The Talmud has been discussing lighting the Hanukkah Menorah, since it is related to lighting candles just before the Sabbath.  Our sages explain that it is ideal to light the Menorah outside, but in a time of danger it can be lit inside.  This is the source for present American custom to light indoors near the window.

Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhaki, France 1000 years ago) explains based on older sources that the time of danger refers to a historical holiday in the heathen Persian Empire for their fire god.  During this holiday they allowed fire to be lit only in their fire temples and would attack anyone who lit fires at home.
This ancient idolatrous narcissism reminds us of a modern concept.  Some people and groups try to dominate the narrative, and silence any opposition.  This is especially among social ‘justice’ warriors.  Like the ancient heathen fire idolaters, they want to snuff out all other flames and leave their own narrative as the only fire burning.  They want to put out your fire to make their weak sparks look bright.

You need to consider the struggle over the dominant narrative, and ask who gets to define normal for you?

The more vehement and aggressive a group is in attacking anyone who questions their behavior, the more they demand exemption from criticism, then the more they know deep down that their behavior set is wrong.  Some groups and lifestyles demand zero criticism, and try to ruin the lives of people who speak out or do not accept them, they cannot tolerate any critique.  This is because their ideology has no real moral truth and their behavior is immoral.  Recall that in totalitarian societies, the first thing the regime thugs do is to violently stamp out public criticism of the regime.

This week we, with Help of the Almighty, begin the third book of the Bible, Leviticus.  Much of this book describes the sacrificial offerings the ancient Jews brought to God.

You don’t have to be Jewish to benefit from the wisdom in the Bible.  Come along and find out why the Bible is the bestselling book of all time, and how you can use this wisdom to improve your life today.

There is a very old disagreement between two classical Jewish sources regarding the purpose of God commanding us to bring sacrificial offerings.

Rabbi Moses son of Maimon, the “Rambam”, was a medical doctor and something of a rationalist.  About 1000 years ago some accused him of being swayed by non Jewish philosophers and even burned his books, but Rambam is considered to be one of the heaviest hitters in Jewish law and philosophy.  In his philosophical treatise “Guide for the Perplexed”  (Moreh Nevukhim) 3:46, Rambam implies that sacrifices are really for the sake of the people.

Since the normal mode of divine service in the world was animal sacrifice as Rambam notes (3:32), God instructed the Jewish people to use this same familiar mode to serve God. As that was the expected way to worship, and the Jewish people were influenced by the wider world around them, God chose to have the ancient Jews sacrifice animals.  This would help them avoid doing this act towards idols.  

In reality God doesn’t need any sacrifices.  We know God has no body and no physical image at all.  The basic point was to have the Jews doing a service that they could relate to, and to keep them from doing this act towards idols as the rest of the world was then doing.  [IMHO Jeremiah 7:22-23 hints to this].

Rabbi Moses son of Nachman, the “Ramban”, leaned more to mysticism. In his commentary to Parashat Vayikra (1:9), he rejects the Rambam’s understanding of sacrifices.  Ramban notes that Cain, Noah, and others brought sacrifices before idol worship was even invented, and that sacrifices are described as bringing satisfaction to God.  So Jewish sacrifices were not merely a sop to prevent idolatry.

In addition, why would God promulgate detailed laws with different offerings for specific situations, if the whole idea was to provide an outlet for Jews to sacrifice to God instead of idols?

Of course Ramban also understands that God has no physicality and does not “smell” burning offering as humans do.  The concept is that when humans do Divine will as they were commanded to, then their actions bring satisfaction.

The Chofetz Chaim (Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan, in Poland about 100 years ago) elaborates on the Ramban:  Any sin is also a rejection of God, when choosing to sin, a man temporarily denies God’s existence.  Or the man thinks he will be able to bribe God to overlook his transgression.  Therefore, choosing to sin is effectively temporary heresy, and this man is trying to cut himself off from God.

