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have nowadays in fact not only is it a blessing it s an imperative a mitzvah a commandment the chinuch in listing the commandment to be fruitful and multiply explains that having children must be the first commandment in the torah because it s the commandment upon which all others are based how can we fulfill the mission of the torah to bring spirituality and godliness into the world without doing so ourselves in our families with our own children today we consider how many children and whether we have children at all to be an issue of personal choice with the wonders of modern medicine we if we re blessed with the ability can decide when to have children how many children we want to have and now even whether we re going to have children at all yet the torah reminds us that having children isn t so much a biological question as much as a religious one what s my mission here on this earth what do i want to accomplish and can i do more if i m here to make sure that i enjoy myself and have a comfortable life then i ll put off having children or not have them at all but if i understand that my mission in life is be a tzelem elokim to live in god s image and to emulate him to the best of my ability i can only do that by giving to others and we give our best to our children yes having children is hard raising them is even harder but the satisfaction and love and beauty of raising children despite the hardships the costs the difficulties and frustrations are more than worth it they justify our existence in the world while i m writing to all jews i m really writing to you someone who d read the rabbi s message in the jewish news each week you just because you re reading this must be a caring thinking member of the jewish community you must be someone who wants to grow spiritually each week that s why you re reading this column right now don t you think that you can give some of that wonderful energy to another child so have more kids there s no better mitzvah to begin the torah and the new year posted in beraishit detroit jewish news divrei torah 1 reply chag sameach this year it s been challenging posted on october 17 2011 by rspolter 1 sukkot is supposed to be a time of joy after all it s a mitzvah especially on sukkot when we re surrounded by other mitzvot you eat and it s a mitzvah if you re in the sukkah you sleep and it s a mitzvah normally those two only have religious value on shabbat what s not to be happy about and yet i find myself in a funk there s a heaviness that weighs me down always in the back of my mind this morning i figured it out it s about gilad shalit i m not a general but the outcome of freeing hundreds of terrorists can be good even from the perspective that you re bolstering the standing of a terrorist organization who will glorify these murderers and extol others to follow in their footsteps this is clearly an emotional decision not a logical one and one wonders about the cost of making emotional decisions like these moreover i have no blame for gilad s family whose only wish was to see their son return home i understand their pain and their efforts to secure their son s release but i cannot help but feel for the families of the victims of these terrorists every day when i read the news yet another name comes to the fore reminding us of a heinous terrorists whose vicious acts will forever remain etched into our collective consciousness it was bad enough the we had to live through their actions once now we have to set them free and if i feel pain i cannot imagine the pain of the families who lost loved ones during these many acts of murder do they not have a say in these matters we ve been hearing the shalits for years sadly before we made such a momentous decision would it not have been fair to hear the side of the victims of terror at least to allow them to voice their frustrations and anguish before signing off on the deal their pain must be our pain as well i can see the joyous headlines on the news sites about gilad s return but in truth there s nothing to be happy about in this entire ordeal i wish even though i know it won t happen that gilad shalit and his family could return home quietly without fanfare and especially without the certain media circus to follow if only out of a sense of compassion for the people suffering yet again through this ordeal and yet the media must have its fill and with a story like the freeing of gilad shalit the media s hunger cannot be satiated with these thoughts swirling in my head as i sit in my sukkah i m still supposed to be happy a very diffiult task indeed posted in arab israeli conflict life in israel sukkot 1 reply what s under the me arat hamachpelah part 1 posted on october 11 2011 by rspolter 1 noam arnon spokesman for the chevron jewish community as i mentioned in earlier posts i was in chevron last week for a work related conference after the work related portion ended we headed to the me arat hamachpelah for davening and