so true

A Rabbi From Tiferet sent this around....

I received a most inspiring question. A young soldier an American named Motti, called me from a town in Gaza called Netzarim. This latest intifada started on Rosh Hashanna so by Yom Kippur the fighting was quite fierce in Gaza.

At first I questioned the soldier. “You don’t mean you are in Netzarim, you mean that you are in an army base near Netzarim.”

“No” came the reply, I am in Netzarim”

I knew that there were only two ways to reach Netzarim. By tank or by helicopter at night. So I asked him “ How did you get there’?

“I told my commander that it was my custom to go to the mikvah before Yom Kippur and the only mikvah around was in the Jewish community of Netzarim. So, he let me use a tank”.

Now came the reason for the young soldier’s phone call.” I am borrowing a Torah scroll from the community synagogue to take back to the base. The Jews of Netzarim have also donated enough tziziot for my whole platoon. My question is, what kind of Yom Kippur teffila can I conduct? Besides myself there is only one other orthodox soldier on the base. Most of the other soldiers have, believe it or not, never attended a Yom Kippur service in their lives”

“Don’t worry” I assured him. “You just conduct the tefilla and you instruct them to say Amen to your blessing and it will be as if they were praying themselves.”

(The soldier called me after Yom Kippur to tell me that the teffila turned out to be the most incredible davening of his life. “All the soldiers put on the tzizit provided by the Jewish community of Netzarim. They listened attentively as I led the davening and answered Amen to my blessings. I read from the Torah and my friend and I took turns being called up to the Torah. Soon other soldiers requested to be called to the Torah and I showed them which blessing to make. We ended calling up no less than 20 soldiers to the Torah that day (The normal # of aliyot on Yom Kippur is 6-Editors note).

As you can imagine I was greatly inspired by the courage and determination of this young man. In fact his phone call right before the start of Yom Kippur inspired me to deliver what was probably the most effective sermon of my career. I spoke before a packed audience before Kol Nidrei. I got up in front of everyone and said;

“Dear friends, I want to pray to G-d. You are all invited to listen, but I am not talking to you. I am talking to G-d”

“Dear G-d, there are many countries in this great world of yours who have armies. And many of these armies have tanks. Some have many tanks and some have fewer tanks. But G-d, is there another country in this world that used a tank to help someone go to the mikvah before Yom Kippur? Is there another country that used a tank to bring a Torah to an army base so they could have a minyan for Yom Kippur? G-d only in Israel are tanks used in this way—so you must protect your country Israel.”

Kavanna for Rosh Hashana

www.dvashdvar.blogspot.com i hope you all enjoy this as much as i did !

recieved in an email by ben olam haba...

I just heard a funny quote yesterday. "When I die, I want to go peacefully in my sleep, like my grandpa, not screaming in terror, like the passengers in his car." Yup, it's funny. I laugh every time I think of it. But it got me thinking about it. Did you ever think dying could be a blessing? No, I didn't either. But there are so many ways one could die- in a car accident, in a war, in a mugging, in a hospital- or safely in one's bed, at the end of a long and peaceful life, satisfied with your many accomplishments and all the little joys Hashem has given you. All those people you've heard of who've R"L passed away young, suffered through terrible illness, died violently... did you ever take a minute after those stories to close your eyes and think, "Baruch Hashem that wasn't me. Thank you, Hashem, for sparing me. Thank you for giving me the chance to keep on living my life, and allowing me to perhaps die peacefully in my sleep, in the far-away future, instead of suffering a terrible death like this person did, R'L." And then- if we can be thankful for something like that, surely we can find so many other things that are way easier to be thankful for! The fact we woke up this morning and could sit up, move our hands and feet, get dressed on our own and feed ourselves- how many people unfortunately cannot do even that? The fact that we are surrounded by family and friends who love us and care for us and worry about us and are there for us when we need it, the fact that we have a warm home to live in, with walls around us and a sturdy roof over our heads, the fact that we have something to eat and something to wear- and plenty of each- how many, many people in this world cannot say this? How many people do not have a tenth of what we take for granted each and every day? Thinking of this each day makes me so grateful for everything I have, so happy in what Hashem has given me. What right do I have to be upset when parking takes a little longer than I'd like, or when my kid spills her juice on the floor, or when my neighbor knocks over my garbage can yet again when he pulls out of the driveway? These are such minor, minor things in the course of life- I'm so lucky I have a kid, I have a car, I have a house and a neighbor and a driveway... Hashem has given me a multitude of brachos and I just need to remember that each and every day.

Rabbi Yisrael Salanter

One night, as he walked past the home of a shoemaker, Rabbi Salanter noticed that despite the late hour, the man was still working by the light of a dying candle. "Why are you still working," he asked. "It is very late and soon that candle will go out." The shoemaker replied, "As long as the candle is still burning, it is still possible to accomplish and to mend."Rav Salanter spent that entire night excitedly pacing his room and repeating to himself: "As long as the candle is still burning, it is still possible to accomplish and to mend."

