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...
There is an amazing story told about Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi was on a speaking tour across India, part of his non-violent struggle for independence from the British.
At that time, the only affordable mode of travel across the country was by rail. When there were no whites waiting for a train, the British rail company, in an effort to save the expense and time of actually stopping at the station, would have the trains slow down long enough for passengers to run along-side and hop on. (This racist policy was part of what Gandhi was struggling against...)
One day, Gandhi was running to get on a train, and as he jumped up, his shoe slipped off his foot. Though he tried to grab it, he ended up watching helplessly as it fell to the tracks. Quickly, he grabbed the other one off his foot and threw it back down the tracks toward the first rapidly disappearing shoe.
People who saw this thought perhaps...
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...
Seven years ago, on 5 Adar I, 5776, one of modern Israel’s greatest war heroes, Yanosh ben Gal, A”H, was laid to rest in the military cemetery in Givat Shaul. To honor his memory, this story is reprinted from a previous article:
As the summer of nineteen seventy three wound down, the seventh armored brigade was stationed on the Bar Lev line, on the border with Egypt along the Suez Canal.
On the eve of Rosh Hashanah, the brigade was given a week’s leave for the holidays. As the men of the seventh headed off for some R&R all over the country, Yanosh, the brigade commander, stopped off on his way home at the General Staff base in Tel Aviv; an ingrained habit to keep abreast of the intelligence reports.
What he saw alarmed him: Egyptian and Syrian troop buildups along the Canal and in the Golan Heights, a high increase of Arab military radio traffic, and an unusual amount of activity...
The Simple Art of Ecstasy
How to See Divine Presence Here and Now
“ And let them make Me a sanctuary and I will dwell amongst them.”
— Exodus 25:8
In this week's Torah Portion we encounter the precise design and magnificent beauty of the holy tabernacle and its' vessels. What is the relationship between this physical construct and feeling the presence of G-d dwelling amongst us?
YOU CAN SEE G-D
Once I was giving a seminar, and I asked everyone to look around the room and point to beauty. The first interesting result was that everyone pointed to something different. One man pointed to his wife. A woman named Bea pointed to a glass menorah (a Hanukkah candelabra) that was sitting on a windowsill. I asked Bea how she saw beauty in that menorah. Did she see beauty with her physical eyes? "Well," she answered, "the glass is translucent, and its delicacy has an ethereal quality. The shape is pleasing to the eye and because...
Sometimes inspiration comes in the simplest of moments, like a good cup of coffee.
In the fall of 2000, my unit was called up on special emergency orders (known as a ‘Tzav Shmoneh’). I still recall the middle of the night phone call from my battalion commander telling me to get my gear together and report to our assembly point. In response to my query of when I needed to be there his response was ‘I’ll see you in an hour’, and when I asked how long I could expect to be in for his answer was: “Ein li musag” “I have no idea”; which was a shock coming from a battalion commander.
The challenge of having your entire life turned upside down in an instant, with no time to prepare for it, is hard to describe. And this reserve duty was even more difficult as a result of how close we were to home.
Usually, the long trip to whatever hot zone...
The Divine Wants You to be Happy
When Rules Become Delicious Recipes for Your Soul
“And these are the judgments that you shall place before them.” — Exodus 21:1
"You shall place before them, that is, like a table that is set and ready for eating." — Rashi
“Taste and see that G-d is good.” — Psalms 34
LAWS YOU CAN EAT, ENJOY AND SAVOUR
The job of a teacher of Torah is not to be a philosopher, ethical guide or law giver but rather a gourmet chef. A gourmet chef has the ability to bring the taste out of every ordinary cabbage, every simple bean sprout, as well as present it all in a delicious tantalizing way.
Once, I went to someone's home to raise funds for my institute. I thought we would have about a ten minute discussion. Instead, we were talking for five or six hours. I hadn't eaten all day, and I was starving. Finally I decided that instead of asking for a...
Along with all the challenging events of the summer of 2014, including the terrible kidnapping and murder of our three boys Gilad Eyal and Naftali, I heard an incredible story:
A teacher who worked in a resource room in a class for children with learning disabilities had a young student who joined the class and started taking lessons. He clearly had no difficulty with his lessons and consistently did well on tests, and yet continued to attend the classes as a remedial student. Try as she might, the teacher could not determine what learning disabilities this boy might have.
Assuming the boy was simply trying to find an easier path of study, she took him aside and explained to him that he could not continue to attend the remedial class as it was a waste of his time and unfair to the other students who were in much greater need of her attention.
Lowering his voice, the boy said he would tell...
Ready to HotSync Your Soul?
Secrets to a Super-Natural Life of Freedom and Synchronicity
Years ago, I saw these sandals I really liked. At the time, I knew nothing about these shoes other than I just liked the way they looked. So I went into a store and I tried on a pair, but they didn't feel right. They had all these funny bumps inside of them.
I told the salesman, "There is something wrong with these shoes."
He said, "No there is something wrong with your feet. You must understand that these shoes are designed to support the shape of a natural foot."
"What's unnatural about my feet. They're in their natural place — at the end of my legs."
He laughed. "You don't understand. Your feet have taken the unnatural shape of the shoes you've been wearing. And the shoes you've been wearing are good for killing cockroaches in tight corners, but they are not meant to contain feet."
I felt insulted so I took...
It was her eyes that really captured me; there was an intense sadness there mixed with pain, and yet every now and then a flash of fire that seemed to suggest… defiance?
The woman was being interviewed on the television news and I stopped for a minute to watch. The screen was focused in close, showing only her face, and as the commentator translated, I realized she was speaking about her son who had just been killed in a terrorist bus bombing. I watched as a tear rolled down her cheek and listened to her describe all of the dreams and aspirations her son, Yosef, would never realize.
The camera panned around what must have been his room, and I noticed a soccer ball lying in the corner. The cameraman must have noticed it too, because he immediately panned in on the mud-speckled ball, which better than anything the mother was saying, conveyed the tragedy of lost hopes and dreams, and represented...
