Category: Isralight Blog

What You See Is What You Get "Daddy, where is G-d?" "Son, wherever you let Him in." — Attributed to Rebbe Pinchas of Koretz How do we open our souls' eyes to let G-d in? The Kabbalah says, "There is no king without a nation." This point requires deep exploration. It may make sense that, in the human world, a king is dependent on having subjects who acknowledge his sovereignty. The last Emperor of China ceased to be emperor when there were no longer people who bowed when he entered the room. Even after the Communist government had exiled him, as long as people recognized him and acknowledged him as their sovereign, he was, in a very real sense, still a king, albeit without the power to rule. But G-d is reality, so how can G-d be dependent on human acknowledgment. The world that you and I live in is a product of our perception of reality. The philosopher Immanuel Kant probed this concept. He...

In retrospect, it seems almost trivial, but one of the difficulties of my time in Lebanon, was the lack of space; the sense of being on top of one another. I particularly recall once, during the scramble to get down into the bunker when the siren went off (signaling the possibility of an incoming mortar or artillery barrage) squeezing into one of the small rooms with three-tiered bunk beds, to wait out the alert. As the workload of missions in the area had increased, and the infrastructure of the positions (mutzavim) had not, the army used a system for quarters known as ‘mitah chamah’ or ‘warm bed. This meant that when you had time to sleep for a few hours, you did not get your own bed, and certainly not your own room; you grabbed an empty bed as someone was always out on a mission or patrol. But this time, the alert had sounded as the patrols had just returned...

Funny. You Don't Look Religious Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat I once was hired to organize educational programs for a large Jewish youth group in the United States. To overcome any possible stigmas associated with the word "rabbi" and to encourage the kids to relate to me without preconceived notions, I asked the executives to introduce me as just David Aaron, not as Rabbi David Aaron. They respected my request, but I was dismayed to read in their newsletter the following announcement: "We want to welcome a new member to our staff: David Aaron, our Judaism specialist." This sounded even worse! It made Judaism sound like a rare disease. Don't we go to specialists when we have a problem our general practitioner cannot treat? What do you do with a Judaism specialist? Do you come to him and say, "I've got this problem with Jewish guilt. Do you have a cure, Judaism specialist?" I was in trouble before I even started. I didn't want...

It was one of the darkest moments of my life. In retrospect it seems almost trivial; so insignificant against the backdrop of the significant events one experiences in life: marrying the girl of your dreams; the birth of your children; walking your daughter down the aisle at her wedding, or holding your grandchild for the first time…. But at the time it seemed like my life had entered a dark cloud and I could not begin to fathom why it was happening.  After completing two months of basic infantry training, two months of tank school training to become a tank driver followed by the armored corps’ grueling twelve-week field training course, and then successfully completing tank commander’s course I was invited to IDF Officer training. This is a course by invitation only; no matter how much you want it the army has to decide you are worth the spot. I recall struggling with the decision as it meant signing up...

WHY IS LIFE SO DIFFICULT? Making peace with our battle In this week's portion, Jacob asks for peace and relaxation, but G-d had another plan. “Jacob settled (down) in the land of his father's dwellings, in the Land of Caanan.”   — Genesis 37:2 The foremost commentator, Rashi, explains: Jacob wanted to settle down in tranquility but then the ordeal of his son Joseph (sale into slavery) fell upon him. The righteous seek to dwell in tranquility but G-d says 'Is it not enough for the righteous what has been prepared for them (reward) in the World to Come that they need to seek tranquility also in this world!'" Some people turn to G-d and religion, hoping to find refuge from all the turbulence of life, from doubt, from inner conflicts and mental turmoil. They want instant inner peace, spiritual contentment, and tranquility for their troubled souls. According to Kabbalah, that is not the purpose of life on earth. In fact, it is just the opposite. We...

Many years ago, at a Melaveh Malka (Saturday night party accompanying the end of Shabbat) in Har Nof in the Bostoner Beis Medrash I heard a wonderful story from Rav Levi Yitzchak Horowitz, z”tzl, the Bostoner Rebbe. It seems that after Reb Yissachar, the Rebbe of Nickelsburg, passed away Reb Shmelke (Rav Shmuel Horowitz, the Bostoner Rebbe’s ancestor, who was to become one of the great leaders of world Jewry) was appointed to be the new Rebbe. When he was shown his new home, which had been the home of Reb Yissachar, he seemed distracted and barely paid attention to the tour of the home, finally explaining: “There is a most remarkable smell in this house! It must be from an amazing Mitzvah (good deed) that was done here!” But no one seemed to be able to come up with a story of Reb Yissachar that would justify to Reb Shmelke such a wonderful smell. The Rebbe became obsessed with knowing the source...

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 the Jabbok River shallows. 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...

Rabbi Abraham Twerski shares a powerful story about one his ancestors, the great Rebbe Nachum of Chernobyl (in his book Generation to Generation).   It seems that Rebbe Nachum owned a magnificent pair of Tefillin (Phylacteries), which had actually been written by Reb Ephraim, the great scribe of the Baal Shem Tov, in the early eighteenth century. A wealthy member of the community had offered Rebbe Nachum a staggering fifty rubles for the tefillin. Yet, despite the fact that he lived in abject poverty, Rebbe Nachum had consistently refused to part with the tefillin. His wife on occasion had pleaded with him to sell the tefillin to support their family (one could buy a new, perfectly good pair of tefillin for two rubles) to no avail. Even when they had no wood for the fire or the children were starving, he refused to sell the tefillin, always somehow finding other ways to put some meager amount of food or money on...

The Secret to Happiness If you think religion is going to give you a quick fix you are wrong. And if you think that religion will put you on easy street you are deluded. Very often religion is presented as offering the secret to ultimate happiness. I have heard religious leaders try to entice people towards a religious lifestyle promising them that through the synagogue or the church they will find happiness and bliss. This approach is really no different than any other marketing strategies. People want to be happy and are looking for the magic formula. Marketers bombard us daily with promises for a better life. Blondes have more fun, toothpaste gives your mouth sex appeal, lose weight and feel great. It is too easy to point to a million things that we are missing that are the cause of our unhappiness. People think that all they need is the more and the right. If only I had more hair, more...

There are few things more depressing than getting one of those brown army envelopes in the mail, notifying you of your imminent draft for reserve duty, but this one would be a little different. A year earlier, for various reasons, I had agreed to transfer into a new reserve duty unit. It meant leaving the guys I had been serving with for over ten years and with whom I had become quite close. But after the events of the ‘96 tunnel riots a few high-ranking officers began to see the writing on the wall and realized we were facing a significant security challenge most people were unaware of. When the Oslo accords were signed in 1993, part of the agreement was the creation of a Palestinian Police force over the Green line. Officially we were supposed to supply them with 5,000 guns to maintain order. But by 1998, five years later, it was estimated there were over 200,000 guns floating around...