FOSTERING A VIBRANT RENEWAL OF JUDAISM IN POLAND
A celebrated Orthodox rabbi gets to heaven and an angel takes him to a banquet that has been prepared in his honor. “We will serve you the most tender meat, the juiciest fish, and fragrant wine,” the angel tells him. “But who was the Mashgiach for this meal?” the rabbi asks. “Ah,” says the angel. “In your honor, God was the Mashgiach.” “Thanks,” says the rabbi. “But I’ll just stick with the fish.”[…]
It may be boring to start a d’var Torah again by saying “we live in times of huge societal tensions and disagreements, where everyone is fighting with each other etc”. But it’s true. Was it different one, two, three decades ago? Who knows, some say yes, some say no. We, human beings, have a pretty strong and natural tendency to idealize our past: oh, things were not that wrong in the ‘80s. Oh, the ‘90s was[…]
How many of you have ever had an experience of thinking of doing A, and despite being really devoted to do A, you did B, and regretted that after the fact? How many of have you had an experience of planning to do some work but under the suggestion or pressure of another person we decided to choose pleasures instead and then didn’t get the work done? And the last question: how many of you have had an experience in which you passionately prayed for something, with…[…]
“United we stand, divided we fall” is a phrase used in many different kinds of mottos, most often to inspire unity and collaboration. Its core concept lies in the collectivist notion that if individual members of a certain group with binding ideals.[…]
There is an old Japanese story about a samurai and a fisherman. One day, the samurai went to collect a debt from the fisherman. “I’m sorry,” the fisherman said, “but this last year has been a very bad one for me, and I regret to say I do not have the money to repay you.” Quick to anger, the samurai drew his sword and prepared to kill the fisherman on the spot. Thinking fast, the fisherman boldly said, “I have been studying martial arts and my master teaches that you should never strike out of anger.”[…]
Over the last few days I have been reading the book “The Power Of a Positive No” by William Ury. Reading the first chapter, I already realized that the topic of the book overlaps with the topic of this week’s Torah portion. But before I explain what this book and its concepts have in common with our parashah, let me quickly reflect on the latter itself, to summarize its theological message.[…]
