Meshane Makom Meshane Mazal - Change Your Place, Change Your Mazal

By changing our place in life we can change our Luck [destiny or fortune]

Art: Jacek Yerka

Adapted by Yrachmiel Tilles

Many of Rabbi Yisrael Baal Shem Tov's ways might have seemed strange to an outsider, but Reb Zev Wolf Kitzes, the Baal Shem Tov's constant companion, had enough confidence in his Rebbe never to doubt his actions. He knew that in the end -- even if it took years -- all would be for the best.

Reb Zev Wolf once accompanied the Besht on a visit to a certain village Jew. The impoverished villager welcomed the Besht into his home.

"I must have a donation of 18 rubles," the Besht requested. The poor man did not have this large sum. But, considering that it was the Besht making the request, the villager took some of his furniture and his cow, sold them, and gave the Besht the money. Reb Zev Wolf looked on silently while the Besht took the money and then departed.

Several days later the villager's rent was due on his inn. He could not produce the sum and the landlord evicted him. The villager, seeing no future for himself in this small village, decided to try his luck elsewhere. He finally found himself a tiny hut in a different village with a different landlord. By selling some more of his possessions, the villager managed to buy a cow. The cow provided him with his sole source of income; he sold her milk and eked out a meager living.

Some time later the landlord's cow became sick and her milk was unusable. One of the landlord's servants who knew of the new tenant quickly went to this villager and bought milk for the landlord. When the landlord was served the milk, he commented, "This milk is of a superior quality. Tell the owner that I will pay handsomely for the privilege of being his only customer."

This incident turned the tide of fortune for the villager. Each day he delivered milk to the manor and each day the landlord commented on the quality of the milk and milk products derived from it. He grew fond of the Jew and began to consult him about his business, slowly turning over to him many responsibilities. The landlord trusted him implicitly and appreciated the Jew's honesty, reliability, and faithful service.

The landlord's relationship and bond with the villager became so deep that, being childless, he transferred ownership of that village and the nearby city to the Jew. Feeling that now everything was in good hands, the landlord took leave and went abroad after having given the Jew legal title to that area.A few years later, Reb Zev Wolf came to the village of the new landlord collecting money on behalf of Jewish prisoners and captives. Reb Zev Wolf had already collected all but 300 rubles of the sum which the Besht had designated.

Upon meeting with the village rabbi, Reb Zev Wolf questioned him as to why he was so festively attired."I am going, together with a group of the town dignitaries, to greet the landlord of this city who will be paying us a visit today. Why don't you come along with us? He is a Jew and will most probably be willing to contribute to your cause."

Reb Zev Wolf accompanied the rabbi and his companions. The landlord greeted the delegation warmly, paying special attention to Reb Zev Wolf. After a little while, the landlord took Reb Zev Wolf aside."You don't remember me, do you?" he asked. Reb Zev Wolf could not place the wealthy man's face. The landlord went on to retell the story of his change of fortune. Then, he took out 300 rubles and gave it to Reb Zev Wolf.

It was only upon returning to the Besht that Reb Zev Wolf understood the entire story. "The last 300 rubles were donated by the village Jew whom you once asked for a donation of 18 rubles. Today he is a wealthy man."

"Let me now tell you why I extracted that large sum from him when his circumstances were so difficult," explained the Besht. "A change of fortune was awaiting him in the future but not in that place. It was necessary to bring him to the end of his rope so that he would be forced to leave and settle elsewhere. That is exactly what happened. The rest you already know."

Are You a Jealous Person?

Why Envy is Ignorance
by Rabbi YY Jacobson

The tenth and final of the Ten Commandments recorded in this week's portion (Vaeschanan) reads: "You shall not covet your neighbor's wife; you shall not covet your neighbor's house, nor his field, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, and anything that belongs to your neighbor." [Deuteronomy 5:17; Exodus 20:14].

The structure of the verse seems strange. In the beginning, the Bible specifies seven things we should not covet: "You shall not covet your neighbor's wife; you shall not covet your neighbor's home, nor his field, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his donkey." But then, at the conclusion of the verse, the Bible states: "And anything that belongs to your neighbor." Why the unnecessary redundancy? Why not just state at the onset "You shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor," which would include all of the specifics? And if the Torah does not want to rely on generalizations and wishes to specify details, why does it specify only a few items and then anyhow revert to a generalization, "And anything that belongs to your neighbor?"

A Holistic Story

In Hebrew, the word employed for "anything" and "everything" is identical: "Kol." Hence, the above verse can also be translated as, "You shall not covet your neighbor's wife; you shall not covet your neighbor's house, nor his field, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, and everything that belongs to your neighbor." By concluding the verse with these words, the Torah is not just instructing us not to covet anything of our neighbor, but also helping us achieve this difficult state of consciousness.

