The Foundation Stone offers its condolences to Rabbi Simcha Weinberg on the passing of his mother Rebbitzen Chana Weinberg. The funeral is scheduled for 10AM Tuesday, January 23 at Ner Israel Rabbinical College 400 Mt Wilson Lane. Baltimore, MD 21208. Shiva will be observed in Rebbitzen Weinberg’s home on the yeshiva campus. May the Omnipresent comfort the mourners among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.

Many of the essays posted on The Foundation Stone have “Machberes Avodas Hashem” (The Service of God Notebooks) credited as the author. These essays are based on thoughts I’ve jotted down over the years to remember all the significant ideas I learn, hear, and read, and, what is more important, to figure out ways to incorporate into my Service of God in prayer, study, and work on my personal attributes, what I term, “Spiritual Tools,” many of which you can find as “Applications,” at the bottom of an essay.

One of my goals for The Foundation Stone is to introduce people to the idea of, “So What,” now that I have heard an idea; how can I use it.

If there is no practical lesson; it is not real Torah!

I recently posted a few essays on prayer based on the Parsha:

“Without a Battle.”

“Gathering the Joy.”

“Becoming Magnets.”

“Forgiveness.”

I hope to continue a series, “So What,”  on The Foundation Stone, throughout this calendar year of applying the commentaries to the Torah to Prayer and Spiritual Growth. I hope you enjoy this series, and that you will learn to reify all that you learn.

You can find more on this idea in, “Spirituals 101,” and, “Mishlei-Insight and Application,” and, “Stopping the Leaks.”

Enjoy!

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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.

“What is to give light must endure burning (Victor Frankl).”

“Joseph shall place his hand on your eyes (Genesis 46:4).” God promised Jacob that Joseph would give light to him and to the entire family, for all generations. Although this would be a time of great stability for the family, a period of darkness was soon to descend on the Children of Israel. It will be Joseph’s vision that will give light to the people even during the darkest times. Joseph would not have been able to provide such light had he not 1st endured terrible burning; sold as a slave, thrown into prison, and struggling to live as the son of Jacob despite his position as viceroy of Egypt. It was Joseph’s endurance even while burning that empowered him to give light to his family for so long.

God acknowledged the light provided by the Maccabees with the miracle of the oil that burned for eight days. The Maccabees continue to give us light thousands of years later. They too, would never have succeeded in providing such light had they not first endured burning in battle, losses, defeats, and terrible suffering. It was their determination to endure despite their burning that gave them the ability to give light just as a burning candle.

I am often moved when meeting with a family to prepare a eulogy how the most powerful memories are usually those of how the deceased illuminated the lives of his or her family by virtual of his ability to endure.

I have found for myself that the most effective way to endure despite the great suffering is to be aware that the endurance brings more light to the world. The key was to focus on the light I could create rather than focus on the demand to accept suffering.

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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 love water. I love the ocean. I love waterfalls. I love to go whitewater rafting. I love to swim. I love the Mikvah – Ritual Bath.

I hate water. I hate finding water on the floor of my study. I hate when our garage is flooded. I hate having my clothes soaked by rain.

I was listening to a tape of Rav Soloveitchik zt”l as I was walking to shul. It was pouring rain, but I was so moved by the power of his thought and words, that I simply stood on the sidewalk with tears streaming down my face, feeling that I was being showered with the joy of Torah. I loved each drop of rain. I treasured each tear. Until, that is, a truck drove past me and splashed filthy water from the street all over me. I hated that filthy water.

Twenty years later I can recall the joy of hearing Rav Soloveitchik’s Torah. The puddle of dirty water is a distant memory. The experience in hindsight was joyous. The contradiction faded with the bad memories.

Hurricane Agnes (1971) confined us to our home. It was cozy being nice and dry and warm in my home even as it seemed that the world outside the window was coming to an end. The day got even better when I had the opportunity to spend the day learning with my father zt”l. I wondered how something so wonderful as Agnes could be so scary to most people. It was a heavenly day, at least until the basement flooded. The learning stopped and the work began. I hated hurricanes; they were no longer so wonderful.

Almost forty years later I can describe the joy of learning with my father, what we were studying, the insights he taught, with the same thrill I experienced when we were learning. The work cleaning up the water is far removed from my memory. The experience in hindsight was joyous. The contradiction faded with the bad memories.

