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Successful People Are Unaccomplished Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day there shall be to you a holy, a day of solemn rest to the Lord. (Exodus 35:2) During the forty years that the Israelites wandered in the desert they carried with them a portable temple referred to as the Tabernacle or the Mishkan. The creative acts that are forbidden on Shabbat are those acts similar to the skills that went into building or assembling the Mishkan. The Talmud outlines 39 different categories of such creative acts that are forbidden to do on Shabbat. They represent our ultimate power of creativity which is to build a temple that accommodates the presence of G-d on earth. Of course we know that G-d does not literally dwell in the Mishkan, however, the Mishkan symbolizes our ability to serve G-d and infuse every moment and every place with the presence of G-d. In other words, the greatest accomplishment of a human being is to serve to make manifest G-d’s presence...

Corona; Isolation; Quarantine; Closed schools and synagogues, flights cancelled, and travel limited; no large public gatherings… what is going on? Years ago, during what has become known as the first Intifada, I recall a particularly hairy day, when one of our patrols got into some serious trouble. We were stationed near Jebalya, a nasty piece of real estate in the Gaza strip, home to approximately 120,000 Arab ‘refugees’, and in the spring of 88’ things were really heating up. We didn’t have enough officers and men to handle the load so we were working with additional units, and an urgent radio call came in from one of these neighboring patrols who were apparently surrounded by hundreds of rioters with rocks and Molotov cocktails and found themselves hemmed in an alleyway with nowhere to retreat and not enough ammunition. I couldn’t understand where this huge riot had sprung up from, as I had just finished a patrol in the same area and had...

Shabbat: Rest Assured Keep the Shabbat for it is holy unto you..... because in six days G-d made heaven and earth: and on the seventh day He abstained from work and rested. (Exodus 31: 14-17) Most people know what you don’t do on Shabbat: you don’t tear toilet paper, you don’t drive, you don’t write, you don’t turn on lights, you don’t shop, etc. But they don’t know why, and they don’t know what it is you, in fact, do on Shabbat. And of course, when you just focus on what you don’t do on Shabbat, the experience—which is supposed to be joyous and fulfilling—basically ends up sounding like torture. You have to ask yourself, “Is this the way I want to celebrate a holiday? Is this how I want to spend my weekend after working hard all week long?” In order to understand the real meaning of Shabbat, let’s explore the first place it is mentioned in the Torah. This paragraph is from the Book of Genesis and...

“Make it count”. Words that would stay with me forever. Lying on a hill not four hundred yards from two terrorists who were firing indiscriminately on the local Jewish civilians behind us, it should have been simple.  It’s you or them, on top of which you are protecting civilians; women and children taking cover in the homes behind our position.  But sometimes life is not so simple. It was getting darker, and as the sun dropped lower on the horizon, and the light mixed with shadows, it was clear why we could not open fire. Literally in between and all around the two terrorists who were firing were about twenty or thirty little kids. The local Arab school they were firing from was one that was familiar to me, such that I knew this school was never open at 5 in the afternoon. They had brought these children there for a reason: they were hoping we would respond with fire so...

The Gift of Giving: Love’s Secret Service In this week’s Torah Portion we are commanded to bring pure oil to the tabernacle to light the Menorah (candelabra). “And you (Moses) shall command the children of Israel, that they bring to you pure olive oil beaten for the light, to cause a lamp to burn continually.” (Exodus 27:20) The Midrash, which part of Jewish Oral Tradition, asks an obvious question. The entire world is illuminated by G-d’s splendor and yet He tells the Jewish people to bring oil to light the Menorah before Him? The Midrash answers that G-d desires the works of your hands. How can we understand that G-d desires the works of our hand? How can G-d want something from us? What can we give G-d? Does G-d lack anything that we can provide? The Kabbalah teaches that G-d created the world to give us goodness and yet it seems from the Midrash that G-d is not looking to give but really wants to receive. How...

If you were a prisoner in Auschwitz and were one of the ‘lucky’ ones, you were put to work in a place they called ‘Canada’. This was the collection center in Auschwitz where the mountains of belongings the Jews had brought with them were sorted after they were murdered. Believing they were being resettled and hoping they would be able, after the horrors of the ghetto to begin a more normal life, the Nazis encouraged them to have hope as this discouraged rebellion… So what do you bring with you if you can only bring one bag you had to carry? Only those things that will help you survive; there is no room for photographs, precious books, or extra fine clothing. They brought pots and pans for cooking, prayer shawls (talleisim) and Tefillin for praying, winter clothes for the harsh Polish winter, and food; whatever food they had left. And after they were gassed and burned the prisoners in ‘Canada’ sorted...

The Simple Art of Ecstasy How to See Divine Presence Here and Now “ And let them make Me a sanctuary and I will dwell amongst them.” — Exodus 25:8 In this week's Torah Portion we encounter the precise design and magnificent beauty of the holy tabernacle and its' vessels. What is the relationship between this physical construct and feeling the presence of G-d dwelling amongst us? YOU CAN SEE G-D Once I was giving a seminar, and I asked everyone to look around the room and point to beauty. The first interesting result was that everyone pointed to something different. One man pointed to his wife. A woman named Bea pointed to a glass menorah (a Hanukkah candelabra) that was sitting on a windowsill. I asked Bea how she saw beauty in that menorah. Did she see beauty with her physical eyes? "Well," she answered, "the glass is translucent, and its delicacy has an ethereal quality. The shape is pleasing to the eye and because...

Sixteen hundred Jews, mostly elderly and families with children, protected by barely two hundred fighters; the odds for the besieged Jewish quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem in 1948, were beyond impossible. The Jordanian Legion, by far the best fighting force in the Middle East, committed an entire division of 3200 men, their most elite fighting force, to winning this battle.  Approximately thirty thousand Arab irregulars, local Arabs with a gun and a cause, supported them; the Jews were in desperate straits. There were no reinforcements to be had, but the Israeli fighters, against all odds, refused to give up. They had only three heavy machine guns between them, and one of them was set in a sandbag position on the edge of the Churvah Synagogue, a stone’s throw away from the Muslim quarter. Sitting at the strategic juncture of the widest alleyway into the Jewish quarter, the Jordanians mounted daily and often twice-daily attacks, in full battalion strength, against...

The Divine Wants You to be Happy When Rules Become Delicious Recipes for Your Soul “And these are the judgments that you shall place before them.” — Exodus 21:1 "You shall place before them, that is, like a table that is set and ready for eating." — Rashi “Taste and see that G-d is good.” — Psalms 34 LAWS YOU CAN EAT, ENJOY AND SAVOUR  The job of a teacher of Torah is not to be a philosopher, ethical guide or law giver but rather a gourmet chef. A gourmet chef has the ability to bring the taste out of every ordinary cabbage, every simple bean sprout, as well as present it all in a delicious tantalizing way. Once, I went to someone's home to raise funds for my institute. I thought we would have about a ten minute discussion. Instead, we were talking for five or six hours. I hadn't eaten all day, and I was starving. Finally I decided that instead of asking for a...