My video dvar torah debut with Machon Meir
April 13, 2008
How can we be happy this Rosh Chodesh?
March 7, 2008
Mordechai makes it very clear – the safety of the jewish people is not up to you Esther, if you are silent, salvation will come from somewhere else, and you will be lost. Why then is Mordechai wearing sackcloth, why all the mourning? Is this a lack of faith?
Enter the rest of Mordechai’s statement – “who knows if it is for a moment “עת” like this you have achieved royalty”.
Mordechai is telling Esther that there are two levels in every moment. One level connects that moment to the story, but that is only part of the picture. As a matter of fact the same moment can be part of a number of different stories, perhaps hundreds, branching off into a myriad of plots, twists and turns. The other level is the moment itself, a microcosm of meaning which stands alone. Your choice in this moment reflects who you are, that then unfolds into who you become.
To not mourn in the face of tragedy is to be cold, removed, separate. The faith that truth will prevail does not change the fact that right now it is in eclipse.
As we enter into the month of Purim with the blood of our brothers in our mind, we should listen to Mordechai. Let us cry and mourn, not from a place of despair, rather from an understanding that it is from moments of true connectedness that the story of redemption is woven. These tears are so real, that they fill us up rather than empty us. Here lies a deeper happiness, not fun, rather fulfillment.
How to invite everyday miracles into your life, now!
March 6, 2008
What an incredible change overcomes queen Esther before she goes into the king.
The woman known by the rabbi’s for her humble passivity, refusing any makeup or perfume when she first meets the king, refusing to reveal anything about herself, she is called Hadassah, after the myrtle branch, leaves folded, covering wood, she hides herself. And yet at the end of the story “and it was on the third day Esther wore Malchut”, she dons royalty as if it was nothing but a thing.
This is the conduct of someone with absolute faith in herself which comes from absolute trust in God. She need not assert herself at any point, she draws her self worth from within, needing nothing from the outside. Her reservation is not of the meek and withdrawn. When she chooses to act, there is nothing holding her back, and she shines in all of her glory.
This ability to respond in an instant, to engage reality without a need to control or manipulate, that is the secret of true connectivity. With this the world begins to respond to you on a different level. You have entered into the moment, trusting the process, allowing yourself to work on the world as the world works on you. Do not be surprised when amazing things begin to happen.
GOD and the WWW.
February 13, 2008
If you had told someone as little as a hundred years ago that a day will come when the entire world will share a common vision of reality, he would have laughed. The Utopian vision of a time when the entire earth reflects the unity of God could be understood only in terms of the miraculous. How astounding to watch as the infrastructure for that day is built before our very eyes. As the world wide web is woven, the links connecting everything become more myriad and complex, with brain like nodes and synapses connecting us all. All this in preparation for a day when God will be one and his name one.
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Running for Sdeirot
February 10, 2008
Take a look, and climb on board either as a sponsor or a runner.
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The YU Museum offers a mashup of video windows that will get you asking interesting an important questions about the unity of our people. Recommended!
http://printingthetalmud.org/video.html
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“Muchness”
February 5, 2008
In Law
January 25, 2008
The torah has set a universal western standard regarding relationship by affinity i.e. my wifes parents are related to me. This relationship – in law – is so real that according to halacha it prohibits sexual relations, and penalizes testimony. Entering into a relationship redefines my boundaries beyond the particular individual. It expands my environment, imposing prohibitions, revealing opportunities. Perhaps that is why this is the introduction to the covenant at Sinai. How are our boundaries redefined when we are betrothed by God?
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Me? A Rabbi?
January 23, 2008
Yesterday was a big day for me and nine rabbinical students from Sulam Yaakov, our beit midrash. Eighteen months of work came to fruition as one by one they were called up by Rav Don Chanon to receive their smicha – ordination.
When I addressed them at the following banquet I expressed my suspicion that they may feel a bit like fakes. Each of them know how much they really know… and how much they do not. I assured them that I feel this way on almost a daily basis. Those of us who have been privileged to know Torah giants, and who have encountered the greatness of generations past through the writings of the masters, are blessed with an existential sense of inadequacy. I say blessed because it enables us to keep ourselves and our abilities in perspective, but it can also be a curse. We can be deceived into belittling ourselves and our potential.
I reminded the new Rabbis that relative to most Jews in the world they themselves are giants, and that they bring a unique voice to Torah that those Jews need to hear.
The posuk in tehilim says Kol hashem bakoach, Gods voice is in power, and the midrash explains this means that Gods voice comes down according the power of each person, his capacity to hear “bakoach shel kol echad ve’echad”. Each one of them will have to find his voice in Torah , and the place that his voice can serve as a conduit for Gods voice in the world for those people who are listening.
Mazal Tov.
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This was sent out by Rabbi Shalom Brodt of Simchat Shlomo, The Carlebachian yeshiva in Nachalot
January 22, 2008
SELECTIONS FROM REB SHLOMO’S TEACHINGS ON TU B’SHVAT
Ok, now
here comes a really deep Izhbetzer Torah. What’s the difference between
a cute little vegetable and a tree? How come a vegetable is dead when
it’s done? A tree can live for hundreds of years. He says the deepest
Torah. The tree prays to G-d, please make something out of me. You know
what’s praying the most? And this is one of the top ten Izhbetzer
Torahs. It’s good to remember. How come one apple tree tastes so good
and another one not? When the apple seed is praying before G-d the very
last second before it’s completely disintegrated it’s the prayer of the
deepest depths. And if its prayer is not so deep…There you have two
trees.
I mean the depths of this Torah is awesome. Gevaldt, it’s
the very last prayer we say before we leave the world… A vegetable
prays a cute little prayer. A vegetable grows and then just stops…
But an apple seed, it prays so much. It’s every second. It can’t stop.
The apple seed’s prayer is a “forever” prayer. So the tree lives
forever because this seed prayed so hard. Shvat is the Rosh HaShona
L’Elanot, the new year– the headquarters– of the trees.
Now
listen to this, it’s so deep. A vegetable when it disappears doesn’t
cry. It says, “I had my day. I’m happy. I had a summer. I had a good
time on the earth, saw the sun, went to the supermarket, ended up on
Shabbos in the chulent… halivei (it should only be).
Do you
know what the tree is crying out? The tree is at is end, each year.
Listen to this. The tree when it reaches the end, mamash, all its
prayers are rising up again. The tree prays all its prayers again.
Awesome.
I want to tell you something very very deep. Imagine I
need coffee. I say, “Please G-d, give me some coffee.” And G-d answers
me, “Ok, I’ll get you some coffee.” But when I pray for something very
deep, my prayer is all that there is. The more I need something from
G-d, the deeper the depths my prayer touches my neshama. And that
prayer touches all the prayers which I ever prayed in this lifetime and
perhaps other lifetimes as well…
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