Video: Parsha -- Vayechi
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Guarding Your Seed of Eternity
The Jewish Perspective on How to Respect the Procreative Seed of Life
Dedicated by David and Eda Schottenstein
in the loving memory of
Alta Shula Swerdlov
And in the merit of Yetta Alta Shula, "Aliya," Schottenstein






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Class Description
There is a fascinating conversation recorded in the Talmud. Two Talmudic sages are dining together, when one asks the other to share an idea. The response? “Never talk while you eat, lest you choke on the food!” After the meal, he obliges to his colleague’s request, and makes a radical statement: “Jacob, our father, never died!”
But wait. The conversation grows stranger. The sage continues: “Whoever mentions the name of the famous Biblical harlot Rachav, experiences an immediate seminal emission.”
And then, before they depart, he asks his colleague to bless him. The sage engages in a long metaphor as an introduction to the final blessing: May your children be like you.
What are we to make of this conversation? What is the logic behind the sequence of their dialogue? This class will show how this Talmudic episode reveals the Jewish perspective on the seed of life, the essence of life, and how Judaism looks at man’s drive to reproduce. Is it merely, as Darwin wants us to believe, a drive fueled by self-propagation, or is there something holier and infinitely more powerful in the act of reproduction?
wow
The Emissary
Brilliant
Class Description
Great ides with that song
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Parshat Vayechi
Ilan, Ilan( the song) made me think again about my beloved cousin's son, Ilan Ramon, who's memory will be etched in my soul forever.
He lives on as well....
Amazing
so many boys need to hear this.
toda!
thank you!
Kol Ha'omer Rachav Rachav
to Yochanan
correction
on th eenglish side.
it says sourse one comes from the talmud sotah
it probebly is ment to be talmud tanis.
thanks.
kol tuv
questions and excersizes
3. Questions and Exercises
1. What is the logic behind the sequence of the four statements made by Rabbi Yitzchak to Rabbi Nachman?
The logic can be easily summed up in French “Shershe la fam”. (It’s not always about a woman presented in a process but lack of a right one as well.)
It might be true both on personal level and Divine. That’s why G-d chose us to be his spouse.
Just recall historical sequence: polygamic people, their elimination in Flood and oil as the result of G-d’s first experience… And now we wonder why oil brings so many destructions... (Do I sound heretical?)
2. What is the meaning of the statement, “Jacob our father did not die.”
I am not sure that Rabbi Yitzchak meant exactly the same but as we can read between the lines... Jacob was blessed with a lot of things but his wives were best of his blessings.
Who made him so productive?
Standing in line for having him for a night they never left him a chance to “escape with fantasies”... As a result he gave birth to a very healthy generation of Jews, who perpetuate his life both in physical and spiritual dimension.
3. Who was Rachav?
She was a great grandma of many prophets and prophetesses.
Why does mentioning her name twice have such a powerful impact?
She had a great power to transform reality for those who knew her to the point that transformation had been revealed not only spiritually but physically as well ( Two times, different dimensions). Rabbi Yitzchak gave her as an example of transformation spiritual into physical and visa verso.
My opinion is that it has nothing to do with those cases of “wasteful emission of seeds intentionally”. It comes to a category of Divine mystery. Difference between these two cases is similar to difference between killing intentionally and unintentionally…
4. Why does Judaism strongly oppose the wasteful emission of seed?
Because it equates of killing a life intentionally on a physical level. On spiritual level, as the most sacred element of the universe, it draws most destructive forces into micro and macro cosmos…
5. Why were Jacob’s children permitted to follow his coffin, notwithstanding the Kabbalistic caution against this?
Because there was no “feculence” or “slime” arousing from his past. He managed to channel all his passion productively.
6. What was the deeper meaning of the blessing of Rabbi Yitzchak to Rabbi Nachman that “Your children should be like you” ?
He gave his teacher the most powerful blessing for all his life or he might just flatter his habits.
Rabbi Jacobson, as only he can, took a very sensitive subject, spoke about it with dignity, based all his words on Talmudic sources, without any tinge of the topic being "difficult" to transmit. That's no easy feat.
I am a woman, and the "take-home pay" was for me and not just men. Rabbi Jacobson, Yasher Kochacha once again.
I am eternally grateful to David and Eda Schottenstein for their unbelievable generosity and commitment to these one-of-a-kind shiurim.
art
question
Thanks
Eli
answer
He is the father of kelal Yisroel, every Jew comes from him. And every jew will do teshuvah. So all of him is bachayim.
Spiritual Warriors
:)
Very nice Shiur. Thank you Rabbi Jacobson.