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Posted by Mrs. Rochel Holzkenner
It seems like every story in the Torah is centered around the Land of Israel. At the very beginning when G-d records His seven day creation process the Midrash asks, ‘ How is this knowledge useful to us?’ The answer: ‘When other nations will claim that you stole the Land of Israel you will respond that the very G-d who created the world gave us this land.’ Apparently the story of creation is recorded only to endorse our ownership of the Holy Land.
In the third section of the Torah G-d commands Abraham to move to Israel (then Canaan). Both Isaac and Jacob are born there. Throughout the first Book of the Torah, G-d frequently reiterates to our forefathers His promise that their children will inherit the Holy Land.
Eventually the Jewish people descend to Egypt to live with Joseph. After Joseph dies things didn’t look too pretty for the Jews down in Egypt and they finally flee the abusive tyranny of King Pharoh. This story transpires in the beginning of the second book of the Torah, the Book of Shmos.
In the next three and a half Books of the Torah we ride the forty year journey of the People as they wonder through the desert, on-route to Israel. It is a tumultuous trek, full of challenges and disappointments, and yet it was a voyage that was spiritually charged.
The goal of the journey was to reach the Holy Land and inhabit it. And like all long-term goals, too much time elapsed and too many details tend to blur sight of the objective. It’s all too easy to loose steam after trudging for forty years.
The most blatant example of this was the response of the ten spies sent to scout out the land of Israel a few months after leaving Egypt. They reported that ‘the people that live in Canaan (soon to be Israel) are giants, we will never be able to conquer the land from them.’ They were so pessimistically persuasive that the whole Jewish nation got cold feel and said that they didn’t want to enter Israel; The whole nation that is, excluding the women. The Midrash explicitly states that all of the women rejected the gloomy advice of the spies spoke out against them. They loved Israel and firmly believed that G-d would bring them into the land.
Parshat PInchas tells us the following story: At the end of the forty year journey as the Jews were about to enter into the Holy Land, five assertive woman approached Moses with an adamant request. “Our father, Zhelavchad, died in the desert” they explained, “and he had no sons to inherit his portion of Israel. Give us a portion along with our father’s brothers.” This was an unprecedented request. The land was usually passed down from father to son. Moses was perplexed and brought their case before G-d. The response was clear as day; “Tzelavchad’s daughter’s speak justly!’ Their claim is just. Fortunate is the person whose words concurs with the Holy One’s.
G-d was delighted to see the intense love that these women had for the land of Israel. Unlike the men who bought into the dark advice of the spies and said ‘Lets go back to Egypt’, these daughters exclaimed, “Give us a portion in the land.”
Isolating a target aspiration and staying focused is apparently a woman thing. And G-d seems to value their assertive commitment.
(Adapted from a talk of the Lubavitcher Rebbe) |
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Posted by Mrs. Rochel Holzkenner
Dan and Rachel were engaged to be married when they sat down with a therapist for some pre-marital counseling. The therapist began,
“The best advice I can give you is to let the man make the large decisions and the woman make the small decisions.” Three years later the couple went back to the therapist’s couch.
Dan begins; “Your advice is just not working
well for us.” “Why is that?” asks the therapist.
Rachel pipes in, “I let Dan make all the big decisions, for example, whether we should bring back our troops from Iraq or to pull out of the recession. I make the small decisions
like which home we should purchase and where we should send our child to school.”
In Parshat Balak, a famous non-Jewish prophet is hired to curse the Jewish people. Instead, when Balak opens his mouth to curse them, he cannot help but shower them with praise. In his elegant prose, Balak describes the Jewish
peoples’ magnificent virtues. He says, “How can I curse whom G-d has not cursed, and how can I invoke wrath if G-d has not been angered? From their beginning, I see them as
mountain peaks and I behold them as hills….”
What is it about the Jewish nation that reminds Balak of a mountain or a hill? The Midrash understands the mountains to be a reference to the patriarchs and the hill to the matriarchs.
When Balak looked at the Israelites he immediately noticed the good stock from which they were bred. Abraham was a ‘tower of a man’ and his characteristics, and those Isaac,
Rachel and Rebekah were evident in the construct of their great great-grandchildren.
