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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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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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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“Who clothes Himself in acts of Righteousness in judgment.” (Rosh Hashana Machzor)

Not only do the clothes make the person; the person can ‘make’ the clothes. Clothes carry something from the person who wore it before I did. (Chatam Sofer, Toledot)

We dress ourselves in God’s garments with our acts of Righteousness – Tzedaka.

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“God, your Lord, will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring.” (Deuteronomy 30:6) The first letters of “your heart and the heart of your offspring” spell Elul.

“From heaven God gazed down upon mankind, to see if there exists a reflective person who seeks out God.” (Psalm 53:3)

The Holy One, Blessed is He, searches for the truly righteous person who has achieved greatness through the application of his formidable intellect. God then takes a second look to see whether this person is able to let go of the reason that successfully took him so far and use only his heart to search for God. One who uses only his heart can hear what God demands.

Binah L’Ittim Lecture 12

God uses the Shofar of Elul to circumcise our hearts and cut away anything other than our Emunah Peshuta – Simple Faith – to search for Him.

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I spent most of yesterday battling with Land Rover over a receipt. Our car is under warranty and the transmission failed immediately after the engine was replaced. (Long Story!) Land Rover wanted receipts proving that we properly maintained the car and were not the cause of the transmission’s death. We have receipts for maintenance every 3,000 miles, which is impressive as the car has almost 80,000 miles on the odometer.

We even have a receipt for changing the transmission fluid at the 60,000 mile scheduled maintenance. However, we called our mechanic from Land Rover, our car needed some warranty work, and he wrote the date of the call on the work order. The dealer had the car for a few days to make some important repairs, so we didn’t bring the car to our mechanic for a few days.

The work order has the date of the call, not the work. The date is the same day that Land Rover had our car and therefore, Land Rover claims that the receipt is fraudulent and we never changed the transmission fluid and therefore, they are not responsible to replace the transmission.

One detail out of hundreds. They acknowledge that the transmission worked until they had the car for repairs. They acknowledged that they changed the transmission fluid. They acknowledge that the car is a lemon. They acknowledge that we have perfectly maintained the car, except for one detail: The date on the work order is incorrect. That one detail will now cost us almost two thousand dollars to fix the car.

One detail can negate the hundreds of acknowledged positive steps. One detail is sufficient to declare all the established maintenance as invalid. All I can say is: “Thank God, Land Rover is not in charge of the Rosh Hashana Judgment!”

Imagine if God would say, “Well, you have been superb this year except for one detail. All the positive is negated.” None of us could survive a Land Rover judgment.

Details matter. We can lift someone’s spirits with one kind word However, the King’s perspective is Infinite, and each detail is part of a much larger picture.

We also most consider the larger picture of our lives, not the details. What have we become? How have we grown? Where and how do we fit into God’s creation?

God is not defining us by details. Why would we?

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I have to tell you something that I have mamesh been thinking about, but I hope I will be able to make myself clear.

This Shabbos we read ‘Atem Nitzavim Hayom Kulchem’, you are standing before G-d, all of you. Then we read about all the ten kinds of yiddelach that are there.

Everybody knows that on Rosh Hashonna you are standing before G-d, but the question is on what level? We are not being counted on the level of details, we are being counted on the level of all. Every person is the combination of two things. Let’s take a girl who is very beautiful, her eyes and ears are beautiful, but this is all details. But then there is something else, the all a person is. There might be a person who is very talented in Mathematics but sometimes the all is not talented. A lot of big scientists are talented in everything but the all in them is stupid. Then there is a person who is not only talented in every detail, but the all is talented and the all is beautiful. There are a lot of yiddelach who are Jewish in every detail but the all of them is without religion, the all of them. And then there are people who maybe their details are not so religious, but the all of them is so beautiful. So in a nutshell, on Yom Kippur we are standing before G-d on the level of details because on Yom Kippur I confess every detail I did wrong, but on Rosh Hashonna I am standing before G-d on the level of my all.

I want to share something very deep with you, which may not be clear till the end so just bear with me. Imagine I walk on the street and I see a poor man and all I have on me is a dollar. So I’m thinking to myself ‘should I give him just half a dollar and leave half a dollar for myself or should I give him all I have?’ Something happens to me and I feel very high and I give him all I have, but where is this coming from? It comes from the all of me. My all of me gives all to the poor man, but it’s not really all there is. No person has more than all they have. But imagine if there would be such a thing that not only the all of me, but the all of my world. You know what G-d does? The Master of the World is giving you not only the all of me but the whole world. There is such a thing, mamesh all there is.

And just bear with me, it will become clearer to you. There is such a thing which has to do with after I’m born, after I’m already in this word, and there are certain things which touch my very being in this world. These things touch my being born, my coming into this world. For instance, I can connect to a person on two levels, I can love a person on two levels. I’m already in this world and I know you so I love you. But then there is something much deeper. Sometimes I can love a person so much that it touches my very being in this world. Imagine a china man, he is connected to Peking and a yidele is connected to Yerushalayim. I’m sure that the all off the China Man is connected to Peking but this is the kind of all which is after I am created. After he is already created as a China man he is connected to Peking. If he cannot be in Peking so he lives in New York he forgets about Peking. For a yidele, Yerushalayim is not connected to me after my creation, this touches the very foundation of my creation. If not Yerushalayim I can’t have something else, cannot exchange it.

