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From His-tory to Her-story Is G-d male or female? One day my son Ananiel and my two daughters, Leyadya and Ne'ema, burst into my study. They had obviously been fighting over something and were very upset. I could see that I was chosen to be the lucky arbitrator to resolve another case of sibling rivalry. They shouted at each other, "You go, you ask Daddy." "No, no! You go, you go." Finally Ananiel, who was age five at that time, took the challenge and said, "O.K., O.K. Daddy, isn't it true that G-d is a boy?" Ne'ema and Leyadya, ages eight and nine, had tears in their eyes. I could hear them silently pleading with me, "Please no, please no. Tell us it's not true. It's bad enough our brother is a boy. Surely, G-d is really a girl." I said to them, "G-d is not a boy and G-d is not a girl. G-d is beyond that. We may talk about...

Perhaps one of the most important aspects of training to be a Rabbi and a teacher is to have spent time in the presence of great Torah scholars; it allows you to appreciate how little you really know. Having had the privilege of pursuing rabbinical studies in a place where geniuses ‘grew on trees’ and where classes were given by some of the greatest Torah scholars of the generation, the prospect of ‘graduating’ as a rabbi became somewhat of a daunting prospect. How does one reach the point where they feel ready to assume rabbinical studies? Especially after being exposed on a daily basis to what a Torah-scholar and a rabbi can be? I recall a friend very close to me who was, confronted with this very challenge: How do you know when you are ready to leave the greenhouse of the Yeshiva world and put the knowledge you have accrued to serve the community? Torah, after all, is an...

Getting the Divine View on You How to make worlds of a difference And he said, Hear now my words: If there be a prophet among you, I the LORD will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream. My servant Moses is not so, who is faithful in all mine house. With him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches; and the picture of the LORD shall he view           (Numbers/BaMidbar 12:6-8) Several years ago, I gave my kids Cheerios for breakfast. It said on the front of the Cheerios box that on the back of this box is a three-dimensional Cheerios bumblebee. So I looked at the back of the box and saw a distorted, blurry thing. Have you ever looked at a 3-D book without the goggles? You see a mishmash of misprinted, distorted images. There were no goggles inside the box of Cheerios,...

His disarming smile caught me by surprise, as did his baby-faced youthful appearance ; he was after all a nineteen or twenty-year old kid; yet my son was clearly in awe of him, and I was curious to understand why. Our son Yair, after a grueling process, was recently accepted into an elite unit within the paratroopers, and we were invited after two months to visit his base for a special ‘Parents’ day’. For me it has been no less than fascinating to observe the process whereby the IDF molds these soldiers into elite fighters, but it has been equally interesting to note what sort of men are chosen to command these elite soldiers and to observe albeit from a distance what constitutes elite leadership from the army’s perspective. Some of what we hear from our son is not surprising: grueling physical exercises, uncompromising regulations, and even harsh conditions when the boys were out in the field (‘shetach’) for two weeks...

Isn’t Humbleness Just Low Self-Esteem? “Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth.” (Numbers 12:3) Was Moses, indeed, humble? The man who courageously challenged the mighty Pharaoh the King of Egypt, who led an entire people out of slavery, the man who after seeing the golden calf smashed the very tablets written by the finger of G-d. 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 its 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 humbleness and the source of powerful sacred self esteem. But there is an aspect of pride that comes from our ego which is haughtiness and self destructive; alienating us from our true inner self. This type of pride focuses...

Many years ago, I read a story regarding Rav Yitzchak Eisenbach from Jerusalem.  As a young boy, Yitzele’ was walking to the Kotel (The Western Wall) through the Jaffa gate one Shabbat afternoon, in a section of the city which was densely inhabited by Arabs. As he walked through the narrow, unpaved streets he passed numerous Arab-owned cafes in which young and old folks were milling around. Suddenly Yitzele noticed a gold coin on the sidewalk. The value of the coin was such that it could support a family the size of his own for a month!  The poverty in his home was wrenching, and he was thrilled at the prospect of being able to help his parents in their struggle for their family’s survival. However, because it was Shabbat, he would not pick up the golden coin. Instead, he put his foot on the coin to hide it from view, and decided to stand there until nightfall when Shabbat ended so...

Prophecy 101: Ego is a Non-Prophet Venture This week we begin to read from the fourth of the five books of Moses. Although this book is referred to in English as the Book of Numbers, in Hebrew it is referred to as Bamidbar because of the opening verse; "And the Lord spoke to Moses in the wilderness (Bamidbar) of Sinai ..." The Midrash, Jewish Oral Tradition, derives a somewhat puzzling insight from the fact that G-d spoke to Moses in the wilderness : Unless one makes himself hefker (open and ownerless) like a wilderness he cannot acquire wisdom and Torah. (Bamidbar Rabbah 1:7) In other words, to be receptive to the revelatory word of G-d you must be like the wilderness completely open and ownerless – in a state of humility and surrender. Moses heard the word of G-d not only in the physical location of the wilderness but also because was he was in a “wilderness” state of mind. Edging G-d Out The creative experience...

Years ago, after a very difficult month in Lebanon, someone higher up decided our unit needed a break. Every unit maintains a daily ‘events log’ (Yoman Iruim) which logs all the events of the day for any given IDF Combat company. Every patrol, ambush, search and seize, and oversight mission gets logged, and when a unit accrues too many stressful events within a certain period of time, they are, if circumstances allow, pulled off the line for a little rest. So it made sense, given the events our unit had experienced in Lebanon that it was our turn. After transferring the line to a reserve company, we found ourselves in Netanya, in a heavenly place called Beit Goldmintz, along the Netanya coast.  One day I will get a chance to thank the Goldmintz family who must have donated this place, which was previously a small hotel. Our mouths fell open when we walked into the room we had been assigned:...