David Greenbaum

Le'Vakash V'Lishmor to Seek and to Keep David Greenbaum

The title comes from the third perek of Koheles A time to seek and a time to lose; a time to keep and a time to send away (Koheles 3.6) The phrase could mean a time to seek the wisdom of the Torah, a time to lose false ideas. A time to keep the wisdom of the Torah, a time to send away harmful desires. Hashem in His kindness gave me the ability to look for questions and search for answers. I have done this throughout my life, at home, school, work, or learning. I decided to write down the ideas that enabled me to find questions and reasonable answers. Perhaps others may want to use these ideas to find answers to questions that bother them. Every word is correctly spelled, in the correct place and necessary. There are four ways to understand the Torah, Peshat is the simple interpretation of the Torah. Remez are hints and allusions contained within the Torah. Drush expounds on the deeper meaning of the posuk by looking at other sources. Sod is the mystical part of Torah. If a Drush or Sod explanation is given, there should also be a Peshat or Remez explanation. Explanations can refer to different aspects. If the sages give several aspects to a posuk, perhaps there may be another idea. A word that is introduced or spelled differently can indicate a novel idea is being presented. Dates can indicate more than one event. Individual ideas can be part of a larger theme. The Torah will have a main theme and subsidiary themes. The Torah will then digress and speak of each subject. When each digression is complete, the Torah will return to the main theme. This is done by reiterating the sentence before the digression to help understand the flow of events.