What a sacrifice does is bring this man back to God.  The act of giving up an animal he owns shows subservience, and being in the Tabernacle or Temple he publicly acknowledging that he strayed and needs to return.  The bringing of offerings changes the man, helping him get closer to God.

Now, humans are commanded not to harm animals without good cause.  If the sacrifice is merely an external show without internal repentance, this is forbidden as needless suffering to the animal.

So we see that a real sacrifice requires awareness and intent, and works to establish a closeness between the party bringing the sacrifice and the recipient.

Modern sacrifice

Gentlemen, this debate amongst our sages 1000 years ago is relevant to your life today.  In modern mainstream culture, men are expected to “sacrifice”. Male sacrifice can be for the team, a business, his platoon, for women, children, or the greater society.

Every man, at some point in his life, will find his time, energy, and money flowing to others. If you pay attention you will see a constant and pervasive culture wide pressure urging you to sacrifice for others.  You need to be aware of this and understand the implications.

Back to the Rambam, who explained that the sacrifices were due in part to outside influences on the Jewish people.  God doesn’t need sacrifices, they were for the people to have a way to try to connect to God using a common method they understood.

Let’s extrapolate this.  Who would willingly give offerings to someone who doesn’t appreciate them?  Gentlemen, this happens in modern life every day.  Stop and think.  Men, are you “sacrificing” because that is just what people do, and what society expects from you?  Do you put your women first, putting her needs above your own?

Of course, because society taught you “women and children first”.  So is your sacrifice meaningful?  How is it any different from bringing offerings just because other cultures of the time bring offerings?

So maybe you are just making sacrifices because your culture teaches you to.  But your woman surely appreciates your sacrifices!

But does she really appreciate it…?  Well, that’s a tough question.  You may not realize the truth until something goes massively wrong.  All the sacrifices you made, the relationship equity you thought you were building up, can vanish in the blink of her eye.

Women in modern secular culture are taught that men should automatically defer to and sacrifice to women, so women take it for granted.  Your sacrifices are not building ‘points’ with her that having any permanency.  Because the mainstream culture teaches girls they deserve special treatment just because they were born female, so they don’t value it when you give them extra.

In modern feminist society, Men are indoctrinated to sacrifice their self interest to women, who are indoctrinated not to appreciate it.  In addition, when every average man is willing to sacrifice himself to earn scraps of sexual favor, the sacrifices are less valuable.  Men are expected to enter into the “frame” of the woman, to treat her as the boss in the relationship.  Men are expected to sacrifice, women are taught not to appreciate it.

But in conventional Judaism we did (and will) offer sacrifices to God, who did not need them.  Is this a problem?  There is a huge difference:  God never needed our sacrifices, but appreciates the gesture, and the long term spiritual benefits brought to the men making offerings.  Modern women need men’s sacrifices – now more than ever.  But they don’t appreciate them because they are taught by society not to appreciate men.

During any crisis or time of fear, society looks to the men to save them.  It is primarily men who are driving long haul trucks, stocking shelves, patrolling crime ridden streets.  Yes, women do out number men in one vital profession: nursing, and there are good reasons for that.  But by and large it is men being men who keep the world running and food and maybe even toilet paper on the shelves.

And yet it is men who are getting the short end of the stick in our society…

I’m going to make an assertion here that will rile some ‘religious’ men.  If you are putting your wife on a pedestal and putting her first, you are worshiping an idol of your own making.

Now, you may make a distinction and tell me:  I am putting her first because God or the church or Budda etc wants me to, so really putting her first is putting God first!  Many men build their religious identity around this argument, to salvage their world view.

So ask yourself, does your woman put God first?  Does she send you out of the house to learn the Word and grow in Wisdom?  Or keep you at home to wash the dishes?

I have seen that there are women who realize the power a faith centric identity can give them over their husbands, and use it to their selfish advantage.  They tell the husband that by putting her first they are obeying God.