then a tour after we all davened minchah we gathered together for a talk from noam arnon who is the official spokesman for the jewish community of chevron he also writes semi regularly for arutz 7 in hebrew here there he told a somewhat well known story that i had never heard before and answered a question that i had always wondered about what is really under the me arat hamachpelah after the 1967 six day war israeli leaders made the tragic decision to return control of judaism s holiest sites including the temple mount and the cave of the patriarchs to the muslif wakf it s a decision we re still paying for to this very day it so happens that in one of the main halls the hall of yitzchak of the tomb in chevron there s an obvious circular door in the floor one only need lift up the cover and climb down to find out what s there two things stand in the way of climbing down the first is simple fear there s a significant literature of legends promising death or worse to people who violate the sanctity of the final resting place of our forefathers and according to the midrash adam harishon as well the second reason is more practical the arabs refused to allow anyone to do any type of archaeological research in their holy places michal dayan being lowered into the cave moshe dayan then the mister of defense had a thing for israeli antiquities apparently he liked keeping them for himself too or so i ve heard he soon began to regret returning control of me arat hamachpelah to the arabs because they refused to consider the issue of exploring the cave so dayan not to be troubled with simple matters like the opinions of arabs took matters into his own hands his daughter michal then around twelve years old happened to be exceedingly skinny and could slip into the hole through one of the small openings in the door so that the cover could then be returned without the arabs learning what he had done this story is referenced on the machpelah website in hebrew here one evening he told the arabs to get lost for a while back then people listened to moshe dayan and they lowered his daughter into the cave when she reached the ground she found herself along a long narrow passageway she followed the path until she reached a staircase leading up she climbed up the staircase and found a large stone blocking her path she knocked on the stone and soon heard someone knock back that would have freaked me out too she quickly made her way back down the stairs and had herself lifted out of the hole no worse for wear but no secrets revealed yet arnon said what she told them gave the jews of chevron the critical information that they needed to make their own attempt to enter the cave to be continued posted in chevron israel me arat hamachpelah 1 reply the more things change posted on october 9 2011 by rspolter reply the ny times magazine carried a fascinating piece a state is born in palestine on the undercover efforts of zionist interests to sway the opinions of the un special committee on palestine called unscop it s a short piece and a captivating read of how the early zionists embraced the un committe and worked hard to win over sceptical delegates who would write the report that led to the creation of the jewish state it s an important piece for a number of reasons 1 it points to the resourcefulness of the israelis then palestinians who were willing to use whatever tools necessary to promote their cause sure we had to have the guns to fight and defend ourselves afterwards but before we could even fight we needed an internationally recognized state which is exactly what we got 2 it highilghts the critical importance of diplomatic efforts and the need for hasbarah because the world or at least the committeee saw our point of view it was able to write a report that could accept the jews receiving half of palestine and not nothing at all if you think that these efforts are any less important today you re kidding yourself world and us opinion really does matter it matters not only what members of the us government think so join and get active in aipac it also matters what your friends coworkers and classmates think so share that pro israel video on facebook and forward the youtube video every little bit matters 3 it highlights just how foolish the arabs have been and continue to be at times it seems like the only thing that saves us from ourselves is the arabs intrasegience if the arabs had accepted the 48 plan would we control jerusalem today would i have been able to pray at me arat hamachpelah last week what if arafat had accepted israel s offer of 97 percent of the west bank in 2000 at camp david what would have come of the palestinians current un bid if they weren t also still shooting rockets at us and killing our citizens on the roads clearly god works in mysterious ways but sometimes it seems clear that god prefers to operate through our enemies foolishness or to quote the iranian delegate to unscop nasrollah entezam what asses the arabs are the country is so beautiful