THE BRAVE NEW LAND

In the beginning... These are the words that were spoken by Hashem, creating the world that we still believe we can see today. This is sadly not the case. The world we see today is only a Klippah or shell of what it once was. ‘In the beginning’ means that before the beginning occurred, there was no time, space, or matter, and to bring it into existence, G-D spoke it. Does this mean that Hashem has a mouth and a tongue? Of course not, but that is for another time. The essence of a word, we have to conclude from this, is that it is not what we use to label an object, but what is contained within that object or the essence or soul of that object. The word came before the object, bringing the object into existence. That is why we use the same word in Hebrew for ‘word’ (דבר Dvar) and for ‘thing’ (דבר also Dvar). They are one and the same. However, the important distinction is that the word came before the thing. When Adam, in Gan Eden, was asked by Hashem to name the animals, Adam only need

Moab is in Utah. I love to mountain bike there. Moab is also known for its ancient history in the Middle East and is the source of the name Moab in Utah. Moab is near Eilat, Israel near or in a place called Petra, Jordan. The ancient people that lived there carved the amazing petroglyphs in the rocks that you see today and as well, a tribe lived there from the Biblical character, Lot. Moab in Hebrew means From-Father and Lot’s daughter named her son Moab after her father. You remember the story of Lot and his daughters don’t you? The Talmud actually excuses the daughters, because after Sodom and Gomorrah, the daughters thought that they were the last people on Earth and needed to repopulate the planet. Lot, on the other hand, was reluctantly excused only for sleeping with his first daughter because of his drunken state at the time. The second time around, with his other daughter, set the stage for a vast spectrum of debasement and debauchery for the Moabites and produced a surprise end