The stories had both good and bad, joy and frustration. The memories are joyful. The bad parts have been diluted by time and even more so by the joyous memories.

Everything on Succot is about water and yet, we do not want it to rain until Shemini Atzeret. Rain will stop us from sitting in the Succah and create the feeling that somehow God is rejecting our Succot. We simultaneously love and hate water on Succot.

Perhaps the joy of Succot – Z’man Simchateinu – the Time of Our Happiness – derives from the sense that we can live with contradictory feelings. Life does not have to be one or the other. Succot, the Time of Happiness, is also referred to as “Yom HaRishon” – The First Day of the Counting of Sins.

Perhaps there is no contradiction between the Time of Happiness and The First Day of the counting of sins: It is difficult to readjust to our daily lives after Yom Kippur. We can become easily frustrated with the ease with which so easily slip back into old patterns of behavior, making the same mistakes for which we were forgiven on Yom Kippur. Yet, the Torah tells us, this period when we face the same imperfections as before Yom Kippur is our Time of Happiness, we cannot define ourselves, tempting as it may be after all the Yom Kippur confessions, by our mistakes and faults. We must find the joy in our lives, what is good and productive. Our Succot mission is to recall the joyous parts of our lives and allow the bad parts to fade and disappear.

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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.

Taking my children when they were young on a trip. Finding the perfect gift for my wife. My grandfather’s face when I received my first s’micha – Rabbinic Ordination. Receiving a call from my Rebbi, HaRav Yochanan Zweig, telling me that my father called him to tell him how excited my father was with a lecture I gave. The faces of my wife and children when they saw me walk again.

All of the memories listed are of making someone else happy, and all are counted among my highest moments of joy.

I spoke with someone just before Yom Kippur who literally transformed herself into a new person. She did not change her actions as much as she changed her inner essence. She became a greater human being. It was easy to imagine that she is someone who made God very happy that He created her.

The Zohar teaches that such will be the joy in the World to Come: Rabbi Yehuda said: At that time, in the World to Come, the Holy One, Blessed is He, will make His world happy and will be happy with His creations, as it says, “God will be happy with the things He made,” (Psalms 104:31) And then there will be laughter in the world, unlike now, as the verse says, “Then, our mouths will be filled with laughter.”(Psalms 126:2) This is why Sarah said; “God has made laughter for me.” (Genesis 21:6), for then the world will sing a Song to God, for it is a time of laughter. Rabbi Abba said, ‘The day on which God will rejoice with his handiwork will be unlike any other day since the beginning of creation, and the righteous who remain in Jerusalem will never turn to dust.’ (Zohar, Volume 1, 114a-b)

Such is the joy of Succot – Z’man Simchateinu – The Time of Our Happiness: We are happy with the confidence that we had a successful Yom Kippur. We are even happier that we were able to make God happy with us. We grew. We changed. We were absolutely clear that deep down we want a relationship with our Creator.

Our time in the Succah is a taste of the World to Come, when we will laugh with God over the infinite possibilities of life.

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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.

Iphicrates, a famous Athenian general, once fitted out his own fleet in the enemy’s manner, and sailed to a people he viewed with suspicion. When they welcomed him effusively and enthusiastically, he sacked their town, now that he had unmasked their treason. (Frontinus, Stratagems 4.7.23)

I decided to copy Iphicrates and use my Succah as a disguise. I am not your typical Jewish man; I can build a solid structure. (OK, I cheated and used a prefabricated structure.) I even bought some WD-40 and duct tape, although I have no idea what to do with them. I considered picking up a table-saw at Home Depot, but was too intimidated.

Tomorrow night I will pretend to be an outdoors kind of guy, tough enough to move outside when everyone else is moving in. No one will now that I am Jewish and I will be able to discover what “they’ think of us.

The Holocaust survivors who were the parents and grandparents of most of my friends growing up always spoke of them and us. “Them” meant Germans, Poles, Ukrainians, Hungarians, and pretty much everyone who wasn’t Jewish. There are few survivors still alive, but the “they”s and “them”s are still part of my vocabulary.

Who are “they”? The answer depends on whom you ask. “They” could be the soft-spined ‘statesmen’ who sat in the UN and, with the New York Times, ignored Bibi’s powerful speech. I don’t need a disguise to learn what they think of us.

“They” could be the J Street lobbyists intent on battling AIPAC and Israel, but I wouldn’t need a disguise to figure out what they think of me.

