was a catastrophe.
Building a new model for a Torah society cannot happen by itself, or it would! Then and now, it requires pioneers with hope and vision.
If that’s the attitude and perspective it takes to achieve the goal of establishing the Jewish People in the Land of Israel, how could these people ever hope to succeed?
They weren’t ready, but maybe their children could be.
To accomplish something that no one has ever done before takes a certain character, perspective, and resiliency; anyone who’s ever taken on something bold and ambitious knows it. If it were easy, someone else would have done it – but just because no one else has done it yet, that doesn’t mean it can’t be done.
A great vision can never come to fruition with half-hearted execution; you need to believe before you can achieve.
Who can do it? The people who want it badly enough.
There Is More Than Meets The Eye
4 minute read | Straightforward
Our bodies are hard-wired with biological adaptations to respond to things that look nice; that’s how nature works. The beauty of a flower is a by-product of what it takes for the plant to attract and reward the bees and birds that will pollinate the flower.
That’s what eyes do; that’s how they work.
Animals live from moment to moment, always looking for food and threats and not much else. As humans, though, our higher faculties must process and respond to what our eyes see. Unlike animals, we are self-conscious and can evaluate what course of action to take. Although we intuitively understand that there is more than meets the eye, humans have always struggled with it for good reason.
It’s at the heart of the Creation story; Eve sees that the forbidden fruit looks attractive and nice and desires it, and ultimately cannot overcome what she sees – וַתֵּרֶא הָאִשָּׁה כִּי טוֹב הָעֵץ לְמַאֲכָל וְכִי תַאֲוָה־הוּא לָעֵינַיִם וְנֶחְמָד הָעֵץ לְהַשְׂכִּיל וַתִּקַּח מִפִּרְיוֹ.
It’s the mistake the spies make when scouting the Land of Israel. They see a land that has so much to offer. Still, instead of thinking how the land might be good for them and trusting in the culmination of the Exodus and the redemption of ancient promises to their ancestors, they just give up in despair about their inadequacy and how they’ll never be able to conquer the strong and mighty natives, leading to a lost generation.
Quite unusually, the Torah characterizes the Creator as vocally expressing disappointment and frustration to Moshe, that their error is unbelievably stupid after all they’ve experienced:
וַיֹּאמֶר ה’ אֶל־מֹשֶׁה עַד־אָנָה יְנַאֲצֻנִי הָעָם הַזֶּה וְעַד־אָנָה לֹא־יַאֲמִינוּ בִי בְּכֹל הָאֹתוֹת אֲשֶׁר עָשִׂיתִי בְּקִרְבּוֹ – And the Creator said to Moshe, “How long will this people spurn Me, and how long will they have no faith in Me despite all the signs that I have performed in their midst?” (14:11)
There is an ancient fable told of a group of blind men who hear that a strange animal called an elephant has been brought to the town, but none of them are aware of its shape and form, and they step forward to know it by touch. The first person’s hand landed on the trunk and said an elephant is like a thick snake. Another one touched its ear and said it seemed like a kind of fan. Another person’s hand was on its leg and said an elephant is a pillar like a tree trunk. The blind man who placed his hand upon its side said an elephant is like a wall. Another felt its tail and described an elephant like a rope. The last felt its tusk, stating that an elephant is hard, smooth, and pointy like a spear.
None of them is wrong, and all are correct, but their limited perceptions lead them to incomplete and fragmented understandings. None have fully apprehended the elephant, and even we who know all these aspects of an elephant do not see the front, back, and sides simultaneously, let alone the inside.
But similarly, our experiences and perceptions often provide only partial glimpses of a broader reality. Assuming we know the whole truth can be misleading, as we are frequently unaware of the deeper dimensions our senses do not capture. We do not experience objective reality; we cannot know the truth, only our experience and perception of it. Our perception is not an infallible representation of reality; our experiences, biases, and limitations shape it.
Indeed, as the Steipler notes, our attitudes shape our experiences. The spies entered the land with a bad attitude; although they experienced miracles, with the inhabitants distracted and preoccupied with tragedy, they perceived everything as negative even though it was all a blessing.
