" Tuesday, Shevat 28, 5775 · February 17, 2015Editor's Note:
Dear Friend,
“Happiness is like a butterfly,” they say. “The more you chase it, the more elusive it seems.”
The Torah, however, disagrees, telling us that we can and must choose to be joyful. “And you shall be happy with all the good that the L-rd, your G-d, has granted you and your household, you, the Levite, and the stranger who is among you.”
How do I make myself happy? The second part of the verse provides us with the answer to that:
Recognize that what you have is from G-d, and
Make sure to share it with others who have less.
Our sages tell us that this incoming month, Adar, is a time to increase in joy—and I’ve just shared the Torah’s not-so-secret happiness recipe.
So what are we waiting for? Let’s get happy!
Menachem Posner
on behalf of the Chabad.org Editorial Team
P.S. What makes you happy? Please share your happiness tips in the comments section.
Faithful Deeds
Examine, investigate and question. You must, because otherwise you will learn nothing.
But when it comes to getting the job done, do it with 100% confidence that it is the right thing to do.
To get something done, you need conviction and faith. A fruitful life will not sprout out of ever-shifting sands, and its home cannot be built upon a foundation of doubts.[Likutei Sichot volume 18, page 154]
This Week's Features:
Based on the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe
Why are we here?
This, the mother of all questions, is addressed in turn by the various streams of Torah thought, each after its own style.
The Talmud states, simply and succinctly, "I was created to serve my Creator." The moralistic-oriented works of Mussar describe the purpose of life as the refinement of one's character traits. The Zohar says that G-d created us "in order that His creations should know Him." Master Kabbalist Rabbi Isaac Luria offered the following reason for creation: G-d is the essence of good, and the nature of good is to bestow goodness. But goodness cannot be bestowed when there is no one to receive it. To this end, G-d created our world -- so that there should be recipients of His goodness.
Chassidic teaching explains that these reasons, as well as the reasons given by other kabbalistic and philosophical works, are but the various faces of a singular divine desire for creation, as expressed in the various "worlds" or realms of G-d's creation. Chassidism also offers its own formulation of this divine desire: that we "Make a home for G-d in the material world."
A Home For G-d
What does it mean to make our world a home for G-d?
A basic tenet of our faith is that "the entire world is filled with His presence" and "there is no place void of Him." So it's not that we have to bring G-d into the material world -- He is already there. But G-d can be in the world without being at home in it.
Being "at home" means being in a place that is receptive to your presence, a place devoted to serving your needs and desires. It means being in a place where you are your true, private self, as opposed to the public self you assume in other environments.
The material world, in its natural state, is not an environment hospitable to G-d. If there is one common feature to all things material, it is their intrinsic egocentrism, their placement of the self as the foundation and purpose of existence. With every iota of its mass, the stone proclaims: "I am." In the tree and in the animal, the preservation and propagation of the self is the focus of every instinct and the aim of every achievement. And who more than the human being has elevated ambition to an art and self-advancement to an all-consuming ideal?
The only thing wrong with all this selfishness is that it blurs the truth of what lies behind it: the truth that creation is not an end in itself, but a product of and vehicle for its Creator. And this selfishness is not an incidental or secondary characteristic of our world, but its most basic feature. So to make our world a "home" for G-d we must transform its very nature. We must recast the very foundations of its identity from a self-oriented entity into something that exists for a purpose that is greater than itself.
Every time we take a material object or resource and enlist it in the service of G-d, we are effecting such a transformation. When we take a piece of leather and make a pair of tefillin out of it, when we take a dollar bill and give it to charity, when we employ our minds to study a chapter of Torah -- we are effecting such a transformation. In its initial state, the piece of leather proclaimed, "I exist"; now it says, "I exist to serve my Creator." A dollar in pocket says, "Greed is good"; in the charity box it says, "The purpose of life is not to receive, but to give." The human brain says, "Enrich thyself"; the brain studying Torah says, "Know thy G-d."
The Frontier of Self
There are two basic steps to the endeavor of making our world a home for G-d. The first step involves priming the material resource as a "vessel for G-dliness": shaping the leather into tefillin, donating the money to charity, scheduling time for Torah study. The second step is the actual employment of these "vessels" to serve the divine will: binding the tefillin on the arm and head, using the donated money to feed the hungry, studying Torah, etc.
At first glance, it would seem that the second step is the more significant one, while the first step is merely an enabler of the second, a means to its end. But the Torah's account of the first home for G-d built in our world places the greater emphasis on the construction of the "home," rather than its actual employment as a divine dwelling.
A sizable portion of the book of Exodus is devoted to the construction of the Sanctuary built by the children of Israel in the desert. The Torah, which is usually so sparing with words that many of its laws are contained within a single word or letter, is uncharacteristically elaborate. The fifteen materials used in the Sanctuary's construction are listed no less than three times; the components and furnishings of the Sanctuary are listed eight times; and every minute detail of the Sanctuary's construction, down to the dimensions of every wall-panel and pillar and the colors in every tapestry, is spelled out not once, but twice -- in the account of G-d's instructions to Moses, and again in the account of the Sanctuary's construction.
All in all, thirteen chapters are devoted to describing how certain physical materials were fashioned into an edifice dedicated to the service of G-d and the training of the Kohanim (priests) who were to officiate there. (In contrast, the Torah devotes one chapter to its account of the creation of the universe, three chapters to its description of the revelation at Mount Sinai, and eleven chapters to the story of the Exodus).
The Sanctuary is the model and prototype for all subsequent homes for G-d constructed on physical earth. So the overwhelming emphasis on its "construction" stage (as opposed to the "implementation" stage) implies that in our lives, too, there is something very special about forging our personal resources into things that have the potential to serve G-d. Making ourselves "vessels" for G-dliness is, in a certain sense, a greater feat than actually bringing G-dliness into our lives.
For this is where the true point of transformation lies -- the transformation from a self-oriented object to a thing committed to something greater than itself. If G-d had merely desired a hospitable environment, He need not have bothered with a material world; a spiritual world could just as easily have been enlisted to serve Him. What G-d desired was the transformation itself: the challenge and achievement of selfhood transcended and materiality redefined. This transformation and redefinition occurs in the first stage, when something material is forged into an instrument of the divine. The second stage is only a matter of actualizing an already established potential, of putting a thing to its now natural use.
Making Vessels
You meet a person who has yet to invite G-d into his or her life. A person whose endeavors and accomplishments -- no matter how successful and laudable -- have yet to transcend the self and self-oriented goals.
You wish to expand her horizons -- to show him a life beyond the strictures of self. You wish to put on tefillin with him, to share with her the divine wisdom of Torah.
But he's not ready yet. You know that the concept of serving G-d is still alien to a life trained and conditioned to view everything through the lens of self. You know that before you can introduce her to the world of Torah and mitzvot, you must first make her receptive to G-dliness, receptive to a life of intimacy with the divine.
So when you meet him on the street, you simply smile and say, "Good morning!" You invite her to your home for a cup of coffee or a Shabbat dinner. You make small talk. You don't, at this point, suggest any changes in his lifestyle. You just want her to become open to you and what you represent.
Ostensibly, you haven't "done" anything. But in essence, a most profound and radical transformation has taken place. The person has become a vessel for G-dliness.
Of course, the purpose of a vessel is that it be filled with content; the purpose of a home is that it be inhabited. The Sanctuary was built to house the presence of G-d. But it is the making of vessels for G-dliness that is life's greatest challenge and its most revolutionary achievement.1
FOOTNOTES
1.Based on Likkutei Sichot, vol. 25, pp. 424-435.
PARSHAH
The Answer to the Mother of All Questions Based on the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe
This, the mother of all questions, is addressed in turn by the various streams of Torah thought, each after its own style.
The Talmud states, simply and succinctly, "I was created to serve my Creator." The moralistic-oriented works of Mussar describe the purpose of life as the refinement of one's character traits. The Zohar says that G-d created us "in order that His creations should know Him." Master Kabbalist Rabbi Isaac Luria offered the following reason for creation: G-d is the essence of good, and the nature of good is to bestow goodness. But goodness cannot be bestowed when there is no one to receive it. To this end, G-d created our world -- so that there should be recipients of His goodness.
Chassidic teaching explains that these reasons, as well as the reasons given by other kabbalistic and philosophical works, are but the various faces of a singular divine desire for creation, as expressed in the various "worlds" or realms of G-d's creation. Chassidism also offers its own formulation of this divine desire: that we "Make a home for G-d in the material world."
A Home For G-d
What does it mean to make our world a home for G-d?
A basic tenet of our faith is that "the entire world is filled with His presence" and "there is no place void of Him." So it's not that we have to bring G-d into the material world -- He is already there. But G-d can be in the world without being at home in it.
Being "at home" means being in a place that is receptive to your presence, a place devoted to serving your needs and desires. It means being in a place where you are your true, private self, as opposed to the public self you assume in other environments.
The material world, in its natural state, is not an environment hospitable to G-d. If there is one common feature to all things material, it is their intrinsic egocentrism, their placement of the self as the foundation and purpose of existence. With every iota of its mass, the stone proclaims: "I am." In the tree and in the animal, the preservation and propagation of the self is the focus of every instinct and the aim of every achievement. And who more than the human being has elevated ambition to an art and self-advancement to an all-consuming ideal?
The only thing wrong with all this selfishness is that it blurs the truth of what lies behind it: the truth that creation is not an end in itself, but a product of and vehicle for its Creator. And this selfishness is not an incidental or secondary characteristic of our world, but its most basic feature. So to make our world a "home" for G-d we must transform its very nature. We must recast the very foundations of its identity from a self-oriented entity into something that exists for a purpose that is greater than itself.
Every time we take a material object or resource and enlist it in the service of G-d, we are effecting such a transformation. When we take a piece of leather and make a pair of tefillin out of it, when we take a dollar bill and give it to charity, when we employ our minds to study a chapter of Torah -- we are effecting such a transformation. In its initial state, the piece of leather proclaimed, "I exist"; now it says, "I exist to serve my Creator." A dollar in pocket says, "Greed is good"; in the charity box it says, "The purpose of life is not to receive, but to give." The human brain says, "Enrich thyself"; the brain studying Torah says, "Know thy G-d."
The Frontier of Self
There are two basic steps to the endeavor of making our world a home for G-d. The first step involves priming the material resource as a "vessel for G-dliness": shaping the leather into tefillin, donating the money to charity, scheduling time for Torah study. The second step is the actual employment of these "vessels" to serve the divine will: binding the tefillin on the arm and head, using the donated money to feed the hungry, studying Torah, etc.
At first glance, it would seem that the second step is the more significant one, while the first step is merely an enabler of the second, a means to its end. But the Torah's account of the first home for G-d built in our world places the greater emphasis on the construction of the "home," rather than its actual employment as a divine dwelling.
A sizable portion of the book of Exodus is devoted to the construction of the Sanctuary built by the children of Israel in the desert. The Torah, which is usually so sparing with words that many of its laws are contained within a single word or letter, is uncharacteristically elaborate. The fifteen materials used in the Sanctuary's construction are listed no less than three times; the components and furnishings of the Sanctuary are listed eight times; and every minute detail of the Sanctuary's construction, down to the dimensions of every wall-panel and pillar and the colors in every tapestry, is spelled out not once, but twice -- in the account of G-d's instructions to Moses, and again in the account of the Sanctuary's construction.
All in all, thirteen chapters are devoted to describing how certain physical materials were fashioned into an edifice dedicated to the service of G-d and the training of the Kohanim (priests) who were to officiate there. (In contrast, the Torah devotes one chapter to its account of the creation of the universe, three chapters to its description of the revelation at Mount Sinai, and eleven chapters to the story of the Exodus).
The Sanctuary is the model and prototype for all subsequent homes for G-d constructed on physical earth. So the overwhelming emphasis on its "construction" stage (as opposed to the "implementation" stage) implies that in our lives, too, there is something very special about forging our personal resources into things that have the potential to serve G-d. Making ourselves "vessels" for G-dliness is, in a certain sense, a greater feat than actually bringing G-dliness into our lives.
For this is where the true point of transformation lies -- the transformation from a self-oriented object to a thing committed to something greater than itself. If G-d had merely desired a hospitable environment, He need not have bothered with a material world; a spiritual world could just as easily have been enlisted to serve Him. What G-d desired was the transformation itself: the challenge and achievement of selfhood transcended and materiality redefined. This transformation and redefinition occurs in the first stage, when something material is forged into an instrument of the divine. The second stage is only a matter of actualizing an already established potential, of putting a thing to its now natural use.
Making Vessels
You meet a person who has yet to invite G-d into his or her life. A person whose endeavors and accomplishments -- no matter how successful and laudable -- have yet to transcend the self and self-oriented goals.
You wish to expand her horizons -- to show him a life beyond the strictures of self. You wish to put on tefillin with him, to share with her the divine wisdom of Torah.
But he's not ready yet. You know that the concept of serving G-d is still alien to a life trained and conditioned to view everything through the lens of self. You know that before you can introduce her to the world of Torah and mitzvot, you must first make her receptive to G-dliness, receptive to a life of intimacy with the divine.
So when you meet him on the street, you simply smile and say, "Good morning!" You invite her to your home for a cup of coffee or a Shabbat dinner. You make small talk. You don't, at this point, suggest any changes in his lifestyle. You just want her to become open to you and what you represent.
Ostensibly, you haven't "done" anything. But in essence, a most profound and radical transformation has taken place. The person has become a vessel for G-dliness.
Of course, the purpose of a vessel is that it be filled with content; the purpose of a home is that it be inhabited. The Sanctuary was built to house the presence of G-d. But it is the making of vessels for G-dliness that is life's greatest challenge and its most revolutionary achievement.1
Based on the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson; adapted by Yanki Tauber.
Originally published in Week in Review.
Republished with the permission of MeaningfulLife.com. If you wish to republish this article in a periodical, book, or website, please email permissions@meaningfullife.com.
FOOTNOTES
1. Based on Likkutei Sichot, vol. 25, pp. 424-435.
© Copyright 2015, all rights reserved.
Parshah
Bring the Zoo Home By Nuta Yisrael Shurack
Seeing those animals, birds, reptiles and mammals that you’ve only read about can be extremely inviting and alluring. Furthermore, it brings Perek Shirah (an ancient text enumerating how each of G‑d’s creatures praise Him) to life! But what if those very same exotic animals lived in your home? Would you be so excited?
My family went on a trip to the zoo this week. While there, I saw a young boy talking excitingly to his parents about the grizzly bear that he had gotten so close to (even though the bear was a good 100 feet away). Oddly enough, only five feet away there was a grey squirrel eating an acorn. Yet no one was interested. Why is seeing the bear, lion, or tiger reminiscent of National Geographic Live while the squirrel and pigeon hardly evoke any emotion at all, except perhaps annoyance and irritation?
Those things which we only get a glimpse of once in a while inevitably appear striking and glamorous while those available to us on an everyday basis seem to be mundane and boring. As the saying goes, “the grass is always greener on the other side.” So how do we infuse the everyday with the once in a while? How do we transform the ordinary into the extraordinary, so it does not become laden with discontent? What about our day-to-day life? Is being Jewish, learning Torah, and doing mitzvahs exciting? After all, there are mitzvahs that are done on a daily basis—or even several times a day. Is there excitement in repetition?So how do we infuse the everyday with the once in a while?
