Category: Isralight Blog

This week one of modern Israel’s greatest war heroes, Yanosh ben Gal, 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...

Is G-d Beyond Us or Within Us? The Torah recounts that G-d instructed the Israelites to build a sanctuary, telling Moses, “Let them build a sanctuary and I will dwell in them.” Note that G-d did not say, “I will dwell in the sanctuary.” G-d said, “in them.” Is G-d beyond us or within us? 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,...

The radio squawked, and the voice over the other end began issuing commands; it was our company commander and we were preparing for an unexpected mission op. It was an innocuous moment; I had to take my pen & pad out of my pocket to write down a list of code words for map locations that I would then need to translate into coordinates for our impromptu mission: where was our drop off point; who would I be rendezvousing with, on what frequency, at what time, and so on. This was a procedure that was part and parcel of being a combat officer in the field and was really not a big deal.  If anything, relative to some of the pressures that most probably lay ahead later that evening it was a moment most soldiers, especially in Lebanon in 1985, would not think twice about. But for me it was a watershed moment. Because I was being asked to write...

God 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...

Recently, the media reported that two days before his execution, Adolph Eichmann penned a letter to then President Yitzchak Ben-Zvi begging for clemency. Facing his imminent death by hanging (the only death sentence ever executed in the State of Israel), the once arrogant Eichmann, finally humbled, was begging for his life. His request was denied, and two days later he was hanged, his body cremated, and his ashes spread over the Mediterranean to prevent his tomb from ever becoming a shrine for hatred. During his time in prison, he took ill briefly, and, experiencing shortness of breath and fever, was seen by the prison Doctor, himself a Holocaust survivor. He would later describe the mix of emotions he felt, as he attempted to divorce himself from his personal feelings and focus on the task at hand, which in his words, was “to view him as any other patient in need of medical assistance”. But is this correct? Is it even...

Is G-d Just a Cosmic Party Pooper? How to Find Our Mission in Life I recall a cute comic strip depicting Moses coming down from Mt. Sinai with the Ten Commandments written in stone. “I’ve got good news and bad news,” he announces to the Israelites waiting anxiously at the bottom of the mountain. “The good news is that I got Him down to ten.” The crowd cheers. “The bad news is that adultery is still in.” It is not uncommon for people to think the commandments spoil the fun of life -- that G-d is really a cosmic party pooper, and that there is a conflict of interest between man and G-d. People think that serving G-d is demeaning; servitude implies a slave-master relationship. But that is not the real meaning of serving G-d. The opportunity to serve G-d is the greatest gift we could ever imagine. It’s empowering. To serve G-d means that we can do something on behalf of G-d. It's...

In April of 1988 I was called up for my first reserve duty. The first intifada had exploded just a few months earlier, and we were stationed for a month in a nasty little piece of real estate called Jebalya which was a Palestinian refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. Needless to say things were pretty intense. One day I was given an assignment to take six men and set up a lookout position on the roof of an Arab house that overlooked the main road passing by Jebalya where Jews often travelled. There had been a number of incidents that week, including riots, Molotov cocktails, burning tires laid across the road and rock throwing at moving vehicles; our job was to help get things back under control.  It was an extremely uncomfortable feeling, to be setting up a military position on someone’s roof, but from a strategic point of view, it made sense, and, reminiscent of western laws of...

    No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted. - Aesop  Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel z”tzl, the famed Rosh Yeshiva of the Mir, once met with a small group of businessmen and asked them what they thought the most important lesson of the Holocaust was.   “Never forget?" Suggested one; “Always fight?” posited another. With a sigh, the rabbi explained: ‘I learned the essence of the human spirit; of what really matters.’ During the Holocaust human beings were treated like animals; transported in cattle cars, with no food, no water, no bathrooms, and not even a few feet in which to lie down. Thinking they were headed for work camps, when they finally arrived, and the doors slid open amidst suddenly blinding light, rifle butts, Nazi guards and dogs, men were separated from women, families were broken apart, and children were dragged away screaming. Finally, after the endless roll calls, they were allowed to enter the barracks for what was meant to approximate...