"Shabbat Shalom from Bangkok"
the final Shabbat
This Shabbat is the final Shabbat – the culmination of the year.
Next Shabbat will be the first Shabbat – the beginning of the new year – the first day of Rosh Hashana.
Whoa, already the end of the year? Where did the time fly?
There are so many good things that happened this year and I don’t want them to stop.
On the other hand, there are some challenging things going on that I am quite happy to finish.
I anticipate that a new year will bring new and fresh energy that will leave no trace of last year's negativity.
There is a saying in English ‘you can’t have your cake and eat it’. If you eat it, you no longer have it.’
I don’t agree. I pray to not just have my cake and eat it, I want to embellish on it: ‘I want to eat my cake, and to still have it, and not to get the aftereffects of increased bodyweight show up on the scale’.
But only if you are limited to a reality that is bound by nature.
We are miraculous people. If it was up to nature there would be no Jews to talk of.
Yitschak, the continuation of the Jewish people, was born to a ninety-year-old Sara. And a one-hundred-year-old Avraham.
Nations have come and gone. The Jewish people is miraculously still here. G-d makes miracles for us. Quite obviously and openly. They are still ongoing.
So let us pray to Hashem for the kind of year that He can provide. Without bothering to think about the confines of nature.
Let us elevate for a moment and see things from the perspective of the infinity of G-d and ask for the full version of blessing.
Here is what I am referring to.
The Torah portion last week of Ki Tavo was full of blessings. The incredibly uplifting and powerful blessings that are showered upon the heads of those who hearken to the words of Hashem.
The Torah also shares what the result of not listening to Hashem would look like. Very unpleasant consequences to say the least.
The timing is not coincidental. The reading these verses just before Rosh Hashana is planned by Ezra the Scribe, some two and a half thousand years ago.
The Sages say that Ezra instructed us to read the harsh words of what happens ‘if you don’t listen to the commandments of Hashem...’ two weeks before Rosh Hashana, so that we can ‘finish the year and its curses and begin the new year with its blessings’.
תכלה שנה וקללותיה – תחל שנה וברכותיה
Simply read it would mean, let the year with its curses end, may the new year with its blessings begin.
I would like to take license to fine-tune the concept to mean as follows.
May only the negative things of this year finish.
The good things, may they continue and be ‘imported’ into this new year as well...
As the ‘bad’ things, may they end with the year end and not enter into the new year.
In today’s computer/smartphone language it would be like importing all the good files and content while weeding out the viruses and corrupted files.
Seems impossible? Not for G-d who is unlimited and omnipotent.
But we need to do our part and invite G-ds blessings into our life.
Our mission is to tailor our behavior here in this world below, in the same way that we wish to elicit G-d’s reciprocal treatment of us.
Here is how I think it translates to our actions.
Let us take stock – cheshbon hanefesh – of what things we want to import to the new year, and what things we want to discontinue at year end.
With regards to our good habits, let us strengthen them. And make new, even better resolutions.
The beginning of a new year is the perfect time to make new resolutions about strengthening the relationship with Almighty G-d.
The negative things we may be engaging in?
The end of the year is a perfect opportunity to discontinue any inappropriate behaviors that we may have picked up during the year that do not behoove us.
And may G-d reciprocate by continuing the good things and terminating the not-good things.
Above all let us practice gratitude.
Give thanks to Hashem for His kindness throughout the year.
Wish your friends (and be wished back), all the blessing for a good and sweet new year.
It is a custom on Rosh Hashana to dip an apple in honey and during the entire High Holiday period we customarily dip our Challah into honey and eat ‘lekach’ honey cake.
Allow yourself to reflect on the message of the honey.
First, before you open your next jar of honey recognize how much effort has gone into producing that honey.
This following meditation came to me a few days ago when someone shared the stats about honey production. I found it of benefit to me, and I thought it could be helpful to others as well. As a catalyst that leads to good results.
Honey bees will tap about two million flowers and fly 50,000 miles (80,000 km) to make one pound (454 g) of honey.
This point is a very important lesson – especially for social-media-boomers who expect results in a split second.
