5 Bullet Friday - Parshas Shoftim

 

❓Question I am pondering:

Rashi (18:10) understands the passuk as forbidding various types of superstitious activities. Two questions: 1. Rabbi Akiva explains “me’onain” as people who assign seasons by saying that certain times are more propitious for certain things. Isn’t this something that we do? For example, we say that Adar is a good time to have a court case? 2. Rashi explains “menacheish” as one who makes decisions based on occurrences such as bread falling or a deer blocking the road or one’s staff dropping from his hand. Yet the Gemara Berachos relates a story in a mishna of a tanna who would know when his tefillos would be answered based on the fluency it came from his mouth. Was this a form of menacheish?


💡 Idea I am thinking about:

P R N D. These letters may look familiar to you. Where have you seen them before? In your car! The letters stand for Park, Reverse, Neutral, and Drive. The four core functions of the car. As we are in this time of Elul and teshuva, we could use the same acronym to plan for ourselves. Identifying habits to stop (P.) then head in reverse (R.) until reach back to neutral (N.) and then Drive forward (D.) Following the frameworks of “sur mei’rah v’aseh tov” (remove bad, and [then] do good) and “charata al ha’avar v’kabbalah al ha’asid” (have remorse [and correct those behaviors] on the past, and make a commitment for the future).


 💢Concept I am considering:

Binyan Av. This concept is one of the derasha forms that one could utilize to expound on the Torah. A classic example appears in this week’s parsha where the passuk says “eid echad”. The fact that the torah needs to specify that the word eid in this context refers to only one witness, means that generally in the Torah when the term “eid” is used, it refers to two witnesses.

 

📆 This Time in History:

Rosh Chodesh Elul. The days from Rosh Chodesh Elul until motzei Yom Kippur are y’mei ratzon. Of course every day Hashem listens to our tefillos, but during these days, Hashem demonstrates a heightened level of mercy and favor. This was the time that Moshe rabbeinu went up to Har Sinai for the second time to receive the second luchos, after the catastrophic event of the eigel ha’zahav, and he remained there until the 10th of Tishrei (Yom Kippur) when the kapparah was completed.


😀 Middah on my mind:

Aspiration. As we enter the z’man of preparing for yomim no’raim and thinking about how we could have been better this past year and what we would like to do different this coming year, try to shift the conversation from expectation to aspiration. Instead of framing as what we think we should be able to do, frame it as who you want to be. Instead of planning based on looking at your historical growth year-over-year and projecting where you expect to end up next year, plan for where you would like to be. Instead of selling ourselves short with expectations, let us inspire ourselves with aspirations.

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