When Bergen Belsen was liberated by the Allies on April 15, 1945, the sight that greeted their eyes, even by concentration camp standards, was like a scene from hell itself. Thousands of bodies were lying in heaps all over the camp. In a desperate attempt to bury the dead before the British arrived, two thousand inmates were made to drag corpses to massive burial pits for three days between April 11 and April 14. And yet there were still over ten thousand rotting corpses around the camp on the day of liberation.
The camp was over-run with typhus, typhoid and tuberculosis, in addition to a lack of food and water and basic sanitation.
When the British liberated the camp, there were over 38,000 prisoners, but tragically, most were so ill, only ten thousand survived. Many of those who died after liberation actually died due to the food bestowed upon them by unsuspecting Allied soldiers who, meaning well, did not realize that the...
We Are Never Alone
Walking and Talking with the Divine
And in the wilderness where you have seen how that the LORD your G-d carried you as a man does bear his son in all the way that you went until you came into this place ----- Deuteronomy 1:31
Even though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for you, G-d, are with me. ----Psalms 23
Really!!-- The Zohar Vol. 2 pg. 57
In the world at large, if your boss sends you on a mission, he generally stays at the office, while you go off to accomplish the assigned task. But that's not the case when G-d sends you on a mission. G-d comes along.
This is the meaning of the verse in Psalm 127: “If G-d doesn't build your house, your labor is for nothing.”
Now you might think that if G-d is going to build your house, why do you have to labor at all? The...
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 some years ago, I had...
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...
One of the great challenges in life is knowing when to lead and when to follow. This is especially true in the military, as witness the different philosophies of the role of officers in the field, in different military doctrines.
The Israeli army, almost since its inception, has trained its commanders to lead by example. Many attribute the birth of this concept to the battle for Latrun in 1948.
Latrun sits on top of one of the most strategically important crossroads in Israel, on a hilltop overlooking the main highway from the coastal plains to Jerusalem, and it commands the entrance to the valley through which one must travel to Jerusalem.
Every army that ever wanted to take this holy city had to pass beneath this hill, which is why it is not only the site of many ancient fortifications, but was used by the British as a prime location for one of their Taggart fortresses.
In 1948, when Israel was fighting its war...
Choose Good, Feel Great
Secrets to Living Your Best Life
I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse: therefore choose life, that you may live, you and your seed ------Deut. 30:19
Goodness that isn't chosen is not complete goodness. If we didn’t choose goodness—if we were just naturally good, or if goodness was the only option available—how could that be the highest expression of goodness?
I know a fellow that has dozens of guests over at his home every weekend. When I complimented him on his hospitality, he said, “What are you talking about? It comes naturally to me. It's not a struggle for me. I love to do this!”
Is he really choosing goodness? If it comes naturally, is it complete goodness? Goodness that wasn’t chosen is not the greatest good. Only after you struggle with evil and chose goodness will you accomplish true and complete...
The banging on the door was a shock, but everyone knew what it must mean.
There were three of them standing in the darkened stairwell when they opened the door, in their signature long leather coats. It was the summer of 1938; not an auspicious time to be Jewish in Berlin. Yet Hans was not Jewish; or at least he was not Jewish anymore. He had been named Joseph at birth but had long since forgotten the Jewish grandfather after whom he had been named. His mother had been Jewish but had married a Christian German businessman and had eventually converted to his faith, and Joseph, himself married to a non-Jewish woman had never really considered himself Jewish. But apparently the Nazis begged to differ.
Someone had informed the authorities that he had been born of a Jewish mother, and his presence was kindly requested at Police headquarters. He was told he need not bring any belongings; it was simply...
How Happy is Happy Hour?
And you shall be happy in all that the Lord your G-d has given you (Deut. 26:11)
The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature. --- Anne Frank
Many people have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose. --- Hellen Keller
Money can't buy you happiness, but it does bring you a more pleasant form of misery. ---- Spike Milligan
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King Solomon said in his famous book Ecclesiastes, “I praise happiness,” and yet he also concluded “What does happiness accomplish?”
Is happiness praiseworthy or worthless?
The Talmud explains that King Solomon was referring to two types of happiness. The happiness derived...
I remember the first Mishnah I ever learned. (The Mishnah is the basic text of the oral tradition, as codified and edited by Rabbi Yehuda Ha’Nasi circa 200C.E. and represents the sum total of the oral tradition handed down from student to teacher in an unbroken chain from Sinai, over three thousand years ago. It is the foundation of Jewish tradition.) As a child I attended a Jewish Yeshiva Day School, but it was not in the school classroom that I was first introduced to the Mishnah; it was in Synagogue.
The Synagogue we attended when I was five years old, had a strict decorum, and I seem to recall or imagine the challenges this presented to my parents (She’yibadlu Le’Chaim Tovim) who had their hands full, I suppose, keeping track of my elder brother and me. Vague images of my red-faced and embarrassed father carrying me out of synagogue kicking and screaming to stop me from jumping up and...
Getting From the Real to the Ideal
The Journey of Personal Transformation
When you go forth to war against your enemies, and the Lord your G-d has delivered them into your hands, and you have taken them captive, And you see among the captives a beautiful woman, and desire her, and take her for a wife - Then you shall bring her home to your house... ... and she remain in your house and weep for her father and mother for a month, and after that .... she shall be your wife. And if you do not want her, you shall send her out on her own; you shall not sell her at all for money, you shall not treat her as a slave, because you "violated" her. (Deut. 21:10-14)
The Torah permits this only as a compromise to the yetzer ha-ra (evil urge). (Talmud Kiddushin 21b)
'And you shall take her unto you as a wife' - the Torah only permits this in...
