Knowledge VS Wisdom VS Insight

 

Knowledge is the accumulation of facts and data that you have learned about or experienced. It’s being aware of something, and  having information. Knowledge is really about facts and ideas that we acquire through study, research, investigation, observation, or experience.

 

Wisdom is the ability to discern and judge which aspects of that knowledge are true, right, lasting, and applicable to your life. It’s the ability to apply that knowledge to the greater scheme of life. It’s also deeper; knowing the meaning or reason; about knowing why something is, and what it means to your life.

Insight is the deepest level of knowing and the most meaningful to your life. Insight is a deeper and clearer perception of life, of knowledge, of wisdom. It’s grasping the underlying nature of knowledge, and the essence of wisdom. Insight is a truer understanding of your life and the bigger picture of how things intertwine.

In a nutshell: If knowledge is information, wisdom is the understanding and application of that knowledge and insight is the awareness of the underlying essence of a truth.

Sadly we can gain a lifetime of knowledge, yet never see the wisdom in it. We can be wise, but still miss the deeper meaning.

Christopher Reiss does a great job of summing up the differences on Quora…

Knowledge is measuring that a desert path is 12.4 miles long.

Wisdom is packing enough water for the hike.

Insight is building a lemonade stand at mile 6.

Knowledge is knowing how to manage your money, budgeting, spending, saving.

Wisdom is understanding how money impacts the quality of your life and your future.

Insight is realizing that money is simply a tool to be used, that it has no inherent meaning beyond its usefulness.

Knowledge is learning how to paint and using that skill to cultivate a livelihood.

Wisdom is expressing your passion through painting and understanding that art is a form of communication that touches the lives of others.

Insight is perceiving that all things can be art and that creating your art contributes to the understanding and the expression of the essence of the world around you.

Knowledge is knowing which things, practices, people, and pleasures make you happy.

Wisdom is knowing that while those things may bring you pleasure, happiness is not derived from things or situations or people. It’s understanding that happiness comes from within, and that it’s a temporary state of mind.

Insight is knowing that happiness is not the purpose of life, that it’s not the marker of the quality of life—it’s merely one of the many fleeting states of mind in the spectrum of full emotions. Those emotions don’t make up our lives; they are merely experiences.

Knowledge, wisdom and insight all are valuable and all have a place in our lives. The difficulty lies in the fact that many of us are unclear as to their differences, often perceiving the terms and their application to be interchangeable. Being clear and consciously aware of how our minds are engaged may be important to getting the most out of all three. While acquiring and applying information is valuable in and of itself, we also need to distill and judge that information, and ultimately find the deeper meaning and relevance to the whole of our lives. Perhaps the truest form of knowing is in acquiring all three, and understanding how they each enhance the quality and experience of life.

1. “If you don’t build your dream, someone else will hire you to help them build theirs.”

Dhirubhai Ambani

2. “The first step toward success is taken when you refuse to be a captive of the environment in which you first find yourself.”

Mark Caine

3. “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”

Mark Twain

4.  “A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him.”

David Brinkley

5. “Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.”

Eleanor Roosevelt

6. “Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

Steve Jobs

7. “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”

Eleanor Roosevelt

8. “Let him who would enjoy a good future waste none of his present.”

Roger Babson

9.  “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.”

Mark Twain

10. “The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will.”

Vince Lombardi

11. “Success is about creating benefit for all and enjoying the process. If you focus on this & adopt this definition, success is yours.”

Kelly Kim

12. “Really it comes down to your philosophy. Do you want to play it safe and be good or do you want to take a chance and be great?”

Jimmy J

13. “It is our choices, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”

J. K Rowling

14. “You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.”

Albert Einstein

15. “Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.”

Harriet Tubman

16. “The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus.”

Bruce Lee

17. “Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success.”

Dale Carnegie

18. “If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.”

Jim Rohn

19. “The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.”

Ayn Rand

20. “If you genuinely want something, don’t wait for it – teach yourself to be impatient.”

Gurbaksh Chahal

(Bonus)

21. “Don’t let the fear of losing be greater than the excitement of winning.”

Robert Kiyosaki

Here at RO, we make it a mission to find things on the Internet that have real meaning — things that take you out of the tempting narrow focus of your own existence and give you some perspective about your neighborhood, your community, and your world. This speech, delivered at Kenyon College way back in 2005, encapsulates that vision perfectly. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did

Lawrence Kelemen graduated UCLA and did graduate studies at Harvard. In university he came up with a formula to demolish any religion. When he applied that formula to Judaism – the formula fell apart. You are about to learn why that is so and why Judaism is real. Enjoy!

For more info check out:

http://www.simpletoremember.com/

http://bit.ly/koZcDk

Mp3 version of this:

http://j.mp/bWC03Z

If we look in the Torah, the date (the 6th day of the third month) of Shavuot cannot be found. One cannot find a holiday celebrating the giving of the Ten Commandments, or any specific laws for Shavuot. Even the later works of Mishna, Gemara, Rambam, do not have a special section of the holiday of Shavuot. What then is Shavuot?

