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Date Posted: 22:57:47 09/26/12 Wed
Author: d
Subject: fb213


#590 True Wealth

What is truly valuable? Spiritual wealth. When you nourish your soul in this world, your soul is truly wealthy, for all eternity.

 The good deeds that one does are eternal. A person with financial wealth can transform this into spiritual wealth by doing many acts of kindness with his money. He can help worthy institutions and causes. He can help individuals in financial need. He can support Torah and those who study it.

(Growth Through Tehillim: Exploring Psalms for Life Transforming Thoughts, pp. 108-9)


See Rabbi Pliskin's new book "Life Is Now"




11 Tishrei

In 1941, SS Chief Helmut Knochen ordered the systematic destruction of synagogues in Paris. During this time the Vichy government established other anti-Jewish measures, including the requirement that all Jews wear a yellow badge. Roundups took place in Paris where tens of thousands of Jews were arrested and handed over to the Nazis. Of an estimated 350,000 Jews who lived in France, 25 percent were murdered in the Holocaust. While many were sent to Auschwitz, there were also concentration camps located inside France, such as Gurs.



11 Tishrei

My soul thirsts for You; my flesh pines for You (Psalms 63:2).

One Yom Kippur, after the Maariv (evening) services that ended the 25-hour fast, Rabbi Levi Yitzchok of Berdichev exclaimed, "I am thirsty! I am thirsty!" Quickly someone brought him water, but the Rabbi said, "No! I am thirsty!" Hastily they boiled water and brought him coffee, but again he said, "No! No! I am thirsty!" His attendant then asked, "Just what is it you desire?"

"A tractate Succah (the volume of the Talmud dealing with the laws of the festival of Succos)." They brought the desired volume, and the Rabbi began to study the Talmud with great enthusiasm, ignoring the food and drink that were placed before him.

Only after several hours of intense study did the Rabbi breathe a sigh of relief and break his fast. The approaching festival of Succos with its many commandments - only five days after Yom Kippur - had aroused so intense a craving that it obscured the hunger and thirst of the fast.

It is also related that at the end of Succos and Pesach, festivals during which one does not put on tefillin, Rabbi Levi Yitzchok sat at the window, waiting for the first glimmer of dawn which would allow him to fulfill the mitzvah of tefillin after a respite of eight or nine days.


Today I shall ...
... try to realize that Torah and mitzvos are the nutrients of my life, so that I crave them just as I do food and water when I am hungry or thirsty.

See more books by Rabbi Abraham Twerski at Artscroll.com


11 Tishrei

Definition of God

I have friends who are Buddhists, Mormons, and agnostics. We often have philosophical discussions, and everyone seems to differ slightly in their view of the Divine Being. As a Jew, I would like to offer our perspective as well. Can you tell me what is the Jewish definition of God?
The Aish Rabbi Replies:

You are asking the most fundamental question. Any issue in philosophy – the purpose of existence, free will, suffering, the course of history, the afterlife – stems from how you understand and define this question.

The first thing to know is that God is infinite. Infinite does not mean “very large.” It means totally without limit and containment. Anything that exists within space is by definition finite, no matter how big it gets.

Take a moment and try to picture God before there ever was a universe. Most people imagine God being everywhere, expanding and filling up everything. But to be everywhere, you need space. And there is no space, because it hasn't been created yet. Infinite means being beyond space.

Another aspect of God's infinity is “beyond time.” Being outside of time means being at all places at all times all at the same time – simultaneously. It literally boggles the mind.

We have a fundamental problem in trying to grasp what it means to be beyond time and space. We are stuck in a finite world. Everything we perceive is filtered through our finite minds using finite vocabulary. When imagining eternity, all we can muster is an image of something reaching back through the tunnel of history and stretching forwards towards the future. That's not eternity. Eternity is beyond time, not within it.

When talking about what the infinite is – eternal, all-powerful, all-encompassing – the very words we use are finite. We struggle to describe the infinite in a positive sense since the only language we have is wholly inadequate. Any perception of God must be filtered through a finite lens, therefore we can never truly describe the essence of God.

The Way of God by Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto (18th century) gives a succinct summation: "Every Jew must believe and know that there exists a First Being, without beginning or end, who brought all things into existence and continues to sustain them. This Being is God."



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