Writing
Weekly Torah Portion
Insights into Judaism
Months of the Year
Weekly Torah Portion
Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair's weekly Torah portion insights, published on the Ohr Somayach website, offer a treasure trove of wisdom that has inspired readers for nearly three decades. These writings delve into the timeless lessons of the Torah, weaving together profound spiritual insights, contemporary relevance, and Rabbi Sinclair's signature blend of depth and clarity.
Spanning more than 30 years, this extensive archive serves as a rich resource for those seeking to connect more deeply with Jewish thought, philosophy, and the eternal teachings of the Torah. Whether you're discovering these writings for the first time or returning to them for continued inspiration, each piece promises a journey into the heart of Torah wisdom.
Weekly Torah Portion →
Seasons of the Moon Archives →
Insights into Judaism
The world in which we live is a very round place.
A chicken's egg, the human eye, the spawn of tadpoles, an oyster, a grain of sand, the stem of a flower, the suction pad of a squid, the rings of a tree trunk, the moon and the sun - the world itself.
About 250 years ago, way before Starbucks reinvented coffee as the drink of the age, my parents bought me a Pavoni espresso machine for my thirtieth birthday.
Although the early history of the cinema is far from clear, around the year 1900 film evolved from a penny arcade amusement into a sophisticated language capable of narrative and emotion.
The Month of Nissan
Society has no truer mirror than its advertising.
What motivates people to put their hands in their pockets and pull out their hard-earned cash must appeal to their innermost desires. And what someone wants, what he truly desires - is who he is.
Imagine a world where, when you turn on the light, darkness shines from the lamp. Imagine a world where, when you close the shutters and nothing can penetrate from the outside, the room would be "pitch white." Imagine a world where darkness is not the absence of light, but light is the absence of darkness.
Imagine you're a cartoon artist. The character you're drawing has a question on his mind. You draw his furrowed brow. Small drops of perspiration start to leap from his forehead depicting his mental gymnastics as he wrestles with the question. Suddenly the answer pops into his head. How do you draw this? You draw a lightbulb going on in his head.
You might have thought that Rosh Hashana, the first of Tishrei, is the beginning of the Jewish Year, however the Torah calls Nissan the first of the months, "This month shall be for you the beginning of the months..." (Shemot 12:1)
The Month of Iyar
The computing power inside your skull vastly exceeds any supercomputer. However, for the past half-century, neuroscientists have suggested that the brain achieves its phenomenal performance in a way fundamentally similar to electronic computers. Thinking takes place through the aggregate action of billions of simple elements - cells called neurons - that are connected in an extremely complicated way.
A holy light burns in the lights of Chanuka. A light as old as the world itself. We may not use the Chanuka lights to illuminate our homes. Their radiance may not be used for any practical purpose at all. We may only look into the light itself. We may only gaze into its depths. But why can't we use the lights of Chanuka for some other sacred purpose?
In a matter of decades, we have seen a revolution in communications. Now, only the speed of light limits our ability to communicate a thought, a picture, a sound, or a sentence from one side of the world to the other, and beyond.
Most people think of life as a trip through a treasure-house of experiences. "Living it up" is synonymous with living itself: white-water rafting, paragliding, sipping margaritas around the pool, seeing the Mona Lisa or the pyramids or climbing Everest - that's what life is all about! This view of life sees existence as a compendium of possibilities, and he who dies with the most toys - or the most trophies - wins.
The formation of the Jewish People started on the eve of the Exodus in the first month, Nissan, and culminated with the giving of the Torah at Sinai in the third month of Sivan. This nation-building process is symbolized in the progression of the first three astrological symbols: Aries, the lamb, symbolizes the unity of the group.
The Month of Sivan
Apart from the giving of the Torah, Shavuot marks two other major events in Jewish history: the birth and the passing from this world of King David. King David is not just a king of Israel. He is the king. "David - Melech Yisrael - lives and endures." Throughout history, the line of David is the hidden line of kingship that survives to eventually emerge in Mashiach.
We are living in the middle of a revolution.
A few decades ago, the idea that you could link any computer in the world with any other computer was no more than the twinkle in the eye of a few gifted programmers. And today, that twinkle, with all its benefits and problems, is an everyday reality.
If we know anything -
it is to know
that we know
something.
"Hear, O Israel! Hashem our God, Hashem is One."
The Shema is the basic credo of the Jewish people. It is our twice-daily declaration of God's Unity and the last words to leave our lips when we pass from this world. But why is it that we say, "Hear, O Israel"? What are we supposed to hear?
High Noon. The Desert. Hot air rising on the horizon like a cobra under a snake charmer's spell.
In this heat, everything floats. Everything shimmers, melts, and re-forms in front of your eyes.
Last time I was in America I went for a walk around the Warner Brothers store. It was amazing. All of my childhood memories come to life. Original animation cells of Lady and the Tramp (a mere $500).
When you love someone very deeply, the thought of parting is very difficult; but if you have to part, how can you still be together though separated by time and space?
Some three and a half thousand years ago, a little-known Middle Eastern people gathered around a small mountain in a trackless wilderness and underwent an experience that changed the history of the world.
