(print version)
Identity Crisis is a Gift:
Awakening to the Role and Goal of Your Soul
Kirk Douglas, 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...
(print version)
This is a well-known story received over the Internet long ago; if you gain nothing else from this week's Tastings of Torah but reading this story, it will have been worth it.
One day, when I was a freshman in high school, I noticed a kid from my class walking home from school, who looked like he was carrying all of his books. His name was Kyle, and I wondered why would anyone bring all his books home on a Friday? I figured he must be a real nerd. I had quite a weekend planned (parties and a football game with my friends the next afternoon), so I shrugged my shoulders and continued on my way.
As I was walking, I saw a bunch of kids running toward him. They ran at him, knocking all his books out of his arms and tripping him so he landed in the dirt. His glasses went flying, and I saw them land in the...
(print version)
To Pray the Jewish Way
At first glance prayer seems to be about whining and begging G-d, "Please heal this person ... please bring me my soul-mate ... please help my business, etc." One could mistakenly think that G-d is holding out on us and gets pleasure watching us grovel.
When we are faced with some very serious problems, it is customary to ask others to join together in our prayers. What is that all about? It seems as if we hope to move G-d through force: "G-d, if you don't respond to my prayers, then I will recruit through the e-mail thousands of others to pray."
Do we think these strategies really work? What are we actually doing here? If G-d is all knowing then why am I telling Him my problems? He already knows them. If G-d is good then why am I asking for Him to change my situation? Obviously whatever happens to me is for my best and...
(print version)
Of all the unexpected visitors I have ever received, none even come close to the surprise I got in the summer of 94'.
I was teaching a course on Jewish values deep in the mountains of Pennsylvania, at a camp called Moshava, near Indian Orchard. We were in the middle of an intense discussion on Jewish ethics, when I noticed three fellows standing at the entrance to the lodge. Their features were far- eastern; Chinese, it seemed, and they were standing patiently at the door, taking it all in.
You must understand, we were really in the middle of nowhere. The group of teenagers sitting before me was part of a very special group of kids who had been chosen to join a Jewish experience away from all the hustle of computers and cell- phones, television and stereos. I couldn't imagine how these three fellows had ended up here, especially as they looked like tourists.
"Where are you from?" I asked.
"We come...
(print version)
It seems like yesterday; so poignant and sharp is the memory of that day. I can still see all the guys, in their dress uniforms, preparing for the final ceremony.
It should have been one of the most powerful and exciting days of my life; instead, it was one of the most depressing. After eight of the longest, most grueling months I had ever experienced, I was three days away from receiving my officer...
(print version)
Funny. You Don't Look Religious
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
I once was hired to organize educational programs for a large Jewish youth group in the United States. To overcome any possible stigmas associated with the word "rabbi" and to encourage the kids to relate to me without preconceived notions, I asked the executives to introduce me as just David Aaron, not as...
(print version)
One of the fascinating postscripts to the tragedy of the Holocaust was the saga of the many Jewish children who were hidden during the war, especially in churches and monasteries across Europe, but whose parents did not survive to find them when the war was over.
Some of these children were six or seven years old, and though Jewish by birth, had for all intents and purposes grown up as Christian children with little recollection of their parents or their Jewish roots.
One of the individuals, who worked tirelessly to locate these lost children and bring them home to their people, was rabbi Herschel Schechter, a chaplain with the U.S. eighth army.
It was difficult to find these children, much less to prove that they were really Jewish, but Rabbi Schachter had an ingenious way of discovering which children amongst the multitude of refugees were really Jewish.
On Sunday mornings, while he was stationed in Poland, he would take a jeep and a...
