The fall is here. The sun is no longer burning hot in the middle of the sky; it is soft, caressing, nourishing the soul. The kind of sun you enjoy with your heart and mind as well as with your body. Now, as I write these lines, I look up to the ceiling of my apartment, and through the windows in the ceiling I see the sky is grey. Some people become sad when the fall arrives, but to me it's such an auspicious time. It is the feeling of home, an invitation to stay indoors, reflect inwards, lie on the sofa, read a good, thought-provoking book with a good cup of tea in my hand. Nice, quiet classic or jazz music in the background are the perfect match for this picture. I had a chance to do just that yesterday. I sometimes feel guilty when I read literature that is secular, that is not Torah-related, but I find that when I do, I learn a lot about myself, about human-relations, about life and life-perception, and about G-d. Even non-religious authors have perception of the spiritual realm, and it is so interesting to find reference to this in their books. I don't indulge in prose books so often, but when I do, it's such a delight.
We've finished reading a whole one-year cycle of the Torah, and this coming Shabbat we will start reading the whole Torah (and parts of the Prophets as well) from the beginning again. I recently started reading a book about the Book of Genesis called "The Beginning of Wisdom", by Leon Kass. I try to read one chapter of it every Shabbat. The author is a "secular" professor in Chicago, but when you read his words, you see that he does have faith. Still, for religious people, some of his ideas are totally foreign, but in others you can find a lot of taste. We'll see if I can finish the book or not. I tried once and stopped, but I hope to be able to read it through this time.
WhatsApp is such an amazing application. It can literally change the world. I was slow to join it, refusing to be part of the social-media revolution, but I realize now it is such a potent tool - you can use it to do harm, or you can use it to do good in the world, and if you choose the latter, you can really transform the world and people's lives in it. It can be a convenient tool to care for the weak in society (posting messaged on their behalf asking for any kind of help, etc.), it can be a convenient tool for organizing charitable projects. It's really amazing.
One more use of it that I find blissful is the fact that you can get recordings of Torah classes. So as I do my morning walk, I listen these days to recorded classes about the whole Bible - all the Prophets, and Scriptures. It is so enriching, and I feel it clarifies things for me, historically and otherwise. I feel like I would like to listen to the whole series of classes, and when I'm done, to do it all over again, and again and again, until I remember everything that was said there. The Rabbi that sends these class recordings is teaching in a Yeshivah (Torah school) in the Golan, he is very educated and it is a delight listening to him. I feel like I know so much now about Ezekiel, Jeremiah and Hosea. The next book I'll start listening to next week is Joel (I joined the WhatsApp group after they finished Isaiah, but I will listen to it too sometime).
I'm delighted to say that I finished writing my first book. Well, not really a 'book', more like a 'booklet', but it has the blueprint in it for me to expand it into a full-length book sometime, if I wish to do so. It is an essay about Israel and the fulfillment of the prophecies in our times and through history. It is in Hebrew and meant for secular Israeli audience, mostly university students like I used to be. I hope to open their eyes to what I found out in my life, without them having to do all the world-wide journey that I did to find the truth. I felt an amazing back-wind when I did this, plus, it seems like a HUGE wave of return to G-d washes all over the country, even those who are born to secular families. It feels like in every family, G-d "planted" one person who returns to His Torah and affects the rest of the family in this direction. But a lot of effort is being done by people, and I feel compelled from within to do something like this too. It kind of burned inside me, and I finished writing it in two days. Now I just have to proof-read and design it, and then print it. I have to figure out how to do that so that it should look like a book and not like a bunch of A4 pages. We'll see.
I just heard on a radio show here that a few good months ago, the Israeli military Intelligence warned Australia of a planned terrorist attempt to bomb a passenger jet. Thanks to that warning, the Australians were able to arrest the terrorists before they boarded the plane. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks said something very true: Whatever curse the world throws at Israel, Israel finds a way of translating it into a blessing for the world. This is just one such example. Israel, who suffered great losses because of the curse of terrorism, is now a blessing to the world in that it helps the world protect itself against this very same curse. In this week's Portion, G-d promises Abraham that in him will all the nations of the world be blessed, and the same promise was given to Jacob as well later on. We merit to see in our days how these prophecies are being fulfilled.
In relation to what I wrote above, the Prophet portion (Haftorah) we read about the people of Israel this week is from Isaiah 42: "Thus saith God the LORD, He that created the heavens, and stretched them forth, He that spread forth the earth and that which cometh out of it, He that giveth breath unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein:I the LORD have called thee in righteousness, and have taken hold of thy hand, and kept thee, and set thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the nations;To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison-house."
To open blind eyes I try.
Shabbat Shalom
No comments:
Post a Comment