“They” could be the CEO, of a company for which I worked, a former congressman, who would spew his hateful bile towards frum Jews whenever drunk, which was quite often. No disguise necessary there.

“They” could be Jews who are embarrassed when we build our Succot and walk on the streets with our Lulavim and Etrogim, but “they” are usually not an enemy and no Iphicrates strategy is required.

The “they” is we. “They” are the people who observe the same laws and customs, but without passion and joy. “They” pray three times a day, every day. “They” thrill to Torah study, but often forget that God speaks to them through His Torah. “They” forget that we must sanctify God’s Name when we walk on the streets, when we interact with all the other “they”s of the world, when we do business with “them”; everything we do and say.

The Succah is not our Iphicratesian disguise to find our enemy; it is our opportunity to uncover the disguises we wear the rest of the year when we imagine that we live in our own little world enclosed by the walls of our homes and synagogues. The Succah, derived from the same root as “Yiskah” – to see – provides the clarity of vision to evaluate whether our Service of God is a masquerade or if it is real. Are we hiding in the safety of Torah or are we empowered by Torah and Avodah – Service – to engage the world with joy and confidence.

So, hand me the biggest table-saw you can find, and I will cut away the masks, costumes and camouflage, and you will see with me the beauty and promise of all the things we do within our walls and without.

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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.

The twelve-hour drive from Toronto for our annual Succot visit with my grandparents left me bruised, battered, and drained by all the fights my sister began with me. (I, of course, never started a fight.) We arrived in 1968, post riots Baltimore. Although I did not see burned out cars on my grandparents’ block, things were obviously different. There were no children playing on the street. There were bars on the windows of all the homes.

My first direct experience with the new realities was when I wanted to cross the gravel path that separated my grandparents’ backyard from the Yeshiva grounds. My grandmother warned that it wasn’t safe to walk alone. I was determined to show that I was not scared and I ran out of the house.

A group of teenagers stopped me on the path, but, thank God, just at that moment my giant cousin Sheftel, (now Rav Sheftel Neuberger, the Menahel of Yeshivas Ner Yisroel) was walking toward us and the kids ran. I made it to the Yeshiva.

Unfortunately, I had to eventually return to the house. I waited for my grandfather so I could walk home with him, although I wondered what my, in my mind, ancient, and nearly blind, grandfather could possibly do to protect me. There was nothing to fear. The neighborhood kids were in awe of the great Rabbi and wouldn’t dare come near us.

The man, who had always been a super-hero of Torah and righteousness, now became as great as Superman in my mind. So, despite the new dangers, I didn’t hesitate to sleep in the Succah; my grandfather’s presence would protect me.

Perhaps my grandmother was slightly upset that I had ignored her warnings about the path. She didn’t want her husband to sleep in the Succah because he had a cold. I guess even super-heroes must obey their wives. I would have to sleep alone in the Succah.

Don’t believe the comic books: Super powers are not automatically passed down to the next generation. I knew that, as I was not a Tzaddik – please see “Why I’m Not A Tzaddik” for the explanation – and would not be safe without my grandfather at my side.

My sister, the one determined that I would never be a Tzaddik, commented in her sweetest voice (which was not very sweet at all, if you ask me): “So you feel safer with Zaidy than you do with Hashem. I told you that you would never be a Tzaddik.” I had to sleep in the Succah, placing all my trust in God. I was hoping that my dear, beloved grandmother, who was so concerned for my safety, would prohibit me from sleeping alone, and that I, the future Tzaddik, would have to obey as I (almost) always did. No way! She looked at me with a strange smile and offered to gather the blankets and pillows I needed for my big Mitzvah.

It was a wonderful experience. I walked into the Succah and felt completely safe. I actually felt safer in the Succah than I did in the house! Perhaps there really was hope that I could become a Tzaddik. I slept like a baby, caught a cold, and was forced to sleep inside the rest of Succot.

I still feel safe in my succah. My home in Saratoga Springs bordered on the training track for the harness horses, a very unsafe place. The racetrack workers intimidated even the local police. No matter, because I felt perfectly safe in my Succah, although I did wake up with ice in my beard. My Succah on West End Ave. in New York City was behind my building. It was pre-Guliani and unsafe, and many people considered me crazy for sleeping outside, but, again, I felt perfectly safe and secure.