A THOUGHT FOR ROSH HASHANAH There is a Midrash (a commentary on the Five Books of Moses in the form of a parable) about a successful businessman who meets a former colleague down on his luck. The colleague begs the successful business man for a substantial loan to turn around his circumstances. Eventually, the businessman agrees to a 6-month loan and gives his former colleague the money. At the end of the 6 months, the businessman goes to collect his loan. The former colleague gives him every last penny. However, the businessman notices that the money is the exact same coins he loaned the man. He was furious! "How dare you borrow such a huge amount and not even use it? I gave this to you to better your life!" The man was speechless. Likewise, the Almighty gives each of us a soul. He doesn't want us to return it to Him at the end of our days in the same condition that we received it. He wants us to better ourselves, to enhance our souls by doing the mitzvot (613 commandments). It is up to us to sit down before Rosh Hashana and make a list of what we need to correct in our lives between us and our fellow beings, us and God and us and ourselves!

click this and daven your hear out for gilad ben aviva shalit

click here for a very good clip

Intense video

From a chain email- sadly I cant give credit to whoever wrote it

In a United States convention of neurologists from all over the world, one of the main topics was the phenomenon of people fainting upon getting up from bed. One of the speakers was Professor Linda McMaron of Great Britain and she gave a lengthy speech regarding her study on this issue. She elaborated that after many years of study and investigation on this subject, she came to the conclusion that the fainting is caused by the sharp transfer between laying down and standing up. Professor McMaron said that it takes 12 seconds for the blood to flow from the feet to the brain. But when a person quickly stands up upon waking up, the blood gets 'thrown' to the brain too quickly and the result is fainting. She suggested that each person, even one that does not have a tendency to faint, upon waking up should sit on the bed, and count slowly till 12 to avoid dizziness, weakness, and/or fainting. Her speech was rewarded with loud applause and enthusiastic feedbacks. Another Professor, a Jewish religious man, asked permission to speak. He said: "By us, the Jews, there is an old tradition, thousands of years old, to say a prayer of thanks to the Creator of the World for meriting us to wake up healthy and whole. The prayer is said immediately upon waking up, while one is still on the bed and sitting down. There are 12 words in this prayer and if one regulates himself to say it slowly with concentration, it takes exactly 12 seconds to says it... 12 words in 12 seconds. He said the prayer slowly in Hebrew: Modeh Ani Lefanecha Melech Chai VeKayam, Shehechezarta Bi Nishmati Bechemla Raba Emunatecha âI thank Thee, O living and eternal King, because Thou hast graciously restored my soul to me; great is Thy faithfulness.â The auditorium burst into a standing applause that roared throughout the auditorium. This time, it was for the Creator of the World.

WOW-MUST READ!

Who could define what it meant to be a survivor? I learned the answer from Rabbi Moshe Feinstein.

by Isaac Steven Herschkopf

I could not have been more than four or five when I asked her. It seemed to me, at the time, to be an innocent, straightforward question: “Mommy, when do I get my number?”

I was, of course, upset when she burst into tears and ran out of the kitchen, but I was also confused. This was Washington Heights in the 1950s. It was an enclave of survivors. Every adult I knew had a number. Even my teenage sister had one in blue ink tattooed on her forearm.

They were as ubiquitous on the benches of Riverside Drive as they were on the footpaths of Fort Tryon Park. If you saw an adult with some sort of hat on his head, he invariably also had a number on his arm. In the summer, when the community traveled en masse to Catskill bungalow colonies, or to Rockaway beaches, the numbers came too.

I presumed it was a ceremonious part of becoming bar mitzvah, or perhaps graduation from Breuer’s or Soloveichik, our local yeshivas. No one appeared to be embarrassed by their number. ARG! I never saw anyone try to cover it up when they went swimming. It seemed to be a matter of fact part of life.

When, as children, we would ask our parents why there was a “Mother’s Day” and a “Father’s Day,” but no “Children’s Day,” the automatic response was “Every day is ‘Children’s Day’!” In Washington Heights, in the ’50s, every day was Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Related Video: And You Shall Tell Your Children

Ironically enough, at the same time, no day was Yom HaShoah. The commemoration, as it exists today, was not around then. Breuer’s and Soloveichik consisted almost exclusively of children of survivors, yet neither school had any assembly, or recognition of any type, of the Shoah.

The very word Shoah didn’t exist. The word Holocaust did, but it was never invoked. When on rare occasion our parents would make reference to the events that led them to leave Europe to come to America, they would label it “the War.”

I was already bar mitzvah when I first realized that my parents had been previously married and had prior children.

They spoke nostalgically of life “before the War”; they never spoke of what happened during “the War.” They spoke reverently of their parents and siblings who were “lost in the War”; they never spoke of their spouses or children who perished. After all, they had new spouses and new children who didn’t need to be reminded that they were replacements.

I was already bar mitzvah when I first realized that my parents had been previously married and had prior children. Years later I was shocked to discover that my sister with whom I was raised was not my father’s daughter.

