Uncategorized – Isralight

Small Tastings of Torah, Judaism and Spirituality from Rav Binny Freedman – Portion of Re’eh

August 21, 2025August 21, 2025 by admin Comment Closed

Thousands of feet up in freefall, travelling over 100 miles an hour, Yosef Goodman had only seconds to make a decision. His parachute had become tangled in his commander’s chute above him, preventing both of their parachutes from opening. They were probably twenty second away from certain death, and none of the backup measures were working. On a training jump in the IDF’s elite Maglan paratrooper unit, they were testing a new form of gliding parachute, but something had gone terribly wrong. With such a short timeframe, and no other possible solution, Yosef, over the protesting screams of his commander, calmly pulled out his army knife and sliced through the parachute chords connecting their chutes, saving the life of his Commander but dooming himself to certain death as he hurtled towards the ground at close to 130 miles per hour. A subsequent investigation determined that his decision was the correct one, and the only way to allow at least one of...

Sparks – by Rabbi David Aaron

December 5, 2024 by admin Comment Closed

Your Place or Mine? Living in the Arms of Love 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...

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

April 20, 2023 by admin Comment Closed

The Klausenberger Rebbe is quoted as suggesting: ‘When you are in a place of darkness, you do not chase away the darkness with a broom. You light a candle.’ May this Torah serve as one more candle to help illuminate the darkness. Any serious student of history will recognize that there are moments, all too rare, when a door stands open, waiting for a person, a people, or even the entire world to walk through, and change life as we know it, forever. Such a moment came and went in 1967, when the paratroopers, on the wings of eagles, stormed the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem. There was a magic in the air that day, an indescribable feeling. It was as if anything was possible, and dreams could really come true. After two thousand years of dreaming and crying, longing, and waiting, a people who had never let go of a dream, were finally coming home. A friend of mine, who was...

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

September 22, 2022 by admin Comment Closed

The banging on the door was a shock, but everyone knew what it must mean. There were three of them standing in the darkened stairwell when they opened the door, in their signature long leather coats. It was the summer of 1938; not an auspicious time to be Jewish in Berlin. Yet Hans was not Jewish; or at least he was not Jewish anymore. He had been named Joseph at birth but had long since forgotten the Jewish grandfather after whom he had been named. His mother had been Jewish but had married a Christian German businessman and had eventually converted to his faith, and Joseph, himself married to a non-Jewish woman had never really considered himself Jewish. But apparently the Nazis begged to differ. Someone had informed the authorities that he had been born of a Jewish mother, and his presence was kindly requested at Police headquarters. He was told he need not bring any belongings; it was simply...

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

February 4, 2021 by admin Comment Closed

Friday night. The sun has long since set, dark clouds hide the stars, and the wind is howling off the Shouf mountain range in central Lebanon. I had managed to quietly sing the Kabbalat Shabbat service, while en-route to the ambush site, and even pray the evening service while in the staging ground, before giving my men a final inspection, but I had no idea what to do about Kiddush. In such situations we usually ate from our packs, one or two at a time, and we had a system to ensure that we didn’t make much noise, but I had never happened to find myself in this particular situation on a Friday night. I had not thought it through in advance, so I had no wine with which to make Kiddush, and a wave of depression fell over me as I realized how far I was from where I really wished to be on a Friday night. Having come...

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

December 10, 2020December 10, 2020 by admin Comment Closed

Compromise: such a challenging word; ranging from the very noble, to the very naïve. How does one know, truly, when compromise is called for, and even laudable, and when, on the other hand, it is actually a tragic mistake? In the military, compromise can be a dangerous thing, and orders, once received, must out 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 becomes how 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 a commander of mine drew a line in the sand I was not willing to cross; it was a compromise I could not and would not accept. For some reason, when I arrived at the Armored Corps Tank commanders’ course, all the...

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

February 20, 2020February 20, 2020 by admin Comment Closed

It was the summer of 1935, but even after two years, they still didn’t get it. Germany had begun to gear up for the 1936 Olympics, and Goebbels, the Nazi minister of propaganda, had made it is mission to make sure the world would see a Germany that was respected as a leader amongst the nations of the world, so the anti-Jewish laws were being downplayed, and even in Germany’s own press, it seemed as though things might finally be calming down. David, (not his real name, by request) was a landlord whose family owned properties in some major German cities. One of them, a large building in the heart of downtown Berlin, was leased by a department store that was delinquent in rent payments so, six months earlier he had gone to their main branch to demand payment or threaten a lawsuit. His partner, Chaim, was a lawyer by trade and given the contract they held and their years of...

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

January 16, 2020January 16, 2020 by admin Comment Closed

Zvika had just been given two weeks leave; Having been accepted to the prestigious Company Commanders course, he had been given two weeks leave and was at home on his Kibbutz Lochamei Hageta’ot near Haifa when, at exactly 2pm on the afternoon of October 6th, 1973, the Yom Kippur War began. Nearly two thousand Syrian tanks poured across the border in the Golan Heights while hundreds of thousands of Egyptian troops crossed the Suez Canal in the Sinai, and Israeli troops, suffering unspeakable losses, scrambled to try and hold back the onslaught. Twenty-one year old Captain Zvika Greengold, a tank officer, sensed how bad things were and frantically started making his way across the country to the Golan Heights where he understood the situation was dire; Syrian tanks were just a few hours away from Tel Aviv and there was not much standing in their way. Arriving at the IDF Command center in Nafach on the Golan, a couple of...

Sparks – by Rabbi David Aaron

December 26, 2019December 26, 2019 by admin Comment Closed

Chanukah: The Light of Love Most people who have read a little about Kabbalah probably know that this mystical tradition of Judaism talks a great deal about light – what it calls the Endless Light. The Kabbalah teaches that through our actions we draw and increase this Divine Light into the world or diminish its presence. For a long time, I had difficulty in understanding this Kabbalistic metaphor until one day it all came together. As a way of explaining this difficult concept, let me ask you to imagine for a moment that you have walked into a magic store. And there, they are selling special flashlights equipped with magic lights of different kinds. For example, you can buy the light of science, and when you point that flashlight at your hand, you see not a hand, but cells and blood vessels and tendons and ligaments. Or you can buy the light of art, and you point that flashlight at your hand,...

Sparks – by Rabbi David Aaron

November 27, 2019November 27, 2019 by admin Comment Closed

Selfishly Selfless The Way To Self Actualization Judaism teaches that no character trait is absolutely negative, everything has a role. All we have to do is look at each trait with an open mind and determine the pluses and the minuses. When it comes to pride there is an aspect of it that comes from the godly grandeur of our soul and is therefore, truly self affirming. But there is an aspect of pride that comes from our ego which is self destructive; alienating us from our true inner self. This type of pride focuses on selfish concerns and social status; it embodies a desire for honor and one-upmanship. This type of pride confuses us to think that as an individual soul we stand independent and apart from the greater collective soul of the community. According to Jewish mysticism this kind of pride is self destructive because in essence our individual self is really an aspect of the collective soul of the...

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