TITZAVEH: THE SECRET OF THE POMEGRANATE

by Rabbi Baruch Binyamin Hakohen Melman

In this week's parsha, Titzaveh, The Name is giving instructions asto how the kohanim are to dress when on duty in their role as caretakers ofthe Holy Tabernacle. In a sense, we are all kohanim, being that we are "a kingdom of priests and a holy nation- mamlechet kohanim vegoy qadosh."

Every garment serves a symbolic service or function. The text (Ex 28:2) sets the overall tone and standard for this sacred apparel. Above all, the verse says, the garments for Aaron and his sons should be both dignified and beautiful, "le'chavod u'le'tifaret." And to the degree that the priests are exemplars and role models of the sacred, we are meant to look to them for direction concerning all holy things.

Being that G*d is dressing (addressing) us today, we should ask what subconscious desires is He projecting on to us, as it were, by the clothes He chooses for us? As much as external clothing is said to reveal internal character, then G*d is showing us that we are beautiful inside. And G*d is also showing us that we are also dignified inside. After all, we are made in G*d's image. So we see that how G*d, our true parent, is asking us to dress ourselves, is a reflection of the way that G*d sees Himself. It is not only a statement that we are making about ourselves. It is even more a statement that we are making about G*d! It's about beauty and dignity.

One of the most fascinating of the sacred vestments worn by the High Priestis the robe. On the hem of the robe could be found pomegranates made of colored wool alternating with gold bells. Pomegranates contain within them exactly 613 seeds (I have counted), the number of mitzvot in the Torah. One thing we learn from this is that plain folk imbued with good deeds, though lacking in material wealth, are as precious to G*d, as gold and wealth are precious to people. We could learn from that analogy to reflect on our priorities.

Moreover, the Torah and the multitude of mitzvot within is G*d's special gift. So too, when we encounter another person, one made in the Divine image, we should look out for, be aware of, and show sensitivity to his special gifts, talents and concerns. We do violence to that person's sense of self and well-being by ignoring his individuality and uniqueness.

As every heart is a sacred Temple, so must we knock before we enter, just as the bells alerted G*d to the priest's presence (not that G*d needed it. We did.) History's first doorbell is recorded in marvelous detail by the text, as a prerequisite to a Divine encounter. " And Aaron shall wear this robe when he prepares the Divine service. The sound of the bells shall be heard when he enters the sanctuary and when he goes out, so that he not die (Ex 28:35)."

I can see why one should announce one's coming, but why one's going? In the same way that one defines the borders of a neighbor's sense of privacy by announcing one's entering, so too one is defining the borders by announcing one's leaving. The nature of sacred space (maqom qadosh) is defined by its notion of differentiation, much as the mundane is much noted for its quality of sameness. Indeed the halacha (the Jewish Way) instructs us to actively greet our guests and show them in, as well as accompany them along the way a short while after they leave.

Furthermore, can't G*d see our coming and going? Why would the Kohein Gadol (High Priest) have to announce himself? If we are instructed to show deference and honor to The Name, a being devoid of corporeal form, certainly mere mortals who lack corporeality and yet carry a Divine spark within, are deserving of a modicum of respect and honor, afforded by dint of their special provenance. This is the secret meaning of the pomegranate.

Lastly, what is the significance of the various colors of these woolen pomegranates? They are made of three colors: crimson, sky blue and dark red. These colors symbolize the various times of day- dawn (crimson), daytime(sky blue) and sunset (dark red), the changing colors of the sky as the sun (gold bell) moves across the heavens.

What this is saying to us is that G*d is near to us any time of day. The deepest meaning is that unlike a human king such as Ahasueros, the king of Persia in the upcoming Purim saga, who at his fancy could take your life for seeking him without anappointment, G*d will grant us an audience at any time. Any time of day or night is the right time to call out to G*d for help. To speak to G*d directly, unlike Ahasueros, Esther would not have to fast. To call out to G*d for help we do not risk death. Just the opposite!

