Blog

I don’t recall the exact year, but it was in the late eighties, and the summer just did not seem to want to end. The Jewish holiday of Sukkot had long since come and gone, and still there was no rain. The Kinneret Lake, Israel’s only freshwater lake, and source of fully a third of Israel’s drinking water, was dangerously low, as was the aquifer, and the crops were dry in the fields. The Rabbinic authorities had already declared two public fast days, to no avail; sunny blue skies prevailed and still the rains would not come. Newscasters spoke of the worst drought in a century, and you could see people were getting worried. In the west, when black rain clouds fill the sky, people get depressed and annoyed about having to wear rain gear, while outings are cancelled. But in Israel when the skies open up, you can still see people singing in the rain; Israel is a country that naturally...

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...

The small room wasn’t much to look at, and the sunlight filtering through the old shutters on the window just accented the old, tired-looking walls, and cracked floor tiles. And yet, a man had died here in this room, mostly for the privilege of being able to live in this room, in this place.  They had been looking for him for quite some time, scouring the country and waking entire neighborhoods every time rumor had it he was somewhere in the vicinity. To judge by the heavily armed troops that were smashing down doors in the middle of the night, they must have feared him, though he was only one man, and not a particularly large or physically powerful one at that; and yet, he must have had a fire tom him, to inspire such a determined manhunt.  He had been afforded many opportunities to escape, and find refuge overseas, in Europe or America, and even in England, yet he could not...

The Secret to Immortality When G-d said to Abraham “Go to yourself-- Lech Lecha” what was He actually asking Abraham to do? This command seems to be contradicted by the remainder of the statement: “...from your country, from your birthplace and from your father’s home.” Are these not the fundamental elements that make up a person’s sense of self? My nation, my birthplace and family together create the context for my identity and establish the vital ground for my sense of self. In addition, they represent citizenship, property rights, and inheritance, all essential sources of personal security. What G-d is actually saying to Abraham is, “Go to yourself and leave yourself,” bidding him to seek himself and at the same time abandon everything that establishes and confirms selfhood. The very order of the statement verifies this, as it is not in chronological order. A person first leaves his father’s home, then his birthplace and then finally the country’s borders, not the...

Sometimes, you can’t change the world, and in order to make sure the world doesn’t change you, difficult and often painful decisions are necessary. I still remember the sinking feeling in my gut when I realized who the culprit was, and what I probably was going to have to do about it. I had come to this army unit as a young officer, full of motivation and inspired to make a difference, only to discover that the reality of army life often had its own set of rules. One of the most damaging norms in army life is how easy it is, even as a relatively honest person, to become a thief. People justify it by differentiating between outright theft and minor pilfering, whether grabbing extra cookies from the kitchen when the cooks aren’t looking, or swiping an extra pair of pants before inspection from a different tent because in the middle of the night someone swiped yours. At the...

Are You Ready for the Ultimate Pleasure? The generations following the sin of Adam and Eve proceeded upon a path of moral degeneration. Cain, in a jealous rage, impulsively killed his brother Abel. In the next generation, Tuvel- Kain perfected the crime of Cain through manufacturing weapons. Then, Lemach boasted to his wives of committing pre-meditative murder. Idolatry flourished during the time of Enosh. Organized crime was established by a group of hoodlums called “The sons of Elohim.” Sexual perversion was rampant in Noah’s generation. Torah tradition teaches that there are three cardinal sins that a person should choose death rather than be forced to commit. They are: murder, idolatry, and sexual perversion. These offenses are the ultimate denial of G-d’s love and the values that make life worth living. They are a complete violation of living within the context of G- d’s oneness and love and therefore cut humanity off from the source and ground of life. In a span...

Clearly, I had been stood up; today I would have just sent him a text, but this was back in the days before cell phones, when a meeting over a cup of coffee was just two people with no distractions, and I had no way of reaching him nor could I be sure he might not still arrive so I ordered the grilled cheese sandwich and decided to wait a bit longer. There was a fellow sitting at the table next to mine with his back to me, telling a funny story and I could not help laughing, causing him to turn and smile in my direction. The fellow he was sitting with was getting up to leave but he himself seemed to be in no hurry so we started a conversation which seemed entirely ordinary, until he asked me a rather odd question: ‘Is the sun setting?’  Which was when I realized he was blind. It was indeed a beautiful...

Created in the image of love The power to be who you are In the very opening sentences of the Torah (Bible) we are told that the first human being was created in G-d's own image. And what was that image? The first human being was actually a man and a woman — a single entity that included the two sexes. "And G-d created man in His own image, in the image of G-d created He him; male and female created He them" (Genesis 1:27). In this union of male and female, in this oneness of opposites, the first human being reflected the image of G-d — a oneness that includes otherness and yet remains one. This is a very important concept. A lone individual does not reflect the image of G-d; an individual in unity with another individual does. So until an individual makes a space to include another, and allows that other to do the same, we do not have the...

Endings and beginnings: the black and white of life. Close to 80 years later, the image still remains, burned into his memory, as if it were yesterday. He was five and a half years old, but already an adult, standing in the central square (the umshlagplatz) of the Piyotrekov ghetto, next to the synagogue. His father, the Rabbi of the town, stood tall and proud in the middle of the square surrounded by the men of the village, distinguishable by his long full beard and his black rabbinic frock. The men were all on one side of the square and the women and children, by decree of the Nazis, off to one side. Tension filled the air, with an intense, silent fear of the unknown, as they stood waiting in the square from where Jews were sent to... where? Seventy-eight years later Rav Yisrael Lau remembers watching as the commandant of the Gestapo approached his father, the Rabbi, with murder...