How could you demand from a person not to be jealous? When I walk into your home and observe your living conditions, your cars, your bank accounts, and your general life style, how could I not become envious?

The answer is, "Do not covet everything that belongs to your neighbor." What the Torah is intimating is that it is indeed easy to envy the home and spouse of your neighbor, his servants, his ox and donkey; yet the question you have to ask yourself is, do you covet "everything that belongs to your neighbor?" Are you prepared to assume his or her life completely? To actually become him?

You cannot see life as myriads of disjointed events and experiences. You can't pluck out one aspect of somebody's life and state "I wish I could have had his (or her) marriage, his home, his career, his money..." Life is a holistic and integrated experience. Each life, with its blessings and challenges, with its obstacles and opportunities, constitutes a single story, a narrative that begins with birth and ends with death. Every experience in our life represents one chapter of our singular, unique story and we do not have the luxury to pluck out a chapter from someone's story without embracing their entire life-journey.

When you isolate one or a few aspects of someone else's life, it is natural to become envious. But when you become aware of "everything that belongs to your neighbor," your perception is altered. Do you really want to acquire everything that is going on in his or her life?

So the next time you feel yourself coveting the life of the other, ask yourself if you really want to become them.

Ralph Waldo Emerson was correct when he observed that "envy is ignorance."

Emunah: A Lightness of Being

 

from the writings of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov

"Eicha Esa Livadi Tarchachem U'Masachem V'Rivchem" - "How can I carry you alone, your bother, your load, and your quarrels" [Devarim 1:12]

Rashi says that Tarchachem means that they were nudnicks, and Masachem means they were apikursim [heretics] - Tarchachem clearly means tircha [bothersome], but how does masachem or heavy load come to apikursis?

Rebbe Nachman of Breslov answers that while intellectuals may consider people with emunah [faith] simple and naive, in a sense they are right.  With emunah  life becomes easier, as not everything must be explained and rationalized.  Emunah is a great tool to lift the weight from you.

 

However, an Apikores is constantly plagued by doubt and questions that nag him endlessly, leaving him no peace.  This constant state of turmoil eats at him and becomes a huge burden on his own shoulders.  This explains why Rashi says that masachem means apikursis, as there is no greater burden around. 

The Pregnant Spoon

"You must not add to the word that I command you, nor subtract from it, so as to safeguard the commandments of Hashem" [Va'etchanan 4:2]

The Dubno Maggid explained this verse by way of a parable:

An individual went to his neighbor and asked to borrow a spoon. The next day, he returned the spoon he had borrowed together with another small spoon.

"Why are you giving me two spoons?" asked his neighbor. "I only loaned you one."

"That is correct" responded his friend. "But you see, the spoon which you had loaned me was pregnant - and it gave birth."

The neighbor realized that his friend's mind had become unstable, but he nonetheless accepted the two spoons without comment.

Several days later, the friend returned and asked to borrow a cup. The neighbor lent him the cup and, surely enough, the friend gave back not one but two cups, claiming that the cup had given birth to a smaller version. The neighbor silently accepted the two cups.

Several days passed, and the neighbor was once again approached by his friend. The time, he requested to borrow a pair of silver candlesticks. The fool, thought the neighbor, will surely give me back four candlesticks. I will happily loan them to him.

Several days later, when the neighbor saw that his candlesticks had not been returned, he complained to his friend "Where are my silver candlesticks? Why have you not returned them?"

"I am sorry" responded the friend, "but your candlesticks have passed away."

"Passed away?" yelled the neighbor, "who has ever heard of candlesticks passing away?"

"My dear sir" responded the friend, "who has ever heard of a spoon or a cup that gave birth? Yet when I gave you two spoons, you took them without saying a word. Now if a spoon can give birth, then a candlestick can most certainly pass away."

With this, we can understand the aforementioned verse, concluded the Dubno Maggid. An individual must perform Hashem's mitzvos with utmost precision, for if he begins to add to the mitzvos, he will eventually come to subtract from them.

Source: Rabbi Yisrael Bronstein

Born on Tisha B'Av

Intimacy in Flames .As the Jewish future was consumed in Roman flames, G-d impregnated them with a seed By Rabbi Y. Y. Jacobson

Crash Landing 
An airliner was having engine trouble, and the pilot instructed the cabin crew to have the passengers take their seats and get prepared for an emergency landing.
A few minutes later, the pilot asked the flight attendants if everyone was buckled in and ready.
'All set back here, Captain,' came the reply, 'except one lawyer who is still going around passing out business cards.'

