Month: October 2016

Advice From an 80 Year Old Man

Old Man
Old Man

I came across this and felt I just must share. Worthwhile for us all! Enjoy!

Advice from an 80 year old man…………

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Being Happy on Sukkot – Even Without Your Own Sukkah

BneiBraq033By Ori~ (Own work) [Attribution], via Wikimedia Commons

With regards to the Festival of Sukkot, the Torah tells us that, “And the Lord spoke to Moses saying: Speak to the Children of Israel and tell them, the 15th day of this seventh month shall be the Festival of Sukkot – seven days for the Lord… for seven days, you shall present a burnt offering to the Lord…

On the first day, you shall take for yourself a fruit of the citron tree (etrog), a palm frond (lulav), myrtle branches (hadas) and willows (aravah). You shall rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days. During these seven days each year, you shall celebrate to God. It is an eternal law for all generations that you celebrate in the seventh month.

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My Worst Prayer of the Year – The Best Prayer of the Year

Sperm Whale
Sperm Whale

Perhaps, the best day of the year has just passed by… Yom Kippur. Coming with Yom Kippur is that feeling that the day is truly providing some sort of unique cleaning over the soul – that no other day can provide. Working through Elul, Rosh HaShanah and then the Ten Days of Repentance, keeps one in touch with just how much there still is to correct – to fix up! Then – Yom Kippur comes along. It’s an intense day. There’s fasting, standing for lengthy time periods, focusing on prayer and keeping one’s mind focused on the day itself and what it means.

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How to Say Sorry – How to Ask For Forgiveness

Sorry Sign with Rose
Sorry with Rose

As we make our way through the Ten Days of Repentance, it is delightful to see how many people want to repent of their wayward ways. It seems like everyone wants to jump on the bandwagon and join the team – so to speak – to be a part of what others are doing. With all this, however, what is real Teshuvah all about and are we going about things the right way after all?

The Rambam (1135-1204) discusses the laws of repentance in great detail through ten chapters of his main work the Yad HaChazakah. Many are of the opinion that one should study one chapter each day of the Ten Days of Repentance in order to get a full overview of everything involved. A short blog post does not do justice to the full importance of all the points involved. The Rambam details everything from what Teshuvah – repentance – is all about – to how to actually do it. He discusses the importance of understanding repentance as is applicable to mitzvot – commandments – between man and God, as well as those between man and man.

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Fixing a Broken Vessel – A Story and Thought for Yom Kippur

Diamond
Diamond

Rabbi Abahu in Masechet Berachot 34b teaches that, “In a place that Baalei Teshuvah (those who repent) stand, Tzaddikim (righteous people) do not stand.” Such does the Rambam (1135-1204) rule in the Laws of Repentance 7:4.

The righteous individual is one who never sins. He is a master of his evil inclination in every sense of the word. The Baal Teshuvah, however, is one who stumbles through life. His life is filled with highs and lows. One moment he finds himself praying to God with fiery flames of emotion, and the next moment he finds himself in a web of misconduct. One moment he feels he can do everything for the sake of God – and the next, he finds himself in a place rebelling against everything good! He can barely imagine how he ever got there! Who would we ever imagine to be the greater of the two? Yet clearly, the law states that the righteous person – the Tzaddik – cannot stand in the place where the Baal Teshuvah stands. Apparently the Baal Teshuvah’s level is higher. He reaches to places where the Tzaddik will never reach. As the day of Yom Kippur – the Day of Atonement – approaches, how best can we understand this powerful teaching of Rabbi Abahu?

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New Beginnings

Road With Start Sign
Road With Start Sign

BOOM! New beginnings – for us! It’s been a long road – and now it’s really the start of the road yet again! Here we are just after Rosh Hashanah 5777 launching our new website. New Israeli law requires sites to be web accessible – meaning that everyone should have the opportunity to enjoy web content as much as anyone else – or to phrase it differently, those suffering from any type of disability should be allowed equal access to material on the web as those who are healthy in every respect. Colours can make a difference for some. Yet others cannot hear (and require all videos to come with captions throughout the video – or even sign language videos to accompany the original video.) To find out more about the new law, see our page on Web Accessibility Law in Israel.

Continue reading “New Beginnings”