This should create a large space for humility and other perspectives; our sages teach that there are seventy faces of Torah and tell of a story of R’ Meir, who, despite recognizing the inherent impurity of a type of unclean creature, could articulate an argument where it might be considered pure, highlighting the nuanced and layered nature of truth.
R’ Jonathan Sacks notes that the mitzva of tzitzis follows the story of the spies, and the juxtaposition suggests some association by sequence. In fact, the stated purpose of the mitzva mirrors the action of the spies, following the eyes, and even uses the exact same verb – וְיָתֻרוּ אֶת־אֶרֶץ כְּנַעַן / וְלֹא-תָתוּרוּ אַחֲרֵי לְבַבְכֶם, וְאַחֲרֵי עֵינֵיכֶם.
A key part of the mitzvah of tzitzis is to have a blue-violet string – תְּכֵלֶת. R’ Shamshon Raphael Hirsch notes that the visible portion of the electromagnetic spectrum ends with blue-violet. There are infrared, ultraviolet, and lots more additional magnitudes of light that radiate unseen beyond what our eyes can discern on either end of the spectrum. It’s also blue like the sky, the limit of Earth’s visible atmosphere, yet we know space sprawls far beyond our most powerful and sensitive imaging tools. Perhaps then, part of the mitzvah of tzitzis is to remind us of the essential human boundaries of our perception, that there is an invisible, imperceptible, but very real unseen sphere of existence beyond what we see and feel.
The Sfas Emes teaches that engaging our higher faculties to look beyond the surface and see within both ourselves and beyond touches the greatest endeavors we are capable of.
Don’t be taken in by appearance; seek the inner truth. In judgment, be aware of your perceptual limitations. When making important decisions, think of your long-term goals and values. Be suspicious of all that is perfectly curated and editorialized in media consumption. In relationships, look beyond the superficial; seek authentic and meaningful interactions with people with good character and values.
What you see is not all there is.
There is more than meets the eye.
Soul Sparkles
3 minute read | Straightforward
When you think about the parts of Judaism and Torah that capture hearts and minds, you probably aren’t alone if the book of Vayikra isn’t on your highlight reels. It’s quite understandable! The sacrifices; purity laws; Shemita; Yovel, and all the other miscellaneous laws and rituals – they’re rather arcane and quite removed from our daily lived experience.
Of course, that’s not to say that they don’t matter – they’re part of the Torah; they’re important. But unlike, say, most of the books of Bereishis and Shemos, there’s no overarching story or character-driven narrative with broadly applicable lessons and morals. It’s not exactly blasphemy to notice that maybe they’re just a little less exciting.
The book of Vayikra draws to a close with a beautifully detailed exposition of abundant blessings and fulfillment for properly observing the Torah. The blessings are accompanied by an equally detailed and gruesome description of all the terrible calamities that could befall the Jewish People should they fail to uphold the law properly. Many congregations customarily read this section quickly and quietly, and it is no honor to be called to the Torah for this particular reading.
Yet curiously, the final word that immediately follows this grim reading is a postscript with an abrupt and stark change of tone, the miscellaneous section about the assessment and valuation of pledges – Parshas Arachin.
The laws of pledges are technical and specific, and there is a lot of literature that explores the exact parameters. When the Mishkan and Beis HaMikdash stood, they were operated and managed by a public endowment. People could pledge all kinds of contributions to the fund; they could pledge animals, money, property, and fascinatingly, even humans.
The essential broader point of these laws is that the fund was sophisticated and could receive anything of value. Since everything can be valued, it’s simply a question of determining what that specific value is. While the eyebrow-raising notion of pledging a human conjures imagery of human sacrifice or slavery, it only modestly and simply entailed calculating the lifetime labor value of that person and then redeeming that value by contributing the corresponding amount to the public fund.
But of all things, why do the ponderous laws of Parshas Archin close out the book of Vayikra, following all the awful curses?
We could probably make peace with the notion that the Torah is like all things; some parts are more interesting, and some less. If we find meaning in the details of the census, architecture, and sacrifices, the Torah blesses us for observing the laws with joy. Yet specifically for those of us who are disenchanted with some of the arcane technicalities the Torah charges us with, the Torah forecasts a grim and intimidating future for us, that our worlds will fall apart with misery and pain.
