A Bag of Cold Goins

A wealthy & experienced businessman had a son who was a novice in business. The father gave him a sack of gold coins to buy some merchandise. “Business isn't complicated my son. It's simple: You buy merchandise in bulk at wholesale price, and you sell it at retail price, making profit. Go to Vilna. Visit the city market and buy it for the wholesale price.” The son-in-law went and did as his father-in-law had suggested. The first stand he saw at the market was selling shofars (ram horns). "It's right before Rosh Hashanah! Come and buy shofars for the holiday!" Announced the owner. He got a good price on shofars and bought a wagon-load.


When he arrived home, his father was flabbergasted. “What did you do?!” The son replied, “What’s the matter? I checked the prices just like you told me to.” “Yes,” said the father, “but there's only one main synagogue in our city! Everyone hear's the shofar blown there on Rosh Hashanah. Nobody's going to buy these!” The father stormed off to tell his workers to put the shofars in the warehouse. Sometime later the father was ready to try again. The son went to Vilna again, and this time he found a tremendous bargain - a massive amount of toothpicks for less than 10% of their wholesale price! Smiling with pride, the boy filled his wagons with toothpicks and headed back to town. He was in for a surprise when he came home. “What’s the matter father? I got an amazing price on these toothpicks.” “What’s the matter? What’s the matter?! Nobody's going to buy all of these toothpicks!” The father sighed and told his workers to put the toothpicks in the warehouse.

After a while, the father called a merchant who dealt in odd lots and asked him to take the shofars and get whatever he could for them. The following day, he called somebody else, who dealt in overstocks, to do the same thing for the toothpicks. Soon after, these two fellows bumped into each other. Unaware that they were working for the same person, they made a trade, shofars for toothpicks. When the father got the report, he burst out laughing. His son complained: “Why are you so upset with me? These two guys are hot-shot businessmen and they both bought the same merchandise I did!” The father answered, “My dear son. Both of these men had something worthless and exchanged it for something worthless. But you had gold. You could have bought priceless goods, but instead you bought worthless merchandise!”

Each of us has been entrusted with a beautiful neshamoh (soul). We have been given a G-dly gift, the Torah, full of Divine wisdom and guidance. We have been given many minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years to achieve and acquire good deeds in this world. But too often we pass up on good "merchandise", instead focusing on the purchase of useless items. This wouldn't be a big deal, if not for the fact that we were given gold. Each of us has been given golden, priceless souls, entrusted with a divine mission to acquire mitzvot and better the world as best we can. From saying the shema to lighting shabbat candles or giving a dollar to charity, we can come home with great merchandise our Father can be proud of.

Shabbat Shalom!

We Were Like Dreamers

"A Song of Ascents. When G-d brought Zion out of captivity, we were like people in a dream. At the time, our mouths were filled with laughter and our tongues with cries of joy. At the time it was said among the nations, "G-d has done great things for them." G-d had done great things for us; we were happy. Let our captivity, G-d, be a thing of the past, like dried-up streams in the Negev. Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy." (King David, Psalm 126)


So goes the 1st paragraph of the "birkat hamazon" - the blessing we say after meals that include bread. Tonight begins what is known in the Jewish calendar as "the 9 days" - the sad period of time that led up to the destruction of the 1st & 2nd temples in Jerusalem on the 9th day of the Hebrew month of "Av". The above words by King David describe the time that will come - may it be very soon - when the Jewish people will be redeemed from exile and returned to the land of Israel in peace. Let's take a look at the exact words King David uses to describe our state of being during exile: "We were like people in a dream." What's the deeper meaning behind this expression of being in a dream like state?

What happens when we dream? One really cool thing about dreams, is that opposites can occur at the very same time! The impossible becomes possible. Not only can you fly and defy physics, but opposites can mesh harmoniously - like a massive elephant going through the eye of a needle. How is that possible? It's possible because, as we know, dreams are (primarily) full of falsehood and imagination, with no substance to them. Our intellect, when sleeping, seizes to wield its logical control over our thoughts and emotions - and they therefore run wild.