The deepest meaning of our parsha is that G*d is our true king, and as sons and daughters of Divine royalty we are worthy to wear garments of blue today, not black, much as the High Priest and Mordecai wore blue in their day. And as we are all descended from "a kingdom of priests and a holynation," we should know that we are all worthy to wear garments of blue, for blue is the color of the sky, the color of the heavens, the color of the thread of the tallit. May our insides, then, be as heavenly as our outsides. And may we reflect G*d's Divine Light wherever we go.

Shabbat Shalom.

© 2000-2009 by Rabbi Baruch Melman

TERUMAH: WHO'S THEM?

by Rabbi Baruch Binyamin Hakohen Melman

Is G*d's holy presence reserved solely for Israel? Or may others who recognize G*d's Oneness and Uniqueness also maintain a connection to Him? Is the manifestation of G*d's Presence, the Shekhina, an exclusive club, or does G*d's love extend to all the righteous among the nations of the world? The answer is subtlely revealed depending on how we read the text.

EXODUS 25:8 says "v'asu li miqdash veShachanti betocham." Chazal, the sages of blessed memory teach that it means, "and they will make for Me a sanctuary and I shall dwell among them." Well it can also be read differently, with very different implications. Instead of reading asu in the third person plural, we can also read it in the second person plural imperative. Thus it can also be read as "and you (plural) will make for me a sanctuary and I shall dwell among them." If the you is plural, i.e., referring to the B'nei Yisrael, the Children of Israel, then the verse can only make sense if the word "them" refers to some other group. But to whom?

Whereas the first reading implies "them" to be the Children of Israel, the second reading implies another recipient of G*d's Indwelling Presence: the Righteous Among the Nations, the Tzadikei Umos HaOlam. This second reading allows us to celebrate a universalistic interpretation of G*d's mission vis a vis the chosen nation of Israel. The sanctuary, eventually to become the Beis HaMiqdash, is to serve as a locus and focus of holiness both for Israel and the world at small (it was once large in the imagination, but no longer/and Israel was once small in the imagination, but no longer).

The Temple offerings served to bring atonement not only to Israel but for all the world as well. This concept is pointedly evidenced by the seventy bullocks offered at the Festival of Sukkoth, the Feast of Tabernacles. Each of the atonement offerings corresponded to each of the proverbial seventy nations of the world, the Shivim Umos HaOlam. It has even been said that had the Romans known how our Holy Temple was for their benefit, they would have never destroyed it. But indeed the concept of a transnational deity was entirely foreign to their way of thinking.

Therefore, when we read about the construction of the mishkan, the holy tabernacle, we should be inspired to reflect upon how revolutionary was the Jewish idea, that the G*d of Israel transcends all borders, all nations, all races and creeds. As the G*d of Israel made His home among Israel, so that His word and message could be spread among all the earth, so too would His Temple, in the words of the prophet Isaiah, one day be a House of Prayer for all the nations - "Ki beisi Beis Tefillah, yikarei lechol he'amim."

Shabbat Shalom

© 2000-2009 by Rabbi Baruch Binyamin Hakohen Melman

These words of Torah are written in the merit of my beloved father, Israel J. Melman, obm, Yisrael Yehoshua ben Harav Ya'aqov Hakohen ben Meir Yisrael Hakohen Melman, z"l.
I was raised in the musar tradition of silence and meditative thoughtfulness, as were my father and grandfather before me, and was born on the first day chol hamoed Sukkos, which is also the yahrzeit of both Rebbe Nachman and the Vilna Gaon.

http://seferchabibi.blogspot.com/2007/07/yahrzeit-of-my-father-27-tammuz.html
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9506EEDC1630F93BA35754C0A9649C8B63

Chabibi stands for CHidushei Baruch Binyamin ben Yisrael Yehoshua
(a chidush, from the word chadash, means a new, original or fresh perspective)
Dedications are available.

MISHPATIM: 24/7

by Rabbi Baruch Binyamin Hakohen Melman

It has been said that the value of the slavery experience of the Jewish people in Egypt, aside from the marked empathy for the stranger and the suffering of others, was to condition the people to a life of service. The word for slave in Hebrew, eved, is exactly the same word as servant. One would think there would be an entirely different word indicating the nuance between involuntary slavery and voluntary service. But in truth we were essentialy redeemed from slavery in Egypt. Redemption is a form of purchase. We transfered our loyalty from the human Pharaoh to the Divine Master of the Universe.

