The Test of out Times!

Teshuvah is a very broad term. All of us need to make Tshuva, each on his own personal level.

What specifically can be the catalyst to expedite the coming of Moshiach?

Kedusha (holiness).

Here's why, according to Chassidus: The Geula will come by virtue of midas hachesed, or lovingkindness from the side of holiness.

The Sitra Achra, or impure dark side, is fighting the Geula, by using its own power of midas hachesed, from the side of evil.

Do you know what that is? Promiscuity.

Quotes Various

Goodness without knowledge, is impotent;
But knowledge without goodness, is dangerous.
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Interesting quote from:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25334489/
6-24-08

Doubts about GodInvestigation has found, that more than 25% of: Roman Catholics, mainline Protestants, and Orthodox Christians, expressed some doubts about God's existence; as did 60% of Jews.
Another finding, almost defies explanation: 21 percent of self-identified atheists said, they believe in God or a universal spirit; with 8 percent "absolutely certain" of it.
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"The Chazon Ish, zs'kl, said that Bnei Brak will not be damaged, because it is a place of Torah, and the Torah protects.

The Zohar Sheital
"If a woman covers her hair....her children will be superior...

Her husband will be blessed with spiritual, and material blessings: with wealth, children and grandchildren."
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The flower that blooms in adversity, is the most beautiful of all.

True ignorance, is not the absence of knowledge, but the refusal to acquire it. Karl Popper

We have the most amount of (percentage-wise) compulsive disease in the world.
How do you know this?
Lang: I heard it from a shrink, I believe.

One can read a book many times; yet one will not understand its real meaning, until experience dawns, from within the person.

Avogadro's Number – That state, according to the laws of chemistry, where there is a limit to how many serial dilutions can be made, without losses to the original substance. Avogadro’s number is roughly, 10 to the 24th power.

Jews are not human beings, having a spiritual experience;
Jews are spiritual beings, having a human experience!

If you tell someone that you love them; then you tell them, that if they gain five pounds, you won’t love them; then you never really loved them, in the first place.

When you judge another, you don't define them, you define yourself.

Criticism, is the sincerest form, of autobiography.


William Blake: To see a World in a grain of sand, and Heaven in a wild flower; To hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,and Eternity in an hour.

Jews are like wives, they always have disagreements, but in the end, they still love each other!
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If one fails to plan, one plans to fail.
Chassidus illuminates the world, instead of eliminating it.

In 1935, the government of Persia requested of those countries, with which it had diplomatic relations, to call Persia "Iran;" which is the name of the country in Persian.
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What do married men want, more than anything else?Their wives to be happy. When ones wife is happy, everything else is great. If a person has everything in the world, but his wife is not happy, he has nothing.What does a married woman want, more than anything else?

To give 100% to her husband, but he must be attentive to her. Hashem loves us and wants to give us everything. But we need to be Bittle (open) enough, to create the proper kali (vessel), to hold his unlimited Brachas.
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Failure is not the enemy of success; it is its prerequisite."

Moshiach thought: The world (nature) was created to hide G-d, but Jews were created to reveal G-d. Moshiach reveals G-d, permanently.

The non-jewish religions had to force individuals to convert; but for non-Jews, Judaism, is strictly by choice.

Don't expect to build up the weak, by pulling down the strong." —Calvin Coolidge
When you want to find your soul, you first have to find the soul in another person.
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When the heart of one Jew beats with pain, the hearts of all the multitudes feel it as well.”
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Certain People...
In the period immediately before Moshiach, certain people of little faith will not listen to the call of those urging them to prepare for Moshiach.

They will argue, "After such a long and bitter exile...how is it possible that we will suddenly be redeemed?" Thus they will not listen to those who attempt to inspire them.

(The Chofetz Chaim--Tzipita L'Yshua)
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When the great Gaon Rav Meshulam Igra was sick, the people beseeched Hashem with Tefila to spare his life. Their tefilos went unanswered and Rav Meshulam was niftar.

Seeing the disappointment of the people the Chasam Sofer stood up to be Maspid him as follows. He told a Mashal of a broken ax trying to chop down a tree. The mightiest logger can swing away all day at the tree but if the ax is broken it will not help.

Surely said the Chasam Sofer, when people gather to daven with Kavana, Hashem answers their tefilos and grants their request. However the tool for tefila is the mouth and when the mouth is contaminated with forbidden speech it simply doesn't function properly. No matter hard one davens, broken mouths cannot accomplish the task.
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The impurities always rise to the top, when the water starts boiling.
So it is no surprise, that things tend to look dark;
but in reality, it is just a purifying process, that will end in a totally good world!

America has experienced a bloodless coup; perpetrated by socialists, and funded by the enemies of America.

The biggest mosque in Europe, is going to be opened in Creteil, a suburb of Paris.

A person can achieve this degree of intense unity with G-d, only through Torah study. Specifically, it is the study of the inner dimension of the Torah - Kabbalah and Chasidut - that enables a person to reach this high level of consciousness.

This aspect of the Torah is alluded to by the two engraved tablets. When words are written on something - say, parchment - the ink and parchment are still two separate entities; the ink can be scraped off.

Engraving, on the other hand, is a much more intrinsic unity; the word and the medium are one and the same.

This Year

It has been brought down by many, including Rabbi Amnon Yitzhak; that the RaAVaD said, that our year - 5769 is Yovel Rabati (the 50th Jubilee).

He brings down the Pasuk regarding the Yovel, - on that year "Tashuvu Ish El Achuzato..." - each man shall return to his rightful piece of land.

Meaning to say, that this year (being that it is the Yovel- Grand Jubilee), we shall all return to Eretz Yisrae, l with the coming of Moshiach.

Short Thought: Ignorance

True ignorance, is not the absence of knowledge;
but rather, the refusal to acquire it.

The Year 5770

1. 770 is, by the way, Gematria PARATZA, (to Break through).
As in “and you shall burst forth (PARATZTA) westward, eastward, northward and southward” (Genesis 28:14).

2. PARATZTA (770) is Moshiach.
As in, “the one who breaks forth, has gone up before them” (Micha 2:13).
Rashi: “This is their savior (Moshiach)”.

3. 770 is the number 7, in its most complete and perfect form:
70 = 7×10 (10=completion); 700=7×10x10 (10×10=completion of completion). 770 combines both.

4. From “Beit Rabbeinu sh-b-Bavel”:
The number 7, is the world created in 7 days; and 7 sefirot.
It is the refinement of the world, carried out by the Jewish people.

The complete form of seven (770), is the completion of the Jewish people’s mission, of refining the world. After which, they are redeemed from exile, and return to the Land of Israel.”

Bittle- Light and Darkness

The material world, obstructs G-d's glory and the spiritual; and causes darkness. The more coarse (physical) the object is, the greater the darkness.

When one is tied to an emotion or desire, it blocks G-d's glory; and as a result, causes a great darkness. G-d's light, is then hidden from view.
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But as one purifies these emotions and desires, one also removes this darkness. And as the darkness departs, immediately the light of G-d's glory, begins to be shine.

When a person is worthy, of annihilating the darkness completely, and transforming it into absolute nothingness; then G-d's glory is revealed, to all the earth. Then there is no obstruction, and the light can shine through, in all its brilliance- Moshiach!

Irish mobster converts to Judaism

August 19, 2009 Many of us arrive at moments in our lives, where circumstances oblige us to reinvent ourselves: the loss of a job, an empty nest, a family emergency.

But there are very few of us who have reinvented ourselves, as completely and profoundly, as former Mafia star Louis Ferrante--and even fewer who have accomplished it, with as much grit and determination.
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In America, everybody loves a rags-to-riches story, one that chronicles the struggles of an immigrant, or a log cabin-born orphan, to beat the odds, and become wealthy or powerful. But in the case of Mr. Ferrante’s personal evolution, the meaning of “rags to riches” takes on a new meaning.

