Can you see it?

This is a photo from 2008 - a Lag B'Omer bonfire - but some people can see a face, right in the centre of the photo: a woman smiling.  Please leave a comment if you can see it.  Don't strain your eyes for hours... you either see it straight away, or not at all.    The face is of someone who died a few months before this photo was taken. [Yes it's really there]

The Sound of Silence

Art: Charnine

Most people these days are going about their lives as if nothing out of the ordinary is happening.  I can't really understand it, because to me the world is on the verge of something huge, and yet only a small percentage of people seem to "see" it.   Not only can people not see what's going on in front of their eyes, they can no longer hear either..... as Rebbetzin Jungreis writes:

The Rebbetzin's Viewpoint

By: Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis

`Deaf and Dumb` 

I have often written and said that we are living today in remarkable but dangerous times in which we can hear (provided we know how to listen) the footsteps of Messiah. Ours however, is a generation that has difficulty hearing. We are saturated with constant noise, not only by world events that are so rapidly unfolding that before we digest one, another is upon us. But we are also assailed by our own tumultuous, seductive life styles – lifestyles that are conducive to self-absorption and “deafness”.

You might, of course, wonder at the appropriateness of the word “deafness”. “Isn’t that a bit too extreme?” No! Even if there was a stronger expression, I would resort to that, because indeed, our generation has become deaf – no matter how thunderous the call of Hashem may be.

But still you might ask, “Why deaf?” What is there in our society that inhibits a person from listening? Why should our generation be more deaf than those that preceded us? To be sure, in every generation we have had problems hearing that “still small voice” that comes in many shapes and forms. However, in our generation, that blockage has become even more acute. There are so many sounds that divert us from hearing. Nowadays, it is rare to see anyone take even a moment to think. There was a time when people took walks to contemplate or they secluded themselves to give themselves time to think and review their lives. Today however, such happenings hardly occur, if at all. Today, when you see people walking, they are always involved in some activity, be it talking on their cell phones, text messaging, scrolling through their e-mail on their blackberrys, or listening to their I-pods. And should they steal some moments to seclude themselves, there are always other diversions vying for their attention, be it the internet, TV, or video games, etc.

In the interim, time relentlessly passes by, and with every moment, events unfold that we don’t hear or see. Not only have we lost our ability to hear, but we have also lost our ability to talk.... to hold a conversation. Nowadays, people communicate through e-mail, texting, or twitter. This has become so prevalent that children no longer speak to parents, couples no longer speak to each other. They find it much easier to text or resort to other technological means of communication, because through these methods, they don’t have to hear a response – another voice which might question or negate their message. Nor are they obliged to hear expressions of love which might make them feel guilty or indebted. There is an old Yiddish saying, “There was a time when parents taught their children to talk, but now, children teach their parents to keep quiet.”

Regardless of our reaction however, the messages continue.... the sounds become louder and louder, demanding a response, but how can we respond if we no longer know how to hear? Deaf, dumb, and blind, we continue to march on to the sound of our own music and congratulate ourselves on our open-mindedness and ready acceptance of all life-styles.

So it is that we never learn. Even the most world-shaking events go unheeded. Neither the Holocaust nor the rebirth of Israel after two thousand years of exile has made us stop and re-think our lives.

I could go through countless happenings of our contemporary life, but I will skip to 9/11 a tragedy which spoke thunderously to all the citizens of our USA. Remarkably, even then, we continued to remain deaf, and perverted its message to that which we regarded as “politically correct”.

We have become so inured that we see nothing unusual in the constant escalation of natural disasters, be they tsunamis, floods, tornados, earthquakes, nuclear spills, and so on. Nor do we see anything remarkable about dead birds falling from the skies or dead fish – sardines washing ashore. Even though they numbered a million. Nor did we wake up when financial disaster overtook us. Overnight, we witnessed the collapse of giant corporations and industries.... the melt-down of Wall Street and the devaluation of the dollar, all of which we once believed to be invincible.

Our inability to hear rendered us deaf and blind to the messages behind the toppling of powerful governments – governments that for years were controlled by dictators who ruled with iron fists. We delude ourselves into believing that that which we are witnessing is the establishment of democratic societies, the dawn of freedom and peace in the dark world of the Middle East. We refuse to consider that the mobs on the streets are the precursors of even more tyrannical dictatorships. Take, for example, Egypt, which we believe to be the perfect example of the democratic dream fulfilled. In our blindness and deafness, we refused to pay heed to the heinous shouts of “Jew! Jew” as Lara Logan, the CBS foreign correspondent was barbarously attacked (although Lara Logan is not a Jew). Nor has the world paid heed to the destruction of churches and the killing of those of the Christian faith. Yes, all this is unfolding in the “democratic new Egypt”. Paradoxically, neither Rome nor any other Christian denominations have raised voices of outrage. The silence is deafening. Why? Why? But we dismiss that question as well. We have our own problems. We can’t really get involved in world events. It won’t help anyway, so the call continues to be sounded and we continue to remain blind, dumb and deaf.

