Parshas Ki Savo: Respecting Our Elders

This week, Rebbetzin Rachel was speaking with a 77-year-old woman. This woman is unique in that not only is she a proudly self-proclaimed “older person” but she also works (yes, still works!) with the elderly. She even lives in an independent living facility where, she says, she is further surrounded by “old people.” (Her words, not ours!)

Chances are that few people understand the situation of older people in today’s society than this woman, who lives with them, works with them, and even is one! Sadly, she pointed out that many older people in today’s society feel discarded. Young people, she said, don’t want to hear what the elderly have to say. She said some young people have even told her she and other old people are “always complaining.”

What a stark contrast to Judaism! When Moses tells the Jews about the evil people they will meet in their future, he describes “a brazen people who will not respect the old.” In other parts of the Torah, Jews are instructed to go out of their way to help an older person, even if they are not Jewish. Parshas Kedoshim even tells us specifically to stand when an elderly person (someone above the age of 70) enters the room, even if he/she is not a Torah scholar!

The elderly are a treasure. They have wisdom, insight, and life experiences with which we younger people are not yet endowed. The advice they can give us is invaluable and the stories they can tell us fascinating, and indeed, priceless. To see so many of the elderly treated so poorly in today’s society is heartbreaking.

The good news is, we can each help to change this. Studies show that people live longer, happier, and healthier lives if they are valued by society. If we visit the elderly and show the world our Torah values by honoring them, we can change the world in three fundamental ways: changing the life of the person we are visiting, changing our own life by absorbing their wisdom, and changing the behavior of others by acting as an example and role model.

This week, let us all be true Torah examples of love, respect, and kindness for our elders.

Shabbat Shalom!

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Parshas Ki Seitzei: Biting Off More Than You Can Chew

Often when we get excited about something, we just want to dive right in.  No matter what it is – a project, a resolution – we always want to start out perfect.

The problem is, it is often more than we can handle.  One of the most important keys to making a resolution and sticking to it is to make a resolution you can keep.  It’s all well and good to make a resolution to start exercising by going to the gym three days a week, but if you make a resolution to go to the gym seven days a week, you will soon find it impossible.  While that may be a good resolution for someone who already goes to the gym five days a week, it is not a good resolution for someone who doesn’t exercise at all.  As they say, “baby steps”!

This week’s parsha contains more mitzvot than any other parsha in the Torah – 74 all together!  That’s a lot of mitzvot!  When we look at a list like this, it seems really daunting.  It’s all well and good to resolve to keep all 74 of these mitzvot if you already keep 65 of them, but if most of them are new to you, it’s just not realistic to expect to keep them all.

People often think that Judaism is an all-or-nothing religion.  “Why keep kosher at home if we plan to eat out in non-kosher restaurants?” some people ask us.  The truth is, every mitzvah counts.  If you can start keeping kosher at home, that’s a big mitzvah! Even if you still do eat out.  Eventually, if you keep growing in your relationship with G-d, you will be able to stop eating non-kosher out as well.  It’s not being a hypocrite, as some people might claim. It’s simply taking baby steps!

G-d created us, so G-d knows what we are capable of.  We each have great potential, but we have to build up to reach it.  Just as a skyscraper is not built in a day, nor is a spiritually great person.  And along the way, G-d judges us according to our level.  G-d does not compare you to someone who is “better” than you.  You’re not being measured against Abraham or Moses.  You are being judged in comparison to yourself.

This is an important lesson to remember now that we are in the month of Elul and Rosh Hashana is approaching.  As we stand before G-d for judgment, He is not asking us to beperfect – He is asking us to be better.  Now is the time to ask ourselves, are we better than we were last year? Or are we just the same?  There is still time to make a change, to make a difference, to grow.

And as for all those commandments in this week’s parsha?  The good news is, you probably do most of them anyway! Returning a lost object, helping a neighbor in need, being kind to animals, and speedy burial of the deceased are all things we all (hopefully!) do already.  Rather than feeling overwhelmed, choose just one or two things to improve.  As this parsha reminds us, Miriam was punished for speaking badly about Moses, so too we should each work on not speaking badly of others.  Avoiding speaking and listening to gossip is a fantastic mitzvah we can probably all work on.  Let’s all grow, together!

Shabbat Shalom!

