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...
Getting the Divine View on You
How to make worlds of a difference
And he said, Hear now my words: If there be a prophet among you, I the LORD will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream.
My servant Moses is not so, who is faithful in all mine house.
With him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches;
and the picture of the LORD shall he view (Numbers/BaMidbar 12:6-8)
Several years ago, I gave my kids Cheerios for breakfast. It said on the front of the Cheerios box that on the back of this box is a three-dimensional Cheerios bumblebee. So I looked at the back of the box and saw a distorted, blurry thing. Have you ever looked at a 3-D book without the goggles? You see a mishmash of misprinted, distorted images. There were no goggles inside the box of Cheerios,...
His disarming smile caught me by surprise, as did his baby-faced youthful appearance ; he was after all a nineteen or twenty-year old kid; yet my son was clearly in awe of him, and I was curious to understand why.
Our son Yair, after a grueling process, was recently accepted into an elite unit within the paratroopers, and we were invited after two months to visit his base for a special ‘Parents’ day’. For me it has been no less than fascinating to observe the process whereby the IDF molds these soldiers into elite fighters, but it has been equally interesting to note what sort of men are chosen to command these elite soldiers and to observe albeit from a distance what constitutes elite leadership from the army’s perspective.
Some of what we hear from our son is not surprising: grueling physical exercises, uncompromising regulations, and even harsh conditions when the boys were out in the field (‘shetach’) for two weeks...
Isn’t Humbleness Just Low Self-Esteem?
“Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth.” (Numbers 12:3)
Was Moses, indeed, humble? The man who courageously challenged the mighty Pharaoh the King of Egypt, who led an entire people out of slavery, the man who after seeing the golden calf smashed the very tablets written by the finger of G-d.
Judaism teaches that no character trait is absolutely negative, everything has a role. All we have to do is look at each trait with an open mind and determine its pluses and the minuses. When it comes to pride there is an aspect of it that comes from the godly grandeur of our soul and is therefore, truly humbleness and the source of powerful sacred self esteem. But there is an aspect of pride that comes from our ego which is haughtiness and self destructive; alienating us from our true inner self. This type of pride focuses...
Many years ago, I read a story regarding Rav Yitzchak Eisenbach from Jerusalem.
As a young boy, Yitzele’ was walking to the Kotel (The Western Wall) through the Jaffa gate one Shabbat afternoon, in a section of the city which was densely inhabited by Arabs. As he walked through the narrow, unpaved streets he passed numerous Arab-owned cafes in which young and old folks were milling around. Suddenly Yitzele noticed a gold coin on the sidewalk. The value of the coin was such that it could support a family the size of his own for a month! The poverty in his home was wrenching, and he was thrilled at the prospect of being able to help his parents in their struggle for their family’s survival.
However, because it was Shabbat, he would not pick up the golden coin. Instead, he put his foot on the coin to hide it from view, and decided to stand there until nightfall when Shabbat ended so...
Prophecy 101:
Ego is a Non-Prophet Venture
This week we begin to read from the fourth of the five books of Moses. Although this book is referred to in English as the Book of Numbers, in Hebrew it is referred to as Bamidbar because of the opening verse; "And the Lord spoke to Moses in the wilderness (Bamidbar) of Sinai ..."
The Midrash, Jewish Oral Tradition, derives a somewhat puzzling insight from the fact that G-d spoke to Moses in the wilderness :
Unless one makes himself hefker (open and ownerless) like a wilderness he cannot acquire wisdom and Torah. (Bamidbar Rabbah 1:7)
In other words, to be receptive to the revelatory word of G-d you must be like the wilderness completely open and ownerless – in a state of humility and surrender. Moses heard the word of G-d not only in the physical location of the wilderness but also because was he was in a “wilderness” state of mind.
Edging G-d Out
The creative experience...
Years ago, after a very difficult month in Lebanon, someone higher up decided our unit needed a break. Every unit maintains a daily ‘events log’ (Yoman Iruim) which logs all the events of the day for any given IDF Combat company. Every patrol, ambush, search and seize, and oversight mission gets logged, and when a unit accrues too many stressful events within a certain period of time, they are, if circumstances allow, pulled off the line for a little rest. So it made sense, given the events our unit had experienced in Lebanon that it was our turn.
After transferring the line to a reserve company, we found ourselves in Netanya, in a heavenly place called Beit Goldmintz, along the Netanya coast. One day I will get a chance to thank the Goldmintz family who must have donated this place, which was previously a small hotel. Our mouths fell open when we walked into the room we had been assigned:...
WHY ARE THE LUCHOT HIDDEN?
Last year on Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Memorial Day) at Orayta, we were privileged to meet Mrs. Marta Weiss, a Holocaust survivor who shared her incredible story with us.
Born in Bratislava, in Czechoslovakia, she eventually ended up in Hungary, hiding in plain sight from the Nazis until June 1944 when she was deported along with her sister to Auschwitz.
She was crammed along with 120 people into a cattle car, and pretty soon there were many bodies of 'dead men standing'; but they were driven back and forth for three days because there was no room at Auschwitz; she actually recalls being relieved when they were finally let out of the cattle car and arrived at their destination; who knew? Marta arrived in Auschwitz when she was ten years old.
She remembers when they tattooed a number on her arm, it was extremely painful... but she was told: 'don’t cry: it means you will live at least a week’. Her camp number was A27...
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...
She was known as The Other Doctor of Auschwitz and I recently read a story about her in Yitta Halberstam’s small miracles series.
A young woman (we’ll call her Chaya) had just arrived in Auschwitz as a young bride of nineteen. Forced to suffer the ordeal of Mengele’s infamous selection, she watched her beloved husband taken off in the opposite direction and, having survived, realized he must be gone.
Soon though, amidst the constant fear hunger and pain, Chaya discovered a small glimmer of hope: she realized she was pregnant; a part of her husband still lived. After a time, she could no longer hide the blessing that she carried and told a few of her fellow inmates only to discover it was in fact more of a curse. No babies survived in Auschwitz, and when Mengele, the Dr. of Auschwitz, found out a woman was pregnant or gave birth both the mother and baby were brutally murdered. Her friends...