His young adulthood was spent, moving up the fast track in the Mafia hierarchy; walking around with huge wads of cash in his pockets; and heading up sizable teams, who worked under him.

On a spiritual level, however, these ill-acquired gains, could not be considered riches at all. On the contrary, they were dirty “rags,” that he ultimately rejected, as he made a conscious choice, while serving time in federal prison, to pursue instead the intellectual and spiritual “riches,” that were to be found in literature, Judaism, and, ultimately, the depths of his own soul.

Now in his thirties, Louis Ferrante lives in a large house, on eight acres in the Catskills (“my mortgage costs less, than what I was paying for a little hole in Long Island,” he jokes with a New Yorker’s irony).

He has become a successful writer, with book tours in the U.S. and Europe; today making an honest living, with his hard-won literary skills. The intonations of his speech, betray his Italian-American, Queens-born-and-bred origins; when he opens his mouth, one imagines a truck driver, who works for NPR.

Aware that he is speaking to a frum lady from Brooklyn, who may be possessed of more delicate sensibilities, he minds his manners, and apologizes in gentlemanly fashion, on the rare occasion a four-letter word slips out.
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By the time he was twenty-one, Louis Ferrante had become a “successful” businessman; if “business” can be broadly taken to mean; organizing truck hijackings; and “success” means, being able to fence the loot. It was fast money for a young man, still taken with a world of fast cars and fast women.

Spending all his time on the street, running with Italian cronies, he learned to negotiate the Mob’s “system;” and was eventually singled out for notice, by the Gambino/Gotti clan.

“I used to spend a lot of time at the home of one of the Gottis,” Ferrante recalls. “Their son was a good friend of mine, and I was on the way up, with six to twelve guys under me.”

Aside from the dubious pleasures and privileges, of being a ben bayit in the Gotti manor, the Mob’s codes of honor and machismo, appealed to an ambitious young man, looking to make his mark.

In the memoir of his transformation, Unlocked: From Prison to Proust, Ferrante observes: “The streets, the whole Mob thing, gave us a sense of honor and camaraderie, that we needed. An eighteen-year-old in the Midwest, searching for these same feelings, might join the army or marines. In our neighborhood, we threw in with the Mafia.”
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But those famous Mafia codes of honor, had begun to show themselves, shot as full of holes, as a mobster caught in a turf war. Betrayed by a Mob informer in the 1990’s, Ferrante found himself slapped with federal charges, of credit card fraud and theft, that threatened to put him behind bars for life.

He was shuttled from the nightmarish Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, to a maximum-security prison in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania; and finally, based on good behavior, to a medium-security prison in Otisville, and another in the Adirondacks.

Each prison was its own individual hell, with its own bizarre rules, contradictions and codes of behavior; and it took all of Ferrante’s street smarts, to emerge relatively intact, both physically and emotionally.
What saved his sanity—and ultimately prepared him to succeed in life, beyond the prison walls—was his discovery, first of the life of the mind, through books; and then ultimately, the life of the soul, through Judaism.
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THE MAKING OF A MOBSTER

How does an otherwise nice Italian-American kid, get started on a life of crime? Ferrante grew up in Flushing, in a rough neighborhood, near the projects. “My father still lives there,” he told me.

“At this point I think he’s the only non-Asian on the block. But in my day it was, Italian, Irish, Jewish, black—and everybody was tough.”

His parents sent him to Catholic school, where, he jokes, “the nuns were worse than the prison guards; and as for the priests, I’m still waiting to see their names pop up in the newspapers one day!”

He finished high school, just barely, because he had promised his mother he would. But he had already started a career in theft, everything from truckloads of cheap underwear, to travelers’ checks.

His mother, who seems to have represented all that is good and true in life to Ferrante, was diagnosed with a cancer; that culminated in a long, painful death, when he was twenty. “I took care of her till the end, and she died in my arms,” Ferrante says with great sadness.

“At that point, I think I lost any faith in G-d, I might have had. Why had He taken my mother, who was so good?

I had enough brains to ask the questions, but not enough brains to answer them.”There was little to stand in the way, of an embittered young man, continuing to dig himself deeper into a life, devoid of any moral compass.

Ferrante describes a life of, sleeping until noon, hanging out in restaurants and pool halls, and plotting the next heist. He hung out with buddies, whose colorful names sound like a parody of television Mafia characters: Funzi, Tony the Pork Chop, Botz, Tony Twitch, Barry the Brokester.

Ferrante and his underlings never killed anybody, but when he and his minions would hijack trucks, they would bind the driver with duct tape, shove a pistol in his mouth to show him they meant business, and dump him on the side of the road a few miles down the road.
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But there were certain contradictory moments of altruism, amidst the violence and the thievery; certain glimpses, that Ferrante had the potential to one day turn his heart to the good. For example, he narrowly missed going to jail, for beating up a thug in a bar, who was bullying an old, defenseless man.

On another occasion, while driving a stolen car, he saw a young tough slash at an elderly woman and steal her purse. Outraged, he left the car in traffic, overtook the kid and recovered the purse.

And when the Feds came to bust him in 1994, there were also indications that, beneath the bravado, and the thrills of pulling off impressive heists, Ferrante had a well-buried, but nevertheless far from defunct, sense of morality. “I was subpoenaed by the FBI, and asked to cooperate,” he says.

“A lot of mobsters, once they’re arrested, suddenly ‘see the light,’ and begin to sing.”But he himself still respected the rapidly-becoming-archaic Mafia code of silence.

“I felt it was beneath my dignity to give in, and I had a sense of conscience not to betray people,” he states. “My pride said, I should just take my licks for what I had done; and the truth is that underneath, I really knew I deserved to be punished.”
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LIFE BEHIND BARS

Ferrante was sent to the Metropolitan Detention Center for three years, while his verdict dragged on. There were no outdoor recreation facilities, no windows, no night or day or privacy; the skin on his face began peeling from a lack of sunlight. The inmates passed the time gambling, and abusing each other.

The cells crawled with roaches and rats, and stunk of excrement and misery. Finally he was sentenced to a maximum security prison in Lewisburg, PA. “That was a zoo,” Ferrante says.

“The first day I got there, the alarms went off—a race war had started, after some members of the Aryan Nation, hacked two Black Muslims to death. Somebody handed me a machete, and told me how to defend myself.”

Ferrante’s account of prison life, especially in maximum security, shocks in its account of brutality, injustice, and abuse. The sub-human conditions of the prison reduced these already-violence-prone people, into little more than animals: stealing from each other, beating each other up and worse.

“You sit at the dinner table with murderers,” Ferrante recounts, “who would easily kill you for your dessert, or for cutting ahead in the chow line.” (When he was finally upgraded to a medium-security prison, he marveled that the prisoners were actually allowed to eat with plastic knives.)

It was a world, where one could only survive, by being considered dangerous, and where kindness was interpreted as weakness. Ferrante remarks wryly, “It’s difficult to feel sorry, for hungry wolves, when they’re gnawing at your flesh.”

In prison, all sense of time slipped away, as one day melted into the next; all sense of initiative was stripped, by the boredom and imposed routine of prison life. Trivial issues like, what was served for supper, took on inflated importance. Inmates sorted themselves into cliques: the blacks, the Hispanics, the Italians, the white supremacists.

The guards could be every bit as brutal as the inmates; Ferrante describes one incident, where guards literally beat a man to a pulp; high on “violence without accountability”—after all, who would believe the complaints of a bunch of convicts?
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IN THE BEGINNING, THERE WAS THE WORD

One day, while Ferrante was at the Metropolitan Detention Center, one of the wardens refused to let the inmates on his block, see the relatives who had come to visit them. Visiting day was a long-awaited event for the convicts, and they were furious.

That night, an aging Sicilian Mafiosi, threw an apple at the guard, setting off a fury of banging and throwing of objects at him. The guard hit the ground, and radioed for reinforcements.

Ferrante, the youngest man in the block, was accused of throwing the apple, and starting the conflagration. Refusing to implicate his cellmate, he was stripped and sent into solitary confinement. They starved him for two days, at the end of which the captain came to visit.

