Kicking Sadness to the Kurb!

This week my wife Anna and I had the great simcha of naming our new son, Hillel Nechemya, so this week I’d like to share a thought for Shabbat from the book of Nechemya…

First I need to paint the setting, so let’s wind back the clock. The year is around 516 BCE, and we are in Babylon, 70 years after the 1^st Temple in Jerusalem with all of its miracles and glory had been destroyed and burned to the ground.  The Jewish People had been decimated, with vast numbers killed and the remnant hauled off as slaves in Babylon – only a few remained in Israel among the ruins, wallowing in pity and disbelief at the destruction they had witnessed.

Nechemya, received a prophecy that it was time to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. After seeking permission from the new king of Persia who had just over run the Babylonian empire, he travelled to a destitute, charred city and began galvanising the locals to start the process of rebuilding.

After the walls were completed, Nechemya and his fellow prophet Ezra also re dedicated the Temple and gathered the remnant of the people together. Ezra then opened and began to read from the Torah scroll but the people simply fell to the floor and wept inconsolably. The memory of the Jerusalem that used to be was so alive that their sadness completely overcame them.

Ezra and Nechemya speak to the crowd and here is what they say.

“’This day is holy to the Lord your God; mourn not, nor weep.’ For all the people wept, when they heard the words of the Law.  Then he said to them: ‘Go your way, eat heartily, and drink the sweet, and send portions to those for whom nothing is prepared; for this day is holy unto our Lord; neither be you grieved; for the joy of the LORD is your strength.”

This is one of the most momentous pep talks ever given and is so profound in its message on pulling oneself out of sadness and despair.

Number 1. Go eat well and drink sweet drink.

With sadness, we lose our appetites, and so our strength wains.  Sometimes happiness can be stimulated by outside factors such as what we eat, drink or what we wear. If it’s not happening in its own internally, we can use these external aspects to kick start a new beginning.

Number 2. Give to others.

I have often found myself wrapped up in my own thoughts and feelings and a small act of doing something for someone else, takes you to a completely different place. Even giving a coin of tzedaka, calling a friend to ask about how they are, cooking someone else a meal… Nechemya teaches that however counter intuitive it may sound, the secret of really feeling alive is to be found in the kindness and time we are prepared to give to others. Cool!

Number 3. Enjoyment in Hashem is your strength.

O.k this is the religiousy one which is hardest to relate to.. what does it mean?  Well I think it means, focus on the blessings you have or that you’ve had and really to try see them, and then trace that thought back to the source of that blessing. It is a comforting feeling and one that connects us to infinity and the source of goodness. I guess we also then realise that we do have someone looking out for us.

What’s really great is that we do all of these things on Shabbat . Great food! We can host others! And we get the chance to focus on the source of all blessing – so in this way, Shabbat comes as a great healer and an opportunity to kick sadness to the kurb and re connect with happiness each week!

I hope our new son can be a true comfort to those around him and we can all enjoy a great Shabbat.

Adam and Anna.

Behar: The Hidden Meaning of Singing!

This week we celebrated Lag b’omer by singing and dancing round bonfires to celebrate the life and Torah of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai celebrates the Torah of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai who revealed depths of Jewish learning while in hiding from the Romans around 1,900 years ago.

In Hebrew there are some very interesting words used for ‘singing.’ In this week’s Parasha Behar, the word ‘l’zamer’ ‘to sing’ appears in the Torah when describing the laws of the sabbatical year in this context and literally means ‘to cut’ as in the verse כרמך לא תזמור ‘your vineyards you shall not cut.’

But what is this all about? What is the connection between singing and cutting?
I was recently talking to a singer who busks in Tel Aviv who told me how singing helps him reach people in a way that talking to them could never do. As we sing we cut. Singing helps add emotion to words and cut through the fog that so often stands between what goes on in our hearts and what comes out of our mouths. Indeed another word L’shir also meaning to sing is closely connected to the word ‘Yashar’ meaning straight forward. This is the ideal frm of communication to express ourselves directly and reach something that can often feel very far away.

It is for this reason that so many prayers are composed in song or poetic form -they are written to cut straight through and express difficult emotions clearly retaining their meaning.

This is one reason why zmirot – songs- are an important part of the Shabbat table experience. On the day when we remove all of the other pressures from ourselves and get our lives into focus and see the blessings we have around us, singing is the vehicle that can shake off the cobwebs of the week and raise the experience to a higher spiritual emotional plane.

Wishing all a peaceful, uplifting and musical Shabbat!