[to be continued]

Source: Hineni

The Greatest Privilege

Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak of Lubavitch, the Friediker Rebbe, writes:

In the winter of 5673 [1913] I went to visit my father, who was staying in Menton, France. Every day we would walk for hours along the seashore and I was privileged to hear of things which had never been told to anyone: practices, stories, visions and ideas of my holy ancestors, transmitted through the generations from rebbe to rebbe.

Father spoke much about "thinking chassidus" - meditating upon concepts of chassidic teaching - before prayer, while wrapped in tallis and tefillin. He discussed the topic continuously over the walks of several days and enumerated its many virtues. Thinking chassidus, he said, refines the body, making the mind and heart receptive to G-dliness. It repels the "animal soul", cleanses the "natural soul", subdues the "intellectual soul" and illuminates the world. It draws down a revelation of light in all worlds, from the highest to the lowest of levels. It transforms the essence of one's natural character, and illuminates the five levels of one's "Godly soul", nefesh, ruach, neshama, chaya and yechida.

All this applies to any individual who is involved in "the service of the heart" [i.e. prayer] and prepares properly for prayer, but how much more so to the perfectly righteous tzaddik. My father continued to describe at great length the heights attained by a tzaddik, concluding "one attains an appreciation of G-dly delight, ah Getleche ziskeit, a G-dly sweetness".

With G-d's help, I shall never forget that glorious moment, the sight of that holy face flaring in ecstasy as he enunciated the words "a G-dly sweetness". At that moment, I truly understood Rabbi Schneur Zalman's definition of a merkava [chariot] to the Almighty, those who "all their days... do not cease for a single moment to bind their minds and souls to the Master of the Universe".

To stroll within the splendorous natural surroundings of the Menton shore, and to be so immersed in G-dly delight, to so relish "G-dly sweetness" - this can only be an atzmi [a quintessential one; one who's every act, thought and character trait is utterly in line with and permeated by the very essence of his soul], a rebbe the son of a rebbe, a Jew of self-sacrifice, one for whom G-d is forever standing over him and the light of his soul is openly manifest within his being.

For a long time we walked along the shore without a word. All who met or passed us noticed the look of his holy face, shining with a G-dly light. Suddenly, as one who awakes from sleep, he turned to me and said:

"Yosef Yitzchok! Listen! All the benefits of thinking chassidus in tallis and tefillin prior to prayer, both for the ordinary chassid and for the tzaddik, are utterly insignificant compared to a single privilege: if the Almighty grants a person an aptitude for and a delight in doing a Jew a favour. If the Almighty grants a person that his fellow should be more dear to him than himself.

"It is worth one's while to toil five hours a day for five days, toil of the body and toil of the soul, to comprehend the Divine - if the result is that one truly desires to do a Jew a favour."

Father concluded by quoting Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov: "A soul descends to the world and lives seventy, eighty years, in order to do a Jew a favour physically and particularly in a spiritual matter."

Source: "Once Upon A Chassid" - Kehot Publications

A Message for the President of the USA, from King Solomon

U.S. President Barack Obama will call on Israel to withdraw to the 1967 borders and agree to additional concessions that will enable a resumption of the peace process, Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth revealed on Tuesday.

The newspaper claimed to have obtained a draft of Obama's planned speech at the State Department on Thursday in which he will outline his administration's Middle East policy, in light of the anti-government protests that have swept the region over the past year.

The president is also expected to announce his solution regarding the status of Jerusalem and call for its division. The U. S. envisions the city as the shared capital of the two states, Israel and Palestine, side by side in peace.

Source: Xinhuanet

King Solomon was the son of King David and Bathsheba. He composed 3,000 proverbs and 1,005 songs and authored the Song of Songs, the Book of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes.

He became ruler in approximately 967 B.C.E. and his kingdom extended from the Euphrates River in the north to Egypt in the south. His crowning achievement was the building of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem.

People from surrounding nations came to hear Solomon’s wisdom. The first and most famous incident of his cleverness as a judge was when two women came to his court with a baby whom both women claimed as their own. Solomon threatened to split the baby in half. One woman was prepared to accept the decision, but the other begged the King to give the live baby to the other woman. Solomon then knew the second woman was the real mother.