Ferrante asked for a mattress, and the captain laughed at him. Furious, Ferrante grabbed the captain’s tie to strangle him—but it came off in his hand, it was only a clip-on! “Do you think we’d wear real ties, with you %@$# animals?” the captain jeered.

“That somehow really shook me,” Ferrante told me. “And something clicked in my mind—today, I think the only explanation, is the grace of G-d. I began thinking: am I really no more than an animal? Why am I this way? Do I have any purpose in this world? I realized, I had a million questions and no answers.”
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Ferrante now had two months of solitary, in which to contemplate his million questions. By the time he was put back in his regular cell, he already felt himself pulling away psychologically, from his Mafia friends—an unusual move, since Mafiosi types normally, only distance themselves from the Mob, when they rat on each other.

But now he was tired, of endless card games and cigarettes, tired of the same old pointless banter and reminiscing, and felt possessed of a strange new hunger, to find some answers to his questions—in books.

He picked up the phone, and called the only friend he could think of, who ever read. “In my home, there were never any books,” he says. “I never read in high school, just cheated through my exams.”

His friend went to a bookstore, and told the clerk, he needed books for a friend, who was “short and bossy.” The clerk picked out a biography of Napoleon, Caesar’s Gallic Wars, and Mein Kampf.

With deadpan humor, Ferrante recounts, that the books arrived just as a brutal murderer, was telling all the inmates, how he and a friend had killed the third party, in a love triangle, and hacked him into pieces. . . although they didn’t cut off the head: “Ugh! That would be disgusting!” said the killer, oblivious to his own absurd lack of logic.

“My books couldn’t have come at a better time,” Ferrante thought to himself, as he beat a hasty retreat into a corner, with his new acquisitions.

He labored through all of them; he bought a dictionary from another inmate “for a stamp,” and had to look up half the words on each page (except those beginning with Y and Z, since those pages were ripped out of the dictionary).

He understood little, and comments dryly in his book, “Hitler used a lot of big words. I knew he was full of it, because my lawyers used big words, and they were also full of it.”
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Today, Ferrante recognizes, that “Hashem really helped me. When I made the effort, it was like the manna would come down. For instance, when I finished reading War and Peace, I was just blown away. I couldn’t wait to read more Tolstoy.

The next day, I found a copy of Anna Karenina, in a broken urinal.”His friend sent more books, and he learned that the prison had a library. Reading was becoming an obsession; he sometimes read for eighteen hours a day.

He no longer slept much, because he no longer needed sleep as an escape, he had found something better; he would stuff his ears with tissues to keep the roaches from crawling in and read until he nodded off. “I could tune into things, really well, because there’s nothing else going on in prison,”

Ferrante recalls. “Today I can’t do that any more, only on Shabbos. I’ve read, that the brain works best under moderate stress, and that was what I was living with in prison; in a funny way, those circumstances helped open my mind.”

Before long, he was not only reading, but putting his thoughts onto paper as well. When his papers were confiscated, during a prison shakedown, he began mailing chapters to his father, initiating a relationship, they hadn’t had in years. He even organized classes, within the prison
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Teshuvah

His first stirrings of conscience, perhaps his first true steps towards reform and Teshuvah, were aroused by a book. He had taken out a copy of Martin Gilbert’s Churchill, from the prison library, and liked it so much, he thought he might just keep it, ripping out the card pocket in the back. But then, suddenly, he just didn’t want to do the wrong thing.

He stuffed the back page back in, and returned it to the librarian. “For the first time, I actually realized, that stealing is wrong,” he says.

When Ferrante was transferred to Otisville, a medium-security prison, he befriended fellow inmate Richard Messina, a corporate attorney. Messina loved books, loved language, and he became Ferrante’s language coach, expanding his vocabulary and correcting his pronunciation.

Ferrante eventually became educated enough, to overturn an illegal verdict, first for a semi-retarded inmate, who had been given a bum rap (a victory that gave Ferrante tremendous nachas); and later overturn charges for himself, winning an early release, after “only” eight years.“Prison is designed to break the individual,” he eventually wrote. “It outright destroyed me, the old me. I was building someone better.”
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FROM BOOKS, TO THE PEOPLE OF THE BOOK

There was no shortage of religion in prison, Ferrante says. “I’d say ninety percent of the guys in prison, get religion at some point,” he claims. “They become born-agains or Muslims. But it wasn’t real; if their parole didn’t come through, or something happened, they’d chuck the whole thing in an instant.

I figured, if they’re going that way, I’m going the other way!”He had many theological questions simmering in his mind, and in order to find answers, he began to read everything from the Gospels to the Koran to Confucius to Torah.

“In the end, it all came down to one thing: there is one G-d,” he says. “All the other religions just seemed to be Johnny-come-latelies, copying the Torah.” And he had no use for religions, with multiple deities and scores of saints: “Even on the street, I went straight to the Boss!” he jokes.

He began reading about the Jewish people, the first to receive the Bible—“could G-d have picked the wrong horse?” he asked. “--Not very likely!”He approached the prison Rabbi, and told him he wanted to learn more about Judaism.

“He didn’t take me seriously, he thought I just wanted to get extra treats or something,” Ferrante recounts. “So I told him, ‘I’m not interested in your bagels and rugelach! I want conversation!’” Finally recognizing his sincerity, the Rabbi obliged.“Once I was in Otisville [the medium-security prison], there were Jews,” Ferrante says.”

Some American, some European, a few Israelis, even a few Chasids. Some of them had background, and put on Tefillin. They would make a Minyan.

By 1998, I was keeping Shabbos, eating kosher, and praying daily with an Art scroll siddur.” He asked an old friend, to send Kosher food, and was surprised to open a package, filled with: Italian pepperoni and sopresata, as well as pickled herring and gefilte fish—it turned out, that his friend had gone to the store, and asked the clerk to give him food for a friend, who was “halfa guinea, halfa Jew.”

“I even wrote a commentary on the Chumash, with the encouragement of the Rabbi, at the last prison in the Adirondacks,” he says. “It took me two years, my last two years in prison. I couldn’t do it now; I have too little time, and too many distractions.”
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As he read more about Jewish history, he felt himself strengthened by the examples of Jewish martyrs. When the prison guards tormented and degraded him, he would think of those, who went through concentration camps, those who had never committed any crimes at all, to deserve such brutality.

He developed new mental reflexes, in the face of prison degradation, a new ability to tell himself, “They can harm my body, but they can never have my mind.” Without even having converted yet, he managed to make a Kiddush Hashem.

This occurred, when he was transported from one prison, to another, with a guy named Slim; the child of junkies, who grew up in brutal, abusive foster homes.

Slim had no one on the outside, to send him money; and when they stopped at a commissary, Ferrante took pity on him, and bought him some toiletries and ten cent soups. A few days later, Slim saw Ferrante reading a Chumash on his bunk, wearing a yarmulke.

“You’re a Jew?” he asked incredulously. “Yeah,” Ferrante replied, “I’m an Italian Jew.”Slim looked perturbed, and shortly afterwards Ferrante found out, he was an Aryan Nation leader—and shrewdly decided to keep his distance.

Finally, a few weeks later, Slim slunk over to his bunk, and made him the gift of a few music tapes, someone had left behind. “My brother’s an Aryan too,” he told Ferrante.

“I wrote him a letter, I told him, the only guy who ever helped me in my life, is a Jew.” He showed Ferrante the swastika tattooed on his chest and said, “The ink guy is coming next week, and I’m having him cover this up.”

Ferrante comments: “The power of a good deed. . . a ten-cent soup can, change someone’s opinion of an entire race.”
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By the time he was released from prison, Ferrante’s father had remarried with, of all things, a Jewish woman from Long Island. Through his new stepmother, Ferrante met a Conservative Rabbi, Arthur Rulnick. Rulnick and Ferrante hit it off, and spent hours, upon hours, in conversation together.

