(I heard these words from a rabbi at a new Aish HaTorah center in Philadelphia)

Rabbi Chaim Leib Shmulevitz lived during the WWII era.

At one point his health took a down turn.  Yet he stood to speak to his students that Shabbat regardless of his health.

“I am going to die,” Rav Shmulevitz said.

“I am going to die,” he repeated.

“I am going to die.”  His students were getting nervous.  Was the Rav okay?

“I am going to die!” Should we call for doctors?

Over and over he called out, “I am going to die,” until he cried out with great furor “I am going to die!!” and then broke into a broad smile and said:

“In this week’s parsha, someone says the words, ‘I am going to die’…and what a difference there is between me and him.”

Esav (Esau) says, “I am going to die, give me the soup, pour it down my throat, I’m going to die!”  He lives for the moment.  He is hungry now.  “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die” - said the glutinous Romans.

The Rabbi related a story from his friend:

We were on a plane with our rabbi and several of his students.  There was a terrible malfunciton with one of the plane’s mechanisms.  The captain ordered everyone to stay seated and fasten their seat belts, that this was not a joke.  The turbulance was rough.

The students asked, “Rabbi, what should we do?!”  And the Rabbi said, “What can we do? Pray.  Say these Psalms.”  And just then a man sitting in the seat next to the students reaches up and frantically calls the flight attendant.  The flight attendent leaves the security of her seat and asks what the man needs.

“I need a Jack Daniel’s right away! This could be the last drink of my life!”

For the Esav’s of the world, the end of this life is the end of everything.  But we know that the end of this life is but a transition to the next stage in a great process.  Knowing that, and integrating that into our lives, transforms the phrase, “I am going to die.”

One of the mitzvot (commandments) Jews have is “Shmirat HaLashon” - Guarding the Tongue from evil speech.  This is not about lieing.  It’s about gossiping, relaying harmful (but true) information to others about your fellow man.

Guarding against this behavior has been led by a Rabbi we refer to as “The Chafetz Chaim” (The Life Seeker).

***************

(image courtesy of inventorspot.com)

(Source: SimpleJew)
A Simple Jew asks:

As a Bas Noach (daugher of Noah) living in South East Asia, how did you first learn about the Chofetz Chaim? Why do you feel so attached to his teachings?

“Believing Gentile” answers:

When the Internet came to where I live around the early 1990’s, both my sons told me that now was the opportunity to seek teachings from the Chosen People.

Years earlier, I had responded to my younger son saying that there was no way we would ever, ever be able to study from the Jewish people from here. I remember he told me then, “G-d only gave them the Holy Scriptures so they are the only true teachers.”

I forgot his words until the Internet came. What I had years earlier thought was impossible, Hashem made it possible.

I know its a miracle, a blessing from G-d, that I entered the Orthodox sites at my first search and entry.

I feel G-d brought me first to the Chofetz Chaim’s teachings since controlling my speech is the area where I needed the most improvement. It is the most damaged part of myself that I needed to correct in order to draw nearer to G-d.

In my early years, I was taught that doing penance by saying “Hail Mary” and “Our Father” was enough to remove any sins, speech or otherwise. However, I have come to see that this belief is false. The words we speak don’t just go away. They can sometimes cause untold harm.

I carry with me always a small portrait picture of the Chofetz Chaim, which my Torah tutor Reuven Ginat sent me by email, years ago, along with a picture of Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson. They are outstanding examples of our times and I seek protection for myself in their merits and strive to follow their teachings. Quoting from an article from Rabbi Dovid Sears on this site, “We may not be able to see with the eyes of the tzaddikim (righteous people). But as we try to find our way through the confusions of this world, at least we should strive to heed their directions.”

Keeping in mind the famous story of Reb Zusia of Anapol, I know that I am not expected to be at the Chofetz Chaim’s level, but I know that I am answerable to the Seven Laws which G-d gave us believing Gentiles and which He gave us the capacity to fulfill.

May the merits of this great tzaddik (righteous person), the Chofetz Chaim, protect my family and me from evil speech.

This is a wonderful lecture on raising children.

Rabbi Kelemen compares traditional Jewish texts with mountains of modern scientific data to bring us these most precious teachings.  He is a passionate and funny speaker.  I always laugh when I hear him speak. Enjoy!

