Making G-d's Will Ours
"Behold you have sinned against G-d. And you your sin will find you." ~~ Numbers 32:23
THE PROCESS OF 'I'-DENTIFYING
If G-d were the sun each of us would be a ray of His divine light. The goal of the spiritual disciplines of daily Torah (Bible) life - study, prayer, meditation, and the performance of mitzvas (religious duties; plural for mitzvah), is to serve G-d and, thereby, become one with our true essence. Through these practices we experience our self an aspect and individualized expression of the Timeless Universal Self - G-d.
The 20th century Kabbalist Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan explains in his book Inner Space that in order to feel this powerful truth, we must learn to disengage our inner self from its outer trappings. In other words, we have to get in touch with our soul as distinct from our persona, thoughts and feelings.
The goal of disengaging the self from the outer trappings is to realize...
The second of this week’s portions, Massei, begins by describing the many journeys of the Jewish people in the desert, on their way to entering the land of Israel. Describing each stop along the way, the Torah delineates no less than forty-two separate places the Jewish people passed through on their way to Israel.
From Ramses, the Egyptian suburb built by Jewish slaves, all the way to the plains of Moab on the banks of the Jordan River, the Torah takes the time to list each and every part of the Jewish journey from slavery to freedom, leaving us to wonder why so much space is devoted to a delineation of geographic progression. Why not just express that over forty years the Jews made it up from Egypt to the staging ground along the Jordan, from whence the entry to Israel would begin.
Why the need for so many ‘pitstops’? In fact, the desert is all about space, and much less about...
Can You Forgive G-d?
How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. ~~ Anne Frank
This imperfect world is the perfect place for a dynamic life filled with challenge, growth and love. That’s the way G-d planned it.
Here is what the Torah tells us: “In the beginning G- d created heaven and earth. And the earth was chaos and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep....And G-d said: ‘Let there be light’: and there was light....G-d divided the light from the darkness. G-d called the light ‘Day’ and the darkness He called ‘Night’...Let there be firmament in the midst of the water...Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear...G-d called the dry land Earth, and the gathering of waters He called Seas, etc.’ (Genesis 1:2-10)
G-d intentionally created the world in a state of chaos, void, and darkness....
Nineteen hundred and fifty-six years ago, this week, (on the 17th day of the Hebrew month of Tammuz) the end finally began. After two and a half years of siege, the Roman Legions broke through the ancient walls of Jerusalem and began their savage rampage of pillage and looting through the streets of Jerusalem. Although the walk from the city walls to the Temple Mount is a short ten-minute stroll, it would take the Romans three weeks to actually set fire to the Temple and end the battle for Jerusalem. Amidst the fire and destruction, Rav Yochanan Ben Zakkai smuggled himself out of the city, realizing the war was lost, and preferring to begin the long and tortuous process of assuring the Jewish people’s survival in the exile.
Nineteen hundred years later, the Jews of Jerusalem again faced that most awful of challenges: to stay and fight or leave and live to fight another day.
In her book Forever My Jerusalem, Puah...
To Teach or to Preach?
The meaning of true education
What is a true educational experience? The Hebrew word for education—chinuch—gives us a clue. Chinuch is associated with the Hebrew word chen, which means “grace”. When you meet people with chen, you realize there is something very attractive about them. But chen is not the same as “pretty,” which is yofi in Hebrew.
To help you appreciate the difference between chen and yofi, imagine the following scenario. A friend wants to fix you up with a gorgeous-looking woman who is nothing less than a model, or so he tells you. You are excited. You anticipate love at first sight and wait for days till the date. Finally, the day arrives and you knock on her door. Someone opens the door. You’re a little shocked.
“Is your sister home?” you ask.
“I don’t have a sister. Who are you looking for?” she says.
“I’m looking for Debbie.”
“I’m Debbie.”
“Oh, oh ... I’m David’s brother. He couldn’t make...
There is a story in the Talmud about Rabbi Shimon ben Shetach who lived during the second Temple period and was the President of the Sanhedrin, the Rabbinic high court.
It seems he bought a donkey from a non-Jewish fellow and was riding back to Jerusalem when one of his students found a rare and valuable gem in one of the saddlebags. Halfway to Jerusalem, Rabbi Shimon, without thinking twice, immediately turned the donkey around and headed back to find the original owner of the donkey.
"But you bought the donkey with the saddlebags!" exclaimed one of his students. "Isn't anything found in them rightfully yours?" "I paid for a donkey", replied Rabbi Shimon, "I did not pay for such a valuable gem."
After journeying back to their point of origin and restoring the priceless gem to its original owner, the non-Jew, clearly overcome by Rabbi Shimon's integrity, exclaimed: "Blessed is the G-d of Rabbi Shimon ben Shetach!".
The first time I came across...
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...
Sometimes, the most powerful experiences are the ones you least expect. Such was the case on a recent trip to Poland. Tucked in between our visits to the Lodz Ghetto in the morning and the Warsaw Ghetto in the afternoon, we made a brief stop in a town called Czestochowa where we found ourselves on an innocuous city street off a town square. There were 30,000 Jews in Czestochowa before the war; today it is Judenrein; no Jews are left.
We were not sure where our guide was taking us as we entered an apartment building and walked down the stairs into the basement until we suddenly found ourselves squeezed into a cellar that had been dug as a bunker under the street. The walls were still raw rocks and mud, and the dank musty smell of damp and rot was overpowering.
When the last Jews of Czestochowa were being deported to Treblinka in the summer of 1943 a certain Mr. Fishman,...
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...
Perhaps one of the most important aspects of training to be a Rabbi and a teacher is to have spent time in the presence of great Torah scholars; it allows you to appreciate how little you really know.
Having had the privilege of pursuing rabbinical studies in a place where geniuses ‘grew on trees’ and where classes were given by some of the greatest Torah scholars of the generation, the prospect of ‘graduating’ as a rabbi became somewhat of a daunting prospect. How does one reach the point where they feel ready to assume rabbinical studies? Especially after being exposed on a daily basis to what a Torah-scholar and a rabbi can be?
I recall a friend very close to me who was, confronted with this very challenge: How do you know when you are ready to leave the greenhouse of the Yeshiva world and put the knowledge you have accrued to serve the community? Torah, after all, is an...
