“The mouse is not the thief – the hole is the thief!” (Gittin 45a).
One lesson I take from this is that when fellow Jews seek nourishment in foreign spiritual pastures, I don’t blame them because they didn’t make the hole in the wall. Their formative Jewish experiences were usually of a culture, an ethnicity, a heritage, a tradition, an identity. But not of a rich and compelling path of personal spiritual growth and connection to God.
“I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob…” (Exodus 6:3). This seems to be a very straightforward and unambiguous statement by God to Moses.
“You don’t learn by having faith. You learn by questioning, by challenging, by re-examining everything you’ve ever believed. And yet, all this is a matter
“You have enough. Circle the mountain and turn to the north” (Deuteronomy 2:3). Rabbi Shlomo Ephraim Luntschitz, in his commentary Kli Yakar, spins this verse