The Ishbitzer compellingly suggests that by stating these laws specifically here, the Torah makes a sweepingly broad statement that all humans and all things have a fundamental and intrinsic value and worth – reminding us that even after tragedy strikes, all is not lost. All people are still worth something, including the people who have temporarily lost their way. Faced with a disheartening list of some of the worst things that can happen to a human, the Torah reminds the same people cowering from the curses that we are still worth something. Sure, how exactly we calculate the precise value is technical, but don’t miss the wider point. Even the worst of us still has something valuable and special to them, and it ought to change our orientation to ourselves and to others.
Moreover, it bears noting that the nature of the endowment’s expenditures was not profane or secular. From even the most awful, depraved, and lost souls, the endowment spent every last penny of their contributions on only the holiest and most sacred things; the value he has to offer is not worth less than yours.
After low moments, like the Golden Calf and the debacle of the spies, the Torah reminds us of our value, of a future of glory, promise, and redemption, because rock bottom is only a snapshot in time, and not the final word.
There’s a Yiddish expression that powerfully captures a vast amount of wisdom in just a few short words: the pintele Yid. It literally means the dot of a Jew; the fundamental essence of Jewish identity, and is perhaps related to the concept of the incorruptible soul – חלק אלוק ממעל. This imagery articulates clearly and plainly that no matter how far you try to distance yourself, there will always remain some small spark that lies buried deep within. Perhaps that’s the inalienable and inviolable part of us that Parshas Archin tries to speak to, even if we may have lost our way to some extent. The pintele yid, your soul spark, cannot be lost or extinguished; it can only ever lie dormant. It will wait patiently for as long as it takes to reignite and burst into flame once again, even if it takes generations.
Whatever you have done, whatever mistakes you have made, big or small, many or few, you need to remind yourself that you are worthwhile.
We are all better than the worst thing we’ve ever done.
Shabbos Redux
3 minute read | Straightforward
It’s not a sin to need money, to want money, or to have money. But it might be a sin to love money or tie human value and identity to money.
From the time Adam was cursed to work at the sweat of his brow, and today, arguably more than ever, humans have grappled with hustle culture—the idea that working long hours and sacrificing self-care are required to succeed.
A person is not their money. A person is not defined by their economic productivity at all. Recognizing the intrinsic value of every human created in God’s image reminds us that our worth is not measured by wealth or productivity but by our very being.
Pharaoh’s rhetoric—”They’re just lazy!”—was not just an excuse for oppression; it was a worldview that equated human worth with work. This same perversion echoes across history, from Pharaoh’s Egypt to Auschwitz’s gates and now to the modern grindset that glorifies relentless labor over true purpose. The names have changed, but the logic remains the same: people are only as valuable as what they produce. This thinking is so ingrained that overwork is mistaken for virtue even today.
For the people who walked under it, the demonic slogan “Arbeit Macht Frei” (“Work sets you free”) is the ultimate perversion of labor’s value—work twisted into a tool of dehumanization. But the Torah offers a counterpoint: work is meaningful, but it is never the measure of a person’s worth. Shabbos is a weekly rejection of a system that defines people by productivity alone. There is no glory in self-sacrifice in the form of endless labor.
Of course, practical realities often force people to work beyond healthy limits. The mortgage doesn’t pay itself, and children need to eat. However, this constraint should be acknowledged as an imperfection in our system, not glorified as an ideal.
In our time, hustle culture and “grindset”—the mindset and mentality of absolute perpetual grind—is poison. Our smartphones have become portable taskmasters, ensuring we’re never truly off the clock. Hustle culture breeds hard workers, sure, but by the same token, lazy thinkers who don’t have time to prioritize. How many of us would benefit from slowing down to devise an effective strategy?
The epidemic of burnout, anxiety, and depression in our society is not unrelated to our loss of sacred rhythms of work and rest.
Against this backdrop, the Torah’s introduction and framing of Shabbos is a breath of fresh air: Six days shall you work, and on Shabbos, you shall rest. Because the Creator created for six days, and then He rested.
To be sure, work is important. Our sages teach us to enjoy our work – אהוב את המלאכה. Our sages go further and say our work is sacred because the Divine Presence did not rest among the Jewish People until they had worked to build the Mishkan – וְעָשׂוּ לִי מִקְדָּשׁ וְשָׁכַנְתִּי בְּתוֹכָם.