Actually, they are obeying her and making her into an idol.  But by clothing her selfishness in religiosity, she can get what she wants, and the man can feel like a martyr for God, and bask in the righteous glow of feeling that he is doing what God wants.  Everyone wins!

Really?  In this world, you have a finite amount of time, a finite amount of energy, a finite amount of resources.

Sacrificing your time, energy, and resources to one thing leaves you with less to develop yourself and your relationship with God, and help other to grow and build.

We get pulled into things that sap our energy. Ask if I get into this will I have the energy to do the things I want to do?

Do you really want to spend your time on this?

Do you really want to spend your life on this?

There is a tremendous ego investment when men define making a woman happy as spiritual success.  The problem is, women are people too.  They are never fully happy (indeed, they seem to have an innate ability to make themselves unhappy or at least nervous even when things are fine).

You can do everything ‘right’ and she will still be miserable.  If your emotional/spiritual wellbeing is dependent on making another human being happy, then buckle up friend, you are in for a wild ride.

Even according the Rambam, the Temple area is still considered holy and off limits to spiritually impure people.  The Rambam in many places Mishneh Torah (a work of legal code) explains and brings as normative law that the Temple will be rebuilt and we will again offer sacrifices to God as before.

Obviously the Rambam also held that offering were and will be required, even though in the future there will be global knowledge of God and no temptation to serve idols.  So the Rambam would not dismiss offerings as merely throwing a bone to idolatry, there is something much deeper going on.

The word used in Hebrew for offering is “Korban” which is cognate to “Karov” meaning close.  A “Korban” is literally an item for bringing closeness between two separate entities.  The Jewish offering is not a sacrifice you make and lose, but a device to bring you closer to God and spiritual development.

Again, You don’t have to be Jewish to use this wisdom to your advantage.  I will say that one of the advantages to living within a religious subculture is that we have objective standards of spiritual development.  A man learning wisdom and praying to God is accomplishing something.  Even if you do not master the Gemara and ancient texts, if you put in your best effort and put in the time you are doing God’s will.

When you are doing right by God you feel good about it.  It doesn’t feel like a sacrifice to put in the time and energy, because you know God sees it.  Now again, God doesn’t need your sacrifice.  But God does understand when you make an effort to do His will.  God understands and appreciates that you giving your time to attain a higher spiritual or intellectual level is an effort to get closer to God.

This is not the case for human beings.  There are men out there giving their time, energy, money away for next to nothing.  They are sacrificing their very lives to their women, who need the sacrifice but don’t appreciate it.  As we talked about, these men are blindly living in the frame of the woman, putting her needs first and ignoring their own.

So you need to stop and think: what are you sacrificing, what are you giving up?  And is what you are giving worth what you are getting?

The second chapter of Shabbat starts by listing what substances we do not use for wicks for our Shabbat candles.  The Mishna lists some materials that were not in common use, and ancient sages worked to identify exactly what these were.  Shmuel says he asked all those who go down to the sea what “Kalach” was, and later what oil of “Kik” was.  Some identify this Kik as from a bird, from cotton, or the famous Kikayon tree of Jonah.  Shmuel asked sailors who travel to different lands, since they would be familiar with various materials in different places and also the different words used to refer to these materials in other languages.

The practical wisdom is to always define your terms.  What is Love?  What is good?  What is evil?  First know what you know, what your words mean, or you will be easily misled by people who know their terms.
In addition, ask men who have life experience (the “sailors”) to help clarify your situation.  One of the profound changes in the internet age is men can easily get advice and insight from other men who have been in similar situations and prevailed.  Of course, there are so many opinions and approaches that you have to be careful to whom you listen.  Vet your guru.

On a deeper level, “those who go down to the sea” also refers to those who study wisdom.  The Torah is compared to water and to the sea.  Wisdom is endless ocean with no bottom.  However much you learn and improve your understanding of life, you can always go deeper in wisdom.

