You are Loved!
Don’t Pass Up Passover
I was once sitting and learning Torah with the Hollywood Actor, Kirk Douglas,z”l, when suddenly he turned to me and said, “You know, Rabbi, I love being Jewish.”
“Oh, yeah? Why?” I asked.
“Because being Jewish is dramatic!”
I was surprised by his unusual answer and thought to myself, I guess for these big-time actors, everything is showbiz.
“Dramatic? I am sorry but I don’t get the connection,” I told him.
“Rabbi, I know drama, and let me tell you, Jewish life and Jewish history is dramatic. In fact, there are several archetypical themes to all films, and they are all from the Bible. Here, let me show you what’s drama.”
Kirk then jumped out of his chair and began to improvise a drama.
“Now, watch this. Let’s say we are shooting a scene and it’s about a guy named Jerry who is going to get some challenging news about his mother. How do we make it dramatic? We would not...
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...
Purim: Secrets Behind the Purim Mask
Purim celebrates the salvation of the Jews from the wicked Haman's scheme to exterminate all the Jewish men, women, and children living in the Persian empire in the year 357 B.C.E., which essentially meant all the Jews in the world. Some of the commandments of Purim, such as hearing Megillat Esther, which recounts the Purim story, and enjoying a festive meal, are obvious ways to commemorate this deliverance.
Other commandments and customs have no apparent connection to what happened on Purim. Why are we required to give charity to the poor, send two food items to a friend, and get so drunk that we do not know the difference between Haman, the villain, and Mordechai, the righteous hero of the story? (This last commandment, I understand, is very rigorously kept in college dorms all year round.)
What is behind the customs to dress up in costume and to eat hamentaschen, delicious, sweet tarts named literally, "Haman's...
Human beings are like no other animal, in that we will sometimes go against every natural instinct for reasons that often cannot be explained. We will give away our food, despite being hungry, when others are in need. We will give another our coat, in the midst of winter, despite the bitter cold, because someone else is suffering. And sometimes, we will sacrifice everything for something greater than ourselves.
Half an hour’s walk from the gates of The Old City of Jerusalem lays a hill which today sits in the heart of the Ramat Eshkol neighborhood of Jerusalem. Situated overlooking the main road from the Damascus gate, the average visitor will miss this little hill, unless he knows what he is looking for. Even from the air, this small hill can easily be missed.
But to any Israeli paratrooper, and for that matter any Israeli who knows the story of the Six-Day War, this strategic bump on the topography of the map,...
Bonding or Bondage
Why Serve the Divine?
“For unto Me the children of Israel are servants; they are My servants who I took out of the land of Egypt; I am the Lord G- d.” ~~ Leviticus 25:55
There is an Eastern teaching that proclaims, “Be here and now.” Torah however would say, “Serve G-d here and now.” Indeed, this is the fullest experience of life.
The Kabbalah teaches that G-d wants to be present in the here and now, and our job is to serve G-d in that desire. Therefore, to serve G-d means to infuse each moment with the presence of G-d. In other words, I must always ask myself, “How can I serve G- d right now?”
If right now I am with my friend, spouse or child, I should see this moment as an opportunity to show him/her love and thus serve G-d, who is the source of all love. It’s not my love. I didn’t invent love. I didn’t...
I once met a fellow who was born in Germany, but managed to get out in 1938 in the nick of time. Some people don't think of such a person as a survivor in the same way as someone who survived the death camps, but Shmuel (not his real name) lost his entire family; he was the only one who managed to get out. And after three years in Nazi Germany, he lived on the run for two more years before finally escaping to Cuba. It is a mitzvah to hear such people's stories in order to remember, and I asked him what made him realize it was time to get out, when the rest of his family could not see the writing on the wall.
It was a standard German-Jewish Holocaust story: 'it can't happen here' or 'the Jews have been through this before; we'll get through this as well'.... And to be honest, he wasn't overly concerned when...
“These are the appointed holidays of G-d, holy convocations, which you are to proclaim in their appointed times.” — Lev. 23.4
Henny Youngman, the comedian, once said, "I tried being an atheist, but I gave it up. There were no holidays."
What is a holiday really about? Is it the same as a vacation?
A vacation is a time to vacate, but a holiday is a time to celebrate.
To vacate means to take off, get away from the everyday and clear yourself out from the tensions and challenges of the daily grind. Perhaps you'll suntan on a beach, play golf or catch a good concert.
A holiday, however, is a holy day. It is not an escape from everyday life to paradise. Rather, it is a time to infuse paradise into the everyday. This is the power of celebration. My guess is that the word celebrate connects to the word celestial. And from a Jewish perspective that would make sense, because a Jewish holiday...
Many years ago, when I was in High School, my mother arranged for me to get a ride up to school once a week with one of the teachers who taught there. We lived in Manhattan, and as the Mesivta High School I attended was in Riverdale, having a ride that morning saved me a good hour I would have spent on public transportation. It also meant leaving our apartment at 7:30am instead of 6:30 for which I was understandably grateful.
In retrospect, I am not entirely certain the arrangement was purely practical, as the teacher would regularly engage me in a variety of Torah topics and philosophical and existential questions …
One morning as we were driving up the West Side Highway, a car barreled down an entrance ramp and slammed into the front of our car. After being thrown across the highway, the rebbe managed to get control of the car as the engine puttered off, and we...
Achieving Sacred Selfishness
Happiness through holiness
I had a student that once came into my office and said, "My father who passed away was an atheist and a fantastic human being. He was such a moral human being. He was such a good human being. I don't believe that had he been a believer, he would have been any better. He was the epitome of being a good person. So I have a problem with Torah because I really don't believe that it would have made a difference."
So I told him that it isn't the goal of Torah to merely become a moral person. There is a lot more to it.
Morality is important, but morality is a stage in the journey. The destination is holiness — being whole.
Morality is an aspect of that, but it is not that.
So I asked him, "Do you think your father might have been more holy?" That shocked him, he never even thought about holiness. What...
Some time ago, after a lecture on the ethical challenges of the seventh commandment ("Thou shalt not steal"), I was approached by a fellow from Vienna who was a Holocaust survivor.
"Why do you assume stealing is always wrong?" asked the fellow, "Sometimes, it is even an obligation."
"I always had a strong desire to take things, and I never understood why," he continued, "And it wasn't that I necessarily needed the things I took; I just loved the prospect of being able to steal things out from under people's noses. I became quite good at it, though my conscience always bothered me. Often, I was able to resist the temptation to take things that weren't mine, but it was always a struggle. I often wondered why G-d had burdened me with this particular challenge. I knew it was wrong to steal, and never rationalized theft; I just loved the 'thrill of the take'. Why did G-d create me with this challenge?...