The roof is incompletely covered with S’chach, there are open spaces through which we can see the stars. The Succah provides both light and shade. It reflects the fluctuations in our relationship with God. There are times we “see” God’s Presence with clarity, and there are times when we experience God as hidden. We can sense God’s protection some of the time, and at others we feel more vulnerable. People often feel that a relationship that fluctuates is unstable and insecure. Yet, for me, the place I feel most safe is in the Succah, the very place that reflects the highs and lows in my relationship with God. After Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, I know that despite the times when I experience God as hidden, that I will once again find the light. Yes, there are times when I feel vulnerable, but I know that the protection will return. It is a relationship with ups and downs as every relationship. It is a relationship in which I can feel secure. Perhaps that is why there is no place where I feel as safe as when I am in my Succah.

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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.

Poem 1742

The distance that the dead have gone

Does not at first appear –

Their coming back seems possible

For many an ardent year.

And then, that we have followed them,

We more than half suspect,

So intimate have we become

With their dear retrospect.

Emily Dickinson

Gathering, as in Chag Ha’Assif, describes how we would collect and store our bundles of crops. There was a sense of security in having a full barn. There was the joy of seeing the tangible fruits of months of physical labor, hope, faith, and prayers.

The security and joy of a full silo are absent in our spiritual lives. It is next to impossible to calculate the results of our prayers, Mitzvot, and Torah study.

No wonder ‘gathering’ also refers to death, the only point at which we can measure our life’s work. It is then we receive gift of retrospect.

Here we are, the leaves are falling, summer is fading, (at least, above the equator,) and we celebrate in Z’man Simchateinu- the Time of Our Happiness, – Simachot also being a euphemism for death – finding joy in forethought, not retrospect.

Unlike Emily Dickinson, I feel closer to the long dead Abraham, Moses, King David, Rashi and the Ramchal not in the intimacy of retrospect but in looking forward to life.

The double entendres of ‘Asifa’ & ‘Simcha’ are a challenge: Do we seek clarity in retrospect or forethought?

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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.

Debbie and I were walking around Central Park when we heard magnificent singing. We followed the sound until we found a family singing a song from the Sound of Music. Their voices were angelic. It was the Boyd Family, and what a beautiful family it is! (You can email Mr. Boyd to purchase his CDs.)

Mr. Boyd, dressed in everyday clothes, projects a sense of rare dignity. I found myself speaking to him with care and respect simply because of who he is. I can’t accurately describe the experience, other than to say that this total stranger has such grace, inner beauty, dignity and goodness, that one can only speak to him as one would to a king.

His children reflected his beautiful qualities. They too were dressed in street clothes. They were typical teenagers in appearance, but far more in posture and bearing. The beauty of their joyful singing was surpassed by the grace of their essence.They sang one of Mr. Boyd’s compositions and had the entire audience enthralled and clapping along with feeling. They lifted all of us, New Yorkers and tourists, people from all over the world, Buddhists, Christians, Jews and Moslems.

How often does one have an opportunity to see a family united in such joy and love? How often do we see a family that inspires us on so many levels? Such beauty is rare.

I wondered why God wanted me to experience this just before Succot. “Beauty” stuck in my mind. We are charged to observe God’s commandments with beauty; a beautiful Succah, a beautiful Lulav, and, most of all, a beautiful Etrog. The Boyd family taught me that the beauty is not just in the object of the commandment, but must be part of the person while observing God’s commandments.

Thank you, Mr. Boyd. Thank you Boyd Family. You taught me to be a beautiful person while shaking my beautiful Lulav. You reminded me to project that rare quality of inner beauty while holding my Etrog.

If only….

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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.

Rabbi Eliyahu Dessler accompanied a student to the train station, the first stop on the young man’s journey to a new country. As they approached the station, the student asked his holy rabbi for a blessing.

“From the depths of my heart, I wish for you, that you find a good seat for your journey, so that your travels will be comfortable.”

“My Rebbi, is that the best blessing that you have for me? You can only bless me for my journey and not for my life!”

“I did bless you for your entire life. My intention was that this is only the first step of your life’s journey. I blessed you with a comfortable ride for the entire trip.”

Tomorrow night we will begin the next stage of our life’s journey. The Foundation Stone™ prays that God will bless you with a first-class for the next step of the jouney and for the entire trip.

Good Traveling.

Shabbat Shalom and Shana Tova

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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.