PARSHAS Noach 5785
One Big Family
Rabbi Dovid Yachnes
Men's Programming
We are truly blessed to be part of the Jewish nation. My family and I personally felt this even more over these last few weeks. We feel grateful that our daughter, Rikki, is able to spend a gap year in a Jerusalem seminary, furthering her Jewish education.
Her particular school offers daily as well as Shabbos meals for the girls. However, when it comes to the holidays they are on their own. This past month, of course, was holiday season, with Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur (pre and post fast meals), and the days of Sukkos. That is a lot of meals. How could she, a new student in a foreign country, possibly find so many different people to host her for all these meals?
As we knew already – and now feel even more – Israel is not a foreign country and those living there are not just people, they are family. They are our family!
Needless to say, Rikki and her friends had such a special time enjoying the Holidays together with “family” that she had just met.
The concept and idea of family is fundamental to Judaism. We are not just citizens of the same nation who share the same faith, we are in fact biologically (or electively) children of Abraham and Sarah. We are mishpacha!
When we look at the Torah’s starting point, the book of Bereishes (Genesis) we find that it’s all about families: husbands and wives, parents and children, brothers and sisters. In the book of Shemos (Exodus) Hashem defines His relationship with us as family and He tells Moshe that when speaking to Pharaoh he should refer to the Jewish people as, “My child, my firstborn, Israel.”
It is because of this bond that we feel joy when one of us celebrates, and we hurt when one of us is in pain. Our thriving and surviving as a nation is largely due to this connection we have with each other. We are indeed one big family!
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