VoyForums
[ Show ]
Support VoyForums
[ Shrink ]
VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

[ Login ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, [7], 8, 9, 10 ]

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 22:34:40 08/02/12 Thu
Author: d
Subject: fb183


#535 An Emergency Tool For The Sensitive

At times there is so much suffering in the world that a sensitive person finds it difficult to tolerate. The Brisker Rav, Rabbi Yitzhak Zev Soloveitchik, applied the following Talmudic statement as his advice for such people in such times: "He who wants to live should act as if he were dead."

There are times when human suffering is so great that a person who feels the suffering of others will simply not be able to continue living. While we have an obligation to feel the suffering of others, we should protect ourselves from overdoing it and destroying ourselves.

At times, said the Brisker Rav, we should adopt an attitude as if we were no longer alive and only then will we be able to exist.

(Moadim U'zmanim; Rabbi Pliskin's Gateway to Happiness, p.257)
#536 Obstacles In Helping Others

Don't regret good deeds when you end up suffering. In every business there are negative aspects. When you do acts of kindness, realize in advance there are likely to be some unpleasant aspects and accept them.

Realize that when you help others you are helping yourself. You will find it easier to tolerate difficulties.

(Rabbi Eliyahu Meir Bloch - Shiurey Da'as, p.116; Rabbi Pliskin's Gateway to Happiness, p.254)


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




15 Av

On this date, four historical events occurred: (1) the Jews of the Exodus generation stopped dying in the desert, (2) intertribal marriage was permitted to post-Exodus generations, (3) the tribe of Benjamin was saved from extinction, (4) the Romans permitted the burial of Jews killed in the Beitar revolt (138 CE). After the Romans had destroyed the Second Holy Temple, the emperor Hadrian planned to transform Jerusalem into a pagan city-state with a shrine to Jupiter on the site of the Temple. This led to the great Jewish revolt of Simon Bar Kosiba (Bar Kochba), whose guerilla army succeeded in actually throwing the Romans out of Israel and establishing, albeit for a brief period, an independent Jewish state. It required large numbers of Roman troops to crush the revolt. Bar Kochba made his final stand in the city of Beitar, located southwest of Jerusalem. It was estimated that hundreds of thousands of Jews lived in Beitar, and they were all massacred "until their blood flowed into the Mediterranean Sea." Further, the Romans did not allow the Jewish bodies to be buried. According to Jewish tradition, the bodies lay in the open but did not rot, until three years later on the 15th of Av, burial was finally permitted. Today, the standard "Grace After Meals" includes a special blessing recalling this event in Beitar.
16 Av

In 1946, the British government ordered all illegal immigrants bound for Palestine to be deported to camps on the island of Cyprus. According to the terms of the British White Paper of 1939, immigration to Palestine was limited to 75,000 Jews over a period of 10 years. Following the end of World War II, many Holocaust survivors had nowhere else to go, so they crammed onto old ships bound for the Holy Land. Some ships succeeded in slipping through the British naval blockade and unloading their human cargo on desolate beaches. Several ships sank in tragic circumstances. Other ships were apprehended and the passengers sent to British detention camps -- complete with barbed wire, military towers and guards. The Exodus is the most famous immigrant ship from this era. Today, one of the ships, the Af-Al-Pi ("in spite of it all"), stands in a museum in Haifa.



15 Av

Do not put a stumbling block before the blind (Leviticus 19:14).

The Talmud extends this concept to include giving anyone wrong advice. Clearly, no rational person would knowingly put an obstacle in front of a blind person. Similarly, no one with a conscience would knowingly give anyone bad advice, but sometimes people inadvertently do so because they fail to think things through.

While good intentions are laudable, they are not always enough. "Here, take some of these pills (for sleep, headache, anxiety, joint pains). My doctor gave them to me, and they are excellent." It is well to remember that "one person's meat is another's poison." This principle cannot be more true than when it comes to medications.

Amateur psychology is a popular field; so many people like to offer advice to husbands, wives, and parents as to what to do about their school troubles, marital problems, and children's discipline. Less than amateur legal advice is also available in abundance.

Our egos may feel good when we offer advice, and we may sincerely believe that the advice we are giving is sound, but great caution is necessary to avoid unintentionally misleading someone. If any of our advice is wrong, we have in fact "put a stumbling block before the blind."


Today I shall ...
... be cautious when offering advice and moreover avoid recommending something unless I am absolutely certain that it is the right thing to do.

16 Av

They have forsaken Me, the source of life-giving waters, to dig wells that cannot give water (Jeremiah 2:13).

In a world filled with nationalistic pride, where nations, ethnic groups, and individuals are all searching for their historic roots, it is nothing less than mind-boggling that a people who has an unparalleled wealth of recorded and documented history and literature would so ignore its rich heritage. What do most Jewish children know about their people? Only a fraction receive more than a fragmentary awareness of Jewish history. All can identify Twain and Poe, but few know Maimonides or Yehudah HaLevi. They are likely to know much about Nathan Hale and even Simon Bolivar but have never heard of Rabbi Akiva and Bar Kochba. They may remember the Alamo, but not Massada.

