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: 22:41:06 08/02/12 Thu
Author: t
Subject: fb184


#534 Honor the Person, Not the Money

You should show honor and respect to every person you meet, regardless of whether they are wealthy or poor. The only difference between a wealthy person and a poor person is in the amount of money they have. But both are created in the image of the Almighty, and when we honor people we are ultimately honoring the Creator.

(Raishit Chochmah - Shaar Ha'anavah, ch.2; Rabbi Pliskin's Gateway to Happiness, p.138)


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




14 Av

In 1298, the Jews of Bischofsheim, Germany were massacred by Rindfleisch troops. Rindfleisch was a German knight who was unable to repay a loan to the Jewish community, so he concocted a slander and claimed to have received a mission from heaven to exterminate "the accursed race of the Jews." Rindfleisch stirred up a mob, and his band of his Juden-schachters (Jew-slaughterers) marched through Austria and Germany, from city to city, pillaging, burning, and murdering Jews along the way (except those who accepted Christianity). Within six months, thousands of Jews were murdered (many were burned at the stake) and 146 Jewish communities were decimated. Rabbi Mordechai ben Hillel (1240-1298), author of the Mordechai commentary on Talmud, and his entire family were among those murdered. The Jews of Germany, having repeatedly rebuilt their communities after such attacks, lost heart, and many migrated to the Land of Israel (then under Islamic rule). Rabbi Asher Ben Yechiel, a great sage known as the Rosh, survived the Rindfleisch massacres and moved to Spain. Rindfleisch was later arrested and hanged, and the cities in which Jews had been killed were required to pay fines.



14 Av

His deeds are glory and beauty, and His righteousness remains forever (Psalms 111:3).

The Hebrew phrase, His righteousness remains forever, can also be read as "His tzedakah remains forever."

The Talmud relates that Rabbi Akiva was once collecting funds for a worthy cause. As he approached the home of a regular contributor, he heard him tell his son, "Go to the market and buy leftover vegetables because they are cheaper." Rabbi Akiva then turned away and returned only after most of the needed money had been collected.

"Why did you not come to me first?" the man asked.

Rabbi Akiva told him of the conversation he had overheard, and that he did not wish to impose upon him for a larger donation when he was in financial straits.

"You heard only the communication with my son, but you were not privy to my communication with God," the man said. "When I economize, I do so on my household expenses. The tzedakah remains unchanged."

When budget cuts must be made, everyone has their particular priorities. Some people may cut their tzedakah while retaining the scheduled trade-in for a new-model car. Some people will bargain hard for a reduction in their children's tuition, while they accept other prices without bickering.

The Psalmist tells us that the measure of a person's action is that his or her tzedakah remains forever; i.e. tzedakah is the last budget item to be cut.


Today I shall ...
... rethink my priorities. The values I place on things may be reflected by which items I am willing to do without.

See more books by Rabbi Abraham Twerski at Artscroll.com


14 Av

Fixing the World – Tikkun Olam

I often feel like I’m just spinning my wheels in the daily grind: Get up, shower, eat, go to work, come home, eat, go to sleep. And then do it all over again. Isn’t there more to life? How do I find it?
The Aish Rabbi Replies:

The Talmud asks: Why was Adam created alone? (As opposed to Adam and Eve being created simultaneously.) To teach you that every person is obligated to say, "For my sake alone the world was created." That doesn’t mean the world is mine to consume everything indiscriminately (although God does want us to enjoy the pleasures of this world).

What it does mean is that we must take responsibility for any problem in the world. If you recognize a problem – whether it be a piece of litter on the street or a major social issue that needs adjusting – you shouldn’t just say “someone else will deal with it.” There is nobody else. In God’s eyes, the rule is: You saw it, you fix it.

Consider the following true story:

In the 1980s when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan there was a doctor named Robert Stone who was the head of the trauma medical center at UCLA. Stone said to himself, "I wonder who's providing medical care to the refugees inside Afghanistan?" It turned out that all of the regular medical organizations like Doctors Without Borders were staying away because the Russians were killing any doctors they found. Stone said to himself, "If nobody else is doing anything, then it's my responsibility."

He sold his house in Los Angeles and moved to Pakistan. He trained illiterate Afghani refugees how to be medics – how to extract bullets, splint broken bones, treat the dozen most common diseases, etc. Then he sent them back across the border into Afghanistan. That was the only medical care available in Afghanistan during the entire time the Russians were there.

Imagine the pleasure of being able to look back at that achievement as your own.

We all yearn for immortality – yet how do we achieve that? To set the world record for the 100-meter dash? To build the tallest skyscraper in Manhattan?

Of course not. Immortality is achieved by connecting ourselves to the global body of humanity. To treat the planet as a sacred trust, to preserve for future generations. As the Torah says: God placed Adam in the Garden of Eden – “to work it and to protect it” (Genesis 2:15).

To get started, imagine this: Someone has nominated you for the Nobel Peace Prize for services to mankind. The award carries a prize of 10 million dollars. You are to present yourself to the awards committee and report what you plan to do with the money if you win. What will you tell them?

[ 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.