The first two astrological signs are both represented by animals: Taleh (Aries) the Lamb, and Shor (Taurus) the Bull. It is only with this month's sign - Te'omim (Gemini), the Twins - that we find a sign that is represented by Man.
The Month of Tammuz
Louis XIV once asked Pascal for one single piece of evidence of the existence of God. Pascal replied with four words: "The Jews, your Majesty."
It doesn't take the vision of a prophet to recognize that the continued existence of the Jewish people in a hostile world - "a lamb among seventy wolves" - is a unique puzzle that demands a solution.
THE IVORY TOWER
my ivory tower
turns out to be
a concrete blockhouse.
can I break down the walls
or will I just keep printing
the same old stationery?
The Ivory Tower.
The Ivory Tower.
Cognitive dissonance is a kind of psychological armor that we build up to ward off information that we don't want to hear. According to cognitive dissonance theory, we seek harmony among our beliefs. When there is conflict between belief and behavior, we change something to eliminate the dissonance. We could change our behavior to accord with our beliefs, but usually, we change our attitude to accommodate our behavior. It's much less work.
At 451 degrees Fahrenheit, paper ignites spontaneously.
So wrote Ray Bradbury in his futuristic novel Fahrenheit 451. The novel's main character, Montag, is a "fireman." Unlike the firemen we're used to, however, Montag's job is not to put out fires - it's to start them. Montag's job is to burn books.
If there is one food in which the Epicurean takes delight above all others, it is the crab. The sign of the Crab (Sartan/Cancer) denotes a time of the year when the most extreme aspects of the physical world are most attractive. The crab symbolizes being given over to the pleasures of the flesh. The crab is most at home in water. And water flows as it desires. The heavenly body that rules Cancer is the moon, and the moon's pull on the earth greatly influences the earth's largest body of water - the sea - the native home of the crab.
The Month of Av
After witnessing the trial of Adolf Eichmann in 1963, hannah Arendt coined a new concept: "the banality of evil" ("Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil").
"The world is falling to pieces, and Adams and Weston are taking pictures of rocks!" - Henri Cartier-Bresson during World War II
It used to be a common misconception that the camera never lies. Now, digital technology allows the manipulation of a photograph so that virtually anything is possible.
The lion is the king of the jungle. He brooks no opposition; he demands to rule alone. The Lion connotes pride. The collective noun used to describe a group of lions is a 'pride of lions.' The spies who were sent to the Land of Israel and who returned on the ninth day of this month, suffered from this fatal flaw.
The Month of Elul
When Christopher Columbus set sail for the New World in 1492, many people thought he would fall off the edge of the earth and vanish into oblivion. The cosmography of the fifteenth century held that the world was a flat disc. Nowadays, this idea seems childish. however, in one respect, they were right: the physical world has an end.
New Year's Eve must be the loneliest night of the year.People jumping up and down imbibing vast amounts of alcohol in a frenzy of unspontaneous merriment. Painted faces contorted in expressions of forced hysterical laughter. At twelve o'clock everyone joining hands and slurring their way through a Highland ballad with obscure lyrics. And then, the morning after... New Year's was always a bit of a mystery to me.
The month of Elul is the time of return. A time where we try to sensitize ourselves to our mistakes and work on rectifying them. Elul is a time of preparation. Preparing for the day on which the whole world is to be judged - Rosh Hashana.
The Month of Tishrei
The knowledge of my own existence is not an intellectual thing.
Nobody has to convince me that i exist, and no one can persuade me that i am not here. Knowing that i exist lies above and beyond any other knowledge that i have.
A shadow on the ground.
Look at the shadow. Itself without substance, ephemeral, yet the shadow reveals the existence of something somewhere else.
In October 1608, the national government in The hague debated two patent applications - that of hans Lipperhey of Middelburg and that of Jacob Metius of Alkmaar. The application was for a device for "seeing faraway things as though nearby." it consisted of a convex and concave lens in a tube that magnified objects three or four times.
Anyone who is prepared to admit that he lived long enough to remember the sixties will recall a unique period in modern history. It seemed for a few years that on the eve of destruction, a great era of idealism was dawning. There was something in the air…
If you own an MP4 or a CD player, try the following experiment: Turn up the volume until it won't go any further. (Before you do this, take out the disk - this experiment will not work if you have perforated eardrums.)
Lift up your eyes and look into the distance. What do you see? What do you see when you gaze at the furthest point that the eye can see - when you look at distance itself? The color blue.
Miles and miles of endless blue.
Turn on a radio and listen to some "Jewish music." it sounds about as Jewish as Led Zeppelin wearing tefillin.
If the Romans did one thing right, they made great roads. Roman roads are still in use to this day. Why were the Romans so interested in building such long-lasting and straight roads? We live in a world where we increasingly "let our fingers do the walking."
"And the voice of the Shofar grew stronger and stronger..." (Shemot 19:19). The final shofar blast of Rosh haShana.
The seventh is always holy. The seventh day is Shabbat, the seventh year is Shemitta, the Sabbatical Year. So too, the seventh month Tishrei is sanctified with more commands and festivals than any other month.
