Author: admin

(print version) It seems like yesterday; so poignant and sharp is the memory of that day. I can still see all the guys, in their dress uniforms, preparing for the final ceremony. It should have been one of the most powerful and exciting days of my life; instead, it was one of the most depressing. After eight of the longest, most grueling months I had ever experienced, I was three days away from receiving my officer...

(print version) The Miracle and Mystery of Jewish History Celebrating the Soul-Meaning of Chanukah Albert Einstein once said: ...

(print version) One of the fascinating postscripts to the tragedy of the Holocaust was the saga of the many Jewish children who were hidden during the war, especially in churches and monasteries across Europe, but whose parents did not survive to find them when the war was over. Some of these children were six or seven years old, and though Jewish by birth, had for all intents and purposes grown up as Christian children with little recollection of their parents or their Jewish roots. One of the individuals, who worked tirelessly to locate these lost children and bring them home to their people, was rabbi Herschel Schechter, a chaplain with the U.S. eighth army. It was difficult to find these children, much less to prove that they were really Jewish, but Rabbi Schachter had an ingenious way of discovering which children amongst the multitude of refugees were really Jewish. On Sunday mornings, while he was stationed in Poland, he would take a jeep and a...

(print version) 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 theJabbokRivershallows. 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 the stranger....

(print version) Jebalya; anyone who has been there has no desire to go back. A nasty piece of real estate in the Gaza strip, Je...

(print version) Your Place or Mine? Living in the Arms of Love Jacob runs for his life to Charan because his brother Esau was out to kill him. The Bible records that on his way ...

(print version) The Chassidic Rebbe of Hornostipol had a devoted attendant by the name of Reb' Dan, who served the Rebbe faithfully for over fifty years. After the Rebbe's death, the Rabbi in the village, Rav Yankel, announced that the coveted burial plot next to the Rebbe was due him inasmuch as he was the Rabbi of the town. Reb Dan protested, saying that just as he had never left the Rebbe's side in life, he deserved to not be separated from him in death. The dispute was brought before the Rebbe's son (Rav Avraham Twersky's grandfather), who ruled that the decision should be made by G-d, and that whoever died first was to be buried next to the Rebbe. From that time, whenever Rav Yankel would take ill, Reb Dan would panic, and would insist that the very best specialists be brought in to treat him. He would also go to all the synagogues urging everyone to pray for Rav Yankel's speedy recovery....

(print version) Do Good. Feel Good. Do Bad. Feel Bad. When we do something wrong, we not only violate our relationship with G-d and break a particular law but we also wrong ourselves and damage our self-esteem. Sin is an act of self-betrayal. The Talmud teaches that we cannot do wrong unless a spirit of insanity enters us. Indeed, we have to be out of our minds to transgress G-d's will; who only wants the best for us. Therefore, when we do wrong we have lost ourselves, at least temporarily. We become estranged from our Godly essence, and we are no longer at home with our true selves. After Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, G-d asked them, "Where are you?" Likewise, when we do wrong we lose ourselves in our self-imposed spiritual exile; we become strangers to ourselves. When we transgress G-d's will, we violate our G-d-given potential. We experience a schism between who we are and who we ought to be;...