Blog

Pure exhaustion; that was the only way to describe it; She sank down in the back seat of the yellow cab and let her eyes close. She did not know exactly where she was going, but trusted the cab driver to get her there, as she nodded off to sleep. The driver was talking, as New York cab drivers are wont to do, but the woman’s thoughts were already far away, with her family in Israel, and her son in N.Y.U. medical center, all awaiting news that he would be able to have the complicated liver transplant he so desperately needed. It was hard for her to imagine it had only been three weeks since he had been diagnosed; events since then had been such a whirlwind. Meir* seemed so happy when she had let him stay home from school in order to take him to the medical center for a follow up visit. Her son had been having stomach...

Beating Jealousy Jealousy, that dragon which slays love under the pretence of keeping it alive. --Havelock Ellis In this week’s Torah portion Korach, a member of Moses' tribe the Levites and other communal leaders challenge Moses’s leadership and the appointment of priesthood to Moses’ brother Aaron. Motivated by envy toward Moses and Aaron they argue for equality. We are all holy. How can there be a hierarchy in holiness within Israel? They came as a group to oppose Moses and Aaron and said to them, "You have gone too far! The whole community is holy, every one of them, and the LORD is with them. Why then do you set yourselves above the LORD's assembly? Moses responded to Korach: Now listen, you Levites! Isn't it enough for you that the G-d of Israel has separated you from the rest of the Israelite community and brought you near Himself to do the work at the Lord's tabernacle and to stand before the community and minister to...

In Israel, even a bus ride can become an existential experience. There are many Jews with a more conservative approach to modesty within Jewish tradition, who are very uncomfortable sitting next to someone of the opposite sex. I recall once on a long, crowded bus ride from Haifa to Jerusalem, watching a fellow in a long black coat and black hat struggling with this issue. He was sitting towards the rear of the bus, in a window seat, when the fellow sitting next to him suddenly jumped up, apparently about to miss his stop, and jumped off the bus. A woman standing in the aisle immediately seized the opportunity to grab the seat, and this religiously garbed fellow now found himself trapped next to the window with this woman in between him and the aisle. While one can never assume knowledge of what a person is thinking, I had the distinct impression that both she, and a number of people...

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...

They were a small group of men with a mission. The year was 1940, and Jews by the tens of thousands were being herded into the ghettos of Nazi-occupied Europe, And while the Nazi hierarchy was meeting to determine the 'final solution to the Jewish problem', this small group was preparing the groundwork for what they believed would be the influx of refugees who would need a home and a place to call their own. It is hard to imagine the vision required for a group of Jews in 1940 to believe that there was a need to create new towns and villages in the barren lands that were years away from becoming the State of Israel, but these young men and women believed, against all odds, that they were on the threshold of the fulfillment of a two thousand year old dream, and that at long last, after so many years of wandering, the Jewish people were ready to...

There is a special mitzvah (imperative) to love the stranger, the Ger, listed as the fourth mitzvah in Maimonides’ Hilchot Deot (laws of ethical relationships). And as one is not meant to remind a person that he or she is a convert I will change the names and details of this story, but the story is true. A number of years ago a student joined our program, who always perked up when I was teaching the special mitzvah of loving the stranger, or convert (Ger). It transpired that his mother was a giyoret (convert) and he shared the following story with me: Due to the fact that he was already a boy old enough to understand when his mother converted, our student himself also had to undergo a conversion of sorts, including immersion in the mikveh or ritual pool. Having grown up in a small farming community in the middle of no-where and now moved to a big city, he was...

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...

There are many burdens we carry in this world. The challenge may well be in how we choose to carry them. This week’s portion, Naso, contains a case in point. “Ki Avodat HaKodesh Aleihem Ba’Katef Yisau’” “For the holy (items of) service they shall carry upon the shoulder…” (Bamidbar 7:9) There was a special mitzvah regarding the transport of The Holy Ark, which held the tablets of the Ten Commandments. The Ark was to be borne on the shoulders of the Levites, until it arrived at its destination. Why was it so important that the Ark be carried upon their shoulders? Maimonides includes this mitzvah as one of the 613 mitzvoth listed in his Sefer HaMitzvoth, (see Positive Commandment 34), where he describes and explains each of the 613 commandments in the Torah. Yet Maimonides has a principle only to list those commandments, which are “Le’Dorot”, or forever, something that does not seem to apply to the carrying of the Ark. Maimonides, in his Laws of...

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...