Israel 5773: Torah Codes

Just One Friend

by Rabbi Michoel Gourarie

One of the important relationships that form human existence is friends. In Pirkei Avot [Ethics of the Fathers], our sages teach: "Make for yourself a mentor and acquire for yourself a friend". When analyzing the text of this instruction we notice that sages talk about a 'friend' and not 'friends'. Is one friend sufficient? Wouldn't someone with only one friend be considered anti-social?

The answer to this question lies in the definition of a friend. Friends are not just people that we can socialize with and enjoy their company. A friend is not just someone who we can talk for hours with, or a person whose sense of humor we find entertaining.

A true friend is someone with whom we build an inner connection extending beyond superficialities. True friendship is a relationship built on trust and acceptance. The famous Chassidic Rabbi of Kotzk said that each person should have at least one friend that he can tell all of his secrets to, even the most shameful ones. A true friend is someone who is able to accept us unconditionally and would never let us down.

While we might have many acquaintances or many people that we share good conversation with, one real friend might be hard to find. But one good friend is all we need.

A Dream of the End

Art: Fernando Botero

I woke up from a strange dream this morning.  In the dream it was Friday afternoon, and people were getting ready for Shabbat.  Suddenly, all the houses started falling down, rocks and bricks were being strewn all over the ground. People were desperately trying to get back to their homes before Shabbat, and for some people it was impossible to get anywhere, and they were scared.  Dead bodies and severely injured people were cluttering the streets.  Ambulances were trying to get the wounded out, it was a totally unreal scene.  A few orthodox Jews wearing their Shabbat clothes were calmly walking to shul for Friday night service, while the chaos continued all around them.

I've never had a dream like that before.  Maybe it was total nonsense, or maybe it was a sign that we are on the edge of erev Shabbat [Geula] and the world is being judged.  Those who can't get back to their homes in time for Shabbat will be scared, but those who are prepared will calmly walk through and arrive at their destination.

From the Source

Our sages tell us that citing Torah sources brings redemption to the world [M. Avot 6:6 and parallels]. They add that not citing sources is a cause of bringing a curse on the world. In one place, they go further, suggesting that people who refrain from mentioning sources effectively kill, as they act as if the person from who they received the teaching does not exist. Moreover, the Talmud tells that people who say halachic matters in the name of the original source, should imagine the person who authored the teaching standing before them as they share the teaching [Y. Kiddushin 61a]

Source: Pardes.org

Letters of Strife and the Mechanism of Love

I Love You Because You are Beautiful, vs. You are Beautiful Because I Love You

Class Summary

Why can’t people get along today? What happened to relationships in our world? Why are so many couples struggling to find happiness together? A single commandment in the portion of Pinchas can give us at least part of the answer.

A debate between the Karaites and traditional Jews focused on the anomaly of the Rabbis calling the document of divorce a “get,” neglecting the biblical term for the writ of divorce.

The word “get” is spelled from two letters, Gimmel and Tes. The Vilna Gaon presented an ingenious insight about these two letters of the Hebrew alphabet, showing how they symbolize the reality of a divorce. Building on this idea, his student explained why these two letters were the only ones omitted from the portion in Pinchas dealing with the daily lamb offerings: this portion captures the essence of an enduring relationship hence it has no place for the letters of divorce.

This class presents an explanation why it is specifically the portion discussing the daily lamb sacrifices that conveys the essence of an enduring relationship.

There were two types of offerings brought in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. While most sacrifices were partially burnt and then partially eaten, ‘the burnt-offering,’ the Olah, had to be totally consumed by the flames of the altar. Nothing remained to be eaten. It was a sacrifice totally dedicated to G-d and the person who offered it derived no benefit from it. The daily lamb offering was an ‘Olah.’

From a spiritual and psychological perspective, these two types of offerings represent two types of sacrifice: Self-motivated sacrifice vs. complete sacrifice; conditional sacrifice vs. unconditional sacrifice.

You may love your spouse and make sacrifices for your spouse because of what you receive, what you expect to receive in return. You appreciate her physical and emotional qualities, you cherish your partner’s looks, wisdom, kindness or candidness, and you gain much from it. Essentially it is not the other person you love, rather it is yourself whom you love. You love that part of the other person which enriches your life.

Then there is another form of love and loyalty, in which you transcend yourself and ask not what your friend can do for you, but what you can do for your friend. Without personal gain and self interest. To paraphrase Kennedy: Ask not what your wife can do for you; ask what you can do for your wife! Ask not what your husband can do for you; ask what you can do for your husband!

It is this type of relationship that eliminates the possibility of divorce. Hence, it is from this offering that the Torah omits the two letters representing divorce.

The Western Light

It was revealed to the Baal Shem Tov that if the two great lights of the world were to meet, they together could bring Moshiach and the Final Redemption. From that time, the Baal Shem Tov desired greatly to go to Eretz Yisrael to meet the great Ohr HaChayim HaKodesh [Rabbi Chaim ben Atar].