G‑d, in His infinite wisdom, gave us the answer in this week’s parsha. G‑d commanded the Jewish people to build a Bet HaMikdash (the Holy Temple) in which the spiritual would meet the physical, where heaven and earth would meet. It is there, in the Holy of Holies, that we would store our people’s most valued possession, the tablets with the 10 Commandments inscribed on them. It is there that we would bring our sacrifices and hear the Levites sing. The thought of attending services at the Bet HaMikdash is certainly awe inspiring, and one can imagine the sense of sanctity in the air.
G‑d tells Moses in Exodus 25:8, “They shall make a Sanctuary for Me, so that I may dwell among them…” The words “and I will dwell among them,” allude to not only the G‑d’s manifestation in the temple, but to each and every person, which can and must become a home for G‑d’s presence.
G‑d is teaching us a valuable lesson. Holiness is not a far off fantasy concept that only lends itself to excitement due to infrequency, suspense, and mystique. Rather, G‑d is involved in our day-to-day living, from large decisions in our life, such as where to live and whom to marry, to the most minute, such as tying our shoes and what to eat for breakfast. Our job is to reveal the sparks of holiness and unite the physical and the spiritual. Though there’s no admission charge for day to day life, and your cat may not be as exciting as a tiger, remember the world is as thrilling as you make it. Just don’t forget your cheerios.
Nuta Yisrael is the Editor-in-Chief and Senior Writer of the e-newsletter and website A Shtikel Vort.
© Copyright 2015, all rights reserved.
Essay
Why I Seek Outside Validation
By Dov Bloom
When it was posted, I felt accomplished and gratified. I was proud of myself. I felt like I had a new status as a published author.
This grew almost into an obsession, as I found myself logging on countless times to check the comments, and feeling immensely pleased with every comment (regardless of the content).
The extent of my reaction to the article and the comments felt childish to me. Out of proportion.I found myself logging on countless times to check the comments
Instead of trying to stop myself from obsessing, I tried to understand, What is it that I gain from having my words read and commented on by others whom I don’t even know? And how many readers do I need until that need will be filled?
I think reading the comments makes me feel valuable. My existence is confirmed. And somehow, although there are quite a few objective measurements—as well as loving people in my life—that should confirm the value and validity of my existence, it’s never enough.
But when I’m validated by people who are more distant from me, somehow, that “does” it for me. Then I feel whole.
I’m a teacher, and this plays out in my classroom too. I don’t just appreciate good feedback and get annoyed at negative behavior. I experience andinternalize my students’ attention, or lack thereof, as the creation or destruction of me.
And for me, that goes right back to my orphanhood, which was the subject of my first article.
I look into the small, pleading eyes of my child. I feel palpably that more than anything else, he is asking me to confirm that he is. That he is worthy. That he matters.
If I don’t give him that, if I don’t show him that he matters, my child will actually consider himself a non-entity, having no reliable source confirming that he is.
This is what I feel when I look into the eyes of my child.
My father could not give me that basic confirmation that I am, that I matter. He passed away before he had enough time to do that for me.
So I look for compensation. I need to attach some tag to myself as “the guy who is good at X” or “the guy who does Y,” and I desperately hold on to that identity as a confirmation of my existence. I constantly check up on this created identity to make sure it is valid and intact.
I need to impress people. But that’s not enough. I need to outdo everyone else. And as soon as that fails to fill the void, I need a new source of outside validation . . . and on it goes.I look for compensation
And I need the validation from strangers. Those close to me are real people with the real give-and-take of a relationship. They see the whole me, and I see the whole them. I know that they don’t admire me in an absolute way, because we interact in the context of my weaknesses, not only of my strengths. And since for me admiration is not just nice, but I feel dependent on it, I need it to be absolute.
The stranger appreciating me fills my void. He’s just there to confirm my validity, and there is nothing else to the relationship to risk.
Not so with my intimate relationships, which are fraught with all the good, bad and ordinariness of myself, the part of me that is nothing more than—albeit nothing less than—a human being.
So where do I go from here?
Our sages say that at the very place where you find the greatness of G‑d, that is where you find His humility.1
The Arizal explains that G‑d created the world because He wanted to do good for His creations.2
In chassidut, it is emphasized numerous times that the creation of the world is not the main (or defining) factor of G‑d.3
My understandingWe interact in the context of my weaknesses of these statements is as follows:
One way to appreciate an individual is by learning about his achievements and unique capabilities. Which is why some flaunt their accomplishments, to show others who they are and to demonstrate that they are deserving of esteem.
There is no one who can compete with the awesome capabilities of the Creator of all achievers and achievements.
However, what seems to us awesome and unfathomable is to G‑d insignificant—to the extent that He “humbled” Himself, “moved away” from His truegreatness, and “lowered” Himself to invest in creation.
Achievements which would seem to us great enough for anyone to want to be defined by are not a definition of G‑d, but rather a concealment of His true infinite greatness. So that which seems to us a display of His greatness is in reality an expression of His humility.
So what motivates Him to do this?
To do good to His creatures.
G‑d wanted to be kind to others, and that is why He created others, to be kind to them. He wanted there to be an “other” that was specifically NOT Him, and then relate and give to that “other.”
Perhaps, if G‑d was (G‑d forbid . . . ) lacking something, I’d say He turned to creation not for our sake, but for His. But G‑d is complete, and infinitely beyond creation. He did it for us. He engaged in the relationship with us for our sake.
Kindness. Humility. Defining factor.
What message does this contain for my life and for my journey?
If I’m lacking a secure identity, and I need to help other people as a way to find validation, then I’m not invested in kindness, but self-service.How do I reach this level of security and calm?
If I’m secure, I can give to others with ease. For their sake. I don’t need to worry how they react, and to what extent they will admire me. This action is for THEM. I’m not helping to define myself in some way or to elicit their love, I’m just helping them.
But how do I reach this level of security and calm?
By internalizing that I am but a creation of a whole and perfect G‑d, who is self-sufficient and the source of all other things. I have Him, and if my relationship with Him is right, or at least I’m journeying in that direction, I need not be anxious about anyone else.
And then I can be truly kind, compassionate and giving to others. I don’t need to worry about myself.
We are taught, “Just as He is compassionate, so shall you be compassionate.”4 Perhaps this could be interpreted as, my compassion needs to be like His compassion. Free, for the sake of the recipient, and not compelled by my need for outside validation.
Really, this is almost idle fantasy for me. I don’t have that relationship with G‑d. I don’t have a faith which is true and tangible enough to enable me to actually feel less dependent on others, and less worried about my circumstances.This is almost idle fantasy for me
Amazingly, however, when I commit to behavior that fits with this way of thinking, even if I’m not actually feeling that way, I’m redeemed from the intensity of my dependency and anxiety.
When I’m anxious about how my class will go, and I mentally tell myself, “This is not to impress them, it is to help them in any way I can,” I feel capable of truly teaching and inspiring. And the same goes for so many other little encounters in my day-to-day experiences.
Though my father and mother have “abandoned” me, and I don’t feel anchored and secure, G‑d, and my commitment to Him, will gather me in.5
FOOTNOTES
1. Pesikta Zutresa, Eikev.
2. Eitz Chayim, Shaar Haklalim 1.
3. Torah Ohr 98b.
4. Jerusalem Talmud, Peah, 5:1.
5. Paraphrased from Psalms 27:10.
© Copyright 2015, all rights reserved.Essay
Can You Square the Circle of Faith?
By Eli Rubin
Abstract: Bombarded with the infinitely varied strands of a globalized perspective, how can we preserve both an open mind and a unified core of coherent meaning? Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, the founder of Chabad Chassidism, taught that the only way we can grow is by embracing the challenge of new information and the crisis of identity it can precipitate. He also articulated a model of divine unity that expands the quintessence of faith into the circle of reason, and fits the square of dissonance into the circle of life.
Introduction: The Modern Crisis of Identity
For the Jewish people, one of the defining features of modernity is a crisis of identity. We feel ourselves to be the carriers of a noble tradition. But for many, the tradition seems to be a relic of the past. Its Biblical narratives, Talmudic debates and Kabbalistic visions apparently hold little relevance to the pursuit of a meaningful life in the here and now.
For humanity at large, one of the defining features of modernity is the analytic removedness of the scientific method. Scientific methodology is incredibly useful, but in the modern era it has become the basis for a new form of groupthink, a form of closed-mindedness that masquerades as enlightened skepticism.
Some of the best-known historians of Jewish thought in the twentieth century, themselves victims of the modern crisis of identity, argued that in the face of the critical method, the modern Jew is simply unable to retain the foundational belief that the Torah was transmitted to us by G‑d from heaven. These thinkers took it for granted that religious faith is essentially unscientific, irrational and wrong.1
But if we dig beneath the surface, if we try to discover the seminal forces from which identity and meaning are actually constructed, we discover that neither the religious worldview nor the scientific worldview stands or falls on cool-headed logic alone. Nor are the Jews alone in their crisis of identity.
No matter what your worldview, it cannot endure without a firm basis of faith. This faith may not always be religious in nature, but faith it nonetheless is. To subscribe to a single worldview is to have faith that all the disparate elements of your experience are somehow refractions of a single prism.
“If you have intuitions at all,” William James wrote, “they come from a deeper level of your nature than the loquacious level which rationalism inhabits.”2 One person’s prism may be religion, another’s may be science or art. But for everyone, The foundation of identity is a deep-set faith that all of life’s disparities can be harmoniously explained.the foundation of identity is a deep-set faith that all of life’s disparities can be harmoniously explained. It is when that harmony is threatened that crisis and conflict burst into flame.
Assertions of religious, scientific and cultural truth are everywhere increasing in their intensity and divisiveness. This divisiveness, this global crisis of identity, underlies many of the geopolitical tensions and conflicts that threaten the future of humanity across the world.
On both a global level and a personal level, the currency of identity is information. The modern channels of mass communications of media, propaganda and education have the power to shape beliefs and transform identities. Anyone who exposes themselves to these currents of identity must be prepared to have their beliefs challenged, and must be equipped to deal with those challenges.
Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, the founder of Chabad Chassidism, taught that the only way we can grow is by embracing the challenge of new information and the crisis of identity it can precipitate.3 If you honestly wish to discover truth, you must make yourself open to new perspectives; only they can force you to rethink your previously established worldview.
The crucial question for everyone in the modern age is this: Bombarded with the infinitely varied strands of a globalized perspective, how can we preserve a unified core of coherent meaning? How can we preserve a sense of identity?
Part One: The Wisdom of the Hedgehog
In his famous essay The Hedgehog and the Fox,4 Isaiah Berlin set multiplicity and unity as the two poles between which the entire corpus of human knowledge can be strung. The world confronts us with a great multiplicity of things, which in relation to one another form complex webs of interconnected entities. But within this vast mosaic of confusion we humans use philosophy and art, religion and science to find meaning and order, unity and identity.
Some seek to cast light on a great many things with one all-encompassing theory or theme. Others deal with specific issues in relative isolation, without relating them to a broader vision of reality. "The fox,” said the Greek poet Archilochus, “knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.” Accordingly Berlin opines that “Plato, Lucretius, Pascal, Hegel, Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, Ibsen, Proust are, in varying degrees, hedgehogs; Herodotus, Aristotle, Montaigne, Erasmus, Molière, Goethe, Pushkin, Balzac, Joyce are foxes.”5
Berlin admits that this is an “oversimple classification,” but maintains that it offers “a starting point for genuine investigation.” His essay focuses specifically on our perception of history, but the same paradigm can be used to examine the ways in which we interact with many of the big questions that so obsess the inquisitive mind. Every field, whether it is mathematics, music, biology, literature, economics or religion—indeed, all of human experience—may be stretched along the spectrum that lies between the proverbial wood and its trees. The trees tell Tolstoy that there must be a forest, and those very same trees paradoxically obscure his vision...Or, in Berlin’s formulation, that which is known to the hedgehog and that which is known to the fox.
When it comes to the crisis of faith in the modern age, Berlin’s particular application of this classification is especially useful.6 In The Hedgehog and the Fox he addresses himself to the philosophy of history espoused in Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace, concluding that “Tolstoy was by nature a fox, but believed in being a hedgehog,”7 “a fox bitterly intent upon seeing in the manner of a hedgehog.”8 Here we are introduced to an existential paradox, in which the two opposing poles of the spectrum coincide.
Tolstoy is almost entirely concerned with the experiences and passions of each of his individual characters, mere pawns who are swept up in the colossal Franco-Russian war of 1812. He utterly rejects any attempt to explain the broader scheme of events as being directed by the great figures who dominate the historical landscape. There are, he argues, too many factors to be considered for any sensible explanation to be formulated. But he also alludes to a far deeper truth that lies beneath this veneer of impenetrable confusion, a unified vision which—if discovered—will bring illumination and meaning to everything.
According to Berlin, Tolstoy’s devastating critique of all rationalizations lays bare the absolute futility of any attempt to cast scientific light on the seminal forces that shape the course of history. But he is yet torn by the abiding conviction that there is some essential simplicity that unites all things. The trees tell Tolstoy that there must be a forest, and those very same trees paradoxically obscure his vision, utterly obscuring the very belief that they themselves affirm.
Today we often hear of the conflict between science and religion, between hardheaded reason and potent faith. And there are yet those who are bold enough to attempt a union of these two poles. A great many questions are raised: What is it about the modern scientific method that poses such a challenge to religion? What is the nature of faith? What is the secret of its obstinate power?
The Why does the modern scientific method pose such a challenge to religion? What is the nature of faith and the secret of its obstinate power?existential dilemma expressed by Tolstoy in War and Peace, and brought into sharper definition by Berlin in The Hedgehog and the Fox, opens up a doorway through which we can explore the broader crisis of faith in the modern age.
* * *
I am not interested in the details of Tolstoy’s specific beliefs, but rather in the general form of belief that he ascribes to those of his characters who have somehow fathomed the essential unity that illuminates everything. I am interested in the type of knowledge ascribed to those idealized hedgehogs whom Tolstoy himself so wished to emulate. How do they arrive at this knowledge? What makes it so unshakably compelling?
Over the course of several pages9 Berlin juxtaposes knowledge that is arrived at by “specific enquiry and discovery” with a type of “wisdom” or “awareness” that cannot be arrived at through objective study, but is rather a kind of intuitive “understanding” of the very “flow of life” itself:
The world whose constituents “we can discover, classify and act upon by rational, scientific, deliberately planned methods” is sometimes mistaken as being all there really is. There is, however, a much more seminal component of human experience, which “enters too intimately into our experiences, is too closely interwoven with all that we are and do to be lifted out of the flow (it is the flow) and observed with scientific detachment...” It is this subjective medium that “determines our most permanent categories, our standards of truth and falsehood, of reality and appearance, of the good and the bad... hence neither these, nor any other explicitly conceived categories or concepts, can be applied to it...”
According to Berlin, the sum total of all our diverse experiences merge together in a single channel, and are seamlessly integrated into a single reservoir of integrated perspectives and understandings via which we approach each bend in the river of life. This is the power of the hedgehog’s wisdom. The hedgehog has simply achieved a better “awareness” of, or “sensitivity” to the general “texture and direction” of this “submerged” aspect of life. Beliefs do not exist in isolation... so long as they are a part of the whole they cannot be dismantled individually.The hedgehog’s knowledge is not something separate and objective that can be put up for debate, but is intrinsic to its very identity, and endows all its experiences with meaning.
