random (Jewish) bits

[cellio]

Online, searchable bible, talmud, and others... as a Firefox extension (Hebrew only). Nifty! (And the keyboard for typing Hebrew can be used other ways, too, which solves another problem I sometimes have.) Thank you jducoeur. (I have a CD library with search in

Comments

[530nm330hz]

I like your drash on Deut 5:3. You drove me to my bookshelf to see what the classic mefarshim have to say.

Rashi simply inserts the missing word: Lo et avoteinu bilvad karat H'.... And the other commentators in Torat Chayyim start off with variations on that theme.

But looking at it in context I think there's another possibility. There are multiple covenants in the Torah: there's the b'rit ben hab'tarim with Avraham, there's the b'rit at Har Sinai, but there's another b'rit on the day in which Moshe delivered the speech that forms the basis of sefer D'varim. This is the covenant with the generation that will actually take posession of Eretz Yisrael, the generation that will stand between the mountains and hear the blessings and curses and answer "Amen" to them both

[cellio]

Thank you for the comments, and for filling in some of the bits I was missing. (I don't have a Rashi, so my Rashi bits come from chumashim that selectively quote him.)

Excellent point about multiple b'ritot. I wonder if this implies that there will be yet another b'rit when the moshiach comes. We, today, are more heirs to the b'rit at Har Sinai than the b'rit before entering the land, after all; while we can enter the land, it's not the homecoming that the desert generation had.

The theophany at Sinai was followed by the sin of the molten calf and led to forty years of wandering untli that generation died out.It took me a while to get used to the idea that the forty years and dying out was not punishment for the molten calf but, instead, punishment for not entering the land when it was offered. The calf seems like a bigger sin because it's easy to see it as a willful act while we think of being afraid of the giants in the land as being a gut-level reaction. But the reverse makes more sense: making the idol was very natural to

[530nm330hz]

Hmmm... Now you've really got me thinking.... How many britot are there, and how are they described vis-a-vis the generations? Was the brit ben hab'tarim a covenant speciifcally with Avraham Avinu, or with him and his descendants? Sinai was clearly for all generations. Is the Deuteronomic brit more restictive?

It's too late to start researching tonight, but this is something new to think about. Thanks!

[aliza250]

A covenant goes two ways, yes. A covenant that says "your children will be as numerous as the stars in the sky"... well, that doesn't go two ways, not for the first N generations. Delayed payoff means that the covenant *is* with the Nth generation, and the generations after that.

[indigodove]

I'll be happy to help you with the social work/counseling bits anytime you ask. Some of it, though, you'll just grow into -- like learning how to help a kid through the bar mitzvah or a nervous bride through the wedding. I'm sure a lot of that comes from experience.

Actually, the nervous bride can be slipped some Jameson's. What works for us Irish Catholics can work for folks of other faiths too! ;-)

[cellio]

I wonder if the parents would be outraged or thankful if I did the same with a bar-mitzvah student. :-)

[jducoeur]

Happy to be of service. Those sorts of cool toys are why I follow the extensions RSS feed -- once in a while they have something really interesting...