“I see them as mountain peaks” – these are the patriarchs, “I behold them as hills” – these are the matriarchs. Balak’s symbolism is very telling about masculine and feminine dynamics. It parallels the male and female role in procreation. The man contributes but one drop for a moment in time while the woman cultivates the embryo for nine months as it forms into a well differentiated human being.
The man’s experience is like a mountain peak; powerful but relatively narrow and specific. A women’s role in the child’s development is more like a hill, broad and expansive.
Looking around from a mountain’s peak is quite different from the hill’s scenic panorama. The mountain’s peak view is far reaching but everything is seen from a great distance. From the hill less can be seen, but the view is close.This is why Balak says, “I see …mountain peaks – I behold… hills; behold implying a close-up look at something. Balak was alluding to the division of masculine and feminine roles in the traditional Jewish household. As the ‘mountain peak’, the man sets the initial tone for religious spirit in the home. Then it is the woman who translates this spirit into practical and daily application. She shows her family how to integrate the
vision of idealism in an authentic manner. Both men a women share masculine and feminine modalities. And within every soul is the mountain peak, the vision, and the hill, the
good sense to make that vision practical.
(Based on the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe |
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Posted by Mrs. Rochel Holzkenner
The Chabad Approach to Life
By Jonathan Sacks
In one lifetime, the Rebbe's influence was felt throughout the entire Jewish world. Wherever Jews are: in Hawaii, in Hong Kong, in Alaska or Australia, there you will find a Chabad-Lubavitch Rabbi, a direct personal emissary of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson. There you will see him/her reaching out to Jews and rekindling the flame of Jewish life. Lubavitch went and still goes
everywhere. Above all, Lubavitch went before anyone else -- and at a time when it was fraught with immense danger -- to the former Soviet Union. The USSR was surely one of the greatest systematic attempts in all of human history to extinguish the "Ner Tamid" – the continuous flame of our faith. And Lubavitch reached out to the Jews of silence to keep the spirit of Jewish Judaism alive... and succeeded
in doing so! It was risky, it was almost impossible, and because it was almost impossible, Lubavitch did it.Chabad recognized -- under the Rebbe --no boundaries. I remember the one occasion that I spent Rosh Hashanah together with the Rebbe in 770 Eastern Parkway, Lubavitch World Headquarters in Brooklyn, NY. And still then they were talking about an event that happened some years before, I think 1955.
Each year the Lubavitcher Rebbe would lead thousands of Chassidim along Eastern Parkway
to do Tashlich [the prayer done at the side of water to symbolize the throwing of the sins in to the water] on Rosh Hashanah at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. That year there was a tremendous downpour, and so powerful was it, that there was no one else out on the streets. When the Chassidim following the Rebbe arrived at the park, they found the gates of the gardens closed. What do you do? The garden is closed, it's locked, the gates are barred. Completely undeterred, the Rebbe looked at the seven or eight foot metal fence and proceeded to climb over it. And if the Rebbe climbs over a fence and you're a Chassid, what can you do but follow? That year in Lubavitch they recited the famous saying of the Rebbe
Maharash, the fourth Chabad Rebbe:
"If you meet an obstacle, and you can't go under then you go over. And I say that is it is actually preferable to go over than to go under!"
Lubavitch recognizes no closed doors, no boundaries. Uforatzta – sprout out. It used and still uses every modern technology of communication, Cable and satellite, Mivtzah campaigns and Mitzvah mobiles. Lubavitch, before it was ever heard of in other circles, went to Jews that the other Jews forgot, to tiny isolated communities, to university campuses. Jews on drugs, to Jews in prison. The Torah says, "If you are scattered at the ends of the heaven, from there the L-rd your G‑d will gather you and from there will He bring you back." And was there ever a religious leader in Israel who took that verse so to heart and so
astonishingly became a partner with the Almighty Himself in bringing back from every corner of the Jewish world. |
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Posted by Mrs. Rochel Holzkenner
Moses, Obama, and Atheists
In the 18th century the doctrines of the enlightenment movement spread throughout Europe and America. Revolutionary thinker like Voltaire and Roseau opened the door for a more humanistic and rational approach to life. One question remained; would religious fervor suffocate in an atmosphere of rationality? Truth be told, many enlightened thinkers, Jew and Gentile alike, could not reconcile faith with reason and abandoned their religion.
