Category — Holidays

We stood at the foot of the mountain; a rush of adrenalin ran through our bodies as we started our trek. We had set a goal – to reach the top, and we would not turn back until we reached there.

Up and up we climbed the steep path. Finally after climbing over a big rock we found ourselves on a rather smooth trail. ‘Phew’, I thought I needed a break. But then the trail started going downhill!

“Hey! We’re lost!” I cried out.

“No we’re not”, said my friend who had trekked up this mountain many times. “This is just a small dip; it only goes for a minute. Believe me we’re on the right path, just look up ahead and see the steep hill… ye we’re going to climb it.”

After many more steep climbs and just a few dips we reached the top.

Before long we had to head back down, so down we went, slipping and sliding to the bottom. Our easy trek down was interrupted a few times, by some rocks that we had to climb over to be able to continue on our south-bound trek. Thank G-d we made it safely to the bottom.

Dear friend, the month of Elul is upon us. In Judaism this is referred to as “reflection” month, where one looks back at the year that passed, looking for the holes and the wholes in his service of the Creator.

And we can be pretty sure that when we reflect we will find a year that looks like a heart thermometer, ups and downs. And we must ask ourselves: Does this mean that the whole year is a failure, just because of a few falls?

So many of us tend to look back at the year and whine about: “what if…” and “next year will be…”, and we just wipe off a year as a failure due to a few minor/major dives.

We must remember to take the helicopter view, to be able to look at the good that we’ve done and see how much we have climbed higher over the year and then make the math. At the end of day we are not so bad after all…

Of course we must repent, but that does not mean that we are evil. All it means is that we are mountain climbers with beating hearts.

No, this is not an essay mocking the religion of global warming. I wouldn’t dare; for there is no free speech allowed on that topic…

Yossel was a merchant who sold precious stones for a living. Most of his money was made during the yearly fare in the city of Leipzig during the month of January. This was an event that Yossel could not afford to miss.Good old mother Russia’s weather is totally unpredictable, especially in the winter.
So it came to pass one year, that to Yossel’s dismay the winter hit really hard, covering the countryside with snow and sleet, making it nearly impossible to make the three day journey to the fair.
Yossel had to go, so desperately he went around to all the wagon drivers begging them for a ride. No luck. Finally he spotted Moishe the wagon driver who was the adventurous type, so he ran over to him offered him a deal, “Listen Moishe, if you bring to the fair in time, I’ll pay you 10 gold coins, that’s triple the regular pay. But we don’t arrive on time you’ll pay me fifty golden coins for my great loss.”
Moishe, whose brains were the size of a peanut, didn’t hesitate for a moment and without blinking an eye agreed to the deal, ‘This is the best deal of my life’, he thought to himself.ell to make a long story short; Even with all Moishe’s good will, and great talent at schlepping the horses out of the mud, and beating them to a pulp, the inevitable happened; to their great disappointment they pulled into Leipzig as the fair was closing up shop.
Hand over the fifty golden coins!” said Yossel, “a deal is a deal!”Moishe played dumb, “What fifty, where fifty, I’m not paying you a penny!”
Yossel fumed, “Ganef! Thief! Give me the money you owe me!”
Not a chance!”
“I’m taking you to the rabbi!”
“That’s fine with me!”
The rabbi patiently listened to Yossel’s tale of woe, and turned to Moishe, “Is it true that you promised to pay Yossel fifty golden coins if you would not arrive on time for the fair?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’m sorry, but you must pay the money immediately!”
Moishe was unfazed, “Says who?”
“The Torah, given to the Jews on Mount Sinai 3000 years ago says so!”
Moishe was not so dumb after all, “Let’s face the facts rabbi. When was the Torah given? In the summer time! Where? In the desert! Well, I could promise you that were the Torah to be given in Russia, in middle of the winter, it would say something totally different…”

Back to the present. I’m sure you recognize the modern day Moishe, the one who has an answer for everything: Blowing a ram horn on Rosh Hashanah? That was before PETA! Modesty? Before the sixties! Shabbat candles? Not healthy for the environment. Respect your parents??? and the list goes on.
Hello! It was the same Torah for Moses in the desert, for King David in Israel, for Daniel in exile, for Moshke in the Shtetel and for Joe in 21st century America. It’s time to go back to the system that has worked throughout the centuries.
Nothing has changed! Except for the global temperature that is (or maybe not).

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This Friday we celebrate ‘Lag BaOmer’, one of the reasons of the celebration is the Yortzeit of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai who passed away on this day, and asked that it be a day of celebration and happiness. The following is but one story of his extraordinary life.

