Guest Rambler Robert Rosenthal
Saturday's Walk to Shul
It was a great day out. I was looking forward to meeting the group of guys and getting spiritually energized. I was also grateful that we were now doing services as a community at Congregation JFX twice per month. It really struck me how uplifting this all is and how fortunate that I’ve been able to now get to a place in my life where all of this has real meaning.
As we got to the Parsha for the week the Rabbi asked us a very pertinent question: Is it more important to follow the letter of the law or the spirit of the law?
For a very large part of my adult life my it was always a question of how to follow only the letter of the law and not the spirit of the law. And to be quite honest, I probably would have needed Michael Goldberg, my lawyer friend, to defend me on not following the letter of the law.
As we delved into the Torah portion it really illustrated to me how the “spirit of the law” is really also so important. From the positive story of the Jews wanting to celebrate Passover, even when they didn't have to, to the negative story of Miriam's consequence when she spoke negatively about her brother Moshe.
So as we look at our own lives and our own spiritual journeys, this "spirit of the law" idea is certainly very poignant.
As a group, we're embarking on our one-year anniversary from the time that we all traveled to Israel on our men's JWRP mission with JFX. Since then we have all been participating every evening for a 7-minute conference to re-inspire ourselves with Torah study. We’re more and more diligent about Shabbat and about observing the Jewish holidays, we feel strongly about the importance of our children spending time in Israel, and I can really point to so many times and places where we are trying to bring more of the spirit of the law into our lives.
I also feel that in a lot of ways the 8 of us who traveled to Israel together encourage each other in an incredibly positive way. When Michael (Greff) sends out the email reminder about coming to synagogue, it really pushes me to make sure I’m there and see if I can get others to show up.
And all of this is still a daily challenge, but at least for me I've been provided the proper context and it’s all much more meaningful and I THANK YOU ALL OF MY "ISRAEL BROTHERS" FOR PROVIDING SUCH A POSITIVE IMPACT ON MY LIFE AND THAT OF MY FAMILY.
Shabbat Shalom,
Robert Rosenthal
