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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...

Many years ago, at a Melaveh Malka (Saturday night party accompanying the end of Shabbat) in Har Nof in the Bostoner Beis Medrash I heard a wonderful story from Rav Levi Yitzchak Horowitz, z”tzl, the Bostoner Rebbe. It seems that after Reb Yissachar, the Rebbe of Nickelsburg, passed away Reb Shmelke (Rav Shmuel Horowitz, the Bostoner Rebbe’s ancestor, who was to become one of the great leaders of world Jewry) was appointed to be the new Rebbe. When he was shown his new home, which had been the home of Reb Yissachar, he seemed distracted and barely paid attention to the tour of the home, finally explaining: “There is a most remarkable smell in this house! It must be from an amazing Mitzvah (good deed) that was done here!” But no one seemed to be able to come up with a story of Reb Yissachar that would justify to Reb Shmelke such a wonderful smell. The Rebbe became obsessed with knowing the source...

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...

Rabbi Abraham Twerski shares a powerful story about one his ancestors, the great Rebbe Nachum of Chernobyl (in his book Generation to Generation).  It seems that Rebbe Nachum owned a magnificent pair of Tefillin (Phylacteries), which had actually been written by Reb Ephraim, the great scribe of the Baal Shem Tov, in the early eighteenth century. A wealthy member of the community had offered Rebbe Nachum a staggering fifty rubles for the tefillin. Yet, despite the fact that he lived in abject poverty, Rebbe Nachum had consistently refused to part with the tefillin. His wife on occasion had pleaded with him to sell the tefillin to support their family (one could buy a new, perfectly good pair of tefillin for two rubles) to no avail. Even when they had no wood for the fire or the children were starving, he refused to sell the tefillin, always somehow finding other ways to put some meager amount of food or money on...

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...

There are few things more depressing than getting one of those brown army envelopes in the mail, notifying you of your imminent draft for reserve duty, but this one would be a little different. A year earlier, for various reasons, I had agreed to transfer into a new reserve duty unit. It meant leaving the guys I had been serving with for over ten years and with whom I had become quite close. But after the events of the ‘96 tunnel riots a few high-ranking officers began to see the writing on the wall and realized we were facing a significant security challenge most people were unaware of. When the Oslo accords were signed in 1993, part of the agreement was the creation of a Palestinian Police force over the Green line. Officially we were supposed to supply them with 5,000 guns to maintain order. But by 1998, five years later, it was estimated there were over 200,000 guns floating around...

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...

Tibor Rubin was a Corporal in the Korean War when his battalion found itself ambushed by thousands of Chinese troops in the battle of Unsan, North Korea, in the fall of 1950. The Americans’ firepower soon dwindled to a single machine gun. The weapon was in an exposed position and three soldiers had already died manning it when Corporal Rubin took charge. He fought until his ammunition was gone. Badly wounded, he was captured and sent to a P.O.W. camp, but his bravery helped many of his fellow soldiers survive. And his valor does not end there. He spent 30 months as a prisoner of war in North Korea, and fellow prisoners later testified about his willingness to sacrifice for the good of others; what gave him the strength to do all this? Tibor was born on June 18, 1929, in Paszto, a Hungarian shtetl with a reported 120 Jewish families, to Ferenc and Rosa Rubin; his father, who had...

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...