Good evening and welcome to the RNN eyewitness news.
Our top story today: Back from the dead; an amazing story of a rabbi and his son returning from nowhere after 13 years! With us is our reporter Julius. Julius?
Julius: Thank you Augustus. This truly is an amazing tale. 13 years ago a Jewish Rabbi named Rabbi Shimon was given the death sentence for decrying the Roman Empire. Somehow he managed to escape before the execution, and was never heard of since.
And now he’s back! And he is with us here today at the studio.Welcome, Rabbi Shimon, we’ll start with the question that is on everyone’s mind: Where have you been?
Rabbi Shimon: Not too far from here. I hid in a cave in the mountains, together with my son Eliezer.
J: Hmm… I would like to check that out. Sounds like an extended summer vacation.
R S: Not exactly… actually to give an example or our lifestyle, let me just say, that because we didn’t have a change of clothing, we usually covered ourselves up to the neck in mud, besides the times we had to pray…
J: Oh no! what about food and drink?
R S: It’s funny that you ask, we really didn’t know how we would survive, but our G-d made a miracle and a carob tree grew just outside the cave. And next to it a river of water just sprung up from the ground…
J: I’ll have to believe you on that one. Anyway enough with the past, what are your plans for the future?
R S: Well I was just told of a certain road, about which there are rumors that it might contain human remains, making it impure and therefore illegal for Kohanim or priests to walk on. Those poor men have to take another side route which makes their walk a few minutes longer, so I intend to investigate the matter and work out a solution.
J: Um… excuse me Rabbi; did I just hear you correctly? After 13 years away from your family, students and community, you simply have nothing to do, but to work out some tiny inconvenience for only a small segment of your community? Are you sure that 13 years in the cave haven’t mixed up your priorities?
R S: A goyishe kup! How can I explain to you the great merit in helping even one Jew with something seemingly small and insignificant! There is a statement that says, 1 “A Jew lives for 70, 80 years just to do a favor for another Jew!” J: Truly an eternal message for all time. Anyway, great to have you with us. We wish you much luck in all your projects. Arrivederci!
Agustos: Thank you Julius! Now for our survey: what are the chances of surviving 13 years in a cave covered in dirt, eating carob and drinking water? You can vote on our website…

1 It was said 2000 years later by the holy Baal Shem Tov, but it was in the hearts and minds of the Jewish people since the beginning.

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Pesach is a holiday of questions and answers. It’s also a holiday of freedom. Let’s ask some freedom questions.
Q: On Pesach everyone recites the Kiddush, and the whole year we rely on the Kiddush of someone else. Why the difference?

A: Kiddush means elevation, and on Pesach we are reminded that when it comes to elevation – freedom of one’s little Egypt, we can’t rely on someone else. Do it yourself!

Q: On Pesach we drink four cups of wine. I know there are many explanations; tell me an explanation with the same theme as the previous answer?

A: Sure! The Shala (Shnei luchut habrit) says that the 4 cups symbolize the four Matriarchs. Look at this:

On cup 1 we recite the Kiddush, in which we read “Who has chosen us from among all nations”, resembles Sarah who together with her husband Abraham brought many people closer to G-d. Abraham and Sarah stood up against the pagan society and changed the world, one person at a time!

Cup 2 comes after reading of Jacobs’s hardships and troubles under his father-in-law Lavan. So this cup resembles Rebecca’s defiance and courage, that although she grew up in such an immoral environment, she nevertheless defied all odds and became the great woman who she was. Once again: yes you can!

Cup 3, on which we say the grace after meals, corresponds to Joseph, son of Rachel, who fed the whole world during the drought. Joseph defied all odds (brothers hatred and 12 years of slavery) to become the treasurer of the world!

With cup 4 we conclude the Hallel, the prayer of thanks and praise to G-d, reminding us of the attribute of appreciation which we are taught by Lea, who was first to thank G-d by naming her fourth son Judah (thankfulness). Look at the blessings that you have, and say thank you!

Q: I can understand how we, living in the free world can celebrate this holiday of freedom, but how did our grandparents celebrate it throughout our long history of oppression, didn’t they see the irony of it?

A: Freedom is not so much about location; it’s about a mindset. Just look around and see people who physically live in a free world, but their attitude is that of a prisoner: “Me? I can never do that!” “It’s all because of my nose that I’ll never make it anywhere!” “I want to. But I can’t”. These are enslaved people, not by dictators and tyrants, but by themselves.