“I adore him,” Ferrante says. Rulnick’s adult children, according to Ferrante, have all become frum, and are also close friends. Because of his attachment to Rulnick, Ferrante chose to go through conversion procedures with him, at his Conservative synagogue; selecting the name Moshe ben Avraham.

“Moshe was always my hero,” he told me, “the one who received the Torah directly from Hashem.”Of course, anyone coming from the Orthodox point of view, does not accept such a conversion as complete.

“You know,” I feel compelled to explain gently to Ferrante, “A Conservative conversion is not acceptable in all circles; in Israel, and in all Orthodox circles, only an Orthodox conversion has any legitimacy.”“Oh, I know!” he answers promptly.

“I’m aware of that, and I plan to do an Orthodox conversion! As it is I would call my level of observance, either ultra-Conservative, or modern Orthodox. I dream of living in Israel one day, and eventually being buried there.

“In fact, I have already called an Orthodox rabbi. You have to understand—I want to be more Jewish. And for me, believe me, it won’t be hard, after everything I’ve been through to get so far!”
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I must admit, I find him convincing. In Pirke Avot, it says, a person who keeps the Torah in poverty, will keep it in wealth. Louis Ferrante began struggling to keep the Torah alone, in a prison cell; with next to no support, and next to no reason to do it, except that everything he read and understood, whispered to him, that this was the truth.

If you can start Davening, eating Kosher, and keeping Shabbos in prison, with rats and cockroaches as your only companions; chances are pretty good, you’ll be able to keep it, when you get outside, into a place with Shuls and Jewish bookstores, and Rabbis to help out.
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When Ferrante completed his “conversion” with Arthur Rulnick, he decided he wished to purchase a pair of Tefillin. Rulnick gave him the address of a bookstore in College Point, Queens.

He drove over, got out of his car, and stopped dead in his tracks.“I realized,” he says, “that I was less than a block away, from where I had hijacked a truck over a decade ago.

The hijacking site, and the Hebrew book store, were in my same field of vision. Who would have thought, I would have traveled so long and far, to return to this same spot, a completely different person?”

“I was blown away. I felt like G-d led me to this spot, to show me my entire journey, in the space of a breath.”
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From the point of view of an Orthodox person, Ferrante is still a work in progress. Living in his home in the Catskills, he is still far from a Shul, and spends Shabbos on his own or with a friend.

“I got used to doing Shabbos on my own in prison,” he shrugs, when I suggest that Shabbos, and indeed all Jewish life, is really designed to be lived in a community setting.

“Maybe when I’m married and have children, I’ll need to be closer to a Shul and to schools,” he admits. “For now, this is good for writing.”
If anybody can do it, Louis Ferrante can.

With an Orthodox conversion in the works, a promising literary career now getting off the ground, and plans to one day move to Israel; Louis Ferrante’s long journey may still have many, many miles left to go.

And what a lovely thing, that will be for him—after all, we all know that travelers who accrue the most miles, garner the most bonus points…

Not an Angel/ Rabbi Moss

Question:

I am worried, if I am doing things 100% right. Did I say, the correct blessing? Did I wash my hands correctly, before the meal? Did I accidentally break Shabbos?

I want to practice Jewish law, but can I be fully observant, and not worry about everything?
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Answer:
Being careful about Mitzvahs, is a very good thing. When it comes to fulfilling the divine will, every detail matters. But there is a limit. I learnt this when I was studying to be a Rabbi. I had a powerful experience, that forever changed my view of G-d and His laws.

I was studying in Israel, in a Rabbinical school with several hundred other students. One morning, just after prayers, one of my friends came over to me, with a concerned look on his face. "

I think your Tefillin may not be kosher," he told me. I asked him what he meant, and he pointed out to me, that my head Tefillin didn't look perfectly square. It seemed, that one of the corners was not an exact right angle.

This was serious. The hand-made leather boxes of the Tefillin, are supposed to be square. If they are not square, then they are not Tefillin. They aren't even phylacteries.

If my friend was right, if my Tefillin were slightly off, then I hadn't been wearing kosher Tefillin for years. I had been putting on unsquare unkosher Tefillin every day, which is as good, as not putting Tefillin on at all.

I knew what I needed to do. I needed my head Tefillin examined. I rushed straight away to an expert in Jewish law. He was a senior Rabbi, who was famous for his decisive and clear judgments in Jewish law.

I brought him my Tefillin, and asked if he could advise me. I showed him the black leather box, pointing out the imperfect corner, and fearfully awaited his verdict.

The Rabbi inspected the Tefillin, looked at me with his kind and wise eyes, and smiled. He responded with one line, a quote from the Talmud: "The Torah wasn't given to angels."

I immediately understood what he meant. My Tefillin were just fine. When the Torah says, to make your Tefillin square, it means, you should make them as square as human hands are capable of doing.

We are not angels, who can make perfect angles. We are humans, who can only do our best. And that is exactly what G-d requires from us.
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If G-d wanted perfection, He would not have created us fallible humans. So obviously, that's not what He wants. He wants us humans, with all our imperfections, yet make every effort within our means, to fulfill our divine purpose.

That means, our squares won't be absolutely perfect squares, and our angles won't be exactly right. It means, we all make mistakes, and get it wrong sometimes.

But that's alright, we are not angels, and we are not expected to be. But being human means: To try our best, and yet remain imperfect.

The Ultimate Mitzvah - Loving Your Fellow Jew

The Ultimate Mitzvah - Loving Your Fellow Jew
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The emotion of love, has been the subject of poets and romantics for centuries. We need not enter into any analysis of that topic, but, as it relates to loving a fellow Jew, some kind of specific definition, is obviously necessary.

There are 613 Mitzvos in the Torah.

One, is to feel the hunger of the poor, and therefore to give charity.
Another, is to feel the discomfort of a stranger, and therefore, show him hospitality.

Another Mitzvah is, not to be cruel, even to an animal.
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These commandments, though differing in their details, are basically all expressions of concern, compassion and love.
But the commandment of "Ahavas Yisroel" -- to love your fellow Jew -- seems to imply something beyond the above mentioned Mitzvos.

Because all of those, are commandments relating to a specific act.
What does the commandment to love a fellow Jew add, to the commandments to be kind, generous, and compassionate? It adds the emphasis of, loving EVERY Jew; and that the love itself, is a Mitzvah.

The Alter Rebbe, the first Lubavitcher Rebbe, said that, to love another person means, to find something in the other person, that is similar to something in oneself. There are those parts of our lives and our existence, that give us our individuality. These are the things, that make each person different, from another.

And there are times when we must focus on our particular responsibility, our particular message in life. But the Mitzvah of loving your fellow means, being able to focus on those things that, rather than separating us, actually make us one. Once we discover, that one thing, which is universal to us all, we are then in a position to love our fellow.
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"A Jew who sins, and thereby violates his Jewishness, still remains a Jew," says the Torah. A Jew is not created out of virtue. One doesn’t become a Jew, by doing Mitzvos or good deeds. Faults, sins and misconduct, do not stop one in essence from being a Jew. A Jew, remains a Jew, no matter what.

And, on the other hand, no matter how much good a Jew does, he remains a Jew (and not an angel).

We see then, that the state of being Jewish, precedes any choices we are going to make. Long before we decide to put on Tefillin, keep Kosher, keep Shabbos or go to the Mikvah, we are already Jewish. No matter what decisions we come to later in life, our Jewishness doesn’t change, and it is not diminished.
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What all Jews have in common, is the part of G-d that He breathes into each person, the Neshamah (soul). Appreciating one’s Neshamah, allows a person to open himself up, to every Neshamah in the world. This appreciation, is a giant step, toward loving every Jew. Because G-d has placed a part of Himself in every Jew, we are capable of loving every Jew.

