A word of Torah:    
       A teaching on the Torah portion of Genesis by the Hasidic master Moshe Chaim Ephraim of Sedelikov:  “It …is well known that the written Torah and the Oral Torah are one and that there is no separation between them at all. It is impossible to have the one without the other, for what is stored up in the written Torah is revealed by the Oral Torah. The written Torah without the Oral Torah is not a complete Torah and is like half a Torah. Until the sages came and expounded (darash) on the Torah and revealed the hidden things…The wholeness of the written Torah is together with the Oral Torah. Therefore, one…who disagrees with even one saying of the sages is considered as though they denied the Torah of Moshe our teacher. (Sanhedrin 99a)…Thus, in every generation, its expounders complete the Torah. Because the Torah is expounded in each generation according to what is necessary in that generation, and what is the root of the soul of that generation. Therefore, God opens the eyes of the wise of each generation to the holy Torah. One who denies this is also like one who denies the whole Torah.”
        At first, his teaching sounds very traditional. It affirms that there are two parts of Torah, the written and the oral. Both are necessary—with only one we have only half a Torah. He asserts the traditional belief that rejecting anything in the tradition is equivalent to denying the validity of all of Torah.
        Yet, he goes on to say that the process of expounding the Torah is an ongoing process. Each generation needs to participate in this process because “the root of the soul” changes from one generation to the next. The spiritual needs and the challenges of the world change and the understanding of the Torah needs to respond to the times. He then states that denial of this notion of the ongoing expounding of Torah is denying the validity of all of Torah.
        Our challenge is to seek the root of the soul of today’s Torah. What aspects need to be emphasized and explored, such as climate change, income inequality, and the digital revolution, and what aspects should be minimized such as paradigms of hierarchy and duality?
        What are the Ten Commandments for our time and what are the practices that can turn those principles into action? Here is my list of the moment:

• We are meant to do good in the world and thereby continue the work of creation.
• The Torah enables us to see through the delusions and desires that get in the way of being free.
• We should treat everyone as another image of God.
• We desecrate God’s name when we pollute this world, God’s creation.
• We strive for awareness in order to cultivate such inner qualities as gratitude and satisfaction.
• Walking in God’s ways means we must make our values real through action.
• Idolatry is claiming your religion is the only true way, and all other ways are false. God is infinite and ultimately unknowable.
• We should pursue justice all our days. Our goal is a caring society.
• When you make a mistake, you can fix it (teshuva).
• Study.

What are yours? (feel invited to send them to me at mjstrassfeld@gmail.com)