How to show the weekly parsha in your WordPress blog

You can add a widget that shows the current weekly Torah reading in a sidebar alongside your WordPress.com hosted blog.

(This widget was designed for people of the Messianic persuasion, so a reading from Matthew-Acts also appears, along the lines of FFOZ’s Torah Club and TorahPortions.org.)

This is accomplished by using the RSS widget. Obviously, you will need to choose a theme that allows
for the use of widgets.

From your WordPress dashboard:

1. Click Design.
2. Click Widgets.
3. Notice the list of available widgets on the left. Find the one entitled “RSS” and click Add.
4. On the right hand side, under Current Widgets, an RSS widget appears on the bottom. Click Edit.
5. In the field labeled “Enter the RSS feed URL here: ” enter the following URL: http://www.torahportions.org/portions_rss.php
6. Check the box labeled “Display item content?”
7. Click the Change button.
8. If you have multiple widgets, click and drag to arrange the widgets in the order that you desire.
9. IMPORTANT: Click the Save Changes button.

Your Torah Portions widget will now appear in your blog.

Toast on the Sabbath

This is a simple question with many ramifications. Is it a violation of Torah to toast a piece of bread on the Sabbath? Thanks.

Shalom,

Thanks for your question about the Sabbath.

You are correct that your question has many ramifications. In fact, in order to determine whether any action is or is not a Sabbath violation, we must first determine what the process and framework should be for making those decisions. Ultimately, I don’t believe it is up to me to decide if it is permissible or not.

After all, the Torah is a legal document. In ancient times, if someone were to engage willingly in a prohibited activity on the Sabbath, then he would be liable for the death penalty. If two witnesses saw him perform the violation, they would testify in a court of law, and the judges would determine his guilt or innocence.

If a person can be sentenced to death because of Sabbath violations, then there can be no ambiguity about what is permitted and what is prohibited. Likewise, there must be a consensus among the leadership of Israel.

But in today’s individualistic culture, every person feels a responsibility to take Torah legislation into their own hands. To make matters worse, we are led astray by our unfamiliarity with the original language (and culture).

One critical point at which we are led astray is the term melachah, which (for lack of a better term) our translations render as “work” or “labor.” To English speakers, this suggests three faulty connotations: effort (as opposed to “relaxation”), making a living (as in “going to work”), and an undesirable activity (as opposed to “play”). This leads some readers to believe that an activity is only prohibited on the Sabbath if it requires considerable effort, if it is a part of one’s daily occupation, or if it is something we do not enjoy.

The word melachah, rather, has completely different connotations. It indicates creative activity, as indicated by the two contexts in which the word is used in Scripture: the creation of the world and the building of the tabernacle.

As I indicated before, it was absolutely necessary for Israel’s leadership to determine razor-sharp definitions of permitted and prohibited Sabbath activity, since they would be held responsible to execute justice in the land. So they derived a list of prohibited activities based on what would be required in order to build the tabernacle.

This explains why Ezra, for example, condemned the people for engaging in commerce on the Sabbath and carrying loads into the city, whereas the Torah offers no direct indication that this is prohibited.

Among the list of prohibited categories of activity that the judges of Israel compiled is “cooking.” This prohibition is independent from the commandment not to kindle a fire. Although this is technically included in the list based on its relationship to tabernacle construction, it finds corroboration in the verse, “This is what the LORD has commanded: ‘Tomorrow is a day of solemn rest, a holy Sabbath to the LORD; bake what you will bake and boil what you will boil, and all that is left over lay aside to be kept till the morning’” (Exodus 16:23). Based on this ruling, toasting a piece of bread is prohibited.

Toasting a piece of bread requires little effort at all. If one mistakenly identifies melachah with effort, one might be led to the conclusion that it is permitted. However, toasting bread fundamentally changes its nature, and by doing so we are exerting our creative influence upon it. And just as God himself abstained from his creative activities on the seventh day (which also required no effort), so also do we.

As you said, this conclusion has far-reaching implications and may require us to reconsider other activities that we previously thought permissible.

I hope this information is helpful.