Coming to Israel is sort of like getting married: Everyone should do so eventually, but not because a well-meaning relative bullies you into it. If you do so when the time is right, you’re more likely to fall in love.
THEREFORE, THE PURE RIGHTEOUS DO NOT COMPLAIN OF THE DARK, BUT INCREASE THE LIGHT; THEY DO NOT COMPLAIN OF EVIL, BUT INCREASE JUSTICE; THEY DO NOT COMPLAIN OF HERESY, BUT INCREASE FAITH; THEY DO NOT COMPLAIN OF IGNORANCE, BUT INCREASE WISDOM
Rav Kook ztl
We content ourselves with slogans that we repeat to each other without ever testing them in the crucible of debate.
Rabbi Yonason Rosenblum
Getting Ready for Passover!
The word in Hebrew for political party, miflaga, comes from the root word lefaleg, which means “to separate”. What our country needs is not one party or the other, we need less bickering and more unity. As it is, Hashem decides everything here anyway. Any connection between the politicians and their platforms is purely coincidental, as we’ve seen time after time in recent decades.
Rabbi Lazer Brody
Listen with your eyes. Look at the other person when they are speaking. 93% of our communication lies beyond the actual words that are said, according to a study by UCLA. 38% is related to voice quality, things like tone and inflection, and 55% is related to non-verbal communication, the physiology we talk with. This means that the way we physically communicate is nearly eight times more impactful than the actual words that are said (at 7%).
1) Remember to embrace equally all the three fundamentally Jewish loves - Ahavas Hashem, Ahavas Torah, Ahavas Yisrael (love of God, Torah, and the Jewish People).
2) Remember not to minimize any one of [the above] in any way whatsoever.
3) Remember that time is the most precious element in your mental treasury; therefore, spend it very carefully.
4) Remember not to spend your spiritual harvest time more on one crop than on the others.
5) Remember that personal flattery - chanifa - is your worst enemy, while expert criticism is your best friend.
6) Remember that human behavior must be analysed and comprehended; some people are acting as spiders, while others [behave] like flies enwrapped in the deadly silken threads of the spiders. Avoid the company of either one of them.
7) Remember that six million of American Jews are waiting for your spiritual Orthodox guidance. Do not disappoint them.
8) Remember that you have been trained to fight two internal enemies, ignorance and confusion, the latter the greater.
9) Remember that our spiritual Orthodox survival depends solely on the ability of our leaders to rescue the wine while the barrel is broken, to watch over our Torah inheritance while the ghetto walls have been eliminated.
10) Remember that destiny - hashgachat HaBorei - has bestowed upon the incoming Jewish generation the greatest among the most precious blessings, and at the same time, imposed upon our selected Talmudic scholars the greatest responsibilities to be sincere servants of God, Torah, and Israel (as an independent state and everlasting people).”
More than any of these “ten commandments” Rabbi Starr had a motto which he constantly drummed into his students: You should know what you know and know what you don’t know
Rabbi Selig Starr
Rosh Yeshiva of Skokie and Darche Noam
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