“And Daudet said the most foolish thing to me. Perhaps he thought that it might console me. He told me that I would have my memories. But my memories are of no use to me. I told him that I never had any interest in memories. I love today and tomorrow, and if I am in form I also love the day after tomorrow. Last year is gone, who cares about last year?”

“Daudet does, I imagine.”

“Yes, too much.”
(The Master, Colm Toibin, page

Here I am just before Shabbat Zachor – Remembering – and I am wondering whether the Russian princess was right: Is there such a thing as caring too much about memories?

There are those people who only speak about the past and have difficulty speaking about the future, or even the present. I remember numerous friends who would speak of how well they were able to learn when they were younger. They would revel in all the hours they had spent learning ten years earlier, and how much Gemara they studied, despite the fact that they no longer learned as they once did. They lived their spiritual lives in their memories, not the present.

Do we focus too much on memories? We will spend the next few days remembering all the Amalek stories. The question will be: How will we use those memories to change today and tomorrow, and perhaps even the day after tomorrow?

Author Info:
Learn & discover the Divine prophecies with Rabbi Simcha Weinberg from the holy Torah, Jewish Law, Mysticism, Kabbalah and Jewish Prophecies. The Foundation Stone™ is the ultimate resource for Jews, Judaism, Jewish Education, Jewish Spirituality & the holy Torah.

I am sorry to announce that Weinberg’s Snow Removal Service has closed its doors. A hostile takeover by Michael Beller (my son) and Associates has put me out of business. Now, I may not get the exercise, but I can enjoy the snow. I no longer immediately get tired just thinking about shoveling all that snow, because those crooks at Beller & Assoc. have to do all the work. They actually have the chutzpah to charge me for the work they stole from me, but such is life.

Excuse me a second, Beller & Assoc. are asking for my help. I’ll have to return to this later.

I am exhausted and my back is aching. Beller needed my help! Just when I thought that I could enjoy the snow, it became an enemy again. It’s just like the feeling I used to get when it would start snowing again just after I finished shoveling. In fact, it’s just like many of life’s problems; one ends and the next one begins!

Everything seems to come with a price. The beautiful and peaceful snow represents hours of backbreaking work, or even worse, exercise!

I must be in bad shape when even a snowstorm can strike me with melancholy. It doesn’t seem to be the best frame of mind to enter Purim, but actually it may be the perfect way to use the lessons of Purim.

The joy of Purim is not the resolution of our problems. The Jews were still in exile the day after their wars. They still lived under Achashveirosh’s unpredictable rule. But they were different, because they had to battle people intent on fighting them even though they knew that the Jews would win. Mordechai was in charge. The army supported the Jews. The people who fought were the problems that keep on coming.

The Jews did not fight to punish their enemies. They did not take one penny of the spoils. They fought to make a statement that they had chosen to fight for themselves and to confront all their problems, especially the ones that refuse to go away. They fought to define themselves as problem fighters, which empowered them for generations to fight for their faith despite the countless and unceasing challenges from their enemies.

I don’t shovel the snow only to clear the walkway. I shovel as a statement that I will continue to battle against anything that comes my way. I am a fighter.

Author Info:
Learn & discover the Divine prophecies with Rabbi Simcha Weinberg from the holy Torah, Jewish Law, Mysticism, Kabbalah and Jewish Prophecies. The Foundation Stone™ is the ultimate resource for Jews, Judaism, Jewish Education, Jewish Spirituality & the holy Torah.

I recently read a story that made me think of the Mishkan:

A soldier’s little girl, whose father was being moved to a distant post, was sitting at the airport among her family’s meager belongings.

The girl was sleepy. She leaned against the packs and duffel bags.

A lady came by, stopped, and patted her on the head.

“Poor child,” she said. “You haven’t got a home.”

The child looked up in surprise.

“But we do have a home,” she said. “We just don’t have a house to put it in.”
(“have a little faith” by Mitch Albom, page 111.)

There are times when the verse describes the Mishkan, the Tabernacle, as a house, but there are also times when God says, “Beiti,” “My Home.”

Perhaps part of the Mishkan’s challenge was to ask us whether we perceived it as a house or a home.