In Mishpatim we declare our willingness to serve G*d who redeemed us from slavery (avdut) and from the House of Bondage (beyt avadim). Na'aseh veNishma. We will do and we will study.
We do not wait to act until we have mastered the study. We act first, in faith in the goodness and the rightness of the request, even prior to fully understanding, knowing and comprehending.

And in which verse in the Torah do we as a people declare our fealty and loyalty to G*d and our willingness to observe the mitzvoth for all time? Exodus 24:7!

It reads: "He took the book of the Covenant and read it aloud to the people. They replied: we will do and obey (na'aseh venishma) all that G*d declared."

Now in every day colloquial English when we want to convey our readiness to be of service on a continual basis, at the drop of a hat, at any time, day or night, we say "24/7"- meaning 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Can you imagine that the same verse which indicates our readiness to "do and obey" would appear exactly at chapter and verse 24/7!

Shabbat Shalom!
Good Shabbos!

© 2000-2009 by Rabbi Baruch Binyamin Hakohen Melman
These words of Torah are written in the merit of my beloved father, Israel J. Melman, obm, Yisrael Yehoshua ben Harav Ya'aqov Hakohen ben Meir Yisrael Hakohen Melman, z"l
I was raised in the musar tradition of silence and meditative thoughtfulness, as were my father and grandfather before me.

I was born on the first day chol hamoed Sukkos, which is also the yahrzeit of both Rebbe Nachman and the Vilna Gaon.

http://seferchabibi.blogspot.com/2007/07/yahrzeit-of-my-father-27-tammuz.html
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9506EEDC1630F93BA35754C0A9649C8B63

Chabibi stands for CHidushei Baruch Binyamin ben Yisrael Yehoshua(a chidush, from the word chadash, means a new, original or fresh perspective)
Dedications are available.

MOURNING A LOST YOUTH

This week's Dvar Torah is dedicated to the blessed memory of my good friend and colleague, Rabbi Aryeh Hirschfield, z"l, of Portland, Oregon, who died last week in Mexico.

by Rabbi Baruch Binyamin HaKohen Melman

How many endless ours we spend before the mirror, examining each new wrinkle, each new gray hair, each new sign of aging. Even as we gaze into the mirror new wrinkles are forming. In fact the very act of looking seems to affect the process, proof positive of the veracity of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle in everyday life, dictating the effect that the act of observation itself has on measurable reality. We are all observed. In fact today when you walk around any large city you are photographed several hundred times a day, without even knowing it consciously. But how does that knowledge on the subconscious level change us?

Even as Pharoah's daughter was pulling out Moses from the river's edge, she herself was being observed. And that very act of observation altered human history and destiny for all time. Peering out from her hidden fastness, Miriam quickly surmised the situation, and offered her mother's much needed services as wet nurse.

So all the while Moses was raised in the Pharaoh's palace, suddenly thrust into history as heir to the the throne of mastery of all the earth's riches, he was privy to a secret history as heir to the spiritual riches of the Abrahamic Covenant. Little Baby Moses floated ensconced in the protective walls of his mini-ark. Indeed, the word "teyva" is used both in Moses' salvation narrative as well as in Noah's (mankind's).

As Noah's epic journey proffered hope for a redeemed mankind, so too was Moses' journey a harbinger of redemption for the Jewish people suffering in the grip of bondage. Just as "teyva" suggests a rudderless vessel, guided solely by Providence, both Noah's and Moses' journeys were determined by a Divinely empowered wisdom.

Moses is found in the rushes. But the wording is curious:
It says: "(Gen2:6) vatiftach vatireyhu et *hayeled* vehinei *naar* bocheh....opening (the box) she saw the boy and behold the youth (naar) began to cry..."

What does this mean? How could Moses be both a child and a youth at one and the sametime? On one level, because of the use of the word "naar" it could suggest not Moses' crying, but that of Ishmael. Ishmael was the first to be called a "naar." Tradition teaches it was Ishmael who was the unnamed youth assigned to help provide hospitality to Abraham's three visitors (Gen 18:7).

