Wednesday, October 9, 2013

It's My Birthday - What A "Bummer"!!

The pasuk says ודברת בם - You should speak in THEM - בם, meaning Torah. This is alluding to the letters of בם. The ב stands for the word בראשית which starts with a ב and is the first letter of the Torah Shebichtav. The ם stands for מאימתי which is the first word of the Torah She-bial Peh [the first mishna in Brachos]. This means that a Jew should be a "Bum". He should strive to learn both the Written and Oral Law. 

Today I became a Bum!! It is my 42nd birthday and the numerical value of בם is EXACTLY 42. Elchanan Ehrman is a BUM!!!

So my bracha to me on my birthday is that I should have the capacity to START learning. It's about time. Enough wasted years, time to buckle down. I hope that Hashem gives me the material means to learn and learn and learn in order to become more and more of a Bum!! Or in the words of Dovid Hamelech - אחת שאלתי מאת השם אותה אבקש. שבתי בבית השם כל ימי חיי לחזות בנועם השם ולבקר בהיכלו.

And to you all my sweetest and most beloved friends - I bless you as well [I am sure you have a birthday this year as well] with many happy and healthy years and many blissful hours of involvement in the pursuit of Bumminess.

ודברת בם.

It mamesh mamesh doesn't get any better than that:-)!!!

[If this put a smile on your face may I be zocheh to put many more. You have such niiiice teeth.]