Shavuot is the second of the three major festivals (Pesah, Shavuot and Sukkot) and comes exactly 50 days after the holiday of Passover as the Torah states: “even unto the morrow after the seventh week shall you count fifty days…” (Vayikra 23:16). Although the Torah says we count 50 days it is really simply rounding-off as there are only 49 days that we count. Traditionally, this day marks the giving of the Torah by G-d to the entire Jewish people on Mount Sinai about 3,000 years ago. However, the date of the giving of the Torah is not known for sure and the Torah never associates Shavuot with Matan Torah. The Talmud discusses that it was possibly on 7 Sivan, even though we today celebrate Shavuot on 6 Sivan. The Maharsha adds that the Torah was given on the 51st day from Pesah and we are celebrating the preparation for Torah on the 50th day. Samson Refael Hirsch writes that the gemara says it was the 51st day. The Torah was not given just on that day but was a work in progress over 40 years. He follows the view that we only received some of the laws at mount Sinai, but not all of them. So we celebrate the final day that we came ready to accept the Torah, not the actual giving which is also why there is no mitzva associated with Shavuot like matza or lulav. It is important to note that initially when we used to still establish the months by the viewing of the moon (which is the ideal situation) Shavuot sometimes took place on the 6th and sometimes on the 7th of Sivan depending on whether the moon was seen on the 29th or 30th of the prior months.

In parashat Emor we read of all the holidays. Each holiday begins on a new line and begins with the name of the holiday. The holiday that we today call Shavuot doesn’t start on its own line, doesn’t have a date, doesn’t have its own section and does not even have a name for the holiday, and doesn’t start with the introduction “And God said to Moshe…” like all the other holidays are introduced.

Some suggest that Shavuot it is not really a holiday on its own it is simply a continuation and culmination of the holiday of Pesah. When Moshe first encountered God at the burning bush, God told him that He will take them out of Egypt and travel to Har Sinai to receive the Torah. In this verse it is clear that the Exodus of Pesah and the giving of the Torah 50 days later are one extended event.

The first time a name is given for the holiday is by the rabbis of the Mishna period as we see in the Midrash Shir Hashirim: Rebi Yehoshua ben levi calls this holiday by the name Atzeret. Later we began calling the holiday by its modern name – Shavuot. (It seems that this began around the time of the Geonim (circa 1000 CE)

The Keli Yakar writes that the Torah does not establish any day to commemorate the giving of the Torah, as we celebrate it every day with our constant study and performance of the mitzvot. The Akedat Yitzhak writes similarly that this holiday was not established by the Torah to commemorate the giving of the Torah. This is partly because we cannot celebrate the giving until after it is given, and therefore the Torah cannot command it within the Torah before it was given. Abravanel states that this holiday is not in commemoration of matan torah and is completely unrelated to it. The Ten Commandments are a testimony to itself and does not need a specific day to celebrate it. Rather the holiday is solely to celebrate the beginning of the wheat harvest. And Sukkot is the holiday at the end of the harvest. We believe that it is the time of matan torah but not the basis of the holiday. Pesah and Sukkot are both explained in the Torah and given specific reasons for their celebration in addition to their agricultural reasons but Shavuot only has its agricultural reason. This may also explain why in the prayers we say “on this day of Shavuot, the season in which we received the Torah.” This holiday of Shavuot is the holiday of the harvest of the first fruits and the beginning of the wheat harvest which occurs in the season (not the day) that we received the ten commandments.

R. Haayim paltiel (student of maharam Rotenberg) asks why we even mention matan torah in the amida and not hag bikurenu (holiday of the fruit harvest). The reason he explains is because on all the holidays we do not mention the mitzvot in the amida i.e. hag hamatzot or halulav rather it is a prayer to Hashem thanking him for his kindness of taking us out of Egypt on Pesah, or protecting us in the wilderness on Sukkot. Therefore on Shavuot as well we do not mention the specific Mitzva of the loaves of bread sacrifice or the Bikkurim rather we mention the good that God has done for us during this time, which the giving of the Torah.

So, what is Shavuot? Shavuot is one of our three Biblical Festivals, that like the other holidays has several aspects to it and can be appreciated on several levels and dimensions. The Torah describes it as Hag Hashavuot (the festival of weeks), Hag Hakatzir (the feast of the harvest) and Yom Habikurim (the day of the first-fruits). In addition to these 3 aspects of the holiday, the rabbis also called it Atzeret. Just as after 7 days of Pesah there is Shemin Atzeret, so too after 7 days of Pesah (and 7 weeks) there is Shavuot, which is an Atzeret as well. Finally, we later added the term zeman matan Toratenu as well, to remind us of the tradition that we celebrate the giving of the Torah. Although today this seems to be the central theme that we focus on, it is the least central theme in the early times of the Bible and Mishna. By studying the sources and gaining a better understanding of the many different dimensions to our religion and customs we gain a deeper appreciation for it, and elevate simple customs to an integral part of our life. God commanded us to take a day to enjoy, to celebrate, and to appreciate His world and the life He gave us, and that is what Shavuot is.