* * *
A recent talk by Professor Moshe Halbertal brought Berlin’s critique of the hedgehog into sharp focus.10 Halbertal argued that at the most fundamental level, faith is not simply the “belief that” a particular proposition is true, or even a deeper kind of “belief (faith, or trust) in” something or somebody. Such a superficial perception, he argued, fails to account for the deep potency that we often encounter when such beliefs—whether economical, religious, environmental, moral or political—are challenged on rational grounds.
Instead, Halbertal argues, we should view such beliefs as extending from the broader worldview of the individual, which in turn derives from the many layers of influences accumulated via education, social interactions, and other life experiences. These beliefs do not exist in isolation but are deeply related to the multifaceted identity of the individual, and so long as they are a part of the whole they cannot be dismantled individually. Accordingly, a rational counterargument often carries little weight in the face of beliefs that are so intertwined with—and reinforced by—the integrated strands of subjective identity.
Nearly half a century before Isaiah Berlin applied this idea to Tolstoy’s philosophy of history, William James spoke of it in the context of religion:
If we look at man’s whole mental life as it exists... apart from their learning and science, and that they inwardly and privately follow, we have to confess that the part of it which rationalism can give an account is relatively superficial. It [rationalism] is the part that has the prestige undoubtedly, for... it can challenge you with proofs, and chop logic, and put you down with words. But it will fail to convince or convert you all the same...
If you have intuitions at all, they come from a deeper level of your nature than the loquacious level which rationalism inhabits. Your whole subconscious life, your impulses, your faiths, your needs, your divinations, have prepared the premises, of which your consciousness now feels the weight of the result; and something in you absolutely knows that that result must be truer than any logic-chopping rationalistic talk, however clever, that may contradict it.11
* * *
Part Two: The Cunning of the Fox
In light of this deeper understanding of the nature of faith, Halbertal reexamines the particular condition of Jewish faith in our times. Our ancestors were able to take the doctrine of divine revelation, Torah from heaven, literally; we cannot. The whole system rests upon this foundational belief, but modern man—it is claimed—can no longer believe in it. Our knowledge of history, our examination of new archeological finds, internal contradictions, comparative textual readings and criticisms—it is said—have undermined the very basis of our belief in the Jewish The problems cited as a threat to Jewish faith have long been part and parcel of the very tradition that they are purported to undermine.tradition.
This, however, is a very unsatisfactory account of the modern crisis of faith. It is the great myth of our times that the scientific study of religion has led to new discoveries that entail the rejection of the most essential tenets of Jewish faith. The problems cited in the previous paragraph as undermining Jewish faith did not suddenly surface in the modern period. They have long been part and parcel of the very tradition that they are purported to undermine. Yes, biblical literature is filled with difficult passages and apparent contradictions. But the tradition includes an immense body of biblical commentary attesting that this is hardly news.
For thousands of years scholars of great ability and erudition studied these texts, debated these complexities, and founded their lives on the meaning and enduring relevance drawn from such engagement. Scholars such as R. Saadia Gaon, Maimonides, and R. Yehudah ha-Levi, et al, were fully aware of many difficulties raised by the biblical account, including the problem of revelation. Were they less intelligent, sophisticated or aware than such modern “intellectuals” as Guttmann, Strauss and Scholem? Of course not. Yet they found no reason to reject the tradition of their ancestors.
In the past, innovative intellectual engagement with the intricacies of Jewish law and thought did not undermine the tradition. On the contrary, it was this ongoing inquiry and conversation that endowed our faith with meaning, vibrancy, depth and relevance. The oft-repeated phrase “There are seventy facets to the Torah”12 testifies that the multiple methods of interpretation only served to amplify the compelling breadth of Judaism’s scope. The tension between revelation and rationalism, between tradition and innovation, was itself the vivifying lifeblood that perpetuated Jewish faith and practice throughout the agesIt is the all-embracing illumination that it brings to life that inspires us with the confidence to take religion seriously.”.
* * *
In his recently published collection The Significance of Religious Experience (Oxford University Press, 2012), Howard Wettstein uses the example of mathematics to point out that “there are intellectual arenas in which we get along quite well in the absence of settled doctrines about the fundamentals.”13 For philosophers, questions about the existence and status of mathematical entities like numbers and sets remain open. But in the real world, no one would question the integrity of mathematical practice just because its epistemological and metaphysical foundations are not entirely understood. We have complete confidence in mathematical practice for the simple reason that it provides a unified system that demonstrably enables us to engage the world in a meaningful way. Imagine the folly, says Wettstein, of arguing that mathematical work and practice should await the conclusive establishment of its philosophical underpinnings.14
If we can have such faith in mathematics, why must we hold off religious practice and faith until philosophers arrive at conclusive knowledge of its foundations? Religious life demonstrably enables us to engage the world in a cohesively meaningful way. It is the all-embracing illumination that it brings to life that inspires us with the confidence to take it seriously.
Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson illustrated the point with a similar comparison to the practice of medication. Most laypeople follow the advice of their doctors, not because they understand why and how a particular treatment will cure them, but because experience tells them that medical practice is successful and beneficial to people's health. “The same applies to Torah and the commandments: the main thing is not understanding, but practice and the surety Imagine the folly of arguing that mathematical work should await the conclusive establishment of its philosophical underpinnings.that it works...”15
This in no way mitigates the central importance of foundational beliefs and their role in religious life. Core beliefs remain the focal point, drawing all the peripheral elements of religious engagement together. They must themselves be affirmed as axiomatic in order for the religious way of life to have meaning. Numbers are axiomatic to mathematics. G‑d is axiomatic to religion. But we do not need to establish clear and conclusive knowledge of the true nature of numbers in order to practice mathematics. Neither do we need to gain clear and conclusive knowledge of the true nature of G‑d in order to practice religion. As the Talmudic sages put it, “it is not inquiry that is fundamental; it is action.”16
Anyone who has experienced some kind of religious change will attest that the factors that lead in and out of faith are indeed far more complex than the simple affirmation or negation of a foundational belief. Such beliefs do not appear or disappear in a vacuum. It is the totality of the Jewish tradition—its beliefs and its ideals as they are lived by Jews in the real world—that makes Judaism compelling. It is the unraveling of this integral cohesion that makes faith fall apart.
* * *
If faith is—as Halbertal puts it—“who you are,” rather than “a proposition that you assert,” we can no longer attribute what we call “the modern crisis of faith” to some kind of rational awakening. Rationalism is as much a factor in belief as it is in disbelief, and it is usually not the primary factor in either of them. What then is the crucial element that leads the foundation of faith to unravel and give way to disbelief?
Halbertal only touches on this questions, suggesting that the crisis of identity and faith begins when this subjective view is brought into discourse with various elements and perspectives that stand in opposition to it. He leaves any further elaboration Meaning is forged by unity... It is disunity and dissonance that makes faith fall apart.to us.
In the modern age, advances in technology have allowed people to travel and communicate with increasing frequency between opposing cultures and perspectives. Some of these new ideas are rejected, but others are assimilated, and one’s original perspective is gradually eroded. Slowly you become aware that you no longer identify with all the beliefs and ideals you have previously accepted, and that there are others that seem to resonate more. Previously, your entire life was endowed with unified meaning. But now the different threads seem to be leading in different directions, and you are no longer sure in which direction you wish to be led.
If we follow this line of thinking to its logical conclusion, it becomes clear that meaning is forged by unity. When all the strands of life correspond with and reflect a unified identity—when they can all be seen as the refractions of a single prism—meaning is found and faith is born. “The hedgehog knows one big thing,” and usually that unity is enough to defeat the wily schemes plotted by the fox. But if the fox can succeed in confusing the hedgehog; if the fox can lead it away from the “one big thing,” then the hedgehog is lost. It is disunity and dissonance that makes faith fall apart.
* * *
This kind of crisis is not at all particular to the modern age. This kind of crisis is common to anyone engaged in the open-minded pursuit of knowledge. The process of learning is such that when you encounter a new piece of information—whether by sight, sound, or intellectual enquiry—it needs to be assessed and processed in the context of the subjective worldview that you had previously formed. For the new information (the object) to be accepted as true, one of two things—or a combination thereof—needs to happen. Either the object must be reframed to conform with your earlier conception, or your subjective worldview must To study is to weave new influences into the fabric of your life. To learn is to engage in the reshaping of your identity.be reshaped so that it can conform to the newly accepted proposition.
Of course, some discoveries are more earth-shattering than others. But by its very nature, the learning process entails that you constantly be open to expand your view, and sometimes dramatically rethink previous perspectives. To study is to weave new influences into the fabric of your life. To learn is to engage in the reshaping of your identity. The broader and deeper you allow yourself to think, the deeper you commit yourself to the crisis of identity. And the deeper you commit yourself to the crisis of identity, the deeper you commit yourself to the crisis of faith.
Whether we like it or not, the subjective perspective—a patchwork of impressions derived from the meandering flow of life—is all that we have, our only window on the world. But if we wish to pursue objective truth, then we must submit to the daunting possibility that the very ground of our knowledge may be swept from under our feet.
This is not a new problem; this is a problem that has confronted every thinking person in the history of the world. Anyone who lives a meaningful life lives a life of faith. As Berlin wrote, those who chose to ignore the primacy of the nonrational medium “are rightly called superficial.” Few, however, have the hedgehog’s gift of uncomplicated certainty. Most of us are somewhere along the spectrum between the hedgehog and the fox, and our vague awareness of a subconscious truth is hardly coherent enough to stand up in the face of what James called “logic-chopping rationalistic talk.” In the game of rhetoric, clever eloquence may render the wise man mute.
* * *
Part Three: The Circle of Reason
In response to the question “What makes a good philosopher?” the philosopher Hilary Putnam explained that “philosophy needs vision and arguments... There is something disappointing about a philosophical work that contains arguments, however good, which are not inspired by some genuine vision, and something disappointing about philosophical work that contains a vision, however inspiring, which is unsupported by We begin from a point of absolute intimacy and use the tools of argument to expand that vision into the circle of reason.arguments.”17
As human beings, we engage an objective reality from a subconscious viewpoint. To ignore either one of these integral components of our psyche would be to jettison a part of our humanity. The ideal way to think about things is neither as a hedgehog nor as a fox, but as a combination of both. A seamless vision is potent only when articulated with the coherent rigor of scientific argument. Coherent rhetoric is compelling only if it expresses visionary inspiration.
We tend to think of subjective vision and objective reason as being at polar ends of a linear spectrum. But according to Rabbi Yechezkel Feigin, a prominent pre–World War II scholar of Chabad thought, it is better to think of objectivity as a circle extending outwards from a center of subjectivity. We begin from a point of absolute intimacy—the unspoken knowledge that permeates the entire flow of our lives—and we use the tools of logic to expand that vision into the circle of reason.
In an editorial published in the Ha-Tamim journal18 R. Feigin responded to readers who saw the intellectual probing of faith issues—sometimes without resolution—as potentially subversive. R. Feigin countered that such probing could not pose a threat to faith because rational analysis is not the foundation of faith, but a tool that enables us to examine and articulate what we already believe.
If first a circle is drawn and you then attempt to find its central point, success will be achieved only with difficulty, and it is likely that the result will be imprecise. But if you first establish the central point, it is then easier to establish the circumference of the expanded circle with precision. Even if you do not achieve success in this, you nevertheless retain knowledge of the central The modern crisis of faith extends from a mistaken understanding of the relationship between subjective intuition and objective reasoning.point.
This brings me to the crux of my argument. The modern crisis of faith extends from a mistaken understanding of the relationship between subjective intuition and objective reasoning. By reframing the latter as an attempt to articulate the former, rather than as its polar opposite, Chassidic philosophy effectively circumvents the crisis. In the words of R. Feigin, “The teachings of Chassidism begin from the quintessence of faith (nequdat ha-emunah) broadening and expanding into natural reason.” Such reason, he concludes, cannot undermine faith “because the quintessence safeguards the expansion.”19
* * *
According to Chassidic teachings, this quintessence runs far deeper than the type of faith described by James, Berlin and Halbertal. For them, faith and identity are actually very similar to more rational forms of knowledge; ultimately, they too are derived from influences outside of one’s own self. In Chassidic thought, however, the “quintessence of faith” does not simply derive from “the flow of life” experienced in the physical realm, but is synonymous with the very being of one’s soul, which is “truly a part of G‑d above.”20 Consequently, the soul’s faith is not superimposed, but transcends all external experiences.21
Vested in a physical body, however, and surrounded by mundane distractions, the soul might lose touch with its true identity. Subjective intuition might be a more receptive medium for the expression of this quintessential faith, but it can better survive the clash of cultures if expressed in terms that are more universally coherent and compelling. Reason, therefore, is an important tool for the expression, defense, perpetuation, and even deepening of faith. But it is not the foundation upon which faith stands or In Chassidic thought the quintessence of faith coincides with the quintessence of the soul, and the quintessence of the soul is unity.falls.
Earlier I argued that the foundation of faith is unity; it is striking that in Chassidic thought the quintessence of faith coincides with the quintessence of the soul, and the quintessence of the soul is unity (yechidah).22 The project of Chabad philosophy—as first taught by Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi—is not to establish a rational foundation for belief, but rather to amplify the unified core of axiomatic faith; to awaken everyone to the wisdom that lies deep within their very own hearts; to penetrate the unified core of this deep-set intimacy and draw it forth into open view.23 Eloquence becomes a bridge, enabling the articulation of unity in a diverse context, and bringing a deeply personal vision into the circle of reason and universal meaning.
It is no accident, therefore, that the entire corpus of Chabad thought is devoted to the articulation of a radical conception of divine unity: “The central object of my father’s teachings,” wrote Rabbi DovBer Schneuri of Lubavitch, son and successor of Rabbi Schneur Zalman, “was to fix the simple unity of G‑d—that is, the essence of the infinite—in the mind and heart of each individual according to what they can conceive, each according to their ability...”24
A momentary glimpse of a transcendent vision is not enough. Fleeting transcendence is easily swept away in the tumult of competing realities, and soon buried beneath the more tangible impressions of the concrete realm. The contours of unity must constantly be reconsidered, contemplated and crystallized, so that faith can be coherently expressed, and successfully perpetuated, even in the context of diversity.
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Part Four: The Masquerade of Otherness
The Gate of Unity and Faith (שער היחוד והאמונה) is the second section of Rabbi Schneur Zalman’s magnum opus, Tanya.25 In the twelve chapters of this treatise he articulates a vision of divine unity that allows a unified worldview to remain coherent in the face of unresolved anomalies. Central to this paradigm is the notion that revelation and concealment are equally valid manifestations of the divine being, and equal partners in the creation of physical reality. Accordingly, we may view the entire mosaic of disparate reality as the refractions of a single prism; the divine self discloses its being in the form of darkness as well as light.
The foundational statement of Jewish belief, “Hear O Israel, the L‑rd our G‑d, the L‑rd is one,” is usually taken as declaration of monotheism. For Rabbi Schneur Zalman, however, this is a statement of utter monism. Rather than “one big thing,” G‑d is the one and only “thing”: the one aside from whom there is nothing (אין עוד מלבדו). Furthermore, Rabbi Schneur Zalman taught, it is not enough to be a hedgehog; one must also be a fox—clever enough to understand how the one might be manifest as many. His express purpose in this treatise is to explain how all that exists is absorbed within the all-encompassing oneness of the divine self (יחודא עילאה, “higher-level unity”), and how that oneness is found within all the diverse aspects of existence (יחודא תתאה, It is not enough to be a hedgehog; one must also be a fox — clever enough to understand how the one might be manifest as many.“lower-level unity”).26
We usually think of being as the assertion of presence. If something's existence is not asserted—whether spatially, conceptually, or otherwise—it cannot be said to exist. This axiom is usually applied to our conception of G‑d’s being too, and things that do not manifestly assert the existence of G‑d are taken to be entities other than G‑d. But Rabbi Schneur Zalman asserts that this is a misapplication. When it comes to G‑d, an entirely different modality of thought is required.