Drunk on Purim!

Moshe: Pass me another drink Yankele

Yankele : Oh stop whining Moshe and enjoy the party!

The Halachot of Purim always raise an eyebrow or two as well as a glass or two especially with the edict for one to keep drinking until he loses the ability to distinguish between Mordechai the Tzaddik and Haman the Rasha.

But is this really possible? To get so drunk that one cannot tell the difference between night and day? It doesn’t appear that Halacha is asking something reasonable of us.

Shake a lulav, that’s manageable. Prepare two loaves for Shabbat? Again not too hard. But lose the human power of basic intelligence?

Rambam perhaps agrees with our problem, advocating drinking until just more than usual and then taking a nap, when one really does lose all control of his mind. This certainly solves the problem, but the question still needs to be answered.

The Magen David writes: “…In my humble opinion it’s meaning, is that a person needs to give a double thanks to G-d on Purim.” Firstly for the downfall of Haman, that saw his plan foiled and him meet the same fate he had lines up for the Jews, and secondly for the great blessing bestowed on Mordechai that he and the whole Jewish People were saved in such a great way, with Mordechai promoted as the King’s right hand man.

He suggests that losing the power of discernment between Haman and Mordechai means recognising that the source of punishment and the source of reward are one and the same source. Purim being a festival of faith, requires us to see not only the ‘Baruch Mordechai’  the ‘ups’ as being from G-d, but also way we perceive to be the ‘downs.’  – Essentially we are commanded to expand the scope of our appreciation of G-d in our lives.
In his commentary of the laws of Purim the Yad Ephraim writes:

“One should be so enveloped in simcha so that his heart is broadened. This should lead him to be filled with praise for G-d for the miracle he performed in the story of Purim.”

We learn in Pirkei Avot that not only on Purim, but all year round we should always should be careful to stay in a state of simcha, with rabbis even starting their classes with a light hearted joke in order to ‘open up the heart ‘ which would later help the students absorb as much as possible from the class. Put simply, ‘simcha broadens the heart,’ and wine is the main ingredient we have to stimulate this simcha.

On Purim, we aim for a super broadening of the heart where we stop seeing the details and start looking at the source – and when we do that we don’t see Haman’s downfall or the Jewish People’s redemption, we just see the hand of G-d that controls it all.

Happy Purim and a Shabbat Shalom!

Vayechi: Wearing the Right Hat.

This is actually a thought from last week’s parashah Vayechi which has been with me all week. It is really all about relationships and I hope there is something for everyone here…

Last week we read of Yaakov’s final conversations with his beloved son Yosef.

Let’s ask two questions.
Firstly, when Yaakov calls to speak with Yosef the Torah says “ ויקרא לבנו ליוסף“ -He called to his son, to Yosef… ” Why the double language? To his son.. To Yosef ?

Second, when Yosef arrives, Yaakov makes a request that Yosef bury him, not in Egypt, but
in the land of Israel alongside his ancestors in the city of Hevron. Yosef agrees, but surprisingly Yaakov makes him swear that he will do it. Why does he do this? Isn’t Yosef’s word enough?

Rabbi Haim Sabato offers an explanation that I think can answer both of our questions.

Yosef is the Prime Minister of Egypt, and Yaakov’s funeral will no doubt be a royal funeral requiring great expense. In the end it turns out to be a royal funeral in which the entire Egyptian army accompanies Yosef and his brothers to bury their father in Hevron. Yosef may have great power, but he still answers to Pharaoh, and still has the finances and security of Egypt to worry about. Yaakov demands that Yosef swears so that if there are difficulties in carrying out his request, Yosef will be able to tell Pharaoh, ‘look I made an oath to my father, what can I do?’

Now we can also understand why Yaakov calls to Yosef the way he does.  Yosef has great responsibilities on his shoulders. He is managing the largest empire in the world at the time with all of the worries and concerns that this entails. He is to put it simply –  a very busy man.

When Yaakov calls out to him with an expensive request that might be hard to carry out, especially in light of the other pressures on Egypt, he calls out not to the prime minister, or to a powerful leader, but rather to ‘his son’ ‘to Yosef.’

We all wear so many different hats all of the time, and our lives are often stress filled and those roles can so often become blurred. We find ourselves thinking about work at home, bringing the stresses of the outside world through the front door and sometimes forgetting especially that there are people who rely on us who require a specific role from us.

Yaakov does not want to talk with the Prime Minister of Egypt, he wants his son. He does not want to slot his request into the sea of Egyptian bureaucracy, he wants the unique attention of a son, to honor his final wish.