On Passover we commemorate our exodus from Egypt and creation of our nation. On Shavuot 7 weeks later we commemorate what defines us as a nation and this is the revelation of God and the giving of his law at Sinai. There was only one revelation and there may never be another revelation. We must remember this event, which we metaphorically all attended “in spirit” and keep the Torah, the five books, as our focus. Every time we discuss law, or tradition, or we argue whether we should or shouldn’t be doing something, we must go back to the original guide given at the one and only revelation of God to mankind.

NCAD – National Convert Awareness Day

Shavuot has 5 names for the holiday (can you name them all? Answer below), and should possibly have a 6th name: Convert awareness day. On Shavuot we learn that Ruth converted to our religion, found God and eventually gave us our King David and the future Messiah. At Mount Sinai our rabbis teach us that we were all converts. Those of use that were direct descendents of Abraham still were not part of the religion of God and not bound by any of His commands until we came to Sinai and all converted and accepted him as our Master. In addition many people, including for example, Moses’ wife, who was not a direct descendent of Abraham, converted on Shavuot as well. In reality, all of Jacob’s sons, the father of the 12 tribes married non-Abrahamic descendent women, so the mother’s of all the tribes were not “Jewish” and according to our modern concept would all be considered not “Jewish”. In addition Maimonides mentions that when we came down to Egypt only 70 of us where direct descendents of Jacob and thousands were simply people from the local tribes that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob invited to join the community of God. Maimonides describes that this was Abraham’s main mission, to accept converts and teach them the way of God. When the Israelites left Egypt, they there were 600,000 men, 2 generations prior they were 70 men. Even if we assume the 70 became 10,000, somehow in 2 generations. that still means that the vast majority of the Nation of Israel were not descendents of Abraham but had joined the community according to Maimonides. When they all reached Sinai they were all accepted by God and by the people. Our religion teaches us that anyone that comes to join the community of God must be accepted. It is God’s community, not ours, and He gets to decide who can join and who cannot, we don’t get to decide. He decided which people we can accept and which people we can’t accept (Amon, Moab, etc.), and we have no right to change His rules.

God commands us to love the convert, more times than he commands us to do anything else. We are commanded and required by God to protect the convert, respect the convert, and invite the convert into our communities and into our homes. This is a direct order from God and cannot be ignored. It is true that sometimes, as soldiers, we must ignore a direct order from a superior when we believe that there are extenuating circumstances. However, when ignoring an order from a superior, all the more so from our Creator, God himself, we must be extremely certain we know what we are doing. We must make every effort to investigate and research every aspect of the order and of the reasons we feel necessary to ignore the order. Are we very sure that the way we are ignoring the order is the only option? Could there be a better way to do it? Is our current way as successful as we think it is? Have we done the research and investigations to prove without doubt that there is no other option at all other than to completely ignore God’s order? If we don’t have real statistics and demographics and a real sincere research team looking into it and re-evaluating it on a constant basis, then do we really have the right to simply ignore a direct order from our Superior, Superior of all Superiors, just based on anecdotal evidence and hearsay that this is the best way to do something. Can we simply appease ourselves by saying that this choice to ignore the command of God was chosen 80 years ago and should continue to be followed without reassessment. It is imperative that we stop everything we are doing and we immediately demand investigation into the matter, because every day we go to synagogue and pray to restore the Temple, and to remove sinat hinam from our people, while at the same time we have a policy in the synagogue that directly orders us to violate God’s order, we better be sure when we ask Him our requests, that we have a really, really good answer for him on why we are not fulfilling his request. It is true that there are times, that the situation is so dire that we must violate the Torah in order to protect it. Sometimes the verse “et la’asot La’Hashem, Heferu Toratecha” is used to explain the concept. This verse is interpreted to show that in order to protect the religion there are times that we must violate the Torah. It may be that after extensive research it is found that the best way to protect the community and to protect out cherished traditions is to have a policy in place that restricts the acceptance of converts. There are several communities around the world that at one point did feel that violating this Order from God was the only option. However, policies like these should be re-evaluated on a regular basis and we must make sure that this is not only the best way to protect the religion but the only way to do so. We must make sure that our policy of violating an Order fro God is effective in accomplishing our goal so that when we do have to explain ourselves to Him we can be very confident. When he asks us what due diligence we did and what research we conducted and what alternatives we attempted, we better be sure we have a good answer. Simply saying that it what not your choice, the rest of the community did it, or simply saying that it seems to have worked and that other people say it worked should not be acceptable answers. We must be as machmir as we can on the laws of the Torah. We should not be lenient and mekel to simply brush off a law because we rationalize to ourselves that we have a better way of doing things in our modern society and that the Law is outdated and must be changed.