More specifically, Ishmael is explicitlyreferenced as the "naar" in the Hagar banishment narrative (Gen 21:14-18). Interestingly, in this same narrative we see similarly the use of both "yeled" and "naar" (child and youth) to describe the same person (he was a naar in age, but still a yeled to his mother), the same juxtaposition as used concerning Moses.

Perhaps Ishmael was looking on from the great beyond. Perhaps it was Ishmael who now was crying, as he was naturally born from an Egyptian woman (Hagar), while Moses was about to be adopted by Pharaoh's daughter. Ishmael is perhaps wondering why *he* wasn't elected by history for this redemptive role?

While *his* life was spared *physically* by the suddenly appearing well of water, it was Moses, rather,who, nurtured by the foresight and awareness of Miriam, who herself is keenly associated with the wellsprings metaphor, was spared spiritually. Birth relates to the physical, as the adoptive relationship relates to the spiritual.

But on an even deeper level, it was Moses perhaps who was weeping; not Moses the child, but Moses the youth (vehinei naar bocheh). Moses the child,*knew* as a child, a pure and rarified existence as a Hebrew. Similarly, the*man* Moses knew a pure Hebraic identity as a Hebrew in his latter years. But throughout his entire youth (naar), his Hebrew identity needed remain hidden. For this his youth was crying. But while even his childhood was spent in hiding so as not to be murdered, his youth phase never allowed for any Hebrew expression whatsoever.

Similarly, our own soul yearns to be Jewish. Lacking any means of outward Jewish expression, it cries out so that we hear its pain. A Jewish soul is meant to find outward expression through its assignation to a Jewish body. Devoid of such expression, it remains in deep pain until we learn to manifest our deepest Jewish soul essence.

By attaching ourselves to the holiness which inheres in the Sabbath, through living a life immersed in the study and fulfillment of the Torah's many layers of precepts and meaning, in short, through becoming Torah, our soul gains the nourishment it needs to fulfill its earthly destiny. And while we may stare long stares in the mirror, longing for a possibly misspent youth, how much worse is a possibly misspent soul!

Shabbat Shalom. Good Shabbos!

© 2000-2009 by Rabbi Baruch Binyamin Hakohen Melman

These words of Torah are written in the merit of my beloved father, Israel J. Melman, obm, Yisrael Yehoshua ben Harav Ya'aqov Hakohen ben Meir Yisrael Hakohen Melman, z"l

I was raised in the musar tradition of silence and meditative thoughtfulness, as were my father and grandfather before me. I was born on the first day chol hamoed Sukkos, which is also the yahrzeit of both Rebbe Nachman and the Vilna Gaon.

http://seferchabibi.blogspot.com/2007/07/yahrzeit-of-my-father-27-tammuz.html
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9506EEDC1630F93BA35754C0A9649C8B63

Chabibi stands for CHidushei Baruch Binyamin ben Yisrael Yehoshua
(a chidush, from the word chadash, means a new, original or fresh perspective)
Dedications are available.

REB SHLOMO ON CHANUKAH

Everybody knows that Hanukkah is really the end of Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Simchas Torah. That means that the High Holidays are all beautiful, but the highest point of them all is on Hanukkah. On Rosh Hashanah, I am in awe before the King of kings. On Yom Kippur, I stand before G-d again and measure myself. Inside I am saying to myself, "I did such and such good deeds and such and such not so good deeds."

But on Hanukkah I stop thinking this way altogether because the deepest question is not how many evil deeds and how many good deeds I have done.The deepest question is "What do I have inside of me?" When the whole story is over, what remains inside of me? How do I feel? Am I closer than I ever was with G-d? Am I in touch with the inside of my soul? Is there any light left in my heart? Where am I?

If after all these questions, I discover that there is still light left inside of me, then I owe it to the world. I must be the one to help bring the Mashiach. I must be the one to open the doors for G-d's Light to shine into the world. However, if after all these questions, I am still left in the dark; If after all these holidays, the world around me is still in the dark, then I must ask myself, "What good was it all?"

On Yom Kippur, G-d forgives us for our mistakes. On Simchas Torah we dance them all off. But that still does not answer the question, "When does G-d fix our hearts? When does G-d take all the hatred and pain from our hearts? When are we healed? When does G-d give us back the holiness of once again being able to see that Light in others and being able to bless them in our own hearts? When do we recognize the light in ourselves and in all of those beautiful people around us?"

