parsha bit: Nitzavim-Vayeilech

[cellio]

Our parsha tells us "this mitzvah is not far away from you [...] it is very close to you, in your mouths and hearts to fulfill". To what mitzvah does the passage refer? Rashi says it refers to torah study. A lazy person, he says, claims that the torah is far away, beyond reach, and thus does not try to study. However, Rashi says, it is close by and thus easily available.

(I don't know where this comes from, but there is a tradition that says that an angel teaches the child in the womb all of torah, but it is forgotten at birth until later re-learned.)

Comments

[hildakrista.livejournal.com]

I shall have to lean in and listen very closely when Otto talks in his sleep!

[cellio]

Too late; he lost it on his way out. For the next one, you'll have to install internal mics. :-)

[hildakrista.livejournal.com]

Yes, well, if I had to make my way through a hole the size of a lemon, I think some knowledge may be squeezed out of my brain, too.

Interesting though. Seems kind of...romantic...for a religion.

[cellio]

We've got lots of nifty midrash, some quite whimsical. This is not a dry religion of nuts and bolts only. :-)

There is a serious dispute in the talmud about whether man should have been created. There are behind-the-secnes details of Moshe's life (and many others'). There is a midrash about how the very words of torah themselves approached people at Sinai saying "will you take me?". There's the talmudic passage that talks about how God prays and what he prays for. I could go on.