We are taught that if we protect His people (convert, Levi, widow, orphan, pauper, etc.) then He will protect ours (wife, son, daughter, etc.). If we are not protecting His people that He ordered us to, we should make sure at the very least that we have a document in hand that proves that we had no other choice, but to ignore his law. If we ran a business and were contemplating a policy change we would set up an entire committee to spend at least 6 months evaluating the program and then re-evaluating it at every opportunity to make sure our policies are ultimately in the best interest in the company and that this is the best most efficient way to run the business. Don’t we owe at least the same level of commitment to God and our religion, as we would do for our business? In business, would we ever simply continue a program that was implemented 2 generations ago without a full research into it? Every year we should commit to research and investigate how we all treat converts in every community around the world and if we are truly fulfilling the command of God properly, and if we are not, do we have ample justification for rejecting God’s law. If we were called into a meeting with God and he asked us why we are not implementing his policies, do we have enough in hand to explain ourselves, do we have a complete report to provide, or are we simply violating His law because we are just going along with the flow and assuming it is the best way. Today on National Convert Awareness Day (NCAD) it is time to look at ourselves and our policies and commit to God and His policies. Talk to your rabbis, your synagogue leaders, your friends and community members and lets at the very least raise awareness for this great Mitzvah on NCAD. Have your holiday barbeque, celebrate with family and friends and hold your head up high knowing that you did what you can to protect God’s people.

Shavuot Customs

There are many customs that have developed over the generations on Shavuot. Many families continue the traditions they remember as a child, and continue those traditions with their children that they remember practicing with their fathers.

1) It is Permissible to say Arbit before night, and it is not necessary to wait until after the stars come out. For those who prefer to wait till the stars come out to say Kiddush. This year it is around 9:00pm. However, if this would detract from the festive meal (i.e. the children will be too tired) it may be recited at anytime, even before sunset.

2) It is our custom to stay up all night learning Torah. One reason given is based on a midrash that at Mount Sinai, the night before Hashem gave the Torah, the Jews were asleep all night and Hashem had to wake them up with thunder and lightning. So to make up for it, we stay up all night learning Torah. Another reason is simply because it is the night we received the Torah, so we study it all night to show our devotion to it.

3) Some have the custom to stand up for the reading of the Ten Commandments, but others do not. It appears that the custom is now discouraged by many because we don’t want people to think that the Ten Commandments have a special significance above the rest of the laws and that only the Ten Commandments were given by Hashem from Har Sinai.

4) It is the custom of many to eat dairy foods on Shavuot. There are many, many, many reasons for this custom. One of the reasons is that after Hashem gave the Torah to Bnei Yisrael, they realized they don’t have any kosher meat, and it would take too long to get kosher meat (Glatt Mart didn’t exist in those days), so they only ate dairy products. However there is still the requirement of eating beef and wine since it is a holiday. Therefore some have the custom of making some meals meat and some dairy. Others have the custom of eating dairy appetizers and then rinsing out ones mouth with some water and eating a piece of bread before starting the meat portion of the meal. The important point is to enjoy the holiday with one’s family.

5) We have a custom to read Megilat Ruth and the Azharot (the Laws of the entire written in poetic style). Many do this on the afternoon of Shavuot while sitting with their families enjoying customary foods. This is a beautiful and important custom that many are losing and forgetting each year. It is time we reverse that trend and refocus on the important things this Holiday: Family, Festivity, Tradition, and Torah. Hag Same’ah!

Does the End Justify the Mean?

On Shavuot we received a list of laws we should follow. Sometimes we do things we know we shouldn’t be doing, however we have good intentions, and there seems to be no other way to accomplish our noble cause. The Gemara discusses this topic and explains that there are those who transgress commandments of the Torah, but for a good purpose, and those who fulfill the commandments properly but for the wrong purpose.

The second Mishna in the fourth perek of Nazir relates a case of a woman who vowed to be a nazir. In the Torah (Bemidbar 6) we are taught that when a person vows to be a nazir to God, he is forbidden to drink any grape derivative, to cut his hair, or to contaminate himself from a corpse or cemetery. The punishment for breaking the vow is lashes. Elsewhere (Bemidbar 30) we are taught that whenever a married woman makes a vow, upon hearing that his wife made a vow her husband, has the option to nullify her vow, even if he is not in her presence at the time of her vow. In such a case the woman’s vow would be annulled and she may not know it. The woman being discussed in the Mishna took on a vow to be a Nazir and her husband nullified the vow without her knowing. She purposely drank wine (or committed any of the other prohibitions) while believing that she was still obligated by her vow. The law is that she does not receive lashes because she did not actually sin, since her vow was nullified, even though her intention was to sin. Rabbi Yehuda adds that even though she did not transgress any biblical commandment, she should receive rabbinic imposed lashes (somehow different than the lashes one would receive for transgressing a biblical commandment) for having bad intentions.