That which makes one person Jewish, is exactly the same, as that which makes every other Jew Jewish. If one loves that part of himself his essence, then he can love every other Jew, because of his essence; this being true brotherly love. Therefore, a person’s will deeply feel, what is happening to another person.
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The Alter Rebbe wrote, that one’s view of another person, depends on how we one views oneself. If one views only what makes one different from another person, (the external, limited, human, physical condition), then one is incapable of loving.

Not only can’t he love every Jew, he can’t love anybody. Because the most important thing to him is, what makes him different (looks, money, talent, refined, stylish clothing, etc.); this will separate him from everybody.

Focusing on differences, separates people. The only way to be capable of loving, is by making unimportant those things, that make one different and separate. What must be primary is, that which is shared, with everybody else, the truly human part: -- the Neshamah, the soul.
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In a similar vein, Chassidus teaches:
When a person has a problem in his spiritual growth and development, he should discuss it with someone else. He and the other person sit together and discuss a G-dly problem, so there are two G-dly souls against one animal soul (the animating force of the body) -- the cause of the problem.

At first glance, this is difficult to comprehend. If you have two people, and therefore two G-dly souls, shouldn’t you also have two animal souls? How can we possibly assert that the G-dly souls outnumber the animal?
However, when two G-dly souls get together, they cooperate on a project.

Two animal souls, do not cooperate. It’s against their nature, to cooperate. An animal soul, means a selfish soul. A selfish soul may want to sin, but it has no interest in helping anybody else sin. It gets no pleasure, from anybody else’s sins.

Therefore, one animal soul, will not join another animal soul, in its sinfulness. But, a G-dly soul, is naturally concerned and sympathetic, to another G-dly soul. That is the nature, of G-dly souls.
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So if one’s animal being, human being, ego, is most important; then this person is separated from everybody else in the world. Nobody shares ego concerns; and if those are the things that are important to the person, then he’s all alone. Or, as the Alter Rebbe said, he is incapable of loving -- except for an ulterior motive.

If, on the other hand, if what is important is one’s Jewishness, this feeling opens the person up, to every other Jew. When the soul which we all have in common, is emphasized, then we become one people; and it’s literally possible, to love every Jew. ___________
How do we go about loving every Jew? In practical terms it means, seeing through the differences, that seem to separate one Jew from another. One can see beyond differences, in culture and language.

When two Jews meet in an airport, some place in the middle of Europe; and one doesn’t speak Hebrew, while the other doesn’t speak English, still, there’s a feeling of kinship, even though there’s no way to communicate.

One thing which often does confuse us, and sets up a barrier between Jews, is degrees of observance. The person who considers himself perfectly righteous and holy, might feel, that he has nothing in common, with one whom he considers to be a sinful person. The sinful person, or the unlearned person, might feel, that he has nothing in common, with the scholarly saint.

This difference between Jews, is one that the Baal Shem Tov came to dispel in his teachings. The Baal Shem Tov taught two things:

1. First, love your fellow Jew, even if you’ve never seen him. You don’t have to share any experiences, you don’t have to share anything at all beyond the fact, that you’re Jewish. That in itself should be enough, to create a bridge and a bond, between one Jew and another.

2. The second teaching is, that we have to love the wicked, along with the righteous. Since we love a Jew, because he’s Jewish, not because he’s righteous; then we love the Jew who is wicked, as well.
The Baal Shem Tov said that, "Love your fellow Jew, as you love yourself" means, to love the righteous and the wicked.

The Alter Rebbe explained this concept further, by saying that, when the Baal Shem Tov said "the righteous and the wicked," he didn’t mean, that you certainly love the righteous; but you should also love the wicked, along with the righteous. What he meant was, that you love a Jew, period, with no exceptions. You love your fellow Jew, and that’s all that needs to be said.
____________
In practical terms, this means, that you must relate to every Jew, regardless of his behavior, personality, or standing in society. But is that love? There is a connection, that a fellow Jew feels for another Jew, regardless of how the other person behaves. And no matter how strongly you disagree with the other’s behavior, you cannot dismiss that other person, because he’s your fellow Jew.

To illustrate the point, you find that people who dress in the orthodox style, who happen to venture outside of their community, make other people very uncomfortable. But many people dress in very strange ways.
You see Arabs of different religious orders in Israel, who dress outlandishly. And yet, they walk up and down the streets of Jerusalem, and nobody pays any attention. But, should a Jew dressed in Chassidic garb, with a fur hat and long silk coat, walk into a non-religious section, he gets angry stares.

Why? Because he’s dressed funny!
Why is his dress any more funny or strange, than the dress of the Arab muhla. It’s not. It’s just that the Arab is a stranger, and therefore he can dress however he wants.

When a Jew dresses strangely, then every Jew cares. Even though a fellow Jew doesn’t eat the same food, or even act and believe the same, yet, if he dresses differently, it makes us uncomfortable. Because he’s a fellow Jew, and Jews are not strangers to each other.

The true bedrock of loving a fellow Jew is, that one Jew cannot disassociate himself from another, no matter how much he would like to.
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A story in the Gemara about the great sage Hillel, will help clarify the above point.

A man came to Hillel, and said: that he wanted to be taught the whole Torah, while standing on one foot. Hillel summed it all up for him by saying: "What is hateful to you, do not do to others. That is the whole Torah, the rest is commentary."

Hillel’s statement doesn’t appear anywhere in the Torah or Scriptures. The commentaries say, that basically Hillel was referring to the Mitzvah of "loving your fellow Jew, as much as you love yourself." But, if that’s the Mitzvah he was referring to, why didn’t he just say it? Why did Hillel make up this original statement?

If a person is impatient, and needs to be told something quickly, then what is said should be something definitive. Hillel gave the man a very vague answer, which needed a great deal of thought, before being put into practice.

The Tzemach Tzedek, the third Lubavitcher Rebbe, explained, that what Hillel was really saying was, very clearly defined and practical. A person can admit his own faults, and see them very clearly, and even talk about them publicly.

Yet, if another person would point out those weaknesses, the first person would be insulted and very hurt. Why can one honestly admit to a fault within himself, yet that same person becomes offended when it is pointed out to him?

The difference is, that when one sees his own faults, it is within a certain context. Having assured himself of being a worthwhile creature, a person can proceed to search out his faults.

Even talking about them to others, doesn’t do any damage. But when somebody else sees the faults, it’s not necessarily within that framework, of already knowing that the person is a worthwhile human being.

We are concerned, that any personality flaw, suggests total insignificance. We fear criticism, only because we’re afraid, it might lead to rejection. Were it not for that, we would be very comfortable, hearing and accepting criticism.

We can’t honestly deny every criticism we hear; they’re all true to some degree. It doesn’t do any damage to the ego to admit, that we’re not the smartest or the prettiest, or the strongest or most talented. That which hurts, that which is hateful, is to have our faults pointed out, by someone who is not necessarily convinced, that we are worthwhile human beings.
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When Hillel said to this man, "What is hateful to you, don’t do to others," he was being very specific. He was talking about, that thing which is hateful. Not "whatever" is hateful, but that which is hateful to you, do not do to others. "That thing" is seeing another person’s fault, without first recognizing his worth. That’s what we hate, and what we shouldn’t do to others.

What Hillel was doing for this man, was summing up all of the Torah in one Mitzvah, the Mitzvah of "loving a fellow Jew, as much as you love yourself."

Since the man was very impatient, and seemingly not very ambitious, if Hillel had told him "love your fellow Jew, as much as you love yourself," he would have thought, it was impossible, too demanding. So Hillel translated it for him into practical terms.

You can’t measure the amount, you love yourself. In self-love, before you see your own faults, you already know that you are important, significant. No matter what your body and human personality turn out to be, your neshama is already valuable. And with that knowledge and security, you can look at your faults and not be hurt.
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That’s how you love yourself: you consider yourself worthwhile, despite your faults; you must know, that your fellow Jew is worthwhile, too. No matter how the other Jew behaves, there is something very valuable about this person -- the very fact that he is a Jew.

