On its face, it is a real anomaly in Jewish practice: we recite blessings before putting on tefillin or lighting Shabbat candles, but we don't recite any before we visit the sick or comfort a mourner. In this session, we'll probe a range of sources that try to explain why that is, culminating in a careful examination of one of Maimonides' post-powerful and important essays about the role of character and virtue in Jewish life. Recorded at the Rabbinic Yeshiva Intensive 2025.

Source sheet: https://mechonhadar.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/mh_torah_source_sheets/RYI2025HeldWhyNoBlessingsInterpersonalMitzvot.pdf

Woven into the account of the Exodus are two distinct and seemingly contradictory images of the Children of Israel. On one hand, they are a nation of oppressed slaves, redeemed from a bondage of both body and soul. On the other, they appear as a vast, armed, and formidable group, driven out in haste by an Egypt terrified of their power. The opening chapters of the Book of Exodus present these two narratives in parallel, without attempting to reconcile them.

Pharaoh succeeded. He brought the Children of Israel into a state of slavery. The opening of Parashat Va’Era focuses on one particular consequence of this: the loss of the ability to listen.