The ability to give those around us our full presence according to the relationship we have with them is a difficult challenge, but one which Yaakov teaches us the importance of and Yosef succeeds in answering.  So may we all too.

Shabbat Shalom!

The Jewish Wrestler: One of the Greatest Stories You May Ever Read.

This week, all over the world Jewish people will hear from the Torah how Jacob wrestled and overcame the angel of his brother Esau – Here is the amazing story of a lesser known Jewish wrestler.

Karoly Kellner was born in the town of Eger Hungary in 1906, a slight boy from birth who remained underweight, his parents were worried and were advised by their doctor that the young boy should spend some time in the local gymnasium to build himself up.

After putting on some muscle, the young boy took to the sport of wrestling, and began to prove himself beating competitors as he continued to develop his physique.

To compete in national competitions, a Jewish name such as Kellner was not accepted, and so he changed his name to Kárpáti and soon became Hungary’s first “freestyle” wrestler, winning his first Hungarian National Junior title in 1925. He went on to win ten Hungarian National Championships, as well as European Lightweight wrestling crowns in 1927, 1929, 1930, and 1935. In the 1932 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, he tormented his opponents and reached the final, winning the silver medal.

Gaining the affectionate nickname ‘the Great Karpati,’ he continued to train as the destination for the  1936 Olympic Games was announced as Berlin, the capital of Hitler’s Nazi regime in Germany amid tense times for Jews all over Europe.

As the Olympic Games approached, the Nazis forbade Jews from taking part in the German national team as the presence of Jews in fine physical shape was at loggerheads to the propaganda being spread about them being like vermin.  Only after a threat to cancel the Games was one sole Jewish athlete, a female fencer, allowed to compete on the team. Karoly Kellner, the little Jewish boy from Hungary knew exactly what he was up against in the most physical sport of all in the capital city of anti-Semitism.

He started well, progressing through the rounds and once again, as he had four years earlier reached the final, where this time he faced none other than Wolfgang Ehrl the Champion of Nazi Germany, and favourite for the competition.

Interest swelled in the final of this wrestling match between a Jew and the Nazi champion and little Karoly Kellner, knew what he had to do. Turning to his team before the final match he told them, “I either come out of this as Olympic Champion, or I don’t come out at all.”

After a tough, very physical and tense fight that went to the line, Karpati had given it his all and the judges scored in his favour, crowning him a Jewish Gold medal winner at Hitler’s Games.

Just as Karpati wrestled his nemesis in the dark days of Berlin – so too Jacob wrestled the angel of his brother Esau throughout the night and this is not all they share in common. Both show the power of what is possible when the going gets tough and the incredible strength it is possible to summon to bring hope into the world.

This is the story of the Jewish people, the battle against the dark to bring light to the world, and it is no wonder that we read the story of Jacob’s struggles as the days are the shortest and the nights are the longest. Before long we will light up those long nights with the lights of Chanukah, another incredible story of courage against the odds. But what gives us the strength to fight these battles, Karoly Kellner, Judah the Maccabee or any of us?

We may find an answer in Jacob’s fight with the angel where he received a blow to the sciatic nerve. In Hebrew, this nerve is called the ‘Gid Hanashe’ with the Zohar teaching that the word ‘Nashe’ means to forget. It is only when we forget who we are, where we come from and our mission to bring light and goodness into the world that we lose G-d’s protection.

Just as the Greeks tried to blot out Jewish identity and the Hasmoneans refused to forget, so too the modern Macabee – the Great Karpati –  the once underweight little by from Eger inspires us to sum up the super human strength of mind, body and soul to achieve beyond our bounds and bring light into the dark wherever we can.

Shabbat Shalom

*this thought is in the zechut of 1 year old Tehila bat Shoshana, a brave little Maccabee recovering from heart surgery this Shabbat in Yerushalayim, 

Vayetzei: Defining the Characters of our Children

This week, we meet Rachel and Leah, the leading Mothers of the Children of Israel, who Midrash tells us imbued their children with their own distinct signature characteristics.

When Leah bore her fourth son,  Since Yaakov was due to have four wives, (Leah, Rachel, Bilha & Zilpa) a simple equation would mean that each mother should give birth 3 of the 12 tribes of Israel. Accordingly when Leah bore her fourth son, she felt she felt overwhelmed  with thanks for having been granted more than her quota of children and named this son Yehuda, stemming from the words ‘Hoda’ meaning gratitude and ‘Ada’ meaning acknowledgement.  Leah was grateful for what she had and was willing to acknowledge that publicly with a full heart.