The essential core of divinity is entirely transcendent of any conception. To conceive of the divine only as the creator or source of all existence would be a mistake. G‑d is not the infinite, but “the essence of the infinite.” The term “infinite” refers to the assertion of infinite capacity, but the divine self transcends such self-assertion just as it does any other description. There is no concept that can truly describe G‑d’s being, not even the concept of being itself. Divine non-contingency is such that G‑d’s presence is not dependent on the manifest assertion of that presence. Concealment may therefore be just as valid an expression of divine being as revelation.
The divine capacity to be present without manifestly asserting presence is expressed in the creation of things that do not overtly express G‑d’s presence. While the act of creation is an assertive demonstration of divine capacity, it also entails an element of concealment. Otherness is an essential ingredient in the creative process. Without it, the very notion of a created realm that is distinct from its creator would be impossible. In the act of creation, divine being is consequently expressed in two opposing modes—one transparent and revealing, the other opaque and concealing. The veil of otherness and disparity that envelopes physical reality is actually a manifestation G‑d’s own unified selfhood; oneness masquerading as multiplicity, light masquerading as In the act of creation, divine being is consequently expressed in two opposing modes — one transparent and revealing, the other opaque and concealing.darkness.27
* * *
The title of this work—The Gate of Unity and Faith—suggests that the conceptual foundations here articulated are as relevant to faith as they are to unity. Indeed, in the preface to this treatise, Rabbi Schneur Zalman examines the factors that lead in and out of faith, and argues that faith can be perpetuated in the face of crisis only if an eloquent vision of divine unity is first established:
“Seven times,” said King Solomon, “does the righteous man fall and yet rise up.”28 The “fall” of the righteous man, explains Rabbi Schneur Zalman, is a necessary step along the path of spiritual ascent. “Man is progressive, not stationary. He must proceed from one station to the next, and cannot stand at one point forever.” But the path of growth does not lack pitfalls; “between one station and the next, before reaching the higher plane, you fall from your earlier stand.”29
Such a “fall” must occur in every intellectual arena; an altogether greater and deeper understanding is attained only when a new and difficult concept entirely confuses your earlier perspective and opens up an entirely new set of possibilities.30 The implications of such a realization are not immediately grasped. The concept must be engaged deeply before it can be fully understood, assimilated and emotionally integrated. But in the first moment that it impresses itself upon your consciousness, you know that your previous perspective was either too narrow or too shallow.31
Rabbi Schneur Zalman acknowledges that the vacuum created by a radical new idea is not total; past knowledge and experience is not lost or rendered invalid. But a new piece has been added to the puzzle of identity, which does not yet fit; one’s self-image is distorted; the mosaic of meaning and faith is shadowed with Altogether greater and deeper understanding is attained only when a new and difficult concept entirely confuses your earlier perspective.uncertainty.
The notion of divine unity set forth by Rabbi Schneur Zalman, however, provides a perspective broad enough to bring the very threat of dissonance within the fold of cohesive meaning. The idea that overt concealment of G‑d’s existence is itself an embodiment of divine presence carries a preemptive defense against any objection; any ostensible refutation of this principle is retroactively reframed as another act in the divine masquerade of otherness.
* * *
Rabbi Schneur Zalman is certainly not advocating a simple one-size-fits-all answer to every possible challenge to faith. Anything that does not overtly express divine unity cannot simply be written off as an illusion meant to test our faith. Instead, he describes an underlying framework that allows for a whole range of complexities to function in tandem.
Elsewhere, Rabbi Schneur Zalman discusses the various ways that the Torah classifies different categories of phenomena, describing how opaque or transparent to divinity they might be, and what their general roles are in the broader scheme of things. Some things play a role that is irredeemably “otherly.” Other things can overtly serve the divine purpose, and become transparent to divinity, if used correctly.32
Each element in the mosaic of life must be understood both in its own local terms and also as a piece in a much bigger puzzle. The masquerade of otherness is multilayered and multifaceted, and some acts are more transparent to the underlying unity than others. If there is a particular issue that we have struggled with and cannot resolve, we can put it aside, delve deeper into another aspect of faith, and then return to our earlier problem with more context to work with. On the basis of the established vision of divine unity, we Faith can be perpetuated in the face of crisis only if an eloquent vision of divine unity is first established.may be confident that each component does have a role to play in the greater picture of reality.
This unified vision does not profess to resolve the specific problem posed by every possible anomaly, nor does it ignore objective realities that appear to undermine the quintessence of faith. Instead it empowers us to confront such anomalies without allowing the rest of our lives to fall apart. Correctly viewed, a subversive idea is actually a whole new avenue of enlightenment waiting to be discovered; concealment, too, is a medium via which we are informed. Even before that enlightenment is found, while the details might remain mysterious, the elegant coherence of the greater whole need not be disrupted.
The Gate of Unity and Faith expands the quintessence of faith into the circle of reason, and fits the square of dissonance into the circle of life. On those rare and precious occasions when you are suddenly exposed to a completely new perspective, when in one moment all your previous ideas are somehow rendered insufficient, all is not lost. As the Psalmist said, “Though you may fall, you shall not be utterly cast down.”33 You may not always be able to draw the circle’s circumference with precision, but the quintessential foundation of faith will not be lost. Armed with the knowledge that concealment is actually a masquerade of opaque revelation—a veiled disclosure of an altogether deeper truth—the framework of your previous view is already wide enough to square this circle too.
An earlier version of this article appeared in Hakirah: The Flatbush Journal of Jewish Law and Thought, Volume 17 / Summer 2014, pages 89–103. The original article is viewable here.
FOOTNOTES
1. See sources cited below, Part Two, and in footnote 10.
2. This passage will be discussed more fully below. See footnote 11.
3. See footnote 28.
4. First published in 1953, and later included in Russian Thinkers (The Hogarth Press, 1978). All my references are to the revised and reset edition (Penguin Books, 2008).
5. Russian Thinkers, 25.
6. Berlin himself identified as a Jew, and was a descendant of Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, the Baal ha-Tanya, but he could hardly be called religious. His somewhat ambivalent attitude might best be summed up by the following exchange recalled by the former chief rabbi of Great Britain, Lord Jonathan Sacks:
The first time he came to our house he said, “Chief Rabbi, whatever you do, don’t talk to me about religion: when it comes to G‑d, I'm tone deaf.” Then he said, “What I don’t understand is how you who studied philosophy at Cambridge and Oxford can believe.” And I said, “Isaiah, if it helps, think of me as a lapsed heretic.” And he said, “Quite understand, dear boy, quite understand.” (The Limits of Secularism, Standpoint Magazine, January/February 2012.)
"Isaiah,” Rabbi Sacks concludes, “may have been a secular Jew but he was a loyal Jew.” See also James Chappel, Dignity is Everything: Isaiah Berlin and His Jewish Identity (senior thesis, Haverford College, 2005.
7. Russian Thinkers, 26.
8. Ibid., 87.
9. Ibid., 79-87.
10. The lecture, titled “Three Concepts of Faith,” can be watched here.
11. William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, Lecture III (Barnes and Nobles Classics, 2004), 74.
12. The first instance of this formulation appears in Rabbi Avraham ibn Ezra’s introduction to his commentary on the Torah.
13. The Significance of Religious Experience, 26.
14. Ibid., 7.
15. Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Igrot Kodesh, vol. 5 (Kehot Publication Society, 1988), 183–5.
16. Mishnah, Avot 1:17.
17. Hilary Putnam, Key Philosophers in Conversation (Routledge, 1999), 44.
18. Ha-Tamim was a periodical published in interwar Poland, which functioned in part as a forum for the in-depth study and discussion of Chabad Chassidic teachings.
19. Ha-Tamim, no. 5 (Warsaw, 1936), 66–7 [490-רמו in the new pagination].
20. Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, Tanya, chapter 2. See also Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Ve-atah Tetzaveh 5741 (Kuntres Purim Katan 5752), in Sefer ha-Maamarim Melukat, vol. 3 (Vaad Hanochos BeLaHaK), 37.
21. While faith transcends all external experiences and objective arguments, theism is considered in Chassidic texts to be an axiomatic logical conclusion. The conclusion that G‑d must create and preserve the world is not based on empirical knowledge, but on reasoning so obvious and elemental that it is described as “the seeing of the intellect.” On the distinction between such knowledge and the type of faith described in the present article, see Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneersohn of Lubavitch, Derech Mitzvotecha (Kehot Publication Society, 1991), Mitzvat Ha’amanat Elokut.
22. See Midrash Rabah, 14:11; Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Inyannah Shel Torat Ha-chasidut in Sefer Ha-erchim Chabad (Kehot Publication Society: Brooklyn 1970), page 757.
23. Due the nature of the Chabad intellectual project, I have long hesitated to use the term “Chabad philosophy.” But in the light of Putnam’s suggestion that vision is as important to philosophy as argument, I think that “Chabad philosophy” may indeed be an accurate designation.
24. Introduction to Imrei Binah.
25. Although it was published as the second section of Tanya, there is evidence that it was initially written as the first section. It might be suggested that this change reflects our broader thesis about the nature of faith. The first section of Tanya discusses the practicalities of serving G‑d, while The Gate of Unity and Faith deals with the metaphysical fundamentals of belief. However integral such fundamentals are to Judaism, ultimately they are less important than the practicalities of Jewish life and practice.
26. See the introductory statement that precedes The Gate of Unity and Faith, chapter 1. See also ibid., chapter 7. Thanks to Rabbi Tzvi Freeman for this formulation of the concept.
27. See The Gate of Unity and Faith, especially chapters 4, 6 and 7.
28. Proverbs 24:16.
29. “Chinuch Katan” (preface to The Gate of Unity and Faith).
30. See comments to Rabbi Schneur Zalman’s preface by Rabbi Hillel ha-Levi of Paritch, Pelach ha-Rimon,vol. 1 (Kehot Publication Society, 1954), 302. In a similar vein see Rabbi Shalom DovBer Schneersohn, Yom Tov Shel Rosh Hashanah 5666 (Kehot Publication Society, 1971), 13 and 90.
31. See comments to Rabbi Schneur Zalman’s preface by Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Igrot Kodesh, vol. 14 (Kehot Publication Society, 1989), 458. See also Babylonian Talmud, Bava Metzia 85a, and Rashi’s commentary to the Talmud, Chullin 122a.
32. See Tanya, Part 1 (Sefer Shel Beinonim), chapters 6–8, for a discussion of various degrees of “otherness.” See also ibid., chapters 22 and 37; Part 4 (Iggeret ha-Kodesh), epistle 25; and Part 5 (Kuntres Acharon), essay 4.
33. Psalms 37:24. The verse is cited in this context by Rabbi Schneur Zalman.
© Copyright 2015, all rights reserved.
Your Questions
Do I Need an Alarm System if I have a Mezuzah? By Aron Moss
With all the terror around the world, my husband and I were discussing ways to keep our home safe. I lean more toward spirituality than he does, so I say we need to get our mezuzahs checked and make sure we have them on every door. He says we should get our alarm system checked and make sure we have sensors on every window. But you can have all the alarms in the world, and in the end it just boils down to having faith. And if we have faith, aren't mezuzahs enough?
Answer:
You’re right. And so is your husband. Installing an alarm system is as much an act of faith as installing mezuzahs.
I can think of no better example of a man of faith than the Rebbe. And the Rebbe always told people to check their mezuzahs, because a kosher mezuzah correctly placed on every doorway of the house invokes divine protection on those who live there, when they are home and even when they are away.
But here's a fascinating little piece of trivia. A close assistant to the Rebbe, who helped the Rebbe in his home, noticed that every single night before retiring upstairs, the Rebbe would personally check each downstairs window to see that it was locked.
He was a man of faith. But he lived in Brooklyn.
There is no contradiction here. True faith doesn't mean being irresponsible. It means looking after yourself in every way that is humanly possible, all the while recognizing that in truth, G‑d is looking after us. You need to lock your windows, but it's the mezuzah that keeps you safe. We need alarms, we need security guards, and we need the Israeli army. But we need to pray to G‑d that all these things should be effective.
So you are right, it is all about faith. If you have faith, install an alarm. And if you want the alarm to work, check the mezuzahs first.
Aron Moss is rabbi of the Nefesh Community in Sydney, Australia, and is a frequent contributor to Chabad.org.
© Copyright 2015, all rights reserved.
Your Questions
Coping with the Loss of a Grandchild By Chana Weisberg
My beautiful adolescent grandchild was recently killed in a terrible accident. This is actually the second grandchild I've lost. Please tell me how I'm supposed to be happy?
Answer:
I looked at your e-mail several times and closed it each time. How can I presume to tell you how to be happy after what you have gone through? I can write that I understand your grief and sadness, but, in truth, I am sure that I cannot really understand the pain that you must be living with and I truly cannot really feel the depths of your sorrow. But I do feel sorry for the pain and the sadness that I can only imagine that you and your family must be going through.
You write that your grandchild died tragically quite recently. The pain must still be especially severe and raw at this point, especially after the other tragedy you've suffered before.
I do not think that you are meant to try to erase that pain. We do need to mourn our losses; we cannot simply deny them and go on with life. And that is why according to the laws of the Torah, we can see that our mourning goes through various stages—with the first days and week being the most excruciatingly severe and unbearable; the first month being exceedingly difficult and the first year still very harsh. Time does have a way to heal, though, and though the pain never ceases, it dulls somewhat.
The following are some ideas, culled from the words of our sages, to help cope with the pain of bereavement:
At times, the severity of our pain can be somewhat eased through actions—by doing positive acts in the merit of our loved ones, and knowing that as a result the neshamah (soul) of our departed is getting pleasure from our actions in the World of Truth.
At times, it may also be helpful to speak to others about the departed, about your feelings, about your memories. Just the act of speaking to a friend, or a therapist when needed, can help deal with grief.
Sometimes it helps as well to keep a journal of your thoughts, feelings, and memories, and to keep reminding yourself that though you miss your loved one terribly, ultimately their soul is in a better place.
Speaking to G‑d, as well, about your pain; praying to Him, crying to Him, expressing your anger and outrage even, can help us reconnect to ourselves and our Source.
And in the right time, it is necessary to keep busy, move forward, keep focused on accomplishing or doing positive things in our world; to erase some of the harsh pain and bring more joy and goodness.
I have never been put through the sort of pain you write about. But I hope that some of these thoughts might be helpful. Let us hope and pray for the Redemption, when you will be reunited with your loved ones and when such sorrow and sadness will be erased from the face of this earth forever.
For more insight, please visit our Death & Mourning section, and specifically the Mourning Readings section.
Chana Weisberg for Chabad.org
Chana Weisberg is the editor of TheJewishWoman.org. She lectures internationally on issues relating to women, relationships, meaning, self-esteem and the Jewish soul. She is the author of five popular books.
All names of persons and locations or other identifying features referenced in these questions have been omitted or changed to preserve the anonymity of the questioners.
© Copyright 2015, all rights reserved.