R’ Tzadok HaKohen observes that the Torah always frames the mitzvah of Shabbos in the context of an obligation to work six days—that is to say, not a seventh. Work is important; it is part of inhabiting the fruitful and productive world in which the Creator has placed us.
We’re supposed to work; work gives rest its meaning, just as effort gives fulfillment to reward. There is no rest with no work; a vacation is only as sweet as the labor that precedes it—without meaningful effort, even rest becomes hollow. Shabbos transforms rest from mere absence of work into something sacred. Work and rest are two sides of one coin.
The Creator doesn’t get tired, but Creation does. Rest is not a reaction to exhaustion but an integral part of the design. Everything needs to stop to catch its breath.
As R’ Samson Raphael Hirsch notes, just as individuals need rest, so does the earth; Shemittah is Shabbos for the land. It is not just an agricultural law—it is a radical reset, a divine reminder that human worth is not measured in wealth or output. In a world that worships work, Shemittah breaks the illusion that value is transactional. Creation is about more than economic productivity; it demands a different mode of being—one that steps away from the grind to allow for renewal, reflection, and return. Rest is not a reward. It’s part of the building process.
There is a depressing phenomenon among some senior citizens. After playing as much golf and tennis as their bodies allow, they literally wait for death. Their entire life revolved around earning a living, and rather than live, with no more work they literally had nothing left to live for.
Even in today’s corporate world, companies recognize that constant work can be counterproductive. “Gardening leave” forces professionals to step back from the industry as a strategic reset. Shabbos operates on the same principle but with a higher purpose: to remind us that life is not just about what we produce but about who we are.
Pharaoh and hustle culture demand that we prove ourselves through endless labor. Shabbos reminds us that we were never slaves to begin with. In a world that tells us we are what we do, Shabbos tells us we are enough simply because we exist.
Living with Newness
4 minute read | Straightforward
One of the foundational skills children learn early on is how to read a clock.
What time is it?
It’s not simply a question of hours and minutes; there is something deeper to the question. If you know what time it is, you also know what to do. It’s morning, wake up and eat breakfast before school or work. It’s nighttime, time to wind down and go to sleep. The time of day, the time of year, the seasons, and the calendar all establish the boundaries and time frames upon which our world is built, with specific routines for morning, afternoon, evening, and night, summer, fall, winter, and spring.
Different cultures have established various systems and calendars to measure time. Today, most of the world uses the Gregorian calendar, a fixed calendar determined by how long the earth takes to make one complete orbit around the sun.
The Torah asks us to track time using the moon as a frame of reference; when people spot the new moon, they report it to the highest court, which declares the beginning of a new month – Rosh Chodesh. It’s not Rosh Chodesh because there’s a new moon, but because the Jewish leaders say so. It’s the very first commandment in the Torah, given to the Jewish People still enslaved in Egypt:
הַחֹדֶשׁ הַזֶּה לָכֶם רֹאשׁ חֳדָשִׁים רִאשׁוֹן הוּא לָכֶם לְחדְשֵׁי הַשָּׁנָה – This month shall mark for you the beginning of the months; it shall be the first of the months of the year for you. (12:1)
There are many mitzvos, so one has to come first. But why is establishing the lunar calendar through Rosh Chodesh the first mitzvah, as opposed to any other?
The story of the birth of the Jewish People begins at a time of stuckness, with the Jewish People systematically subjugated and oppressed, powerless objects with no choice or control over their circumstances.
Although slavery is illegal in most of the world, it persists today. What’s more, slavery isn’t just an abstract legal status or even just a phenomenon that still occurs in some dark corner of the world; it’s also a state of mind, body, and soul that can happen to anyone. Thankfully, we don’t have much primary lived with the experience criminal aspect of actual human trafficking, but if you’ve ever felt helpless, powerless, or stuck, you have experienced an element of slavery.
When we internalize that forces of change exist and that we have the power to harness and steer them, the possibilities are limitless. This moment can be different to the moments that have come before; this newness is the beginning of all newness – הַחֹדֶשׁ הַזֶּה לָכֶם רֹאשׁ חֳדָשִׁים רִאשׁוֹן הוּא לָכֶם לְחדְשֵׁי הַשָּׁנָה.
