Weekly Torah Portion

This past week I took a few of my children to the U.S. Military’s West Point Academy, where we went on a tour of the campus and visited the museum. The academy’s mission is “to build, educate, train, and inspire the Corps of Cadets to be commissioned leaders of character committed to the Army Values and ready for a lifetime of service to the Army and Nation.”

One of the museum’s exhibits showcased fitting all of the necessary classes/exercises into a day’s schedule. From the morning until evening every minute is accounted for. It reminded me of my schedule in yeshiva, where we began our day in the early morning and concluded it late at night, laser-focused on our spiritual mission. It can certainly be a challenge to maintain such a rigorous schedule, but it also provides comfort in knowing that we, as students, are being guided and using our time properly.

In fact, the transition from the yeshiva to regular work life was challenging. All of a sudden the blessing of “extra free time” required intentional decisions and being responsible for how to make the most of my time. This new gift of time also charged me with prioritizing my time.

The Ramban, Nachmanides (13th century, Spain) explains that this week’s Torah portion discusses the mitzvah to live in the land of Israel. He elaborates by explaining how this commandment is incumbent upon every Jew and the idea behind the mitzvah is that the land of Israel is a special gift from Hashem.

To live in the land is to accept and utilize the special gift and blessing. To intentionally leave the land is to reject the gift. Living in the land shows Hashem that you are using His gift. (This is not the space to discuss why it may be permitted to live outside of Israel, an important subject but for another time.) In essence, this mitzvah reflects a much larger issue:

Are we using the gifts Hashem has given us in our own lives? Do we use the blessings that we were given to help others? To perform mitzvot and to connect to Hashem?

For those of us who are blessed with wealth, are we using our money for the right purpose? Are we happy to give to charity or to use it in the performance of our mitzvot? Or do we use the gifts that we were given for self-aggrandizement? For those of us who were given the gift of “free time”, are we excited to use it to study more Torah? Or, to come to a minyan to pray? Or, do we squander the opportunity to use our time productively?

As we study this week’s parsha, it is incumbent upon us to think about how we accept the blessings in our lives and how we can use them properly.