Your Questions
Why Is Adar a Month of Happiness? By Naftali Silberberg
When the month of Adar enters, we increase in joy. -Talmud, Taanit 29a
There are many joyous dates on the Jewish calendar, but besides Purim, none of them affect the entire month, causing it to be auspicious and joyous. What is the intrinsic connection between Purim and Adar? Perhaps a comprehension of the unique nature of Purim will allow us to understand why its joy extends throughout the entire month of Adar.
Haman successfully pinpointed the moment when the Jews were at their lowest pointHaman thought to take advantage of the Jews when they were at their lowest point. After nearly a millennium of freedom, independence, and constant reliance on miracles, they were now banished from their land, helpless and seemingly at the mercy of the laws of nature. This was a completely new experience for the Jewish nation. Their spiritual status was also significantly affected. The Temple in Jerusalem where G-d's presence was manifest, a symbol of the special relationship He shares with His chosen nation, laid in ruins. As for the prospects of its reconstruction -- even the gentiles were aware of Jeremiah's prophesy that after seventy years of exile G-d would return the Jews to their land and rebuild the Temple. Seventy years had elapsed (or so everyone thought, due to erroneous calculations), and the awaited redemption had not arrived.
"The timing has never been better," Haman thought. "Surely the Chosen People have lost their exalted status. Now is the perfect moment to implement the Final Solution."
Haman, however, was not yet satisfied. He needed one more sign indicating the Jews' vulnerability. The lottery would have the final say. And indeed, the lottery provided the exact sign he anxiously awaited. The lottery designated Adar to be the month when his nefarious plan would be put into motion. The Talmud tells us that Haman was overjoyed by this favorable omen. "My lottery fell on the month when Moses died," he exclaimed. The demise of Moses, the "head" of the Jewish nation, was surely a metaphor for the demise of the entire nation!
Haman successfully pinpointed the moment when the Jews were at their lowest point – historically as well as calendar-wise – to implement his plan... But his plan still did not succeed.
Why?
The history of our nation is very much compared to the human lifespan. Through the course of a lifetime every person undergoes drastic changes; fluctuation being the most consistent feature of life. The helpless newborn has virtually nothing in common with the independent, talented personality which will emerge years down the line. Adulthood, too, has ups and downs, happy days and depressing days, fulfilling days and seemingly wasted days. There is, however, one constant: the very identity and essence of the person. John Doe remains John Doe from the day he is born until the day he dies.
our perpetual relationship with G-d is more evident when we are exiled and downtroddenThe same is true with our nation. We have ups and downs, both spiritually and materially, but our very identity, the fact that we are G-d's chosen nation, is never affected.
It can actually be argued that, in a certain sense, our perpetual relationship with G-d is more evident when we are exiled and downtrodden due to our sins, and G-d still interferes on our behalf, as was demonstrated by the Purim miracle. This phenomenon demonstrates the durability of our relationship; the ability of our essential identity to survive no matter our external state.
All other holidays celebrate the "highs" of our nation. And therefore their joy is limited, because highs don't last. Purim celebrates a time when we were at a low point in our history – but our relationship with G-d remained intact. Its joy is therefore greater than the joy of any other holiday, because it demonstrates the essential nature of our relationship with G-d -- and that is a constant.
The month of Adar, the month which Haman understood to be the most inauspicious month for the Jews, is the happiest month of the year—the month when we bear in mind that "inauspicious" has absolutely no bearing on our relationship with G-d.
Adapted by Naftali Silberberg from the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe.
Rabbi Silberberg resides in Brooklyn, NY, with his wife Chaya Mushka and their three children.
© Copyright 2015, all rights reserved.VIDEO
How to Achieve World PeaceThe Torah’s Direction for All of Mankind
Man was created in g-d’s image, but how do we maintain that image and sanctity? This class details the Torah’s message for humanity.
Aaron L. Raskin
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Story
The Two Watchmen Talmud, Sanhedrin 91a-b
Antoninus said to Rabbi Judah HaNassi: The body and the soul can each absolve themselves from judgment. The body can say: “It is the soul who has sinned. Why, from the day it left me, I lie like a dumb stone in the grave!” And the soul can say: “It’s the body who transgressed. From the day I departed from it, I fly about in the air like a bird!”
Said Rabbi Judah: I will tell you a parable.
Once there was a king who had a beautiful orchard with splendid figs. He appointed two watchmen for his orchard. One watchman was lame, and the other one was blind.
One day the lame man said to the blind man: “I see beautiful figs in the orchard. Come, I will ride on your shoulders, and we’ll take them and eat them.” So the lame man rode on the shoulders of the blind man, and they took the fruits and ate them.
Some time after, the owner of the orchard came and inquired of them, “Where are those beautiful figs?” The lame man replied, “Have I feet to walk with?” The blind man replied, “Have I eyes to see with?”
What did the king do? He placed the lame watchman on the shoulders of the blind watchman, and judged them together.
Artwork by Sarah Kranz.
© Copyright 2015, all rights reserved.
Women
Who's Afraid of the Boogeyman? By Elana Mizrahi
“Mommy, come with me,” my three-and-a-half-year-old son, Asher Yisrael, tells me.
“Where?”
“To the bathroom.”
“Asherleh, just go to the bathroom.”
“Come with me.”
Now, this conversation is transpiring in our home as I am sitting on the couch of our living room/dining room/family room/kitchen, which is about, I don’t know, maybe seven meters at most from the bathroom (which I can see clearly from the couch). My son has been going to the bathroom on his own since he was two. Why in the world does he need me to come with him now?
“Why, bubbaleh? Mommy is sitting. I’ll watch you go from here. Just go!” I say in my lazy “I’m tired and don’t want to get up from the couch” mode.
“There is someone there!” he tells me and points to the bathroom.
“Ahhh.” Lightbulb. Now I get it. He’s scared of the “boogeyman” of course (because I know without a doubt that there is no one there).
I get up and take his hand, walking him to the bathroom.
“You see, my love,” I tell him, opening the door wide to the bathroom. “There is no one there. Now go to the bathroom.”
The “boogeyman.” Who is this boogeyman?
The boogeyman is our imagination, which unfortunately doesn’t go away even after we are over three years old. The boogeyman is our anxiety, our fear that someone is there and that someone is out to get us.
In the book of Samuel I, the prophet describes how the righteous King Saul was sadly taken over by fears of the “boogeyman.” He was convinced that David, son of Jesse, was out to get him. On two occasions, David had the opportunity to kill King Saul, and he didn’t, even though King Saul tried to kill him. Over and over again, David proved his loyalty to King Saul, but the king’s fears preventing him from seeing the truth. In the end, King Saul lost his kingship and his life, not because of David, but due to his own failing to obey G‑d’s orders.
King Saul lived in mental anguish. His enemy wasn’t David, but himself.
Let me give you another example of the boogeyman phenomenon from my life.
I had a client come to me last week. She was breathless and upset. “Can you believe it! She didn’t even say hello to me! She just totally ignored me!”
“What are you talking about?” I asked her.
“This woman; she’s my neighbor and happens to be my friend. As I was on my way over to you, she passed me and totally ignored me. She didn’t even say hello or stop to talk to me. She saw me and just walked right by pretending not to see me!”
“How do you know that she saw you?”
“It was so obvious. She looked right at me.”
“And what if she was in a rush and had two minutes to catch her bus and stopping to talk would have caused her to miss it? Or what if she just received some very upsetting news and just had to be alone with her thoughts and didn’t feel that she could speak with anyone right at that moment? Or what if she really seemed like she saw you, but her mind was in something so far away that she looked at you, but really didn’t realize that it was you? . . .”
“Maybe you are right. I’m getting upset for nothing.”
Nothing but the boogeyman.
The boogeyman. We let it wreak havoc on our lives and our emotions even though it’s not there. We let it control our thoughts and actions even though it’s merely a product of our imagination. We let it ruin relationships and cause strife even though it doesn’t exist.
The next time you think you see the boogeyman, take yourself by the hand, give it a squeeze and tell yourself, “It’s okay, there is no one there!”
Originally from northern California and a Stanford University graduate, Elana Mizrahi now lives in Jerusalem with her husband and children. She is a doula, massage therapist, writer, and author ofDancing Through Life, a book for Jewish women. She also teaches Jewish marriage classes for brides.
© Copyright 2015, all rights reserved.
Women
Slow Down and Smell the Roses By Sarah Chana Radcliffe
Observe a small child at play, and you will see the epitome of patience. A three-year-old can sit for 30 minutes just looking at the twigs and stones on his porch. He picks one up, he puts it down. He picks another one up, examines it carefully, and puts it down. He repeats the exercise endlessly, seemingly never tiring of it.
But what about his mom? Running, rushing, doing, thinking, planning—the woman is forever on the go. She multi-tasks, runs a home, works a job, participates in community activities and events, nurtures her marriage, raises her children, connects with friends and relatives—why, she may evenHer motors are constantly revved up maintain a hobby or two! Even on Shabbat, her day of “rest,” she’s typically on the go—entertaining, davening, taking care of the kids. Her motors are constantly revved up. If she has a baby, she is on a 24/7 shift, and if she doesn’t, her mind is on high-alert nonetheless. Toddlers want nighttime attention too and, with a schedule like hers, she may not even “book in” more than a few hours of sleep, even when no one will disturb her. Productive, she is, but healthy—not so much.
Burn-Out
Women do not necessarily choose their busy schedules. Sure, there are some go-getters who would pack their day to overflowing just for the fun of it, but many more people find themselves swamped by default. Obligations mount simply because life is being lived. Jobs are not always optional. Children require care. Marriages demand time, and so on. A woman often finds herself overwhelmed and exhausted because she is trying to do more than any one person can actually do—and yet it all needs to be done. If she doesn’t want to burn out before she reaches middle age, she will need a strategy for replenishment. Fortunately, there are many things she can do to help balance the needs of her body, mind and soul.
And, wouldn’t you know it, it is actually a mitzvah to work toward this kind of balance, as we are commanded, “Guard your soul.”1 As Maimonides explains, this phrase refers to maintaining a healthy body, the habitat of the soul. Doing so is an essential way of serving G‑d, giving one the necessary mental, physical and spiritual strength to know and serve the Creator. The mitzvah to be very careful with one’s health is connected to the mitzvah to remember the giving of the Torah,2 thus emphasizing the connection between properly taking care of oneself and fulfilling all of the Torah! We can see then, that our well-being cannot be put to the side in the name of self-sacrifice or some imagined higher spiritual value. On the contrary, we must find ways to protect, nurture and strengthen our bodies. One strategy that can help is to put Slow Time on our schedule.
Slow Time
Slow Time is a sort of meditation that can be slipped seamlessly into a busy day. It’s really just a matter of intention. While returning from carpool, for example, you can choose to turn on the radio and listen to the disastrous and terrifying news of the day. Or, you can turn your car into a “spa,” playing your favorite uplifting and relaxing music or podcast or fascinating audiobook, or enjoying simple peace and quiet as you drive home. Notice what makes you feel refreshed and rejuvenated when you are alone in your car, and do it on purpose, with the clear intention to fulfill the mitzvah of guarding your health. Give this time to yourself.Use these minutes to revel in the baby's awesomeness
Similarly, when nursing a baby, you can be stressing about a million things you could be doing with this time. Or, you can intentionally use these minutes to gaze at your baby, revel in his or her awesomeness, melt into waves of life-enhancing gratitude, dive deep into wells of mother-love. Did you know that feelings of gratitude and love have powerful beneficial physical effects on the body? It’s good for you to go there; it prolongs your life, protects your mind and nourishes your soul!
Washing dishes? Immerse yourself in the wonder of soap suds and the beauty of squeaky clean. A toddler can spend hours at the sink experiencing joy at watching the water pour out of the faucet. When we slow down and really pay attention to what is happening, we can also recapture a bit of the pleasure of the simply sensual. We’re there anyways; we might as well enjoy it fully. Indeed, housework of all kinds lends itself well to meditative focus, allowing our minds to be fully in the moment as we pay attention to the physicality of the activity: folding laundry, running the vacuum or the broom across the floor, wiping a counter, setting a table. Peeling, chopping, stirring—it’s all good. Doing any of these activities consciously puts us squarely in the moment. We can choose to stop thinking, stop planning and start being right where we are, just for a little while. Or, if you prefer, enhance your housework chores with Torah podcasts, audiobooks and/or uplifting music. You can stimulate your mind or gladden your heart while you tend to tasks that don't require your full attention.
Interestingly, just a few intentional minutes here and there throughout the day are enough to reset our system and restore balance. It helps us build a space in which we can find and nurture our true selves. Without such a space, we become mindless robots running from task to task. In order to truly serve G‑d, we need to make time to experience our own psyche. We need a sense of self with which to relate to G‑d. Slow Time gives us time to find and strengthen ourselves. When can you insert Slow Time into your hectic schedule? When will you?
Sarah Chana Radcliffe is the author of The Fear Fix, Make Yourself at Home and Raise Your Kids Without Raising Your Voice. Visit her parenting page or access her teleclasses.
FOOTNOTES
1. Deuteronomy 4:15.
2. Deuteronomy 4:9-10.
© Copyright 2015, all rights reserved.
Jewish News
Copenhagen Jewish Community on High Alert After Multiple Terror Attacks
Chabad.org Staff
Copenhagen police cordoned off streets near the city's Great Synagogue after a terrorist killed a security guard and wounded two police officers. (Photo: Steen A. Jørgenssen/Twitter)
The Jewish community in Copenhagen, Denmark, remained in a state of high alert on Sunday, with many residents fearing to leave their homes after two people were killed and five wounded in two separate terrorist attacks in the nation’s capital the day before. A gunman who authorities said was behind the attacks was later killed in a shootout with police, who said it appears that he had been acting alone.
Just after midnight on Saturday, 22-year-old Omar El-Hussein opened fire outside the Great Synagogue in central Copenhagen, killing Dan Uzan, 38, who was helping guard a building adjacent to the synagogue, where more than 80 people were attending a bat mitzvah celebration. Two police officers were wounded in the attack; the gunman fled on foot before being killed by police in a shootout at a train station nearby.
The mother of the bat mitzvah girl told Israel’s Channel 2 news that guests and children fled to the synagogue’s basement after the gunman opened fire.
After hiding for two hours, the guests were taken out under heavy guard through a back door and put onto buses that took them to a police station, where they stayed until 8 a.m.
The mother thanked the police and security guards for being “heroes” in ensuring the safety of the guests.
Dan Uzan, the security guard who was killed in front of the synagogue
Rabbi Yitzchack Loewenthal, director of Chabad of Denmark, said he was at the synagogue only 30 minutes before the attack. “The Chabad House is in full lockdown,” Loewenthal wrote in a WhatsApp posting soon after the shooting. The rabbi wrote that he and his family were safe, but that “police with machine guns have now closed the Chabad House street at both ends. Helicopters and sirens all around. Barricaded all doors.”
Synagogue Attack Follows Deadly Shooting at Cafe
Hours earlier, a 55-year-old man was killed and three police officers wounded in a local cafe at an event supporting the freedom of expression.
The terrorist had been “on the radar” of security officials and may have been inspired by the events that took place in Paris, according to Jens Madsen of Denmark’s Security and Intelligence Service. A terrorist killed four Jewish men and held dozens hostage at a kosher supermarket in Paris last month. Two days earlier, two brothers shot and killed 12 people at the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
The Copenhagen gunman may “generally have been inspired by militant Islamist propaganda issued by IS [Islamic State] and other terror organizations,” said Madsen, who added that police have not yet ascertained if the man had traveled to conflict zones, “including Syria and Iraq.” Madsen said it was at “the absolute center of investigations.”