The answer my beautiful friends, is on Hanukkah. Hanukkah is the time of the Macabees, descendents of Aaron the High Priest. Aaron's specialty was making peace between people. How can someone make peace between people? Aaron HaCohen had the level of holiness of actually being able to cleanse a person's heart of all hatred and pain.

It was only after that cleansing that they could see the light in others and make peace with the entire world around them. This is a very special blessing he gave to us.Face it. If each time I make a mistake, I feel more bitterness towards others, its only because I feel bitterness towards myself. And with every bit of this bitterness, I become further and further away from my Neshama, and from my own heart.

On Yom Kippur, it may be that G-d fixes my soul. But its on Hanukkah that the Great Light shines into my heart. And so when I stand before a mirror, I see a beautiful person instead of a Shmendrik. So on Hanukkah, my beautiful friends, the lights are burning, even into the darkest hours of the night. And while that light flickers, we are praying, "Master of the World, if it is my mistakes that have kept me in darkness, let this Hanukkah Light shine into all areas of my darkness. Let this Hanukkah Light keep me from ever hating people. Let this Hanukkah Light give me so much holiness that all the darkness of the world can not take away my love for myself and all the beautiful people."

And so I want to bless you and bless myself that this Hanukkah should fix us and its Light should reach the darkest corners of our hearts. And we should all be blessed to realize that when we do kindle a candle, it is G-d's Light we have brought into the world.

You can be the richest man in the world, you can have everything between heaven and earth, you can be in the same room with the one thing you have been looking for, but if there is no light to show you where it is, then you do not have it.Chanukah is the holiday of the inside light, the hidden light, the light which is burning amidst the deepest darkness.

At Chanukah we celebrate the light which gave the Maccabees the strength in the darkest period to believe that they can drive out the Greeks in the Holy Land.You see, my best friends, when we are born, G-d gives us everything, every day G-d gives us everything; only sometimes we turn off the light by our mistakes. Sometines we blow out our own candles, so on Chanukah haShem gives us back the light we need the most.

Chanukah is the holiday when the Talmud says,"Chanukah is a man and his house,"meaning that the whole family has to come together.Because between husband and wife, parents and children, you can stand next to each other for a thousand years and be as far away as two million eternities. Chanukah is the great light when we see each other again; according to the Kabbalistic tradition it is deeper than Yom Kippur. It is the holy of holiest, but not in the temple, in my own house.

We kindle the light by the door to tell the people - the outside people - who have not yet found their own house, who have not yet found their own soul, who have not yet found even their own friend. And we share our light with them.All the hatred in the world is only because people don't see each other. Chanukah is the holiday that we are closest to the Messiah and, gevalt, do we need the world to see us one time! And gevalt, do we need all the Jews one time to see the holiness of being Jewish!

Let it be this year. Amen.

ON FAITH AND THE POWER OF ONE; Chanukah reflections on the Madoff Scandal

by Rabbi Baruch Binyamin Hakohen Melman

The financial world is reeling from the Madoff scandal. Countless individuals and institutions have been hurt, their finances erased, by the actions of one man, who, over decades, abused the trust of relationships and the bonds of community to feed an insatiable materialistic need to fill an empty spiritual void.

True, he was not the only culprit in the financial scandals which plague us today. And individuals of all backgrounds and creeds had some role to play in the current economic morass. But the sheer scale and grandiosity of his malfeasance serves as a lightning rod for many to cast blame on the Jewish people as a group for our collective national pain.

Where did the $50 billion go? Most of it was paid off as monthly dividends to prior investors, to keep feeding the beast. As there was never a single negative month in payouts, hence the allure despite all common sense, over decades and decades not so much could logically remain left over. So no, there was no "Jewish plot" to send $50 billion to Israel, as many hatemongers claim. How absurd.

