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Bonding or Bondage Why Serve the Divine? “For unto Me the children of Israel are servants; they are My servants who I took out of the land of Egypt; I am the Lord G- d.” ~~ Leviticus 25:55 There is an Eastern teaching that proclaims, “Be here and now.” Torah however would say, “Serve G-d here and now.” Indeed, this is the fullest experience of life. The Kabbalah teaches that G-d wants to be present in the here and now, and our job is to serve G-d in that desire. Therefore, to serve G-d means to infuse each moment with the presence of G-d. In other words, I must always ask myself, “How can I serve G- d right now?” If right now I am with my friend, spouse or child, I should see this moment as an opportunity to show him/her love and thus serve G-d, who is the source of all love. It’s not my love. I didn’t invent love. I didn’t...

Many years ago, while teaching an adult education class, it was obvious that the topic we were studying was pushing someone’s buttons. We were discussing the underpinnings of the mitzvah of respect for one’s parents, and the challenges of developing a healthy and meaningful relationship between parents and children, when I noticed one of the students’ eyes were watering. Clearly, he was struggling with the discussion on some level.  After the class, I invited him into my office for a chat. This fellow was a very successful businessman in his late forties, who had decided to finally take a break from work to explore his relationship with his Jewish identity. He was married, with two children, and as far as I knew, his family was in good health, and so was his marriage.  In the midst of our discussion, eyes brimming with tears, he confided:  “You know, thirty years ago, I set for myself a number of goals. I grew up in a...

Dating the Divine Celebrating love “These are the appointed holidays of G-d, holy convocations, which you are to proclaim in their appointed times.” — Lev. 23.4 Henny Youngman, the comedian, once said, "I tried being an atheist, but I gave it up. There were no holidays." What is a holiday really about? Is it the same as a vacation? A vacation is a time to vacate, but a holiday is a time to celebrate. To vacate means to take off, get away from the everyday and clear yourself out from the tensions and challenges of the daily grind. Perhaps you'll suntan on a beach, play golf or catch a good concert. A holiday, however, is a holy day. It is not an escape from everyday life to paradise. Rather, it is a time to infuse paradise into the everyday. This is the power of celebration. My guess is that the word celebrate connects to the word celestial. And from a Jewish perspective that would make sense,...

An open road, on a beautiful day, with your kids in the back seat, maybe even a picnic lunch; what could be more perfect? What thoughts go through your mind at such times? Is your mind focused on all the challenges tomorrow always seems to bring, or do you take the time to appreciate the moment? Are you listening to the news about the ever-looming threat of terrorism, or do you take the time to appreciate the gift of the moment?  I will always wonder what Tali Hatuel, eight months pregnant, with her four daughters Hila, Roni, Hadar and Meirav, aged 11 to 2 in the back seat, was thinking in those last moments. Was she considering what she and her husband David would name their soon- to-be-born child? Was she wondering how Meirav, their two-year-old, would accept the newest addition to the Hatuel family? Or was she just appreciating the pure joy of the open road, with the dunes of...

Achieving Sacred Selfishness Happiness through holiness I had a student that once came into my office and said, "My father who passed away was an atheist and a fantastic human being. He was such a moral human being. He was such a good human being. I don't believe that had he been a believer, he would have been any better. He was the epitome of being a good person. So I have a problem with Torah because I really don't believe that it would have made a difference." So I told him that it isn't the goal of Torah to merely become a moral person. There is a lot more to it. Morality is important, but morality is a stage in the journey. The destination is holiness — being whole. Morality is an aspect of that, but it is not that. So I asked him, "Do you think your father might have been more holy?" That shocked him, he never even thought about holiness. What...

Some time ago, after a lecture on the ethical challenges of the seventh commandment (“Thou shalt not steal”), I was approached by a fellow from Vienna who was a Holocaust survivor.  “Why do you assume stealing is always wrong?” asked the fellow, “Sometimes, it is even an obligation.” “I always had a strong desire to take things, and I never understood why,” he continued,  “And it wasn’t that I necessarily needed the things I took, I just loved the prospect of being able to steal things out from under people’s noses. I became quite good at it, though my conscience always bothered me. Often, I was able to resist the temptation to take things that weren’t mine, but it was always a struggle. I often wondered why G-d had burdened me with this particular challenge. I knew it was wrong to steal, and never rationalized theft; I just loved the ‘thrill of the take’. Why did G-d create me with this challenge? It wasn’t...

Sick Minds, Sick Bodies The power of our beliefs to heal or harm The Jewish Sages gave a spiritual rather than physiological explanation for the disease tsara'as (generally translated as "leprosy") which affected not only the body but also clothing and the walls of houses. According to one source several sins could possible be the cause: Shmuel bar Nachmani said in the name of R. Yochanan: Because of seven things the plague of leprosy is incurred, namely, slander, the shedding of blood, a vain oath, incest, arrogance, robbery and envy. (Arakhin 16a) However, most Sages concur that the main cause for tsara'as was slander and gossip. HOW CAN WE UNDERSTAND THE PHYSICAL IMPACT OF OUR MORAL AND SPIRITUAL ACTIONS? The Kabbalah teaches that the world you and I live in is a product of our perception of reality. The philosopher Immanuel Kant probed this concept. He asked: Do we see reality or do we see our perception of reality? Kant's answer is that we do...

Walk into the Ashkenazi synagogue of the Ari Hakadosh in Tzfat, and if you look carefully, you will notice a strange detail that begs a story. On the side of the bimah (the prayer lectern from where the Torah is read), directly opposite the door, there is a small hole filled with small pieces of paper. It appears to be a sign of wear and tear, that needs to be fixed, until you take a closer look and realize the small pieces of paper are actually prayers and requests with the names of hundreds of sick and needy Jews asking for miracles, similar to the ones that are found in between the cracks of the stones in the Kotel. In 1948, in the middle of the War of Independence, the Jewish quarter of the Old City of Tsfat came under heavy shellfire. In the middle of the afternoon prayers, a shell landed in the courtyard, and a piece of shrapnel came...

Why Eat Kosher? The Talmud tells a story about the famed author of the Mishna, Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi. The rabbi was walking down the street one day, when a little calf ran up to him and hid under his cloak. Apparently, the calf had run away from the slaughterhouse. The rabbi said to the calf, “Go back to be slaughtered, for this you have been created.” At this point, a Divine decree was made against him because he had not shown pity on the creature. As a result he become sick and suffered for many years, until one day he showed pity on a family of young rats and was suddenly healed. We know that Judaism permits us to eat meat as long as the animal was slaughtered properly, so what did Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi do that was so wrong? He incorrectly said, “for this you were created.” The Talmud is teaching us that, contrary to his declaration, animals were not created for...