“There are a number of things indicating we have the right perpetrator, but our technical investigation isn’t complete, so we cannot be 100 percent sure,” said Jørgen Skov, head of the Copenhagen police. “There is nothing to suggest that several perpetrators are involved.”
Attacks Shake Denmark
Copenhagen police spokesman Allan Teddy Wadsworth-Hansen said officers were posted outside the synagogue when “a person came up and started to shoot.” That was followed by a succession of six or seven gunshots, he added.
“Within a minute or so, armed police were on the scene, a helicopter was hovering overhead,” reported Pete Milnes, a cameraman for Sky News. Twenty to 30 police officers with assault rifles arrived at the scene, shouting at residents to stay indoors and close all windows.
Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt visited the synagogue following yesterday's attacks and said "we will do everything we can to protect our Jewish community"
After the earlier shooting at an event titled “Art, Blasphemy and Freedom of Expression,” Thorning-Schmidt confirmed the shooting as a terrorist attack and declared the whole country to be on high alert.
“We feel certain now that it’s a politically motivated attack, and thereby, it is a terrorist attack. Our main priority at this stage is to catch the perpetrators and make sure that we find them as soon as possible,” she said.
Expressing “deep anger,” she vowed that all “resources will be used to find the perpetrators and bring them before a judge.”
And she also acknowledged that “we have some difficult days ahead.”
A Jewish guard was killed and two police officers injured in a shooting outside the Great Synagogue, above, in Copenhagen, Denmark.
© Copyright 2015, all rights reserved.
Jewish News
Bill Clinton Lauds Chabad School at New York Gala
By Faygie Levy
Former President Bill Clinton addresses a crowd gathered at a gala for the Preschool of the Arts in New York, discussing the importance of early education. (Photo: Pako Dominguez)
More than 1,000 people turned out Thursday night to hear former President Bill Clinton at a fundraiser for the Philip Berley Preschool of the Arts, a school run by the Chabad Center for Jewish Discovery, with five locations in Lower Manhattan that combines a solid foundation in both Judaism and the arts.
The “Founders Dinner” was held at the famed Cipriani Wall Street, which was turned strictly kosher for the night. This was the second time that Clinton has been a guest at a Preschool of the Arts fundraiser; the first was in 2011.
Noting that “we have not one child that we can waste,” the former president praised the school: “Preschool of the Arts is ahead of its time. If I needed to make a bet, in 10 years, many other schools will be doing what Preschool of the Arts is doing.”
Studies of children who are exposed to arts at an early age show they do better over the long term, added Clinton. “You do well supporting the arts,” he told the crowd, “and I urge you to continue.”
Sarah Rotenstreich, head of school at the Preschool of the Arts, which is set to open its fifth location this year, said Clinton has been a “pillar of support for the arts in education, forgoing the one-size-fits-all education, and honoring students’ individual strengths, multiple intelligences and creativity in the classroom.”
Along those lines, the school is known for its integrated mix of Judaism with secular studies, using all of the children’s senses at such a critical learning period in their young lives.
Clinton had great admiration for the Lubavitcher Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory—having praised his wisdom, leadership and commitment to education for all age groups, but especially children.
In a March 24, 2000 proclamation to commemorate the Rebbe’s birthday—a day that has been set aside as “Education and Sharing Day U.S.A.,” Clinton called the Rebbe “an accomplished scholar in mathematics and science.”
The “Founders Dinner” was held at the famed Cipriani Wall Street, which was turned strictly kosher for the night. (Photo: Pako Dominguez)
“Understanding that both secular education and spiritual training contribute enormously to human development, he sought to provide young people with fresh opportunities for academic, social and moral enrichment through the more than 2,000 educational and social institutions he established throughout our country and around the world,” stated Clinton.
These words perhaps hit closer to home now that the former president has his first grandchild. Music and books, he noted, are already a daily part of his baby granddaughter’s life, and something he emphasizes when spending time with her.
‘Customs, Traditions, Values’
His support of the integration of arts and education dovetails exactly with what Preschool of the Arts does each day. The preschool has been widely recognized as providing a very strong Jewish and secular early-childhood education, and its students have gone on to some of New York’s most exclusive private elementary schools.
Clinton with head of school Sarah Rotenstreich and Rabbi Naftali Rotenstreich, executive director of the Chabad Center for Jewish Discovery (Photo: Pako Dominguez)
The school’s educational model focuses on allowing students to “think out of the box,” says its head of school. “We’re not looking for a cookie-cutter education, but for kids to go through a process … to take a journey, and question and think.”
“Children are naturally creative and derive much pleasure from involvement in the arts. They learn a host of skills and acquire tremendous self-esteem when given varied opportunities to create,” says Rotenstreich. “We believe artistic expression is a constant process that begins with our youngest learners and explores, and is deepened and refined as they form relationships and connections with their world.”
They also gain a solid foundation of Judaism, thanks to a fully integrated curriculum.
“Our children learn the customs, traditions and moral values of Judaism,” explains Rotenstreich. “These lessons are woven naturally through all of our disciplines so that they become both a meaningful and treasured part of each child’s personal milieu.”
The former president takes time to meet and greet attendees. (Photo: Pako Dominguez)
Inside the venue. This was the second time that Clinton has been a guest at a Preschool of the Arts fundraiser; the first was in 2011. (Photo: Pako Dominguez)
© Copyright 2015, all rights reserved.
Jewish News
Women at International Conference Reflect and Pray at the Rebbe’s Resting Place
Chabad.org Staff
Women arrive Friday morning by bus from the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, N.Y., to the Ohel in Queens, N.Y., the resting place of the Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory, and his father-in-law, the Previous Rebbe—Rabbi Yitzchak Yosef Schneersohn, of righteous memory. (Photo: Itzik Roytman)
Women participating in the annual Kinus Hashluchos, the International Conference of Chabad-Lubavitch Women Emissaries, have continued with a busy schedule these past few days. On Friday morning, they left the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, N.Y., for a visit to the Ohel in Queens, N.Y., the resting place of the Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory—and his father-in-law, the Previous Rebbe—Rabbi Yitzchak Yosef Schneersohn, of righteous memory.
The women spent the better part of a bitter-cold morning writing letters and notes that they then placed at the Ohel, and also took time to pray at the resting place.
Afterwards, they returned to Crown Heights for a general educational session before they began preparing for Shabbat. The Sabbath day itself was replete with services and workshops.
Following Havdalah, the women joined in a melave malka, a festive meal upon the conclusion of Shabbat, where they also took group photos, including the official annual group photo.
The gala banquet, with as many as 3,000 attendees, takes place tonight at 5:30 p.m. and will be broadcast live on Jewish.tv.
Writing letters and notes to place at the Ohel. (Photo: Itzik Roytman)
In line, with babies in tow, to place their notes and pray. (Photo: Itzik Roytman)
Reviewing their notes (Photo: Itzik Roytman)
Placing their notes (Photo: Itzik Roytman)
Praying at the Ohel (Photo: Itzik Roytman)
Women head to the Rebbe's resting place. (Photo: Itzik Roytman)
Praying at the Ohel. (Photo: Itzik Roytman)
Assembling for the group photo after Shabbat. (Photo: Michal Weiss)
Getting closer ... (Photo: Michal Weiss)
Inside shot of women gathered at the Kinus (Photo: Michal Weiss)
The official 5775/2015 photo of the group (Photo: Chaim Perl)
© Copyright 2015, all rights reserved.
Jewish News
Q&A: An Unrelenting Court Battle for Jewish Religious Rights in Sweden
By Menachem Posner
Rabbi Alexander and Leah Namdar, co-directors of Chabad-Lubavitch of Sweden, with their lawyer, Ulf Tollhage of the Nordia Law Firm. The couple has been involved in an ongoing legal battle for the right to homeschool their four youngest children.
A flurry of stories has emerged from Gothenburg, Sweden, where Rabbi Alexander and Leah Namdar—co-directors of Chabad-Lubavitch of Sweden since 1991—have been defending their right to homeschool their four youngest children (ages 7 to 13). Their current court case is the latest in a series of legal cases that began in 2011 (previously, they had lost in the district court, won in the appeals court and then lost before the Supreme Court).
Living in a country with approximately 15,000 Jews among wider population of nearly 10 million—many of whom are affiliated with the Church of Sweden, but most of whom profess atheism—the Namdars already won an important Supreme Court victory in 2004, when they established that a Jewish school was allowed to function even without the usual minimum of 20 students. Now they seek to extend that provision to allow for homeschooling as well.
Despite the challenges their family faces, the Namdars remain hopeful. “Sweden has to begin respecting the values, morals and belief of a one true G‑d,” asserts Rabbi Namdar, “and all the rest will automatically fall into place.”
Leah Namdar shares her perspective—and challenges—educationally and legally, in addition to what keeps her and her family going.
Q: First, some background. You and your husband are the parents of 11 children. How did this suddenly become an issue?
A: Interestingly, it began after we appeared on a Swedish documentary about belief of G‑d called “From Sweden to Heaven.” Filmmakers had been recording in our home for a week. The film aired three times on the main TV channel here and was viewed by millions of people, and was very well-received, thank G‑d. People were stopping us on the street and telling us how it had gotten them to rethink the concept of belief in G‑d, which was meaningful in the secular, often atheistic, culture in Sweden.
Sweden allows homeschooling for families that provide a special reason; the Namdars' reason is for religious principles, which is being debated. In addition to their schooling, the kids get plenty of time outdoors as well.
Shortly thereafter, we got a call from the city educational authorities. They said: “We saw you on TV.” We asked how they liked it, and they coldly informed us that they now have more questions than answers, and that they had decided we were no longer able to homeschool our children and needed to enroll them in public school.
Q: Can you please explain the laws pertinent to this case?
A: Sweden allows homeschooling for families that provide a special reason. Thank G‑d, it has also been established early on in the trial that we are giving our children a well-rounded and robust education. The issue here is that the city wishes to argue that religious principles are not a valid reason for us to customize our children’s education—and that’s preposterous.
It’s against the constitution of Sweden; it’s against U.N. [United Nations] and E.U. [European Union] law; it’s against the Geneva Convention; and it flies in the face of the beliefs of religious freedom that’s the foundation of Western society as we know it. Most importantly, denial of religious freedom comes dangerously close to undermining the concept of belief in G‑d, which is the foundation of any society, regardless of race and religion.
In fact, one of the people who worked on the original policy, Guy Linderman, who is active in politics here and a dear friend of ours, told us that this is a distortion of the policy, whose primary purpose is to ensure that children of immigrants receive an education—not to infringe upon our right to give our children an education.
Around the table with friends at the Chabad House. The Namdars, who have 11 children, have been living and working in Sweden since 1991.
Q: Please describe your children’s educational program.
A: The children’s school day begins at 8:15 a.m. and ends at 4 p.m., with some lessons in the evening, too. They first pray and then join their classmates at the International Shluchim Online School. The lessons are in English (in addition to Swedish, our children are fluent in Yiddish, English and Hebrew), and that continues until the afternoon. We supplement the online school classes with Swedish lessons, physical education, music, sport, dance and other usual subjects. They have a well-rounded and balanced education.
Our grown children currently serve in leadership positions as educators in Jewish communities abroad, and it’s largely a credit to the type of education that we make sure they get that qualifies them for these roles. There’s no doubt that the online school provides them with a cosmopolitan experience and exposes them to the world far beyond the confines of a typical Swedish school.
Education is very important to us. As Chabad shluchim [emissaries], we represent Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch—the educational arm of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement—and our work in Sweden involves the education of both children and adults. My husband and I both teach. My husband had also taught in New York and Australia, and here in Sweden. Before coming to Sweden, I taught in London and New York, and have worked educating children for 24 years here in Sweden.
The rabbi plays a little chess with the younger children after a day of study and as part of family time.
Q: How have you and your family been coping with the negativity associated with the case?
A: We made a decision early on that this challenge should not cast a shadow over our children’s childhood. Yes, this has been a tremendous harassment; we’ve been dragged into court and are facing legal fees, but we have the Rebbe’s [Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory] teachings that give us a lot of strength, and we know it’s not about our kids, but a bigger issue of respecting religion in Sweden.
In my mind, I constantly hear the Rebbe’s voice ringing in my ears. In his first Chassidic discourse in 1951, he discusses our mission—an extension of the mission of Abraham—to bring G‑dly awareness to the world at large, and to do so to the degree that the very world will call out in the name of G‑d.
When we were in court this past time, as part of our testimony, we explained the Seven Noahide Laws and how every single person has the moral obligation to make this world a place where G‑d will feel at home.
If for nothing else, our ordeal is helping bring these concepts and the notion of religion in general into public discourse, and that’s a good thing.
Going over some schoolwork with a friend. The children’s school day begins at 8:15 a.m. and ends at 4 p.m., with some lessons in the evening as well.
Q: Have the children been to court?
A: No, the children do not attend court. But on the screen outside the courtroom, where the docket is displayed, our children are named as defendants. The verse in Torah says, “Do not touch my anointed ones,” which refers to Jewish children.
Q: What support have you received from the community?
A: People in the Jewish community here who know us have been supportive, hoping for our success, and that gives us strength. There is a group of homeschoolers in Sweden who want to raise their children with belief in G‑d and are experiencing similar harassment, many of them Christian. They are watching the outcome of our case with tremendous interest and hope for a positive outcome.
We’ve also seen support on a parliamentary level as well. Annelie Enochson is a member of parliament who’s been very concerned and a great source of help throughout our ordeal.
On an international level, there has been a tremendous outpouring of support. The judge showed us in the courtroom a huge stack of hundreds of letters from Jewish and non-Jewish leaders worldwide, from concerned friends and activists who appreciate that this is not a family on trial, but the rights of religious people to freely express those rights that’s at stake here. We tremendously appreciate the efforts of all those who have lent support and have taken the time to write to the court.
One of the Namdar girls, left, studies with a friend. The children are social through their online school and with all of the activities at the Chabad House.
Q: What is your concluding message? What do you want readers to take away from your predicament?
A: The foundation of a healthy society is a belief in G‑d, and that is what we imparted to the court. Seventy-five years ago, there was a nation here in Europe whose people were educated; had table manners and etiquette; listened to Beethoven, Mozart and Bach; and followed the laws of their land. Yet they were able to create an Auschwitz. Their laws included destroying six million Jews! The reason this was possible is because they took G‑d and Divine morality out of the system, and they became a nation of obedient murderers.
To believe in G‑d means to cherish life and all of His creations—to respect others, the elderly, the children. To appreciate the beautiful world He created, and to study and become part of the people who are an asset to society, and in making the world a better place through acts of goodness and kindness.
The world is a place that is a garden for G‑d. Through recognizing the different needs that people have, we are appreciating that each one of us is playing another piece in the great symphony orchestra of humankind.
To help support the cause of religious freedom in Sweden, click here.
See Mrs. Namdar telling her story here:
© Copyright 2015, all rights reserved.
Lifestyle
Oven-Fried Shnitzel with Apricot Dipping Sauce By Miriam Szokovski
Do you dream about making shnitzel without all the labor-intensive work? If so, this recipe is for you. There is minimal oil and no frying. Dump the pieces on a pan and bake them. It's that simple. No need to stand sentry over the boiling oil for fear of splatters and burns. Of course, it's also healthier.
