Rabbi's Blog

To view this article on our blog click here: The old expression that a book speaks volumes or speaks loudly recently came to mind. For my Bar Mitzva gift thirty two years ago, my grandfather bought me a brand new Shas a set of Talmud. It was the top of the line at that time, and was printed in Dublin and supposedly the best, with a guarantee that if you suspended it from a page in the middle of the book it would not rip. The quality of the paper and stitching were that good! Like anything in life, if you don't use it you lose it. For many years this beautiful set of books adorned the book shelves gathering dust. Even years later when I did start to learn and study the Talmud, I never wanted to use "that" set for fear of ruining it. Well, after the last completion of the Talmud I said to myself that I should start to use that set that I got from my grandfather. I am now using it for the second time around. The tractate we started last week was Sanhedrin and the cover cracked off, but the pages themselves are bound in perfectly as they were so many years ago just like new. The expression of never judge a book by its cover has come to life with my gemara, now coverless. Did it lose its value? Absolutely not, to the contrary it looks like a book is supposed to look like, USED and READ In this week's Parsha, Teruma we also read about the Ark that was covered both inside and outside with gold. The Great Rava says in Gemara Yoma 72a that any Torah scholar whose inside is not like the outside is not a Torah scholar. A truly great person acts and looks on the inside as they portray themselves to the outside. Unfortunatel, sometimes that is not the case, and therefore we need to work on ourimage from within. The outside should only be a reflection of the inside and hopefully we show who we really are. There are times when we are not doing the best religiously as we can, but we feel inside that we are still able to be a good and better Jew. As long as the inside is intact then it will help repair the outside image and actually encourage us to fix ourselves on the outside as well. The pintele Yid, as long as the flame is burning inside of us, we can glow on the outside and bring light and warmth to the people and world around us. Let us all make greater attempts to commit ourselves to more Torah study, the fulfillment of more mitzvos and acts of magnanimous kindness to one another and let the Shechina, God's presence dwell in all of us inside and out. Come Join us for our Scholar and Residence program this Shabbos with Rabbi Ephraim Buchwald and next Sunday, February 28th for Purim. For more information please call the office at 619-287-9890 Shabbat Shalom Avram Bogopulsky