Midrash explains that particularly these qualities were later to be the prominent characteristics of this child Yehuda in adulthood, who when confronted by Tamar, his daughter in law who he had unknowingly borne a child,  acknowledged his guilt publicly without a shred of hesitation. Our rabbis even teach us that it was this very quality of honesty and humility that caused allowed Kingship to flower from the tribe of Yehuda. These qualities, first exhibited by Leah can be seen clearly to King David who also stands out for embodying the values of gratitude and admission throughout his life  – His book of Tehilim (Psalms) expresses deep thanks to G-d with consistent humility, honesty and acknowledgement about his own struggles, mistakes and failings.

Leah is not the only mother who seals a character trait into future generations.  Rachel, according to Midrash, Rachel’s defining feature is her silence pointing to how she observed a complete and difficult silence on the night of Yaakov’s marriage to her sister Leah even though Rachel was meant to be under the huppa that day. Rachel broke all fences of selfishness to keep this silence – inspired by a desire not to embarrass or envy her sister, even giving her the secret code she and Yaakov had agreed before the wedding to be
used in such a case that Lavan would switch the brides.

Midrash points out that Rachel’s descendants inherited this trait of restraint with their words. Yosef her son managed to keep the secret of his identity, while Midrash states her other son Binyamin kept secret the sale of his brother Yosef into slavery for over 20 years. Meanwhile, King Saul another descendant also inherited this quality – not disclosing that he had been anointed King for some time, and  Queen Esther also kept quiet about her Jewish lineage during the Purim story until the appropriate moment.

The word בן Ben – meaning son in Hebrew is closely related to the words בונן (bonen) meaning to cause to understanding, לבנות   (livnot) meaning to build and בין   (bain) meaning to penetrate to the core.  The important questions of who we are and what we believe in become the building blocks that reach to the core of who our children are and will become.

As Rabbi Israel Salanter said, “Once I tried to change the world but the world did not change, and so I resolved to change my town, but my town did not change. Then I looked to my family and tried to change them, but they too did not change until I finally resolved to change myself.”

We each have the positive characteristics that are there to be shared and maximized and the negative characteristics which are there to be conquered and perfected.

Rachel and Leah imbued their descendants with gratitude, humility, honesty and immense self-control. B’ezrat Hashem we can also maximize and actualize each of our own unique personal character traits for ourselves and also for future generations.

Wishing you Shabbat Shalom!

This Week in Jerusalem

The shock of the events of this week in Jerusalem have placed many of us under a cloud, and this is one of the worst aspects of terrorism, that it serves to paralyze, slow us down and cause disorientation in how we think and hope.

Jews murdered while praying and wearing tefilin is a horrific image to reconcile with yet here we are about to enter another Shabbat, and yes we must pick ourselves up and rebuild, regroup, gain strength in head and heart and continue the Jewish Story which, I think it helps to remember, started 4,000 years ago.

But how do we move forward? Perhaps some simple laws of physics can be of assistance here. Isaac Newton’s Third Law of Motion states:  ” For every action there is an equal and opposite re-action.”  I believe this to be true in how we see the negative energy and destruction brought into the world by sons of Ishmael this week.

As the Lubavitcher Rebbe often taught- “Light requires the darkness” – and we must never let the dark side of our feelings triumph. Judaism is a force of light, hope and harmony in the world, and it is up to us to channel the energy that these difficult times leaves us with to good things that increase that light and goodness. Increased kindness to each other, a little more understanding, patience and love between man and wife, closer connections between friends, an extra call to a parent or a smile for a sibling… it’s all there for the taking.

Our daily shacharit – morning prayers include a section called tachanun (supplication) which we recite  sitting down with our faces in our hands – indicating that the burden we are carrying makes us weak at the knees and unable to face the day.  What’s interesting is that the morning prayers do not end there. They are followed by the uplifting prayer ‘Ashrei’  meaning ‘ Happy’ where we express our delight in being Jews with a connection to G-d, and on some days also a Torah reading as well.   We don’t hide from the difficulties of life, we use that energy to push onwards and build greater faith, and at times, we need an increase in spirituality – in the words of Torah – to help us through. This is how we as Jews use this negative energy. We don’t crumble, we seize it, channel it and shine brighter as a result – but it is down to us to do this – If we do not, that same energy will literally deliver a knock out blow which is not the Jewish way.

