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Mrs. Marlit Wendell is a Holocaust survivor who lives in Jerusalem. Marlit, her mother, and older sister were able to survive Auschwitz and the war together. Their arms were numbered with three consecutive numbers. (I believe they are the only living family with three consecutive numbers ...) Eventually, they were able to join their brother in America after the war. In October 1938 in the middle of the night when all the kids were asleep, three Gestapo agents came to their house, and burst into the living room. They were taken to Gestapo headquarters after being told there was no need to take anything with them as they'd come back home; but they never saw their home again. Imagine what that must have been like for a seven-year-old; seventy five years later, Marlit still wishes she could go back to her home to see it and what she left behind, one last time. The parents were out late; when they came home and...

Recently, my brother shared with me the following story: Yuli Edelstein the speaker of the Knesset, was visiting a small school in Beitar Illit (Le’tzion Be’Rinah) and shared the following story: On Dec 19, 1984, Edelstein was sentenced by a Russian Tribunal, to three years of hard labor in Siberia. Technically the crime listed on the charge sheet was possession of narcotics, but the real reason was the fact that the Russians had caught him teaching Hebrew. “That day in court”, Edelstein recalled, “was after three solid months of being imprisoned in an isolation cell in Moscow’s infamous Chistopol prison.” “I was taken straight from my prison cell to the court , and found  it full of Russian military and security personnel, who had clearly filled the court room to ensure there was no room for any of my supporters; only my wife and mother managed to get into the courtroom to hear the sentencing.” After the sentencing, the twenty six year old Edelstein was...

Funny. You Don't Look Religious Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat I once was hired to organize educational programs for a large Jewish youth group in the United States. To overcome any possible stigmas associated with the word "rabbi" and to encourage the kids to relate to me without preconceived notions, I asked the executives to introduce me as just David Aaron, not as Rabbi David Aaron. They respected my request, but I was dismayed to read in their newsletter the following announcement: "We want to welcome a new member to our staff: David Aaron, our Judaism specialist." This sounded even worse! It made Judaism sound like a rare disease. Don't we go to specialists when we have a problem our general practitioner cannot treat? What do you do with a Judaism specialist? Do you come to him and say, "I've got this problem with Jewish guilt. Do you have a cure, Judaism specialist?" I was in trouble before I even started. I didn't want...

It was late, and normally he would have been on his way home but he had some unfinished business at work, bringing him back up the hill late that night.  Very few people would even have noticed what he saw, much less done anything about it, but Aryeh, an expert in archeology, and very familiar with the normal comings and goings in East Jerusalem, realized something was going on: a long line of trucks was moving up and down the road, in and out of the Old City.  Arabs do not normally work late at night and certainly so many trucks would have to mean a major building project, which was strange considering the late hour. As it turned out, the Wakf (the Muslim religious authority on the Temple Mount) was overseeing an illegal expansion of the El Aksa Mosque on the Mount and needed somewhere to dump all the dirt and rubble they were digging up. And as any digging on...

WHY IS LIFE SO DIFFICULT? Making peace with our battle In this week's portion, Jacob asks for peace and relaxation but G-d had another plan. “Jacob settled (down) in the land of his father's dwellings, in the Land of Caanan.”   — Genesis 37:2 The foremost commentator, Rashi, explains: Jacob wanted to settle down in tranquility but then the ordeal of his son Joseph (sale into slavery) fell upon him. The righteous seek to dwell in tranquility but G-d says 'Is it not enough for the righteous what has been prepared for them (reward) in the World to Come that they need to seek tranquility also in this world!'" Some people turn to G-d and religion, hoping to find refuge from all the turbulence of life, from doubt, from inner conflicts and mental turmoil. They want instant inner peace, spiritual contentment, and tranquility for their troubled souls. According to Kabbalah, that is not the purpose of life on earth. In fact, it is just the opposite. We...

Compromise: such a challenging word; ranging as it does from the very noble, to the very naïve. How does one know when compromise is called for, and when it is actually a tragic mistake? In the military, compromise can be a dangerous thing, and orders, once received, must of necessity be carried out to the letter. There is no room for variance. But sometimes, when orders contravene principals, following those orders may be an unacceptable compromise, and the challenge is to know where the line one cannot cross actually lies.  In all the years I served in the Israeli army, I only once knowingly and willfully refused a   direct order, because it was a compromise I could not accept.  For some reason, when I arrived at the Armored Corps Tank commander’s course, all the challenges I had faced till then were apparently not enough, and G-d must have decided to give me one more. As it turned out this one was a whopper, and...

Jacob runs for his life to Charan because his brother Esau was out to kill him. The Bible records that on his way “he reached the place and spent the night there ... and lay down to sleep.” (Genesis 28:11) The Midrash –the Jewish Oral Tradition-- interprets “the place” to mean “G-d.” G-d is “The Place” because according to the Kabbalah He made space within Himself for creation and always holds us all within His loving embrace. Therefore, His loving presence is our ground, context and place. Thus it states: Why do we refer G-d as “The Place?” Because He is the Place of the world (i.e. we exist within G-d) ... G- d is the dwelling place of the world...   Jacob lived this truth. He always defined himself and his actions within the context of G-d. Therefore, even though Jacob lay down in a physical place, He experienced himself exiting within the arms G-d’s loving embrace. To Live the Impossible Dream The Torah describes Jacob’s...

“War is Hell”; so said General William Tecumseh Sherman in the Civil War. But what exactly makes war ‘hell’? Most people, when hearing or reading about the horrors of war, think of the inevitable destruction, the fear of dying, and even the pressure of making a mistake that costs someone else their life. Indeed, war is full of uncertainty. But sometimes the devil is in the details, and one aspect of combat and military operations that does not get its due is pure exhaustion. It is hard to describe what it feels like to be expected to go on, after two and even three days with no sleep; when all you want to do, more than anything else in the world is curl up on the ground and close your eyes, but you can’t…. I can still remember being in Lebanon lying in an ambush waiting for terrorists that might come out of the darkness at any moment desperately trying to...