Achim Newsletter
Nitzavim Vayeilech
Thursday September 2, 2010
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Greetings!
I hope everyone is adjusting successfully to the new school year.
We must keep our attention focused on the upcoming holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur as these are days whose impact is profound. The greater the preparation the more favorable the results.
Candle
lighting time for Baltimore
between 6:13 - 7:17 pm
Shabbos concludes 8:23 pm
Roman and Svetlana Yablonovsky express their deep appreciation to the Achim community in general and specifically to those many individuals who participated in the celebration of the marriage and sheva brachos of Ilya and Miriam. The warm friendship of everybody is much appreciated.
Vsego khoroshego,
Paysach Diskind
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Feeling or Being
We currently stand today only six days before Rosh Hashanah,
the day on which HaShem, the Master, the Judge and the Giver of all that we
have and all that we can hope to have, will judge every member of this world as
individuals and as a whole. How do prepare ourselves for this awesome day?
I would think that we certainly must ask ourselves if we
deserve all that is being given to us. And to ask that question we must first
appreciate what is being given to us. We can begin with health and analyze what
the value of a fully operational heart is. We can go through all the systems in
our body from the cardio-vascular to the central nervous system as well our
digestive system. When we consider our senses; our vision, our taste, our smell
and our hearing as well as our sense of touch, we begin to realize that to be
deserving of all these wonderful gifts we ought to be extremely worthy. Just
consider how much a person must pay before owning a Lamborghini. Is this car
worth even a fraction of any of the
abovementioned gifts? As we move on to
our family; whether it is parents or children or both and we consider our
livelihood and home and everything that makes us who we are, we realize that we
are truly not deserving of all that is bestowed upon us.
I believe that no matter how righteous a person may be, very
few people in this universe can be confident that they deserve all that they
receive. We must therefore develop a case for ourselves that will satisfy
HaShem's judgment to render a favorable verdict.
Perhaps we need to ask what it is that He will be looking
for. But in order to answer that question we need to understand why HaShem
consistently gives such incredible gifts when most of the time they are not
fully deserved? (We must not fall in the trap to suggest that HaShem is just a
big forgiving Ded Morozh / Santa Claus who just gives gifts indiscriminately.
For if that was the case, what is the purpose of a day of judgment?)
The answer to the latter is that HaShem wants to give Man
the opportunity to create a relationship with Him. Relationships are built on
appreciation. If there is a sense of appreciation between husband and wife
there will be love and harmony. The moment, Heaven forbid, the appreciation
wanes the bond of love and harmony begins to break down. HaShem therefore
bestowed Man with endless gifts; so many gifts that the more Man studies his
situation the more he realizes how many gifts he was given. The purpose of
these gifts is to give Man cause to appreciate all that is being given and being
done for him so that Man can begin to appreciate HaShem. And so that
consequently Man develops a personal close relationship with his Creator.
If the gifts that are given inspire the recipient to
appreciate his Creator then those gifts served their purpose and we can hope
that he will merit them once again. We can therefore assume that on this Day of
Judgment HaShem will be looking for the purposefulness of all that He bestows
on Man - are they accomplishing their intended goal or not.
Let us return to the question of how we prepare ourselves
for this Day of Judgment. The way we prepare ourselves for this Day of Judgment
is to judge ourselves and see if we are properly appreciating His goodness and
developing our relationship with Him in a positive direction. If we are not
doing so then we should realign ourselves and begin doing so.
The final question that we must ask ourselves is how we
express this relationship. In other words, every relationship has its
respective expression. In an employee/employer relationship it is not enough
that the employer appreciates his employee but there is a responsibility that
comes with the relationship, namely pay his wages in a timely fashion and
perhaps give a bonus to demonstrate appreciation. In a husband/wife relationship
it is not sufficient that he adores her and loves her in his heart, he must
tell her so and perhaps bring home flowers from time to time and make sure he
gives her the due attention that the relationship demands of him.
So what is the expression and expectation of our
relationship with HaShem?
As we will read this week's Parsha, Nitzavim-Vayeilech, the
answer to this critical question is addressed. Moshe in his final hours tells
his beloved people, "See, I have placed
before you today the life and the good, and the death and the evil, that which
I command you today, to love HaShem, to walk in His ways, to observe His
commandments... then you will live and you will multiply..."
As much as we do appreciate and even love HaShem for all
that He gives us and all that He does for us we must nevertheless express it
through the medium that He expects from us.
Every Jew is on their unique level of relationship and the
respective expression needs to be commensurate to that relationship. So while
one person's relationship requires them to keep 100% kosher, another person's
relationship requires only abstaining from shellfish and yet another person's
relationship requires that only on Shabbos they should abstain from shellfish.
At the end of the day, every person must find their level of expression to
properly develop their relationship with HaShem.
Have a wonderful Shabbos and successful preparations for
Rosh Hashanah.
Paysach Diskind
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Noteworthy links
Yom Kippur Service From Kol Nidre throught Shofar blowing
Parsha Summary by Rabbi Osher Baddiel in English and Russian
Penetrating Russian insight to the Parsha by Shvut Ami
Programs from which you and others can learn and grow
Etz Chaim Center offering Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur programs
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Хасидская притча
Сказано: Правда сквозь землю прорастет.
Люди хоронят правду, а она
прорастает десятками ростков из одного зерна
р. Менахем-Мендл из Коцка
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