Having Torah

Torah is more than just reading the first 5 books of Moses.  Torah is more than a scroll that is put in the Ark at the synagogue.  Torah is truth.  Torah is happiness.  Torah is life.

More and more these days, the jewish people of the extreme right wing religious parties express themselves in ways that they think are consistent with being Jewish and being true to "torah".  They are wrong.

The fact is, if you want to have Torah, you have to complete get rid of all inappropriate hatred.
If you have hatred in your head and being, you are going to completely rid yourself of any Torah that you can have.

Today I will remark upon the children of a ChaBaD rabbi I happen to know.  They have no television sets.  They do not enjoy sports.  They do not like sports.  They hate sports and will not even mention the word.  This is hatred. 

Do you think that these refined children who study jewish ways and hebrew all day long have Torah?
I will suggest that they are far from having Torah in their minds and beings.

Torah is not just a way to relate to God and the Israel Nation.  Torah consumes all of the history of this world and spits out a place in the world to come for you and your family and all that came before you and all that will come after.

Israel must indeed hold fast to Torah, but this does not just mean Hebrew classes and it does not mean study all day long.  It means being aware of what God is doing in the world we live.  It means watching that television that the ChaBaD and ultra orthodox persons do not want to keep in their homes.  It means listening to the news at night and understanding who todays secular and world leaders are and who is shaping events and knowing what forces of nature and the universe exist and how they play out.  It means being very intelligent and it means educating yourself in more than just a religious sense.  

True in your spare time you are going to read the God given Bible and study the Truth of the Scriptures and perhaps some of you will go to a Yeshiva and study Talmud and the like.
The sad fact is that if you do not understand what the Creation of the world is about, you do not have Torah.  You can read the scriptures alot and thats great.   But today is a day that you need to be a part.  You can not turn off Creation and the world at hand just to close yourself into a world of your own liking and choosing. 

And this means, pay attention to the prospects and intersts of the community you live.  That means sports.  Unless you disavow being an American.