What does Judaism say about the conflict between faith and reason, between objective intellect and subjective emotions? The Torah does not shy away from this fundamental question. In fact on some level Moses himself battled with this anomaly.
Last week’s Torah portion, Parshat Shmot, concludes when Moshe turns to G-d and asks Him bluntly, “Why do you do bad to your people?” 1 What had triggered this question? G-d sent Moses on a mission to Pharoh. He asked Pharoh to allow the Jews a three day vacation in the desert. Pharoh responds by increasing the mandatory work load inforced upon the Jewish people. Moses cannot understand. If G-d is good and Moses was sent on G-d’s mission, how could the outcome have been so disastrous?
There is a pause. A week long pause. Not until this week’s Torah portion, Parshat Va’era, do we get to hear G-d’s response. Will G-d be angry with Moses for questioning His ways? Will He explain to Moses that all of the suffering has some deeper meaning? We wait in suspense.
Parshat Va’era begins and G-d says, “2I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob with [the name] Almighty God, but [with] My name YHWH, I did not become known to them.” Rashi explains the meaning of this enigmatic response. G-d is saying,‘I made promises to the forefathers and have not yet fulfilled them, yet they never questioned my ways.’
Kabalah explains that while our forefathers served G-d primarily through their emotional faculties, while Moses’s primary service of G-d was based on intellectual conclusions about His existence. Throughout his life, Moses was able to foster a profound relationship with G-d through cognitive reflection. But there came a moment in their relationship where intellect would not suffice. This was a moment of truth. Would Moses be willing to take a lesson from his Patriarchs, and ‘let go and let G-d’. Would his love of G-d allow Moses to trust even when he didn’t understand.
Moses learned a powerful lesson that day. Intellect and faith work in unison, faith takes over when our intellect can no longer comprehend G-d. The more cultivated our intellectual understanding of G-d, the more profound the faith that follows.
Three weeks ago a group of atheists took legal action in hopes of having all religious references removed from President Obama’s inauguration ceremony. They did not succeed. Critics say that the 09’ inauguration had more mention of G-d and religion than any other. Perhaps President Obama’s ability to integrate politics, intellect and faith is a sign of a widespread integration of faith and reason in America today.
(Based on the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe) |
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Posted by Mrs. Rochel Holzkenner
Jewish women are notorious for advertising their martyrdom. Most people (including other martyrs)
find this habit to be annoying. I often promote myself as a martyr, complaining about how
overworked I am. What is so annoying about self proclaimed martyrs? My guess goes something like
this; the martyr is using the façade of selflessness to win attention and recognition.
Now lets explore the authentic side of self-sacrifice, the kind that is truly sincere; the kind that attracts
recognition without trying. This martyr understands that there is something higher than herself and is
gladly willing to put her ego aside for the sake of something nobler. In this week’s Torah portion we have the prototype of a martyr in the image of a woman (always a woman) who consistently puts aside her own
agenda – and with no strings attached. Let’s look into the story line.
In Parshat Vayechi, Jacob is about to bless Menashe and Ephraim, but suddenly interjects, and with no
introduction at all, proceeds to rake open an old wound in their relationship. He tells Joseph, “And
when I came from Padan, Rochel died unto me in the land of Canaan on the road…. I buried her there
on the road to Ephros which is Bais Lechem.” In the next verse he is already talking about his
grandchildren. At the end of the previous chapter, Jacob had asked Joseph to bury him in Chevron. “Although I burden you to bring me to be buried in the Land of Canaan, and I did not do likewise for your mother, for she died near Beis Lechem.”
Joseph felt badly that his mother had lost out on the great honor of being buried in the holy land with the
rest of the holy matriarchs and patriarchs. Jacob’s request for his own burial arouses this latent feeling
of pity for his mother. He continues, “But know that it was by the word of G-d that I buried her there so that she might help her descendants when Nevuzaradon would send them into exile and when they would pass by her way Rochel would emerge from her grave and cryand beseech mercy from G-d for them. As it is said ‘A voices is heard in Ramah, Rochel is weeping forher children and God answers her ‘there is reward for your toil for your children will return to theirborders.’”