Slice the chicken into thin strips. It's easier to slice thinly when half frozen. So if you're defrosting the chicken, don't let it defrost fully.
Crack the egg into a bowl and mix the cornflake crumbs and flour in a separate bowl. Dip each piece of chicken into the egg and then into the crumbs. Lay the chicken pieces on a greased cookie sheet. Don't worry about overcrowding the pan—it's fine if the pieces are touching.
Drizzle the oil over the chicken and bake on 400°F for about 20 minutes. Baking time will depend on the thickness of your chicken, so cut one piece open to see if it's ready before you take them all out. Also keep in mind that baking on disposable pans usually requires a bit more oven time than real pans.
Eat immediately or refrigerate for later. This chicken also works well when you cut it up and add it to salad.
Want to fancy it up a little? Make the dipping sauce and serve it alongside the chicken. Watch it disappear in no time!
Shnitzel Ingredients
1 lb. chicken breast
2 cups flavored corn flake crumbs
1/4 cup flour
1 egg
3 tbsp. oil
Shnitzel Directions
Cut the chicken into thin strips. It's easier to slice thinly when the chicken is half frozen.
Crack the egg into a bowl and beat it with a fork.
In a separate bowl mix the flour and cornflake crumbs.
Dip each piece of chicken into the eggs and then into crumbs. Lay the chicken pieces on a greased cookie sheet and drizzle with the oil.
Bake on 400°F for approximately 20 minutes (longer if your chicken is thicker or if you're using a disposable foil pan).
Sauce Ingredients
1/2 cup apricot preserves
3 tsp. soy sauce
2 tbsp. white sugar
1 tbsp. brown sugar
2 tbsp. vinegar
1/8 tsp. ginger powder
1/8 tsp. garlic powder
1/4 cup water
Sauce Directions
Cook all sauce ingredients in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer.
Simmer over a very low flame for 10-15 minutes until the sauce thickens. Make sure to stir frequently so the sauce doesn't burn.
When it's ready, take the sauce off the fire and pour it through a fine mesh strainer.
Serve alongside the shnitzel for dipping.
Miriam Szokovski is the author of historical novel Exiled Down Under, and a member of the Chabad.org editorial team. She enjoys tinkering with recipes, and teaches cooking classes to young children. Miriam shares her love of cooking, baking and food photography on Chabad.org’s food blog, Cook It Kosher and in the N'shei Chabad Newsletter.
© Copyright 2015, all rights reserved.
Lifestyle
Glitter Wine Bottle Centerpieces By Abbey Wolin
Add color and shine to your Purim table with these glittery centerpieces.
You will need:
Mod-podge
A brush
Glitter
An empty, clean glass bottle
Directions:
Working with small areas, spread the mod-podge over the class and immediately pour glitter over it.
Mix it up and get creative with color and design!
Set the bottle aside for 6 hours until dry.
Don't want to get messy with all that glitter? Use duct tape instead! There are so many colors and patterns to choose from. We chose metallic colors to keep with our glittery theme. Just wrap it around the bottle.
For the past 12 years, Abbey Wolin has been bringing creativity back to the classroom. She has held positions as a regular and special education teacher in various schools. She is currently the lead designer and founder of Not 2 Shabbey, a company specializing in hand painted personalized gifts. You can reach Abbey by visiting Not2Shabbey.com.
JCreate is an online Jewish crafting magazine.
© Copyright 2015, all rights reserved.
Lifestyle
Kindling Icicles
Photo by Oneinfocus
The Baal Shem Tov loved light.
When candles were scarce, he instructed his disciples to collect icicles from the branches, place them in candleholders and light them.
The third Lubavitcher Rebbe said,
"For the Baal Shem Tov's Chassidim, ice burned and yielded light.
Today you sit in heated and well lit rooms, and yet it's cold and dark."
Learn more about this photo
Michoel is an innovative educator, outdoor enthusiast and avid photographer. Michoel grew up in Australia where he used the 'Outback' to refine his photography skills. He pursued studies at Mayanot in Israel, the Rabbinical College of America in New Jersey and Rabbinical studies at Kollel Menachem in Brooklyn NY. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Sarah, and daughter. Read more about his organization at Oneinfocus.org.
© Copyright 2015, all rights reserved.
Chabad.org Magazine - Editor: Yanki Tauber
_____________________________
• The Benefit of Sacrifice (By Yehoshua B. Gordon)
<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript" src="http://embed.chabad.org/multimedia/mediaplayer/embedded/embed.js.asp?aid=2474141&width=auto&height=auto"></script><span style="clear:both;" class="lb" id="lbdiv">Visit <a href="http://www.chabad.org/multimedia/default_cdo/aid/591213/jewish/Video.htm">Jewish.TV</a> for more <a href="http://www.chabad.org/multimedia/default_cdo/aid/591213/jewish/Video.htm">Jewish videos</a>.</span>
Story
The Two Watchmen Talmud, Sanhedrin 91a-b
Said Rabbi Judah: I will tell you a parable.
Once there was a king who had a beautiful orchard with splendid figs. He appointed two watchmen for his orchard. One watchman was lame, and the other one was blind.
One day the lame man said to the blind man: “I see beautiful figs in the orchard. Come, I will ride on your shoulders, and we’ll take them and eat them.” So the lame man rode on the shoulders of the blind man, and they took the fruits and ate them.
Some time after, the owner of the orchard came and inquired of them, “Where are those beautiful figs?” The lame man replied, “Have I feet to walk with?” The blind man replied, “Have I eyes to see with?”
What did the king do? He placed the lame watchman on the shoulders of the blind watchman, and judged them together.
Artwork by Sarah Kranz.
© Copyright 2015, all rights reserved.
Women
Who's Afraid of the Boogeyman? By Elana Mizrahi
“Where?”
“To the bathroom.”
“Asherleh, just go to the bathroom.”
“Come with me.”
Now, this conversation is transpiring in our home as I am sitting on the couch of our living room/dining room/family room/kitchen, which is about, I don’t know, maybe seven meters at most from the bathroom (which I can see clearly from the couch). My son has been going to the bathroom on his own since he was two. Why in the world does he need me to come with him now?
“Why, bubbaleh? Mommy is sitting. I’ll watch you go from here. Just go!” I say in my lazy “I’m tired and don’t want to get up from the couch” mode.
“There is someone there!” he tells me and points to the bathroom.
“Ahhh.” Lightbulb. Now I get it. He’s scared of the “boogeyman” of course (because I know without a doubt that there is no one there).
I get up and take his hand, walking him to the bathroom.
“You see, my love,” I tell him, opening the door wide to the bathroom. “There is no one there. Now go to the bathroom.”
The “boogeyman.” Who is this boogeyman?
The boogeyman is our imagination, which unfortunately doesn’t go away even after we are over three years old. The boogeyman is our anxiety, our fear that someone is there and that someone is out to get us.
In the book of Samuel I, the prophet describes how the righteous King Saul was sadly taken over by fears of the “boogeyman.” He was convinced that David, son of Jesse, was out to get him. On two occasions, David had the opportunity to kill King Saul, and he didn’t, even though King Saul tried to kill him. Over and over again, David proved his loyalty to King Saul, but the king’s fears preventing him from seeing the truth. In the end, King Saul lost his kingship and his life, not because of David, but due to his own failing to obey G‑d’s orders.
King Saul lived in mental anguish. His enemy wasn’t David, but himself.
Let me give you another example of the boogeyman phenomenon from my life.
I had a client come to me last week. She was breathless and upset. “Can you believe it! She didn’t even say hello to me! She just totally ignored me!”
“What are you talking about?” I asked her.
“This woman; she’s my neighbor and happens to be my friend. As I was on my way over to you, she passed me and totally ignored me. She didn’t even say hello or stop to talk to me. She saw me and just walked right by pretending not to see me!”
“How do you know that she saw you?”
“It was so obvious. She looked right at me.”
“And what if she was in a rush and had two minutes to catch her bus and stopping to talk would have caused her to miss it? Or what if she just received some very upsetting news and just had to be alone with her thoughts and didn’t feel that she could speak with anyone right at that moment? Or what if she really seemed like she saw you, but her mind was in something so far away that she looked at you, but really didn’t realize that it was you? . . .”
“Maybe you are right. I’m getting upset for nothing.”
Nothing but the boogeyman.
The boogeyman. We let it wreak havoc on our lives and our emotions even though it’s not there. We let it control our thoughts and actions even though it’s merely a product of our imagination. We let it ruin relationships and cause strife even though it doesn’t exist.
The next time you think you see the boogeyman, take yourself by the hand, give it a squeeze and tell yourself, “It’s okay, there is no one there!”
Originally from northern California and a Stanford University graduate, Elana Mizrahi now lives in Jerusalem with her husband and children. She is a doula, massage therapist, writer, and author ofDancing Through Life, a book for Jewish women. She also teaches Jewish marriage classes for brides.
© Copyright 2015, all rights reserved.
Women
Slow Down and Smell the Roses By Sarah Chana Radcliffe
But what about his mom? Running, rushing, doing, thinking, planning—the woman is forever on the go. She multi-tasks, runs a home, works a job, participates in community activities and events, nurtures her marriage, raises her children, connects with friends and relatives—why, she may evenHer motors are constantly revved up maintain a hobby or two! Even on Shabbat, her day of “rest,” she’s typically on the go—entertaining, davening, taking care of the kids. Her motors are constantly revved up. If she has a baby, she is on a 24/7 shift, and if she doesn’t, her mind is on high-alert nonetheless. Toddlers want nighttime attention too and, with a schedule like hers, she may not even “book in” more than a few hours of sleep, even when no one will disturb her. Productive, she is, but healthy—not so much.
Burn-Out
Women do not necessarily choose their busy schedules. Sure, there are some go-getters who would pack their day to overflowing just for the fun of it, but many more people find themselves swamped by default. Obligations mount simply because life is being lived. Jobs are not always optional. Children require care. Marriages demand time, and so on. A woman often finds herself overwhelmed and exhausted because she is trying to do more than any one person can actually do—and yet it all needs to be done. If she doesn’t want to burn out before she reaches middle age, she will need a strategy for replenishment. Fortunately, there are many things she can do to help balance the needs of her body, mind and soul.
And, wouldn’t you know it, it is actually a mitzvah to work toward this kind of balance, as we are commanded, “Guard your soul.”1 As Maimonides explains, this phrase refers to maintaining a healthy body, the habitat of the soul. Doing so is an essential way of serving G‑d, giving one the necessary mental, physical and spiritual strength to know and serve the Creator. The mitzvah to be very careful with one’s health is connected to the mitzvah to remember the giving of the Torah,2 thus emphasizing the connection between properly taking care of oneself and fulfilling all of the Torah! We can see then, that our well-being cannot be put to the side in the name of self-sacrifice or some imagined higher spiritual value. On the contrary, we must find ways to protect, nurture and strengthen our bodies. One strategy that can help is to put Slow Time on our schedule.
Slow Time
Slow Time is a sort of meditation that can be slipped seamlessly into a busy day. It’s really just a matter of intention. While returning from carpool, for example, you can choose to turn on the radio and listen to the disastrous and terrifying news of the day. Or, you can turn your car into a “spa,” playing your favorite uplifting and relaxing music or podcast or fascinating audiobook, or enjoying simple peace and quiet as you drive home. Notice what makes you feel refreshed and rejuvenated when you are alone in your car, and do it on purpose, with the clear intention to fulfill the mitzvah of guarding your health. Give this time to yourself.Use these minutes to revel in the baby's awesomeness
Similarly, when nursing a baby, you can be stressing about a million things you could be doing with this time. Or, you can intentionally use these minutes to gaze at your baby, revel in his or her awesomeness, melt into waves of life-enhancing gratitude, dive deep into wells of mother-love. Did you know that feelings of gratitude and love have powerful beneficial physical effects on the body? It’s good for you to go there; it prolongs your life, protects your mind and nourishes your soul!
Washing dishes? Immerse yourself in the wonder of soap suds and the beauty of squeaky clean. A toddler can spend hours at the sink experiencing joy at watching the water pour out of the faucet. When we slow down and really pay attention to what is happening, we can also recapture a bit of the pleasure of the simply sensual. We’re there anyways; we might as well enjoy it fully. Indeed, housework of all kinds lends itself well to meditative focus, allowing our minds to be fully in the moment as we pay attention to the physicality of the activity: folding laundry, running the vacuum or the broom across the floor, wiping a counter, setting a table. Peeling, chopping, stirring—it’s all good. Doing any of these activities consciously puts us squarely in the moment. We can choose to stop thinking, stop planning and start being right where we are, just for a little while. Or, if you prefer, enhance your housework chores with Torah podcasts, audiobooks and/or uplifting music. You can stimulate your mind or gladden your heart while you tend to tasks that don't require your full attention.
Interestingly, just a few intentional minutes here and there throughout the day are enough to reset our system and restore balance. It helps us build a space in which we can find and nurture our true selves. Without such a space, we become mindless robots running from task to task. In order to truly serve G‑d, we need to make time to experience our own psyche. We need a sense of self with which to relate to G‑d. Slow Time gives us time to find and strengthen ourselves. When can you insert Slow Time into your hectic schedule? When will you?
Sarah Chana Radcliffe is the author of The Fear Fix, Make Yourself at Home and Raise Your Kids Without Raising Your Voice. Visit her parenting page or access her teleclasses.
FOOTNOTES
1. Deuteronomy 4:15.
2. Deuteronomy 4:9-10.
© Copyright 2015, all rights reserved.
Jewish News
Copenhagen Jewish Community on High Alert After Multiple Terror Attacks
Chabad.org Staff
The Jewish community in Copenhagen, Denmark, remained in a state of high alert on Sunday, with many residents fearing to leave their homes after two people were killed and five wounded in two separate terrorist attacks in the nation’s capital the day before. A gunman who authorities said was behind the attacks was later killed in a shootout with police, who said it appears that he had been acting alone.
Just after midnight on Saturday, 22-year-old Omar El-Hussein opened fire outside the Great Synagogue in central Copenhagen, killing Dan Uzan, 38, who was helping guard a building adjacent to the synagogue, where more than 80 people were attending a bat mitzvah celebration. Two police officers were wounded in the attack; the gunman fled on foot before being killed by police in a shootout at a train station nearby.
The mother of the bat mitzvah girl told Israel’s Channel 2 news that guests and children fled to the synagogue’s basement after the gunman opened fire.
After hiding for two hours, the guests were taken out under heavy guard through a back door and put onto buses that took them to a police station, where they stayed until 8 a.m.
The mother thanked the police and security guards for being “heroes” in ensuring the safety of the guests.
Rabbi Yitzchack Loewenthal, director of Chabad of Denmark, said he was at the synagogue only 30 minutes before the attack. “The Chabad House is in full lockdown,” Loewenthal wrote in a WhatsApp posting soon after the shooting. The rabbi wrote that he and his family were safe, but that “police with machine guns have now closed the Chabad House street at both ends. Helicopters and sirens all around. Barricaded all doors.”
Synagogue Attack Follows Deadly Shooting at Cafe
Hours earlier, a 55-year-old man was killed and three police officers wounded in a local cafe at an event supporting the freedom of expression.
The terrorist had been “on the radar” of security officials and may have been inspired by the events that took place in Paris, according to Jens Madsen of Denmark’s Security and Intelligence Service. A terrorist killed four Jewish men and held dozens hostage at a kosher supermarket in Paris last month. Two days earlier, two brothers shot and killed 12 people at the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
The Copenhagen gunman may “generally have been inspired by militant Islamist propaganda issued by IS [Islamic State] and other terror organizations,” said Madsen, who added that police have not yet ascertained if the man had traveled to conflict zones, “including Syria and Iraq.” Madsen said it was at “the absolute center of investigations.”
