Isralight Blog – Page 93

Sparks – by Rabbi David Aaron

February 2, 2017 by admin Comment Closed

To Serve with Joy Is your life ‘out of service’? “And Moses and Aaron were brought again unto Pharaoh; and he said unto them: 'Go, serve the LORD your G-d; but who are they that shall go?' And Moses said: 'We will go with our young and with our old, with our sons and with our daughters, with our flocks and with our herds we will go; because the holiday of G-d is for us.'” — Exodus 10:8-9 The King of Egypt must have been quite surprised by Moses answer. To serve G-d is not like serving you. It is not about degrading back-breaking slavery rather a joyful celebration for the whole family. To serve G-d is a holiday for us. The Secret to Service Most people think that a mitzvah is a "demand" meant to deprive or diminish our godly self worth. But that is incorrect. A mitzvah is a "command" enabling us to co- operate, associate, identify and thereby consciously bond with G-d and experience His love. This is...

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

February 2, 2017 by admin Comment Closed

Most people are not aware of the fact that the success of the Entebbe mission was born of a question. In July, 1976 an Air France airliner was hijacked and eventually taken to the Entebbe airport in Uganda. After separating the Israelis and passengers with Jewish sounding names, the Arab and German terrorists announced they would soon begin murdering hostages unless their demands were met. A small group of commanders of the elite Israeli commando units, desperate to find a way to save the hostages, were sitting in a briefing room in Tel Aviv as a mission began to form. The plan was to parachute commandoes with fast attack dinghies into Lake Victoria from where they would come ashore and take the airport terminal. Effie Eitam, who would ultimately command one of the units that participated in the rescue raid that would stun the world, was sitting in the briefing room discussing the options, when an Israeli who had spent some time...

Sparks – by Rabbi David Aaron

January 26, 2017January 26, 2017 by admin Comment Closed

Where is G-d, the Miracle Maker? People often say, “If there is really a G-d, why doesn’t He do outright miracles anymore? I would believe in G-d if I saw the ten plagues in Egypt, the sea split or some other supernatural event.” In the past, G-d did miracles in order to prevent some terrible tragedy from happening. G-d overruled the laws of nature to keep the story going—otherwise, it would have ended. But this type of intervention is not the ideal way that G-d wants to act. G-d prefers not to do miracles. He only does them when there is no other way to teach us about His control of nature. People do not really change by witnessing a miracle. Of course, at first they are strongly moved and seem to change. But the awe quickly wears off, and they return to their old ways. We see this human pattern many times in the stories of the Torah. The Israelites witnessed the...

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

January 26, 2017 by admin Comment Closed

What makes a great leader? Ask a large enough group of Israelis who they think of when asked to think of a Jewish leader, and someone will come up with the name Menachem Begin. A leader of the Jewish underground Irgun in pre-State Israel, and later Prime Minister of Israel, famous for ordering both the bombing of the British Command Center at the King David Hotel as well as the decision to bomb the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981, Begin was the most wanted Jewish underground commander in Palestine until the birth of the State of Israel. Eventually he won international acclaim as the first Israeli leader to sign a peace accord with an Arab State (Egypt) in 1978, and became the first Israeli to win the Nobel Peace Prize that same year. What was the secret of Menachem Begin’s leadership? Some would say his fiery determination: he was a powerful orator and mesmerizing public figure. Others would say his adherence to his beliefs...

Sparks – by Rabbi David Aaron

January 20, 2017 by admin Comment Closed

Identity Crisis is a Gift: Awakening to the Role and Goal of Your Soul Kirk Douglas, the actor, once told me that when people compliment him on a performance, they often tell him how great he was at losing himself in the part. "You just became Vincent Van Gogh! You were so wonderful." And he answers, "No, you lost yourself in the part. I can't afford to lose myself in the part. I have to pay attention to the director, to the cues. I have to hit the mark just right so the action is in the camera frame. I must stay aware that I am an actor playing a role." A good actor plays his part, but he doesn't get lost in his part. He can't even begin to think he is the character he is playing. On the other hand, he still embraces that role with a tremendous amount of love and gives everything he's got to play his...

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

January 20, 2017 by admin Comment Closed

In the year 1263 Raymond de Penyafort of Spain challenged the Jewish people to a debate. As the church’s representative, he chose a Dominican friar named Pablo Christiani, a Sephardic Jew who had converted to Christianity, to represent them. The Jewish community came to no less than the Ramban himself, to represent them. The Ramban, Rav Moshe ben Nachman (Nachmanides) was the undisputed great leader of his generation. (His now famous commentaries on the entire Torah and Talmud established him as one of the greatest scholars in Jewish history.) He agreed on condition that he be allowed to respond in the debate. The church was relying on the fact that the Jews would be hesitant to incur the wrath of the church by responding to Christiani’s suppositions, but King James of Aragon, in whose presence the debate took place granted the Ramban free speech. After the debate the Church published its version of the debate which suggested the Jews had no answers for...

Sparks – by Rabbi David Aaron

January 12, 2017 by admin Comment Closed

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 I...

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

January 12, 2017 by admin Comment Closed

Mrs. Marlit Wendell is a Holocaust survivor who lives in Jerusalem. Marlit, her mother, and older sister were able to survive Auschwitz and the war together. Their arms were numbered with three consecutive numbers. (I believe they are the only living family with three consecutive numbers ...) Eventually, they were able to join their brother in America after the war. In October 1938 in the middle of the night when all the kids were asleep, three Gestapo agents came to their house, and burst into the living room. They were taken to Gestapo headquarters after being told there was no need to take anything with them as they'd come back home; but they never saw their home again. Imagine what that must have been like for a seven-year-old; seventy five years later, Marlit still wishes she could go back to her home to see it and what she left behind, one last time. The parents were out late; when they came home and...

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

January 5, 2017 by admin Comment Closed

Recently, my brother shared with me the following story: Yuli Edelstein the speaker of the Knesset, was visiting a small school in Beitar Illit (Le’tzion Be’Rinah) and shared the following story: On Dec 19, 1984, Edelstein was sentenced by a Russian Tribunal, to three years of hard labor in Siberia. Technically the crime listed on the charge sheet was possession of narcotics, but the real reason was the fact that the Russians had caught him teaching Hebrew. “That day in court”, Edelstein recalled, “was after three solid months of being imprisoned in an isolation cell in Moscow’s infamous Chistopol prison.” “I was taken straight from my prison cell to the court , and found it full of Russian military and security personnel, who had clearly filled the court room to ensure there was no room for any of my supporters; only my wife and mother managed to get into the courtroom to hear the sentencing.” After the sentencing, the twenty six year old Edelstein was...

Sparks – by Rabbi David Aaron

December 30, 2016December 30, 2016 by admin Comment Closed

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...

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