A young person recently complained to me that they opened a takeaway food business by preorder but they are thinking of closing the business because of low sales volume. I asked them how long ago they opened the business. They said one week ago.
It took me a moment to get it. The person that complained is in their twenties. They are used to instantaneous results.
Drawing on my ‘adult’ perspective of pre-internet age, I advised that perhaps they keep it open for a few weeks before they decide whether or not the business has a chance for success.
Real results can take time.
The honey contains a poignant lesson about encouraging people not to give up when doing good things. Rather, one should expend more effort and in most cases one will eventually succeed.
The ‘real’ and traditional reason taught by our sages why we use honey as a central New Year them is transformative. It is because of the great incongruity of the bee whose sting is painful and which we therefore seek to avoid, producing one of the sweetest substances.
Click here for more about apples and honey on Rosh Hashana.
This honey-like transformation of bitter to sweet is what we seek in our lives. As Rosh Hashana arrives, we pray that the things that seem to be hurtful, negative, stinging and even sinful, be transformed to sweet, meritorious, blessed and fruitful realities.
And it truly is our reality as G-d loves us.
But G-d, your G-d, did not want to listen to Balaam, so G-d, your G-d, transformed the curse into a blessing for you, because G-d, your G-d, loves you. (Devarim 23:6)
To be a Jew is to be one of G-d’s beloved people.
Tragically, the classic antisemitism that we thought had been thrown to the annals of history has had a rebirth in recent years all across the globe.
Well, that simply reminds us that we are Jews.
AM YISRAEL CHAI – we are alive because G-d is alive and we are attached to Him.
For nothing in the world would G-d exchange us, and for nothing in the world would we tear ourselves away from G-d.
G-d will change any curses to blessings due to His love for us.
euphoric blessings
This week’s Parsha contains the most uplifting and euphoric blessings.
The Torah states that if you listen to the commandments of Hashem, you will be uplifted, blessed, successful and healthy.
I would like to focus on the following verse (Devarim 28, 2) which spells out a unique blessing that will come if we fulfil Mitzvot:
You will not have to pursue prosperity; rather, all the following blessings will pursue you and overtake you if you obey God, your God:
The language of blessings ‘pursuing’ and ‘overtaking’ you is rather unusual. Usually, it is we who pursues the blessing, not the blessing that pursues us.
Rabbi Yosef Chaim of Baghdad explained that this language is describing an extremely powerful blessing.
Sometimes a person experiences true, divine success so powerful and strong that whatever they do prospers. Even if they have done things that naturally would have obstructed the blessing.
Imagine someone who bought merchandise at too expensive a price. The business analysts predict that he will go bankrupt. Then, instead of failing, the unexpected happens. All of a sudden the market for that product becomes so lucrative that he makes tons of money.
Logically, the person should have lost their money. Yet even though this person was doing everything wrong, and practically running away from profit, the blessings chased them down and found them anyway because of the overwhelming favor God has given them.
Perhaps a modern-day example can be found in the story of ‘Google’.
The founders of Google were going to sell their company for less than a million dollars. The buyer thought it was overpriced and didn’t go through with the purchase. Google’s founders are currently mega billionaires because of that failed transaction. Hashem obviously wants them to be wealthy and didn’t allow the sale to go through.
That is what God is promising us in this verse. If we keep His commandments, we will be so blessed that even if we do things that are barriers to success, blessings will pursue us and catch up to us—all because we listened to Hashem.
I love the uplifting note of this blessing.
Personally, in light of the wave of negative media, I am inspired and filled with trust and faith in Hashem, that He is sending us the current challenging circumstances as a blessing. Rather than being regressive, it will be the catalyst to catapult us to far greater success than we have ever had before through G-d’s infinite blessings.
May you and your loved ones be blessed with being pursued by blessings of success, health, nachas and prosperity.
a parable
As we get closer to Rosh Hashana and focus on what kind of year we would like Hashem to bless us with,
I share the following parable.
A certain villager living in a benevolent kingdom was fined by the police and lost his temper During his anger he said something disrespectful about the king.
