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Reb Moshe Chaim Tiefenbrun was one of the personalities I grew up with, and one of the two people who first introduced me to nusach (the beautiful melodies of our liturgy and prayer). He was a Holocaust survivor who always had a tractate of the Talmud under his arm; and I recall hearing the story of his terrible loss. When the war broke out and the Nazis were approaching his village in Poland, fearing he might be taken to the German army or a labor battalion (as had been the Russians...

Real Love Means Embracing Conflict The Secret of Jacob The Torah (Bible) teaches us that Jacob went to the house Laban, his uncle, and dwelt there for many years. He married Rachel and Leah, Laban's daughters, and had eleven sons there. After years of struggling with Laban constantly deceiving him he finally left to return home and face Esau who hated him. In the middle of the night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two handmaids and his eleven sons, and sent them across the Jabbok River shallows. After he had taken them and sent them across, he also sent across his possessions. Jacob alone remained on the other side of the river. It was there that the famous "stranger" appeared and wrestled with him until just before daybreak: When the stranger saw that he could not defeat him, he touched the upper joint of Jacob's thigh. Jacob's hip was dislocated as he wrestled with him. "Let me leave!" said...

Dedicated to the memory of Rav Yaakov Don, a good friend and an incredible educator,and Ezra Schwartz, an American teenager studying here in Israel this year. Both were murdered in the terrible events of this past week; both taken from us far too soon. May their memories be a blessing for us all.  We have no words to ease the pain of such a terrible loss, and our hearts go out to the families and friends of these special people.  May Hashem grant as well a speedy recovery to the wounded, and the hope that they may know no more pain....    Prince Charming doesn’t always find Cinderella, and stories do not always have ‘happy’ endings, as most of us learn the hard way. I remember once, after a harried chase, catching a masked Arab who had been heaving rocks and cinderblocks at an IDF position in Hebron. Directed by a ‘spotter’ up on a rooftop I was running down a narrow alleyway to...

The Secret to Happiness If you think religion is going to give you a quick fix you are wrong. And if you think that religion will put you on easy street you are deluded. Very often religion is presented as offering the secret to ultimate happiness. I have heard religious leaders try to entice people towards a religious lifestyle promising them that through the synagogue or the church they will find happiness and bliss. This approach is really no different than any other marketing strategies. People want to be happy and are looking for the magic formula. Marketers bombard us daily with promises for a better life. Blondes have more fun, toothpaste gives your mouth sex appeal, lose weight and feel great. It is too easy to point to a million things that we are missing that are the cause of our unhappiness. People think that all they need is the more and the right. If only I had more hair, more...

When I was in Officer’s course, we had a Battalion Commander named Eyal, who made an indelible impression on me. A Kibbutznik from the Golan, he was a rather short fellow, of slight build, not exactly the image of the mighty war hero. But he was one of those men who had been there; he was a veteran of the Yom Kippur war, and during the first week of the course he told us a story that came with a challenge. He had actually been stationed down along the Suez Canal when the war broke out, and was part of a company of British-made Centurion tanks caught in the catastrophic Egyptian advance deep into the Sinai. At that point he was still a tank driver with the rank of private first class, so his position was in the driver’s compartment. In order for the turret to rotate, the driver sits in a compartment separate from the rest of the crew,...

Selfishly Selfless The Way To Self Actualization Judaism teaches that no character trait is absolutely negative, everything has a role. All we have to do is look at each trait with an open mind and determine the pluses and the minuses. When it comes to pride there is an aspect of it that comes from the godly grandeur of our soul and is therefore, truly self affirming. But there is an aspect of pride that comes from our ego which is self destructive; alienating us from our true inner self. This type of pride focuses on selfish concerns and social status; it embodies a desire for honor and one-upmanship. This type of pride confuses us to think that as an individual soul we stand independent and apart from the greater collective soul of the community. According to Jewish mysticism this kind of pride is self destructive because in essence our individual self is really an aspect of the collective soul of the...

When Steve Jobs was seventeen he saw a quote: "If you live each day as though it were your last, some day you will most certainly be right.” In 2005, at a Stanford University commencement address he recounted that after seeing that quote, every day in the morning he would look in the mirror  and ask  himself: "If today were the last day of my life would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer had been no for too many days in a row, he knew something needed to change.  Remembering we will be dead soon, continued Jobs, is the greatest tool he ever encountered for helping to make the big choices in life, because almost everything (fear of failure, external expectations, pride...) falls away in the face of death.  A year earlier he had been diagnosed with cancer; at 7:30 in the morning they showed him a tumor on his pancreas and told him it was most...

Making Every Day Count The Key to Making Life Worth Living One day as I was waiting for a friend, an old woman sits down next to me. Suddenly she jumps out of her seat, turns to me and yells, "I should have never left Mexico!" I look at her and ask, "When did you leave Mexico?" "Thirty years ago!" she cries. "And I regret it every single day of my life!" You would think that after 30 years a person would finally get used to where they were. But people often live in the past. One of my students, age 28, told me that his father insulted him when he was age 12 and till this day he continues to feel hurt and angry. I explained to him that although his father hurt him when he was twelve he has allowed his father to continue to hurt him for another sixteen years by holding on to the pain and constantly remembering it. I suggested...

This week’s Torah byte is dedicated to the memory of my Auntie Helene (Stalbow; nee’ Schiff) a”h Chaya Gittel bat Shimon Alter Yitzchak and Frumeh Toibeh, who passed away in Ra’anana, Israel. Auntie Helene was 93 years old. She spent the last twenty years of her life living here in Israel (in Ra’anana) surrounded by her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. She had an incredible marriage to our uncle Geoffrey who passed away some years ago, raised a deeply Zionistic family, and lived to see her dreams come true. This week’s Torah Byte is dedicated to her memory; she truly exemplified the ideas we discuss this week in every way. She was a true lady, and we will miss her.   Many years ago I had the privilege of sharing the land of Israel with a birthright group for ten days. One afternoon we took them to Emek Habacha, the valley of tears. And I shared with them one of the most powerful...

Enjoying Heaven on Earth In this week's Torah portion G-d appeared to Abraham and yet He said nothing. "G-d appeared to [Abraham] in the Plains of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance of the tent in the hottest part of the day. [Abraham] lifted his eyes and he saw three strangers approaching and ran towards them." Until now G-d appeared to Abraham to instruct, promise or bless him. The Talmud (Sotah 14A) comments that G-d was visiting sick Abraham who was recuperating from his circumcision. What does this mean? When you visit a person who is ill it is not in order to say something; your mere presence communicates your pure desire to identify with this person in his/her time of need. You go for the sole purpose of being there. So it was when G-d visited Abraham. For the first time G-d appears to Abraham only to be with him, identify with him and share this special moment. Sometimes the highest moment...