The great miracle of the exodus was that G-d introduced the mindset of freedom. “Yes! You can get out of here!” “Yes! You can defy the odds!” And that mindset was present at the Seder’s celebrated in the gulags, in Auschwitz, in Spain and in Babel.

Your Kiddush cup, your grandmother Rebecca, and your grandfather’s Seder in Bergen Belsen, all scream to you:

Dear… Freedom is a choice! This holiday, choose freedom! YES YOU CAN!

Please friends let’s do all we can to have This year in Jerusalem!

L’chaim!

This is some holiday! Boy, if only Haman knew what kind of holiday he gave us… Anyway, as this wonderful holiday approaches, I would like to share with you a beautiful story to help you ‘warm up’ for this one of kind Yom Tov.

Our story takes us back two years. Location: Milan Italy. Date: Two days after Purim.

Everything was running late, like usual. Purim came and went, and then… oops! We had forgotten to deliver the Mishloach Monos (Purim gifts) to the children who had participated during the past summer in the Chabad day camp.

So we sat down with a map and marked out where we’ll have to visit that evening. All in all, there were about forty houses within four square blocks. The Rabbi, a sworn optimist, gave us his word, that we would need no more than an hour and a half to do the whole job. Not bad.

“Oh, by the way – said the Rabbi – there is one family, the Cohen family, that lives about fifteen minutes out of this area, there’s only a small chance you’ll make it there, but I’ll mark it down anyway, just in case…”

Two of us (a friend by the name of Yisrael and yours truly) gladly volunteered to do the rounds. We set out at eight at night, planning to return to home base ’round nine thirty.

Little did we know what was in store for us… From the second we began the route everything seemed to go wrong. As we trudged from one house (nobody home), to another (she’s sleeping already), to another (non existing address), our spirits plummeted. Murphy’s Law was working over time that evening.

It’s was already ten past nine. We haven’t met even one kid. Our hands we’re hurting from the heavy bags, and to top it all off, we realized that we have gotten lost. Oy vey, why did we jump into this mess?

We stopped our aimless walking, to study the map. Where are we? Hmmm… Ah! I found us! “Yisrael! We have good news and bad news. Bad news first: we’re way out of our 4 square block radius. Good news: we’re five minutes away from the one house that we were not planning on going to!”

We decided to make our way to the way-out house, to try our luck over there. Like our sages said: “when one changes his location, he changes his luck”.

So tired and discouraged we made our way to our destination. Don’t ask me how, but somehow we managed to get lost again, so by the time we reached the right building we were a real sorry/shabby sight.

We rang the bell. And yes! The kids were home! And awake! Oh, how relieved we were. We ran into the building, into the elevator, forgot what floor we were heading to, and got lost… To make a short story long; after walking up and down the stairs we found ‘ours’.

[By now I had lost the strength of cordiality;] I turned the mom and told her how we were knocked out, and would appreciate a cold drink.

She welcomed us warmly into her simple apartment, and gave us drinks and hamantashen (”best in town”), and asked us to share some Torah thoughts. So we did.

Ten minutes later, and we have shared with her and the kids many thoughts/jokes, and she was swallowing it all up asking for more, and I had run out of things to day (could you believe it? That itself was the first miracle of the evening). So I related to her the painful saga of our evening, how “truth to be told we were not planning to come to your house tonight, but for some reason, nothing worked out and we got lost, so…”

Suddenly she burst out crying, or to describe it more accurately, her whole body was shaking as she sobbed. What did I say wrong? Did I offend her? What do I do now?

After a few long minutes of uncontrolled sobs, she told us through the tears her painful story: “just recently my life has taken a turn for the worse, my husband left me, and my children are having a very hard time adjusting to this new life style. To make matters even harder, I have no money to support my children.

“So this morning, I turned to G-d in despair, and asked him to send me a sign, a sign that he remembers me and cares for me.

“So when you shared with me how this was not a planned visit, how this was divine providence. I realized that G-d had answered my prayer, and sent me a sign in the form of two angels, to show me that he cares.

“Thank you G-d for sending me these angels!”

As she continued sobbing for quite a while, I reflected on the last few hours, and understood that it wasn’t Murphy’s Law that was in charge that evening; it was G-d’s Law.

She calmed down, we blessed her (my friend was a Kohen), and said goodbye. We walked out shaken, touched as never before.

Happy purim! Dear fellow angels! Let us all be an angel to a fellow Jew this Purim, and share with him/her the light and happiness of this great day.