Another piece of wisdom: our ancient sage Abaye says he wished he had learned something when he was younger.  The Gemara explains that the Torah learning you do when you are young is repeated more often and goes deep into you.  The wisdom you acquire when young has more time to settle in and become internalized when you repeat it and review it.

This is important even for older men: review the wisdom you have, know what you know, and appreciate that.  Make it a part of you so it is usable when you need it.

The Talmud is discussing the prohibition of cooking on the Sabbath, we mentioned that Jews wanting hot food on Shabbat is likely the origin of the modern slow cooker.
We allow you to start roasting the Pesach offering just before Shabbat begins, because the Pesach is eaten in a group.  The other men in the group will warn you if you are about to stoke the coals or adjust the fire.  We say “Bne Habura Zrizin” meaning the members of the group are alacritous, on the ball, in watching out for one another.

This is an important concept in life, especially now that America is gripped with pandemic panic and social isolation. We are suffering a profound loneliness with deep psychological effects.

Every man needs friends, a group, and posse, a tribe.  But it’s not enough to have friends or buddies, you need ones that can call you out when you are about to make a serious mistake.  If a man won’t tell you when you are wrong, he may be a friend, but may not have your best interests in mind.  This is why our sages use the wording “Bne Habura” which literally is Sons of the group.  When each man sees himself as a “son”, a part of the group, each will take heed of one another.  If one man sees himself as the master over the others, he will ignore their warnings.
Of course men an hierarchical and profoundly aware of the social pyramid.  Even a leader needs to be able to accept advice and warnings from others.  Our greatest leader, King David, while an accomplished scholar in his own right, always humbled himself before his own Rabbi.  Our sages teach us that King Solomon never made a mistake until his Rabbi passed away, because Solomon was willing to run his plans by his Rabbi and take advice.  Mind you, Solomon was the wisest man ever, by definition his own Rabbi was on a lower level.

Being part of a group striving for personal growth and accomplishment will help you to reach your goals and avoid pitfalls.

Our sages discuss giving clothing to a launderer or dry cleaner before Shabbat, noting that it is more difficult and time consuming to launder white clothing, so there is a danger the launderer will do this work over the Sabbath.

That white garments needs more cleaning seems obvious, our ancient rabbis are hinting to something profound.

Gentlemen, if you want to appear “white” as in perfect and without showing any negative traits, this requires significant investment of your time and energy.  It’s a lifelong struggle really. Keeping up appearances can take a lot of work, perhaps even more work than changing the underlying issues.

Consider if in some areas of life you can make yourself like a ‘colored garment’, which does not require as much work to appear clean.  You can’t be perfect at everything. We all have areas of relative light and darkness in our personalities.  Embrace the fact that you have flaws. A man who is aware of and accepts his shortcomings is a more complete man, and can tap into the power of his dark side.  Even you religious men: God made you with flaws for a reason.  They are for you to learn and grow.  If you spend your efforts trying to appear perfect to other people, you are misusing your life.

Gentlemen, a worthy accomplishment.  This past week we finished learning the second book of the Bible, Exodus (Shemot in Hebrew).  The main topic of the book of Exodus is the struggles of the Jewish people in Egypt, and how God freed us from Egypt and took us into the desert to receive the Torah and become His people.

You don’t have to be Jewish to benefit from the wisdom in the Bible.  Come along and find out why the Bible is the bestselling book of all time, and how you can use this wisdom to improve your life today.

As we did at the end of Genesis, I want to give a little recap of the points we hit.  As always, there is so much more wisdom and value in the Bible than I am able to give over in the limited time and space I have.

Congratulations gentlemen.  This effort has been more and more difficult under current condition, but God creates the cure before the disease.

Hazak hazak, vnithazek!

