by Rabbi Nachman Kahana | Sep 6, 2017
Discernment, insight, and conscious awareness are the adhesives that bind the building blocks of Judaism.
They are the everyday qualities necessary for a Jew, but they gain prominence in two issues we face today: parashat Ki Tavo and the approaching “Days of Awe” of judgement and teshuva.
Our parasha begins with the mitzva of Bikurim, where the grower of any of the seven fruits indigenous to Eretz Yisrael brings a sampling to the Bet Hamikdash, and while standing before the holy altar, consciously declares:”… I have come to the land the Lord swore to our ancestors to give us… So, the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great terror and with signs and wonders. He brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey; and now I bring the first fruits of the soil that you, Lord, have given me.”
by Rabbi Nachman Kahana | Aug 29, 2017
The wide expanse of the Golan is waiting for millions of Jews to settle there and infuse the area with Torah life. Yehuda, Shomron, the Negev and Galil, will be settled by tens if not hundreds of millions of Jews returning home.
From where will all these Jews come?
For this we have to think “outside of the box”.
by Rabbi Nachman Kahana | Aug 23, 2017
Messrs. Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law, and special envoy to the Middle East, David Friedman, US Ambassador to Israel, and Jason Greenblatt, special envoy for the impossible, are all observant Jews. They are criticized for removing the ubiquitous symbol of our faith – the kippah – when in public (unless the President demanded that they do so, in which case I would prefer not to accept the position).
After airing the usual mundane excuses, the real reason which applies to almost all Jews of the galut is not touched upon. It is this behavior which I wish to discuss.
by Rabbi Nachman Kahana | Aug 16, 2017
An authentic time-tested Jewish mantra: If you don’t make Kiddush, then HaShem will deal with you via Havdalah (separation).
Compromise is not only an integral part of human relations, it was included by HaShem into the very fabric of Creation. The Midrash states that HaShem had originally planned to relate to His creations in accordance to the quality of strict justice – You trespass a command of the infinite Creator; You die!
by Rabbi Nachman Kahana | Aug 7, 2017
The Almighty created for us mortals a two-dimensional world of Time and Space; each independent of the other and each with its own “natural” laws. Time can exist without a spatial entity when a change occurs, and space is not measured by time. HaShem is beyond time because He is at perfect rest and is beyond space because He is infinite.
Shabbat is the absolute, ultimate sanctity of time. It occurs in seven-day cycles independent of all human involvement, contrary to the holy days of the year whose dates are determined by a bet din when declaring the time of the new month (Rosh Chodesh.) The sanctity of Shabbat would be in affect even if there were no Jews to observe it.
The site of the Bet HaMikdash on the Temple Mount in Yerushalayim is the absolute sanctity of space. It was declared so at the moment of creation. As the Gemara (Yoma 54b and many other sources) points out that the planet earth expanded from a primordial point, which was later to become Har HaBayit – the Temple Mount.
by Rabbi Nachman Kahana | Jul 27, 2017
The book of Devarim begins with Moshe Rabbeinu’s farewell address to the nation, that began on Rosh Chodesh Shevat and terminated 37 days later with Moshe’s demise on the 7th of Adar.
Moshe stood before the nation 40 years after HaShem had commanded him to lead a ragtag assortment of millions of freed slaves, whose only connection was their common ancestry to those who had descended hundreds of years earlier to Egypt from the land of Canaan.
Now, the descendants of those slaves stood before Moshe as God’s chosen people. Twelve tribes hallowed by HaShem at Sinai and sanctified by the forty years of Torah study and fulfillment of mitzvot under Moshe’s tutelage.
