“Love your neighbor as yourself.” How’s that even possible for me to love my neighbor? I don’t even like him. I can’t stand his ideas, he talks too much, and his behavior is embarrassing. Love him? No way. At best, maybe I can force a smile when he comes around. …
One of the most important lessons of the Torah is that each and every one of us has a Divine purpose and mission on earth. There is a universal mission that we are all obligated in. However, there is also a unique mission for every nation — United States, England, …
Life is an endless journey. And it is really all about the journey. There’s so much life and value in the process, so much growth and awareness in the journey, as difficult as it may sometimes be. It’s all about improving, building, and accomplishing. It doesn’t always seem so wonderful. …
One day my son and two daughters burst into my study. They had obviously been fighting over something and were very upset. I could see that I was chosen to be the lucky arbitrator to resolve another case of sibling rivalry. They shouted at each other, “You go, you ask …
In 2nd century B.C.E, the Greek Seleucid Emperor Antiochus Epiphanes began a systematic campaign against Judaism, which he saw as an obstacle to the spread of Hellenist philosophy in Israel. He forbid certain forms of religious observance (such as circumcision, for example)—disobedience was punishable by death. He desecrated the Temple by sacrificing pigs there, and he put up a statue of the Greek G-d Jupiter in the Holy of Holies. Enraged, Mattathias the Maccabee and his five sons recruited a small army of Jews and launched a guerrilla war that is commonly known as the Maccabean revolt. After three years of aggressive fighting, this small Jewish army miraculously beat the huge and mighty Greek army. They took back control of Jerusalem and, on the 25th of the Hebrew month Kislev, re-dedicated the Temple and rekindled the light of Torah life.
Imagine you walk into a magic store where they sell special flashlights equipped with magic lights of different kinds. For example, you can buy the light of science, and when you point that flashlight at your hand, you see not a hand, but cells and blood vessels and tendons and ligaments. Or you can buy the light of art, and you point that flashlight at your hand, you see your hand as if it were a painting by Leonardo Da Vinci – you see form, and color, and texture. And you’re having a lot of fun trying out the different flashlights with the different lights. And then you see one labeled “the light of Chanukah.” What will you see in that light? What is special about the light of Chanukah?
Latkes, jelly donuts, dreidel and lighting Chanukiot are fun and often become the central focus during the holiday of Chanukah, but don’t forget to Light up YOU!
Love is in the Air Shabbat is known as a day of rest. Six days G-d created the world and on the 7th day He rested. How are we to understand G-d resting? Does G-d get tired? Shabbat actually means that G-d abstained from creating. G-d stopped on the 7th …
“Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day there shall be to you a holy, a day of solemn rest to the L-rd.” — Exodus 35:2 During the forty years that the Israelites wandered in the desert they carried with them a portable temple referred to …
An excerpt from Living a Joyous Life by Rabbi David Aaron Most people know what you don’t do on Sabbath: You don’t drive, you don’t write, you don’t turn on lights, you don’t shop, etc. But they don’t know why, and they don’t know what it is you, in fact, …
