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ϟ Shavuos: Am Yisroel’s Chassene

bennistar:

The Zohar HaKadosh states:

“Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai and his students were learning Torah without sleeping on the night of Shavuos. Each one was expounding previously unrevealed ideas. Rabbi Shimon delighted in each new idea, as did the rest of the students.

Rabbi Shimon said to them, “My sons, joyous are you with your portion. Since this night, you are (with your Torah learning), preparing the adornments for the bride, and rejoicing with her. Tomorrow she will go underneath the Chuppah only with you. All of you will be inscribed in the King’s book, and he will bless you with unlimited blessing from above.”

The gemora tells us, how before the giving of the Torah, Hashem held the mountain (Sinai), over our heads, warning us to accept the Torah, or risk being buried alive on the spot. Nevertheless, Chazal (our sages) understood the incident another way. The mountain above our heads was actually a Chuppah, a marriage canopy, and that the acceptance of the Torah was akin to the wedding ceremony. By accepting the Torah, Hashem and the the Jewish People became wedded to each other.

This is the description of the wedding preparation in the Zohar. (Emor 98a)

“It (Shavuos night), is like a King who is marrying his son to a distinguished princess. The night before the wedding, he spent the whole night in his treasure houses, selecting the garments for the groom. He brought out silken robes, a crown studded with seventy precious jewels and all of the other trappings of a King.

Then he went to the home of the Princess. He observed her maidens preparing her exquisite jewelry, the finest garments and her crown. He told them, “I have prepared for the Princess a special chamber of purification. Its source is a place of flowing waters, and the rarest and most sublime spices and fragrance surround it to increase and complete her purification. Come my daughter, the bride of my son. Come you with your maidens to the place of purification that I have prepared for you.” “Tomorrow, when the time arrives you will enter underneath the Chuppah with my son and I will prepare a palace to be your home. In this home will also be a chamber for me so that I can dwell with you for eternity.”

This is how Hashem unites with Am Yisroel on the night of Shavuos.

May we all be worthy to receive the Torah together with Moshiach this upcoming yom tov!

ϟ “I Believe”

by Reb Gutman Locks @ Mystical Paths

     Last week, two people tried to explain to me why their religious beliefs were correct, and mine were not. The first was a non-Jewish woman from England, and the second was a young, Jewish traveler from Argentina.

     The non-Jewish woman tried to convince me that without her man-god my sins would not be forgiven, and the Jewish man tried to convince me that buddhahahaha taught the proper path for all mankind, and without following his teachings I would merely wallow in the illusion of creation.

     Although I explained to both of them what the Torah says, and why they were mistaken, they did not budge from their beliefs. This is the nature of belief. Belief in foolishness and belief in the truth employs the same mechanism. A religious Jew who believes in the Torah, and bases his spiritual life only on belief is doing fine, but his spiritual life is being bet on the same thread that those other two people are betting their lives on.

     So, what is the difference between believing in Torah and believing in the religions of idolatry? Some Jews like to answer that those other stories are based on merely one man, or a few men’s experience, whereas to the opposite of this, the giving of the Torah was witnessed by millions of Jews standing at Mt. Sinai at the same time. But that argument is not as good as it seems because each of us did not get our belief from millions of people, but from only the one or two who taught it to us.

     Then, what is the proof that our belief is in truth and theirs’ is not. We see in our lives that the Jews who follow the Torah go on as Jews. Their grandchildren are almost certainly going to be named Moshe, Avraham, Sarah, Rachel, and such. While almost every Jew who has accepted other religions, or even deviated from the sages’ teachings, their grandchildren will almost certainly be called Luke, John, Maya or Samsara. The point here is not that just their names will be such, but that in almost all likelihood, they will intermarry and have non-Jewish children.

     But, what about those other religions? They see that their beliefs cause their religions to continue, just like we see that our belief causes the Jewish people to continue. What did I show them that contradict their beliefs, (not that it changed them)?

     To the one who reads the Bible but told me that I needed someone else to die for my sins, I answered: “Fathers shall not be put to death because of sons, and sons will not be put to death because of fathers, a man will be put to death for his own sins,”[i] and “The son will not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son, the righteousness of the righteous will be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked will be upon him,”[ii]and “Everyone will die for his own iniquity.”[iii]

     And to the buddhist Jew I tried to explain that this world is not an illusion, but to most, it is a delusion. I told him that an illusion is outside of your head… out there in the physical world like a mirage, and a delusion is within your head, like thinking that there is no Creator.

     I told him, “Buddhahaha taught that all life is suffering, and the only way to avoid the suffering is to detach from the world. To the opposite of this, the Torah stresses that, when used properly, this world is the gorgeous, Garden of Eden. We are not to detach from it. We are to become involved with it, and to elevate it by using it for holy purposes.”

      “They teach that everything that happens was destined to happen, and no matter what we do, each of us is always subject to our karma. And the Torah teaches that we can turn at any moment we choose, and when we do turn, none of our past will follow us. Since they teach that there is no G-d, they will not bother to ask for Mercy. Who can they ask? Thank G-d, we know that there is a Creator Who is forgiving.”  

[i] Deuteronomy 24:16

[ii] Ezekiel 18:20

[iii] Jeremiah 31:29.

MysticalPaths

hamikdash:

If I could buy every Jew one book, it would be this one by David Mamet (Yes, THAT David Mamet).  I am rereading it and every page is profound, in your face and raw truth.  Do not hesitate to buy, rent, check out of the library.  It removes the blinders and exposes the core problems with self-hating Jews in general.

If you are right wing and proud, buy it!  If you are left-wing or self loathing, buy it.  I dare you to read it and refute anything he says.

It is a masterpiece.

