September 12

Hello everyone and welcome to our newsletter. There's always a wonderful dance a Jew dances when confronted with technological advancements. The world moves forward, but certainly not further away. We hold dear to the fundamentals while carefully considering the new-found options. They serve as clothing, vehicles of expression, emissaries through which the core of Judaism can be manifest. King Solomon famously wrote there's nothing new under the sun. He had iPods in mind. For example the Torah is the same, and yet finds itself disseminated and utilized brilliantly (we hope) across the internet. The tenets of truth remain the same; it's our job to dress for success and carefully and excitedly bring it into the world. So again, welcome to our email newsletter.

This week's Torah portion addresses the realities, consequences and casualties of war. As the Jews prepared for a promised acquisition of Israel, they prepared for the inevitability of conflict. With total survival of the Jewish people at risk, we find in the Torah a surprising Mitzvah: a young man in his first year of marriage is off-limits. Not only is he beyond the draft, he's not allowed to focus any time or energy on the war effort - only on his marriage. It matters not that his very existence is at stake - that his father, brother and friends are risking life and limb - his job is a stroll in the park, a romantic dinner, scribbling down sweet nothings and falling further in love. Charming, no?

You'll find nowhere in the commentaries a notion of military strategy ("he's of no use to us - smitten beyond reproach") or sheer sentimentality ("aw, aren't they cute together"). Rather, the answer's quite simple; if there's no Jewish home (read marriage/oneness) being built, there's nothing worth fighting for. We do not defend borders alone, sovereignty, economic principle, or even existence as a goal in and of itself, but rather only as a means to maintain the Jewish mission. And that, my friends, is found most profoundly between husband and wife, within a faithful Jewish home. Herein lies the sanctuary of Jewish expression, practice, ideology and survival. During our trip to Poland, my wife and I both realized the seed of the horror lay in splitting the family. The Jewish spirit suffers no greater loss.

My dear, dear friend Naftoli Smolyanski, z'l, passed away tragically this month, suddenly and quite miraculously, leaving his wife of 10 years and 5 young children. She simply said they don't make husbands like him. He was truly a man worth a nation's battle. May this lesson be a merit for him and his family, and may we be inspired to seek out relationships with this vision and dream of a home in G-d's image. I long to make my dear friend proud.

Good Shabbos