G-dDirectTorah
by Rebbetzin Devorah Yaffa Singer
http://g-ddirecttorah.com/
G-ddirecttorah is easy, fingertip access to multiple resources, including: seminars, audio links with inspiring shiurim and uplifting musical selections. Videos and inspiring articles. They all share one aim: to build a community of Jewish women who are dedicated to developing a more palpable and personal relationship with the Creator. It is in the merit of the righteous women, the Midrash tells us, that the Geula will unfold.
**This was recently circulated on a group by one of the mothers of the kedoshim that was niftar in Meron
BS"D
YESHIVA SHEL MAALAH
In Heaven great fire is roaring. Angels sway, and sages hold hands and
dance,
"Amar Reb Akiva, Amar Reb Akiva..."
Where is the king of the night, the great sage Rebi Shimon bar Yochai?
He leaves the circle, he is shaking shuddering...
Whoosh! At the entrance to Heaven, a clamour.
Neshamos start to fly inside:
A yeshiva bachur
A singer from Monsey
A chassan
Two little brothers
A young father
Another young father
A grandfather
A 14-year-old boy and his 9-year-old brother..
The fire sputters, the song dies.
Reb Shimon rushes over and embraces the neshamos.
They blink in the light. They look at one another. Disoriented, confused,
bewildered, but filled with an immeasurable light.
"Come with me, come says Reb Shimon.
"Us?"
"Yes, you, Yerushalmi, Litvak, grandfather,
Gerrer, Skverer, Mizrachi, Sfardi.."
They follow him, looking down, down, beyond the haze and the clouds where a
huge crowd is stranded on a bleeding mountaintop.
"Why us?" It is the nine-year-old.
But they know, each one of them; they've accomplished their goals. They
feel light, whole, they can see the completion of their individual tafkids.
Slowly, the fire comes to light again. They take hands again, the Chafetz
Chaim and the Berdichever and Avraham Avinu and David Hamelech and Avrohom
Daniel Ambon and Moshe Bergman and Yonoson Chevroni and Yedidyia Chiyuis
and Eliahu Cohen and Yossi Cohen and Simcha Bunim Diskind and Chen Doron
and Moshe Mordechai and Yosef Dovid Elchad-Sharf and Yehoshua and Moshe
Natan Englander and Mordcha Yoel Fekete and Yedidya Asher Fogel and Elazar
Gefner and Shragi Gestetner and Daniel Morris and Eliezar Mordechai
Goldberg and Yosef Greenbaum and Eliezer Tzvi Joseph and Nachman Kirshbaum
and Shmuel Zvi Klagsbald and Menachem Knoblowitz and Eliezer Yitzchok
Koltai and David Krause and Shlomo Zalman Leibowitz and Yosef Yehuda Levi
and Yishai Me'ulam and Moshe Levy and Yosef Mastorov and Shimon Matlon and
Chaim Rock and Yehuda Leib Rubin and Chaim Ozer Seller and Moshe Ben Shalom
and Elkana Shila and Chanoch Solod and Dov Steinmetz and Yaakov Elchanan
Strakovsky and Yosef Amram Tauber and Ariel Tzadik and Moshe Tzarfati and
Menachem Asher Zeckbach.
All of them dance together.
Light, unity, joy.
Even as they dance, these newly-arrived neshamos, even as their rise to the
greatest heights, they see all the way down to those who don't understand.
Those who are pained, who stumble, who don't know why or what.
Those who still keep themselves distant from their brothers, those who
stray.
"Amar Reb Akiva, Amar Reb Akiva the neshamos sing, and slowly a halting
melody replaces the age-old song. A song just 10 years old, composed by one
among them "Chamol chamol chamol al amecha, racheim, racheim, racheim al
nachlasecha, chisa na krov rachmecha.."
We have goodness and gladness and light, but have mercy on your children
down below
"Chaneinu vaneinu...
Written by Shira Rand, Jerusalem
The heaviness and sadness of this past week hit each and every one of us, hard.
Last Friday, I tried to maintain normalcy for my young children at home. As the images flooded my phone, fathers, sons, and brothers taken before their time, tiny angels who could have been mine- I lost all composure and wept. There are no words, only tear stained tefillos for our grieving brothers and those still clinging onto life.
When the news broke, I received messages from friends, “What is Hashem telling us? What did we do to deserve this? Covid brought out the best and worst of us, it must mean we didn’t learn our lesson!’ I nodded my head in agreement, then had a sudden deja vu of one day last year when covid first hit. I heard a viral message from a well meaning anonymous Rav, more or less explaining the reason for the pandemic. Certain trends amongst the Jewish people that sparked competition, jealousy and disrespect for Torah could very well be part of why G-d turned the world over its head. It was comforting to have some tangible problem to fix. Yet, by the end of the speech, I had a pit in my stomach. I felt torn down, defeated and angry at myself and fellow Jews for failing each other. For messing up again.
