Collective Joy (Reeh 5779)

The Rabbi Sacks Legacy

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

Religion & Spirituality

4.8 • 601 Ratings

🗓️ 28 August 2019

⏱️ 11 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

"I am delighted to share with you the newest cycle of Covenant & Conversation essays on the weekly parsha (Torah reading). I am particularly excited to introduce a Family Edition accompaniment to this year's series which has two main aims. First, to present the ideas in Covenant & Conversation in a simplified way, making my ideas more accessible to children and teenagers. Second, to act as an educational resource for parents, teachers and anyone else to engage their children and students in meaningful and stimulating conversations about the parsha." Main edition: rabbisacks.org/collective-joy-reeh-5779/ Family edition: rabbisacks.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/CandC-Family-Reeh-FINAL.pdf

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to another episode of Covenant and Conversation with me, Rabbi Sachs.
0:14.6	In each new episode, we'll explore a Jewish idea from the Hebrew Bible based on the terror reading of the week.
0:27.5	Ray, collective joy.
0:30.7	If we were to ask what key word epitomizes the society Jews were to make in the
0:36.7	promised land, several concepts would come to
0:39.3	mind, justice, compassion, reverence, respect, holiness, responsibility, dignity, loyalty.
0:47.2	Surprisingly, though, a quite different word figures centrally in Moshehrabenu's speeches in Deuteronomy. It's a word that appears only once.
0:57.6	In each of the other books of the Torah, Bereshishmos, Veyikra and Bermidbo, it appears only once.
1:04.0	It appears in Devarim 12 times, seven of them in our parasha of Ra'ei. The word is Simcha, joy. It's a very unexpected word.
1:17.7	The story of the Israelites thus far has not been a joyous one. It's been marked by suffering on
1:23.4	the one hand, rebellion and dissension on the other. Yet Moshe makes it eminently clear that joy is what the life of faith in the land of promise is about.
1:33.9	Here are the seven instances in this parisher.
1:38.2	Number one, the central sanctuary, initially Shiloh and eventually Jerusalem.
1:42.6	And there, in the presence of the Lord your God, you and your family shall eat and rejoice in everything you've put your hand to.
1:50.1	Jerusalem in the temple.
1:51.3	And there you shall rejoice before the Lord your God.
1:54.3	Sacred food that's only to be eaten in Jerusalem.
1:57.3	Eat them in the presence of the Lord your God at the place the Lord your God will choose,
2:02.0	and you rejoice before the Lord your God in everything you'll put your hand to.
2:06.7	Misescini, the second tithe. You silver to buy whatever, you like cattle, sheep, wine, etc.
2:13.5	Then you and your household shall eat there in the presence of the Lord your God and rejoice.
2:19.0	The festival of Shvot and rejoice before the Lord your God.
	...

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