The king heard about it and felt torn. On the one hand he knew that the simple villager really wasn’t a bad person and had just ‘lost it’, but on the other hand it was unacceptable to allow the disrespectful person off without some kind of punishment that would allow the offender to see the error he had made.
The king devised a benevolent and genius way to deal with it.
The villager was invited to take up residence in one of the guest rooms on the palace grounds. The king showered his guest with care and affection making sure that his every wish and whim was fulfilled.
After a short while, being a direct recipient of the overwhelming kindness of the king, the violator felt horrible about having spoken about the king in a disrespectful way.
‘How could I have spoken about such a benevolent monarch with disrespect’?
As the kindness of the king intensified the remorse of the villager deepened.
This, said the Baal Shem Tov is what the Torah (Devarim 29,1-2) means when it says:
And it will be, when all these things come upon you the blessing and the curse which I have set before you that you will consider in your heart, among all the nations where the Lord your God has banished you… and you will return to the Lord, your God, with all your heart and with all your soul, and you will listen to His voice according to all that I am commanding you this day you and your children,
We all know that suffering has caused many people to draw closer to Hashem, but how does blessing bring people to G-d when they have strayed?
The Baal Shemtov explained that when Hashem brings blessing to people that have been ‘disrespectful’ to G-d in their speech or actions, this brings people closer to G-d as it causes one to reevaluate their actions up to this time.
Just as in the above parable with the king.
The more Hashem blesses, the greater the realization of how much gratitude we ought to have Hashem.
Conventional wisdom says that if someone did something against a king the only way to deal with it is that he should be punished fair and square.
Now remember, punishment in the Torah is never about vengeance. Rather it is meant to rehabilitate and bring a person to return to G-d and refresh his relationship with his Creator.
This teaching introduces an alternative way of transforming a person and bringing him to regret his past behaviors, not by harshly punishing them but rather by surprising them with immense kindness.
The end result will be that they will be closer to G-d.
This is also a methodology that we can use in the way we react and treat others.
Sometimes someone says something irritating, disrespectful or downright nasty.
The classic kneejerk response is to snap back with a cutting incisive response. The problem is that this becomes a descent into a spiral of negativity which begets more negativity.
How about trying the Baal Shemtov’s model.
Take a deep breath the next time someone insults you or wrongs you in some other way.
React with an abundance of love.
Hopefully the positivity you exude will have the desired effect and the irritator will feel bad about the thing that he did to you.
And if we act this way to others, Hashem will act this way to us.
One of the cardinal rules of the Torah is that Hashem treats us ‘measure for measure’.
It is for this reason that the mitzvah of tzedakah is such a powerful tool in preparing for the new year. For when we give help to someone else, Hashem will give help to us.
During these few weeks before Rosh Hashana let us make good resolutions about becoming closer to Hashem by engaging more in prayer and good deeds and Torah study.
Do you feel blessed?
Our Parsha is called ‘Re’eh’ which means ‘see’.
The Parsha begins ‘See, I am placing before you blessing…’. The ‘I’ in the verse is Hashem.
You may be surprised to hear this. Not everyone feels that they are blessed.
The words of the Torah ‘SEE I place before you blessing’ are an invitation and a ‘coaching’ instruction to open your eyes and make an effort to truly ‘see’ and appreciate the blessings that G-d has given you in your personal life.
So often, all it takes for us to feel happier and more contentment is to open our eyes and ‘see’ and appreciate the blessings of G-d.
In our family, my wife Nechama has started a tradition of going around the table during family meals and asking every participant to give thanks to Hashem for something specific.
I urge you to try it. What you will notice immediately is that it does not always come automatically. Some people struggle with trying to articulate what they thank Hashem for. Verbally articulating personal thanks to Hashem for something specific is a great way to upgrade your feelings of blessedness and gratitude to the Almighty.
When you know that you will be called upon to describe your appreciation to Hashem, you start paying more attention and ‘seeing’ the blessings.
Perhaps the meditation below can help.
A statistic I once read has stayed in my consciousness as it sounded quite frightening.