Author Info:
Learn & discover the Divine prophecies with Rabbi Simcha Weinberg from the holy Torah, Jewish Law, Mysticism, Kabbalah and Jewish Prophecies. The Foundation Stone™ is the ultimate resource for Jews, Judaism, Jewish Education, Jewish Spirituality & the holy Torah.

“I am consumed by a more general sense of dread, of imprisonment within the dreary world of work and home,” he said in describing why he wanted to talk.

We can travel the world, share fascinating experiences, explore the countless avenues of life and still feel imprisoned by our circumstances, and more so, by ourselves.

I asked the young man if he would feel free if he could hop on a spaceship and visit other planets. “I would love to do it, but, at most, it would be an escape. I want to feel free of the walls around me, here, without having to run away.”

The Mishkan recreated the boundaries of Sinai. It was at the center of the camp, at its deepest point inside. Its courtyard was the first boundary. The Sanctuary was the second boundary, and the Holy of Holies, the third and innermost boundary. All the boundaries were inside. They were not walls that enclosed or imprisoned us. The boundaries were not outside the camp, keeping us in. The only walls on the outside were clouds of protection, and certainly not of containment.

We are so accustomed to perceiving the outer boundaries of our existence, and they can frustrate us as they do for the man of our story. Yet, the Mishkan focused us on the boundaries within, it zoomed our vision in toward the center of the camp and our existence, away from boundaries that imprison.

We could cross the first boundary by achieving higher spiritual purity. Most of us could never cross the second boundary into the Sanctuary, but even those who did, the Kohanim, could do only for us. Only Moshe and Aharon could cross the third boundary into the Holy of Holies, but they too, entered as our representatives, not as individuals.

When we turn our gaze from the outer boundaries, walls of clouds, toward our inner boundaries, we realize that they are all boundaries that we can cross; they never hold us back. (Crossing Boundaries)

Author Info:
Learn & discover the Divine prophecies with Rabbi Simcha Weinberg from the holy Torah, Jewish Law, Mysticism, Kabbalah and Jewish Prophecies. The Foundation Stone™ is the ultimate resource for Jews, Judaism, Jewish Education, Jewish Spirituality & the holy Torah.

You probably can’t see me, but I’m here. My wife and I were on Skype talking to one of her friends, when Debbie walked out of video range for a moment and her friend minimized the screen while I was on it. I’ve been screaming for help for hours, but the minimized me is so tiny that no one can hear me. Debbie is desperately searching for me. I have to jump on each key of the computer in order to type and I am exhausted. We minimized people have minimum strength. I hope she reads this post so she can find me, “I’m down here!”

I’ve had people minimize my problems, but this is worse. Some minimized my accomplishments, but this is worse. Some teachers minimized my questions, but this is worse. I’ve had my strength minimized, but this is worse. I feel so unimportant, as if I don’t exist, and I hate that feeling. My tiny tears couldn’t water a plant.

Someone once asked me how the common people felt at Sinai. There were the usual big stars, Moshe, Aharon, Nadav, Avihu and the Seventy Sages, who were the center of attention. Everyone knew that something major was happening and that they were all participants, but did they feel a sense of maximization at being one of the participants in the Covenant of Sinai?

It was an enormous camp. Few people could actually see Moshe. Did they feel just that little bit removed or minimized? I have sat at a Chassidish Tish with hundreds of people and everyone was fighting and pushing to be as close to the front as possible. The further away they were from the Rebbe, the more minimized they felt. Did that happen at Sinai?

I think not. “K’ish echad, b’leiv echad,” usually understood as, “As one person with one heart,” can also mean, “To each individual, to each heart.” Each participant in the Covenant of Sinai had a personal experience of God and the relationship being offered. And each participant knew that each and every other person present experienced his or her personal connection. No one had what others did not. Everyone had what everyone else experienced. That is why they were able to connect to each other “as one person, with one heart.”

This experience can be recreated each time we study Torah or pray to God. Each of us can have our own personal experience that is uniquely ours. We are never minimized no matter how unworthy, unprepared, or unimportant we may feel.

