בס'ד

Chazak - Be Strong!

Barmitzvah Address Joshua Fine

Parshas Vayakhel Pikudey

Rabbi Jonathan Guttentag

My dear Joshua   -    On behalf of everyone who has gathered here to share in your very simcha I want to extend a hearty mazel tov to you and to your parent s and grandmother; and we want to say hearty yasher koach on your very competent leyening for us this morning of the concluding parsha of the sedras and the haftorah.

So you are endowed with a name that has a good Jewish significance. You name Joshua is the name of one of the holy books of our Tenach; your name is that of the leader of our people, successor to Moshe who took the people of Israel into the Promised Land. Likewise you stand at the edge of the promised land of your time ahead in life as an adult member of the Jewish people, and the opportunity is open for you to write for yourself your own book of Joshua, an account, please G-d, of glorious triumphs and successes.

Your parsha this morning – concluding, as it did, the book of Shemos - was the occasion for us to rise to our feet and proclaim chazak chazak venischazeyk; be strong, be strong and let us be strengthened.

It so happens that this custom beloved custom has its roots in the book of Joshua: the words were by the Almighty himself to Joshua at the start of his career:   lo yamush sefer Hatorah hazeh mipicha; This Sefer Torah shall never move and depart from your mouth. And the verse continues chazak ve’ematz – be strong and be courageous.

And so likewise we say to you Joshua this morning, the words of Torah were enunciated from your mouth in a clear and competent manner – let those words of Torah not depart from you, chazak, be strong and be courageous; as you walk through the life, get strength and direction from your convictions.

We certainly have derived strength and been strengthened by the presence of family Fine - parents Ann and Barry and children - in our midst, you and your siblings Rachel and Daniel. And we have enjoyed watching you dear Joshua grow up amongst us - coming regularly on a Shabbos morning with your trademark trilby hat – making a statement of individuality and special personality that is your hallmark.

Now the Shulchan Aruch informs us that this same verse is the source for another practice. When we are called up to the Torah, we hold on to the Sefer Torah, or its wooden rollers, as we make the beracha and while the Torah is being read. This custom and requirement is derived from just these words: lo yamush sefer Hatorah hazeh – this Torah shall not depart from you, cling closely on to it!

From this verse the concept is derived that we are to remain firmly holding on to the Torah. And obviously the wider message is that not only when we are reading from the Torah, but in a broader sense too, throughout our lives, and in our daily occupations, the Torah, its values, its practices, Jewish heritage, is to remain our closest and dearest possession, onto which we hold and to which we cling fast.

The beauty of our faith of Judaism is that we cling on to the Torah; we have something that is fixed in our lives. The Torah is unchanging – we don’t keep on changing it when feel like it or when we don’t feel like keeping part of it; it represents eternal values and practices.

Out there in the world outside nothing seems to be fixed; there is nothing that can’t be changed or tinkered with. And that is potentially very disturbing. Even something like marriage; they are busy redefining it in the interests of something called equality. But the strength of Judaism is that it doesn’t change.

And those who change and those who demand dilution and reworking and remaking – they think they are bringing strength but they are just undermining – and for their own reasons and their own motivations, they are risking great damage.

And that is our message to your dear Joshua – do not let this sefer Torah depart from you.    Your dear parents, our esteemed members Anne and Barry and your grandmother Gogi whom you are blessed to have join your today, and your other dear grandparents who were sadly not spared to see this day but are surely with you in spirit at your simcha -   they have all educated you in the Jewish way, according to the values and practices of Jewish traditions

–        now that you are being given these values and these practices as an adult in your own right, hold fast to them, do not let them go; they have served our people well down the millennia – because they are true and because they come from the Almighty Himself,

And as the verse continues

   כִּי-אָז תַּצְלִיחַ אֶת-דְּרָכֶךָ וְאָז תַּשְכִּיל     for then you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall acquire true intelligence and have good success.

May you be showered by the Almighty with every blessing and success material and spiritual and grow up to be a source of great nachas to us all.