Category: Isralight Blog

It was late, and normally he would have been on his way home but he had some unfinished business at work, bringing him back up the hill late that night.  Very few people would even have noticed what he saw, much less done anything about it, but Aryeh, an expert in archeology, and very familiar with the normal comings and goings in East Jerusalem, realized something was going on: a long line of trucks was moving up and down the road, in and out of the Old City.  Arabs do not normally work late at night and certainly so many trucks would have to mean a major building project, which was strange considering the late hour. As it turned out, the Wakf (the Muslim religious authority on the Temple Mount) was overseeing an illegal expansion of the El Aksa Mosque on the Mount and needed somewhere to dump all the dirt and rubble they were digging up. And as any digging on...

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...

Compromise: such a challenging word; ranging as it does from the very noble, to the very naïve. How does one know when compromise is called for, and when it is actually a tragic mistake? In the military, compromise can be a dangerous thing, and orders, once received, must of necessity be carried out to the letter. There is no room for variance. But sometimes, when orders contravene principals, following those orders may be an unacceptable compromise, and the challenge is to know where the line one cannot cross actually lies.  In all the years I served in the Israeli army, I only once knowingly and willfully refused a   direct order, because it was a compromise I could not accept.  For some reason, when I arrived at the Armored Corps Tank commander’s course, all the challenges I had faced till then were apparently not enough, and G-d must have decided to give me one more. As it turned out this one was a whopper, and...

Jacob runs for his life to Charan because his brother Esau was out to kill him. The Bible records that on his way “he reached the place and spent the night there ... and lay down to sleep.” (Genesis 28:11) The Midrash –the Jewish Oral Tradition-- interprets “the place” to mean “G-d.” G-d is “The Place” because according to the Kabbalah He made space within Himself for creation and always holds us all within His loving embrace. Therefore, His loving presence is our ground, context and place. Thus it states: Why do we refer G-d as “The Place?” Because He is the Place of the world (i.e. we exist within G-d) ... G- d is the dwelling place of the world...   Jacob lived this truth. He always defined himself and his actions within the context of G-d. Therefore, even though Jacob lay down in a physical place, He experienced himself exiting within the arms G-d’s loving embrace. To Live the Impossible Dream The Torah describes Jacob’s...

“War is Hell”; so said General William Tecumseh Sherman in the Civil War. But what exactly makes war ‘hell’? Most people, when hearing or reading about the horrors of war, think of the inevitable destruction, the fear of dying, and even the pressure of making a mistake that costs someone else their life. Indeed, war is full of uncertainty. But sometimes the devil is in the details, and one aspect of combat and military operations that does not get its due is pure exhaustion. It is hard to describe what it feels like to be expected to go on, after two and even three days with no sleep; when all you want to do, more than anything else in the world is curl up on the ground and close your eyes, but you can’t…. I can still remember being in Lebanon lying in an ambush waiting for terrorists that might come out of the darkness at any moment desperately trying to...

Do Good. Feel Good. Do Bad. Feel Bad. When we do something wrong, we not only violate our relationship with G-d and break a particular law but we also wrong ourselves and damage our self-esteem. Sin is an act of self-betrayal. The Talmud teaches that we cannot do wrong unless a spirit of insanity enters us. Indeed, we have to be out of our minds to transgress G-d's will; who only wants the best for us. Therefore, when we do wrong we have lost ourselves, at least temporarily. We become estranged from our Godly essence, and we are no longer at home with our true selves. After Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, G-d asked them, "Where are you?" Likewise, when we do wrong we lose ourselves in our self-imposed spiritual exile; we become strangers to ourselves. When we transgress G-d's will, we violate our G-d-given potential. We experience a schism between who we are and who we ought to be; we...

Tibor Rubin was a Corporal in the Korean War when his battalion found itself ambushed by thousands of Chinese troops in the battle of Unsan, North Korea, in the fall of 1950. The Americans’ firepower soon dwindled to a single machine gun. The weapon was in an exposed position and three soldiers had already died manning it when Corporal Rubin took charge. He fought until his ammunition was gone. Badly wounded, he was captured and sent to a P.O.W. camp, but his bravery helped many of his fellow soldiers survive. And his valor does not end there. He spent 30 months as a prisoner of war in North Korea, and fellow prisoners later testified about his willingness to sacrifice for the good of others; what gave him the strength to do all this? Tibor was born on June 18, 1929, in Paszto, a Hungarian shtetl with a reported 120 Jewish families, to Ferenc and Rosa Rubin; his father, who had served in...

Making Every Day Count The Key to Making Life Worth Living One day as I was waiting for a friend, an old woman sits down next to me. Suddenly she jumps out of her seat, turns to me and yells, "I should have never left Mexico!" I look at her and ask, "When did you leave Mexico?" "Thirty years ago!" she cries. "And I regret it every single day of my life!" You would think that after 30 years a person would finally get used to where they were. But people often live in the past. One of my students, age 28, told me that his father insulted him when he was age 12 and till this day he continues to feel hurt and angry. I explained to him that although his father hurt him when he was twelve he has allowed his father to continue to hurt him for another sixteen years by holding on to the pain and constantly remembering it. I suggested...

It had been a grueling few weeks. After almost thirty years in the reserves I was definitely getting too old for this. Midnight ambushes with 10-20 kilometer treks carrying heavy gear and wearing heavy bullet-proof ceramic vests, all day patrols in the hot sun, trying to stay alert commanding checkpoints in dangerous areas over the green line; we had been attached for this reserve duty to a unit of paratroopers most of whom were 20-25 years younger; it was all getting to be a bit much.  We were three days away from finishing this stint of reserve duty and to be honest, I was counting the hours. I had come back from a late-night ambush and after trekking deep into a valley and having to come back on foot with all our heavy gear I finally collapsed onto my cot in the army tent, only to be woken a few hours later and informed I was the Officer on Duty for...

Enjoying Heaven on Earth In this week's Torah portion G-d appeared to Abraham and yet He said nothing. "G-d appeared to [Abraham] in the Plains of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance of the tent in the hottest part of the day. [Abraham] lifted his eyes and he saw three strangers approaching and ran towards them." Until now G-d appeared to Abraham to instruct, promise or bless him. The Talmud (Sotah 14A) comments that G-d was visiting sick Abraham who was recuperating from his circumcision. What does this mean? When you visit a person who is ill it is not in order to say something; your mere presence communicates your pure desire to identify with this person in his/her time of need. You go for the sole purpose of being there. So it was when G-d visited Abraham. For the first time G-d appears to Abraham only to be with him, identify with him and share this special moment. Sometimes the highest moment...