This then is what King David is teaching us: In our lives, living during this long exile, we are as if asleep like dreamers! Even while awake, we act in life as if in a dream, where opposites flow together like it's no problem! On Jewish holidays & Shabbat, we engage in holy matters, such as prayers and learning Torah. Many even engage in this every morning! Yet the very next day, or even later that morning, we can act as if G-d isn't running the world at all. We worry over everything, we act towards others and within our own minds as if totally unaware of the feeling of closeness to G-d and recognition of his providence we had just moments ago. Are we schizophrenic (G-d forbid)? Didn't you just leave the western wall a minute ago in tears of inspiration and now you're freaking out because the line at the old city pizza store is going too slowly? How can we be like that?

King David is telling us that it's all right. That's how galus - exile - affects our daily reality and mindset. But if we try, putting effort to really connect with G-d, sometimes we can have that connection actually affect our daily conduct afterward. We become awake, for however short a time it may be. And may these waking moments lead us to the ultimate, true time of reality, when we all be awake to a G-dly reality, speedily in our days. (Based on a Chassidic Discourse by R. Yosef Yitzchak Shneerson, Purim 1940)

Shabbat Shalom!

-Daniel

My Father & the priest

One of my very favorite true stories. This is told by Mrs. Chana Weisberg of Toronto, about her father, the revered Rabbi Shochet:


Almost 30 years ago, my father, Rabbi Dovid Schochet was asked to lecture to a group of Jewish and non-Jewish participants in the neighboring city of Buffalo. He decided to focus his lecture on the theme of charity, due to its universal application to both Jews and gentiles. My father began with the following story: A wealthy individual who never contributed to charity lived during the time of the Tosfos Yom Tov, a great Jewish sage. After this miser died, the Chevra Kaddisha (the society responsible for the burial and performing the rites on the body) felt that he was unworthy of being interned next to any upright and respectable individual and buried him, instead, in the area of the cemetery called hekdesh, reserved for society's outcasts and destitute. A few days after the funeral, a tumult developed in Krakow. The butcher and baker, two prominent members of the community, who had hitherto been extremely charitable, suddenly stopped distributing their funds. The poor people, who had relied on the benevolent pair for their sustenance, now were in a state of uproar. Emotions ran so deep that the matter was finally brought before the Tosfos Yom Tov.

He asked the two why they had so abruptly terminated their worthy acts. They replied: "In the past this 'miser' would continuously supply us with funds for charity. He strongly warned us, however, not to disclose our source, since he wanted the great merit of performing the mitzvah in a hidden manner. Now that he is dead, unfortunately, we are no longer able to continue." Awed by the unassuming miser's' behavior, the Tosfos Yom Tov requested that he be buried next to this humble individual, even though this meant being interred in a disreputable section of the cemetery. As my father concluded his lecture, a participant from the audience, who happened to be a priest, approached him and requested that he repeat the story. My father suggested they meet the following day. Thinking that the matter would be forgotten, my father was surprised when, at the appointed hour, the priest actually arrived at my father's hotel. The priest, once again, pleaded with my father to repeat the story. My father obliged, but was astounded when, after concluding the story a second time, the priest seemed terribly distraught and begged him to repeat it, yet again.

At this point, the priest was nervously pacing back and forth across the room. Finally, he divulged the reason for his agitation. He turned to my father and confessed, "Rabbi Schochet, that charitable man in the story was my ancestor." Skeptically, my father calmed the young man saying that there was absolutely no connection between him and the story, which took place hundreds of years ago. "Furthermore," he told him, "you are a gentile, while this man was Jewish." The priest looked intently at my father and whispered, "Rabbi, now I have a story to tell you!" He began by describing his background. He had grown up in the state of Tennessee. His father was a Major in the U.S. army during the Second World War. Overseas, in Europe, his father had met a Jewish girl and fell in love. He brought her back home as his war bride and no one knew of her background. A short time after their marriage, the couple was blessed with a child, whom they devoutly raised in the Catholic tradition. The child grew up and attended a Seminary where he eventually trained to become a priest. In his early adulthood, the priest's mother died prematurely. At her death bed, she disclosed her secret identity to her completely baffled son. After reciting the Shema prayer, she confessed, "I want you to know that you are Jewish." She informed him of his heritage and that his ancestor was buried next to a great sage called the Tosfos Yom Tov. She then recounted, almost verbatim, the story that my father had told in his lecture. At the time, the priest imagined that his mother was delirious. Although he felt uneasy by his mother's parting words, it was only a temporary, fleeting emotion. As he got on with his life, he soon forgot the entire episode and lost interest in the subject. "Rabbi," cried the priest, in a state of complete emotional upheaval, "you have just repeated this story, detail for detail. You have reminded me of my mother's parting words, and that the story must be true. Yet what am I to do? I am a reputable priest with a large congregation of devoted followers." My father offered to assist him in any way. He emphasized to him, however, that according to Judaism, he was indeed Jewish. He encouraged him to explore his heritage, and put him in contact with people in his city who could guide him. With that, the weary, newly-found Jew departed.

