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Maxim Cohen was born in Morocco and made Aliyah  to Israel as child in 1948. He enlisted in the IDF and became a driver. But following the Six-Day War in1967, Cohen left Israel with his parents to live in France. On Yom Kippur in 1973, Cohen – a traditional, observant Jew – was in Synagogue with the Jews of his community. At 2 p.m. during the afternoon prayers, his wife arrived in a car and Cohen immediately knew something was wrong. He rushed outside to discover that war had broken out in Israel. He rushed to the Israeli embassy in Paris where they were assisting soldiers wanting to return to Israel to join the war effort. Arriving in Israel, he was attached to an armored force fighting the Egyptians in the Sinai. Cohen and his unit eventually crossed the Suez Canal, and after three weeks of intense fighting, on October 24 – the last day of the war, arrived at the outskirts of...

Can You Forgive G-d? How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. ~~ Anne Frank This imperfect world is the perfect place for a dynamic life filled with challenge, growth and love. That’s the way G-d planned it. Here is what the Torah tells us: “In the beginning G- d created heaven and earth. And the earth was chaos and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep....And G-d said: ‘Let there be light’: and there was light....G-d divided the light from the darkness. G-d called the light ‘Day’ and the darkness He called ‘Night’...Let there be firmament in the midst of the water...Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear...G-d called the dry land Earth, and the gathering of waters He called Seas, etc.’ (Genesis 1:2-10) G-d intentionally created the world in a state of chaos, void, and darkness. This...

Nineteen hundred and forty-two years ago, this week, (on the 17th day of the Hebrew month of Tammuz) the end finally began. After two and a half years of siege, the Roman Legions broke through the ancient walls of Jerusalem and began their savage rampage of pillage and looting through the streets of Jerusalem. Although the walk from the city walls to the temple mount is a short ten-minute stroll, it would take the Romans three weeks to actually set fire to the Temple and end the battle for Jerusalem. Amidst the fire and destruction, Rav Yochanan Ben Zakkai smuggled himself out of the city, realizing the war was lost, and preferring to begin the long and tortuous process of assuring the Jewish people’s survival in the exile.  Nineteen hundred years later, the Jews of Jerusalem again faced that most awful of challenges: to stay and fight, or leave and live to fight another day.  In her book Forever My Jerusalem, Puah...

When the Loser is a Winner The Talmud teaches that King Solomon wrote the Book of Ecclesiastes after he saw prophetically that his kingdom and the Temple that he worked so hard to build would be destroyed. Imagine what a devastating realization that must have been to know that what you invested your entire life will be destroyed. We can understand why he bemoaned, “Futility of futilities ... what profits does a man have from all his work under the sun.” However, his ultimate resolution was “Revere G-d, live by His commandments -- for this is all man is.” King Solomon realized that our real accomplishments in life is not building the kingdom or the temple on earth, but what we make of ourselves -- the kingdom and temple we build in our inner world. This does not mean that you should not build in this world but rather that you should recognize that what you build on the outside is not the goal...

5th January, 1895; the sharp sound of the sword broken over a soldier’s knee reverberated across the Morlan Court of the Military academy in Paris.  The captain stood at attention, but the sound made him flinch with the symbolic breaking of his sword and the even more painful and humiliating tearing of his rank-epaulettes off his shoulders, Captain Alfred Dreyfus’ life was now broken. Accused of treason, he was sentenced to life imprisonment on the infamous Devil’s Island, never again to hold his beloved children in his arms and or feel the caress of his wife’s loving embrace. The French command knew there was a traitor in their midst and as the enmity between them and the Germans grew in the period leading up to World War I, they were determined to find the person leaking secrets to the German High Command. Dreyfus, a Jewish Captain in the artillery assigned to the French High Command, was the natural scapegoat. It...

Living G-d’s Life Quite frankly, I don’t believe in G-d. The word spelled G-O-D does nothing for me; in fact, it interferes with my true belief. I am not alone. Jews don’t believe in G-d. Indeed, the word “G-d” is not found in the Torah or the rest of the Hebrew Bible. Moses never heard of G-d nor heard from G-d. The name in the Torah that has been translated as G-d or Lord is Adonai. The word Adonai means “Master.” In Jewish law, whatever a servant owns actually belongs to his master; the servant has no possessions whatsoever. This law also governs our spirituality: G-d is our Master, and in essence we own nothing. For example, it is incorrect to say “my” life because it is really G-d’s life. We do not own the life force within us. This is a difficult concept to accept for many people because it is not a concept—it is a self-evident experience. Consider this: If we are...

Not long ago, I heard a powerful vignette from Rabbi Marvin Heir, former director of the Simon Wiesenthal center.  When Simon Wiesenthal, the famous Holocaust survivor and Nazi-hunter, celebrated his 90th birthday, he insisted the celebration take place in Vienna's Imperial Hotel.  When Rabbi Heir asked him why the Imperial, he explained it was Hitler’s favorite hotel and he and Himmler had permanent suites there.   That night at the Imperial hotel, Mr. Wiesenthal spoke just after the band played, “Mein Shtetala Belz” (My Little Town Belz), a lullaby that evoked the innocent happiness of childhood. With tears in his eyes, he gazed up at the elaborate crystal chandeliers that lit the room like six million stars in the night sky, leaned to Rabbi Heir and whispered, “You see? Even the chandeliers are shaking because this is the first time they have heard such music in this hotel. Hitler and his pipe dream of a thousand year Reich is gone, but even here...

Beating Jealousy Jealousy, that dragon which slays love under the pretence of keeping it alive. --Havelock Ellis In this week’s Torah portion Korach, a member of Moses' tribe the Levites and other communal leaders challenge Moses’s leadership and the appointment of priesthood to Moses’ brother Aaron. Motivated by envy toward Moses and Aaron they argue for equality. We are all holy. How can there be a hierarchy in holiness within Israel? They came as a group to oppose Moses and Aaron and said to them, "You have gone too far! The whole community is holy, every one of them, and the LORD is with them. Why then do you set yourselves above the LORD's assembly? Moses responded to Korach: Now listen, you Levites! Isn't it enough for you that the G-d of Israel has separated you from the rest of the Israelite community and brought you near Himself to do the work at the Lord's tabernacle and to stand before the community and minister to...

From His-tory to Her-story Is G-d male or female? One day my son Ananiel and my two daughters, Leyadya and Ne'ema, burst into my study. They had obviously been fighting over something and were very upset. I could see that I was chosen to be the lucky arbitrator to resolve another case of sibling rivalry. They shouted at each other, "You go, you ask Daddy." "No, no! You go, you go." Finally Ananiel, who was age five at that time, took the challenge and said, "O.K., O.K. Daddy, isn't it true that G-d is a boy?" Ne'ema and Leyadya, ages eight and nine, had tears in their eyes. I could hear them silently pleading with me, "Please no, please no. Tell us it's not true. It's bad enough our brother is a boy. Surely, G-d is really a girl." I said to them, "G-d is not a boy and G-d is not a girl. G-d is beyond that. We may talk about...