The Great Crisis

On the ninth of the month of Av in the year 70 CE (next Tuesday, August 9th) the Roman legions in Jerusalem smashed through the fortress tower of Antonia into the Holy Temple and set it afire. In the blackened remains of the sanctuary lay more than the ruins of the great Jewish revolt for political independence; it appeared that Judaism itself was shattered beyond repair.

Out of approximately four to five million Jews in the world, over a million died in that abortive war for independence. Many died of starvation, others by fire and crucifixion. So many Jews were sold into slavery and given over to the gladiatorial arenas and circuses that the price of slaves dropped precipitously, fulfilling the ancient curse: "There you will be offered for sale as slaves, and there will be no one willing to buy" (Deuteronomy 26:68). The destruction was preceded by events so devastating that from an objective perspective, it seemed that the Jewish people had breathed its last breath.

This is what amazed a philosopher like Nietzsche, a fierce and fateful critic of the Jews, as it has so many other thinkers throughout the ages. In Twilight of the Idols and The Antichrist the German philosopher wrote: "The Jews are the most remarkable people in the history of the world, for when they were confronted with the question, to be or not to be, they chose, with perfectly unearthly deliberation, to be at any price ... They defined themselves counter to all those conditions under which a nation was previously able to live ... Psychologically, the Jews are a people gifted with the very strongest vitality ... The Jews are the very opposite of decadents."

How did the Jews achieve this indeed?

The Cherubs Embracing

The Talmud relates a profoundly strange incident that occurred moments before the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple:

"When the pagans entered the Holy Temple, they saw the cherubs cleaving to each other. They took them out to the streets and said: 'These Jews ... is this what they occupy themselves with?' With this, they debased [the Jewish people], as it is written: 'All who had honored her have despised her, for they have seen her nakedness (1).'"

The meaning of these words is this: The innermost chamber of the Jerusalem Temple, the most sacred site in Judaism, was known as the "Holy of Holies" and seen as the spiritual epicenter of the universe. Two golden cherubs - they were two winged figures, one male and one female -- were located in the "Holy of Holies." These cherubs represented the relationship between the cosmic groom and bride, between G-d and His people.

The Talmud teaches (2) that when the relationship between groom and bride was sour the two faces were turned away from each other, as when spouses are angry with each other. When the relationship was healthy, the two faces of the cherubs would face each other. And when the love between G-d and His bride was at its peak the cherubs would embrace "as a man cleaves to his wife."

Now, the Talmud is telling us, that when the enemies of Israel invaded the Temple - during the time of its destruction in the Hebrew month of Av (3) -- they entered into the Holy of Holies, a place so sacred that entry into it was permitted only to a single individual, the High Priest, and only on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year. There they saw the cherubs embracing each other. They dragged them out of the Temple and into the streets, vulgarizing their sacred significance (4).

This seems bizarre. When the enemies of Israel invaded the Temple to destroy it, the relationship between G-d and His people was at its lowest possible point, for that was the reason for the destruction and the subsequent exile. The Jews were about to become estranged from G-d for millennia. The manifest presence of divinity in the world, via the Temple in Jerusalem, would cease; Jews and G-d would now be exiled from each other.

Yet, paradoxically, it was precisely at that moment that the cherubs were intertwined, symbolizing the profoundest relationship between G-d and Israel. How are we to understand this (5)?

Preparing for the Voyage

The most daring explanation was given by the heir to the founder of Chassidism, Rabbi Dovber, known as the Magid of Mezrich (d. in 1772). Quoting the injunction of the sages that a man ought to consort with his wife prior to leaving home on a journey, the Maggid suggests that G-d, prior to His long journey away from home, expressed His intimacy with the Jewish people. Prior to the onset of a long exile, the cherubs were intertwined, representing the intimacy preceding the journey (6).

What the Chassidic master was conveying through this dazzling metaphor - and it is a central theme in Chassidic thought -- was that it was at the moment of the destruction that a new relationship between G-d and His people was beginning to develop. The greatest moment of crisis was also a moment of intimacy. As the Temple was going up in flames, and with it so much of Jewish life and history, G-d impregnated (metaphorically speaking) a seed of life within the Jewish soul; He implanted within His people the potential for a new birth.

For two millennia, this "seed" has sustained us, giving the Jewish people the courage and inspiration to live and prosper. Judaism flourished in the decades and centuries following the destruction of the Temple in an unprecedented fashion: The Mishnah, Talmud, Midrash and Kabbalah were all born during those centuries. The very tragic conditions of exile became catalysts for unparalleled rejuvenation. The closing of one door opened many more.