Let me make it clearer. I want you to know something else, the more outside it is the more the little bit is also meaningful. Imagine I’ll make a deal with Coca Cola. I would like to sell you ten thousand bottles of Coca Cola. My friend tells me ‘well, my soul is not that big, I cannot use ten thousand bottles but I would be glad to buy a thousand from you’. Imagine I walk up to a girl and I say ‘I want to marry you’ and she says ‘well, I cannot marry you but I can be your secretary’. Or she will tell you ‘I cannot marry you for a lifetime but for a weekend I can’, it’s sweet but it just doesn’t go. Anything that comes from the outside – then a little bit is also good. If I am very hungry and I walk into this restaurant and I ask for five steaks and ten hamburgers and they tell me ‘listen brother, we are just closing up. All I can give you is a leftover donut’. Since I am so hungry I will take that because it’s outside of me. Now listen to this, on a physical level. The more outside it is in the body it doesn’t have to be complete. It should be complete but if it’s not, it is possible. G-d forbid, we should have all our feet but if one foot is missing I can still live. If someone might say ‘I’m going to cut off half of my heart G-d forbid, so I’m living on half’, it just doesn’t go because the heart is the inside of my inside and the inside of my inside has to be complete.

Let me tell you something. I am giving a speech on Maoism and I’m speaking to the China folks and they don’t understand exactly what I say because maybe I am speaking in Hebrew. In the meantime I am telling them that it doesn’t matter, they understood a little bit, it served its purpose. Imagine I am going to a girl and I want to propose to her and I say three words to her, I love you. And she says ‘I didn’t hear the two last words’ it just doesn’t go. When it comes to the deepest depths of life, when it comes to the real things – unless it’s complete it’s not there.

There are people who want to give you a lot and you only want to take a little and it’s okay. But there are people who are that close to me and I want to give them so much and they only want to take a little…

So just in a nutshell listen to this. You know how much life G-d wants to give us all year long? The flow from heaven is so deep, you can only take a little bit but it’s okay. On Rosh Hashonna, the day of the creation of the world, our closeness to G-d is so awesome that unless we take the whole thing – it just doesn’t go. Rosh Hashonna, the day when G-d created the world is such a deep day, mamesh the deepest depths there is. All of me has to be ready to take all of G-d, mamesh all of it. In order to live all year long I should do tshuvah, I don’t have to be that good and I don’t have to cleanse myself that much. So I don’t take the whole thing, I take a little bit and I will manage. I don’t keep all of Shabbos, I keep Friday night. I don’t keep Friday night, I keep a little bit. Rosh Hashonna is one day which is so deep, it has to be all… it has to be all.

Thanks to the Holiest of Holy Reb Moshe Stepansky for this post.

http://www.notowitz.com/Torah/TorahRSimchaWeinberg.html

We were playing handball against the western wall of Yeshivat Eitz Chaim in Toronto. I clearly remember that it was the western wall because there was a drawing of the Kotel – at that time called the Wailing Wall – posted on the wall. It was 1964 and Jews were unable to access the Kotel. The school posted the drawing so that we would remember and pray for the Western Wall.

The ball went flying behind us into the backyard of the house just next to the school. I was going to climb through the hedges to reclaim my “pinky” ball but everyone yelled, “Stop! You can’t go there. Grouchy lives there!”

Thank God, I listened. Grouchy came flying out the back door just waiting for his next victim to devour!

I noticed that Grouchy had a tattoo of numbers on his arm, just like Ben, the school-bus driver, and most of the teachers and rabbeim. In fact, almost all the parents I knew had similar tattoos. I was jealous because neither of my parents, and none of my grandparents had tattoos. My doctor had one, as did my dentist. The butcher had one, and so did the barber, and my building’s super. It seemed like most adults had numbers. I wondered how old you had to be to get one. After all, my parents were already ancient and they didn’t have numbers. My grandparents were beyond ancient; they were from a different century, and they didn’t get to have tattoos either.

I met Grouchy one day at the bus stop and he was very nice. “Why are you so scared of me?” “Because, you’re so grouchy!”

“You would also be grouchy if you had one of these,” he said pointing to his tattoo. When he saw the blank look in my face, he explained who tattooed him, where and when. I still tear when I remember his story. The Germans tortured and killed his wife and children in front of his eyes before sending him to a place called Treblinka.

Grouchy and I became friends. I asked the other kids to stop calling him Grouchy and retold his story. The most common response was: “My parents’ story is worse and they are not grouchy!”

I thought of Grouchy this morning on my daily walk. There is a man who looks just like Grouchy who never greets any of the other walkers. He refuses to move aside for anyone, despite the unspoken rule that you always walk to the right. I greet him every morning with a big smile and he refuses to acknowledge me. His grouchiness is infectious. It affects my mood.

This morning I saw his tattoo when I past him on my first lap, and remembered Grouchy.

There is another man I see every morning who is the polar opposite. He has the most beautiful smile and he greets everyone. We all call him “Smiley”. He lifts my mood even more than Grouchy ruins it. I passed him just after passing Grouchy and I was so infected by his smile that I decided to try again with my new Grouchy. “Good morning! How are you this wonderful morning?”

He stopped, looked at me, noticed my Curious George t-shirt and laughed. “Good morning to you.” Smiley infected me with his smile and I was finally able to infect Grouchy.

The power of a smile. No wonder God asks us to smile when we serve Him: “Because you did not serve God, your Lord, amid gladness and goodness of heart.” (Deuteronomy 28:47) The bible is describing the most horrible curses and explains that they will come because we are, well, so grouchy when we serve Him!

Imagine if everyone walked around with Smiley’s infectious smile when serving God! Awesome!

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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.