In fact, many Jewish charitable and educational programs must now shutter their doors as approximately a billion dollars worth of Jewish communal funds have been obliterated by the selfish actions of a single individual. Funds to send teens to Israel -decimated. Loans and grants to help Jewish students attend Jewish study programs- evaporated. Funds to help train Jewish teachers- erased. Not to mention the other $49 billion swindled from trusting individuals and groups of all backgrounds, both Jewish and non-Jewish. Both Jews and gentiles died in the Black Death, when nearly half of Europe's population was wiped out, and yet the Jews were blamed as a whole, the few marked for slaughter as a scapegoat for the agony of the many.

And yet, it is an inexact analogy, as many Jews indeed were involved in the financial meltdown, even as they jointly suffered in the pain and suffering. Jewish tradition understands human nature as a daily tug of war between two competing impulses- that of good and evil wrestling within the souls of each us. Some of us win hands down while some of us are wicked, but most of us fall somewhere in the vast middle. This is human nature, whatever one's racial or national or religious origin or allegiance.

The Madoff scandal is the direct counterpoint to the saintly martyred rabbi and rebbetzin of Mumbai. Where all eyes were focused on the chesed (kindness) and selflessness of a couple devoted to glorifying the Torah's way of life and extolling the values of Judaism, and thus became through their deaths a Kiddush Hashem, a sanctification of God's name, the opposite scenario obtains in the case of the Madoff scandal. In one fell swoop he degraded the glory and majesty of the Jewish people, besmirched the legacy of a unique heritage and brought to new lows the faith and belief in God and His Torah which all Jewish people represent in the eyes of the world.

Whether he was religious or not (which he wasn't), whether he was learned or not (which he wasn't), whether he cared or not for the image of his people and God (which he didn't), he abused the trust placed in him to become an eternal monument to the notion of Chilul Hashem, the degradation of God's name. Our greatest teachers and leaders were murdered in the Holocaust. It will take a full three generations to recover the greatness of the learning, the observance and the ethical sensitivity that was lost. Woe is us. We are today, many of us, but empty vessels, Jewish in name only, compared to those who came before us.

Isaiah teaches that the Jewish people are an or la goyim, a "light unto the nations." The eyes of all are upon us and are watching us, whether we want the scrutiny and attendant judgment or not. It is our eternal burden which we carry as living descendants of the people of God's holy living word- the Torah.

There is much darkness in the world. Our task is to bring light and moral clarity to the world, to chase away the darkness, not to add to it. How can we bring people closer to God when we, His firstborn of the world's believers in His unity, all too often repudiate His teachings? While most people are indeed honest, all it takes is one individual to do enormous damage to our sense of trust and faith, to our sense of communal obligation and of our belief in our spiritual calling.

This Chanukah, as the candles are lit, let each of us reflect on the power of the individual to change the world and to make a difference. Chanukah represents the fight for the values of ethical monotheism- that righteousness and justice and a belief in a God who has a unified standard and high expectations and demands ethical conduct, must triumph over a worldview devoted to ego and vainglory. Chanukah indeed represents the ongoing battle against self-interest, self-aggrandizement and the worship of superficial aesthetic beauty over and against that of the deeper calling for a refinement of moral character.

Multiple gods implies multiple standards, or rather no ethical standards at all. Chanukah represents the lonely battle of the Jewish people, over eons of time, to alone carry the torch of ethical monotheism in a world of chaos and moral darkness, epitomized by the cruelty and immorality of first the Syrian Greeks, then the Romans.

But most of all, the story of Chanukah is about a civil war, a war within. It began with the courage of a single individual, Matisyahu, the father of five courageous sons- the Maccabees, and the movement he ignited, to assert the validity of the Torah against a fellow Jew and his ilk who betrayed both tradition and community. Assimilation into the dominant, misplaced values of world culture was as alluring then as it is now. Let us stand together again to fight the war within each of us. Let us stand together as one to repudiate the selfishness and greed which has the power to debase us as even lower than the animals, and thus to affirm in our own day the values of mutual trust and ethical conduct which has the power to raise us up even higher than the angels themselves. One God. One standard. Let us raise them both high

COPYRIGHT 2008 by Rabbi Baruch Melman

VAYEITZEI: Today I Am Crying for the World

by Rabbi Baruch Binyamin Hakohen Melman


"Vayisa et kolo vayevk. And he (Jacob) raised his voice and wept."