In the year 5503, the Baal Shem Tov set out to travel to Eretz Yisrael to fulfill his long held desire to be in the Holy Land and to meet the great Ohr HaChayim HaKodesh. By Pesach, he arrived in Istanbul. There he prayed at the gravesite of Rav Naftali, a tzaddik who had attempted the same trip at an earlier time, but had only managed to reach this far.

That night, Rav Naftali appeared to the Baal Shem Tov in a dream. “Reb Yisrael, it has been decreed in Heaven that you are not destined to dwell in Eretz Yisrael. If you are stubborn and attempt to continue your journey, you will die here as I did. Return home.” The Baal Shem Tov accepted the decree and embarked upon a ship and headed homeward.

His ship was captured by pirates, who let him off at the port of Kilya, from where he continued his journey to Medzibush. Three months later, during the Seudah Shishlit meal on the Shabbat of Parshat Pinchas, immediately after washing his hands and eating a bite of challah, the Baal Shem Tov said with a sigh, “The Western Light has been extinguished.”

At the Melave Malkah (meal following the departure of the Shabbat Queen) on that Motzoei Shabbat, the chassidim gathered their courage and asked, “Rebbe, what did you mean when you said that ‘The Western Light has been extinguished?’” The Baal Shem Tov replied, “The Ohr HaChayim HaKodesh has died. He was known in Heavenly realms as the Western Light.” “How does the Rebbe know that?” one chassid boldly asked.

The Baal Shem Tov answered, “There is a particular kavanna (intention) for the recitation of the blessing for washing hands which I have always wanted to know. However, this kavanna was hidden from me since only one person in each generation can know it, and the Ohr HaChayim had preceded me. This afternoon, as I washed my hands for Seudah Shishlit, I suddenly became aware of a new kavanna. I immediately understood that the Ohr HaChayim had passed from this world and now I become the guardian of that kavanna.”

Another time, the Baal Shem Tov told his Chassidim of another incident related to the Ohr HaChayim. On the Shabbat that the great Ohr HaChayim departed from this world, his friend in Tiberias, Reb Chayim Abulafia, mysteriously fainted, and remained unconscious for half an hour. When he finally was revived, he announced to his students "Today the Ohr HaChayim left this world. I accompanied him until the Gates of Gan Eden." “What Reb Chayim of Tiberias did not know,” the Baal Shem Tov told his chassidim, “was that the Ohr HaChayim’s saintly neshamah [soul] remained in Gan Eden only for the duration of Shabbat. The next day it descended once more to this world.

The souls of tzaddikim,” he explained, “receive greater satisfaction from being in this physical world than by being in Gan Eden. Here the soul can serve the Almighty on the lowest physical plane, through performing mitzvot and good deeds which brings far greater benefit to this world, and is far more pleasurable to the soul than being in Gan Eden. When Moshiach arrives, and Godliness will be seen and felt by even the most common man, we will yearn for the days previous when we were able to serve the Almighty on the lowest level of the physical.”

The death of the Ohr HaChayim occurred just two days before Reb Leib Sorahs’ Bar Mitzvah. It was years later however, that the chassidim understood that it was the Ohr HaChayim’s soul that he received at the time of his Bar Mitzvah, from the Rebbe Reb Dov Ber [The Mezritcher Maggid]. And so it was.

The Real Meaning of Peace

by Rabbi Chaim Ingram

The Amidah prayer, recited thrice daily, encompasses requests for the fulfilment of all our fondest hopes and aspirations. Yet not until the very last blessing do we ask G-D for peace (sim shalom). Indeed the word shalom appears nowhere else either in the weekday or in the Shabbat Amidah. It appears as though any sentiment expressing peace has been purposefully set aside until the very end. The burning question is – why?

Assuredly the reason cannot be that peace is unimportant in Judaism. To the contrary, it is one of the three pillars on which the world endures [Avot 1:18]. We may answer, on a straightforward level, that since peace is the ultimate blessing its request is reserved until last.

But there is assuredly a deeper idea here. Our sages wanted us to be aware of exactly to what type of peace our tradition aspires before we request it.

Is it a type of peace that transcends all rational thought, that supersedes all well-thought-out strategy? No! The first petition we utter every day in the Amidah is a plea to be granted “knowledge, understanding and seichel, wisdom (or common-sense)”. The peace for which we ask must be predicated on rational thinking.

May we ask for peace in the world arena if we have not yet striven for wholeness within ourselves? No! In the third request of the Amidah we ask for forgiveness for our sins. This obliges us to search out our faults and our failings from within ourselves before even imagining that we can seek the elusive goal of peace among ourselves and among the family of nations.

May we pray for peace which is not grounded in justice and righteousness? No! In the eighth request of the Amidah we cry “restore our judges and advisors”, let it be our religious leaders who stand at the helm and preach justice and truth – then we shall understand for what we pray when we ask for peace.

Can we request peace without acknowledging our right to the land of Israel? No! “Sound the great shofar for our freedom” we cry out in the tenth berakha “and gather us together from the four corners of the earth le-artseinu, to our land. When we realise that Erets Yisrael is our land the title-deeds to which rest in the Five Books of Moses, then we will know to what kind of peace we aspire.

