Sparks – by Rabbi David Aaron

Sparks – by Rabbi David Aaron

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(print version) SOUL-UTIONS TO PAIN The archetypical story about pain is recorded in the book of Job, who experiences horrible tribulations. Job's friends try to give him answers to explain his pain, but Job is not satisfied with any of their answers. In the end, G-d Himself speaks to Job and gives him resolve. Job's friends tell him that there is no such thing as pain without justice. This means that when a person goes through pain it is simply the fulfillment of justice. Pain is not haphazard or accidental. In some way-even if we cannot possibly fathom why-we have deserved our pain. But Job does not accept this answer. Maimonides, the great Torah sage known as the Rambam, says that this answer is actually the true position of Jewish tradition. In fact, when the Rambam discusses the meaning of "pain" or "suffering," he quotes the verse in the book of Job recording the answer of Job's friend who said that there is no...
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Small Tastings of Torah, Judaism and Spirituality from Rav Binny Freedman

Small Tastings of Torah, Judaism and Spirituality from Rav Binny Freedman

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(print version) Jerusalem; 722 BCE: the mightiest army on the face of the earth has surrounded the city; bent on conquest and determined to put an end to the Jewish people once and for all. Approximately 35,000 people, all that remain of the Jewish people after the destruction and conquest of the North and the exile of the ten tribes, are crowded inside the city walls as the Assyrian army lays siege to Jerusalem. The Assyrian general Saragon, also known as Sanhereb, the Destroyer, has never been defeated, and has amassed the largest army the world has ever known: 185,000 men. Hizkiahu, the Jewish king, has no army to speak of; it would seem we are in the verge of the final solution to the Jewish people, 2,700 years ago. And then G-d performs a miracle, and according to the book of Kings, on the first night of Passover, an Angel smites the Assyrian army and all 185,000 Assyrian soldiers die, saving...
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Small Tastings of Torah, Judaism and Spirituality from Rav Binny Freedman

Small Tastings of Torah, Judaism and Spirituality from Rav Binny Freedman

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(print version) In 2010, addressing the Knesset on the occasion of the visit of his Italian counterpart, Silvio Berlusconi, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told this story: "I wish to share with you and the members of the Knesset a special story that touched my heart. It is a story about an Italian woman during World War II." "On the train, on her way to work, this woman observed a German policeman arresting a Jewish girl. The Italian woman, who was then eight months pregnant, came between the German officer and the Jewish girl." "Without an ounce of fear she confronted the German officer and told him: 'You can kill me, but look at the faces of the passengers on the train. I assure you, they will not let you out of here alive'." "With these decisive words, that Italian woman saved the life of the Jewish girl. She lit, if only for a second, a beacon of human light and courage in the great...
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Small Tastings of Torah, Judaism and Spirituality from Rav Binny Freedman

Small Tastings of Torah, Judaism and Spirituality from Rav Binny Freedman

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(print version) Sixteen hundred Jews, mostly elderly and families with children, protected by barely two hundred fighters; the odds for the besieged Jewish quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem in 1948, were beyond impossible. The Jordanian Legion, by far the best fighting force in the Middle East, committed an entire division of 3200 men, their most elite fighting force, to winning this battle....
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