I have shed many tears this week. What has happened to the world? What has happened to our values? What has happened to the respect for human life? I am feeling great psychic pain. All who care for the value of human life join together with me in mourning.

Whether in Valley Stream, Long Island, New York, or in Mumbai, India. Thanksgiving marks the start of the holiday season. These are times when our focus should properly be on being grateful for our blessings and for connecting with our common humanity in a shared appreciation of our common brotherhood, linked as we are by our common father in heaven.The point of giving a gift is to share our love. Instead, how twisted have we become as a nation that a mob in a state of frenzy for a discount should trample to death a poor, innocent soul who was trying to earn a few extra dollars. The mob mentality says "I am innocent. It was his fault that he was in our way. I have been here for hours. I deserve it. I am blameless.

And the terrorist mob that chose on the very same day to burst through the doors mowing down anyone in their path - especially Americans, British and Jews, like the assault in Walmart, they claim innocence, while themselves murdering the innocent. They takea perverted frenzied glee in evening some imagined score of some collective grievance from the past.

I mourn for our lost humanity when such ideas are even expressed, let alone acted upon and even justified. Did the remnant of the Jewish people who perished in the gas chambers and crematoria of Europe during the dark days of the holocaust bomb every city and railroad station and hotel in every city of every country that murdered their brethren? Did they seek revenge even upon those countries that "merely" refused to grant them asylum, to allow in refugees when they were facing certain death? For the last sixty plus years since the end of the war did the surviving Jewish remnant make the lives of every European a living hell, when by the morality of today's world they ought to have had every right to do so?

The answer of course is no. The Jewish people swallowed their grief and moved forward, building a progressive democracy, creating a prosperous and vibrant culture in the face of many wars of extinction. Israel is the first in line to teach agriculture to Africa, to respond to any tragedy around the world- be it an earthquake or tsunami, whether Muslim or Hindu, white or black. It's been said that if the Muslim/Arab world would lay down their arms there would be no war. If Israel were to lay down her arms there would be no Israel.

Humanity is evolving to the point where we see past racial barriers, religious hatreds and historic grievances. Each and every human being shares a common Divine spark which links us together as a part of a seamless, common humanity. But it seems that the more we advance, forces still exist which seek to pull us back down into the gutter of hatred, bigotry and racism. And the world's oldest bigotry, Jew-hatred, proved its undying character by the singling out of the handful of Jews in a country of more than a billion people for prolonged torture and murder.

The Jewish idea of the end times is one of peace, tolerance and universal brotherhood. All righteous, moral, good people of whatever faith are equally loved by God, whether Jewish or not. But there are other religions in the world that insist that only their own kind merits salvation and that all others are doomed to purgatory, whether of this world or the next.

Radical Islam that threatens the world today believes in peace and love - but seemingly only for their own. Random terror, mayhem and violence against the innocent are justifiedby their faith. This is Islam's image in the world today. Of their own making. It is not pretty.

World peace would be instantaneous were each one of us to recognize our common bond, our shared humanity. The spirit of the holidays would last well beyond December were we to say to our neighbor across the street or across the world, "You are my brother. You are my sister. We are all God's children."

It is tempting to look back and nurse old grievances, old grudges. And even satisfying on some level. But only if we look to the future and practice love in the present, can we avoid the darkness of the past. Only when we get up at 4:00 AM not to grab a bargain but to perform an act of kindness, will true peace be surely at hand.

© 2000-2008 by Rabbi Baruch Binyamin Hakohen Melman

These words of Torah are written in the merit of my beloved father, Israel J. Melman, obm, Yisrael Yehoshua ben Harav Ya'aqov Hakohen ben Meir Yisrael Hakohen Melman, z"l

I was raised in the musar tradition of silence and meditative thoughtfulness, as were my father and grandfather before me. I was born on the first day chol hamoed Sukkos, which is also the yahrzeit of both Rebbe Nachman and the Vilna Gaon.

http://seferchabibi.blogspot.com/2007/07/yahrzeit-of-my-father-27-tammuz.html
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9506EEDC1630F93BA35754C0A9649C8B63

Chabibi stands for CHidushei Baruch Binyamin ben Yisrael Yehoshua

(a chidush, from the word chadash, means a new, original or fresh perspective)
Dedications are available.