What Do We Know?
Humble Words to Console
When we try to understand G-d, we face an inherent obstacle with the very process of knowing. When I attempt to know anything, I am the subject and the thing that I seek to know is the object. In addition, there must be some degree of distance and separation between the subject and the object. Your eye can see almost everything, but it cannot see itself. “Knowing” implies two separate entities: the knower and the known.
However, you cannot know G-d in this normative way, because G-d is the source of all knowing. G-d is the source of all consciousness. Your very ability to think comes from G-d, who is the source of all thinking. How can you think about the source of all thinking? How can your mind hope to comprehend the source and ground of all minds? Yet if you want to know G-d, then you must seek the source of all knowing....
When Rav Yitzchak Hutner (Author of the Pachad Yitzchak ) was learning in Slobodka Yeshiva in the early 1900’s, one of the students went from Slobodka to Berlin to be with Rav Dovid Tzvi Hoffman. When he returned to Slobodka the Alter of Slobodka (the head of the Slobodka yeshiva) asked for his impressions of the German people.
Among other things, the student shared that the Germans were a kind people. They had a polite way of speaking. As an example, when giving directions, a German, after sharing the instructions, would politely ask "nicht wahr?" (Is this not so?) This showed refinement. He would not say anything definitive; he would always end the sentence with a tentative, 'nicht wahr?'
At that point a debate broke out between the students of the Yeshiva. Was it right to praise the Germans? Some suggested true and lasting ethics should be culled from our own sources. But there was one student who persisted and suggested that...
His face is a study of pure determination, seeking every depression in the rock with which to grab hold. There is very little room for mistake, as one slip can result in a 3200-foot free-fall to the valley floor below. But he is determined, and foot by foot, precarious handhold by precarious handhold, he inches his way up in his relentless drive to reach the top of El Capitan, in Yosemite National park.
El Capitan is not just another climb; it is the Everest of free climbing which sees climbers from all the world attempting to scale its sheer cliff face. But they all do it with ropes and spikes. Alex Honnhold, perhaps the greatest free-climber alive today, is determined to do it without any ropes or spikes; he wants to do what no-one has ever done: to climb El Capitan with no help and no aids, just himself alone with sheer will.
En-route to Australia this week I had a...
Living G-d’s Life
Quite frankly, I don’t believe in G-d. The word spelled G-O-D does nothing for me; in fact, it interferes with my true belief.
I am not alone. Jews don’t believe in G-d. Indeed, the word “G-d” is not found in the Torah or the rest of the Hebrew Bible. Moses never heard of G-d nor heard from G-d.
The name in the Torah that has been translated as G-d or Lord is Adonai. The word Adonai means “Master.” In Jewish law, whatever a servant owns actually belongs to his master; the servant has no possessions whatsoever. This law also governs our spirituality: G-d is our Master, and in essence we own nothing. For example, it is incorrect to say “my” life because it is really G-d’s life. We do not own the life force within us.
This is a difficult concept to accept for many people because it is not a concept—it is a self-evident experience. Consider this: If we are...
Ask any Israeli soldier who ever served in the armored corps what part of his army service he hated the most, and he will answer unequivocally: ‘Tipul shvui’ the weekly tank inspection.
After completing 10 weeks of basic infantry training, followed by an additional 10 weeks of tank crew school learning the rudimentary skills of serving as tank crew members be it gunners, loaders or drivers, we began one of the most difficult courses in the Israeli army.
For twelve grueling weeks we averaged less than 15 hours of sleep a week, training day and night in our tanks in the field, with no showers, eating cold battle rations in the blistering heat of the Middle Eastern summer. Heading out of base in our tanks to the simulated battlefield environment on Sunday mornings, the entire week was one long nightmare of dust and diesel fumes, shell blasts and grease.
In an effort to simulate battle we trained all Tuesday and Wednesday nights without...
Purim: Celebrating Oneness and Love
A rabbi gets a new position in a synagogue. It is his first day on the job, and the congregation gets to the point in the prayer where they recite the Shema, “Hear Israel, G-d our G-d is one.” At that moment half of the congregation stands up and starts singing the Shema, while the other half stays seated. Those standing start screaming at the ones sitting down, “Stand up, stand up, it’s the Shema!” The ones sitting down say, “Oh, you’re crazy! Sit down, sit down, it’s the Shema!” The rabbi had never seen anything like this.
The next day the same thing happens. The ones that got up start yelling at the ones sitting down, the ones sitting down start yelling at the ones standing up. The rabbi goes over to one of the members and says, “I don’t know what to do. I mean, I’ve never seen anything like this. What is the tradition of the synagogue?”
“I don’t...
I noticed the jeep in the distance almost immediately; it was impossible to miss, raising a dust column you could see for miles. We were on maneuvers deep in the Negev desert, and there wasn’t anything else around but us, so we knew immediately the jeep had to be headed our way. Sure enough, twenty minutes later the jeep pulled up alongside our tank and a man with colonel’s oak-leaves on his shoulders got out and stretched. Our commander jumped down for a hurried conference, and we were only too happy for the brief respite; I was in the middle of tank commander’s course, one of the most depressing experiences I have ever had, and any break from the grind was always welcome.
A moment later our commander ordered the gunner off the tank and told us that this colonel was going to be joining us in the tank and that we did not need to know why or what it...
Sukkot and Simchat Torah
Celebrating Wholeness, Spontaneity and Anticipation
Off to a Right Start
The holiday of Sukkot reminds us of the huts of the Israelites as they wandered for forty years in the desert after their miraculous Exodus from Egypt . It would stand to reason, then, that Sukkot should be celebrated right after the holiday of Passover. However, the Talmudic sages explain that since Passover is in the spring, living in the sukkah would not be anything special. It is common to be outside during the warm months of the year. After Yom Kippur, however, when it starts to get cold, people generally take shelter inside. We go outside, only because G-d commands us to do so.
Leaving our homes precisely when we are not naturally inclined to do so, internalizes one of the important lessons of Sukkot-G-d is our only true shelter, and we must trust in Him. We often transgress the will of G-d, because we mistakenly think we...
May 4, 2009; Seconds, then minutes; the overturned boat remained upside down in the murky waters of the Yarkon River, trapping the woman who had been energetically rowing moments before; even the air bubbles had ceased….
Incredibly a small crowd of onlookers had gathered along the banks of the narrow river watching and pointing, even exclaiming, yet none seemed willing to brave the waters and attempt to rescue the woman whose life was clearly in danger. It was not a raging river, nor were the waters particularly deep, nor wide; rather it was well known how polluted these waters were and none seemed willing to risk the potential illness that might result from entering the waters, even for such a worthy cause.
Finally, nearly four minutes after the woman had capsized, Avi Toibin, a sixty-two-year-old passerby, apparently realizing the stakes and ignoring the danger, jumped in and managed to wrest the woman’s now limp body from beneath the unforgiving waters allowing...
Getting the Forgiveness You Want and Need
Yom Kippur is all about love and forgiveness. It's about how we are always inseparably close to G-d. On Yom Kippur we get a glimpse of ourselves, our choices and our relationship to G-d from another perspective--G-d's perspective. This is the transformational power of Yom Kippur that makes it into a Day of Atonement and forgiveness.
There is a cryptic verse in the Book of Psalms (139:16), which, the Sages say, refers to Yom Kippur: The days were formed, and one of them is His.
Every day of the year we see the world from our perspective but there is one day -- G-d’s day -- when we get a glimpse of the way the world looks from His perspective and everything changes in light of that perspective. On Yom Kippur we see it all from the perspective of the World to Come where you get to see the whole picture.
The Talmud teaches that in this...
