Category: Chagim

Passover - In the Name of Love Passover commemorates the miraculous exodus of the Jews from Egypt. After 210 years of oppression and cruel servitude, an entire people leave in astounding record time, faster than it takes dough to leaven into bread. We celebrate this event with a festive meal and ceremony called the Seder, during which we recite the Haggadah—the telling of this wondrous historical episode. The Exodus from Egypt, however, is not just another milestone in the history of the Jewish people. In fact, every holiday is actually a memorial to the Exodus. Even Shabbat is referred to as a “Zechar L’Yitziat Mitzraim,”a remembrance of the Exodus from Egypt, although it has no apparent connection to the Exodus. In addition, every Jew is obligated to see himself as if he personally had left Egypt and to recount it every day. The first of the Ten Commandments is: “I am YHVH your G-d Who took you out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.”...

(The details of this story have been changed to protect the identity of the commander involved): Jenin during the first intifada was a nasty place to be, especially for a month of reserve duty, but we were all trying to make the best of it. One evening at dusk, we got an urgent call over the radio that terrorists were throwing Molotov cocktails (incendiary bottles) at civilian cars on the road, not far from where we were on patrol. The driver hit the gas even before I had a chance to respond on the radio and a moment later, as we came around a curve in the road we could see two masked Arab men about a hundred yards down the road; one was holding a bottle filled with flammable liquid and a rag sticking out the top while the second lit it up, and we could see an Israeli civilian car headed in our direction about to become a target. At...

There is a powerful story I heard many years ago but never shared publicly, considering it too fantastic to possibly be true. But recently having read an accounting of it in Yitta Halberstam’s Small Miracles of the Holocaust, (Dancing with G-d pp. 178-181) I had the opportunity to ask a Hungarian Auschwitz survivor who recalled that this story had made the rounds in Auschwitz.  It is difficult for me to imagine that the story is true, and yet, who could make up such a story? Apparently, in the fall of 1944, as the last remaining Jews of Hungary were being sent to the gas chambers, a Commandant decided to consign every Jew under the age of 18 to their fate. Normally youth in their later teens were sent to the labor battalions, receiving a reprieve from the infamous selections, but for some reason this Officer was determined that all Jews under 18 should be gassed. It was a well-known fact that...

Sukkot and Simchat Torah Celebrating Wholeness, Spontaneity and Anticipation Off to a Right Start The holiday of Sukkot reminds us of the huts of the Israelites as they wandered for forty years in the desert after their miraculous Exodus from Egypt . It would stand to reason, then, that Sukkot should be celebrated right after the holiday of Passover. However, the Talmudic sages explain that since Passover is in the spring, living in the sukkah would not be anything special. It is common to be outside during the warm months of the year. After Yom Kippur, however, when it starts to get cold, people generally take shelter inside. We go outside, only because G-d commands us to do so. Leaving our homes precisely when we are not naturally inclined to do so, internalizes one of the important lessons of Sukkot-G-d is our only true shelter, and we must trust in Him. We often transgress the will of G-d, because we mistakenly think we...

His steely eyes should have given him away, but over thirty years ago, I was a new immigrant, only four months into my Israeli army service, and I had no idea who this Lieutenant General really was. We were finishing our second stage of tank training at the Israeli Armored Corps school, and, graduating as a tank driver, I was being awarded my first rank: private first class (Turai’-Rishon) by someone whom I would later learn was and still is an Israeli legend. This particular rank has almost no value and was awarded a few of us who represented the battalion as outstanding cadets at the final ceremonies of the course. (I wore it on my arm for one day, only so that I could outrank my older brother, who was a few days away from completing his sergeant’s course in the paratroopers; I demanded that he “get off his feet for a soldier who outranked him!”) Looking back, the true value of that...

Getting the Forgiveness You Want and Need Yom Kippur is all about love and forgiveness. It's about how we are always inseparably close to G-d. On Yom Kippur we get a glimpse of ourselves, our choices and our relationship to G-d from another perspective--G-d's perspective. This is the transformational power of Yom Kippur that makes it into a Day of Atonement and forgiveness. There is a cryptic verse in the Book of Psalms (139:16), which, the Sages say, refers to Yom Kippur:  The days were formed, and one of them is His. Every day of the year we see the world from our perspective but there is one day --   G-d’s day -- when we get a glimpse of the way the world looks from His perspective and everything changes in light of that perspective. On Yom Kippur we see it all from the perspective of the World to Come where you get to see the whole picture. The Talmud teaches that in this...

I still don’t know how he made it into Infantry Officer’s course, but I do know how difficult it was for him. Overweight, and far from being an athlete, the physical challenges he would clearly have to overcome seemed insurmountable. How would he run up a 3 km mountain with a gasmask in the time allotted (Bocha nafchah)? How would he pass the Bar-Or 2km run test? How would he manage the morning runs for what seemed endless miles? And most of all, how would he get through Wingate and the Ason teva or ‘freak of nature’ run and obstacle course?  Two thirds of the way through the course we started training for the Ason teva course and I stopped wondering about him and started worrying how on earth I would make it through myself. Every time we practiced it, after coming up soaked out of the river I could not seem to get up the 6-meter rope fast enough; between...

Wonder Bread Tapping the Transformational Power of Faith During the seven days of Passover we are required to eat only Matza-- unleavened bread that looks somewhat like a cracker and is made of just water and flour. The Matza reminds us that we were slaves to the Egyptians who treated us as if we were subhuman and fed us brittle and tasteless unleavened bread. The Matza is therefore referred to as the “bread of affliction.” However, Matza also reminds us of how we left Egypt in an astounding record time, faster than it takes dough to leaven into bread. How can Matza be both a sign of our painful affliction and our joyous freedom? The Zohar, the Kabbalah classic, refers to Matza as the “Bread of Faith.” In other words, when we eat the Matza, we are internalizing the message of faith that it embodies. That message is -- know that even if you hit rock bottom and feel far and alienated from G-d, G-d is right there to help you and free you from...