Love is in the air...

Good Shabbos,

Parshas Mishpatim (the Torah segment called “ordinances”) - a laundry list of tort laws, marital laws, by-laws and more laws (including sorcery!). What a wonderful parsha. For those of us who spent years in yeshivas, this is the bread we’ve been raised on. All the subtleties, nuances, details, applications, manifestations, incarnations of God’s Law. Each word rings with hours and days and weeks of Talmuldic discourse, reams of commentaries, plumbed depths of philosophy and logic. The familiar smells of home, the tastes that linger and remind us of the place to which we yearn to return.

The parsha begins, “And these are the ordinances”. As we all learnt in grammar school – never, never begin a sentence with “and”, let alone a whole book, so to speak – except, of course, if you’re God. When He says it, He means to connect this entire teaching to the previous – not merely a run-on, but inextricably intertwined. Just as the previous parsha (10 commandments) was spoken and given on Har Sinai, so too were all these details. God’s world is like pointillism: the greatness of the big picture is only a result of an appreciation of the details, while the details themselves have no meaning other than their place in the larger context. Details, details, itty-bitty nitty-gritty beautiful, gorgeous details…

The measure of love is in the details. Go ask anyone who has navigated the labyrinths of marriage successfully and thus finds him/herself enveloped in love and oneness to sketch a picture their better half – what you’ll get are details and more details, well beyond the physical appearance. An open-ended story with infinite discoveries. And only a true lover will relish them – every last one to the nth degree.

The Torah is a love story. The Sages liken the revelation on Har Sinai to a wedding, with the mountain being our Chuppah – God and the Jewish people as bride and groom. I would be so bold to say that Egypt was the courtship, The Red Sea splitting the engagement, Har Sinai the marriage, and Mishpatim the honeymoon. These laws and intricacies, sometimes blamed as the source of ultimate frustration and abandonment of Torah, are actually the very keys to marrying the metaphysical. Judaism stands alone in striving to find God in the details – which really translates into bringing the spiritual in the physical, giving every inch of life and all its scenarios a connection to its source, and discovering holiness in the seemingly otherwise profane.

Wishing you a “loverly” Shabbos (catch the My Fair Lady reference?),

Rabbi Lynn et al.

Miracles on the Mount

Good Shabbos,



In this week’s Torah reading, we encounter the experience of Mount Sinai and the giving of the Ten Commandments (a wildly unfair misnomer – ten statements, actually, which included 14 commandments!). While there are oodles to be said, I’ll pick only one quick detail which probably wasn’t covered in Hebrew school. When Moshe came down with the luchos (tablets – which, by the way, weren’t curved on top to “look like tablets” but were rather square), all the Aseres HaDibros (10 “statements”) were engraved into the stone – all the way through to the other side! This would seem no remarkable feat except for two miracles: first, no matter which side you perceived, you could read them perfectly (get it? It was engraved through to the other side, where it should have read the same thing backwards, but somehow, miraculously it wasn’t – think about it), second, the Hebrew letters for M sofit and samach are circular (ם and ס) – so how was the little piece of stone in the middle held in place? Miraculously, of course. And judging by the weight (literal, not figurative) the Talmud ascribes to these tablets, they basically carried themselves (only through the merit of Moshe). If Vendyl Jones (wikipedia him, or try www.vendyljones.org.il) gets his way and finds the ark he’s been looking for, all will be revealed.



The Midrash says that everything stood still when God revealed Himself. No leaf rustled, no cloud budged, no bird chirped, not a millipede’s leg twitched. Nothing in the created universe gave any individual expression at the point of God’s infusion of the infinite into the finite, for nothing finite could thus exist. We’re taught that our souls left our bodies when He spoke – in a sense we died and were resurrected – because, once again, nothing physical could exist – only the soul could interact. Our experience was nothing short of the highest prophesy – a 100% clarity of God’s existence and purpose and Moshe’s infallibility as transmitter/intermediary – not to mention the Aseres HaDibros. God created the world with Ten statements, there are ten corresponding expressions and definitions of love/joy in the world (simcha, sasson, gila, rina, ditzh, chedva, ahava, achva, shalom, reiyus), Ten Commandments, and ten emanations of His essence (ask Madonna about that one). In these Aseres HaDibros, all was revealed, all was understood – the entirety of Torah is encapsulated within them, and at our deepest point of self – our soul – this was momentarily crystal clear. Our tradition informs us that we were all present at Sinai. Each and every soul. With this we are eternally bound (yes, I appreciate the resistance to such a statement), and yet with this we are promised to find within us, at the end of our search and discovery of self – there in the pockets of our own spiritual core – a resounding oneness and love for God, His creation, our mission and the Jewish people.



Good Shabbos,



Rabbi Lynn and the minstrels of MLF

the Superbowl of Faith

I’m sure most pulpit Rabbis will be racking their brains to connect this weekly Torah portion to the super bowl. Saints don’t really have much clout in this religion and bears were just a minor participant in the plague of wild beasts read two weeks ago. Thankfully, I have no pulpit. What I will tell you, however, is a little story about Nachshon ben (son of) Aminadov. When the Jewish people dramatically found themselves pinned between the sea of reeds and the marauding army of Pharoh, there were few options. Moshe prayed, but found his prayers rebuffed by God as ineffectual without the partnership of action. So in jumped Nachshon ben Aminadov, up to his neck, and the Red Sea split. This begs the following question, “where was Moshe? Why didn’t he jump in first?” Surely, if what was expected of the Jewish people was a great act of self-sacrifice (cf. Masada), although we may not be able to conjure up such notions of martyrdom, that generation was undoubtedly capable. They would have clearly given their lives to sanctify the glory of the Almighty. Rather, there must have been another calling. The test was the DNA of all of God’s challenges – the very question of human existence: do we have the wherewithal to live according to what we know to be true. It wasn’t enough to jump into the torrential deep. The test was whether we could enter the raging waters with utter calm and conviction of the Almighty’s providence and salvation. This is the great test of Jewish faith. Could we internalize and make manifest all that we experienced with every plague, every miracle in Egypt? Did we allow God’s interaction to penetrate our thick skin and render our hearts his? Could we take a spiritual experience and live it to its fullest? In that regard, Nachshon took the helm. He recognized more clearly than anyone else what was expected and possessed the mettle to comply.

The Midrash comments that the Jewish people were redeemed from Egypt without any condition, needing no merit of their own. The prosecuting forces in the spiritual heights were allowed no argument. But at the Red Sea, their complaints were heard – did the Jews merit such a miracle, such a salvation? Why, they had succumbed to idol worship no different than the Egyptians. This was clearly a test of our resolve, clearly an opportunity for the Jewish people to prove their distinction, their repentance and their greatness. From the depths of iniquity, greatness can rise. When we find it and live it, the world will bend to serve us. As the Midrash records, every body of water in the world split at that time – your lemonade, your bathtub, your water-ice – it split. At the point of partnership between the Almighty and His bride, the natural laws are redefined to reflect the spiritual truths of creation.

Wishing you a wonderful Shabbos,

Rabbi Lynn & the MLF gang