How does Jacob soothe the aching heart of his son? “Yes my son, she was a martyr, this was her conscious choice. G-d commanded me to bury Rochel in the outskirts of Bais Lechem because this was Rochel’s desire; to give up her honored burial plot in order to provide comfort for her children as they passed by her grave, on their way down to exile in Babylon. Martyrdom was a central theme in Rachel’s life. She allowed her sister to marry the man whom she loved. And she did it with a full heart. Her posthumous request was in sync with the rest of her life. But Rochel never felt that she lost anything through giving. And she never did. Jacob says, “When I was in Padan Rochel died unto me.” These are words of great love and affection. She was the pillar of my home, and the pillar of my heart. She died on me. Jacob expresses his immeasurable love to Rochel within the context of her self-sacrifice. He tells Joseph, “Don’t you see my son; this was your mother’s greatness. She gave endlessly of herself but never felt bereft of
self-fulfillment.”
True martyrdom is the conscious choice to put an immediate benefit on hold for the sake of a more global and long term benefit. It is a wise investment. It leaves no room for self pity or even self aggrandizement. It is just being wise. “A voice is heard in Ramah, Rochel is weeping for her children. And G-d answers her, “There is reward for your toil,” says G-d.
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Posted by Mrs. Rochel Holzkenner
"I am Joseph. Is my father still alive?"
"But his brothers could not answer him because they were startled by his presence."
At the climax of this painful drama that spans two Torah portions, Joseph's brothers are shocked with the recognition that the ruler of Egypt is in fact their long lost brother.
"Then Joseph said to his brothers, "Please come closer to me," and they drew closer. And he said, "I am your brother Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt."
They fall into a loving embraces and old wounds can now begin to heal. Joseph asks that that they take wagons back to their father Jacob. Later when the brothers tell Jacob that Joseph is alive and viceroy in Egypt he couldn't believe them. It was only after he saw the wagons that Joseph sent could he allow himself to trust the transformational news.
Joseph knew that the wagons would communicate a confident message to his father. You see the very last conversation that Jacob and Joseph had was about a cow, and the Hebrew word for cow- egla - shares the same phonetic pronunciation as the word wagons – agalot. This was their secret. Only Joseph could have known their private Torah discussion twenty two years earlier. And Joseph's heart began to rejoice.
There was also another layer of significance of their covert communication. The egla arufah, which Jacob and Joseph had been studying about, is a cow is which is brought as a sacrificial atonement for an unexplained death. If a man is found dead in a field and the cause of his death is unknown, the elders from the closest proximal city need to depart from the city and announce "our hands are not responsible for the spilling of this blood…we did not see him leave without food". And yet even as they claim innocence they are still held partially responsible not taking appropriate care of this traveler.
Jacob explained to his son this entire saga on a spiritual plane as well. If a man has become spiritually lifeless, if he has erased all trace of passion from his soul and rejected the mitzvoth, the elders of the community need to take responsibility for his fall. Did we provide him/her with food before he set out into the field? Did we arm him with the inspiration and strength that is needed to maintain a G-d centered life in a world that is spiritually bankrupt? For if not we are at fault.
I teach high school girls. I see eighty teenage souls pass through my doors each day. Some students excel socially and academically and some struggle intensely just to get out of bed and get onto the bus. Will they find within the Torah the tools that they need to thrive in a challenging world? Will they find our interactions to be meaningful and nurturing? The responsibility is awesome.
Joseph tells his father the following; the education that you gave me was enough to fuel me through the toughest of times. Here I am, the only Jew in a foreign land, and I remained as scrupulous to my moral standards as I was under your tutelage. I may be in a position of great importance in Egypt, but in my heart I am still a humble Jew, begging for G-d's mercy each and every day. Father, it is I, your Joseph. |
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Posted by Mrs. Rochel Holzkenner
The seven weeks after Tisha B’Av are called the seven weeks of comfort. For seven weeks we read excerpts from the book of Isiah that discuss G-d’s compassion towards the Jewish people for their suffering. Mirroring the chapters from Isiah read in the haftorah, the Torah portions also provide us with subtle messages to placate our aching hearts’.
