The Month of Sivan 5758
May 26 - June 24, 1998

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Te'omim / Twins | Giving Yourself | If Cars

When you love someone like yourself, the thought of parting is unbearable. It's as if the two of you are the same person. But what happens when you have to part? How can you remain together even though separated by time and space?

When you give something of yourself to that person -something that is not peripheral to you but which represents your very core, your very essence - you are never separate from that person. You travel together no matter how far apart you go.

When people wish to be joined, they create an expression of that desire. In Hebrew - a bris (covenant).

When the Torah speaks about a bris, it uses the expression to "cut" (likros).

Ostensibly, "cutting a bris" is a contradiction in terms. A bris is a symbol of unity, a pact, a covenant, an expression of wanting to be joined together. Cutting is just the opposite. Why should cutting be an appropriate term for the embodiment of the desire to be one?

When two people want to be joined together they give each other something of their essence. They 'cut' from their very selves that part and they give it to the other. That's why establishing a bris - the ultimate expression of the desire to be joined together - is called 'cutting' a bris.

When Hashem 'cut' a pact with Avraham, He made that bris on the part of the body which expresses the essence of a person; the place from which flows the life-force and progeny. Avraham took that essential part of himself which expressed his very continuation - the symbol of everything he would ever be through his children's children - and he gave it to Hashem.

A bris needs two sides. What, then, did Hashem give to Avraham? What was the gift of His essence which was to bind the Jewish People to Hashem in an everlasting pact? Hashem gave Avraham His Will, His desire that it would be only Avraham's offspring who would be the agency through which He would direct the events of the world. The entire future of the world would be orchestrated through the progeny of Avraham.

The Torah is called a bris. That was the pact cut at Sinai.

Hashem, the Torah and the Jewish People are one. The Torah is the Will of Hashem. The will is the expression of the self. When Hashem gave the Torah to the Jewish People at Sinai, He 'cut' from Himself His essence and gave it to the Jewish People. And what did the Jewish People give? They gave themselves. They said "We will do it and we will hear it." We will give ourselves exclusively to Hashem, to be His people.

If Cars

• This Month's Sign - Rabbi M. Glazerson;
• Giving Yourself - The Vilna Gaon, Perush L'Sefer HaYetzirah;
• If Cars - Yalkut Shimoni

SEASONS OF THE MOON is written by Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair and edited by Rabbi Moshe Newman.
Designed and Produced by the Office of Communications - Rabbi Eliezer Shapiro, Director
Production Design: Eli Ballon

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