An Understanding Heart

  This has been a very challenging year for Mishpachat Beit Yisrael – “The Family of the House of Israel” -the entire Jewish people. However, the reason it has been such a difficult period since Shemini Atzeret (10/7), is precisely because we are a family. We don’t always agree with each other, we don’t always stay connected, but we are always bound up in the reality of our relationship. One never stops being a parent, or a child, or a sister, or a brother. We rejoice in the joys of our fellow Jews and mourn with them in their sadness of loss. This then is a actually the dark lining of a beautiful reality. We care deeply about the tragedies befallen Jews we never met, whom we didn’t even know existed because we are part of a greater, indivisible whole. G-d says to us “Atem Edai” – “You (Israel) are my witnesses”. Our existence testifies to G-d’s existence, to G-d’s Providence and to G-d’s deep concern with what human beings do with their lives. G-d is One, Indivisible, yet the Source o

  As we enter the fall, and prepare for Tishrei – The High Holidays, Sukkot and Simchat Torah, we are also poised at a key moment of the great American sport - the climactic crescendo of the Baseball season. True, in the grand scheme of things this may seem trivial, yet - all happens by Divine Providence. As a result of this reality, Rabbi Israel Ba’al Shem Tov taught “Everything we hear and see must teach us a means of enhancing our Divine work”. Since this sporting milestones are always close to this most intense period of the Judaic year, they must teach us something important. One of the special characteristics of baseball is the need for thorough preparation outside the games themselves. The perfect strike, the brilliant at-bat, the towering homer, the gravity-defying leaping catch at the wall, the perfectly choreographed double (or triple!) play all are the products of intense preparation and practice over many hours, days, months, and years. The necessary development of the sp

  wing October 7, when the scope and horror of the Shemini Atzeret massacre became clear, I felt my mother’s experiences during the Holocaust come to life before my eyes. I felt overcome with grief and fear.  Yet, in the days that followed, something else became abundantly clear, and I was overwhelmed by its power.  I saw and heard how, on that terrible day, people put their lives on the line—and indeed many gave their lives—for fellow Jews they had never met before; how a divided Israel and a fragmented Diaspora Jewry came together in love and unity. I saw a new Jewish consciousness emerge, a realization that Jews share an essential bond with Israel and with each other that transcends all our differences. To quote the Tanya , “ It is on account of this common root, shared by all the Jewish people in the One G-d, that all of Israel are called siblings—in the full sense of the word.” Like siblings, we can disagree but the unbreakable bond is always there. But this new consciousness has

  But the more they were oppressed, the more they increased and spread out, so that the [Egyptians] came to dread the Israelites. - Shemot /Exodus 1:12 All those, who throughout history sought power, wealth, and perceived security through the degradation, subjugation, and destruction of other humans have relied upon  two key sets of premises: 1.       Constant contempt and intrusive control over people’s lives and labor, causes them to lose a sense of agency. This then causes the oppressed to value their own selves less and internalize that contempt, so they no longer have the hopes, aspirations, and belief in their destiny flowing from a sense of self worth.  2.       The oppressed become invisible: Part of the background, without influence. In the case of the Children of Israel in Egypt neither was the case. They had as many children as possible and brought them up with a sense of pride and identity – rejecting the values of Egyptian society. Though slaves, they didn't embrace

We now enter the depths of this winter, with a long stretch between the afterglow of the lights of Chanukah and the dawning of the joy of Adar and Purim. Furthermore, there is an extra month between them with this year being a Jewish leap year. During this winter we might feel particularly down. I refer, of course, not just to the lack of holidays, but to the continuing pain of Israel’s war with terrorists in Gaza and on other fronts. We are still processing the cataclysmic loss and pain of the murderous attacks of 10/7 as more and more details come to light. Every day, alas, we hear of more hostages murdered, and more and more of our best and brightest killed in the IDF’s war against our implacable enemies. Those we have lost are: Wonderful people still in their teens who had whole, brilliant, lives before them. We have lost those who are parents and grandparents, brothers and sisters. We have lost great scholars of Torah, artists and scientists, doctors and nurses, craftspeople and t

Dear All, We now enter the depths of this winter, with a long stretch between the afterglow of the lights of Chanukah and the dawning of the joy of Adar and Purim. Furthermore, there is an extra month between them with this year being a Jewish leap year. During this winter we might feel particularly down. I refer, of course, not just to the lack of holidays, but to the continuing pain of Israel’s war with terrorists in Gaza and on other fronts. We are still processing the cataclysmic loss and pain of the murderous attacks of 10/7 as more and more details come to light.  Every day, alas, we hear of more hostages murdered, and more and more of our best and brightest killed in the IDF’s war against our implacable enemies. Those we have lost are: Wonderful people still in their teens who had whole, brilliant, lives before them. We have lost those who are parents and grandparents, brothers and sisters. We have lost great scholars of Torah, artists and scientists, doctors and nurses, craftsp