The Lubavitcher Rebbe once said, that when talking to another Jew, you have to realize, that every Jew, is an only child to G-d, the King of Kings. Therefore, when you talk to another Jew, you have to keep in mind, whose child this is; even if he doesn’t behave like the child, of the King of Kings, you have to remember, who his Father is.
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G-d created the world, very carefully and thoughtfully. Everything we see and hear, is of meaning to us. If G-d allows us to see the faults of another person, He is showing an opportunity, to fulfill the purpose for which we were created.

When we see another person’s faults, our first reaction has to be, "What are we being told?" Seeing the other person’s faults can mean, that he will not improve his behavior unless we help him, because that’s the way G-d set it up.

Because, if G-d is letting you see this fault, it must be your job to help him fix it.

The second possibility is, that the fault is in you, and you’re seeing it reflected in the other person. A fault in another person, should elicit the reaction, "What’s that got to do with me? Why do I need to see this?"

The other person’s fault offers us the opportunity to improve, to show us something in ourselves, that we are not seeing. Therefore, we are indebted to the other person, even if his fault consists of hurting us. This person is the messenger, through whom this enlightenment is coming, and there is no need to be hateful.
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The ultimate part in love of a fellow Jew is, that every Jew has a Divine soul, and regardless of how he behaves, that soul remains.
Where do we see the evidence of this G-dly soul? Love of a fellow Jew, taken to its fullest expression; is the ability to discover evidence and signs of the presence of a Divine soul, even in a person who does not, at first glance, seem to have any soul at all.

In pursuing the Mitzvah of loving your fellow Jew, we start with the awareness, that every Jew is a little piece of G-d; and that if that piece of G-d, is not evident in the person’s life, then it is our job to reveal it. We need to help that person discover his own G-dliness.

Bringing ourselves together, being able to see past externals and faults, to be aware of the Neshamah of a Jew; is what heals the wounds and separation of Exile, (of us from each other, and from G-d), and brings Moshiach!

Internet Volume of Chabad Rises 21%

An interesting internet study, has recently been published by 4Wall and JInsider. Tittled "the Jewish Internet Metric Study."

The study found, that the word "Chabad," has a monthly volume of 218,603; and a rise of 21%, in the last four years. Reform Judaism fell 66%

4Wall, in conjunction with its Jewish initiative JInsider, released on Wednesday, the Jewish Internet Metric Study; which takes a business-oriented, top-level look, at the Jewish Web, using the practices of the renowned consulting firm McKinsey as a guide.

The full report is available at www.jinsiderblog.com/JIM.zip
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We chose a broad spectrum, of 32 Jewish-related search terms, and studied their current traffic volume; as well as how that traffic has changed, during the past four years (June ’04 - June ’09).

The entire sample set saw an average decrease in search traffic of 25 percent; with only a few search terms, becoming more popular over the four-year period.

Here are the top five increases, and decreases, in popularity:
Avg. Monthly Volume Total 4yr ChangeRosh Hashanah 164,774 :49%Chabad 218,603 :21%Challah 92,547 :16%Matzah 73,453 :10%Yom Kippur 206,091 :9%

Judaica 288,552 :-54%Reform Judaism 16,185 :-66%Anti-Semitism 326,378 :-74%Jewish Dating 190,974 :-85%Kabbalah 393,361 :-87% ___________

Educational and Information Sites: The Power of a BrandIn the education/information category, there are a number of strong sites, with Chabad emerging as a brand leader. Chabad’s main website, consistently serves as an example, of what a successful educational/informational Web presence can look like.

Over the past year, its traffic rose by 37 percent, and is now significantly above, the other sites studied. In contrast, the Web presence of other religious movements – Reform, Conservative and Orthodox Judaism – was much poorer; though OU.org does moderately well. _______________
Jewish educational and informational sites, are also taking advantage of social media – with My Jewish Learning’s “jewlearn” Twitter account, and Aish’s YouTube presence, as successful examples – but none has a more focused brand, across social media, than Chabad.

Chabad has leveraged its international identity, in coordination with its local chapters, to create a social web experience, that is both down on a local level, and part of something “larger.” The result, is quite compelling.
_________________
The most instructive section, is the traffic and engagement comparison between the websites of the major Israeli papers: Haaretz and the Jerusalem Post; and the American news sources: JTA, The Jewish Journal, The Jewish Week, The Forward, The Jewish Exponent and The Jewish Press.

The sum of all the major American Jewish news sites, does approach the level of significant traffic reached, by the Israeli sites. Unique VisitorsTotal U.S. 808,516Jpost.com 1,454,649 Haaretz.com 691,467 __________
Beyond just site traffic, visitor engagement patterns also suggest, the American Jewish news industry, is too fragmented on the Internet.

Not only do visitors spend significantly more time per visit, when perusing the Israeli sites; but many more of those visitors are “regulars:” (people who visit more than once per month), and addicts (people who visit more than 30 times per month).

In fact, because of this “addict” phenomenon, a quarter of traffic to haaretz.com and jpost.com, is generated by just 2 percent of their users. In contrast, only jta.org, has any sort of measurable traffic, generated by “addicts” – 11 percent.

The Rebbe: Advice

1. The Melting Pot
Dollars
New York Mayor David Dinkins
September 1989
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The Mayor: I just wanted you to know, that the blessing I got before, worked very well.

The Rebbe: I am happy to hear it.
D: Thank you so much.
R: May G-d almighty bless you.
________

The Rebbe: G-d almighty is our leader.

This is for charity for all New York. Including me and Mr. Dinkins.
Especially for the benefit for the multitudes of nationalities in NY.

It is a melting pot for many nations. May all these nationalities live, in good peace and in harmony.

And every one of them, should strengthen all the nationalities around them, especially in matters of charity.

I hope that in the near future, the melting pot will be so active, that it will not be necessary to underline (emphasis) every time, that they are negro, or they are white, or they are Hispanic, etc, etc, because there are no differences.

All of them are created by the same G-d. And they are created for the same purpose, to add all good things around them. Beginning especially, with themselves and their families,
_________
That is also an important thing to underline, for someone that is active in communal affairs. Not to forget about his wife and children, and his grand children; and in time to come, great grand children.
___________

As I said before, I am not so happy in underlining, Brooklyn being on one side, and Manhattan on a second side, and other people – the Hispanics, etc., on a third side.

If it is a real melting pot, then certainly it must be a melting pot, for all good things with no differences.
________
There is a curious fact, in the Jewish prayers of Rosh Hashanah, that there is a G-d Who is the ruler of all the universe. Not only of our country, but of all the universe. And don’t be afraid of a task, to do something for all the universe.
______________________________
2. Yichidus
Mrs. Chana Sharfstein
In her early twenties, in 1954

One time when I went into Yechidus, the Rebbe started asking me about Shidduchim.
I was dating, and I just answered: Yes, I was meeting people.

Then the Rebbe started asking me, about different boys.
I thought to myself that is strange, all the boys that the Rebbe asked me about, I had gone out with them.

I answered about them, that although they were nice boys, I had my reasons for not marrying them.
__________
The Rebbe then said to me: “I know that you like to read.”

I said: “Oh yes I do.”

He said: “And what kind of books do you prefer reading.”

I said: “I loved to read novels.”

The Rebbe said: “Novels are fiction, and fiction is make believe, it is not real.
So what you read in a novel, is not what happens in real life.”

“In a novel, people meet, and there is this big blinding storm of passion. That is not, what real love is all about.

In real life, two people can meet, and there can be a thread of understanding. It is like a tiny little flame.

And as these people merge their lives together, and decide to build a home, and raise a family. Through the everyday activities of life, through caring and sharing, through commitment to each other, going through the daily tribulations of life; this little flame then grows ever brighter, into a much bigger flame.

Until these two people, who started out a strangers, have through life, become intertwined to such an extent, that neither one of them can think of life, without the other.