The Month of Cheshvan
If you want someone to be quiet, if you want them to listen, you raise your finger to your lips and say, "Shh!"
Rabbi Samson Raphael hirsch once wrote: "The catechism of the Jew is his calendar."
Akrav is a water sign. Cheshvan is the time of year when rain is plentiful in Israel.
The Month of Kislev
All of us experience moments of poetry.
They may come from events in our personal lives - the reuniting of long-lost family, a birth, a death. Or these moments of inspiration may spring from this world of teeming splendor, from our sense of joy and wonder at the creation.
Little children find it very difficult to do things by themselves. They need a constant helping hand, constant encouragement. They can be bold, but only when daddy is close by. When he's out of sight, tears quickly replace bravado until once again they feel the hand that comforts.
Six fifteen a.m. Avenue of the Stars, Hollywood, California. fifteen years since I drove this road. A long fifteen years. In the quiet light, I see two concrete monoliths hidden away from the road, looming above the trees. hours ago these concrete monsters, giant Hollywood sound stages, had already risen from their slumber. In the dawn glow, they seem more formidable than I remember them.
The dreidel.
A children's game, played in the firelight of a cold winter night, the menora silently glowing in the window... The dreidel. four sides spinning around the still point in the turning circle; spinning so fast that its sides blur into nothingness... The dreidel. So seemingly insignificant - and yet this little dreidel contains the story of the Jewish people; the history of the whole world.
Kislev's sign is the Bow (Keshet, in Hebrew).
At the beginning of Kislev the first rainbow was seen after the Flood. The rainbow symbolizes the pact that God made with Noach never again to destroy the world with water.
A holy light burns in the lights of Chanuka. A light as old as the world itself. We may not use the Chanuka lights to illuminate our homes. Their radiance may not be used for any practical purpose at all. We may only look into the light itself. We may only gaze into its depths. But why can't we use the lights of Chanuka for some other sacred purpose?
The Month of Tevet
Times Square, new York City. Piccadilly Circus, london. le Champs elys�es, Paris. A million watts of electricity turning night into day. We live in a society that prides itself on being twenty-four-hour, round-the-clock. We never close. Our culture has blurred the distinction between the two halves of the day so that, on a social level, night has become day.
Why are artists the most selfish people in the world? The petulant behavior of rock stars is legion. The solitary painter locked in his garret creating his masterpiece with uneaten meals piling up around him is a well-worn clich�. Bad temper and tantrums are not only tolerated, but are often mistaken for a yardstick of talent.
If you take a reel of movie film and unwind it, you'll find that it consists of hundreds and thousands of still pictures. The whole magic of the cinema is based on a peculiarity of the human brain. When presented with separate images in rapid succession, the brain ceases to discern them as separate images, rather it links them all together.
Take a look at any horoscope and you'll see that the astrological year always begins with Aries.
Why? logically, shouldn't the astrological year commence at the same time as the solar year? Why isn't G'di, Capricorn - the sign in which the first of January falls - the first sign of the year?
The Philistines are the nation associated with the sign of the goat (g'dee).
The Month of Shevat
If we were to compare the seasons of the year to the ages of man, which age would winter represent?"Old age," you would say. Winter connotes the chill of rapidly receding years and ultimate death. Winter's snow covers the world with a white and aging head. In every language, winter symbolizes old age. every language, that is, except one. In hebrew, the word for "winter," choref, can also connote the hidden burgeoning of youth into maturity.
More than anything, life is about distinguishing the essence from the nonsense.This world is no more than the wrapping that conceals a vast gift. The wrapping is important - you can only get to the gift through the wrapping - but it's all too easy to get sidetracked by the beautiful wrapping and throw away the gift.
Don't you sometimes feel like your life is written in stone - that you can't change? Sometimes, we want to go back to a more innocent time - a time when we were pure and our hearts unsullied. But we feel we can't break the mold we're stuck in. We've created a treadmill from past bad decisions, and now we seem doomed to run like a rat around and around...visiting and revisiting all the mistakes we've ever made.
The sign of the Jewish People is Aquarius the Pitcher. Just as the purpose of a pitcher is to be a vessel to carry water, so the purpose of the Jewish People is to be the "Water Carrier" - the vessel of the living waters of the Torah.
The Month of Adar
There was a stand-up comic in LA who used to say, "Comedy is dead. What you're laughing at is ridicule."Ridicule is a lot easier than comedy - and it takes a lot less talent.
I remember a photograph on the cover of a book. A photograph of a road. A very long, very straight road, the kind that you find in the heartland of America.
A grogger isn't the feeling in your head the day after a successful Purim.
A grogger (or gregger, or gragger) is Yiddish for a rattle of the type favored by soccer supporters.
When Sir Donald Wolfit, the last of the English actor/managers, was lying on his deathbed, one of his young actors said to him: “Sir Donald, after a life so filled with success and fame, dying must be hard…”
Some 2,360 years ago in Persia, when Haman plotted the genocide of the Jewish People, he consulted the stars to see which month would be the most propitious to execute his murderous plan.