Jerusalem can be compared to the baby in this story. Any person who condones the cutting in half of Jerusalem, is not the real mother. Jerusalem belongs in the hands of those who will treat her the way she is meant to be treated - in one piece, in the hands of her rightful owners, the Torah-true Jewish people.

Moshiach's Rainbow and Lag b'Omer

Photo: National Geographic

Why is Lag b’Omer celebrated with bonfires and bows and arrows?

by Rabbi Yossi Marcus

The bonfires celebrate the immense light that was brought into the world by Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai [who passed away on Lag b’Omer], especially on the day of his passing.

The bow commemorates the fact that during Rabbi Shimon’s lifetime no rainbow was ever seen. [Bereishit Rabbah 35:2] Note: This was a good thing because the rainbow appears when the earth deserves punishment. The first time a rainbow appeared was after Noah’s flood, when G-d said that He will no longer destroy the world, rather He would send a sign: the rainbow. During Rabbi Shimon’s lifetime, the world was filled with merit because of him and therefore never saw a rainbow. [Genesis 9:8-17 and Rashi there]

There is a Kabbalistic tradition that on Lag b’Omer a rainbow will appear in a different color, which will symbolize the arrival of the Messianic age [Bnei Yissaschar]

Gods of Wood and Stone

I blogged this a long time ago, but it disappeared during The Great Blog Deletion of 2010 [mine, not Google's]..... anyway I managed to find parts of it on the internet and put it back together, in response to some of the comments at this post at the Jewish End of Days blog.

In the Hebrew text of [Deut 4:27-28]  where the Torah speaks about two religions of "wood and stone", we can find the words "Yeshu" and "Mecca" encoded, obviously referring to Christianity and Islam.

"And the Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and you will remain few in number among the nations to where the Lord will lead you. And there you will worship gods, man's handiwork, wood and stone, which neither see, hear, eat, nor smell."

An Equal Distance Lettering count of 50 letters within these passages identifies the two religions. The blue letters reveal the name Yeshu [Jesus]  The red letters reveal the word Mecca in reverse.

 וְהֵפִיץ יְ-ה-וָ-ה אֶתְכֶם, בָּעַמִּים; וְנִשְׁאַרְתֶּם, מְתֵי מִסְפָּר

בַּגּוֹיִם, אֲשֶׁר יְנַהֵג יְ-ה-וָ-ה אֶתְכֶם שָׁמָּה

[27] And the Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and you will remain few in number among the nations to where the Lord will lead you.

 וַעֲבַדְתֶּם-שָׁם אֱ-לֹהִים, מַעֲשֵׂה יְדֵי אָדָם: עֵץ

וָאֶבֶן–אֲשֶׁר לֹא-יִרְאוּן וְלֹא יִשְׁמְעוּן, וְלֹא יֹאכְלוּן וְלֹא יְרִיחֻן

[28] And there you will worship gods, man's handiwork, wood and stone, which neither see, hear, eat, nor smell.

And here is Rabbi Yossi Mizrahi explaining it all in a video:

Torah Codes: Gilad Shalit encoded in the Story of Yosef

Just as we saw in the Jonathan Pollard Torah Codes , where Pollard's name is encoded in the story of Yosef, so is the name Gilad Shalit.  The codes note that one is in captivity in Edom, and one in captivity with the Yishmaelim.

Update: Also see: In the Blink of an Eye

Rebbe Elimelech's Tea Mug

Reb Mordechai of Neschiz was a disciple of Rebbe Elimelech. When the Rebbe passed away, Reb Mordechai inherited the Rebbe’s tea mug. The Rebbe would say that when one drinks tea, he is in the spiritual realm of Asiyah, the World of Action, and he can do many things that otherwise he could not do.

Once, a barren woman asked Reb Mordechai to intercede on her behalf to Rebbe Elimelech that he should pray for her to bear children since the doctors had given up hope. “Go to him during tea time,” was Reb Mordechai’s advice. She did and received a blessing. Indeed, Reb Mordechai used to say, “Many barren women were blessed with children because their plight was mentioned to me while I drank tea from Rebbe Elimelech’s mug.”

The holy Rebbe Meir of Premishlan taught that this is hinted at in the prayer “Tehei hasha’ah hazos she’as rachamim — May this time be an auspicious time of mercy.” The word for “may,” תהא, can be read as תה, “tea.” Therefore the prayer can be read: “Tea time is a time of mercy.” In fact, the Gerrer Rebbe, the Chiddushei HaRim, used to say that Reb Mordechai of Neschiz was able to resurrect the dead using the tea mug of his Rebbe, Rebbe Elimelech of Lizhensk.

[Ohel Elimelech 130]