The Gemara (Nazir 23a) has a discussion based on this case from the Mishna. The verse (Bemidbar 30:13) relating to a husband who nullifies his wife’s vow states “If her husband does annul them on the day he finds out, then nothing that has crossed her lips shall stand, whether vows or self-imposed obligations. Her husband has annulled them, and God will forgive her.” The end of the verse states that her husband annulled her vow and God will forgive her. The obvious question that arises is: why does she need to be forgiven if her husband had annulled her vow? Rabbi Akiva used to weep every time he read this verse. This is because the verse implies that even though she did not actually sin, since she had bad intentions she still requires forgiveness and atonement for her action. Rabbi Akiva draws an analogy to someone who was intending to eat a piece of pig, and it turned out to be cow meat. Since his intentions were bad he requires atonement despite the fact that he did not actually sin. So, Rabbi Akiva laments, if such a person who did not even sin requires atonement, all the more so a person who intended to eat pig and actually ate pig requires atonement.

The Gemara brings an opposite case: If a man intended on eating kosher cow and it turned out to be non-kosher pig accidentally, he requires atonement based on the verse (Vayikra 5:17) “When a person, without knowing it, sins in regard to any of God’s commandments about things not to be done, and then realizes his guilt, he shall bear the burden of his sin.” This verse teaches that he must bring a certain type of sacrifice and beg Hashem to forgive him even if he is unsure whether he sinned or not. This refers to the case of someone who intended on doing the right thing but accidentally sinned. He too, must bear the responsibility for his incorrect actions. How much more so, someone who intended on sinning requires atonement. In summary the Gemara first brings two cases one who intended on sinning but in actuality didn’t and one who did not intend to sin and in actuality did sin. Both these people require atonement for their actions.

The final verse of the book on the prophecy of Hosea (14:10) is “He who is wise will consider these words; he who is prudent will take note of them. For the paths of God are smooth; the righteous can walk on them, while sinners stumble on them.” R’ Yohanan comments on the last part of this verse. The same path that God gives us can be a road that benefits us, or it can be a road that one can stumble upon. The verse does not say that transgressing the commandment will cause you to stumble, but that a sinner can stumble even by following the path of God. R’ Yohanan explains how that is possible. One example is two people who both fulfill the commandment to sacrifice a paschal lamb; one performs the sacrifice and eats the meat with the intention of fulfilling God’s commandment. The other sacrifices and eats with the intention of stuffing himself with food. The first person is following the path of God and it is a smooth road for him to walk on. The second person while following every detail of the law as well as the first person, is technically following the path of God, but for him it will be a road that sinners stumble on. This passage is a support for those that say it is very important for us to try and learn the reasons for the commandments, because we may follow all the commandments of God, but without knowing their purpose we may not be fulfilling his Will.

Resh Lakish agrees that the person who fulfilled the Mitzva with the wrong intentions did not fulfill the Mitzva in the best form however he also does not want to categorize that person as a sinner. Therefore he brings a different example to illustrate for this verse. Lot and his two daughters were all alone after the destruction of Sedom. We are taught by the Midrash that his daughters each slept with him during his drunkenness because they believed they were the last three people alive and wanted to protect the survival of humanity. Resh Lakish believed that Lot on the other hand just wanted to have physical pleasure from them (the verses seem to indicate that he had no idea what happened but the midrash explains differently). Here is an example of two people who performed the same act but one had good intentions (the daughters) and are therefore praised and the other (Lot) bad intentions (at least according to the midrashs interpretation) and is admonished for the same act. Even within the sisters who both did the same thing, one is admonished for calling attention to the act but naming her son Moab (literally – from my father) and the other is rewarded for being discreet and calling her son Ben-Ami (Also meaning son of my father but more discreetly). We are later commanded to never make peace with Moab, while we are told not to incite war against Amon (descendents of Ben-Ami) because of the different attitudes taken regarding the same act.

We are all fmailisr with the concet to rush to perform a mitzvah. What not many are familiar with is the example brought by the Gemara to illustrate this concept. The example of rughing to do a mitzvah is lot’s daughters committing incest in order to repopulate the world. Since their intentions were pure the Gemara even calls their acts mitzvot and teaches us that one should always rush to do a mitzva and uses this story as a case example. Since the older daughter had relations with her father one night prior to the younger daughter, she was rewarded with a Jewish king descendent generations before the younger daughter’s descendents. King David was a descendent of Ruth the Moabite (from the older daughter of Lot), and it wasn’t till David’s son married an Ammonite (a descendent of the younger daughter of Lot) that they had a child who later became king.

