Addict Torah's Mission: To interrogate Torah deeply so as to create space, connection and safety for people with addictive patterns and behaviors that have led them to a crisis of the spirit to tell and shape their stories for the purpose of healing, growth, and a return to their whole selves.
(And no, we won't give anyone your email address)
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"Petuchowski said that a Jew reads the Torah not as one reads a novel or a newspaper but as one reads a love letter, eager to extract every bit of meaning from it
(ז) כִּ֚י יְהֹוָ֣ה אֱלֹהֶ֔יךָ מְבִֽיאֲךָ֖ אֶל־אֶ֣רֶץ טוֹבָ֑ה אֶ֚רֶץ נַ֣חֲלֵי מָ֔יִם עֲיָנֹת֙ וּתְהֹמֹ֔ת יֹצְאִ֥ים בַּבִּקְעָ֖ה וּבָהָֽר׃ (ח) אֶ֤רֶץ חִטָּה֙ וּשְׂעֹרָ֔ה וְגֶ֥פֶן וּתְאֵנָ֖ה וְרִמּ֑וֹן אֶֽרֶץ־זֵ֥ית שֶׁ֖מֶן וּדְבָֽשׁ׃ (ט) אֶ֗רֶץ אֲשֶׁ֨ר לֹ֤א בְמִסְכֵּנֻת֙ תֹּֽאכַל־בָּ֣הּ לֶ֔חֶם לֹֽא־תֶחְסַ֥ר כֹּ֖ל בָּ֑הּ אֶ֚רֶץ אֲשֶׁ֣ר אֲבָנֶ֣יהָ בַרְזֶ֔ל וּמֵהֲרָרֶ֖יהָ תַּחְצֹ֥ב נְחֹֽשֶׁת׃ (י) וְאָכַלְתָּ֖ וְשָׂבָ֑עְתָּ וּבֵֽרַכְתָּ֙ אֶת־יְהֹוָ֣ה אֱלֹהֶ֔יךָ עַל־הָאָ֥רֶץ הַטֹּבָ֖ה אֲשֶׁ֥ר נָֽתַן־לָֽךְ׃
Nahaley: large or small watercourse flowing from a natural source - springs that together form a stream, or streams that together form a river. Ayanot: are the 'eyes' of the earth, through which the inner contents of the earth come to light: wellsprings. Utiomot: denotes the billowing of the waves of the sea - are great masses of water that form lakes in the midst of the land.
[The mitzvah of the blessings] in the Torah, has become the model and the prototype of the great institution of brachot which the Sages, seeking to mold the spirit of the Jewish people, have woven into the whole fabric of our lives.
(יד) וְרָ֖ם לְבָבֶ֑ךָ וְשָֽׁכַחְתָּ֙ אֶת־יְהֹוָ֣ה אֱלֹהֶ֔יךָ הַמּוֹצִיאֲךָ֛ מֵאֶ֥רֶץ מִצְרַ֖יִם מִבֵּ֥ית עֲבָדִֽים...(יז) וְאָמַרְתָּ֖ בִּלְבָבֶ֑ךָ כֹּחִי֙ וְעֹ֣צֶם יָדִ֔י עָ֥שָׂה לִ֖י אֶת־הַחַ֥יִל הַזֶּֽה׃
(14) beware lest your heart grow haughty and you forget your God יהוה —who freed you from the land of Egypt, the house of bondage...(17) and you say to yourselves, “My own power and the might of my own hand have won this wealth for me.”
The real challenge is not poverty but affluence, not slavery but freedom, not homelessness, but home...The real test of a nation is not if it can survive a crisis but if it can survive the lack of a crisis...The guardian of conscience is memory.
Oppose the intractibility and insubordination of your. heart; gain. mastery over your heart, over its thoughts and desires; make sure your heart will be obedient to you.
(ו) עֲשָׂרָה דְבָרִים נִבְרְאוּ בְּעֶרֶב שַׁבָּת בֵּין הַשְּׁמָשׁוֹת, וְאֵלּוּ הֵן...וְהַלּוּחוֹת.
(6) Ten things were created on the eve of the Sabbath at twilight, and these are they... [10] and the tablets.
(1) Thereupon יהוה said to me, “Carve out two tablets of stone like the first, and come up to Me on the mountain; and make an ark of wood. (2) I will inscribe on the tablets the commandments that were on the first tablets that you smashed, and you shall deposit them in the ark.”
(5) Then I left and went down from the mountain, and I deposited the tablets in the ark that I had made, where they still are, as יהוה had commanded me.
According to tradition, the first tablets of the Law were written by the finger of God, but the second were written by Moses.
Had the first tablets survived, every sorry and calamity would have disappeared from the earth, and the world would have experienced freedom from the Angel of Death...it is said that if the first tablets had not been broken Jews would never have forgotten any Torah they had learned. Some say that all the commandments of the first set were positive, while more than half of those on the second set are negative.
It is another of the attributes of the Tablets, that although they are fashioned out of hardest stone, they can still be rolled up like a scroll.
What is shattered with the [first] Tablets? Fetishizing memory, extreme awareness that allows nothing to slip. So, God assents to Moses' instinct to break the Tablets - to make space for the human modality of absence, loss, fragmentation, error.
This is derived from a verse, as it is written: “And the Lord said to Moses: Hew for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and I will write upon the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which [asher] you broke” (Exodus 34:1). The word “asher” is an allusion to the fact that that the Holy One, Blessed be He, said to Moses: Your strength is true [yishar koḥakha] in that you broke the tablets, as the breaking of the first tablets led to the foundation of the Torah through the giving of the second tablets.
He smashes the Tablets, the mystical wholeness of the stone inscribed with the finger of God. A terrible taboo: what could have inspired him to such an act? In a powerful talmudic midrash, God assures him: Yishar kochacha she-shibarta! - "More power to you that you smashed them!" The violent moment of disruption, of radical disorder, should signify the death of the entire project of Exodus. But, as the. midrash declares, "sometimes the Torah is confirmed by its undoing."
The broken pieces of the first tablets were placed together with the new ones in the Ark.
The broken pieces of the first Tablets were mostly likely wrapped individually so that they didn't cut into the whole Tablets. Metaphorically, we all have broken Tablets: broken pieces of ourselves we carry forward. We have to figure out how to wrap them, so they don't cut into us, so that we can live full lives. From time to time, the cloth comes loose, and once again the shards can potentially harm us, so we rewrap them, with care, and with love, for we are carrying parts of ourselves, once hurting all the time, now mostly healed.