My father had no future correspondence with this man, and heard no further from him. Several years ago, on a visit to Israel, a bearded, religious Jew approached my father at the Western Wall, the Kotel, and wished him, "Shalom Aleichem." My father didn't recognize the individual and was completely taken aback when the man exclaimed, "Don't you recognize me, Rabbi Schochet? I am the former priest whom you met in Buffalo!" He continued, "A Jew is never completely lost from his people."

P.S. My father recently discovered that he is a direct descendant of the Tosfos Yom Tov. At that auspicious juncture in time, in a hotel lobby in Buffalo, N.Y. a descendant of the Tosfos Yom Tov met with a descendant of the miser -- and miraculously changed the course of destiny.
~~~~~
May we always remember that G-d directs our world and our lives, however strange it may appear :)

Shabbat Shalom!

The Power of Garments

G-dly Soul and animal soul. Will and pleasure. Unity and disparity. Thought and action. In his monumental, classic work - the Tanya - Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi (1745-1812) compares and contrasts everything from what goes on within a human being, to what's going on within G-d and his universe. Made up of 5 parts - A Collection of Sayings, The Gate of Unity, Letters on Repentance, Holy Letters, and The Final Collection of Sayings, the first book contains 53 chapters. Early on, in the 4th chapter, the author makes a point so profound - it's almost easy to read right through it and pass over the latent power behind his words. After discussing in Ch. 3 what we're made up of - a "divine soul" & an "animal soul" each made up of 10 faculties, in chapter 4 Rabbi Shneur Zalman discusses the "garments of the soul" which is thought, speech, and action. Surely when one thinks over a Torah thought or says a kind word, or even brings a glass of water to a parent, that's cute and everything, but surely less holy or powerful than the G-dly soul within us....right?

In the words of the holy Rabbi: "Now these 3 "garments," deriving from the Torah & its commandments, although they are called "garments" of the soul, their quality, nevertheless is infinitely higher & greater than that of the soul, as explained in the Zohar, because the Torah and G-d are one." Meaning, as great and as spiritually lofty as the souls within us are, they are still finite. But, when I choose to do, say, or think something from the Torah, I am connecting my soul and body to something truly infinite - because G-d and his wisdom, his Torah, are one and the same, it is connected to his Essence. The power in which Judaism places on proper action in life knows no bounds - it is ALL about this world! So many focus on the "world to come" - on "going to heaven" - but Judaism teaches that this is where it's at! Sure, in the next world, G-dliness is felt and comprehended easier and pleasure is therefore greater, but in terms of true spiritual attainment and accomplishment, nothing beats the opportunity we have in this physical world. There is a Jewish law that says men must tuck in their tzitzit - "fringes" on the sides of their garments, when walking into a cemetery. Why? So as not to arouse any jealousy in heaven, because of the fact that we can do physical mitzvot and they can't anymore!

The author continues: "Hence it has been said (in Ethics of our Fathers 4:17): Better is one hour of repentance & good deeds in this world than the whole life of the world to come" since in heaven one connects to a limited light, whereas G-d's Infinite Essence can be found only in Torah & Mitzvot. But wait a minute! How in the world can we say that G-d's Essence is found in the Torah, one that talks about monetary laws, rituals, holidays, laws of the temple!? By way of analogy, Rabbi Shneur Zalman concludes: "Although the Torah has been clothed in lower material things, it is by way of illustration, like embracing the king. There is no difference, in regard to the degree of closeness and attachment to the king, whether the king is then wearing one robe or several robes, so long as the royal person is in them." G-d is found in his Torah and Mitzvot completely, whether we feel it or not.

May we embrace the king whenever possible, in good thought, speech and deed, binding our small selves with the infinite.

Shabbat Shalom!