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Parshas Shoftim: The Power of a Can-Do Attitude

How many of us achieve our dreams and our goals? Studies show that most people abandon a resolution within two weeks of making it. Some of this is just due to habit – it’s hard to create or break habits – but some of it is due to our attitude. Many times we simply do not reach our goals because in our minds we are thinking we will never reach them. And that simple thought undermines us and makes itself true – and in the process corrodes future optimism.

It’s easy to be a nay-sayer. It’s easy to look at any project, resolution, or goal and say, “Oh, it’s just not possible.” Even for Rabbis this is the case. It is very easy for a Rabbi to say “That’s not kosher” but much harder for a Rabbi to say, “Yes, it is kosher.” Saying “No” is easy because there are always a million and one things that could go wrong in every case. Saying “Yes” is difficult because it requires hard work, diligence, commitment, and deep thought.

In this week’s parsha, we are commanded to make a peaceful overture to our enemies before waging battle. Often, we barge head-on into conflict, our self-righteousness carrying us forward. But secretly we are thinking, “What is the point of making a peaceful overture they will never accept?” We simply expect that because we disagree, conflict is inevitable and attempts at resolution will fail. We do not approach our enemies with open hearts and open minds because ours, unfortunately, are already closed.

This is the real reason we give gifts on Purim. We are meant to give gifts not to our friends, but to those we are in conflict with. It is a way of making a peaceful overture while at the same time “saving face.” The fact is, most of the time if we make a peace offering the person we are at odds with will accept and return it. But we are too busy telling ourselves “it is not possible” to accept that it is not only possible, but it actually probable!

This is true not only in cases of conflict, but in every area of our lives. Whether it’s a dream, a goal, or a project, we can at least make a peaceful overture instead of waging a war on it. We can start making an effort to accomplish it and accompany it with the message of “Yes, I can!” If we can do this, we will undoubtedly be surprised by the amount of success we have.

Shabbat Shalom!

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Parshas Re’eh: What Sets Israel Apart

Isn’t it interesting how we fear those who are different?  Think back to primary school – who was the kid who got picked on the most?  It was not the most “average” kid. It was the person who stood out the most.  Perhaps it was the only obese child in the class.  Maybe it was the one who was poorest, with shirts showing holes at the elbows, and no lunch money.  Maybe it was the girl who was too tall or the boy who was too short.

As we grow up, not much changes.  Xenophobia (fear of immigrants) is alive and well in many places.  If someone shows up who does not look like us, think like us, or act like us, we immediately become suspicious.  It is harder for them to fit in.  And this actually makes a lot of sense because historically, someone who was “different” often was a threat.  A drunk Russian soldier in the synagogue spelled trouble for the Jews, just as a sly Frenchman was not trusted in the medieval British court.

So it should come as no surprise that Israel has many detractors in the world today. Israel is different from all the other countries in the Middle East.  The Middle East is made up of 16 countries, 15 of which are Muslim.  Israel is the only country in the Mideast that is not under Arabic rule and which features true democracy.  Israel is the only country in the Middle East where Muslims, Christians, and even Jews can live freely without fears of constant persecution.

This freedom is not just because Israel boasts of the only democracy in the region.  It is because Israel is a Jewish state.  And as Jews, freedom is part of our spiritual makeup.

In this week’s parsha, G-d says to us: “See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil … I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse.” Yet, surely G-d has the power to force us to do good.  He could make it so that any punishment for any sin would come immediately.  If we Jews knew that if we ate non-kosher food we would G-d forbid die right away, we would all certainly be keeping kosher!

However, this is not what G-d did.  G-d laid out for us a choice: we can choose to do good or we can choose to do evil. We can choose to do one or the other… or a little bit of both.  We have freedom.

That freedom, more than anything else, is what sets Israel apart from all other nations in the Middle East.  A woman in Saudi Arabia cannot choose to wear what she wants. A man in Gaza cannot choose to speak publicly in support of Israel.  To do either of these things will bring about swift reprisals from the ruling factions.  But in Israel a woman can wear what she chooses, even if it’s not really the right, Torah, thing to do.  In Israel a man can speak out in support of giving away the land of Israel to Palestinians even if what they say may go against the Torah.  In Israel there is freedom to choose what and who you want to be.  And that, ultimately, is what sets Israel apart.

Shabbat shalom!

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It’s Tisha B’Av and I’m Scared

This morning I woke up and the first thing I wanted was a nice, hot shower.  It’s the dead of winter and with extreme lows and our heating off, I’m freezing.  I have a cold.  A nice, hot shower would be the very best thing I can imagine right now. But no hot showers for me, no way!  Because as soon as the thought of a hot shower crossed my mind, the realization that Tisha B’Av starts tomorrow night hit me like a slap in the face.  Here we are in the 9 days leading up to Tisha B’Av – how can I even think of taking a pleasant hot shower now?

