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Sick Minds, Sick Bodies The power of our beliefs to heal or harm The Jewish Sages gave a spiritual rather than physiological explanation for the disease tsara'as (generally translated as "leprosy") which affected not only the body but also clothing and the walls of houses. According to one source several sins could possible be the cause: R. Shmuel bar Nachmani said in the name of R. Yochanan: Because of seven things the plague of leprosy is incurred, namely, slander, the shedding of blood, a vain oath, incest, arrogance, robbery and envy. (Arakhin 16a) However, most Sages concur that the main cause for tsara'as was slander and gossip. HOW CAN WE UNDERSTAND THE PHYSICAL IMPACT OF OUR MORAL AND SPIRITUAL ACTIONS? The Kabbalah teaches that the world you and I live in is a product of our perception of reality. The philosopher Immanuel Kant probed this concept. He asked: Do we see reality or do we see our perception of reality? Kant's answer is that we do...

In 1948, things did not look promising for the Jews.  The Arab armies of Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and forces from Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria prepared to attack the newly declared State of Israel as soon as the British pulled out in May of 1948, vowing to push the Jews into the sea.  In Tzfat, where 80,000 Arabs surrounded approximately 3,000 Jews living in the Jewish quarter, the Jews were braced for the worst. One night, a few weeks before the pullout, the British told the Jewish community they were leaving Tzfat in the morning and had reliable intelligence that the Arabs were planning a massive attack immediately following their departure. Predicting a massacre, they urged the Jews to leave the city, even making room for them in the convoy. With eight hours’ notice, they assumed the Jews would panic, but not a single Jew left the city.  Sure enough, as the empty British trucks pulled out of Tzfat, thousands of Arabs armed...

Why Eat Kosher? The Talmud tells a story about the famed author of the Mishna, Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi. The rabbi was walking down the street one day, when a little calf ran up to him and hid under his cloak. Apparently, the calf had run away from the slaughterhouse. The rabbi said to the calf, “Go back to be slaughtered, for this you have been created.” At this point, a Divine decree was made against him because he had not shown pity on the creature. As a result he become sick and suffered for many years, until one day he showed pity on a family of young rats and was suddenly healed. We know that Judaism permits us to eat meat as long as the animal was slaughtered properly, so what did Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi do that was so wrong? He incorrectly said, “for this you were created.” The Talmud is teaching us that, contrary to his declaration, animals were not created for...

Decision Moments: What Makes a Person a Leader  Explosions; gunfire; the sounds of battle; ‘lashab’: (lechima be’shetach banui) urban warfare: fought in close quarters; no place to hide, nowhere to run, very little room to maneuver, and no time to think.  There are many things the army teaches you; especially in officer’s training. One of the most valuable is the ability to make decisions often of life or death in seconds. Such was the moment Lieutenant Eitan (full name with-held for security purposes) of the elite recon unit of the Givati Infantry Brigade found himself in a few summer’s ago in Gaza.  The point reconnaissance squad (Palsar Givati), led by Company Commander Benayah Sarel, had just located the entrance to a Hamas tunnel, on the edge of Rafiach in the Gaza strip. Almost immediately the men came under heavy fire from Hamas terrorists who most probably had been lying in wait, waiting for a patrol to come across the exposed tunnel.  In the ensuing...

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,...