To Kindle a Soul (stream) (download)

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(Source: Nava)
translated from http://www.bhol.co.il/forum/topic.asp?whichpage=1&topic_id=876666&forum_id=771

My friend and I were sitting at a restaurant and out of nowhere my childhood friend Yossie Admoni shows up. He joined our table and tells us the most incredible story that recently occurred…

Tal Admoni recently ended his army duty; he was a commanding officer in combat engineering. Tal is 9th generation Israeli from his mother’s side, the Slonim family. Tal’s grandfather is Yaakov Slonim, one of the very few people that survived the Hevron massacre in Israel August 1929.

A few weeks ago commanding officer Tal was stationed in Hevron. His duty was to check all the Arab Muslims before allowing them entrance into the city; including men, women, seniors, and children. The barricade was placed on the main central road and every day he and his troop would regularly check for potential Jihads.

One evening the most remarkable thing happened. There were a few people that looked suspicious and they did not have permission to pass the barricade till their ID was checked to authenticate they are not potential suicide bombers. The Arabs were sitting on the side waiting while the soldiers were surveying them. One of the detainees, a 30-year-old Arab, requested to speak with the commanding officer. They bring him over to Tal while watching his every move with 70 eyes. The Arab tells Tal, ‘I have a document I want to show you but the document is inside my taxi.’

Together with his soldiers, Tal walked over to the taxi with the Arab and when they reached the Taxi, the Arab takes out of his glove compartment a document and explains that this certificate belonged to his grandfather. Tal takes the documents and as he reads it, he sees a list of people, all written in Hebrew. While Tal was glancing at this document, the Arab tells him, ‘my grandfather was in Hevron during the massacre of 1929 and he saved his Jewish neighbors.’ Tal continued reading the document and behold, he sees his grandfather’s name on the list, Yaakov Slonim.

Tal was stunned and thrilled, when he spoke to his mother a few hours before she told him that her father, Yaakov Slonim, is very ill and might not live much longer. Everyone in the Admoni/Slonim family knew the famous story of how his grandfather Yaakov Slonim was hidden by an Arab neighbor during the 1929 Hevron massacre and thus, saved his life.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Tal gave the Arab taxi driver permission to go home, much to the dislike of the other detainees.

Less than 24 hours later, Yaakov Slonim, one of the few survivors of the 1929 Hevron massacre, passed away, zs’kl.

I am humbled by such courage…

A 23-year-old Dutch military policeman who refused to obey the orders of his superiors to arrest Jews in a Dutch village during WWII and then deserted the police force to join the resistance was awarded the State of Israel’s highest honor for non-Jews on Monday at Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial.

Henk Drogt was one of 12 Dutch military policemen who refused orders to round up the remaining local Jews in Grootegast, Holland on March 9, 1943, in a rare case of open police resistance to the arrest and murder of Jews of Europe during WWII.

The policemen were pressured and threatened by their commanders with incarceration at a concentration camp themselves, but steadfastly refused to carry out the orders.

The group was subsequently arrested and taken to the Vught concentration camp in the Southern Netherlands, but Drogt managed to evade arrest.

Following his escape, Drogt deserted the police force and joined one of the Dutch resistance groups, where he took part in the smuggling of downed Allied pilots to the Belgian border as well as helping to keep Jews out of the hands of the Nazis.

In August 1943, Drogt, along with others in the resistance group, were betrayed, and they were all arrested. He was taken to prison and sentenced to death.

Drogt was killed on April 14, 1944, eight months after his arrest, at the age of 24.

A day before his execution, he was allowed to write a letter to his family and his pregnant girlfriend, whom he had been planning to marry.

“Dear all, I have to tell you the worst - today I and my friends got the death sentence,” he wrote.

“It is terrible that we have to part from all those who are so dear to us in this way… I always had hope that I could be with you for one more time, but the Lord wanted differently.”

After the war, Drogt was posthumously decorated by US President Dwight D. Eisenhower, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and the Dutch Government for his actions in the resistance movement.

His 11 colleagues had been recognized as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem two decades ago, although Drogt’s name had previously been missing from the list of honorees submitted to Yad Vashem in the 1980s due to his initial escape from arrest.

Drogt’s story was uncovered anew with the help of an El Al pilot, Mark Bergman, who heard it from Drogt’s son, Henk Brink, on a visit to South Africa, where Brink lives, and contacted Yad Vashem with the story.

“It is a long-time dream for me to set foot on Israeli soil, and something which has become a reality on my 65th birthday,” Henk Brink recounted at the ceremony in the Garden of the Righteous at Yad Vashem, which coincided with his own birthday.

Brink, who was born a month after his father’s arrest by the Nazis and never got to meet him, broke down in tears as he spoke of a young man about to be married who paid “the highest price” for his values and courage to save people who were probably total strangers to him.

