Category: Isralight Blog

(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) What You See Is What You Get "Daddy, where is G-d?" "Son, wherever you let Him in." ...

(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) The Miracle and Mystery of Jewish History Celebrating the Soul-Meaning of Chanukah Albert Einstein once said: ...

(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...

(print version) Real Love Means Embracing Conflict The Secret of Jacob The Torah (Bible) teaches us that Jacob went to the house Laban, his uncle, and dwelt there for many years. He married Rachel and Leah, Laban's daughters, and had eleven sons there. After years of struggling with Laban constantly deceiving him he finally left to return home and face Esau who hated him. In the middle of the night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two handmaids and his eleven sons, and sent them across theJabbokRivershallows. After he had taken them and sent them across, he also sent across his possessions. Jacob alone remained on the other side of the river. It was there that the famous "stranger" appeared and wrestled with him until just before daybreak: When the stranger saw that he could not defeat him, he touched the upper joint of Jacob's thigh. Jacob's hip was dislocated as he wrestled with him. "Let me leave!" said the stranger....