Many empires, religions and cultures attempted to demonstrate to the Jewish people that their role in the scheme of creation has ended, or that it has never began, luring them into the surrounding, prevailing culture. But the "intimacy" they experienced, so to speak, with G-d just moments before He "departed" from them, left its indelible mark. It imbued them with a vision, a dream and an unshakable commitment. Throughout their journeys, often filled with extraordinary anguish, they clung to their faith that they were in a covenant with G-d to transform the world into a divine abode; to heal a fractured world yearning to reunite with its own true reality.

Birth

This grants us a deeper understanding into the ancient Jewish tradition (7) that the Moshiach (Messiah) was born on the ninth of Av. At the moment the Temple was about to be engulfed in flames, the dream of redemption was born. There was an intimacy in the flames and it produced a hidden seed that would eventually bring healing to a broken world. Think about it: The very possibility for the rabbis of those generation to declare that Moshiach was born on the ninth of Av, was nothing but testimony to the intimacy that accompanied the milieu of estrangement and exile.

Now we are finally ready for the birth (8).

__________ 

To write a comment or view the footnotes on this article, please click here.

How Strong Are You?

Art by Paul David Bond

Words by Rabbi Michoel Gourarie

In Pirkei Avot [Ethics of the Fathers] there is a passage that reads: Ben Zoma said, Who is strong? He who conquers his evil inclination as it says, 'He who masters his passions is better than one who conquers a city.' The message here is clear - dealing with, and changing negative behavior is extremely difficult. Why does discipline and self control need so much strength?

The mystics explain that every one of us is operated by two forces - the animal soul and the Divine soul. The animal soul is the source of our ego and encourages hedonism, aggression, laziness and emptiness. The Divine soul is the source of moral reasoning and spiritual consciousness. It inspires an awareness of a higher purpose and gives us the ability to think rationally and objectively, making decisions for ethical behavior and appropriate responses to everyday experiences.

Each soul has its own dominant force. The animal soul is driven by instincts that are highly emotional, whereas the Divine soul is dominated by the power of intellect and reason. Both souls fight for control of the person. Both struggle to shape our personality and define our identity.

This is where the challenge of self control lies. The animalistic force is quick. It is emotional and instinctive and prompts a very swift response. The Divine soul is intellectual. It needs time to cognitively process the appropriate and moral response. So when we are insulted or provoked or presented with temptations and ethical dilemmas, the immediate response will be the feelings generated by the instincts and explosive emotions of the animal soul. We are tempted to get angry or do the wrong thing before we give the moral reason a chance.

Self control therefore needs the incredible strength of restraint. It requires holding back for just a few seconds between the things that happen to us and our response, creating a little space to think and process the point of view of the Divine voice. It is what Stephen Covey calls the "pause button between the stimulus and the response".

We need to train ourselves not to act quickly and instinctively. We need to use the unique ability of the human being to stop and ask ourselves the question - is this wrong or right? It takes amazing strength to wait a few seconds, but those few seconds can be the difference between an animalistic act and a divine one..

Next time you are faced with a challenge, give yourself a few seconds for the voice of the soul to be heard.

Murderer of Rabbi Elazar Abu Hatzira zt"l in Torah Codes

Rabbi Glazerson shows the Torah code where the name of the murderer of Rabbi Elazar Abu Hatzira - Asher Dahan - appears, and the evil forces which are influencing so many murders in our times.

Yarzheit 5 Av: The Arizal

Arizal Synagogue, Safed - Photo Steven Pinker

5 Av begins Thursday night - Friday August 5.

The Arizal [1534-1572] - Rabbi Isaac Luria was the most famous Kabbalist in the city of Safed, Israel who became known as the "Arizal" or ARI, an acronym for “The G-dly Rabbi Isaac of Blessed Memory.”

The Arizal passed away at the age of 38, and it was only during the last two years of his life that he met his foremost disciple, Rabbi Chaim Vital. The Arizal himself never wrote any books, however all his words were faithfully recorded by Rabbi Chaim Vital in what is known as Kitvei Ari, the “writings of the Arizal.” The Kitvei Ari is the key to the secrets of the Zohar, and it was the Arizal who formulated the Kabbalah into a comprehensive system. Rabbi Chaim Vital writes in the name of the Arizal that, “It is a Mitzvah to reveal this wisdom.” Until the time of the Arizal, knowledge of Kabbalah was not known outside of the tightly knit circle of the tzaddikim.

More about the Arizal at Ascent of Safed or click on the label "ARIZAL" below to read more of his teachings.