If we remember that everyone has that same ability, we can connect to all souls as one person with one heart every time we study Torah and every time we pray. They are both maximizing experiences.

Hey! I’m back!

Author Info:
Learn & discover the Divine prophecies with Rabbi Simcha Weinberg from the holy Torah, Jewish Law, Mysticism, Kabbalah and Jewish Prophecies. The Foundation Stone™ is the ultimate resource for Jews, Judaism, Jewish Education, Jewish Spirituality & the holy Torah.

I just returned from the funeral of Rabbi Dr Bernard Lander. I share three scenes of our interaction:

Scene I. (April 1984) Four Clergymen Learn About Teshuva: A priest, minister and imam, no, this is not a joke, joined me for the drive from Comstock NY to the Homowak in the Catskills for the NY State Department of Corrections Chaplains’ Conference. One of the clergymen immediately fell into a drunken sleep as we began the long drive in a snowstorm. We were not friends, and did not have anything to say to each other, so I turned on my tape deck. Dr Lander was speaking about Teshuva – Repentance. He based his talk on Simon Wiesenthal’s the Sunflower.

Dr. Lander was a spectacular speaker and as he told the story about the concentration camp inmate summoned to absolve a dying German soldier of his murderous sins, he held us all in the palm of his hand.

Could the inmate forgive the soldier for murdering babies? Did he have the right?

Somehow, the drunken passenger awoke and insisted that we start the tape from the beginning, which we did. No one in the car said a word as we listened to Dr Lander speak of repentance and forgiveness, an issue with which we all struggled on a daily basis as we counseled convicted murderers, serial killers, rapists and every imaginable type of violent criminal.

The tape finished, and the imam said, “Play it again.” A priest, minister, imam, and yours truly, listened together to a rabbi’s Teshuva lecture again, and then, yet again.

The imam, priest and minister tried to convince the Albany official in charge of the conference to have a special session so that everyone could hear Dr. Lander. It didn’t happen. When we returned to Comstock we immediately demanded an appointment with the superintendent to advocate that each of the corrections officers should have to listen to Dr Lander’s lecture. The “sup” laughed us out of his office.

Scene II. (June 2001) The Greatest Ethical Lesson of My Life: I had just completed my first year as Rosh Yeshiva of the IDT Yeshiva for Torah and Technology. We had 19 students. I was invited to meet with Dr. Lander to discuss the possibility of having the Yeshiva under the auspices of Touro College.

Dr. Lander was already what most of us would consider a very old man. He was losing his sight. The nonagenarian Rabbi told me that what we had successfully done for 19 students we could do for thousands. He asked me to help start similar programs in Hungary, France, Austria, Germany and Russia for the coming year. (The Russian program happened, thanks to Rabbi Dr. Simcha Fishbane.)

I was in my forties. He was in his 90s, and he was by far, the most energetic person in the room. He lived a life of possibilities. There was no disconnect between vision and action. “If you can help 19, why are you not helping 19,000?”

Dr Lander invited me to consider his challenge and to meet with him in the near future: “Let’s see, next week I’ll be in Los Angeles, then Miami, the following week in South America. I have to go to Israel and Germany. I’ll see you in three weeks.”

He was in his nineties and I, many years his junior, was exhausted just by listening to his plans. He was planning new programs and schools until the very end of his life.

I am convinced that had I lived this second scene before the first, every person working in NY State Prisons would have heard Dr Lander’s Teshuva lecture. I would not have taken “No!” for an answer.

Scene III. Everyone Is Welcome: I had always imagined Touro to be a Jewish school. When I went to meet with the deans of different programs I met with men and women, Jews and non-Jews, religious and secular, Asians, African-Americans, and Hispanics.

The student body was a miniature United States. Dr Lander had created a spiritually nurturing environment for all people.

His was an infinite life that embraced all people, saw new opportunities every day of his life, and touched the souls of all those who could pause and listen to his wisdom, view his vision, touch his spirit, and experience his passion and commitment.

May his memory be a blessing.

