Ask Rabbi Daniel Lapin

Dear Joe,

You are referring to a point I condensed for the Ziglar newsletter that I speak about in my book, Thou Shall Prosper: Ten Commandments for Making Money. You may have the most wonderful skills and ideas, but they lose value if you aren’t able to speak about them fluently. One way to make your presentation more fluent is to practice speaking. A first step on that path can be to read other people’s words out loud.

I would suggest that you start by reading famous speeches rather than a book. I personally enjoy the speeches of Winston Churchill, but Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address and Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream speech’ are also excellent. Try a variety of different styles and see how you can adapt your language to speak more forcefully. Take note of the language used. To speak successfully you may need to move out of your comfort zone and practice expanding your vocabulary or varying your intonation.

For variety, find a small child and read pre-school books to him. Changing your voice, inflection and speed as you become the different characters in the book is a wonderful way to get comfortable with a wider range of vocalization. Little kids are wonderful critics – they won’t ask you to read the book again if you are boring. Once you have read the book a dozen or so times, try to tell it, by heart, to a different child, unfamiliar with the plot. It doesn’t matter if you change some words, you will know if you can keep your young friend’s attention.

One way to succeed in business is to make sure you have something of value to add to a company. However, you also need to be able to let others know of your assets and this is most often done through effective speaking.

Dear June,

I actually can’t answer the question as you phrased it. You are referring to the book of Judges in which the prophetess, Devorah, is called, “the wife of Lapidot.” When she later leads the Israelites in battle, she does so with a general named Barak.

However, the way you phrased it suggests that rabbis come up with various theories which other rabbis either agree with or dispute.  In any event, the implication is that there is no such thing as true reality because it all just depends on countless layers of interpretation imposed upon the Biblical story by generations of fallible rabbis with good imaginations.

God didn’t intend Scripture as a history book, hence there is a discussion in ancient Jewish wisdom as to whether Job actually existed.  The point is not the history but the relevant and practical information conveyed to us by the Biblical verses and the clues embedded in their language.

All Hebrew names in Scripture have meaning and Lapidot means torches. It can also mean ‘wicks’, so the phrase in Judges is that Devorah is a woman, or the wife of, wicks. As you mention, Barak does mean lightning. But when you say that rabbis draw a conclusion from this that the two men are one and the same, you are putting the cart before the horse.

For thousands of years ancient Jewish wisdom has transmitted what began as an oral tradition of how God explained Scripture to Moses. Over the years some of this was written down, but much remains oral. Thus the point is not that rabbis looked at the similarity in meaning of the names Lapidot and Barak and guessed that they might be the same man. No, the point is that it was indeed the same man and ancient Jewish wisdom teaches how the change in name reveals growth and change in stature.

As is so often the case, as a wise wife, Deborah guided her husband toward the enlightenment (wicks, torches, and lightning) for which she knew he yearned.  He thus grew from Lapidot to Barak.

This matters because we must understand that it is not a piece of Bible or biography trivia but that there are profound lessons of both personal and communal significance that can benefit us today when we understand the relationships between Devorah and her husband. 

On one level we can learn from the story as it reads on the surface and then we can go deeper and learn more when we explore the personal relationships among the protagonists.

Your rabbi,

Daniel Lapin
 

Dear Carri,

Dear John,

At speeches across America, literally thousands of people have asked me your very question—“How can I learn to read and understand Hebrew?”  Your desire to learn the Lord’s language is well placed.  Sometimes when I read an English translation of a Bible portion I happen to be studying, I feel deep compassion for those who love the Bible but can only enjoy its wisdom in English.  To me, it feels like standing outside a wonderful gourmet restaurant and reading the menu posted in the window but never being allowed inside to enjoy the feast. 
This is why I worked for many years to create a program that would teach anyone, even folks with zero background, to read Hebrew and begin to understand it in no more than fifteen hours.  Over fifteen years, this program was successfully used in my synagogue in Los Angeles to teach Hebrew to thousands.  

Since then, I have been working on putting this marvelous program on video DVDs which I think is exactly what you seek.  Just think of it, an investment of only fifteen hours. 

How I wish that I could now point you to my Learn Hebrew DVD series, but, alas, I cannot.  It is not yet done because we currently lack the capital to assign to this exciting project.  We are working toward solving this problem and pray that we will be able to release this product before too much more time elapses. 

I will tell you this:  The widespread mistake that is commonly made is to teach Hebrew as if it were just another language like French, Bulgarian, or Swahili.  It is not.  Instead, Hebrew is sheer magic, a glorious blend of sounds, shapes, and ideas that allows your soul to soar over the landscape of all reality.  It has to be taught in a quite unique fashion.

Your letter has encouraged me to struggle to finish that work for which I thank you.  Meanwhile, please immerse yourself in the Study Guides that accompany each volume of my Genesis Journeys series and study my book Buried Treasure: Secrets of the Lord's Language.  There may also be other resources with which I am not familiar.  I'm sorry not to be of any help.

Daniel “your rabbi” Lapin