Making Every Day Count
The Key to Making Life Worth Living
One day as I was waiting for a friend, an old woman sits down next to me. Suddenly she jumps out of her seat, turns to me and yells, "I should have never left Mexico!"
I look at her and ask, "When did you leave Mexico?"
"Thirty years ago!" she cries. "And I regret it every single day of my life!"
You would think that after 30 years a person would finally get used to where they were. But people often live in the past.
One of my students, age 28, told me that his father insulted him when he was age 12 and till this day he continues to feel hurt and angry. I explained to him that although his father hurt him when he was twelve he has allowed his father to continue to hurt him for another sixteen years by holding on to the pain and constantly remembering it. I suggested...
It had been a grueling few weeks. After almost thirty years in the reserves I was definitely getting too old for this. Midnight ambushes with 10-20 kilometer treks carrying heavy gear and wearing heavy bullet-proof ceramic vests, all day patrols in the hot sun, trying to stay alert commanding checkpoints in dangerous areas over the green line; we had been attached for this reserve duty to a unit of paratroopers most of whom were 20-25 years younger; it was all getting to be a bit much.
We were three days away from finishing this stint of reserve duty and to be honest, I was counting the hours. I had come back from a late-night ambush and after trekking deep into a valley and having to come back on foot with all our heavy gear I finally collapsed onto my cot in the army tent, only to be woken a few hours later and informed I was the Officer on Duty for...
Enjoying Heaven on Earth
In this week's Torah portion G-d appeared to Abraham and yet He said nothing.
"G-d appeared to [Abraham] in the Plains of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance of the tent in the hottest part of the day. [Abraham] lifted his eyes and he saw three strangers approaching and ran towards them."
Until now G-d appeared to Abraham to instruct, promise or bless him. The Talmud (Sotah 14A) comments that G-d was visiting sick Abraham who was recuperating from his circumcision. What does this mean?
When you visit a person who is ill it is not in order to say something; your mere presence communicates your pure desire to identify with this person in his/her time of need. You go for the sole purpose of being there. So it was when G-d visited Abraham. For the first time G-d appears to Abraham only to be with him, identify with him and share this special moment.
Sometimes the highest moment...
I can still remember that ride; every minute of it, every time I took it…. Passing Agam Karun (the Karun reservoir), and then the road below the Beaufort fortress imagining what that would have been like if the PLO had still controlled that high ground; marveling at the insane bravery the men of Golani must have had to take that spot just the year before ….
And then passing through Marja’oun and getting close to the border; you could taste it now; home was that close. It was always an intense ride in open safari trucks with all our gear on: flak vests helmets, webbing and gear and bullet in the chamber, never really sure if you would make it to the border; there were no shortage of stories of convoys being ambushed on this road and we were obvious targets in open safari trucks with no armor….
And once you’ve been through such an ambush you no longer focus on the...
Abraham: The Master of Personal Transformation
In reading the Torah's (Bible) account of Abraham, we cannot but be surprised and disturbed by the obvious omissions. Abraham appears upon the stage of history as a virtually anonymous character, without lengthy introduction or background or any real character references. The Torah recounts his genealogy and the migration of his family from one Mesopotamian city to another. It mentions his wife Sarai (who is later renamed Sarah) and her barrenness. It also mentions the death of his father and brother. But these are all mundane vital statistics that do not hint at Abraham's spiritual status.
Suddenly, yet in an oddly matter-of-fact way, the Torah relates a momentous revelation, one of the most crucial scenes in the entire Torah. G-d bursts into the personal life of this one man, calling to him, demanding of him a radical renunciation and promising that he will become prosperous, famous, the progenitor of a great nation which will be no...
Why was Abraham the first Jew? What happened to Noach? Last week at Orayta, we met a living legend, who, less with his words and more by the glint in his eye, provided the answer.
On October 6, 1973, Effie Eitam was a commander in the elite reconnaissance unit of the Israeli army, Sayeret Matkal. Known simply as ‘the Sayeret’ (recon unit), they were deployed along the line of defense in the Golan Heights and their mission in the weeks leading up to Yom Kippur had been to observe and report back on the obvious buildup of Syrian forces in the area.
Hundreds of tanks, armored personnel carriers, artillery guns, anti-aircraft and anti-tank units were observed, and with increasing urgency Effie’s unit was reporting back on the dangerous enemy buildup, but it seemed no one was listening.
And then, late morning on Oct 6, 1973, to quote Effie Eitam’s exact words: “The gates of Hell opened up”. The Syrians unleashed an artillery barrage...
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...
Clearly, I had been stood up; today I would have just sent him a text, but this was back in the days before cell phones, when a meeting over a cup of coffee was just two people with no distractions, and I had no way of reaching him nor could I be sure he might not still arrive so I ordered the grilled cheese sandwich and decided to wait a bit longer. There was a fellow sitting at the table next to mine with his back to me, telling a funny story and I could not help laughing, causing him to turn and smile in my direction. The fellow he was sitting with was getting up to leave but he himself seemed to be in no hurry so we started a conversation which seemed entirely ordinary, until he asked me a rather odd question: ‘Is the sun setting?’
Which was when I realized he was blind. It was indeed a beautiful...
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...
He was a tough kid, with obvious ‘stuff’ going on inside; always getting into fights, spending a fair amount of time in the hallway, and always with that sad, lost look.
Many years ago, when I was first exploring the world of education and teaching, I decided to try my hand at different types of teaching to see who and what I would most enjoy teaching, and what really spoke to me. Formal and informal, in schools and summer camps, for a few years I taught just about every type of audience I could find, with an eye towards discovering the type of teaching I truly loved and could spend the rest of my life with . One year, I took a job teaching first graders; to see what it would be like.
As part of that experience, I underwent a one day seminar designed to train young inexperienced teachers how to look for tell-tale signs of abuse at home …....
