Rabbis' Blog

One of my mentors once said: “A fool is not someone who never makes a mistake. A fool is someone who does not learn from his mistakes.”

Judaism teaches not only can mistakes be channeled into future success, but they can be repaired as well. On the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur, we recognize our moral fragility and the many mistakes we are prone to make in life, but most importantly our ability to repair them all. 

The structure of the new Jewish year of 5784 and the reasons for it provide an important lesson on the power of repair in every area of life. 

There are two systems with which to set up a calendar.  The 29.5-day lunar cycle is the source for the time unit we call "month"; the 365.25-day solar cycle is the basis for the annual cycle of seasons referred to as "year."

Most calendars are modeled on one cycle alone but the Jewish calendar follows both. Dates follow the months of the lunar cycle, but the festivals must be in their respective season – Passover in the spring, Sukkot in the fall, etc. So the lunar months must always align themselves with the seasons of the year, which are governed by the sun. Thus, the Jewish calendar is "Luni-Solar."

The problem is that these two cycles are not compatible with each other - twelve lunar months add up to 354 days, eleven days short of a solar year. Just a few years down the line Passover can be celebrated during a fierce blizzard and the Chanukah candles lit in a heat wave.

To make up for lost time, every two to three years is known as a Jewish leap year. Unlike the Gregorian (and Julian) leap year, in which an extra day is added, the Jewish leap year has an entire extra month, which brings the lunar cycle up to date with the solar cycle, with some extra days for “credit.”

On a deeper level, the sun and the moon represent two distinct characteristics.

The sun radiates its light in the same constant manner, without perceptible change from day to day. If the sky is clear, one sees the same amount of the sun’s globe every single day. The moon, on the other hand, becomes “renewed” or “reborn” at the beginning of each month. It begins as a narrow crescent, becoming fuller and brighter from day to day until it attains its complete fullness and brightness on the fourteenth or fifteenth day of the Jewish month. Then it becomes narrower and smaller in the month’s second half until it disappears.

The sun represents the element of sameness and constancy; the moon represents change and renewal. In Judaism, it is imperative to have both. Just as law without the spirit is uninviting and repressive, spirit without law is flaky and transient. A healthy combination of both the sun and moon elements is a sure recipe for success.

And like in the case of the lunisolar year, this combination does not always exactly match up in a fine neat bundle and sometimes we need to “repair” the discrepancies. But we can certainly repair it and even gain extra credit. This is the message of Yom Kippur: the celebration of our ability and obligation to repair everything and then some.

Several weeks ago we celebrated a Bar Mitzvah at Chabad and the Bar Mitzvah boy Dani shared a great speech. The content of his remarks emerged from a conversation we had in one of our learning sessions before the big day.

Dani’s favorite sport is basketball and since Judaism believes everything in this world can serve as a lesson in our divine service, we examined what we can learn from basketball to become better Jews and appreciate the meaning of Bar Mitzvah.

Here’s an idea we came up with. Every player playing on the court does many things. They take shots, block shots from the other team, steal the ball, dribble, run, jump - you get the picture. The NBA keeps track of all the essential things players do throughout the game and ranks them accordingly.

Shots and steals are obviously recorded, but it’s interesting to note that assists are recorded as well. In basketball, an assist is attributed to a player who passes the ball to a teammate in a way that leads directly to a score, meaning that they were "assisting" in the basket.

How does this all connect to Bar Mitzvah?

The word Mitzvah means a commandment. G-d is the commander and we are the receivers of the command. These commands are not random. When done correctly, every Mitzvah is like a slam dunk or a three-pointer, and some of them are like shots made from downtown. Every time we do something G-d wants us to do, we make the world a better place, and becoming Bar Mitzvah means becoming a professional player on the court of life, charged with the mission of making as many points as possible.

But we must always remember we are not playing alone. We are part of a team, and an integral part of the mission is to make “assists.” Instead of focusing exclusively on our own Judaism, we must emphasize assisting others as well so we can get the entire team to the winning shot at the buzzer.

Now I realize this speech fits beautifully with Rosh Hashanah and the blowing of the Shofar. On the Shabbat before Rosh Hashanah we always read the Torah portion of Nitzavim which begins with these words:

“You are all standing this day before the L-rd, your G-d the leaders of your tribes, your elders and your officers, every man of Israel. Your young children, your women, and your convert who is within your camp both your woodcutters and your water drawers, that you may enter the covenant of the L-rd, your G-d…”

Jewish mysticism explains, that while these words were said by Moshe during the month of Adar, “this day” refers to Rosh Hashanah and the covenant referenced here, which encompasses all Jews from the highest levels to the lowest levels, repeats itself each year on Rosh Hashanah.

The Shofar blowing is described as G-d’s coronation ceremony when we accept His sovereignty and commit to living according to His instructions, as well as a rallying call for unity. So if you like Dani’s basketball analogy here’s a thought to keep in mind as we blow the Shofar on Sunday, the second day of Rosh Hashanah. The new year 5784 marks a new game on the court of our universe and we’re all on the same team. Let’s resolve to play good offense - by doing more mitzvot this year; play good defense - by abstaining from prohibitions this year; and most importantly to assist, assist and assist.

May you and yours be inscribed and sealed for a good and sweet new year!

Chag Sameach and Shana Tova!

Rosh Hashanah commemorates the creation of Adam and Eve, and it is also the anniversary of the first marriage in history. I find it fascinating that the first words Adam said of his wife Eve recorded in the Torah capture the essence of marriage and intimacy.