Author Info:
Learn & discover the Divine prophecies with Rabbi Simcha Weinberg from the holy Torah, Jewish Law, Mysticism, Kabbalah and Jewish Prophecies. The Foundation Stone™ is the ultimate resource for Jews, Judaism, Jewish Education, Jewish Spirituality & the holy Torah.

I recently took out a sefer – holy book – that I studied in the summer of 1980 in order to certify as a Shochet – a ritual slaughterer. I was surprised to find that it was a far more enjoyable study and challenge than the first time. The book is highly technical and my chavrusa, or study partner, at the time, a good friend, was more interested in adventure than technical details. His strong feelings influenced me. We spent 12 hours each day together, studying, practicing sharpening our knives, and standing with our rebbi, Rabbi Katz z’l, as he shechted more than a hundred animals each day. You can’t spend so much time with someone, especially a good friend, without being influenced. So, I didn’t love the Tevuot Shor thirty years ago, but, boy, do I love it now.

I can recall exactly what I felt the first time around. I have changed. My learning has changed. My thinking has changed. Everything has changed, but the months spent with B. studying this holy book, left their mark.

My love for my favorite masechata – Temurah – is also an expression of the magical learning I had with Y, my chavrusa at the time, as is my love for Kiddushin. Ketubot resonates deeper than any other tractate; a reflection of the period of my Rebbi’s greatest influence on me.

When I open a Chumash, Ramchal, or Rambam, I immediately associate the learning with my father. My grandfather speaks to me through the pages of the Tur. At least fifty times each week I open a sefer of one of the great Chassidic Masters, and I hear the voice of Reb Shlomo. The list goes on.

A sefer is not just a sefer; it is also a collection of voices and experiences.

My learning experience is evolving as I strive to attach closer to God. I increasingly feel His Presence when I learn, and then I understand why Sinai was so important. Our first experience of all of Torah was impressed onto our souls for we studied directly with the Melamaid Torah l’amo Yisrael, the Torah teacher of His nation, Israel.

If we just listen carefully enough to those impressions on our souls we will recall that first taste of studying Torah. We will hear His voice in every word and thought.

Author Info:
Learn & discover the Divine prophecies with Rabbi Simcha Weinberg from the holy Torah, Jewish Law, Mysticism, Kabbalah and Jewish Prophecies. The Foundation Stone™ is the ultimate resource for Jews, Judaism, Jewish Education, Jewish Spirituality & the holy Torah.

I had a strange experience today as I was hooked up to my IV. I closed my eyes to rest and listened to the pumping action of the IV, which usually helps me fall asleep. This time my mind played a powerful trick on me. As all the medications began to take effect and I fell into a deep and relaxed state, I felt as if I was back in the Medizinshe Hochshule Hannover in Germany, listening to the same sound of a machine pumping all sorts of things into me to keep me alive. All the fears, pain, loneliness, and frustration came back with a bang.

I had successfully repressed all those feelings while in Germany simply to keep my spirits up and maintain whatever I joy I could find in my existence. I was so successful at repressing those negative feelings that I have never thought about them until today. They were intense, almost overpowering.

How should I deal with all the repressed feelings of so long ago?

“Then any of the diseases that I placed in Egypt, I will not bring upon you, for I am God, your healer.” (Exodus 15:26) We understand that ‘diseases placed on Egypt ‘ as the plagues, but perhaps there is an additional meaning.

The Children of Israel suffered through many years of horror. Perhaps, they too, as did I, repressed the worst parts as their coping mechanism. If they looked back with fondness at any time in their recent history in Egypt, they were repressing memories. The repressed memories, not matter how well hidden, are diseases that can eat away at us. They are diseases which disconnect us from ourselves and prevent us from developing real relationships.

God was also referring to those diseased memories, promising His people a life in which they would not have to repress painful experiences. Once they learned to live without repressing the negative, the past would reappear, and God promises, “I am God, your Healer,” Who will heal those memories.

Marah was not only a bitter tree (Mechilta) that made the water sweet, it was also a promise, that God would sweeten those memories and turn them into something good, just as He did for me today, when he used those memories to offer another way read these verses.

This has transformed my recitation of the 8th blessing of the Amidah: Refaeinu – Heal Us. The bitter has become sweet.