The Gemara continues with another example from the Bible of people who did similar acts but with different intentions. They compare Tamar to Zimri. Tamar was not given her rightful husband by her father-in-law Yehuda. She still wanted to fulfill her role as having a child for her late husband’s name. She dressed like a harlot and seduced Yehuda, and had a child from that union. Her intentions were good and therefore her descendents became kings (The Davidic dynasty – we read of this genealogy in Megilat Ruth). Zimri (Bemidbar 25) on the other hand had relations with a woman also, but he did it with bad intentions, to challenge Moses and God, and thousands of Jews died in a plague relating to that incident.

R’ Nahman bar Yitzhak has a surprising concept. He states, that it is even better to commit a sin, if done for good intentions, rather than perform a mitzva for the wrong reason. The Gemara amends his statement to read that they are equal (The one who performs a sin with good intentions and the one who performs a mitzva with wrong intentions). This is because there is a saying that promotes mitzvot with wrong intentions ‘One should fulfill the commandments even not for the right purpose because hopefully it will lead to fulfilling them for the right purpose’ (Tosafot bring another statement from the gemara Berachot 17a that states if one learns Torah for the wrong purpose i.e. to put down others, then it is better that this person was never born). The example brought here is the comparison of Yael to the matriarchs. Yael seduced Sisra the enemy general in order to weaken him and kill him. The Midrash teaches based on the words in the verse that she had relations with him 7 times in order to weaken him sufficiently, so that she could assassinate him safely. The verse then praises her: “Most blessed of women be Yael, wife of Heber the Kenite, most blessed of women in tents” (Judges 5:24). The Gemara remarks that the women in the bible that are described as being in tents are the matriarchs. Each one of them has a verse connecting them to a tent. They were all great women; however three of them, Sara, Rachel, and Leah, performed a good act with bad intentions. They each gave their handmaiden to their husbands so that he can have children with them; however their intentions were not pure. Each of them did this out of jealousy (Sara was jealous of Hagar, Rachel was jealous of Leah, and Leah was jealous of Rachel’s handmaiden Bilha). The praise in Judges compares Yael who committed a sin by having relations with Sisra, but for good intentions to the matriarchs who performed a good deed but for the wrong reasons.

Finally, one last case is brought in this section, regarding this topic. The evil Balak intended on destroying the Jewish people in the desert. He sacrificed 42 animals with the intention of cursing the people. However, through the wonders of God instead of cursing them he caused them to be blessed. In reward for his performing a good deed even with bad intentions, his descendent was the greatest king ever and promised the eternal dynasty – King David (who descended from Ruth, who was a descendent of Balak the Moabite King).

On Shavuot, we are reminded that Hashem gave Moshe the most valuable possession we have – the Torah. We are also taught to follow all the laws and commandments that God gave us. As presented here, there are several ways to understand what our intentions should be when fulfilling the Mitzvot. We must study the Torah and the works of our rabbis in depth so that we can each come to our own conclusions. It is important to remember that the Mitzvot were given for us to follow, but we should be mindful not only to what we do, but how and why we do it. Hopefully through our proper intentions in fulfilling our God given laws we will correctly fulfill the ideal that God taught Moses over 3000 years ago.

Abraham Rabinovich is author of The Battle for Jerusalem: An Unintended Conquest, a recently published eBook. He arrived in Israel five days before the Six Day War as an American reporter and covered the battle. He subsequently interviewed 300 persons for the print edition of the book, published by the Jewish Publication Society.

If Israel had its way when the Six Day War broke out 46 years ago, Jordanian soldiers might still be walking the ramparts of Jerusalem’s Old City.

With the bulk of its army deployed opposite Egypt in the weeks leading up to the war, Israel sought to avoid another front with Jordan. Hours before his appointment as Defense Minister, Moshe Dayan came up to Jerusalem to make this clear to General Uzi Narkiss, commander of the Jordanian front. The coming war, he said, must be focussed entirely on Egypt. Narkiss was to avoid initiating or escalating a confrontation that would necessitate diversion of forces from the Egyptian front.

The civilian sector, meanwhile, was making its own calculations. Only 19 years before, in the War of Independence, the Israeli half of divided Jerusalem had been subject to a months-long siege by Arab forces that cut it off from the coastal plain. The traumatic memory of severe rationing and heavy shelling compelled the civil authorities in1967 to prepare for the worst.

In Jordanian Jerusalem, euphoria prevailed in anticipation of a swift victory. There was virtually no preparation of the civilian sector for war – neither blood donations, or readying hospitals for mass casualties, or expanding food stocks.

On the Israeli side, thousands of people donated blood during the waiting period. So many showed up for first-aid courses at Magen David Adom that they were shortened from 16 hours to eight. High school boys and girls wearing post office caps and carrying mail sacks could be seen studying house numbers along routes they had taken over.

