Isralight Blog – Page 7

Small Tastings of Torah, Judaism and Spirituality from Rav Binny Freedman – Portion of Noach

October 23, 2025 by admin Comment Closed

Contrary to popular myth, there is no better or worse way to lose someone close to you, but there is definitely a worst way to find out about it. It had been a long day, and I was finally taking a few moments to relax, sitting in our small living room watching the evening news. There had been a terrible tragedy. An elite unit of the paratroopers, on a mission deep in Lebanon, had gotten a little too spread out, and there was a heavy fog. Somehow, without realizing it, the officer leading the unit was allowing them to gradually curve around until the front of the unit was almost heading back in the direction from whence they had come. Suddenly, the men on point saw silhouettes in the fog and, assuming them to be the enemy, opened fire. As it turned out, they were actually firing at their own comrades, as the patrol line had gotten split up in the darkness,...

Sparks – by Rabbi David Aaron

October 16, 2025 by admin Comment Closed

Created in the image of love The power to be who you are In the very opening sentences of the Torah (Bible) we are told that the first human being was created in G-d's own image. And what was that image? The first human being was actually a man and a woman — a single entity that included the two sexes. "And G-d created man in His own image, in the image of G-d created He him; male and female created He them" (Genesis 1:27). In this union of male and female, in this oneness of opposites, the first human being reflected the image of G-d — a oneness that includes otherness and yet remains one. This is a very important concept. A lone individual does not reflect the image of G-d; an individual in unity with another individual does. So until an individual makes a space to include another, and allows that other to do the same, we do not have the...

Small Tastings of Torah, Judaism and Spirituality from Rav Binny Freedman – Portion of Bereishit

October 16, 2025 by admin Comment Closed

His steely eyes should have given him away, but over twenty years ago, I was a new immigrant, only four months into my Israeli army service, and I had no idea who this Lieutenant General really was. We were finishing our second stage of tank training at the Israeli Armored Corps school, and, graduating as a tank driver, I was being awarded my first rank: private first class (Turai’-Rishon) by someone whom I would later learn was and still is an Israeli legend. This particular rank has almost no value (I wore it on my arm for one day, only so that I could outrank my older brother, who was a few days away from completing his sergeant’s course in the paratroopers and demand that he “get off his feet for a soldier who outranked him!”), and was awarded to a few of us who represented the battalion as outstanding cadets at the final ceremonies of the course. Looking back, the true value...

Sparks – by Rabbi David Aaron

September 25, 2025 by admin Comment Closed

Is G-d a Lover or a Judge? When we take a bird's eye view of the holidays that inaugurate the New Year, we see a collection of diverse and disturbing images for G-d. The predominant image for G-d, on Rosh Hashanah, is King and Judge who is writing us into a cosmic Book of life or death. Yom Kippur is associated more with G-d as a compassionate forgiving Father. Sukkot features G- d as a lover---the sukkah also symbolizes a wedding canopy. And on Simchat Torah we reach the height of intimacy and complete union with G-d. What are we to do with all this imagery? Are we really supposed to believe all this? Surely all these images are only metaphors for a higher divine truth that is beyond spoken words and conceptual images. We can only know the divine truth experientially. Anyone who believes that G-d is literally a King, Judge, Father or Lover is making graven images of G-d and...

Small Tastings of Torah, Judaism and Spirituality from Rav Binny Freedman – Portion of Vayelech

September 25, 2025 by admin Comment Closed

One of the great challenges in life is knowing when to lead and when to follow. This is especially true in the military, as witness the different philosophies of the role of officers in the field, in different military doctrines. The Israeli army, almost since its inception, has trained its commanders to lead by example. Many attribute the birth of this concept to the battle for Latrun in 1948. Latrun sits on top of one of the most strategically important crossroads in Israel, on a hilltop overlooking the main highway from the coastal plains to Jerusalem, and it commands the entrance to the valley through which one must travel to Jerusalem. Every army that ever wanted to take this holy city had to pass beneath this hill, which is why it is not only the site of many ancient fortifications, but was used by the British as a prime location for one of their Taggart fortresses. In 1948, when Israel was fighting its war...

