Category — Ki Savo

It was the custom of Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi to officiate as the “reader” (baal korei) of the weekly Torah reading in his synagogue. One year, the Rebbe was away from home on the Shabbat on which that the section of Ki Tavo (Deuteronomy 26-29) is read. In the Rebbe’s absence, someone else did the reading.

Ki Tavo contains the “Rebuke”, a harsh description of the calamities or “curses” (kellalot) destined to befall the Jewish people should they forsake the commandments of the Torah. That week, Rabbi Schneur Zalman’s son, DovBer, who was about twelve years old at the time, was so affected by the “curses” of the Rebuke that he developed a heart ailment. Three weeks later, when Yom Kippur came round, he was still so weak that his father was hesitant to allow him to fast.

When the young DovBer was asked, “But don’t you hear the Rebuke every year?”, he replied: “When father reads, one does not hear curses.”

Hmm… that story is really on target for what’s been going on in recent weeks. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were taken over by the government, Lehman brothers, AIG… the financial market is not doing too great to put it mildly.

Oh and China is thinking of buying out half of Morgan Stanley… and “Der spiegel” says that American capitalism has died…Welcome back Mr.’s dark and gloom…

I was on the train today and some ‘optimistic’ preacher was telling us that this is the beginning of the end, “you’re all gonna die, three people in a casket… communist China will take over the world…” ouch.

Ok 2.8 trillion dollars lost is no joke, granted. But gloom and doom is no joke either. It’s at these times that you look back and think to yourself, ‘wasn’t it just a few decades ago when our grandparents worked eighteen hours a day just to earn enough money to put a rusty loaf of bread on the table’?

It’s 2008, how many of us had only plain bread for breakfast and supper (who was able to afford lunch those days)? Aren’t we all reading/hearing/watching the news about this meltdown by such media that just a short time ago couldn’t have even been dreamt of?

I think the lesson we should learn from the above story; at least for people like us who are neither at the level of the “reader” nor of the “listener”, is to look at what’s happening with a different perspective. Same facts, same story, just with a different color lenses.

‘Think good and it will be good’, said the fifth Chabad Rebbe the Tzemach Tzedek.

Let’s take it to heart; it works in medicine (fact!) it works in psychology, it works in school… and it works in money as well.

Oh, and by the way a new year is upon us… an opportunity for a fresh new start.

The graduating student arrogantly grabbed her diploma. “Call me Betsy Jones, B.A.,” she cried out as she happily ran up the aisle.
“Come, my child,” said on onlooker. “Let me introduce you to the rest of the alpha bet.”

What a gangster! This kid is barely thirteen years of age, and already has a whole record. He has stolen a few hundred bucks from his father’s wallet, bought some crazy amount of meat and wine, and consumed all of it in one sitting.
His parents are so mortified; they don’t know where to bury themselves. This kid has made a laughing stack out of his parents, so his parents decide that it’s time for him to go. They schlep their nogoodnik son to the Supreme Court, and the judges decide that he’s guilty. So this poor kid is stoned by his parents and by the rest of the sympathetic community. “And let them all learn their lesson.”
Yup, I know this story sounds awful, but it is actually a law in this week’s Torah portion: it’s called the law of the “Ben sorer umoreh,” meaning the wayward “not listening to mommy son.”
The reason given by the Torah is that it’s better to kill the child when he’s just starting, than to wait until he’s a serial killer who causes much more damage to society.
Oh, and just for your information, this law was never actually carried out. I guess that in those days parents couldn’t bear to cause the death of their own child; today you never know…

Just this week, a friend of mine noted an amazing point. There is a relatively popular website called “myspace.com“, where anyone can write a blog and upload personal pictures and information in his own space on the website. This website has three million new subscribers every month…most of them youth. This is just an example of the many websites and other such forums which are sprouting all over the world like mushrooms after the rain.
Kids want to express themselves; they want to share, to make a difference. Never before have we seen such a need by people to open up and share their feelings, emotions and thoughts. It is as if we feel that we are all one and we all need to share in transforming and revolutionizing the universe, each in his or her distinct way. Unfortunately, the results of this new trend are often not very positive; at times, this obsession with exposure, freedom and expression can be downright dangerous.
Youth can go to extreme measures. If their life is not full of meaning, and they aren’t given the opportunity for self expression, then we have the wayward son in his modern costume: he steals his dad’s credit card, rents a Porsche, DWI (driving while intoxicated) on his way to pick up some heroin.

So it’s all about using the energy of youth and aiming it in the positive direction. Just turn on the car, put in drive, and let the kid push the gas… but sit down with him and map out the route, and keep your eye on the stearing wheel.