Why do we so despise ourselves? Where is our pride? How can we expect our youth to develop a sense of self-esteem if by our own dereliction we fail to convey to them a justified sense of pride in who they are?

We do not need to drink at others' wells. Our own is filled with sweet, life-sustaining water.


Today I shall ...
... do whatever I can to further Jewish education both among adults and children.

See more books by Rabbi Abraham Twerski at Artscroll.com


15 Av

The Right One

I’d like to settle down and get married, but I see so many of my friends getting married and then divorced after a few years. I don’t want this to happen to me. What advice do you have?
The Aish Rabbi Replies:

The first step is to make a list of all of the qualities you think are important in a future spouse. Traits that define a decent, honest, caring human should be "givens.” You absolutely need to trust and respect the person. A good way to measure this is to ask: Do I want my children to grown up to be like him/her?

Now look at the other qualities on your list. How vital are they? In the long term, things like looks and hobbies are much less important. The big thing to look for is life goals that are compatible with yours. Rabbi Nachum Braverman writes that Jewish wisdom defines marriage as "the commitment a man and a woman make to become one and to pursue together common life goals."

Couples may argue over a stray toothpaste cap, the style of a new couch or whose turn it is to get up with the baby, but no matter how heated these run-ins become, they should never destroy a marriage. Remember this rule of thumb: a marriage that is threatened by where to spend a vacation is a marriage that lacks the bond of common life goals.

Marriages dissolve when two lives are pointed in different directions. Conflicts over the color of a new kitchen can generally be resolved, but conflicts in direction often cannot. Couples rarely break up over clashes in taste, but they do break up over whether to give priority to career or family, over whether or not to have children, over the education of their children and over which religion. These are life goal issues. They are issues every individual needs to carefully consider before inviting someone else to share his or her life. Two people who don't know where they are going should never commit to getting there together.

Once all this is in place – this person has good character, you trust and respect them, and you share common life goals – the “final ingredient” is physical attraction. This does not means Hollywood-style fireworks, but rather a general sense that this person has pleasant physical features. The stronger attraction will grow as it is mixed with the emotional bond that is deepened over time.

For more insights, check out the excellent dating advice columns at: www.aish.com/d/


16 Av

Suicide

My best friend’s brother just committed suicide. My friend is quite inconsolable, both because of his brother’s death and also the tragic circumstances. He is angry at his brother for doing this. Can help put this into perspective for me?
The Aish Rabbi Replies:

The first thing to know is that we don’t “own” our bodies. Our body – and our very life – is a gift, on loan from the Creator. We are entrusted to care for it and nurture it, and do nothing to shorten its lifespan.

Someone who commits suicide is considered a murderer. It matters not whether he kills someone else or himself. His soul is not his to extinguish.

Judaism's opposition to suicide is found in the story of Noah's Ark. After the flood, God says to Noah: “Your blood which belongs to your souls I will demand; from the hand of every beast will I demand it. From the hand of every man; from the hand of every man who is his brother will I demand the life of man” (Genesis 9:5).

The Talmud (Baba Kama 90b) learns from the first part of the verse, "And surely the blood of your lives I will demand," that one may not wound his own body. All the more so, he may not take his own life.

Committing suicide intentionally is a great sin, which causes the person to be cut off from the afterworld. When a person commits suicide, the soul has nowhere to go. It cannot return to the body, because the body is destroyed. And it is not given entrance to the soul world, because its time has not come. This state of limbo is very painful. A person may commit suicide because he wants to escape, but in reality he is getting a far worse situation.

When a Jew commits suicide, he is not permitted a full Jewish burial, and there is even a debate whether shiva (the seven-day mourning period) is observed and whether the Kaddish prayer is said.

In practice today, however, suicide is usually treated as a normal death, since it is assumed that the person was not of sound mind, and cannot be held responsible for his action. But we still see the gravity by which Judaism views suicide.

(sources: Minor Tractate S'machot II; Chatam Sofer - Y.D. 326; “HaElef Lecha Shlomo" by Rabbi Shlomo Kluger - Y.D. 321)



Featured at Aish.com

* Bashert: Jewish Wisdom on Love, Dating & Marriage
* Dear Emuna: The Mother of the Groom’s Partner
* Dark Knight Rises


What do you think of this email?
Help us make these personalized newsletters — and our site — better.
Send us your questions and comments to tellus@aish.com.

Forward this email to a friend.
• You are currently subscribed to The Aish Daily list as alacil@yahoo.com.

• To unsubscribe from this list only, click on the link below:

Unsubscribe me from the Aish Daily

• To modify your subscriptions, change your e-mail, or unsubscribe, go to
click here


Aish.com is the most complete online Jewish resource.
We hope you enjoy receiving this personalized newsletter.

Aish.com
One Western Wall Plaza
PO Box 14149
Jerusalem 91141
Israel

Tel - 972-2-628-5666
Fax - 972-2-627-3172


© 2012 Aish.com

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]
[ Contact Forum Admin ]

Forum timezone: GMT-8
VF Version: 3.00b, ConfDB:
Before posting please read our privacy policy.
VoyForums(tm) is a Free Service from Voyager Info-Systems.
Copyright © 1998-2019 Voyager Info-Systems. All Rights Reserved.