Waching daily Dec 29 2017

And so here it is. We've come to the end.

The end of the book of Bereishit and

the end of the year. And I think there's a lesson from one for the other.

We speak of the five books of the Torah, Bereishit, Genesis, being the first and that is

followed by Shemot. Why now did our sages feel the book

comes to an end before we can open another book. Look at the story from

beginning to end. From beginning to end the book of Bereishit

unfortunately, tragically, is the story of brothers in conflict: Cain and Abel and

then came Yishmael and Yitzchak, and then came Yitchak and Eisav,

and then came Yosef and his brothers. One conflict after another. The Jewish people could

not have become a nation while brothers are in conflict and so we come to the

end the book of Bereishit because the ending marks the beginning of a new

chapter. The brothers are reunited. Only then were

the Jewish people prepared to become a people, to become a nation.

We've come to

the end of this year, of 2017. It's been a year of the American people being in

conflict, disagreeing on most anything and everything.

Indeed the Jewish people in conflict, we couldn't even agree whether it was

good that President Trump had announced Jerusalem as the capital of the State of

Israel. It's time for all of us to understand

we can't be a great nation, we can't be a great people, when you're constantly in

conflict. We have to learn what Joseph and his brothers learned: we can disagree

without being disagreeable; we can walk shoulder-to-shoulder without seeing

eye-to-eye on every subject. Have a good Shabbos and let it be a Happy New Year

for the American people and the Jewish people as well.