It was at that moment, I understood what misplaced guilt was. A destructive force, leaving us guilty, terrified and robbed of our day to day spiritual victories, big and small. Here we are again, one year later- trying to make sense of this insanity, to understand what went wrong. We play the blame game. Blame the cops. Blame the crowds. Blame our judgmental neighbors. Blame ourselves for judging the neighbors. Reasons give closure, answers give comfort- Hashem is good, so let’s find an external source to pin our confusion and outrage. But in our deepest of hearts, we know there are no answers. That we didn’t cause this. That in this world, we will never know. We daven, we beg, we try- but there are no guarantees.
Will you honestly look back at the past year and tell yourself, you have not grown? That Klal Yisroel blew it again? The amount of revealed and hidden Chessed, Torah, Tzedaka, Tefillah, Shmiras Haloshon, and Kabbalos taken on in the battle against Covid was UNFOUNDED. We came together as a nation, humbled and scared, and together built a mountain of greatness. From life saving volunteer medical intervention, to small packages of hope delivered anonymously to families in quarantine, to a struggling teenager’s dedication to learning on zoom-each heartfelt story is a precious jewel on Hashem’s throne. And the stories don’t end.
Was there Lashon hara? Judgement? Division? Slips in our Emunah? Certainly. The Satan is a well trained professional, lurking in the shadows of our weakest moments. There is always what to work on. But self reflection is meant to be personal. Find something to take on as a Zechus because you are growing, because you are WONDERFUL, because you love your fellow Jew - not because you aren’t good enough or because Hashem is wagging His proverbial finger in rebuke. I’d like to imagine that our triumphs, pain and beauty far outweigh our imperfections on Hashem’s grand scale.
The mere fact that we are broken, shaken, and pained every time we lose members of our own is testimony to who we really are. And yet, we don’t wallow- we spring into action, using every part of our G-d given bodies for a higher purpose.
Let me share a few small things I saw from my little soapbox, far removed (physically) from the center of the tragedy.
I saw feet, one minute dancing joyously at Kever Rashbi, the next- rushing to a Meis Mitzvah of someone they never knew, R’L. I saw tired eyes, searching mountains and hospitals long through the night for their missing brothers. I saw hundreds of hands, pumping hearts, refusing to give up on life-while tens of thousands across the globe, stopped, clutching their siddurim to pray. I saw lips moving with desperate tefillos for the sick, missing and injured among us. I saw multiple tehillim groups, 500 personal kaballos taken on and thousands of dollars raised in half an hour to sponsor Kollel Chatzos as a zechus for ONE single choleh. I saw social media, with all its challenges- used for tremendous acts of round the clock chesed and tefilah.
I saw the tireless work of Zaka, Misaskim, Mada, Hatzallah and every other agency whose volunteers have not slept in days. I saw hundreds open their homes, organize Levayos, arrange meals, financial support and logistics for the affected families. I saw secular Jews in Tel Aviv turned away from blood drives since too many had shown up for one day. I saw Chabad put aside heartbreak as they went neighborhood to neighborhood, determined to continue Lag Baomer celebrations for small children who needn’t know of such pain.
I saw a weeping, wheelchair bound father held and comforted by another grieving father, whose young son perished together with his own. I saw families of the niftarim and cholim, accepting Hashem’s will, promising to stay strong and offering the world chizuk amidst their unspeakable pain. I watched broken survivors of the crush return to the rubble with songs of Tefillah and renewed hope. This is the unbreakable soul of our nation.
I am crying in pain for these beautiful neshamos and their loved ones, now left with a void that can’t be filled. I am crying because of how broken we are, and because I know that deep within the brokenness is where our strongest, brightest beauty shines. When left raw and drunk in pain, we transcend our human imperfections with a greater clarity and sense of purpose. Stripped of our G-d given jealousy, anger and pettiness for which we needn’t be ashamed-we can be there for one another with pure, unadulterated love. This is the real Am Yisroel, a nation whose heart beats and bleeds as one- with Hashem crying by our side.
We move towards Har Sinai, feeling humble, small and bare. We carry with us the lessons of Sefira, growing pains of a G-dly nation whose work never stops. Hashem is telling us something as we make our way out of this darkness, into the light of His holy Torah. Perhaps this year we can sit a little taller. We are not lowly and undeserving. Hashem is beaming with pride as He screams from the heavens at the world “MI K’AMCHA YISROEL?” Who is like you, my beautiful, caring nation, who stops at nothing to help one another, who seeks to do what's right?
If only we could see our own sweetness, that our little Har Sinai, not very tall, not very wide- is a magnificent mountain, adorned with colorful flowers and sparkling jewels, whispering the story of Maaminim Bnei Maaminim who will never, ever give up hope.