This week's parsha
Unless otherwise noted, "This week's Parsha" comprises articles taken from contributors to the Chabad.org website. We show the original author's name here, so that proper attribution is given. For the sake of brevity, footnotes cited in the original author's writings are omitted from this website. If you need to see the citations, please refer to the original articles on the Chabad.org website.
How to Enjoy Judaism
There is an art in enjoyment. If you want to enjoy exotic food, delicate wine, music, mountains, paintings, poetry - there is a way to go about it so that you really enjoy it. So too with Judaism.
"You mean cheesecake on Shavuot and things like that?" someone might ask. "You don't need much skill to enjoy that. Just eat it, and the enjoyment will come by itself."
"I agree about the cheesecake. But I mean other things in Judaism. You know, the Mitzvot, the Commandments. There's an art to enjoying them."
"You mean cheesecake on Shavuot and things like that?" someone might ask. "You don't need much skill to enjoy that. Just eat it, and the enjoyment will come by itself."
"I agree about the cheesecake. But I mean other things in Judaism. You know, the Mitzvot, the Commandments. There's an art to enjoying them."
The Productive Human
"And proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants..." (Leviticus 25:10).
Perhaps because liberty is so highly valued in today's society, deprivation of liberty is considered the ultimate punishment. And so the prison system has become the punishment for a variety of crimes, severe and mild. But how has the system fared as a rehabilitative force? Our jails are the breeding grounds for further crime: a "first offender" sent to prison finds himself in an "intense course" for bigger and better ways of breaking the law. The jails reek of violence, dope-addiction and sexual misconduct. Social workers and government agencies alike have despaired of penal servitude as a method of rehabilitation of the criminal. Yet many are thankful that we have reached an "enlightened" age where corporal punishment (such as lashes, etc. as mentioned in the Torah) is no longer imposed.
Perhaps because liberty is so highly valued in today's society, deprivation of liberty is considered the ultimate punishment. And so the prison system has become the punishment for a variety of crimes, severe and mild. But how has the system fared as a rehabilitative force? Our jails are the breeding grounds for further crime: a "first offender" sent to prison finds himself in an "intense course" for bigger and better ways of breaking the law. The jails reek of violence, dope-addiction and sexual misconduct. Social workers and government agencies alike have despaired of penal servitude as a method of rehabilitation of the criminal. Yet many are thankful that we have reached an "enlightened" age where corporal punishment (such as lashes, etc. as mentioned in the Torah) is no longer imposed.
Six Days Shall Work Be Done
This week's Torah reading, Emor, contains the following command pertaining to the Shabbat: "Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Shabbat of rest ... you shall do no manner of work" (Leviticus 23:3.)
How meaningful are even the most simply worded of G-d's commands! In fact, there is significance even in the sequence and order of the Torah's words concerning the Shabbat day. First the Torah commands us to work for six days and then we are commanded to rest on the seventh.
How meaningful are even the most simply worded of G-d's commands! In fact, there is significance even in the sequence and order of the Torah's words concerning the Shabbat day. First the Torah commands us to work for six days and then we are commanded to rest on the seventh.
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