Rabbi Minkowicz Weekly Torah Lesson Parsha Eikev 5781

welcome to this week's torah lesson this week's torah portion is pashlos akev the question of the week is how important is meditation in judaism so in this week's torah portion torah begins and it says tishmund the rabbit says that in this verse you learn about the importance of connecting to hashem with thought speech and action tishmun is thought who smart them is speech and while sees them as action now action we know you need to do the mitzvot physically do them speech there are many myths posts that you have to say the words of the mitzvot so where is the need for thought so the rabbit says we find in the torah where it says the famous verse that's the essence of our prayer service shema israel hashem which shema is actually an instruction a commandment for hashem that we should shema we should listen what does it mean listen we should think and we should meditate that god is our god and god is one and if the verse shema continues to be a hafta that we should love hashem and we know the ahafter is the source for all the positive commandments which is included in there to be in all hashem and that's in that includes all the negative commandments so the answer the question how is how important is it to meditate in judaism it is so important that it's actually the instruction the commandment of shema to meditate as we do any and all of the mitzvos in the torah this week's torah lesson is dedicated in memory of barak banari labe and yosef and may their souls be elevated by a torah with studying in their memory for more information please see our website swf.org have a great and blessed week shabua tov