Words From Rabbi White

DEAR MITPALLELIM,

I trust that you had a good season of the yamim tovim. For someone like myself who hardly ever drove across the Decarie to Cote St Luc after Covid struck, I had quite a busy week: 

I spent the first days of Sukkot with my son and family in Boca Raton, Florida, then flew with them to Passaic, NJ, for shabbat; and then drove back to my daughter's house in Teaneck for the end of Yom Tov. [For the time being, my son has to maintain 2 homes, as his business is in Florida, but his children go to school in NJ, which is also where his wife works.]

For whatever reason, all three shuls where I davened keep their thermostats to produce a very low temperature. 

On Simchat Torah, I was honoured with Chatan Bereishis. At first, I demurred, as, being the new boy on the block, I felt it to be inappropriate.  However, upon reflection, I did accept, for I felt that the reading of Bereishis should inspire me, 'im yirtseh Hashem, for a new beginning.

*****

We enter the New year with high expectations and positive resolutions: we shall make every effort to have a good rapport with everyone. [Whenever we conclude the Amidah, we ask HaShem to watch us that we shouldn't say anything inappropriate.] And yet, in the very first parasha of the year, we read of blaming and fighting. HaShem asks Adam: why did you eat the fruit? Adam blames his wife for having given it to him, and then he blames Hashem for having given him the wife! ['asher natata `imadi] And his wife blames the snake!

That is followed by a case of fratricide, as Cain kills his brother Abel. According to one midrash, it all stemmed from an intellectual argument about reward and punishment in the world to come! Finally, as we shall come to the conclusion of the Book of Genesis, in another few months, we shall see the reconciliation of the sons of Jacob.

May this be a good, healthy year for all! tizku le-shanim tovot, ne`imot, u-veri'ot

Rabbi Menahem White