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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...

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...

I can still remember that ride; every minute of it, every time I took it…. Passing Agam Karun (the Karun reservoir), and then the road below the Beaufort fortress imagining what that would have been like if the PLO had still controlled that high ground; marveling at the insane bravery the men of Golani must have had to take that spot just the year before ….  And then passing through Marja’oun and getting close to the border; you could taste it now; home was that close. It was always an intense ride in open safari trucks with all our gear on: flak vests helmets, webbing and gear and bullet in the chamber, never really sure if you would make it to the border; there were no shortage of stories of convoys being ambushed on this road and we were obvious targets in open safari trucks with no armor….  And once you’ve been through such an ambush you no longer focus on the...

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...

Of all the experiences I have ever had on Yom Kippur, none have made as indelible an impression on me as the ones I spent in Yeshivat Har Etzion as a young student in Israel. Har Etzion is a very special type of yeshiva (institute for advanced Jewish studies), known as a Hesder yeshiva, where students choose not only to spend years studying Torah, but serve in the Israeli army as well. Literally with a bible in one hand and a rifle in the other, balancing the desire to grow spiritually with the need to contribute to the community and the country, these young men, veterans of some of Israel’s darkest hours were the role models that ended up shaping my life. And particularly on Yom Kippur, when alumni come from all over the country to pray and study with each other and with their revered teachers, the experience was very powerful; no words could do justice to the feeling one gets...

The Secret to Immortality When G-d said to Abraham “Go to yourself-- Lech Lecha” what was He actually asking Abraham to do? This command seems to be contradicted by the remainder of the statement: “...from your country, from your birthplace and from your father’s home.” Are these not the fundamental elements that make up a person’s sense of self? My nation, my birthplace and family together create the context for my identity and establish the vital ground for my sense of self. In addition, they represent citizenship, property rights, and inheritance, all essential sources of personal security. What G-d is actually saying to Abraham is, “Go to yourself and leave yourself,” bidding him to seek himself and at the same time abandon everything that establishes and confirms selfhood. The very order of the statement verifies this, as it is not in chronological order. A person first leaves his father’s home, then his birthplace and then finally the country’s borders, not the...

Somehow, the computers or the staff making such decisions had really fouled this one up; how could anyone have thought this fellow was suited to be a gunner?   His name was Shachar, which means ‘the dawn’, and the joke was with him around it was always dawn, because he blotted out the sun. He was a massive fellow, and watching him squeeze into the gunner’s seat, the smallest, most confined place in the tank, deepin the belly of the turret, was a sight to behold. He told me the reason he had fought so hard to get into Sergeant’s (Commander’s) course was because it was the only way he could think of to get out of the gunner’s turret….  One would think with such a fellow sharing your tank, there would be a lot less room to breathe, but in fact the opposite was true. Somehow, his sharp sense of humor, and the smile always twinkling at the corners of his...

Are You Ready for the Ultimate Pleasure? The generations following the sin of Adam and Eve proceeded upon a path of moral degeneration. Cain, in a jealous rage, impulsively killed his brother Abel. In the next generation, Tuvel- Kain perfected the crime of Cain through manufacturing weapons. Then, Lemach boasted to his wives of committing pre-meditative murder. Idolatry flourished during the time of Enosh. Organized crime was established by a group of hoodlums called “The sons of Elohim.” Sexual perversion was rampant in Noah’s generation. Torah tradition teaches that there are three cardinal sins that a person should choose death rather than be forced to commit. They are: murder, idolatry, and sexual perversion. These offenses are the ultimate denial of G-d’s love and the values that make life worth living. They are a complete violation of living within the context of G- d’s oneness and love and therefore cut humanity off from the source and ground of life. In a span...

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,...

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...