Category: Isralight Blog

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...

Dating the Divine Celebrating love  “These are the appointed holidays of G-d, holy convocations, which you are to proclaim in their appointed times.” — Lev. 23.4 Henny Youngman, the comedian, once said, "I tried being an atheist, but I gave it up. There were no holidays." What is a holiday really about? Is it the same as a vacation? A vacation is a time to vacate, but a holiday is a time to celebrate. To vacate means to take off, get away from the everyday and clear yourself out from the tensions and challenges of the daily grind. Perhaps you'll suntan on a beach, play golf or catch a good concert. A holiday, however, is a holy day. It is not an escape from everyday life to paradise. Rather, it is a time to infuse paradise into the everyday. This is the power of celebration. My guess is that the word celebrate connects to the word celestial. And from a Jewish perspective that would make sense,...

Counting The Omer; an Enormous Opportunity It was our first Masah’, our first forced march. We were barely two weeks in the army, and Itzik, a sadistic little first sergeant who had made it his mission to make us, or rather, break us into soldiers, owned us for the night. Whenever a unit in training goes out on any maneuver without an officer, the rule in the Israeli army is that the unit has to stay within sight of the base. Officers undergo intensive training in navigation and map reading, and the point is to be sure men don’t get lost out in the field. Theoretically, this should have been good news, as it meant the distance we could cover was limited. But as we soon discovered, Itzik was not to be deterred. We were based in a miserable little hole not far from the Mediterranean shore, and unfortunately this meant there were lots of sand dunes for them to run...

Some years ago, on a Pesach program, an elderly gentleman named Yaakov Gross asked a few of us if he could speak before the Yizkor service. He wanted to share the story of his bar mitzvah in Bergen Belsen. This is the story he shared: In January of 1945 the Nazis were still trying to convince the world that they were treating the Jews well. So, they invited a delegation of the Red Cross to visit the camp. As part of the ‘show’ that they prepared, they ‘invited’ a few of the boys from the kinder-lager, the children’s’ barracks, to celebrate their bar mitzvah in Bergen Belsen; true story. And for the occasion, they erected a platform (read: bimah) in the middle of the square where roll calls and hangings were normally held. And, no less incredible, they secured a Sefer Torah for the event! And so, young Yaakov Gross, who was thirteen, along with five other boys, ascended to receive...

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...

Is there a point past which a person can no longer change; can no longer be forgiven? On the one hand, Jewish law clearly teaches that for some transgressions, such as murder, a person is put to death, suggesting that such a person can no longer redeem him or herself in this world. On the other hand our tradition also teaches us in the name of Rabbi Eliezer (Avot 2:10) “repent the day before you die “ and in the Talmud (Shabbat 153) he explains this to mean that a person should always repent as he never knows when he might die, the clear implication being everyone can repent. Rav Ephraim Oshry one of the last rabbis of the Kovno Ghetto, in his powerful responsum from the Holocaust, Mima’amakim, shares that a fellow came over to him in the DP camp, after the war, with an intense question. He had been a Chazan (cantor) before the war, and some of his fellow former...

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...