From His-tory to Her-story
Is G-d male or female?
One day my son Ananiel and my two daughters, Leyadya and Ne'ema, burst into my study. They had obviously been fighting over something and were very upset. I could see that I was chosen to be the lucky arbitrator to resolve another case of sibling rivalry. They shouted at each other, "You go, you ask Daddy." "No, no! You go, you go." Finally Ananiel, who was age five at that time, took the challenge and said, "O.K., O.K. Daddy, isn't it true that G-d is a boy?" Ne'ema and Leyadya, ages eight and nine, had tears in their eyes. I could hear them silently pleading with me, "Please no, please no. Tell us it's not true. It's bad enough our brother is a boy. Surely, G-d is really a girl." I said to them, "G-d is not a boy and G-d is not a girl. G-d is beyond that. We may talk about...
Many years ago, an elderly man approached me following a lecture on the topic of Emunat Chachamim (the faith we are meant to have in our sages).
‘Do you know why I am no longer religious?’ he asked.
‘It’s because when I asked the greatest Rabbi in our town whether I should avail myself of an opportunity to leave Poland and join the pioneers settling the land of Israel in 1935, I was told to stay in Poland because the Torah centers of the Jewish world were in Europe, and Jews who left for Palestine would die a spiritual death.’
Puzzled, I naively asked him: ‘but you survived; how did you get out?’
Upon which he explained that listening to the sage advice of his Rabbis he stayed in Poland, ended up in the camps and lost most of his family. But a friend of his who never asked the Rabbis made it to America in the early thirties and eventually got most...
Getting the Divine View on You
How to make worlds of a difference
And he said, Hear now my words: If there be a prophet among you, I the LORD will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream.
My servant Moses is not so, who is faithful in all mine house.
With him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches;
and the picture of the LORD shall he view (Numbers/BaMidbar 12:6-8)
Several years ago, I gave my kids Cheerios for breakfast. It said on the front of the Cheerios box that on the back of this box is a three-dimensional Cheerios bumblebee. So I looked at the back of the box and saw a distorted, blurry thing. Have you ever looked at a 3-D book without the goggles? You see a mishmash of misprinted, distorted images. There were no goggles inside the box of Cheerios,...
A few months ago, when we were in Poland, we heard an incredible story regarding the Mozhitzer Rebbe's student, Azriel David Fastag, who was in a cattle car on the way to Treblinka. It was Reb Azriel who composed many of the magnificent melodies the Chasidim of Mozhitz are famous for, and in the cattle car, the clickety clack of the wheels inspired one last tune.
On the spot, he composed the haunting melody of Ani Maamin (one of Maimonides’ 13 principles of faith: that we believe with perfect faith in the coming of the Moshiach (the redeemer or anointed one) even though he may tarry…) and began to sing.
The powerful tune inspired those around him to sing along and soon Jews in the neighboring cattle cars picked up the tune and began to sing as well.
It must have been an incredible sight to behold: hundreds of Jews in cattle cars on the way to their deaths in Treblinka singing aloud their faith...
Isn’t Humbleness Just Low Self-Esteem?
“Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth.” (Numbers 12:3)
Was Moses, indeed, humble? The man who courageously challenged the mighty Pharaoh the King of Egypt, who led an entire people out of slavery, the man who after seeing the golden calf smashed the very tablets written by the finger of G-d.
Judaism teaches that no character trait is absolutely negative, everything has a role. All we have to do is look at each trait with an open mind and determine its pluses and the minuses. When it comes to pride there is an aspect of it that comes from the godly grandeur of our soul and is therefore, truly humbleness and the source of powerful sacred self esteem. But there is an aspect of pride that comes from our ego which is haughtiness and self destructive; alienating us from our true inner self. This type of pride focuses...
Take a drive up the south side of the Golan Heights, and you will see one of the most incredible vistas in Israel. As the road winds up the side of the Golan cliffs, the panoramic view deep into Syria is overshadowed by the Russian made Syrian Bunkers that bear silent testimony to the near suicidal challenge that faced the Israeli troops who made their way up the mountain under murderous fire in 1967, breaking the stranglehold Syrian guns held over the Israeli towns and villages below.
Up on top of the Heights, as one drives across the open plains, one notices the occasional odd collection of trees that seem to grow in clusters above most of the Syrian positions that controlled the Heights. These trees are no accident; they are part of one of the most incredible stories in modern Israeli history, and bear witness to the fact that one man, in the right place, at the right time, can...
Prophecy 101:
Ego is a Non-Prophet Venture
This week we begin to read from the fourth of the five books of Moses. Although this book is referred to in English as the Book of Numbers, in Hebrew it is referred to as Bamidbar because of the opening verse; "And the Lord spoke to Moses in the wilderness (Bamidbar) of Sinai ..."
The Midrash, Jewish Oral Tradition, derives a somewhat puzzling insight from the fact that G-d spoke to Moses in the wilderness :
Unless one makes himself hefker (open and ownerless) like a wilderness he cannot acquire wisdom and Torah. (Bamidbar Rabbah 1:7)
In other words, to be receptive to the revelatory word of G-d you must be like the wilderness completely open and ownerless – in a state of humility and surrender. Moses heard the word of G-d not only in the physical location of the wilderness but also because was he was in a “wilderness” state of mind.
Edging G-d Out
The creative experience...
‘Kakash’: Tank Officer’s course; known as one of the most difficult courses in the Israeli army. Four and a half grueling months of misery deep in the desert, with little or no sleep, at best on or in the tanks, with no showers all week long; just an endless misery of dust, grease, scorching desert sun, and endless tank maneuvers.
The pinnacle of this course, which came all the way at the end, was the ‘Ringo’ maneuver.
After four months of training, each cadet was given a platoon of tanks to command, in deep desert and mountain terrain, with a host of unexpected dilemmas and targets thrown at him one after another.
Designed to test his ability to react and make difficult decisions under intense pressure, it was the tank officer’s ultimate nightmare, and we all knew it was waiting for us at the end of the course. Failing this test meant failing Officer’s course. For me, repeating the entire course a...
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...
We’ll call him Gabi (not his real name); he was a most unlikely recruit, and none of us had any idea how and why he had gotten into our unit. He was overweight, to put it mildly, and was always the last to finish every run and every physical task, and even most of the nonphysical tasks. He was the last to get his gun cleaned and ready for inspection, the last to get out to the parade ground in the morning and the last one on every run. Maybe he was way out of shape, but looking back, I think it was also his motivation; not sure he had a clue why he was there and spent most of his time wishing he wasn’t.
But on our masa’ot (forced marches) it became pretty obvious he was in the wrong place, and in a lot of trouble. I could hear his heavy breathing, groaning and agonizing as he struggled to keep...
