Rabbi Minkowicz Weekly Torah Lesson Parsha Shoftim 5781

welcome to this week's torah lesson this week's torah portion is partial the question of the week is what needs our greatest protection so in this week's torah portion of tour begins shrifting the shrite dream titan judges and officers you should put by all your gates will shove to a spot sadiq and they'll judge the people a righteous justice so the sawyer says they are the gates of a city but then there's the gates of every person everyone's individual city and that is referring to the seven gates that we have in our head what are the seven gates in our head two eyes that we have two ears two nostrils and one of our mouths and the zoya says why is that so important to protect that because when hashem spoke at mount sinai and he spoke pon him upon him face to face what is the face of hashem youth k bufke the powerful name of hashem so from the letter uk above k went into every one of those gates in other words the first yud went into our eyes that represents the letter hey went into our ears that represents bino the letter of went into our nostrils that represents the emotions and the last hay went into our mouth which represents malchus now all these emotions and and and malchus that's that's in our heads referring to not emotions which are out of us out of our intellect emotions raw emotions but referring to the emotions which are in our intellect now the torah instructs us shift in the sh represents from the right side which means shifting that we're here to bring love and kindness and strength to represent the representative from the left side which is more all in discipline and you need both you need love and kindness from the right and then you need all the discipline from this on the left and then the verse continues on to say to us that the head should guide the rest of the emotions and the rest of the body that we should be connected to hashem and as we take care of ourself to be balanced and to protect all the gates that we should be connected to hashem hashem will also protect us and take us out of exile so the answer the question what needs our greatest protection what needs our greatest protection as the sovereign entrances in our heads our eyes our ears our nostrils and our mouth and they should remain connected to the four letters of hashem that hashem blew into us that gave us the power to have the greatest connection to the infinite hashem this week's torah lesson is dedicated to the memory of baruch ben arya banyose from rocco may your souls be elevated by the torah we're studying in their memory for more information please see our website swf.org have a great and blessed week thanks for joining us