My New Blog!

"And G-d said to Noah ...make a tzohar for the ark" Gen6-16

Rashi explains-tzohar, some say it was a window others say it was a gem that gave them light.

By some strange coincidence, the same week that I decided to set up my own blog several leading rabbis of the charedi community declared a cherem (ban) on all use of the Internet. They think that they can build an ark, for their community, seal it hermetically and thus save themselves from the flood of the degenerate culture raging around them. But they forgot one important part of the ark-the tzohar, that miraculous portal, made of precious stone which filtered and amplified the meager light during the darkness of the flood so those inside would not be totally cut off from the world outside. The tzohar was not a one way mirror, it was also meant to take the light of the righteous inside and return it to the world outside. The tora by using the word teiva for the ark shows us how this can be done. The Hebrew word teiva also means the written word. The word of G-d given to us in the tora is our tzohar, the prism through which we see the world. The tora lets in and amplifies those sparks of holiness in the world and through it gives that light back to the world.

I hope that with G-ds help I will be able to share some of the insights that Ihave learned from my teachers. In the profile I stated my occupation as "talmud scholar" but I am only a scholar(talmid chacham) in the sense that I have had the privilege of learning from scholars much greater than I (talmid shel chachamim.)