An Understanding Heart

  Thoughts on the a Post-Flood  Program for Today By (Rabbi)Shlomo Yaffe All the Torah speaks to us as new and relevant in every moment and every situation In this week’s Torah portion Noah -upon emerging from the ark into a world that would need to learn to transcend the errors of the Antediluvian Epoch  is instructed upon the fundamental ethical laws that apply to all Human beings -given by G-d – the Noahide Laws Maimonides writes “Moreover, by Divine ordinance, Moshe, our teacher, commanded us to sway all human beings to accept the commandments enjoined upon the descendants of Noach. “ This means that every Jew is responsible to encourage all denizens of the world to act in accordance with the Seven Noachide Commandments and their associated values. In the olden days there was great potential danger involved in this type of activity -- for it could be misconstrued as an attempt to proselytize. In our generation, however, there is no danger in this respect As Jews ...

Question: Which is the most important week  of this year?   Answer: This week, the week after all the Holidays   Before you run to choose in which of the 86 Jewish calendars you have received from various worthy charities you want to look this day up, relax — I'll tell you which holiday falls on week . None. This week -  the week after a packed, 23-day flood of special days is also the most important week of this year   Picture the launch of a space vehicle being sent to explore some distant reach of the universe on a journey never before attempted. The countdown is over, a button is pressed, and — hopefully — away it goes, to where silicon has never gone before. Countless thousands of top-quality man-hours have been invested in this project by people who are, indeed, rocket scientists. Yet, if when the button is pressed, the rocket explodes or otherwise malfunctions, all that genius is for naught. The button does not require an engineer to press it — it is such...