“Your decision to honor my father sends a strong signal to the world that Israel never forgets its friends,” he said.

More than 22,000 non-Jews have been recognized as Righteous Among the Nations, including nearly 5,000 from Holland.

“At a time when anti-Semitism is on the rise again it is all the more important to draw attention to those who refused to stand by and look the other away, and took concrete action to save Jewish life,” Dutch Ambassador to Israel Michiel den Hond said at the ceremony.

“It is an inspiration to us all for the future,” he said.

Drogt, who never lived to see his son, is buried in Holland.

The entry in the official death books at the infamous Dutch prison states dryly: “Policeman, refused to arrest Jews.”

I met a Chabad rabbi yesterday at mincha who told me the following story that happened to him:

“This weekend I went on vacation with my wife.  A man came up to us to help us with directions.  He was wearing a big cross on his necklace and around his wrist - and then he says to us ‘I’m Jewish!’

At first I didn’t believe him, because in my experience, some Christians consider themselves ‘Jewish’ for…reasons.

But then the guy said something that made me realize he really was Jewish.

So I said to this Jew who had somehow ended up outside of Judaism:
‘I wish I had a pair of tefillin! so you could do the mitzvah of tefillin.  Well, you can at least recite the Shema with me.’

So we covered our eyes and said the Shema together.

Just as we finished saying the Shema, a car drove up to the sidewalk where we were and out comes a chassidic man I had met that weekend, who just happened to have a pair of tefillin in his car!  And he showed up just as we finished reciting the Shema!

This month is the Hebrew month of ‘Elul‘ when we prepare ourselves for the upcoming Rosh Hashanah (New Year) in which our past year’s actions will be examined.  We are taught that our prayers during this month are more rapidly accepted by Hashem because ‘the King is in the field’ so-to-speak.

I said, “I wish I had a pair of tefillin” and suddenly tefillin appeared out of nowhere!  But my wife says I asked for the wrong thing.  I should have asked for Mashiach!

Note:
The relationship that Bnei Noach have to Rosh Hashanah - the New year - is different than for Jews.  I will post Rabbi Shwartz’s article on this topic in detail soon, B”H.

I had dinner in Borough Park with my cousin on Thursday.
In Borough Park, most of the residents look like this:

My cousin looks something like this:

Anyways, we had just arrived at my cousin’s apartment, and he was gathering some papers from the back of his car, with his car door open like this:

when an elderly couple in an old car like this:

came and rolled right into his car door, bending it like this:

and my cousin - whooping, over nearly being ran over - looked like this:

At first I was like this:

because my cousin was not hurt, unlike my father who was hit by one of these:

8 weeks ago and broke this:

and some of these:

but thank G-d everyone, including my dad and my cousin, are alive and healthy. Which is why I looked like this:

But I couldn’t tell this to my cousin while his anger was boiling over due to the damage on his car. I couldn’t tell this to my angry cousin because Rabbi Shomin ben Elazar used to say:

Do not appease your fellow in the time of his anger, nor comfort him while his dead lies before him. Do not question him in the time of his vow. Do not try to see him in the time of his disgrace.¹

Yet the anger my cousin shot at the driver and that the driver flung back at my cousin was volatile like this:

And made one of them look like this:

and the other one looked like this:

and there was a whole lot of this:

which I think is really rooted in this:

but then a young Borough Park resident at the scene who looked like this:

remarked - “It’s never good when Jews fight - no matter what the situation.”

Yet the cancer called Anger only crept further down their throats, enslaving their tongues and lips to curses and disgraces that surely left their souls crying out from Heaven.

And the evil inclination within each of us is so sly, because after all of the toxins the evil inclination enticed my cousin to spew, he then proceed to entice my cousin to feel terribly sad and somewhat depressed after the fact.

But Rebbe Nachman zt”l says that we must every day - every moment! - begin from a new! Do not despair over the past! Make amends, yes. Fix what needs to be fixed, yes. But despair? No!!

That way, G-d willing, the world will look less like this:

and more like this:

This story had me laughing and crying, and sometimes at the same time. It’s about an hour - well worth the time!

We Are Never Alone: The Unbelievable Story of a Child’s Birth

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Guest Post by Noahide Alice Jonsson
Source: BreslovWorld.com

I’m going to go out on a limb and declare that there is an experience that unites all B’nei Noach. Regardless of age, race, socio-economic strata, gender, or nationality; Democrat, Republican, Cherokee, Israeli, former Christian, former Atheist.

It is the confused — nay, incredulous — face a person makes when hearing about B’nei Noach for the first time.