Parshat Eikev opens as Moshe is reliving the many stirring events that had transpired over the past forty years in the desert. Moshe tells them, “G-d led you in the great and awesome desert, with snakes and scorpions and thirst without water.” At a basic level Moshe is recounting the challenges of this nomadic tribe as they traveled through dangerous terrain on-route to the land of Canaan. But there is also a hidden message about our travels through the parched desert of exile, flooded with its own dangerous challenges.
After the Jews were exiled from Israel, their Temple destroyed and millions murdered in cold blood, the surviving Jews moved mainly to Bavel (modern day Iraq). From Bavel they ultimately migrated to North Africa, Italy, Greece, Germany and Spain, until they scattered to cover the entire planet. Compared to the vibrant spirituality in the Holy Land, the new destinations were like a parched desert. As an immigrant in a new land there was a particular psychosis that seemed to reoccur in the desert of exile.
“The desert was great and awesome.” The Jew wakes up to a new homeland where Jews are the vast minority. The natives may mock the Hebrews and have ugly names for them. Feeling weak and vulnerable the Jew becomes awestruck and is afraid to stand up for his spiritual ideals.
“…filled with snakes and scorpions.” Snakes are known for their hot venom. This symbolizes the passionate appeal of the vanities offered by the pop-culture of exile. Just as the victim often identifies with the oppressor, the Jew feels first intimidated by his secular environment and then excited by it. Next comes the scorpion. The scorpion is said to inject a cold venom into its victim. In the spiritual digression in exile, this phenomenon is apathy towards G-d and spiritually. A Jew tries to pray but he feels nothing inside. Shabbat becomes boring and too long. The Jew just cannot get into Judaism.
“The desert was thirsty without water.” This is the final stage in Jewish estrangement, the worst of them all. Although the Jew is thirsty and he realizes that there is a void in his life, he cannot find water. He cannot figure out how to fill this hollow sensation. Perhaps another dress, a yacht, a vacation; but the void still lingers. He forgets that Torah is the water that quenches the thirst of the soul.
The healthy route for healing this downward spiraling psychosis of exile requires a reversal at the problem’s root; “The desert seemed great and vast”. Instead of feeling outnumbered and insignificant, stand up tall with Jewish pride. The potency of the spirit can penetrate the most insensitive and intimidating environment.
This is the subtle tune of comfort offered by the Torah portion. It inspires us to be poised and self-assuranced. It reminds us not to underestimate to power of the minority to spread light and make large ripples of goodness.
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Posted by Mrs. Rochel Holzkenner
The seven weeks after Tisha B’Av are called the seven weeks of comfort. For seven weeks we read excerpts from the book of Isiah that discuss G-d’s compassion towards the Jewish people for their suffering. Mirroring the chapters from Isiah read in the haftorah, the Torah portions also provide us with subtle messages to placate our aching hearts’.
Parshat Eikev opens as Moshe is reliving the many stirring events that had transpired over the past forty years in the desert. Moshe tells them, “G-d led you in the great and awesome desert, with snakes and scorpions and thirst without water.” At a basic level Moshe is recounting the challenges of this nomadic tribe as they traveled through dangerous terrain on-route to the land of Canaan. But there is also a hidden message about our travels through the parched desert of exile, flooded with its own dangerous challenges. |
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Posted by Mrs. Rochel Holzkenner
Does G -d Hate?
By R. Holzkenner
[to G-d] I know, I know. We are Your chosen people. But, once in a while, can't You choose someone else? - Tevya
This week we begin the first portion of the last book of the Torah; Parshat Devorim.
Incidentally, this portion is always read on the Shabbat before the 9 th Day of Av. The 9th of Av is one of the most painful and tragic days in our history. Over and over again disaster struck on this day. It began three thousand three hundred and twelve years ago when the spies returned from the land of Israel. Moses had sent them to aid in capturing the land. On the 9th of Av they returned to their brethren with a frightening report that shattered their hope of entering into the Promised land. It was for this sin that the Jews were forced to wander the desert for forty years before entering Israel.
