Category: Chumash Shemot

Where is G-d, the Miracle Maker? People often say, “If there is really a G-d, why doesn’t He do outright miracles anymore? I would believe in G-d if I saw the ten plagues in Egypt, the sea split or some other supernatural event.” In the past, G-d did miracles in order to prevent some terrible tragedy from happening. G-d overruled the laws of nature to keep the story going—otherwise, it would have ended. But this type of intervention is not the ideal way that G-d wants to act. G-d prefers not to do miracles. He only does them when there is no other way to teach us about His control of nature. People do not really change by witnessing a miracle. Of course, at first they are strongly moved and seem to change. But the awe quickly wears off, and they return to their old ways. We see this human pattern many times in the stories of the Torah. The Israelites witnessed the...

Are we here because we have made the right choices, or have all the right choices really been made for us? It was meant to be a routine patrol which, but for this incident, would long have been forgotten. We were on reserve duty during the Intifada (the original Intifada, back in 89’) doing a jeep patrol in a small Arab village called Azun. The three of us represented a standard cross- section of Israeli society: Shimon Kachlon, a bank- teller, Rami, an electrician who worked for Bezek (Israel’s phone company), and me, a teacher. It has always been my custom to say the special prayer for the journey (Tefillat Ha’Derech) before every patrol, and this one was no exception. Though both Rami and Kachlon defined themselves as secular Jews (assuming a person wearing an Israeli army uniform can ever be secular), both instinctively covered their heads with their hands as I intoned the traditional prayer. We had been on...

Identity Crisis is a Gift: Awakening to the Role and Goal of Your Soul Kirk Douglas, z"l, the actor, once told me that when people compliment him on a performance, they often tell him how great he was at losing himself in the part. "You just became Vincent Van Gogh! You were so wonderful." And he answers, "No, you lost yourself in the part. I can't afford to lose myself in the part. I have to pay attention to the director, to the cues. I have to hit the mark just right so the action is in the camera frame. I must stay aware that I am an actor playing a role." A good actor plays his part, but he doesn't get lost in his part. He can't even begin to think he is the character he is playing. On the other hand, he still embraces that role with a tremendous amount of love and gives everything he's got to play...

It is more than twenty years now, and yet it seems like yesterday. There are moments you can taste, even smell, forever. Forty yards, or perhaps it was only thirty? Time has a way of coloring the details. We had come under heavy fire, and we were doing everything right; by the book. The force was split up and the cover position was already in place laying down heavy suppressing fire, while we moved into place to charge their position. Six of us, trained and experienced, we were running in a straight line up the hill. In such moments, you discover whether all the training had really been worth it. In the movies, they always make it seem like the officer is a hero, cool under fire, and wise enough to know exactly what to do. But in reality, the training just takes over. It isn’t bravery, nor is it that the officer is gifted enough to know exactly what...

Successful People Are Unaccomplished Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day there shall be to you a holy, a day of solemn rest to the Lord. (Exodus 35:2) During the forty years that the Israelites wandered in the desert they carried with them a portable temple referred to as the Tabernacle or the Mishkan. The creative acts that are forbidden on Shabbat are those acts similar to the skills that went into building or assembling the Mishkan. The Talmud outlines 39 different categories of such creative acts that are forbidden to do on Shabbat. They represent our ultimate power of creativity which is to build a temple that accommodates the presence of G-d on earth. Of course we know that G-d does not literally dwell in the Mishkan, however, the Mishkan symbolizes our ability to serve G-d and infuse every moment and every place with the presence of G-d. In other words, the greatest accomplishment of a human being is to serve to make manifest G-d’s presence...

Corona; Isolation; Quarantine; Closed schools and synagogues, flights cancelled, and travel limited; no large public gatherings… what is going on? Years ago, during what has become known as the first Intifada, I recall a particularly hairy day, when one of our patrols got into some serious trouble. We were stationed near Jebalya, a nasty piece of real estate in the Gaza strip, home to approximately 120,000 Arab ‘refugees’, and in the spring of 88’ things were really heating up. We didn’t have enough officers and men to handle the load so we were working with additional units, and an urgent radio call came in from one of these neighboring patrols who were apparently surrounded by hundreds of rioters with rocks and Molotov cocktails and found themselves hemmed in an alleyway with nowhere to retreat and not enough ammunition. I couldn’t understand where this huge riot had sprung up from, as I had just finished a patrol in the same area and had...

Shabbat: Rest Assured Keep the Shabbat for it is holy unto you..... because in six days G-d made heaven and earth: and on the seventh day He abstained from work and rested. (Exodus 31: 14-17) Most people know what you don’t do on Shabbat: you don’t tear toilet paper, you don’t drive, you don’t write, you don’t turn on lights, you don’t shop, etc. But they don’t know why, and they don’t know what it is you, in fact, do on Shabbat. And of course, when you just focus on what you don’t do on Shabbat, the experience—which is supposed to be joyous and fulfilling—basically ends up sounding like torture. You have to ask yourself, “Is this the way I want to celebrate a holiday? Is this how I want to spend my weekend after working hard all week long?” In order to understand the real meaning of Shabbat, let’s explore the first place it is mentioned in the Torah. This paragraph is from the Book of Genesis and...

“Make it count”. Words that would stay with me forever. Lying on a hill not four hundred yards from two terrorists who were firing indiscriminately on the local Jewish civilians behind us, it should have been simple.  It’s you or them, on top of which you are protecting civilians; women and children taking cover in the homes behind our position.  But sometimes life is not so simple. It was getting darker, and as the sun dropped lower on the horizon, and the light mixed with shadows, it was clear why we could not open fire. Literally in between and all around the two terrorists who were firing were about twenty or thirty little kids. The local Arab school they were firing from was one that was familiar to me, such that I knew this school was never open at 5 in the afternoon. They had brought these children there for a reason: they were hoping we would respond with fire so...

The Gift of Giving: Love’s Secret Service In this week’s Torah Portion we are commanded to bring pure oil to the tabernacle to light the Menorah (candelabra). “And you (Moses) shall command the children of Israel, that they bring to you pure olive oil beaten for the light, to cause a lamp to burn continually.” (Exodus 27:20) The Midrash, which part of Jewish Oral Tradition, asks an obvious question. The entire world is illuminated by G-d’s splendor and yet He tells the Jewish people to bring oil to light the Menorah before Him? The Midrash answers that G-d desires the works of your hands. How can we understand that G-d desires the works of our hand? How can G-d want something from us? What can we give G-d? Does G-d lack anything that we can provide? The Kabbalah teaches that G-d created the world to give us goodness and yet it seems from the Midrash that G-d is not looking to give but really wants to receive. How...

If you were a prisoner in Auschwitz and were one of the ‘lucky’ ones, you were put to work in a place they called ‘Canada’. This was the collection center in Auschwitz where the mountains of belongings the Jews had brought with them were sorted after they were murdered. Believing they were being resettled and hoping they would be able, after the horrors of the ghetto to begin a more normal life, the Nazis encouraged them to have hope as this discouraged rebellion… So what do you bring with you if you can only bring one bag you had to carry? Only those things that will help you survive; there is no room for photographs, precious books, or extra fine clothing. They brought pots and pans for cooking, prayer shawls (talleisim) and Tefillin for praying, winter clothes for the harsh Polish winter, and food; whatever food they had left. And after they were gassed and burned the prisoners in ‘Canada’ sorted...