and it can be developed if they gave it all to the jews they would transform it into europe indeed posted in uncategorized leave a reply the tears of sacrifice and a visit to chevron posted on october 7 2011 by rspolter reply each year during the aseret yemei teshuvah orot where i work coordinates a day for all of the educators which combines meetings speeches etc as well as an israel component this year we had the in service day in kiryat arba chevron it was a very moving experience for me no not the meetings they were fine but chevron during the asert yemei teshuva was very significant i ll explain the sages wove the theme of akeidat yitzchak throughout the entire liturgy of rosh hashanah and yom kippur that single event the willingness of both avraham and yitzchak to make the ultimate sacrifice carried eternal meaning for god and his people avraham built up an eternal unending credit with god that we invoke to this very day mussaf on rosh hashanah makes repeated mention of the akeidah selichot mention the akeidah incessantly in fact there s a special selichah each day dedicated to the akeidah this year i came across a very beautiful quite well know piyyut recited by the sefardim each day called עת שערי רצון whose moving language somehow stirs my soul with the refrain at the end of each verse returning to the theme העוקד הנעקד והמזבח the binder the bound and the altar you can find the words here and numerous musical versions exist on youtube one particularly haunting one is here if you follow the poetry you ll notice four lines of a particular rhyme and then the fifth line ends with a word that ends with the sound aiyach leading to the final line of each verse oked ne ekad v hamizbeach the most moving verse to me is הֵכִין עֲצֵי עוֹלָה בְּאוֹן וָחַיִל וַיַּעֲקֹד יִצְחָק כְּעָקְדוֹ אַיִל וַיְהִי מְאוֹר יוֹמָם בְּעֵינָם לַיִל וַהֲמוֹן דְּמָעָיו נוֹזְלִים בְּחַיִל עַיִן בְּמַר בּוֹכָה וְלֵב שָׂמֵחַ עוֹקֵד וְהַנֶּעְקָד וְהַמִּזְבֵּחַ he prepared the wood of the olah with strength and vigor chayil and he bound yitzchak as he would bind a ram ayil and the light of the day was in their eyes night layil and many tears flowing in force chayil eyes bitterly crying with a joyous heart sameach oked v hane ekad v hamizbeach the last lines haunt me as i think of the bitter tears of sadness and trauma and the simultaneous emotion of joy at fulfilling the will of god and perhaps the interconnection of the two the greatest devotion can only come from that willingness to sacrifice that which we consider most dear i just find the notion of the akeideh very powerful and moving this year god does not ask us to sacrifice our children nor would he it was a once in history request but he does ask us to make different sacrifices in his service some smaller some larger perhaps it s the sacrifice of a new car as the yearly tuition bill makes a new car impossible perhaps it s the sacrifice of career advancement in the face of shmirat shabbat perhaps it s the sacrifice of family career and comfort for the challenge of aliyah but religious life finds its greatest meaning in the mingling and melding of the joyous heart and the tears of sacrifice and then we went to chevron i m sure you ve been there it s often a madhouse and this experience wasn t much different there were numerous school groups some reciting selichot in the middle of the day others singing and dancing but somehow through the noise and din and perhaps because of it i was able to find a level of concentration in my tefillot and tried to connect to the memory and zechut of a forefather so totally dedicated to god that he willingly sacrificed his dreams love hope and future simply because god asked him to that act shaped our collective history it affects us to this day it established a bond between god and his people and a model for us to emulate that continues to drive us all may it also serve as a merit for each of us may it spur us to make the sacrifices that we need to and feel the joy that comes from that act and may the merit of avraham avinu bring us closer to god this year and serve as a source of connection closeness and blessing for klal yisrael gmar chatimah tovah posted in akeidat yitzchak aseret yemei teshuvah leave a reply shabbat shuvah 5772 temimut a critical key to teshuvah posted on october 5 2011 by rspolter reply audio shiur shabbat shuvah 5772 temimut a critical key to teshuvah the grave of avraham yedidyah in chevron a recent tour of chevron and my focus of late on the avot and the akeidah in particular turned my attention to the mitzvah of temimut what does it mean to be tamim how do we achieve this attribute and how can pursuing temimut make us better people and enhance our teshuvah click here to download the shiur or here to navigate to the shiur on yutorah org http www google com reader ui 3523697345 audio player swf audiourl http download yutorah org 2011 1070 764638 shabbat 20shuvah 20 20temimut 20 20a 20critical 20key 20fo...
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