“There are a number of things indicating we have the right perpetrator, but our technical investigation isn’t complete, so we cannot be 100 percent sure,” said Jørgen Skov, head of the Copenhagen police. “There is nothing to suggest that several perpetrators are involved.”
Attacks Shake Denmark
Copenhagen police spokesman Allan Teddy Wadsworth-Hansen said officers were posted outside the synagogue when “a person came up and started to shoot.” That was followed by a succession of six or seven gunshots, he added.
“Within a minute or so, armed police were on the scene, a helicopter was hovering overhead,” reported Pete Milnes, a cameraman for Sky News. Twenty to 30 police officers with assault rifles arrived at the scene, shouting at residents to stay indoors and close all windows.
Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt visited the synagogue following yesterday's attacks and said "we will do everything we can to protect our Jewish community"
After the earlier shooting at an event titled “Art, Blasphemy and Freedom of Expression,” Thorning-Schmidt confirmed the shooting as a terrorist attack and declared the whole country to be on high alert.
“We feel certain now that it’s a politically motivated attack, and thereby, it is a terrorist attack. Our main priority at this stage is to catch the perpetrators and make sure that we find them as soon as possible,” she said.
Expressing “deep anger,” she vowed that all “resources will be used to find the perpetrators and bring them before a judge.”
And she also acknowledged that “we have some difficult days ahead.”
© Copyright 2015, all rights reserved.
Jewish News
Bill Clinton Lauds Chabad School at New York Gala
By Faygie Levy
More than 1,000 people turned out Thursday night to hear former President Bill Clinton at a fundraiser for the Philip Berley Preschool of the Arts, a school run by the Chabad Center for Jewish Discovery, with five locations in Lower Manhattan that combines a solid foundation in both Judaism and the arts.
The “Founders Dinner” was held at the famed Cipriani Wall Street, which was turned strictly kosher for the night. This was the second time that Clinton has been a guest at a Preschool of the Arts fundraiser; the first was in 2011.
Noting that “we have not one child that we can waste,” the former president praised the school: “Preschool of the Arts is ahead of its time. If I needed to make a bet, in 10 years, many other schools will be doing what Preschool of the Arts is doing.”
Studies of children who are exposed to arts at an early age show they do better over the long term, added Clinton. “You do well supporting the arts,” he told the crowd, “and I urge you to continue.”
Sarah Rotenstreich, head of school at the Preschool of the Arts, which is set to open its fifth location this year, said Clinton has been a “pillar of support for the arts in education, forgoing the one-size-fits-all education, and honoring students’ individual strengths, multiple intelligences and creativity in the classroom.”
Along those lines, the school is known for its integrated mix of Judaism with secular studies, using all of the children’s senses at such a critical learning period in their young lives.
Clinton had great admiration for the Lubavitcher Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory—having praised his wisdom, leadership and commitment to education for all age groups, but especially children.
In a March 24, 2000 proclamation to commemorate the Rebbe’s birthday—a day that has been set aside as “Education and Sharing Day U.S.A.,” Clinton called the Rebbe “an accomplished scholar in mathematics and science.”
“Understanding that both secular education and spiritual training contribute enormously to human development, he sought to provide young people with fresh opportunities for academic, social and moral enrichment through the more than 2,000 educational and social institutions he established throughout our country and around the world,” stated Clinton.
These words perhaps hit closer to home now that the former president has his first grandchild. Music and books, he noted, are already a daily part of his baby granddaughter’s life, and something he emphasizes when spending time with her.
‘Customs, Traditions, Values’
His support of the integration of arts and education dovetails exactly with what Preschool of the Arts does each day. The preschool has been widely recognized as providing a very strong Jewish and secular early-childhood education, and its students have gone on to some of New York’s most exclusive private elementary schools.
The school’s educational model focuses on allowing students to “think out of the box,” says its head of school. “We’re not looking for a cookie-cutter education, but for kids to go through a process … to take a journey, and question and think.”
“Children are naturally creative and derive much pleasure from involvement in the arts. They learn a host of skills and acquire tremendous self-esteem when given varied opportunities to create,” says Rotenstreich. “We believe artistic expression is a constant process that begins with our youngest learners and explores, and is deepened and refined as they form relationships and connections with their world.”
They also gain a solid foundation of Judaism, thanks to a fully integrated curriculum.
“Our children learn the customs, traditions and moral values of Judaism,” explains Rotenstreich. “These lessons are woven naturally through all of our disciplines so that they become both a meaningful and treasured part of each child’s personal milieu.”
© Copyright 2015, all rights reserved.
Jewish News
Women at International Conference Reflect and Pray at the Rebbe’s Resting Place
Chabad.org Staff
Women participating in the annual Kinus Hashluchos, the International Conference of Chabad-Lubavitch Women Emissaries, have continued with a busy schedule these past few days. On Friday morning, they left the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, N.Y., for a visit to the Ohel in Queens, N.Y., the resting place of the Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory—and his father-in-law, the Previous Rebbe—Rabbi Yitzchak Yosef Schneersohn, of righteous memory.
The women spent the better part of a bitter-cold morning writing letters and notes that they then placed at the Ohel, and also took time to pray at the resting place.
Afterwards, they returned to Crown Heights for a general educational session before they began preparing for Shabbat. The Sabbath day itself was replete with services and workshops.
Following Havdalah, the women joined in a melave malka, a festive meal upon the conclusion of Shabbat, where they also took group photos, including the official annual group photo.
The gala banquet, with as many as 3,000 attendees, takes place tonight at 5:30 p.m. and will be broadcast live on Jewish.tv.
© Copyright 2015, all rights reserved.
Jewish News
Q&A: An Unrelenting Court Battle for Jewish Religious Rights in Sweden
By Menachem Posner
A flurry of stories has emerged from Gothenburg, Sweden, where Rabbi Alexander and Leah Namdar—co-directors of Chabad-Lubavitch of Sweden since 1991—have been defending their right to homeschool their four youngest children (ages 7 to 13). Their current court case is the latest in a series of legal cases that began in 2011 (previously, they had lost in the district court, won in the appeals court and then lost before the Supreme Court).
Living in a country with approximately 15,000 Jews among wider population of nearly 10 million—many of whom are affiliated with the Church of Sweden, but most of whom profess atheism—the Namdars already won an important Supreme Court victory in 2004, when they established that a Jewish school was allowed to function even without the usual minimum of 20 students. Now they seek to extend that provision to allow for homeschooling as well.
Despite the challenges their family faces, the Namdars remain hopeful. “Sweden has to begin respecting the values, morals and belief of a one true G‑d,” asserts Rabbi Namdar, “and all the rest will automatically fall into place.”
Leah Namdar shares her perspective—and challenges—educationally and legally, in addition to what keeps her and her family going.
Q: First, some background. You and your husband are the parents of 11 children. How did this suddenly become an issue?
A: Interestingly, it began after we appeared on a Swedish documentary about belief of G‑d called “From Sweden to Heaven.” Filmmakers had been recording in our home for a week. The film aired three times on the main TV channel here and was viewed by millions of people, and was very well-received, thank G‑d. People were stopping us on the street and telling us how it had gotten them to rethink the concept of belief in G‑d, which was meaningful in the secular, often atheistic, culture in Sweden.
Shortly thereafter, we got a call from the city educational authorities. They said: “We saw you on TV.” We asked how they liked it, and they coldly informed us that they now have more questions than answers, and that they had decided we were no longer able to homeschool our children and needed to enroll them in public school.
Q: Can you please explain the laws pertinent to this case?
A: Sweden allows homeschooling for families that provide a special reason. Thank G‑d, it has also been established early on in the trial that we are giving our children a well-rounded and robust education. The issue here is that the city wishes to argue that religious principles are not a valid reason for us to customize our children’s education—and that’s preposterous.
It’s against the constitution of Sweden; it’s against U.N. [United Nations] and E.U. [European Union] law; it’s against the Geneva Convention; and it flies in the face of the beliefs of religious freedom that’s the foundation of Western society as we know it. Most importantly, denial of religious freedom comes dangerously close to undermining the concept of belief in G‑d, which is the foundation of any society, regardless of race and religion.
In fact, one of the people who worked on the original policy, Guy Linderman, who is active in politics here and a dear friend of ours, told us that this is a distortion of the policy, whose primary purpose is to ensure that children of immigrants receive an education—not to infringe upon our right to give our children an education.
Q: Please describe your children’s educational program.
A: The children’s school day begins at 8:15 a.m. and ends at 4 p.m., with some lessons in the evening, too. They first pray and then join their classmates at the International Shluchim Online School. The lessons are in English (in addition to Swedish, our children are fluent in Yiddish, English and Hebrew), and that continues until the afternoon. We supplement the online school classes with Swedish lessons, physical education, music, sport, dance and other usual subjects. They have a well-rounded and balanced education.
Our grown children currently serve in leadership positions as educators in Jewish communities abroad, and it’s largely a credit to the type of education that we make sure they get that qualifies them for these roles. There’s no doubt that the online school provides them with a cosmopolitan experience and exposes them to the world far beyond the confines of a typical Swedish school.
Education is very important to us. As Chabad shluchim [emissaries], we represent Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch—the educational arm of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement—and our work in Sweden involves the education of both children and adults. My husband and I both teach. My husband had also taught in New York and Australia, and here in Sweden. Before coming to Sweden, I taught in London and New York, and have worked educating children for 24 years here in Sweden.
Q: How have you and your family been coping with the negativity associated with the case?
A: We made a decision early on that this challenge should not cast a shadow over our children’s childhood. Yes, this has been a tremendous harassment; we’ve been dragged into court and are facing legal fees, but we have the Rebbe’s [Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory] teachings that give us a lot of strength, and we know it’s not about our kids, but a bigger issue of respecting religion in Sweden.
In my mind, I constantly hear the Rebbe’s voice ringing in my ears. In his first Chassidic discourse in 1951, he discusses our mission—an extension of the mission of Abraham—to bring G‑dly awareness to the world at large, and to do so to the degree that the very world will call out in the name of G‑d.
When we were in court this past time, as part of our testimony, we explained the Seven Noahide Laws and how every single person has the moral obligation to make this world a place where G‑d will feel at home.
If for nothing else, our ordeal is helping bring these concepts and the notion of religion in general into public discourse, and that’s a good thing.
Q: Have the children been to court?
A: No, the children do not attend court. But on the screen outside the courtroom, where the docket is displayed, our children are named as defendants. The verse in Torah says, “Do not touch my anointed ones,” which refers to Jewish children.
Q: What support have you received from the community?
A: People in the Jewish community here who know us have been supportive, hoping for our success, and that gives us strength. There is a group of homeschoolers in Sweden who want to raise their children with belief in G‑d and are experiencing similar harassment, many of them Christian. They are watching the outcome of our case with tremendous interest and hope for a positive outcome.
We’ve also seen support on a parliamentary level as well. Annelie Enochson is a member of parliament who’s been very concerned and a great source of help throughout our ordeal.
On an international level, there has been a tremendous outpouring of support. The judge showed us in the courtroom a huge stack of hundreds of letters from Jewish and non-Jewish leaders worldwide, from concerned friends and activists who appreciate that this is not a family on trial, but the rights of religious people to freely express those rights that’s at stake here. We tremendously appreciate the efforts of all those who have lent support and have taken the time to write to the court.
Q: What is your concluding message? What do you want readers to take away from your predicament?
A: The foundation of a healthy society is a belief in G‑d, and that is what we imparted to the court. Seventy-five years ago, there was a nation here in Europe whose people were educated; had table manners and etiquette; listened to Beethoven, Mozart and Bach; and followed the laws of their land. Yet they were able to create an Auschwitz. Their laws included destroying six million Jews! The reason this was possible is because they took G‑d and Divine morality out of the system, and they became a nation of obedient murderers.
To believe in G‑d means to cherish life and all of His creations—to respect others, the elderly, the children. To appreciate the beautiful world He created, and to study and become part of the people who are an asset to society, and in making the world a better place through acts of goodness and kindness.
The world is a place that is a garden for G‑d. Through recognizing the different needs that people have, we are appreciating that each one of us is playing another piece in the great symphony orchestra of humankind.
To help support the cause of religious freedom in Sweden, click here.
See Mrs. Namdar telling her story here:
© Copyright 2015, all rights reserved.
Lifestyle
Oven-Fried Shnitzel with Apricot Dipping Sauce By Miriam Szokovski
Do you dream about making shnitzel without all the labor-intensive work? If so, this recipe is for you. There is minimal oil and no frying. Dump the pieces on a pan and bake them. It's that simple. No need to stand sentry over the boiling oil for fear of splatters and burns. Of course, it's also healthier.
Eat immediately or refrigerate for later. This chicken also works well when you cut it up and add it to salad.
1 lb. chicken breast
2 cups flavored corn flake crumbs
1/4 cup flour
1 egg
3 tbsp. oil
Shnitzel Directions
Cut the chicken into thin strips. It's easier to slice thinly when the chicken is half frozen.
Crack the egg into a bowl and beat it with a fork.
In a separate bowl mix the flour and cornflake crumbs.
Dip each piece of chicken into the eggs and then into crumbs. Lay the chicken pieces on a greased cookie sheet and drizzle with the oil.
Bake on 400°F for approximately 20 minutes (longer if your chicken is thicker or if you're using a disposable foil pan).
Sauce Ingredients
1/2 cup apricot preserves
3 tsp. soy sauce
2 tbsp. white sugar
1 tbsp. brown sugar
2 tbsp. vinegar
1/8 tsp. ginger powder
1/8 tsp. garlic powder
1/4 cup water
Sauce Directions
Cook all sauce ingredients in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer.
Simmer over a very low flame for 10-15 minutes until the sauce thickens. Make sure to stir frequently so the sauce doesn't burn.
When it's ready, take the sauce off the fire and pour it through a fine mesh strainer.
Serve alongside the shnitzel for dipping.
© Copyright 2015, all rights reserved.
Lifestyle
Glitter Wine Bottle Centerpieces By Abbey Wolin
You will need:
Mod-podge
A brush
Glitter
An empty, clean glass bottle
Working with small areas, spread the mod-podge over the class and immediately pour glitter over it.
Mix it up and get creative with color and design!
Set the bottle aside for 6 hours until dry.
JCreate is an online Jewish crafting magazine.
© Copyright 2015, all rights reserved.
Lifestyle
Kindling Icicles
Photo by Oneinfocus
When candles were scarce, he instructed his disciples to collect icicles from the branches, place them in candleholders and light them.
The third Lubavitcher Rebbe said,
"For the Baal Shem Tov's Chassidim, ice burned and yielded light.
Today you sit in heated and well lit rooms, and yet it's cold and dark."
Learn more about this photo
Michoel is an innovative educator, outdoor enthusiast and avid photographer. Michoel grew up in Australia where he used the 'Outback' to refine his photography skills. He pursued studies at Mayanot in Israel, the Rabbinical College of America in New Jersey and Rabbinical studies at Kollel Menachem in Brooklyn NY. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Sarah, and daughter. Read more about his organization at Oneinfocus.org.
© Copyright 2015, all rights reserved.
Chabad.org Magazine - Editor: Yanki Tauber
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