Hey!

I finally finished school this week! YAY! Happy Summer!

So this week’s parsha is Parshat Shelach: – The parsha begins with Moshe sending twelve spies into Israel to come back with a report on the land before the Jews enter it. Ten of the spies return with a bad report, saying that there are giants dwelling in Israel and the Jews will never defeat them. Only two of the spies, Yehoshua and Calev, come back with a good and truthful report, but the Jews believe the majority. Hashem becomes mad at the Jews and punishes them that except for Yehoshua and Calev, all of these Jews will die in the desert. Also, instead of the short journey from Egypt to Israel, Hashem tells Moshe to turn back because the Jews will have to survive the desert for forty years.

–          We then read about “Hafreshet Challah”, a mitzvah to give a piece of your bread dough to the kohen (priest). Yet today, since we have no Mishkan (tabernacle), before baking our challah, we take a piece of dough, say a blessing, and burn it.

 

–          Lastly, we learn about the mitzvah of tzitzit, wearing a garment with fringes on its four corners.

 

Now for the Dvar Torah: Burning part of our dough is something strange. What is the purpose of it? We burn the piece of dough as a gift to Hashem. But does Hashem need our gifts? Why do we offer gifts to Him?

The reason is not specifically for Hashem, but rather for us! We should always remember that everything, even the simplest piece of bread, comes from Hashem, who controls every little detail of our life. In order to remember this, we also do other things, such as Shmita and Yovel (which I mentioned in my post on Parshat Behar-Bechukotai) which are years in which we do not work our land.

Hashem is like the main role in the show of our life, and we must always remember that! What are you thankful to Hashem for creating everything?

<3 Tamar

P.S. New question mark this week!