The Shem miShmuel explains that the power of the Exodus story is that its story of freedom on a national level offers us the opportunity to become free of the tendencies and troubles that hound us on a personal level. The sense of futility, powerlessness, and stuckness from being burnt out or overwhelmed is poison. With the power to change, hard times don’t need to be so scary anymore, and the world isn’t threatening; it can be full of exciting possibilities. It follows that the first mitzvah is the one that empowers us to change by giving us a symbol of change.
One preeminent historian has observed that the worst thing about history is that people try to correct the past. People try to save the past, which is impossible; you cannot go back to the past and save the people there or prevent past injuries. We only have the present circumstances and perhaps a hopeful look to the future.
But as much as stuckness can come from attachment to the past, R’ Nachman of Breslev teaches us to avoid dwelling too much on the future and focus on the present day and present moment. As R’ Hanoch Heinoch of Alexander teaches, we can attach ourselves to vitality by being present – וְאַתֶּם הַדְּבֵקִים ה’ אֱלֹקיכֶם חַיִּים כֻּלְּכֶם הַיּוֹם.
The Torah often speaks to us in terms of here and now – וְעַתָּה / הַיּוֹם. Our sages take these references to Teshuva, our capacity and power to change and repent – וְעַתָּה יִשְׂרָאֵל מָה ה’ אֱלֹקיךָ שֹׁאֵל מֵעִמָּךְ כִּי אִם־לְיִרְאָה. Because in one day, everything can change – הַיּוֹם אִם־בְּקֹלוֹ תִשְׁמָעוּ. As R’ Baruch of Mezhibozh teaches, forget the past; right now, be a Jew – וְעַתָּה יִשְׂרָאֵל! The Chafetz Chaim takes this to be a reference to introspection – וְעַתָּה יִשְׂרָאֵל מָה ה’ אֱלֹקיךָ שֹׁאֵל מֵעִמָּךְ – what does this moment require?
It follows that our sages wisely guide us to seize every moment; if not now, when? As the Chiddushei Harim observes, every “now” has a different duty, calling for some new, renewed, or entirely other choice or deed. As R’ Ahron of Karlin points out, each moment has its resolution; each moment of existence is incomparably unique, never existing before in the history of Creation, and never to be repeated before becoming irretrievably lost forever.
As the Vilna Gaon points out, Moshe speaks in the present tense to offer us all the power to choose – רְאֵה אָנכִי נתֵן לִפְנֵיכֶם הַיּוֹם בְּרָכָה וּקְלָלָה. Rashi quotes a Midrash that every day, we should perceive our experience of Judaism as brand new – הַיּוֹם הַזֶּה ה’ אֱלֹהֶיךָ מְצַוְּךָ.
Even once a person has resolved to change, they can still be anchored by the weight of their wrongdoing. The Shinover Rav suggests that although the past can’t be undone, it can be creatively reinterpreted, in the way Yosef reframes a troubled past with his brothers to relieve them of their guilt – וְעַתָּה אַל־תֵּעָצְבוּ וְאַל־יִחַר בְּעֵינֵיכֶם כִּי־מְכַרְתֶּם אֹתִי הֵנָּה כִּי לְמִחְיָה שְׁלָחַנִי אֱלֹהִים לִפְנֵיכֶם. What happened then wasn’t so great, but that brought us to where we are, here and now, and you can only move forward from where you are!
The world tracks time using the sun; the Sfas Emes notes that the nations of world history rise and fall like the sun, lasting only when things are bright. The Jewish People track time using the moon, persisting in darkness, and even generating light among total blackness.
The very first mitzvah is the lunar calendar, the only calendar with a visual cue for changing times and a powerful symbol of change, a natural symbolic image of a spiritual reality. It’s not just an instruction to count the time but a commandment to rule over time and even natural phenomena. It is an instruction to live by and with the power of change and renewal. It is a mitzvah to live presently with this moment and make it count.
Every day, every week, and in truth, every moment, is brand new, brimming with freshness, vitality, and renewal.
I liked your description of light and its refractions. I believe it was Isaiah the Prophet who said “Blessed is G_D Who forms light and creates darkness, Who makes peace and creates all.” I cannot imagine what is entailed by all of that work of G_D!
Thank you. Very thoughtfully written!