When I finally came to understand that not every adult was a survivor, and people would ask me what survivors were really like, I never knew what to answer. There was Mr. Silverberg, our seatmate in shul, as jovial as Santa Claus, who always had a good word for everyone. On the other hand, there was Mr. Grauer, our neighbor whose face was indelibly etched in a frown and was always threatening to hit his wife or his children. In retrospect, as a psychiatrist, I could understand both, but who truly defined what it meant to be a survivor? Did anyone, or anything?

I learned the answer from Rabbi Moshe Feinstein.

This gadol hador, the greatest sage of his generation, was so renowned he was referred to simply as “Rav Moshe.” The closest I came to this legend was at Yeshiva University High School, where my rebbe was his son-in-law, Rabbi Moshe Tendler. Rabbi Tendler, and every other rabbi, would speak of Rav Moshe in awe-stricken tones usually reserved for biblical forefathers.

One summer I was spending a week with my aunt and uncle in upstate Ellenville. Uncle David and Aunt Saba, survivors themselves, as the doctor and nurse in charge of the concentration camp infirmary, had managed to save the lives of innumerable inmates, including my mother and sister. After “the War” they had set up a medical practice in this small Catskill village, where, I discovered, to my amazement, they had one celebrity patient - Rav Moshe.

My aunt mentioned casually that Rav Moshe had an appointment the next day. Would I like to meet him? Would I? It was like asking me, would I like to meet God.

I couldn’t sleep that night. I agonized over what I should wear. Should I approach him? What should I say? Should I mention that his son-in-law was my rebbe? Should I speak to him in English, or my rudimentary Yiddish?

I was seated in the waiting room, in the best clothing I had with me, an hour before his appointment. It seemed like an eternity, but eventually he arrived, accompanied by an assistant at each side. He didn’t notice me.

I was frozen. I had intended to rise deferentially when he entered, but I didn’t. I had prepared a few sentences that I had repeatedly memorized, but I sensed that my heart was beating too quickly for me to speak calmly.

My aunt was addressing him irreverently. I was mortified. Then it got even worse.

My aunt had heard the chime when he entered and came out of the office to greet him: “Rabbi Feinstein, did you meet my nephew Ikey? Can you believe ashaygitz [unobservant] like me has a yeshiva bochur[student] in the family?”

Rav Moshe finally looked at me. I was mortified. My aunt was addressing him irreverently. She was joking with him. She had called me Ikey, not Yitzchok, or even Isaac.

Then it got even worse. She walked over to him. Surely she knew not to shake his hand. She didn’t. She kissed him affectionately on the cheek as she did many of her favorite patients. She then told him my uncle would see him in a minute and returned to the office.

Rav Moshe and his attendants turned and looked at me, I thought accusingly. I wanted to die. In a panic, I walked over to him and started to apologize profusely: “Rabbi Feinstein, I apologize. My aunt, she isn’t frum [religious]. She doesn’t understand…”

He immediately placed his fingers on my lips to stop me from talking. He then softly spoke two sentences in Yiddish that I will remember to my dying day: “She has numbers on her arms. She is holier than me.”

Rav Moshe had understood what I had not. Our holiest generation was defined by the numbers on their arms.

New AWESOME Website by Charlie Harary

http://charlieharary.com/

Hurricane Irene and My Need for Control

It’s been all Irene all weekend.

At first we didn’t take it seriously. We live in New York, for goodness sake. We never have hurricanes (or earthquakes for that matter). The fact that Hurricane Irene was in the Bahamas, Florida and even North Carolina is one thing, but it’s not coming up to New York.

Then the city started to shut down. Evacuations, power outages and road closings. We are, for all intents and purposes, on lockdown as we brace for the storm.

As soon as the reality of the situation sunk in, I had this uncomfortable feeling that I couldn’t explain. There was some fear and anxiety, but that wasn’t it. And then, last night, I realized what it was.

I am not in control.

I can’t control where to go, what to do or whether I’ll even have power. I can’t control what will happen to my loved ones, to other people and property. I can’t control if I will have a new swimming pool instead of a basement. My life is just not in my control.

We all love to be in control. When we get in the car, we like to know exactly how to get to our destination and when we will get there. We like to know we have enough money in our bank account to cover our annual expenses. We like our children to act in way where we know how they will turn out when they get older. We take, and stay in, certain jobs because we like to control our financial future. Preparation is one thing. But for most of us, we yearn for control.

But if we’ve learned anything these past few weeks, months and years, is that we are not in control. Stable institutions can fail. Stable governments can get downgraded. Stable environments can have two natural disasters in one week.

We are not in control.

But after the initial discomfort of that reality set in, I had another feeling.

I realized that, in fact, I was in control. Not of traffic, the future of my children, the financial markets or the environment, but I was in control of myself.