Can we ask for peace without staking our eternal claim to Jerusalem? No! “Return in mercy to Jerusalem Your city and let your Shechina rest there as You have spoken” we pray in the fourteenth blessing. We ask for it to be rebuilt as a binyan olam, an eternal city with an eternal Temple in which the eternal people can worship the Eternal G-D. Only then can we begin to talk about shalom.

Perhaps most remarkably of all, even the penultimate blessing of thanksgiving for Heavenly grace, modim anakhnu lakh, precedes the ultimate blessing for peace.

I would venture to suggest that the reason might be: shalom is not something for which we either have to petition or to thank G-D. Rather shalom is an ineluctable consequence of all the other blessings falling into place. Being granted knowledge, understanding, wisdom, forgiveness, wellbeing, the wherewithal to aspire to a just society in our own land, and in Jerusalem, G-D’s capital city - for all these things we thank G-D “whose name is All-Good”. The corollary of the fulfilment of all these blessings will be the shalom to which Judaism aspires. The final piece of the jigsaw whose placing is inevitable. Shalom stems from a Hebrew root meaning ‘to be complete’. Shalom must therefore be founded on the complete realisation of all the blessings mentioned heretofore.

In the closing chapters of Sefer Bemidbar, the Book of Numbers, we read about Pinchas. Zealously he defends the honour of G-D by slaying the two ringleaders in the unprecedented orgy that was taking place between the Israelite men and the Moabite women. He consults no sage, not even Moses. Instead he acts unilaterally. His drastic action was not something anyone could contemplate in any normal situation. Yet in this abnormal situation, Pinchas’s zeal calls forth this response from G-D: “Behold I am giving him b’riti shalom, my complete covenant, my covenant of Peace!”

Pinchas, the ultimate zealot, is acclaimed by G-D as a man of shalom. Indeed our sages declare Pinchas zu Eliahu, the same soul that animated Pinchas is present in Elijah the prophet who will announce the final and complete Redemption.

Grocery List

This is just one of those chain emails someone sent me, but this one is worth reading.

---------- Forwarded message ----------

Louise Redden, a poorly dressed lady with a look of defeat on her face, walked into a grocery store.

She approached the owner of the store in a most humble manner and asked if he would let her charge a few groceries.

She softly explained that her husband was very ill and unable to work, they had seven children and they needed food.

John Longhouse, the grocer, scoffed at her and requested that she leave his store at once.

Visualizing the family needs, she said: 'Please, sir! I will bring you the money just as soon as I can.'

John told her he could not give her credit, since she did not have a charge account at his store.

Standing beside the counter was a customer who overheard the conversation between the two. The customer walked forward and told the grocer that he would stand good for whatever she needed for her family. The grocer said in a very reluctant voice, 'Do you have a grocery list?'

Louise replied, 'Yes sir.' 'O.K' he said, 'put your grocery list on the scales and whatever your grocery list weighs, I will give you that amount in groceries.'

Louise hesitated a moment with a bowed head, then she reached into her purse and took out a piece of paper and scribbled something on it. She then laid the piece of paper on the scale carefully with her head still bowed.

The eyes of the grocer and the customer showed amazement when the scales went down and stayed down..

The grocer, staring at the scales, turned slowly to the customer and said begrudgingly, 'I can't believe it.'

The customer smiled and the grocer started putting the groceries on the other side of the scales. The scale did not balance so he continued to put more and more groceries on them until the scales would hold no more.

The grocer stood there in utter disgust. Finally, he grabbed the piece of paper from the scales and looked at it with greater amazement.

It was not a grocery list, it was a prayer, which said:

'Dear Hashem, you know my needs and I am leaving this in your hands.'

The grocer gave her the groceries that he had gathered and stood in stunned silence.

Louise thanked him and left the store. The other customer handed a fifty-dollar bill to the grocer and said; 'It was worth every penny of it. Only God knows how much a prayer weighs.'

THE POWER: When you receive this, say a prayer. That's all you have to do.

Just stop right now, and say a prayer of thanks for your own good fortune..... Then please send this to all your friends and relatives..

I believe if you will send this testimony out with prayer in faith, you will receive what you need Hashem to do in your and your families' life ..

So dear heart, trust Hashem to heal the sick, provide food for the hungry, clothes and shelter for those that don't have as we do.

Don't break this, please! Prayer is one of the best free gifts we receive.

There is no cost but a lot of rewards.

I AM CLAIMING THIS FOR YOU Three things will happen to you this coming week: bli neder!

(1) You will find favor with someone you don't expect;

(2) You will be too relevant to be ignored;

(3) You will encounter God and you will never remain the same, (?)

May you never be 'wanting' Amen.

My prayer for you today:

The eyes beholding this message shall not behold evil, the hands that will send this message to others shall not labor in vain, the mouth saying Amen to this prayer shall laugh forever. (Beholding the ingathering of the Diaspora to her Homeland, Israel).

Have a lovely journey of life!

Trust in Hashem with all your heart and He will never fail you because He is Awesome!

TAKE 60 SECONDS and send this on quickly and within hours, you will have caused a multitude of people to daven to Hashem for each other.