This is what true love is all about. It is small acts, that you do on a daily basis, that make you become, instead of you and I, us.
___________________
3. Rabbi David Edelman / Connecticut
1942

Once I was standing with a few friends, in the hallway of 770, and the elevator opened up. The Rebbe came out, and he came over to us, and started telling us what happened upstairs, in the Pervious Rebbe’s room.
_______
“I ask the Previous Rebbe, if I am doing the right thing.
I have an office here in Merkos, and all kinds of people come to see me, and some give donations.

Some are not religious Jews. But I am friendly, no matter what kind of people come in.

Am I doing the right thing, by being friendly to non-religious Jews? Since I don’t say anything to them, maybe they think, that it is not so bad, that they are not religious.”
_________

The Rebbe answered me: “It is the nature of parents, that no matter how many children they have, they have enough love for all of them. That is the way G-d created the world.

But if among a big family, one child has a problem with a hand, or a problem with a leg. The father and mother, have even more love for that child. Because he needs more.

So if a Jew comes into your office, who is missing a hand, because he has not put on Tefillin, or a leg because he has not gone to Shul; to that Jew, you have to have a deeper love.

The more that he is lacking, the greater your love has to be for him.”
__________________
4. Rabbi Shmuel Kaplan
1973

After I was learning in the Kolel for 2-3 months, I was asked to come to speak to Rabbi Hodakov, who was the Rebbe’s personal secretary.
He told me, that he has a special mission for me. And that this should be my top priority. And take as much time, as is needed.

There was a seventeen year old girl, who was having a great deal of emotional problems. She had many severe issues that bothered her.
For some unknown reason, the Rebbe took an extraordinary, personal interest, in trying to help her. The Rebbe put himself into it, with a lot of intensity, time and effort.

Over 3-4 months, I spent 50% of my time trying to help her. I didn’t do a single thing, without consulting the Rebbe.

She herself would write to the Rebbe, and we would discuss the answer that she had received.
________

Once she wrote to the Rebbe, about the excruciating pain and anguish, that she
was going through. The emotional turmoil, that she was feeling inside of her.
She described it at length and in detail, over a couple of pages.

The Rebbe after receiving her letters, would uncharacteristically, usually answer her in a couple of hours,.
_________
In answer to her desperate letter, the Rebbe wrote:
“When you will merit to grow up and marry, and G-d willing, you will have a child, the nature of things are, that in the first year, a child begins to teeth. Teething is very painful, and the child cries a lot.

A mother feels that pain, as if it was her own.
This is how I feel, your pain.”
_________

She then realized, that the Rebbe was feeling what she was going through, and that he was trying to help her. This changed her life. And eventually she did get married and had a family.

Joke True but Sad

A guy bought a new fridge for his house.To get rid of his old fridge, he put it in his front yard and hung asign on it saying: 'Free to good home. You want it, you take it.'For three days, the fridge sat there without anyone looking twice.

He eventually decided, that people were too mistrustful of this deal.So he changed the sign to read: ‘Fridge for sale $50.'

The next day someone stole it!
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Someone stopped at Mc Donald’s, and ordered some fries.

The girl behind the counter said, “Would you like some fries, with that?”
_____________
One day someone was walking down the beach with some friends, when someone shouted:'Look at that dead bird!'

One person looked up at the sky and said...'where?'
___________________
My colleague and I, were eating our lunch in our cafeteria,when we overheard an admin girl, talking about thesunburn she got, on her weekend drive to the beach.

She drove down in a convertible, but said, she 'didn't think she'd get sunburned,because the car was moving'.
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My sister has a lifesaving tool in her car,which is designed to cut through a seat belt if she gets trapped.

She keeps it, in the car trunk.
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Someone was hanging out with a friend, when he saw a womanwith a nose ring, attached to an earring, by a chain.

My friend said, 'Ouch! The chain must ripout, every time she turns her head!"

I had to explain, that a person's nose and ear,remain the same distance apart, nomatter which way the head is turned...
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I couldn’t find my luggage at the airport baggage area, and went to the lost luggage office, and reported the loss.

The woman there smiled, and told me not to worry, because she was a trained professional, andsaid I was in good hands.

'Now,' she asked me, 'Has your plane arrived yet?'...
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While working at a pizza parlor, somone observed a manordering a small pizza to go. He appeared to be alone, and the cook asked him if he would like it cutinto 4 pieces or 6.

He thought about it for some timethen and said 'Just cut it into 4 pieces; I don't think I'm hungry enough, to eat 6 pieces.
_____________
A very good example, of the kind of representation we have in congress, true story:

A noted psychiatrist, was a guest speaker at an academic function, where Nancy Pelosi happened to appear.

Ms Pelosi took the opportunity to schmooze the good doctor a bit, and asked him a question, with which he was most at ease.'Would you mind telling me, Doctor,' she asked, 'how you detect a mental deficiency in somebody, who appears completely normal?''

Nothing is easier,' he replied. 'You ask a simple question, which anyone should answer with no trouble. If the person hesitates, that puts you on the track.''What sort of question?' asked Pelosi.

Well, you might ask, 'Captain Cook made three trips around the world, and died during one of them. Which one?''

Pelosi thought a moment, and then said with a nervous laugh, 'You wouldn't happen to have another example would you? I must confess, I don't know much about history!'

Health going to Doctors

We are required, to seek medical advice, and receive medical treatment.
But in addition we have to recognize, that illness and recovery, are dependent solely upon the Almighty; and that doctors medications we use work only, as His faithful messengers in granting us good health.
_______________
The Gemara says in Masekhet Aboda Zara, that just before a person takes ill, G-d announces how long the illness will last, and through which means it will be cured.

This emphasizes the point, that only G-d determines when and how our health is restored; even though, as a practical matter, we are required to visit doctors and undergo medical treatment. We must avoid the misconception, that the physician or the medication, has the intrinsic power to cure our ailments.
_____________
The Sages teach, that long ago there was a book called Sefer Harefu'ot, which listed all the ailments from which people suffer, and the remedies to cure them.

This book was transmitted from one generation to the next, until the time of the Judean King Hizkiyahu, who buried it.

Hizkiyahu saw, that people were responding to illness, by simply following the instructions in the Sefer Harefu'ot, without repenting or turning to G-d for assistance. He therefore felt it was necessary to hide the book, so that people would remember, to look to the Almighty as the exclusive source of healing.
_______________
The Sitz Eliezer adds in this context, that sometimes G-d brings sickness upon a person, as punishment for a transgression; and in some instances, the purpose is for the patient, to incur a financial loss, and thereby earn atonement.

Illness often results in medical expenses and loss of work, and this financial loss serves to atone, for a person's wrongdoing.

Rabbi’s Donates Kidney in order to Help Family

(Edited)
Aug 20, 2009

When the opportunity arose, for Chabad-Lubavitch Rabbi Ephraim Simon, to potentially risk his life, in the preservation of another’s, he paused.

He wanted to give one of his kidneys to a suffering man; the problem was, that he had to think about, how he would communicate that decision to his nine children.

So in July, Simon, co-director of: Friends of Lubavitch of Bergen County, in Teaneck, N.J., gathered his family around him.

“As emissaries of the Lubavitcher Rebbe,” he told them, referring to Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, “We dedicate our lives to helping other people.”

He went on to describe, the terminally-ill man he had met earlier, a father of a large family, just like theirs.
“By Tatte giving him a new kidney, he will live, G-d willing. This is our gift to him, and you are all a part of it.”
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Waiting for News

The operation took place exactly one week ago, 8-13-09. Simon’s journey from community leader, to organ donor –– began last year, when the 41-year-old Rabbi opened a mass e-mail, from a woman trying to arrange a kidney donation for a potential recipient.

A 12-year-old Jewish girl, with the same blood type as Simon’s, was succumbing to a terrible disease, and desperately needed a new kidney. The Rabbi decided to respond.

“I have a 12-year-old daughter, too,” explains Simon from his home; where he’s in the midst of a two-week recovery period. Having never considered donating an organ in the past, “I was moved to consider, testing for her.”
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When he brought it up to his wife, Nechamy Simon, she replied: “Let’s see what it entails, and then make a decision.”