I was in control over how I responded to challenge. Would I be stressed or show strength? Would I spend the time doing something meaningful? Would I get frustrated and angry at the loss of property or convenience or would I be satisfied with what I had? Would I start to appreciate the “little” things like electricity and dry roads?

As we stop trying to control what happens to us, we start finding the ability to control what happens from us. We realize that we can control how we live, how we speak to each other, how we appreciate what we have. We can control our response to whatever is sent our way.

In reality, that was the only control we ever had. And by trying to control everything else, we neglected it. We neglected being who we could be, who we really want to be.

Once we gain that control, even Hurricane Irene can’t stop us.

A Day to Disconnect

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2w31Xsq0uxA

Ohr Naava presents a Day to Disconnect. October 2, 2011
Create the Revolution

A Day to Disconnect is a worldwide movement, spearheaded by Rabbi Zechariah Wallerstein of Ohr Naava, which will take place on October 2, 2011. On that day thousands of people will voluntarily unplug their gadgets for some time – an hour, two or even all day. During this time, those who chose to disconnect will take pleasure in cherished relationships be it spouses, children, family, self or Gd.

Our goal is accumulate a total of one million hours. Can you imagine the impact of thousands of people choosing to disconnect their phones for an hour?

Can you visualize the amount of good accomplished during this time? Can you feel the impact of couples taking a walk together basking in nature and fully focused on one another? Can you see the glee in the hearts of the children who share their dreams, hopes and fears with honestly attentive parents? Can you see the intensity of the laugh lines on grandparents' faces as they passionately share stories of yesteryear uninterrupted by texting? Can you imagine an hour without obsessively checking your cell for messages?

An hour where you feel present in the moment, an hour to close your eyes and be transported by the intricacies in a piece of music, an hour to communicate with our hearts, an hour of peace? Can you visualize the creativity and power that will be unleashed?

The possibilities are truly awesome.

Life is Great. Disconnect and Enjoy.

How it Works

By signing up you are choosing to make a commitment to disconnect from all technology in an effort to synchronize a meaningful hour or hours with yourself, your friends, your family and/or with Gd.

Simply complete the registration form on the website and you have now joined the revolution. To be an active participant and create an impact on the world, recommend this website to friends and family.

The more hours you commit and get others to commit the greater your ultimate reward. You are restoring relationships, fostering inner peace, closing chasms and offering nature its due.

Upon registering you will receive a follow-up email confirming your inclusion in Day to Disconnect. Keep checking your personal page to see how many of your family and friends signed up as a result of your suggestion. Keep checking in with us to see the tally of hours we accumulated.

https://www.daytodisconnect.com/mt-register.php

very powerful clip

When I heard this song on the new Yoni Stern CD, I couldn't help but email it out with one of my favorite vorts of all time. I heard this vort from a camper last summer and I can't help but share it...

"B'shem Hashem elokei Yisrael" - Hashem, is our best friend. He is our father. He is our king. But sometimes, this can seem a little cloudy. We all have our own lives, our own struggles, and our own nisyonot. But one thing is always constant- Hashem is guiding us and guarding us.

"M'yimini Michael" - Our right hand is the strong hand. We often time think that WE are the ones to be rewarded for our strengths and accomplishments. When we think we're in control and we're strong, "Mi-cha-El" - who is like Hashem? HE is the one guiding and leading our lives.

"U'mismoli Gavriel" - Our left hand is the weak hand. When we think w'e're weak and will fall - "Gavri-El" - Hashem is strong!! He will save us.

"U'milphanai Uriel" - When we walk through life, we never know what will come up in front of us. The future seems dark and scary. But, in front of us "Uri-El" - Hashem will give us light. He will guide us.

"U'meachorai Refael" - When we do fall, and we don't know if there will be any way back up, "Refa-El" - Hashem is our ultimate healer. He will pick us up and help us continue on.

"V'al roshi Shchinat kel" - Hashem is not only on all four sides of us, but he is on top of everything shining down and watching us grow!

Have a wonderful shabbos and enjoy the song,

Leah

How to daven

“Tatte, Up!”

sometimes we learn the biggest lessons from the littlest ppl... watch a baby try to get something from his mommy or tatte...

How to daven

Stand in front of your father, on your toes if you can, look way up at his face, reach up with both your arms as far as you can, open and close your hands a few times trying to grab him, smile, and call out, “Tatte, up! (Daddy, pick me up!)”

PLEASE HAVE IN MIND IN YOUR TEFILLOS SHIRA CHAYA BAS BASHA BRACHAM!

Why Cry?

9 av 5771

Tisha b’av

Why cry?

The truth is.. It’s hard to cry when you know you’re supposed to. When you are sitting in a room with a lot of people and feel like you have to cry but don’t want people to see that’s when the tears come rushing through.. It always happens like that. But on 9av, we can still be in a room with so many people who might actually be crying, but why can’t we bring ourselves to cry? Why didn’t I cry tonight?