After G-d had created everything in this world in six days, the world was ready for the creation of humanity, the species charged with bringing the recognition of the creator to creation. Adam was created first and as he opened his eyes, he praised G-d the Creator of the world and gathered all living creatures to kneel and bow to G-d, thus Crowning G-d King of the world. We, as Adam’s descendants, recrown G-d as our King every year on Rosh Hashana.

His first mission was to name all of the animals. To be clear, this job was not some leisure walk in the park like someone would choose a name for their pet. G-d created the world through speaking into being with the biblical Hebrew known as Lashon Hakodesh “the holy tongue” and Adam was charged with revealing which Hebrew letters comprised the spiritual energy of each respective animal. He accomplished this mission with a divinely endowed wisdom that was superior then the wisdom possessed by the angels!

As he named all the animals, Adam noticed that each species was created as a pair, male and female and he yearned for a mate of his own. The Torah records how G-d put him to sleep and created the first woman from a piece of Adam’s body. When Adam met his soulmate he gave her a name saying (Genesis 2:23) “She will be called ISHA for she was taken from ISH (which means man).”

Of course, the first woman is more famously known as “Chava” or Eve, but that name only came to be after she gave birth to children. Her original name as the soul mate of Adam was ISHA.

Here is the fascinating thing about the biblical Hebrew language. It’s a fascinating maze of interconnected concepts and ideas all embedded in the various words constructed by the 22 letters of the Aleph Bet, and there is so much to learn from comparing similar words.

The words ISH and ISHA are constructed with the same letters as the word AISH which means fire. Whereas Adam could have named his soulmate with another variation of the divine names for humanity, he specifically chose these two words to describe their united relationship and marriage.

Everything in this world, including humans, is constructed of four basic elements: fire, water, air and earth. Adam understood that the fundamental force that unites male and female humans and brings two separate entities to become one family unit, is their shared fire. Fire represents purity, love, warmth, light, and passion and this gift of energy is the fuel that keeps a marriage strong. 

But like fire, if this energy is not properly channeled, it can be destructive and devastating. The Torah as our divine guide to life provides us the manual to nurturing and channeling our passion and love in our marriages properly - through the mitzvah of Mikvah. For over three thousand years, Jewish couples have found that intimacy revolving around this critical mitzvah holds the key to healthy and happy marriages.

Please call me at 915-241-5711 to learn more about observing this beautiful mitzvah.

I am always gratified to experience how events come together in such a magnificent and beautiful manner in an obvious expression of divine providence, and I’d like to share with you how this past Monday was one of those days. With the help of my friend Armando Velez an editor at the Spanish language El Diario newspaper, I made a special trip to Juarez, and here is why it was so meaningful.

The foundational text of Chabad Chassidic philosophy is the book of Tanya, authored by the Alter Rebbe, Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, and published in 1797. It is a guide for how everyone can and should serve G-d and actively contribute to making the entire world a place of divine peace and tranquility, based on the groundbreaking teachings of Rabbi Yisrael Baal Shem Tov, the founder of the Chassidic movement in the mid 1700s. Both the Baal Shem Tov and the Alter Rebbe were born on the 18th day of Elul, which this year was celebrated this past Monday.

Tanya has transformed countless lives over the centuries, not only through its intellectual and philosophical brilliance but mainly because its teachings are culled from the deepest levels of Torah scholarship and provide access to the innermost dimensions of our souls. It is aptly compared to a wellspring that provides spiritual life-giving waters for eternity to the spiritually parched. The Baal Shem Tov was told by Moshiach that the era of redemption when true peace and tranquility will reign depends on these teachings reaching everyone in the world, no matter how “far and out” they may be.

In 1978 the Rebbe launched a campaign to publish special editions of the Tanya in every city where even a single Jew currently lives, and explained the significance of the project through the analogy of the wellspring. A wellspring with a thin trickle of water eventually grows into a gushing river that reaches very far, but whereas the river can eventually dry up, the wellspring never does. In addition to bringing the messages of Tanya to everyone in every place by bringing books published elsewhere, printing a special edition of the Tanya in every location makes them the source of Tanya giving it the transformative energy of the wellspring that never dries up. When the local Jews now study the ideas of Tanya and work to apply them, they are dealing with a locally published book, emphasizing its local relevance.

Although we did not plan it this way, conflicting schedules delayed the project in such a manner that it ended up happening on a most auspicious day. On the birthday of both the Baal Shem Tov and the Alter Rebbe, the 8,092nd edition of Tanya, containing their transformative teachings, was printed in Juarez, Mexico. Here is another reason why Monday was so auspicious for this event. One of the themes in the second section of this week’s Torah portion - which was traditionally studied on Monday - emphasizes that when Jews are scattered around the world during exile, the presence of one single Jew in a remote location is profoundly important to G-d and plays an role in bringing the redemption through Moshiach.

As ink met paper in a Juarez printshop, a handful of local Jews gathered for the ceremony. We chatted about the upcoming High Holidays and one of them wrapped Tefillin on the spot. Everyone in the shop was invited to place charity in the Tzedaka box and when the first set of copies was complete, we studied some lines from the newly published Tanya.

Following the Rebbe’s lead in 1978, Juarez with its 2.1 million strong population and handful of Jews, became a wellspring of the Torah teachings that will prepare every individual and the entire world for the era of Moshiach, may this happen very soon!