Words From Rabbi White

As I write these lines, the big news in the Jewish world is the return from captivity of Edan Alexander. His family lives in Tenafly, NJ, a town just about 15 minutes from my town Teaneck.

We pray for the immediate return of the others.

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The word “‘emor” is the imperative form of the verb meaning “to SPEAK.”

There is a powerful midrash, to which I have referred in previous years, that says if you want to know why Saul, the first King of Israel, met such a terrible death, (as described in the beginning of II Samuel) and did not merit to see his descendants become kings, just SPEAK to the kohanim. They will explain to you.

Why ask the kohanim? Because Saul had listened to the gossip of Mr. Doeg the Edomite, as a result of which he had almost all of the priests of the city of Nov killed. (See I Samuel chapter 22. Doeg had told Saul that he had seen David in city of Nov, talking to the Kohen Achimelech. Saul assumed that David had been conspiring against him with Achimelech. So, Saul had all of the Kohanim of Nov killed. Only one escaped: Achimelech’s son Evyatar.

In last week’s parasha, we read that a person should not be a RAKHIL, which means a gossiper.

Now, most of us are familiar with the idea that Hebrew verbs have three root letters. However, there is an approach that in scholarly language is called “bi-radical,” that is, there are only 2 root letters.

If so, the root letters for the word for gossip are KL, which in Hebrew means “to destroy,” such as in the word “leKhalot.” For the gossiper, with his/her inconsiderate and mindless banter, can destroy the reputation of another.

As the old rabbinic maxim goes, “life and death are in the hand of the tongue.”

[I elaborated on this point in last week’s “blog,” which, to no one’s fault, was not in last week’s bulletin. It can be found, however, on the shul website.]

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On Sunday, 13 iyyar, Maggie Cohen observed yahrzeit for her father Yaakov Cohen.

May the neshama have aliya.

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Shabbat shalom, Shalom `al Yisrael

Rabbi Menahem White, Chevra Shaas