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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...
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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...
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As these words are being written. Yehuda Glick, a passionate advocate for the right of Jews to pray on the Temple mount in Jerusalem, lies fighting for his life after being shot four times by an Arab terrorist in a horrific assassination attempt in Jerusalem.
The reason Yehuda, a gentle soul who advocates equally for the right of Muslims to continue worshipping in their El Aksa mosque on the mount, has to be such a vocal advocate for Jewish prayer-rights at Judaism...
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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...
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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 ...
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Has the world gone mad?
The Yazzidi people fleeing into the cold cruel mountains of Iraq to avoid massacre; hundreds of thousands of Kurds running across the borders into Turkey and Jordan to escape beheadings and mass rape in Syria; and hundreds of thousands of people on the move to stay one step ahead of the Islamist fundamentalists in Southern Sudan and the Nuba mountains all while Iran moves ever closer to joining North Korea in its quest for Nuclear weapons of mass destruction.
And where are the forces of good while all this mayhem is taking place? What is the West...
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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...
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Some time ago I had the privilege of meeting a World War II veteran with a fascinating story to share:
Born in Germany, he was lucky enough to be born to parents who saw the writing on the wall, and sent him away for High School to boarding school in England. Visits home, while full of the wonderful memories of family and home cooking, were also filled with tension, as he watched Adolph Hitler...