After a few days of intense research, and a careful risk-benefit analysis together, the Simons reached out, to the sender of the e-mail, a Jewish woman by the name of Chaya Lipschutz; offering one of the Rabbi’s kidneys, if he matched as a candidate.

“I cannot let a young girl die, and not do anything,” Rabbi Simon told Lipschutz.

But the woman informed him, that “a donor has already been found.”
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Many people would have understandably felt relief at the realization, that they wouldn’t be called upon, to undergo major surgery. Simon, however, saw things differently.

“I felt, like I didn’t act fast enough,” he recalls. “I knew right then and there, that if somebody else was in need, I was going to be the one to save their life.”

According to the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, more than 80,000 people nationwide, are waiting for a healthy kidney. But last year, more than 4,500 lost their fight for life, while waiting.

Simon told Lipschutz, a former kidney donor herself; to keep his name on file, and to contact him, if another person was in need.
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Two months later, the woman called back with news, that a 35-year-old mother of two, needed a kidney. Simon immediately agreed to undergo tests at Montefiore Medical Center, in the Bronx, N.Y., where the woman was being treated. But he wasn’t a match.

Then in February, Lipschutz called yet again, to ask Simon if he would give his kidney, to a single Israeli man in his 30s.
“It wasn’t for a young girl, or for a mother of two,” says Simon, “but one cannot weigh, one life over another.”

The Rabbi underwent his third series of tests, at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan. In the weeks that followed, Lipschutz informed him, that should he not be a match for the Israeli man, another person on her list, was in dire need of a kidney.

As it turned out, Simon was not a match.
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A Meeting of Two Souls

He immediately went to another hospital, to undergo tests for the other man; a Satmar Chassid, from the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, and a father of 10.

At the kidney clinic of Cornell University, as the Rabbi was on his way to have his blood tested, the critically ill man came down the hallway, heading in the opposite direction.

“Excuse me,” said the man, who had heard that a Chabad-Lubavitch emissary had volunteered to donate his kidney. “Are you the one testing for me?”

The two chatted briefly. The man showed Simon pictures of his family, and told him a little about the genetic disease, that had killed several of his relatives, and was destroying his kidneys. Simon assured him, that if he were a match, he would go through with the procedure.
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A few hours before Passover, both men received the news, they had been waiting for. Simon was busy preparing for the communal Seder at his Chabad House, when the hospital called.

“Rabbi,” a voice on the other line began, “You are a match!”
Although he and his wife kept it between themselves, their Seder for more than 100 people, took on new meaning for them both.

Immediately following the holiday, Simon called the transplant coordinator at the hospital, to set up a series of examinations, to assess his fitness physically, emotionally, and mentally, as an organ donor.

On May 18, 2009 he received the go-ahead. In consultation with the recipient, Simon opted to schedule the surgery, immediately following the conclusion of his Camp Gan Israel, preschool summer camp.
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At Shabbat services that week, he broke the news to his congregation. Seeing his community members as his own family, he wanted to explain to them, why he was taking the risk.

Every single person is important, he told them. If an individual is lacking, it is everyone’s job, to help him or her. So “in a few weeks, a critically ill Jew in need of a healthy kidney in order to survive, will receive one of mine.”

Tears welled up in some of the worshippers’ eyes. One man rushed to the front of the synagogue, to embrace his Rabbi.
One woman says, that because of the Rabbi’s sacrifice, she doesn’t feel uneasy anymore, when surprise Shabbat guests show up. She now happily prepares extra food.

Rabbi Simon’s mother, Judy Simon, 61 (who at first was very concerned about her son’s long-term health) said: “I initially had a mother’s natural reaction,” But after doing research, I realized, that there is no reason to be.”

After a “heart-warming” meeting with the recipient’s family, at the hospital during the procedure, his mother said: “It’s incredible to have a child, do this altruistic thing. I feel so honored and blessed, to be part of it, and to say he is my son!”
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Rabbi Simon went to Cornell University Medical Center, the day of the surgery, carrying letters and pictures, from his nine children. When the anesthesia wore off, and he awoke in the recovery room, his wife read the letters to him.

In another room, the recipient was doing so well, that a doctor remarked: “If he didn’t know better, I would have said, that this kidney came from a brother.”

Rabbi Simon said: “I told my children, that G-d could have easily made me ill, and I would have been the recipient. Thank G-d, I was blessed with a healthy family. What better way to thank Him, than to use my own health, to help somebody else?”
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Simon’s eldest daughter, 14-year-old Chaya, says, her father’s deed reminds her of a parable, she once learned.

“Saving one life, is like saving a starfish,” she says. “Even though you cannot save every single starfish, each one that you pick up from the sand, and throw back into the sea, is a life saved.”
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Rabbi Simon is quick to emphasize, that his wife had as much a hand in donating “their” kidney, as he did.

Looking back at the ordeal, Rabbi Simon hopes, that more people will step up, and give the gift of life.

“My sacrifice is just a few days of discomfort,” he says. “The reward of saving a man’s life, giving a father his life back, giving a family their father and husband back, outweighs all the risks.

Continues the Rabbi: “Not everyone can donate a kidney, but everyone can reach out, to help another person.”
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For more information about kidney donation in the Jewish community, please visit Chaya Lipschutz’s Web site, kidneymitzvah.com.

Don’t Become Rich

Don’t Become Rich
By Adam

Yesterday I was at a L’cheim (Engagement party) in C-Hs. Many of the richest, and most influential people of Crown Heights, were there.

Although most of the parents were modern Lubavitchters, their children were barely religious. Poor people have the same problem, as rich people, when it comes to this; but it seems greater in the wealthier families, than it does in the poorer families of C-H!

In reality, to be wealthy in the religious world, is to put your Kids at risk, of becoming non-religious.
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G-D took the Jewish people out of Egypt early, because they were in danger of becoming non-Jewish. If Moshiach is coming soon, it is probably because, we, like the Jews of ancient Egypt, are falling away from G-d, as the Jews of Egypt did.

I am asking, I am begging the young men and women of C-Hs: Run away from the pleasures of the physical world; Run away from the desires to become rich. It will only hurt you, and your children, and the Jewish people as a whole, in the future.

Sincerely: Adam J.
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Comment

Adam, I sincerely empathize with you. You want to help Lubavitchers, to be able to hold their heads up high, and stay Lubavitchers. Which is a goal, that I totally agree with.

I would like to step back, and put things in perspective for a moment.

All throughout history, Hashem has raised the stakes, so too speak, as to what it takes to remain Frum and Jewsih. Examples, Egypt.

When the Beis HaMikdosh was destroyed, and the Jews were exiled to bavel. In Spain, and the catholic church. In Russia, the czar, and the Cossacks, the pogroms, etc. Then communism. And now, democracy freedom?

Hashem wants to squeeze out the deepest levels of our souls. The Rebbe wanted us to do this the easy way, by telling the world about Moshiach, and preparing the world and ourselves, for this infinite revelation.

But human nature being what it is, it is easier to do things, when you are forced to do them.
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In the last Maimer the Rebbe handed out (Purim Katon) he explained, that Mesirus Nefesh in Russia, was Jews rebelling against the communist rule, at the risk of their lives. But when these same people came to America, they assimilated.

Because in America, everything is easy, you don’t have to fight. There is no outside force, that you have to overcome. As a result, the test of America is, that things have to come from within the person. Each person has to discover G-d within themselves.

This will reveal the deepest and highest level of the Jewish soul, ever to be touched- Etzem.

People who look not religious, are like the Baal Teshuvah, before they found themselves. They searcehed, until they found the place within, that was previously hidden.
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The soul is stirring within people. They are not happy with what they have, they need more. They are in a desert, and are desperately searching for water.

It is known, that Baale Teshuvah explode, and go much farther, than others, who were religious all their lives. G-d is waiting, for this explosion!