With virtually all able-bodied men mobilized, 2,000 volunteers turned out each day to dig trenches in areas where there were no shelters. Hundreds were yeshiva students. Residents of the Musrara quarter were startled one Shabbat to see a group of yeshiva students being led to a digging site by two bearded rabbis who took off their jackets and joined the students in the trenches with shovels. Rabbinical authorities had declared the crisis to be one of pikuach nefesh, a matter of life and death when Sabbath labor is permitted. The Tnuva dairy plant received permission from the rabbinate to remain open one Shabbat to lay in a store of hard cheese and milk powder. An elderly rabbi appeared on that day and in a symbolic gesture helped push a milk cart. In a mortar unit, religious squad leaders, including one in hassidic dress, rode unhesitatingly in their platoon leader’s car on the Sabbath to learn their firing positions in case war suddenly broke out.

The woman who normally gave advice on etiquette on Israel Radio’s program for housewives treated the security crisis as sensibly as she handled other social complications. She advised mothers to let their school-age children play where they usually did and to explain to them that if the siren sounded they should go to the nearest shelter where an “auntie” would look after them. The listeners would, of course, be “aunties” to any child that came into their shelters. Small children, she advised, had best be kept in sight.

War began on Monday morning, June 5, with a devastating air force attack on Egyptian air bases at 7:45 a.m. Prime Minister Levi Eshkol sent a message to Jordan’s King Hussein through the UN saying that Israel would not attack Jordan if Jordan held its fire. The king, however, fearing that his own people would rise up if he stayed out of the war, had entered into a military pact with Cairo and turned over command of his front to an Egyptian general. About 10 a.m., a sputtering of rifle and machine gun fire in Jerusalem was followed by the thump of artillery. Jordan had joined the war.

Israeli troops along the line separating the two halves of the city were ordered to return fire only in kind – rifle fire for rifle fire, machine gun for machine gun – and not to escalate. It was hoped that Jordan’s gunfire “salute” would be sufficient to satisfy its honor. But the fire did not abate. Eshkol told his Cabinet that if Israel was forced to counterattack on the ground, it could not keep any territory it captured. Following the 1956 Sinai Campaign Israel had been forced by the superpowers to pull out from Sinai completely and it was assumed that would happen after this war too. “We are going forward,” said Eshkol, “in the knowledge that we will be obliged to pull out from (Jordanian) Jerusalem and the West Bank.”

The decision to counterattack came only after Jordanian troops crossed into Israeli Jerusalem in one sector and Radio Cairo announced the capture of Mount Scopus, an enclave a mile behind Jordanian lines. In an anomaly left over from the War of Independence, Scopus was still secured by a 120-man Israeli garrison, rotated regularly through Jordanian territory in UN-protected convoys. The hill had not in fact been attacked but the radio announcement was seen as a clear statement of intent.

A paratroop brigade commanded by Col. Motta Gur was dispatched to Jerusalem with orders to fight its way through the heart of the Jordanian defenses at Ammunition Hill and link up with Scopus.

Atop the Histadrut Building overlooking northeastern Jerusalem, Dennis Silk, a member of a searchlight team, prepared to go into action as darkness set in. A dreamy, English-born poet, Silk worked as a proofreader at the Jerusalem Post. He recalled a story he had once handled describing a raid on a Syrian position. The Syrians had thrown on a projector that was eliminated by Israeli fire in 20 seconds. Silk saw tracers and explosions lacing every part of the city and knew that once his light went on it would be the most visible target in Jerusalem. An officer on the roof shouted “light” and ducked behind a parapet. Like a man pulling the switch of an electric chair in which he himself was sitting, Silk reached up and yanked the projector handle.

The light’s beam moved slowly across Ammunition Hill and its surroundings as an artillery officer called down precise fire. The commander of the reserve paratroop battalion that would attack there, Lt. Col. Yossi Yaffe, a farmer from the center of the country, told his officers that they would have to cross a minefield before reaching the enemy trenches. They would cross in single file. It was hoped that the artillery barrage had detonated the mines. But if anyone set off a mine, the man behind would step on the fallen man and continue forward. No one would stop to tend the wounded until the bunkers overlooking no-man’s-land had been taken.

No one stepped on a mine but the savage face-to-face battle on Ammunition Hill would last for hours.

Gen. Narkiss, in briefing Col. Gur before the attack, told him to send some of his troops towards the Old City to be in a position to attack it. The government had issued no directive regarding the Old City. In fact, most of the ministers opposed attacking it, particularly the religious ministers. The world, they said, particularly the Vatican, would not permit Jewish custody of the Christian holy places. Interior Minister Moshe Haim Shapira, head of the National Religious Party, was the most outspoken opponent. If the walled city had to be captured for tactical reasons, he said, the best solution was internationalization. “To Jordan we will not return it,” he said. “To the world, yes.” [i]

However, as the troops began to surround the walled city, its reunification came to be seen by the ministers as an historical dictate a Jewish state could not avoid embracing.

