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...
A number of years ago, I was given a copy of Dr. Hagi ben Artzi’s book on the Six-Day war (produced by Mizrachi) Megillat Sheshet Hayamim, based on the IDF’s post war reports analyzing the war. It contained the following fascinating story:
On June 4, 1967, the day before Israel launched the Six-Day war, Abdel Hakim Amer, the Egyptian minister of war, decided a review of the Egyptian troops massed in the Sinai was in order. He invited senior military personal from Cairo to join him on an air tour of the lines along with a visit to senior officers in the Sinai on a special flight scheduled to take off from Cairo at 7am the next morning, June 5. A delegation from the Iraqi army was invited to join as well and they flew in a second plane.
To ensure the safety of all these VIP’s flying in a closed military air zone, Amer ordered all his anti-aircraft batteries to...
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...
There is a mystical idea which suggests that hidden within every fire of destruction, is the spark of redemption. Such, for example, was the case on August 3rd, 1492, which was also the Ninth of the Hebrew month of Av, the anniversary of the destruction of both Temples in Jerusalem. On that day in 1492, one of the greatest tragedies in the history of the Jewish people came to a head, as two hundred and fifty thousand Jews, faced with the impossible choice of baptism or death, were expelled from Spain. Thus began a series of expulsions and inquisitions that would force the Jewish people to wander from country to country, culminating in the unspeakable horror of the Holocaust five hundred years later.
Many do not realize that on that fateful August morning in 1492, the very day eighty thousand Jews followed Don Yitzchak Abarbanel across the border into Portugal, and thousands of boats filled the harbor, setting sail with the...
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...
In 2014, Op-Ed Columnist Thomas Friedman published an article in the New York Times regarding a Gallup poll exploring the linkages between education and long-term success in the work place. The research (https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/10/opinion/thomas-friedman-it-takes-a-mentor.html ) questioned what types of College experiences were most likely to produce employees who were successfully engaged in a fulfilling career track.
“According to Brandon Busteed, the executive director of Gallup’s education division, two things stand out. Successful students had one or more teachers who were mentors and took a real interest in their aspirations, and they had an internship related to what they were learning in school.”
Apparently, there were no significant differences regarding the likelihood of employees being fulfilled in a career path of their choice based on what type of institution (private vs. public college, as an example) they attended. Rather the most significant difference was correlated with how a student received his or her College education.
“Graduates who told Gallup that they had a professor or...
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...
I recently read a vignette received in an email, which touched me:
A fellow, on his way home, stopped to watch a Little league baseball game being played in the park. Sitting down on the sidelines to watch he asked one of the boys playing what the score was: “We’re behind fourteen to nothing” the boy replied with a grin.
‘Really?” Said the fellow watching, “you don’t seem at all discouraged?”
“Discouraged? Asked the boy with a puzzled look on his face:
“Why would I be discouraged? We haven’t been up to bat yet!”
Sometimes, we get too focused on where we are headed, and lose sight of where we really are….
This week’s portion of Ki Teitzeh contains one of the most difficult set of laws in the entire Torah: the laws of the Ben Sorer U’moreh: the wayward son. This refers to a child who has adopted a pattern of negative behavior that we presume will eventually lead him to a horrible life of...
The Prophet Powered Life
“I (G-d) will raise them up a prophet from among their brethren, like unto you (Moses); and I will put My words in his mouth, and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him” (Deut. 18: 18)
Through using methods such as meditation and music, the prophets of ancient Israel were able to induce altered states of consciousness in which they experienced a direct revelation from G-d. Sometimes they received a message for the entire world.
When such messages had eternal significance, they were recorded and later incorporated into the Hebrew Bible. Only fifteen prophets’ revelations are included, with another dozen or so prophets mentioned by name in the various Biblical books. The Talmud, however, tells us that there were as many prophets in ancient Israel as Israelites who came out of Egypt during the Exodus, in other words, approximately three million.
The Talmud also tells us that after the Temple was destroyed, the period of...
A Short-Cut to a Life of Blessings
You get what you give
“Thou shalt not harden thy heart, nor shut thy hand from your needy brother; surely open thy hand to him.”
— Deut. 15:7-8
Is there a short-cut to the spiritual wealth of life? One of the most powerful and immediate ways to connect the circuit of life, and let the blessings flow is Tzedaka, that is charity.
The Talmud teaches: "Tzedaka saves from death." When we need an incredible influx of life force — because we are facing impending physical death or impending spiritual death, the act of giving to charity can be one of the most powerful antidotes.
As proof for the statement, the Talmud tells the incredible story of the daughter of the famous Rabbi Akiva, who lived some 2,000 years ago. A star-gazer told Rabbi Akiva that his daughter would die on the day of her wedding. Rabbi Akiva replied that just because it is written in the stars...