Cooking is one of the forbidden labors on the Sabbath.  On today’s page of Talmud we learn that that under certain circumstances you cannot put a pot on the fire before the Sabbath since you will be tempted to stir the food or the coals, speeding up the cooking process.  For certain types of foods, if the oven or pot is sealed, then it would be permitted since you won’t be readily able to stir the pot or stoke the coals.  [This is likely the origin of the slow cooker and crock pot].

This a metaphor for your approach to life.  There may be certain areas were you want to speed up the process, to get something done right away.  This may be counterproductive…  Especially in a relationship, being too eager or in a hurry to commit can damage you in the long run.  It makes you appear low value.  You can end up with someone who is not a fitting long term mate for you.  Don’t be in a rush.  When you “stir the coals” to make the fire hotter you can burn your food.  Often it is better to wait for things to develop naturally and organically.

We have mentioned the concept of ritual purity.  Rainwater is valid for a ritual bath, a Mikvah.  If water was drawn into a vessel, it is no longer valid to fill up a Mikvah.  Today we ask what if you left a vessel under a downspout, then it rained and some rainwater got into the vessel by itself.  Is that drawing water?  Well, what was your intent?

The students of Shammai argue that whether or not you intended to collect rainwater, the water counts as drawn water under the law.  The students of Hillel said if you just forgot the vessel outside and it became filled with water, this water is not drawn and still valid for a mikvah.

But they agree that if clouds were gathering outside when you left the vessel, it doesn’t matter what your intent was, this water counts as drawn water.

To modern men, this may sound arcane, so listen carefully:

There is a wisdom in both approaches. When you interact with other people, sometimes they hurt you or transgress your personal boundaries without intending to. People are people, nobody is perfect.
If you are dealing with someone who purposefully damages you, there is an easy solution – get out of this relationship or business.

The problem is, there is a gray area where people will do something that ends up harming you, but their original intent seems innocent.  We see from our sages discussion of Mikvah water, that if the actions or words of others would obviously lead to a harmful outcome, that should count as harmful intent.  This is the case of clouds gathering: If you ‘forget’ a cup outside when rainclouds are forming, our sages assume your intent was to collect water.  That is a reasonable, rational interpretation even if you insist you never meant it.

Likewise, when someone’s behavior harms you, take a good look at the circumstances.  If it was reasonable and rational that their behavior would cause damage to you, you can and should impute harmful intent.  React with appropriate boundary enforcement.  We have briefly discussed the important of boundaries.  Be extra aware that this person could be purposefully obscuring their motivations to make you think they are innocent.  They may accuse you of being over sensitive or mean, that may be a test to get you to drop your personal boundaries and let them walk all over you.  Some people will pretend you are the bad guy when they do something to wrong you and you react.

Yesterday the Talmud discussed decrees made to safeguard ritual purity.  There were 18 decrees up debate, and the sages from the academies of Hillel and Shammai disagreed.  The final vote went with the academy of Shammai.  Our Mishnah implied that they disagreed, but another statement says they agreed.  The Gemara reconciles this: on the day of the debate and vote they disagreed, the next day the sages from Hillel’s academy agreed to Shammai.  After the vote was done, they didn’t bother arguing any more.  Our Gemara today goes on to describe the three places where the academies did have lasting disagreements.

There is a deep wisdom here:  What is done is done.  It came to a vote and it was decided, so the sages decided to agree and stop arguing.  Yesterday they had been bringing proofs against one another, fighting for their point of view, but today they are in total agreement.  Gentlemen, don’t keep fighting yesterday’s fight.  Don’t rehash it, it’s over.  Likewise, when a relationship is done, let it go.  Don’t replay it with her or internally within yourself.  Don’t go rooting through the trash after you put it on the curb.

Another point to make is that the conventional Jewish way of life is to debate, bring all the valid arguments and sources, and vote based on all the evidence.  We don’t make decisions from feelings or public sentiment, but from the objective evidence.  Follow the facts, not the feelings.