By the second night of the war, the Old City was the last Arab position in Jerusalem still holding out. There were 500 soldiers inside the walls as well as numerous armed civilians. Firing had stopped by midnight but loudspeakers mounted on Israeli jeeps could be heard calling on those inside the walls to raise white flags. At 3 a.m., Brigadier Ali Ata, the Jordanian commander, entered the office of Jerusalem Governor Anwar al- Khatib’s next to the Temple Mount. There was no electricity and the two men sat in darkness that was relieved only by the light from falling flares. Ata Ali’s report was blunt. “The battle for Jerusalem is lost,” he said. A relief column from Jericho had been mauled by the Israeli air force. Jordanian brigades in Ramallah and Hebron, to the north and south of Jerusalem, had been ordered to retreat. All but two of his officers had deserted. The troops were demoralized and exhausted and could not be controlled without their officers. He had no more communication with Amman.

In these circumstances, said the brigadier, he had no option but to retreat. “Jerusalem will definitely be assaulted by dawn and my troops are in no condition to resist.” Shortly before dawn he led his men out of Dung Gate, the one gate the Israelis did not control, and trekked through the Judean Desert to Jericho where they crossed the Jordan River. Had Ali Ata chosen to fight in the alleys of the Old City, he may well have been able to delay an Israeli conquest until the UN called for a cease-fire in place later that day.

At 9 a.m., the Israeli Cabinet formally approved the conquest of the Old City. An hour later, a halftrack with Col. Gur aboard crashed through the thick wooden doors of Lion’s Gate and raced onto the Temple Mount. Anticipating a fierce fight, the brigade fanned out through the alleys but met only faint resistance from a few dozen Jordanian soldiers who had remained behind. Three Israeli soldiers were killed in this final skirmish.

But even as the final shots were being fired, the focus of history had shifted to the narrow alley facing the Western Wall where hundreds of troops, soon to be joined by the leaders of the nation, were reclaiming their national heritage.

[i] Jordan in the 1967 War by Samir A. Mutawi, p. 124

Tue, 07 May 2013 at sundown, Jerusalem Day (Hebrew: יום ירושלים‎, Yom Yerushalayim) is an Israeli national holiday commemorating the reunification of Jerusalem and the establishment of Israeli control over the Old City in June 1967. The Chief Rabbinate of Israel declared Jerusalem Day a minor religious holiday to thank God for victory in the Six-Day War and for answering the 2,000-year-old prayer of “Next Year in Jerusalem”.
The day is marked by state ceremonies, memorial services for soldiers who died in the battle for Jerusalem, parades through downtown Jerusalem, reciting the Hallel prayer with blessings in synagogues, and saying the Pesukei Dezimra (psalms) of Sabbath and High Holidays. There are also lectures on Jerusalem-related topics, singing and dancing, and special television programming. Schoolchildren throughout the country learn about the significance of Jerusalem, and schools in Jerusalem hold festive assemblies. The day is also marked in Jewish schools around the world.

On the anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem, RAJEon remembers the special significance of the Holy City, and why it is the capital of the Jewish nation.

Join RAJE as we welcome Yishai Fleisher for an on-the-ground perspective and frank discussion of competing dreams and realities, as well as occupations and liberations, in the holy and historic city of Jerusalem. Yishai will discuss what the term ‘East Jerusalem’ actually refers to. Can Arabs and Jews live together? Is the only solution to create physical barriers that segregate ethnic groups? The ancient and the modern live side by side in Jerusalem. Yishai lives on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem which is an area that was liberated in 1967. This area has not yet been fully incorporated into the Jewish life of Jerusalem and it remains a relatively dangerous place for Jews. The next stage of that liberation is currently taking place as Jewish communities are being formed in the Old City Basin region. The 40,000 tombs that were destroyed under Jordanian occupation are now being renovated. Yishai’s son was born on the Mount of Olives – perhaps part of the resurrection of the dead as this place that was lost to the Jewish people is being re-born. Jews of all backgrounds and languages are coming together like a big cholent pot, and growing to learn to love each other on a day to day basis. Yishai shares his feelings about being in the packed market in Jerusalem on a Friday afternoon as Jews prepare to bring in Shabbat. His stories of both the joy and difficulties of living on the Mt. of Olives give us an insight into the heart of the flourishing of a new Jewish community in an ancient home. BIO for Yishai Fleisher WHEN: Wednesday, May 8th 7-8pm WHERE: RAJE Center – 2915 Ocean Parkway, Brooklyn NY 11235 Dinner and wine will be served Event chairs: Rebecca Buaynovksy, Denis Kay, Lyubov Rudoy, Vlad Girshman   Join our FACEBOOK GROUP https://www.facebook.com/events/631605416869628/