One thing we can also do is unite in our prayers for the five men who survived this week’s attack with serious injuries.

Shmuel Yeruchem ben Bayla,
Chaim Yechiel ben Malka

Eytan ben Sarah
Moshe ben Atara
Aryeh ben Bracha

I wish us all a Shabbat of reflection where we can seize the energy of the week,  and channel it to make us stronger and better people. This is a true kiddush Hashem.
Shabbat Shalom

Vayera: The Argument on the Bus

A young man was riding on a Jerusalem bus when two men got on at the next stop. The first handed exact change to the driver to pay for his ticket and then found a seat while the other, who appeared to be pretty wealthy, handed the driver a 100 shekel note. After the driver counted out and handed the man his change he too sat down and soon noticed that he was missing 50 shekels. Red faced, he approached the bus driver and requested the missing 50 shekels, however the driver was adamant that he had counted the full amount in to the passengers hand.

Tensions began to rise An argument ensued that fast turned the atmosphere on the bus very bitter as the passenger leveled his accusations at the driver. Just then the young man who was watching what was happening quietly pulled out a 50 shekel note from his pocket and then leapt forward onto his knees fumbling around on the floor.

“Look it’s here on the floor” he called to the two quarreling men. “It must have fallen when the driver handed you your change.” The tension was broken as the wealthy passenger turned a shade of red and begged forgiveness from the driver who in turn breathed a deep sigh of relief and embraced him with a smile.

At that moment the other man who was riding on the bus – who had seen the whole episode unfurl -saw from the corner of eye a 50 shekel note underneath one of the seats near the driver.

“This is your 50 shekel note” he said, turning to the wealthy man, adding, “I saw the other young man take a 50 shekel note out of his own pocket which he gave to you.”

The whole bus turned to the young man who explained, although he only had 50 shekels in his wallet to pay for his food at the market that day, he had been taught by his rabbis the importance of pursuing peace between people. The story ends with a happy ending with the rich passenger pledging to support the young man and his family financially, but what’s also interesting is that the importance of preserving peace is first taught in this week’s parashah Vayera!  Lets take a look.

This week, we read that G-d visits a 99 year old Avraham to tell him he and his wife Sarah will soon have a child. Sarah who is in the next room in the tent laughs at the idea saying, “Will my wrinkles become smooth and my husband is old!” Later G-d speaks to Abraham and asks why Sarah had laughed about the idea of them being blessed with a baby quoting her disbelief because “she” was so advanced in age.

Rashi quotes the midrash which asks why G-d misquoted Sarah. After all, she  had laughed not only because she was old, but because both she and her husband had aged. The answer is given, to teach the great value of peace, with even the Torah itself changing its words to preserve peace between husband and wife.

From this we learn a mammoth truth in Judaism, that peace between people particularly between man and wife is like gold, and even truth must sometimes bend to preserve it.

When walking into our homes, we first see the mezuzah sitting at an angle, perhaps telling us that just like the Torah bends itself for the peace of the home, so should we bend ourselves and sometimes our words too, to do all we can to bring a spirit of peace between the members of our households.

Wishing you a Shabbat Shalom – a true Shabbat of peace.

Heaven is a Place on Earth!

The pop singer Belinda Carlisle may well be a student of Rabbi Ovadia Sforno, the genius Italian Torah commentator.
The former’s best selling hit ‘Heaven is a place on Earth’ was most likely inspired by the very first words in the Torah and Rabbi Sforno’s accompanying commentary.

The Torah begins, “Bereishit Bara Elokim et hashamayim v’et ha aretz – In the beginning G-d created the heaven and the earth.”

Sforno asks, ‘what is shamayim, the Hebrew word for heaven? He explains that according to the well known rule in Hebrew, ending a word with ‘ayim’ indicates an identical pair.

Lets look at some examples:

Oznayim – ears
Aynayim – eyes
Reglayim – legs
Yadayim – hands

and so lets look back at ‘shamayim’ which is an identical pair of the word ‘sham’ meaning ‘there.’ Sforno explains that just as we look upwards – (there) for salvation – so G-d looks back at us and says ‘sham’ – ‘there’ – it’s up to you to do the best you can. There is where you will earn your reward. Together, says Sforno, this synthesis is what creates the concept of shamayim, which relies on man and G-d coming together to form a relationship.

So I guess. Belinda Carlisle is right, Heaven really can be a place on Earth…. it’s just up to us wherever we are to actualize the potential of that heavenly space and do the best we can – wherever we can!

Shabbat Shalom and welcome to the New Year!