I guess the fact that I didn’t should be a reason in and of itself to shed some tears. A really long time ago we had a beautiful stunning holy place where Hashem Himself rested. It was almost as if you were stuck in that moment of clarity you have when your saying shema yisroel for the last time on yom kipper all the time. That clarity, that closeness, was there and so clear, so evident. We became comfortable, too comfortable and relaxed. We became lax in our mitzvos, in our avodas Hashem..we stopped going to the bais hamikdash on the shalosh regalim, we stopped being nice to each other we stopped being the people that made us special. Our ahavas yisroel was going down the drain and every sin we did was paid for. With every step in the wrong direction we lit a small flame that eventually burnt down our beautiful bayis. Without that source of light shining onto the world and us we were put into a whole of darkness. What any normal person would do when they are thrown into a pit is to try and get out but no.. Not klal yisroel… we decided to just make a little home here inside this chalal- this void this empty space of darkness. We just made ourselves comfortable here… we made it nice and cozy.. But what we don’t realize is that ITS STILL A DARK PIT.. No matter how much u try to make a dirty disgusting whole your home by cleaning up the dirt and hanging up some nice leaves—it will never be anything like you true home.. But I guess after a while..After so many years, your memory of what home sweet home is begins to fade and all you can remember is this pit, being in this pit, this whole, and this cold cave without light. Kind of like that whole that samara was thrown into in that movie the ring… yikes…lo alenu.. But umm we have turned galus into a “beautiful” place.. We made big homes and hung up fancy pictures we go for lunch instead of going to bring karbanos we go on vacation to Europe instead of trekking to the bais hamikdash to bring bikurim we have bar mitzvahs in clubs with mixed dancing instead of boys being SO excited to be chayev mitzvos learning torah with their fathers in its honor… were really making this whole quite nice.. But no matter what… no matter how long we camp out here we can never forget the warmth and comfort of the courtyard we gave our hearts to Hashem in.. We cant forget the holy face of the kohen gadol when he walks inside the kodesh kedashim we cant forget these things or else well lose owner ship there is a gemara that talks about returning lost objects… one who finds a lost object is chayev to return it to its owner in the case where the owner has lost hope of finding this lost item the finder can keep it… we must not give up hope of finding our bayis because when and if chas v’shalom we do…we will lose ownership over the holiest matana Hashem will ever ever ever give to us ever.

If it hard to cry today, just think about how sad it is that we became so comfortable, so lax. People don’t even remember their bayis anymore… today… Jews are NOT marrying Jews, Jews are NOT keeping kosher, NOT keeping shabbos- literally flicking off and on the lights, getting in their cars, going to concerts ON SHABBOS, the day that is meant for just us and Hashem. Just imagine a husband and wife having an anniversary, the husband goes out buys her favorite red roses, cooks a special dinner get nice table cloth and nice silverware all for his wife to show his love, he cancels all his appointments shuts off his phone and wants to give his wife all his attention and what does she do? She comes home tells her husband “um what’s that? I like daisies” says “oh sorry I already ate dinner- no thanks” tells him how he doesn’t have good taste because that tablecloth is horrible looking makes a manicure appointment and leaves while talking on the phone to a friend. Could u imagine the chutzpah and this is kivyochel what we have today… we have a broken relationship with the husband that only tried to give to us. Hashem only tries to give to us- this world was made for us and how do we repay Hashem? By disgracing His Holiness its pashut not the way to live we cant do this anymore. We have to reach out we need to help people we need to care … this is the reason we should cry.. We should cry because Jews hurt each other today, we should cry because Leiby, a beautiful child had such emunah to trust a yid, and that yid was not trustworthy to say the LEAST… leiby that amazing unbelievable little boy, that yidden with yiras shamayim dream of having, his rebbeim said he had so much kavana when he davened- what nachas his parents must have had from him! And he was taken from us from one of our own people- what darkness we live in.. It’s a dark whole and we must not stay comfortable here.

We should cry because we see first hand people who don’t keep shabbos.. That while people sing lecha dodi with full hearts others are watching the baseball game, that while we bow “boee kallah boee kallah” other people are bowing down to basketball players and rap singers and these people are our brothers.. What’s even worse is that even when we throw emes in their face they don’t know its emes.. They turn away.. They don’t want to know… what could be worse than watching the people you love most throw their lives away? By wasting time focusing on such gashmiyus by getting such pleasure from the most fleeting things… the hardest part is that after 120 Hashem is going to say what happened? What did u make of yourself… what they’ll see is what they could have been and what they were- the distance between the two will be far too great- too much to bear and their neshamos will say please one more chance at shleimus… but at that point its too late that shame.. That’s gehenom…

We have to cry over these things.. Cry over these matzavim and we have to try our best to strengthen our own mitzvos because as rav dessler says SO beautifully “ what comes from the heart penetrates the heart”… maybe if we all work on our penimyus and do our mitzvos with heart it will somehow capture the neshamos that are far away… its kind of like cutting diamonds with diamonds.. the only way to bring back a neshama is with neshama be honest, let your words be true and real to you.. And maybe that’s how well start bringing Jews back and when they come back we would have formed a relationship a close one if its done with this sense of heart and emotion and with each POSITIVE action we take in the right direction we can start to rebuild .. We can build a latter that’ll take us out of our dark whole in the ground.. back to the light back to the bais Hamikdash back to Hashem…….

