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...
Contrary to popular myth, there is no better or worse way to lose someone close to you, but there is definitely a worst way to find out about it.
It had been a long day, and I was finally taking a few moments to relax, sitting in our small living room watching the evening news. There had been a terrible tragedy. An elite unit of the paratroopers, on a mission deep in Lebanon, had gotten a little too spread out, and there was a heavy fog. Somehow, without realizing it, the officer leading the unit was allowing them to gradually curve around until the front of the unit was almost heading back in the direction from whence they had come.
Suddenly, the men on point saw silhouettes in the fog and, assuming them to be the enemy, opened fire. As it turned out, they were actually firing at their own comrades, as the patrol line had gotten split up in the darkness,...
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...
To Pray the Jewish Way
At first glance prayer seems to be about whining and begging G-d, "Please heal this person ... please bring me my soul-mate ... please help my business, etc." One could mistakenly think that G-d is holding out on us and gets pleasure watching us grovel.
When we are faced with some very serious problems, it is customary to ask others to join together in our prayers. What is that all about? It seems as if we hope to move G-d through force: "G-d, if you don't respond to my prayers, then I will recruit through the e-mail thousands of others to pray."
Do we think these strategies really work? What are we actually doing here? If G-d is all knowing then why am I telling Him my problems? He already knows them. If G-d is good then why am I asking for Him to change my situation? Obviously whatever happens to me is for my best and I...
Mrs. Marlit Wendell is a Holocaust survivor who lives in Jerusalem.
Marlit, her mother, and older sister were able to survive Auschwitz and the war together. Their arms were numbered with three consecutive numbers. (I believe they are the only living family with three consecutive numbers ...) Eventually, they were able to join their brother in America after the war.
In October 1938 in the middle of the night when all the kids were asleep, three Gestapo agents came to their house, and burst into the living room. They were taken to Gestapo headquarters after being told there was no need to take anything with them as they'd come back home; but they never saw their home again. Imagine what that must have been like for a seven-year-old; seventy five years later, Marlit still wishes she could go back to her home to see it and what she left behind, one last time.
The parents were out late; when they came home and...
Recently, my brother shared with me the following story:
Yuli Edelstein the speaker of the Knesset, was visiting a small school in Beitar Illit (Le’tzion Be’Rinah) and shared the following story:
On Dec 19, 1984, Edelstein was sentenced by a Russian Tribunal, to three years of hard labor in Siberia. Technically the crime listed on the charge sheet was possession of narcotics, but the real reason was the fact that the Russians had caught him teaching Hebrew.
“That day in court”, Edelstein recalled, “was after three solid months of being imprisoned in an isolation cell in Moscow’s infamous Chistopol prison.”
“I was taken straight from my prison cell to the court , and found it full of Russian military and security personnel, who had clearly filled the court room to ensure there was no room for any of my supporters; only my wife and mother managed to get into the courtroom to hear the sentencing.”
After the sentencing, the twenty six year old Edelstein was...
Funny. You Don't Look Religious
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
I once was hired to organize educational programs for a large Jewish youth group in the United States. To overcome any possible stigmas associated with the word "rabbi" and to encourage the kids to relate to me without preconceived notions, I asked the executives to introduce me as just David Aaron, not as Rabbi David Aaron. They respected my request, but I was dismayed to read in their newsletter the following announcement: "We want to welcome a new member to our staff: David Aaron, our Judaism specialist."
This sounded even worse! It made Judaism sound like a rare disease. Don't we go to specialists when we have a problem our general practitioner cannot treat? What do you do with a Judaism specialist? Do you come to him and say, "I've got this problem with Jewish guilt. Do you have a cure, Judaism specialist?" I was in trouble before I even started. I didn't want...
It was late, and normally he would have been on his way home but he had some unfinished business at work, bringing him back up the hill late that night.
Very few people would even have noticed what he saw, much less done anything about it, but Aryeh, an expert in archeology, and very familiar with the normal comings and goings in East Jerusalem, realized something was going on: a long line of trucks was moving up and down the road, in and out of the Old City.
Arabs do not normally work late at night and certainly so many trucks would have to mean a major building project, which was strange considering the late hour. As it turned out, the Wakf (the Muslim religious authority on the Temple Mount) was overseeing an illegal expansion of the El Aksa Mosque on the Mount and needed somewhere to dump all the dirt and rubble they were digging up. And as any digging on...
WHY IS LIFE SO DIFFICULT?
Making peace with our battle
In this week's portion, Jacob asks for peace and relaxation but G-d had another plan.
“Jacob settled (down) in the land of his father's dwellings, in the Land of Caanan.” — Genesis 37:2
The foremost commentator, Rashi, explains: Jacob wanted to settle down in tranquility but then the ordeal of his son Joseph (sale into slavery) fell upon him. The righteous seek to dwell in tranquility but G-d says 'Is it not enough for the righteous what has been prepared for them (reward) in the World to Come that they need to seek tranquility also in this world!'"
Some people turn to G-d and religion, hoping to find refuge from all the turbulence of life, from doubt, from inner conflicts and mental turmoil. They want instant inner peace, spiritual contentment, and tranquility for their troubled souls.
According to Kabbalah, that is not the purpose of life on earth. In fact, it is just the opposite. We...
Compromise: such a challenging word; ranging as it does from the very noble, to the very naïve. How does one know when compromise is called for, and when it is actually a tragic mistake?
In the military, compromise can be a dangerous thing, and orders, once received, must of necessity be carried out to the letter. There is no room for variance.
But sometimes, when orders contravene principals, following those orders may be an unacceptable compromise, and the challenge is to know where the line one cannot cross actually lies.
In all the years I served in the Israeli army, I only once knowingly and willfully refused a direct order, because it was a compromise I could not accept.
For some reason, when I arrived at the Armored Corps Tank commander’s course, all the challenges I had faced till then were apparently not enough, and G-d must have decided to give me one more. As it turned out this one was a whopper, and...