“So what religion are you?”
“Well, OK, so you know what a Jew is right?”
“Oh, so you’re Jewish.”
“No. I believe in Judaism but..”

“So you’re not a Jew.”
“Right. See Jews have to follow 613 commandments and…”
“Huh?”
“Yeah, I know, it’s a lot. And B’nei Noach follow only seven. So..”
“Banana who?”
“No. OK, so you know who Noah was, right?”

“The guy with the boat.”
“Yeah! So there are some laws from the time of Noah, and…don’t go! I’m not crazy!”

When I first became a Bat Noach these reactions bothered me. I’m not the kind of girl who appreciates being looked at like I’m a religious wacko. I like my religion Orthodox and old school. No make-it-up-as-we-go, new-fangled stuff. When someone looks at me like I’m a member of a cult, not good. Not confidence inspiring. However, as wobbly as I was, I recovered from these awkward moments quickly. Why? Because Hashem reassured me with concrete, visceral results from my prayer - custom fit for my predicament.

When I started talking to Hashem, I felt I had plugged in to a source of power that was alarming to me. Previously, I thought religious people were talking to the sky or to something in their heads and that this somehow had a therapeutic effect. I thought some of them were clearly bonkers. And that most of them were a little bonkers. What they believe in sounds like fiction, weird fiction.

But when I do what our rabbi says, even when I cannot believe it will actually work, it works so thoroughly — and often with such speed — I know this “fiction” is true, like I know my mother loves me. Example: When my husband and I were doing in vitro fertilization — I’m talking the kind that costs as much as a new car — the doctors were throwing bills at us like confetti.

“Ma’am, we’ve decided to give you an ultrasound today. That’ll be $464. Cash. Now. And that’s the discounted price so wipe that look off your face.”

We had tried for many years. This was our chance. Rabbi said to go for a walk and to tell God we need some help and that we need some money. Truthfully, this seemed really tacky to me. I mean money is dirty and God is clean and there are hungry people. Surely a lightning bolt would fry me the second I opened my mouth to ask. But I go and I explain the situation to Hashem, apologetically.

The walk was uneventful. Feeling slightly embarrassed, I closed the sliding door, at least feeling refreshed from the cool fall air, brushed the grass and the burrs off my jeans, meandered around the house for maybe ten minutes, and the phone rings. It’s the mail order pharmaceutical company the doctor recommended to acquire the giant box (literally) of drugs that I would be administering from home. The patient woman who’d been helping us decided to resubmit our drug order to the insurance company one more time, just for the heck of it.

This was a bill for an amount so large it’d pay for a few classes at an Ivy League school, for a procedure not covered in our state. Period. And guess what? Despite the fact that the insurance company had just the day before categorically refused to pay for the drugs, they had agreed to cover our request. She calculated how much money we saved on the first few items on the list and it was at two grand in a few seconds. She was laughing and bubbly and was clearly loving the moment right there with me.

Ten months later, a very chubby little boy was born. And our lives went from black and white to color.

What tickles me most about how that specific event went down was how perfectly God knows me. He knows that I can be quite shallow and that a sure-fire way to get my attention is to make money fall out of the sky so I can pay a bill. There is nothing theoretical about a bill being paid. And most importantly, there is nothing theoretical about the gorgeous toddler hanging out in our living room. It all makes awkward religious discussions about bananas and Noah feel like nothing. Knowing that Hashem will meet me right where I am, (with no pretense) and that sometimes He even likes my plans, is everything.

Hashem is your keeper; Hashem is your shadow upon your right hand. (Psalms 121: 5)

Hashem acts with us midah kneged midah - measure for measure. Like the shadow of your hand, which follows the movements of your hand perfectly. When we are kind, Hashem does us kindness. When we act strictly, and harshly with others…r”l.

This can be observed in great matters, and in small matters. I have a small matter to share:

The other day we had a repairman working on our house around 10:00pm. He worked really hard, and still had another home to work on before he could go back to his home for the night.

So before the repairman left, I made him some pizza on challah bread and gave him a slice of watermelon. He was very grateful.

I was happy to do a chesed (a kindness), which is it’s own reward.

But the next day, a family from our synagogue baked us a homemade pizza from scratch! (because my dad was in an accident, so they wanted to do a chesed for us)

Hashem tzilcha al yad yeminecha - Hashem is your shadow of your right hand.

Here’s a mind-blowing story about Rabbi Lawrence Kelemen that blows reciprocal pizza dinners out of the water:

We Are Never Alone (stream)
We Are Never Alone (download)