Understanding the power of the Tisha B’Av fast- AISH.COM

Understanding the power of the Tisha B’Av fast.

by Rivka Malka Perlman

Fasting is difficult. Most of us look forward to a juicy burger or gourmet ice cream, but not too many people I know look forward to a fast. So it’s been bothering me: Why is fasting a mitzvah? There must be some inherent spiritual lift behind it, otherwise it would not be part of Jewish life.

Recently, I’ve been reading A God Powered Life by Rabbi David Aaron. One chapter on the Kabbalistic concept of tzimtzum, constriction, opened up a revelation for me and helped me understand the power of fasting. He writes:

The Kabbalah teaches that before creation there was just the endless Light of God... God, however, contracted His endless light and withdrew it, moved Himself away from the center while making a space for the creation of vessels. [Vessels refer to time, space, matter, you and me.] God then projected a thin ray of His endless light into the vessels. This process of making a space and infusing every moment, every place and every one with the Presence of the Great I is the mystery and miracle of tzimtzum[constriction].

We, too, must perform this divine act in the service of God. First we have to move everything out of the way, get rid of the racket, and then we must bracket this moment and this place.

This struck a real chord in me. When God condensed Himself to focus His Light in a way that we could receive it, it was the ultimate act of love. God is Everything, but we couldn’t benefit from His greatness if it was in the full expansive state.

No matter what a wonderful friend or teacher I am, no matter how talented or productive I am, my child won’t respond to the sum of me. She can only have all of me if I condense myself, if I create a space and focus all of my love, kindness and gifts onto her. Nothing I do for the rest of the world will translate to love for her with that same power.

This is the real challenge of parenting and relationships. A part of us doesn’t want to stop. We want to move and create. Pulling back and committing to the moment takes a lot of energy.

But that’s precisely where the energy is. Tzimtzum: constriction for expansiveness.

Sitting on the Floor

Which brings us to the idea of fasting. In Hebrew a fast is called a tzom, similar to the word tzimtzum. When we fast, we feel anything but expansive. We feel hungry and restless; we can’t even think of plans beyond the next moment. Fasting narrows our world to the immediate present.

But where is the light, the benefit? What purpose could a full day of constriction have?

In sorrow is where we find comfort.

The constrictive experience of fasting is similar to a state of mourning. A person sitting shiva needs to stay with the process of grieving for seven days. They’re instructed to dwell with their sorrow. And yet, paradoxically, that is where they find comfort. The loss hurts, and the pain is intense. But in being with it, there is comfort in the discomfort.

In some mysterious way, our constriction mimics God’s constriction. We can relish every bit of life – whether feasting or fasting – in its most expansive way.

Fasting for a whole day allows us to condense ourselves into the experience. There we find that our Jewish world is not narrow at all. It is a vast and beautiful, complex story with a 4,000-year-old chain of steel. It is an adventure of growth and yearning. It’s a relationship with God and His Torah and His Land, and the realization that God, Torah and the Jewish people are all One.

On Tisha B'Av, sitting on the floor in mourning, is a transformational odyssey where we’re flung back and forth to our pains past and present, while all the time holding the glorious image of the future. Our joined hunger parallels the lack we feel. On this day we feel not only for ourselves, but for all the Jewish people; knowing with a knowledge as real as the hunger in our belly that we are collectively famished for connection, weak from struggle, and heavy from the pain of a fractured people.

Yes, all this is born in the place where we’re willing to constrict.

And when Tisha B'Av is over, it is just the beginning. We use tzimtzum to bring that power of unity to a deeper level.

What would it mean to the next person you spoke to if you looked them in the eye and listened to them fully without distraction?

Everything.

How would your spouse feel if you put down what you’re holding and quieted your mind to make space for their words?

Loved. Cherished. Supported.

Tzimtzum is another way of saying: “You matter enough for me to focus all my energies on you.”

This Tisha B'Av, may we have the courage to be fully with the tzom, whole with the discomfort, and learn to condense our entirety for every other Jew.

On Tisha B'Av I can feel the weight of thousands of years of “if onlys.”

by Sara Debbie Gutfreund- aish.com

For the past few weeks I have been walking around in a daze. The terrible tragedy of Leiby Kletzky’s death feels like a constant loss wherever I turn. Last Shabbos a neighbor’s nine-year-old boy came to pick up his little sister from our house. And he looked exactly like the picture of Leiby. I felt tears spring suddenly to my eyes. Not on Shabbos, I warned myself. Do not cry on Shabbos in front of all of your children while you are serving dessert. But I felt like I was choking, like my heart was in my throat. Like I could feel somehow another mother’s heart shattering across the ocean. And I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

I don't know why. Usually it takes me a day or two to digest an awful story in the news. Sometimes it only takes me an hour, or just a few minutes. But these past few weeks have been different for some reason. Maybe because I have children that are around Leiby’s age. Maybe because I worry when my children are even a minute late, and I can so readily feel the agony of a mother whose child will never come home.