Fast forward 890 years. On the 9 th of Av the first High Holy Temple was destroyed and ransacked. The Jews were exiled from their homes in chains. Four Hundred and Ninety years later the second High Holy Temple is engulfed with flames as it burns to the ground. Millions are murdered by the Roman army. Finally in 1914 WWI broke out, a precursor to WWII and the Holocaust. We fast and mourn on the day for the agony and grief that colors our history. How are we to process this load of collective pain that has been accumulating for thousands of years?
In Parshat Devorim Moshe reminds the Jewish people of that tragic night when the spies returned home. “And they murmered in their tents and they said, ‘It is because G-d hates us that he took us out of Egypt’”. Rashi comments, “Really, however, He loves you, but you hate Him. A common parable says: What is in your own heart about your friend, [you imagine] is in his heart about you.”
Here we seem to have a common case of psychological projection. The Jews were angry at what seemed to be a dead end journey out of Egypt. Instead of owning up to their own resentment they projected those hateful feelings onto G-d. I can so easily identify with this mental trick. I’m thinking of a Friday three years back. I suffered from a tremendously painful disappointment that day. As I waved my hands above the Shabbat candles tears gushed down my cheeks and at first I could not utter the candle’s blessing. I felt so abandoned by my Creator. I was angry with Him, and I imagined that He hated me.
But why did they murmur this in their tents? They certainly did a lot of complaining out in the open. Gossip had spread like wild fire. Because they didn’t really believe it. In their heart of hearts they knew that G-d loved them unconditionally. Although circumstances were unbearable, even though they had sharply criticized G-d, He still loved them.
Here lies one of the powerful messages to bring into the 9 th of Av. To quote the Baal Shem Tov, G-d loves every single Jew like a man would love his only child born to him in his old age. In the most challenging of times, this needs to be on the forefront of our mind. |
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Posted by Mrs. Rochel Holzkenner
This week a friend asked me about a spiritual mentor of mine. She wanted to consult this mentor about a particular problem. “How long do you think I’ll have to work with her?” she asked me. “I don’t know” I responded. “I’ve been working with her for eight years and my journey is still not over.”
"These are the journeys of the children of Israel, going out of the land of Mitzrayim (Egypt)." So opens the Torah section of Massei ("Journeys"---Numbers 33-36), which goes on to chronicle their travels from Egypt to the Holy Land, listing their forty-two encampments from Ramases in Egypt to the Plains of Moab on the eastern bank of the Jordan River.
It would seem, however, that there was only one journey which took the Jewish nation out of Egypt: their journey from Ramases to Sukkot. The other forty journeys were between points outside of the geographical borders of Egypt. Why, then, does the Torah speak of the journeys, in the plural, of "the children of Israel going out of the land of Mitzrayim"?
“Mitzrayim” the Hebrew word for Egypt means boundaries or constraints. The spritual journey from Mitzrayim to the Holy Land is the road from the constraints of the ego to a live that is driven by the goodness of the soul. This is a journey that involves many steps; often a lifetime of steps. An inner demon that was conquered long can reappears as if it never left. When we wrestle with the same ‘mitzrayim’ again and again we wonder if there is any real progress that has been made.
Evidently G-d does not view our baby steps as inconsequential. Each of the forty-two steps taken by the Jews was called a journey. Getting from point A to point B is a journey, even if the ultimate goal is reach Z. Each step is not only a means to a greater end buy also an end in of itself, worthy of applause. The name Massei ‘Journeys’ reassures us that if the ultimate goal is never met, today’s progress was worthy of being called a voyage.
Conversely the Torah comes to inspire those who think that they have reached their goal and have left their ‘mitzrayim’. You may have finished one journey but there are forty-two journeys. We can always shed the ego a little more tomorrow than we did today.
The endeavor to exit Mitzrayim takes on a special significance in the stretch of calendar known as Bein HaMetzarim ("between the narrow straits")3--the three weeks between the 17th of Tammuz and the 9th of Av. Bein HaMetzarim is our annual re-experience of the tragedy of galut--our banishment from the "good broad land" and the diminution of G-d's manifest presence on physical earth with the destruction of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. Wherever one may stand in the forty-two-rung ladder from utter slavery to divine expanse, there is always the need, and capacity, to achieve an exodus from all that constrains us, from without and from within. |
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