Sparks – by Rabbi David Aaron

September 18, 2025 by admin Comment Closed

Choose Good, Feel Great Secrets to Living Your Best Life I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse: therefore choose life, that you may live, you and your seed ------Deut. 30:19 Goodness that isn't chosen is not complete goodness. If we didn’t choose goodness—if we were just naturally good, or if goodness was the only option available—how could that be the highest expression of goodness? I know a fellow that has dozens of guests over at his home every weekend. When I complimented him on his hospitality, he said, “What are you talking about? It comes naturally to me. It's not a struggle for me. I love to do this!” Is he really choosing goodness? If it comes naturally, is it complete goodness? Goodness that wasn’t chosen is not the greatest good. Only after you struggle with evil and chose goodness will you accomplish true and complete...

Small Tastings of Torah, Judaism and Spirituality from Rav Binny Freedman – Portion of Nitzavim

September 18, 2025 by admin Comment Closed

There is a mystical idea which suggests that hidden within every fire of destruction, is the spark of redemption. Such, for example, was the case on August 3rd, 1492, which was also the Ninth of the Hebrew month of Av, the anniversary of the destruction of both Temples in Jerusalem. On that day in 1492, one of the greatest tragedies in the history of the Jewish people came to a head, as two hundred and fifty thousand Jews, faced with the impossible choice of baptism or death, were expelled from Spain. Thus began a series of expulsions and inquisitions that would force the Jewish people to wander from country to country, culminating in the unspeakable horror of the Holocaust five hundred years later. Many do not realize that on that fateful August morning in 1492, the very day eighty thousand Jews followed Don Yitzchak Abarbanel across the border into Portugal, and thousands of boats filled the harbor, setting sail with the...

Sparks – by Rabbi David Aaron

September 11, 2025 by admin Comment Closed

How Happy is Happy Hour? And you shall be happy in all that the Lord your G-d has given you (Deut. 26:11) The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature. --- Anne Frank Many people have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose. --- Hellen Keller Money can't buy you happiness, but it does bring you a more pleasant form of misery. ---- Spike Milligan ****************** King Solomon said in his famous book Ecclesiastes, “I praise happiness,” and yet he also concluded “What does happiness accomplish?” Is happiness praiseworthy or worthless? The Talmud explains that King Solomon was referring to two types of happiness. The happiness derived...

Small Tastings of Torah, Judaism and Spirituality from Rav Binny Freedman – Portion of Ki Tavoh

September 11, 2025 by admin Comment Closed

I remember the first Mishnah I ever learned. (The Mishnah is the basic text of the oral tradition, as codified and edited by Rabbi Yehuda Ha’Nasi circa 200C.E. and represents the sum total of the oral tradition handed down from student to teacher in an unbroken chain from Sinai, over three thousand years ago. It is the foundation of Jewish tradition.) As a child I attended a Jewish Yeshiva Day School, but it was not in the school classroom that I was first introduced to the Mishnah; it was in Synagogue. The Synagogue we attended when I was five years old, had a strict decorum, and I seem to recall or imagine the challenges this presented to my parents (She’yibadlu Le’Chaim Tovim) who had their hands full, I suppose, keeping track of my elder brother and me. Vague images of my red-faced and embarrassed father carrying me out of synagogue kicking and screaming to stop me from jumping up and...

Sparks – by Rabbi David Aaron

September 4, 2025 by admin Comment Closed

Getting From the Real to the Ideal The Journey of Personal Transformation When you go forth to war against your enemies, and the Lord your G-d has delivered them into your hands, and you have taken them captive, And you see among the captives a beautiful woman, and desire her, and take her for a wife - Then you shall bring her home to your house... ... and she remain in your house and weep for her father and mother for a month, and after that .... she shall be your wife. And if you do not want her, you shall send her out on her own; you shall not sell her at all for money, you shall not treat her as a slave, because you "violated" her. (Deut. 21:10-14) The Torah permits this only as a compromise to the yetzer ha-ra (evil urge). (Talmud Kiddushin 21b) 'And you shall take her unto you as a wife' - the Torah only permits this in...

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