AMIDA (Berakha 17) Prayers or sacrifices?

This blessing, birkat ha'aboda, inaugurates the third section of the Amida known as hoda-a, 'gratitude'.

Here, we express our gratitude to God for having chosen us and giving us the privilege to serve Him.

 Serving God includes keeping His commandments and worshiping Him. God's worship consists of two elements: prayers (tefila) and sacrifices (qorbanot).

In this blessing we first ask God to accept us and our prayers:

May You, HaShem our God, accept Your people Israel and attend to their prayers Then, we beseech God to restore His House, the Bet haMiqdash, where we will offer our sacrifices the way our ancestors did two thousand years ago.

And restore the Holy service to the Sanctuary of Your houseNow, in the Bet haMiqdash, there were sacrifices and also prayers. As it is written in Yesha'ayahu (56:7) "For My house [the Temple in Jerusalem] will be called a House of Prayer for all nations" , After the destruction of the second Bet haMiqdash, 68 CE,  prayers replaced the sacrifices. This is not to say that during the time of the Bet haMiqdash people did not pray. Actually, it seems that at the individual level very little changed after the Bet haMiqdash.  The main change took place in the public services: the establishment of minyan, public prayers, bet hakeneset, etc.

Accordingly, we convey our aspiration to offer again both, our sacrifices and prayers.

So that You will accept lovingly the sacrifices given by the people of Israel and their prayers,

God chose our ancestors out of unconditional love (see Debarim 7,7). Now, we ask God to consider us too, worthy of that privilege. To love us as He loved our fathers. To accept our prayers as He accepted the prayers of our ancestors. Even though we might not be meritorious as our fathers, who were able to serve God in the Bet haMiqdash. That is the meaning of the next statement:

And You, with Your great mercy, care for us and accept us...

Finally, we express our wish to see in our own days the return of God's presence to Zion and Jerusalem, to embrace us again as the People He has chosen, to serve Him.

and may our eyes see Your return to Zion..... AMEN. 

SHABUOT: 5 customs in 1 word

Tonight we will celebrate Shabu'ot, the day we stood at the foot
of Mt. Sinai to be appointed as God's chosen people and receive the Tora.
 
There are 5 Minhaguim (customs) that most Jews follow on Shabu'ot. To remember them, keep in mind the Hebrew word

A /HA/ R/ I/ T .  א ח ר י ת

 A: Azharot or Aqdamot. During Shabu'ot we read these beautiful poems which contain the 248 positive commandments and the 365 Biblical prohibitions. The word azharot means warnings, i.e., rules, precepts. (also 613= אזהרת).

  

HA: Halab (milk), like any other Yom Tob during Shabu'ot we should have a meal with meat and wine to fulfill the Mitzva of simha (material happiness). Still, the custom is that some of the meals are dairy, which is tradition particular to Shabu'ot, and it is not followed in any other Holiday.

 

R : Ruth. During Shabu'ot we study Megilat Ruth. Among the many reasons for reading the story of Ruth is that when Ruth converted to Judaism she accepted the Tora upon herself. Likewise, in Shabu'ot we celebrate our acceptance of the Tora and becoming the Jewish nation.  Another reason for reading Megilat Ruth is that from Ruth we learn the dependency of the written Tora on the Oral Tora, because by the letter of the Tora, Ruth, a Moabite, could not have been accepted as a convert. 

I : Yereq (Greens). Many communities have the custom to decorate their Synagogues with plants, flowers or tree branches to remember Mt. Sinai. We still treasure in our collective memory that when the Tora was given to us, Mt. Sinai was green and blossoming with flowers. In the Persian tradition Shabu'ot is known as mo'eed gol (the festival of flowers).

 T : Tiqun (Reparation). The custom is to stay awake studying Tora during the night of Shabu'ot (Tuesday night until Wednesday morning) to repair for our ancestors who went to sleep the night of the sixth of Sivan instead of waiting awake for the giving of the Tora, which was taking place the following morning.

Can we lie to avoid embararsement?

The Tora instructs us to stick to the truth and stay away from lies. In some exceptional cases, however, the Rabbis acknowledged that it was permitted or even recommended to withhold the true facts (see this).  The Rabbis also considered that when a person is faced with an embarrassing situation, he is also allowed to change the story.

For example, if a person goes to see a doctor, a therapist or visits the hospital, and he meets a friend or a neighbor, and he does not wish others to know about his problem, he is allowed to withhold the truth and conceal the real reason for his visiting to the hospital. 

It is important to remember that all cases in which we are allowed to withhold the truth are situations where our narrative does not affect, damages or hurts somebody else. If there are two partners in a business, for example, and one of them made an embarrassing mistake that somehow affects the company, he can not conceal his mistake from his partner adducing embarrassment. 

Also, a son or a daughter should not lie to his or her parents (or teachers) when they made a mistake, in an attempt to avoid embarrassment. Parents are supposed to know (and accept!) that a son or a student might fail or make a mistake. And adults are there to guide and teach their children on how to learn from those mistakes.   By the way, it is very important is for parents to praise our children when, despite the embarrassment, they have the courage to tell us the truth. When children find a mature, confident and empathetic parent who helps the child processing his embarrassing experience in a positive way, that child will have no reason to hide his future mistakes from his parents and will be in a better position to avoid repeating them in the future.