But what is taking my breath away lately is how the summer sun can still shine in the shadow of such loss. I cannot comprehend it. How can the sky be such a startling shade of blue on a morning like this? How can the branches of the olive tree reach so majestically upwards, cradling tiny, colorful birds who continue to sing as if no one is crying? As if a nation’s heart isn’t broken? As if a child has not just disappeared forever? How could the world just continue this way with its stunning sunsets and dawns full of hope?

I wanted the sky to turn black, for a storm to surround us for just a moment so that the loss would be mirrored back to us. How could we all just go on?

And then I got stuck in the "if onlys." It was a futile attempt to try to turn back time. If only Leiby wouldn't have gone to camp that day. If only he wouldn't have had a dentist appointment. If only he had asked someone else for directions. If only someone would have found a way to rescue him. If only we could have somehow heard him before all was lost. If only his death hadn't been so gruesome…

Related Article: Déjà-Vu

Run! Run! I wanted to scream at the photos.Why, oh why, didn't you run?

I started thinking like this when I visited Yad Veshem too. I looked at the photos of "life before" the destruction of European Jewry, and I was shocked by how normal life looked in those photos. The routines of work and shopping and raising children. The way those streets and those towns were so deeply embedded in our people like our own homes. The beloved shuls, the holy leaders, the way no one could believe that the hard times wouldn't pass.

And I stood staring into one of the black and white photos when suddenly it hit me. That young mother looked just like me! Different clothes, different background. But there was something in her eyes that I know. The smile that rose from within her as she held her children's hands in a marketplace in a time and place so very far away but yet so close to me somehow. What happened to her? I wondered, and the "if onlys" began. If only they all would have left as soon as the warnings of danger began. If only they knew how terrible the future would be. Run! Run! I wanted to scream at the photos. Why, oh why, didn't you run?

And the "if onlys" filter into my own personal losses too, when a loved one lost consciousness before saying goodbye. If only I would have arrived sooner. If only I would have stayed in America when I first got married, I would have had more time with her. If only she would have told me that she forgave me for moving so far away. If only she would have said good bye. If only.

On Tisha B'Av the depth and the pain of all our losses fill the very air that we breathe.

Tisha B'Av is the day when the birds of Jerusalem do not sing at dawn. The sky is not cloudy but it looks like it is on the edge of weeping, as if light itself is too much to carry. On Tisha B'Av the depth and the pain of all our losses fill the very air that we breathe. I can feel the weight of thousands of years of “if onlys.” If only we wouldn’t have cried for no reason in the desert. If only we would have done teshuva when the first Temple, in all its untainted holiness, was still standing. If only we had learned our lesson and become who we were supposed to be when the Second Temple was in our midst. If only we could have it all back.

The Sages tell us that there hasn’t been a true blue sky in Jerusalem since the Temple was destroyed. We don’t even know what we are missing. That is how far we are. Everything truly beautiful we have lost. Our center, our place where we could come close to God is gone. We wonder where and how we will find comfort when loss follows loss like the relentless waves of the ocean, pulling us under. Until we can no longer breathe, until we are fighting for air.

Until we are somehow pulled towards the one remaining Wall of His broken, empty Palace. Until we can all stand before that Wall and wonder how we can go on when a Father cannot find His children. When there is no longer a Home to bring them to.

If only we could really cry today. We are waiting by the door, knocking with the last of our prayers. If only You could hear the cries of those who don’t know how to cry. Please let us in. We are Your children, and we want to come home. If only it could be today.

AmazingAarticle from Aish.com

Baseless hatred stems from hating others for what we fear may be true about ourselves.

by William Kolbrener

Getting from the house to school in the morning – or rather the two schools that my youngest sons attend – always takes a while. Shmuel, like a seven-year-old version of the English poet, William Wordsworth, stops to marvel at the wonders of nature; while Pinhas, five, comports himself like a young Isaac Newton, pausing to consider how things work. Today, a garbage pick-up fired both of their imaginations. Shmuel seemed to be readying a sonnet; Pinhas an engineering diagram. Yes, getting to school takes a long time.

Between the flights of sublimity and the mechanical inquiries, I pursue another topic, “How to Cross the Street.” First, an undergraduate course in semiotics: “What do the thick white lines on the pavement mean?” “What does the blue and white illuminated image of the pedestrian represent?” “Yes, this is the place to cross the street!”

So we stand and dutifully wait. One car zooms by; and then another. A young father, with an mp3 player – probably listening to a lecture – his five-year-old daughter in tow, crosses down the block, away from the pedestrian crossing. I see Pinhas wondering: What exactly is abba trying to pass off on us? “You don’t have to cross here,” he finally affirms, another car whizzing by: “Look at them.” He points to his father and daughter still in sight and already at the grocery store across the street, poised to buy a white roll and chocolate milk.