These past few weeks have been harrowing for me.  The war going on in Israel has placed an ice cold shard of fear in my heart.  Those are not just people living there! They are my family!  And they are under attack.  Tisha B’Av and the 3 week mourning period leading up to it has never been more real for me – except once.

It was actually exactly 7 years ago that I first met Rabbi Ben, during this same 9 day period leading up to Tisha B’Av.  I was traveling in Peru, only I hadn’t considered the Jewish calendar until after I’d booked my holiday there.  I had a tightly packed schedule and not much wiggle room.  I had to be in Lima on certain days and in Machu Picchu on one day in particular.  With chagrin I realized that erev Tisha B’Av was my one and only day to visit the world wonder.  I planned to visit the mountain’s cafe and guzzle as much water as I could hold just before sunset but alas, the shop was closed when I got there.

That Tisha B’Av was destined to be hard, as I didn’t have a meal or good drink beforehand, but had instead spent the entire day hiking from sunrise to sunset.  But that’s not what makes it stand out in my mind, oh no!  While hiking I had met a group of friendly Chileans and decided to travel back to Cuzco with them that night.  My hotel in Aguas Calientes had tried to cheat me and I didn’t want to stay there another night – better to travel straight back to Cuzco.

However, when we boarded the bus, it was immediately clear that the driver had been drinking. Heavily.  Many of the passengers complained but the bus lurched into motion anyway – with me on it! It was only then that I remembered with a shock that I was actually traveling on Tisha B’Av.  The bus swayed along a narrow road and as I looked out the window I could see straight down the side of a steep cliff.  The reality of my situation was that I was staring death in the face and I was terrified.  I began davening with more kavanah than I ever have in my entire life.  Tisha B’Av was upon us.  The tragedy of the Jewish people now became my tragedy personally and I could feel the fear of life and death that reminds us of our mourning for the Temple and all we have lost.

Fortunately my prayers were answered and as the bus lurched into the next town, the police stopped it (due to the banging on windows and screaming from passengers) and made the driver dry out before sending us on our way.  But I will never forget the feeling of abject fear as I realized this was no ordinary day. This was Tisha B’Av and it was, literally and figuratively, a black one.

Now more than ever we must recognize the reality of Tisha B’Av that we are facing. Is the timing of these terrorist attacks on our people a coincidence? Of course not.  It is Tisha B’Av! Time to wake up!  We are in a period of intense mourning now and we should feel that now more than ever.

It is Tisha B’Av and I’m scared. There are no two ways about it.  As the dreaded day draws nearer and I hear reports of soldiers killed (one whose wife gave birth just after he was killed, another who was engaged to be married in 3 months) and of a soldier kidnapped, I literally shiver.  If this is what happens to us in the 3 weeks, if this is what happens to us in the 9 days, what will happen to us when Tisha B’Av actually arrives?

What we must do – the ONLY thing we can do – is to increase our teshuva. Increase our prayers. Give extra tzedaka.  Work hard, so very hard, on rectifying the sin of sinas chinam that brought us to this point.  Remember, at the siege of Jerusalem it was not the Romans who defeated the Jews – it was the Jews who defeated the Jews. There was food and water enough for 7 years but it was destroyed by the Jews fighting one another.  Now that we are under siege again – this time in the form of all of Israel – we must not destroy ourselves by fighting one another.  Reach out, love your fellow Jews, and please show as much support for our brothers and sisters in the Holy Land as you possibly can!

Here are some ideas for some good charities if you want to give tzedaka:

Friends of the IDF - support the soldiers who protect us

Neve Yerushalayim – support women learning Torah

Aish HaTorah – support men and women learning Torah

Chabad.org – support people worldwide learning Torah online

Karmey Chesed – support families and soldiers in need

Keren Hashviis – support farmers keeping Shmitta year in Israel (with rocket attacks harder than ever!)

If you are a US citizen, please contact your senators to thank them personally for their continued support of Israel! The US Senate recently approved additional funding for Iron Dome in Israel!  If we all write to express our gratitude for their support, they will give even more support!

Wishing you all an easy fast this Tish B’Av and praying that Hashem should have mercy on us and send us Moshiach soon!