“Mamet, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and filmmaker, has written a rather confusing but very provocative analysis of what is often called the “longest hatred” and its effects on Jews. Those unfamiliar with the often-oblique dialogue that characterizes Mamet’s fiction will probably find wading through his language frustrating. His repeated allusions to the Bible and other literary sources are strained, and he paints with too broad a brush (“the world hates Jews”). If one can cut through the fog and tolerate his generalizations, it is evident that Mamet is on to something, particularly in his views on the apparent increase in Jewish disdain for and rejection of their own culture. He ties Jewish self-hatred to anti-Semitism, asserting that the victims eventually wonder if they somehow “deserve” the opprobrium heaped on them. So called “emancipated” Jews may try to cleanse themselves of racial taint by disparaging “Jewish” traits. Of course, Mamet finds the worst manifestations of this self-hatred in those Jews who seem to delight in attacking the very existence of Israel. In Mamet’s view, they absurdly condemn Jewish passivity during the Holocaust and condemn Jewish aggressiveness in defending the State of Israel. This isn’t an easy book to read, and it will likely outrage many Jews and non-Jews, but Mamet’s blunt, passionate assertions have to be seriously considered. Jay Freeman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved”

“The world hates the Jews. The world always has and will continue to do so.” So says celebrated playwright and novelist Mamet in this new entry in the Jewish Encounters series, as he sets his sights on both anti-Semites and apostate Jews, whom he refers to as “the Wicked Sons.” Mamet marshals his passion and mastery of language to argue that only religious observance is an authentic, non-self-hating expression of Judaism. Organizing that argument coherently, however, doesn’t seem to be a priority, as he moves from discussions of the State of Israel to excoriations of assimilated Jews and contemporary culture and back with no apparent order. The tone is that of the condescending expert: alternately Talmudic scholar, academic, psychoanalyst and anthropologist. But nowhere is Mamet’s expertise proven; he provides no source materials to back up his pronouncements on everything from Santa Claus to gun control to religious observance. The implication of this bombastic text seems to be that anyone who disagrees is a coward, an anti-Semite or a self-hating Jew. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved”

There are lots things in the world offensive to Jews. This is not one of them.

From Fox News:

The Anti-Defamation League is calling out retailer Urban Outfitters for a shirt the Jewish group claims bears a symbol strikingly similar to the one used by Nazis to identify Jews during the Holocaust.

The sale of the shirt, which comes on the heels of National Holocaust Remembrance Day, is just the latest in a long line of offensive products from Urban Outfitters, the ADL tells FoxNews.com.

The T-shirt, sold by the Philadelphia-based Urbn Inc. but manufactured by Dutch label Wood Wood, is a yellow and features a blue six-pointed star on a breast pocket. But the ADL tells FoxNews.com that it’s far more sinister than just a simple tee — and is reminiscent of the yellow badges that Jews were forced by the Nazis to wear during the Holocaust.

“It’s a new low in Urban Outfitter’s consistent use of various offensive messages in what appears to be a quest for attention,” Barry Morrison, the Philadelphia regional director of the ADL, told FoxNews.com. “We are very troubled by it.”

“The juxtaposition of the six-pointed star on a yellow shirt brings about associations with the yellow Star of David that the Jews were forced to wear. A symbol marking Jews as subhuman — setting them apart and ultimately paving the way for their annihilation.”

What exactly is the problem? 

The star isn’t yellow, it doesn’t resemble the stars Jews were forced to wear, it doesn’t evoke the Holocaust in any manner, and I would consider wearing it if it wasn’t so damn ugly and if I could get past the fact that Urban Outfitters was going to charge $100 for this simple pocket T-shirt.  (Now, that’s offensive.)

The ADL does some good stuff, but this is beyond ridiculous, and it makes the organization look like a joke.  Please, Abraham Foxman, don’t look for offense when there clearly is none. There is real anti-semitism out there - and this isn’t it. And if you weren’t looking for offensive symbols everywhere, perhaps you could have noted this this could be considered a compliment to Jews, not an insult.

See also Jewlicious, who notes that Maccabi Tel Aviv’s logo must also be offensive….

EofZ

(Source: zavatchalavudvash)

Stam A Day

Last night, we had dinner with some old friends and family in an Israeli grill. Just three couples who have known one another for a few decades. We all used to live in the same community in the Old Country and now we are all here. Only one of the six of us has any real fluency with Hebrew, so watching us try to order dinner with a waitress who spoke little English was like a skit of Kita Bet ulpan on the first day of class. The waitress asked how many people we would be. I said, “shaysh” and she said, “shisha”. That was kind of how it went.

Eventually, the food came and the talk turned to the spiritual merits of our lives in Israel. How we feel closer to Hashem here. How praying, even out loud and with our hands raised in a posture of urgent pleading, feels more natural here. How geula feels closer. How Gd’s Hand in our daily lives is clearer.

Earlier in the day, I was on a bus on my way to my office in Jerusalem when the Yom HaShoah siren went off. Ironically, my watch was a few minutes slow, so I wasn’t expecting it quite then. The driver stopped the bus, shut off the engine, then everyone, and I mean everyone - soldiers in uniform, young children, Russian immigrants, native Israelis, religious men, secular women, old Ethiopians, everyone stood up inside the bus in absolute silence for two minutes of memory.

Please Hashem, redeem your people from the ravages of antisemitism. Let us live in peace in our Land. Bring back those of our people who were killed because they were Jews and also all those whom we have loved. Let us live in a world of truth and of spiritual clarity.

The moment passed. The driver started the engine, the radio came back on, announcing that it was 10:02. I wiped a small tear, reset my watch and thus began another day.

via: Bat Aliyah

(Source: zavatchalavudvash)

(Source: zavatchalavudvash)

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