Shmuel and Pinhas

I preempt the request I know is coming. “No, you can’t havelakhmania and choco, Mommy packed you a lunch.” And: “Just because other people do the wrong thing does not mean that it’s right.” Finally, a car stops, the driver waving us across benevolently. I nod in gratitude – in Israel, traffic regulations are often viewed as suggestions – “Thank you for abiding by the law.”

Pinhas is first to school today. Shmuel, sometimes shy, is reticent to accompany us, so he waits outside the school gates. A group of boys, pushing their heads through the metal bars, starts to tease him, even as I stand by: “You guys have a problem?” I ask, mimicking what boys typically say when taunting Shmuel, who has Down Syndrome. When I come back, Shmuel is still standing there. He looks confused, a departure from his wondrous happy, friendly self: one of the boys is standing with his tongue hanging out with a mocking stare.

When I return home, my wife asks: “What do you expect?” This was one of the schools that would not take Shmuel; why should we expect more from children than their teachers? Or, a principal who had told us – he has a niece with Down Syndrome, so he assured us, “I know” – that “mainstreaming is not good for special children.” Besides, he added, “it would give the school a bad name.”

We instinctively hate the other for reminding us of the “defect” which is our own.

The Torah enjoins, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” and in the same chapter of Leviticus, “You shall love the stranger.” Love the one with whom you identify, as well as the one who seems different from you. Rashi, the eleventh-century commentator who guides generations through difficult passages, writes that the Torah assumes one may come to hate the stranger because he has a “defect.” His deficiency, whatever it may be, arouses a desire to afflict him, or at least distance him.

But the verse continues: “You yourself were once strangers in the land of Egypt.” You see him as different, but he is just like you. The stranger’s so-called defect, Rashi writes, is your own. That characteristic which we are unable to acknowledge – too painful or unpleasant – we externalize in a hatred for others. We were once slaves in Egypt, “strangers in a strange land,” immersed in idolatry. So, we look at the stranger and project upon him that which we fear might be most true about ourselves. But we fear it – this is the Torah’s insight – because it is true. We instinctively hate the other for reminding us of the “defect” which is our own.

The answer to the question opening Hamlet – “Who’s there?” – is never simply answered. We have a natural propensity, the Torah tells us, to be in denial about our selves, but also to project onto others the perceived shortcomings from which we most want to escape. We hate the thing which – in a way we cannot yet face – helps to define who we are. Jewish prayer and ritual, as a corrective to those inclinations, refer to the God who took the Jewish people out of Egypt, not the God Who created the heavens and the earth, emphasizing: “Remember who you are, remember from where you came.” Your past – and you – are also exceptional. The verse concludes: “I am your God” – Rashi explains, both your God and the stranger’s. You are not only united in your history; you and the stranger, who you want to distance from the camp, have the same God. So be open-minded to the stranger within.

We may have more in common with children of difference, like Shmuel, than we are willing to admit.

In the end, we may have more in common with children of difference, like Shmuel, than we are willing to admit. The school principal’s protests about mainstreaming may reveal as much about his own personal insecurities – one is not always efficient, brilliant, and scholarly – as about purported concerns for the “name” of the school. The proximity of children with Down Syndrome, or exceptional children of any kind, make us uneasy about the ways in which we may also be merely ordinary, less than competent, imperfect. How else to explain a school – or a community – that wants to project an image of perfection in order to maintain its good name?

But that image is a communal fantasy, not the Torah’s ideal. Keeping special children out of the “mainstream” may be, in many cases, the right thing. But sometimes, it is as much about parents – or uncles – who nurture images of themselves helping them to forget what they do not want to know. As far as myself, I have a lot to learn from the indefatigably questioning and studious Pinhas, but probably even more from my more bashful Shmuel, who takes in the world in awe, and who laughs and dances with unselfconscious glee and abandonment. The stranger we try to flee almost always has an uncannily familiar face. But becoming more tolerant to that which is more singular in ourselves – acknowledging the stranger within – makes it easier to be tolerant of the exceptional in others.

Back on the morning trek to school, walking in the direction of Shmuel’s school now, we encounter the bouncy-gait of the nine-year-old Yehuda: “Good morning Shmuel!” Shortly after, a smiling boy on a bicycle, and an exuberant “Shalom Shmuel!” “He is my friend,” Shmuel boasts loudly. And then the gawky eleven-year-old from down the block, who keeps a rooster in our building courtyard, volunteers, “Can I walk with Shmuel to heder?” We are grateful to the school principal who declared, “It’s a big mitzvah” to accept Shmuel into the school. But the children in Shmuel’s school, like his brothers and sisters, perhaps benefit most in learning to take for granted – instead of taking exceptional at – including Shmuel in their play. For from a very early age, children notice the exceptions we make, and turn them into second nature, whether crossing the street in the wrong place or making a new friend, even though he may be a bit different.