Author Info:
Learn & discover the Divine prophecies with Rabbi Simcha Weinberg from the holy Torah, Jewish Law, Mysticism, Kabbalah and Jewish Prophecies. The Foundation Stone™ is the ultimate resource for Jews, Judaism, Jewish Education, Jewish Spirituality & the holy Torah.

A great debate raged in early 18th century London: Was the lion battled by the Cavalliere Nicolini Grimaldi in the opera “Rinaldo” live, a real beast of the jungle, or was it only an actor in disguise?

I often wonder about the lions we battle in our religious lives; are they real or imagined? There are numerous terrifying threats to our spiritual being. But still, I wonder whether we are focused on the live or imagined lions. We can point at society with its values and mores and pinpoint how it differs from our image of a spiritual existence. I don’t want my children to watch television and learn that children may speak to their parents as if they were idiots. That is a very real threat. I do not want my children and grandchildren to grow up in a world in which relationships are casual and all too often, meaningless. However, the most fearsome lions I face are all internal. My own confusion, questions, desires, and inner battles all are greater threats to my relationship with God than those lions and threats outside the walls of my home.

Judaism has always focused on our internal development in order to face the lions outside on the street. Torah, Mitzvot and prayer all nurture our internal growth. They cultivate the clarity necessary to face the far more dangerous internal lions.

This week’s Haftarah, “A Mother In Israel” is the story of a woman who achieved such inner clarity that she was able to share her internal light with an entire nation and lead them to a generation of peace.

Author Info:
Learn & discover the Divine prophecies with Rabbi Simcha Weinberg from the holy Torah, Jewish Law, Mysticism, Kabbalah and Jewish Prophecies. The Foundation Stone™ is the ultimate resource for Jews, Judaism, Jewish Education, Jewish Spirituality & the holy Torah.

I don’t have to go to the gym today! It took more time for me to shovel the snow than I would usually spend in the gym and I certainly burned enough calories. In fact, although my muscles ache and my back is sore, I enjoy shoveling snow (without Pip’s help. See Silence) more than using a treadmill. When I walk off the treadmill I am exactly where I began. When I finish shoveling the snow I have tangible proof of my work. (A Measure of Success)

Instead of paying the gym for using their treadmill, I can shovel snow for people, make some money, exercise and lose weight. I can already hear you challenging my brilliant idea with the ridiculous issue of it not being regular enough work to lose weight. Please! Do you know how my body stores each and every calorie I eat and expresses its appreciation in my belly? Well, instead of storing calories I have consumed, I will store the calories I burn!

Joseph tried it and it worked! He collects all his credits for saving and feeding his family and uses them to make a promise to his family that God will surely redeem them from Egypt. Joseph has so much credit that his promise actually keeps alive everyone’s hopes for more than 150 years. The Children of Israel accept stored credits.

The Egyptians did not. It wasn’t long before they forgot all that Joseph had done for them. OK, he did make them pay for their food he had stored, and he did make them sell everything they owned, even themselves to Pharaoh as slaves. He also moved them around so that they lost all sense of community. So, he burned some credits. I suspect that the Egyptians felt the way I feel after 45 minutes on the treadmill; exhausted and hard to see any progress. They gave him much of the food they grew and then had to pay him to buy it back. No wonder that wanted the Children of Israel to work at such unfulfilling jobs when they were slaves.

Perhaps Joseph understood that the Children of Israel would only survive because they never experienced a sense of accomplishment from their work in Egypt. If they could view 210 years of work in measured accomplishments it would have been very difficult for them to leave Egypt for the desert.

Perhaps the Egyptians viewed Joseph’s credits as expired, but the Jews did not. They allowed him to store his credits for generations. Weinberg’s Snow Removal – Burned Calories Storage Service works for those kinds of people.

Author Info:
Learn & discover the Divine prophecies with Rabbi Simcha Weinberg from the holy Torah, Jewish Law, Mysticism, Kabbalah and Jewish Prophecies. The Foundation Stone™ is the ultimate resource for Jews, Judaism, Jewish Education, Jewish Spirituality & the holy Torah.