Lazer Beams

The Garden of Emuna and the Emuna Tattoo

If I had to rate the top five Jewish speakers in the USA, my esteemed and cherished spiritual brother Rabbi Zecharia Wallerstein would be one of them. Here, here's telling a true story that he heard from me. The Rabbi that was teaching in the university is our good friend Rabbi Chaim Feld from Aish in Cleveland. You'll love this:

Appreciating our Aishet Chayil

This coming Shabbat, we should sing "Aishet Chayil" to our wives with much more fervor. We can't show them enough gratitude.

Many women complain to me that their husbands don't appreciate them because they are housewives. That's really inane.

King Solomon spoke about the woman of valor and said (Proverbs 31:10), "And her value greatly exceeds that of pearls." He wasn't kidding...

According to a study released by Salary.com, a Waltham-based firm that studies workplace compensation, if a stay-at-home mom could be compensated in dollars rather than personal satisfaction and unconditional love, she'd rake in a nifty sum of nearly $117,000 a year.

Stop taking her for granted, guys. She deserves tons of gratitude for everything she does. In addition, we have to thank Hashem day and night for giving us our Aishet Chayil. I'd be one big zero without mine.

Everything is Certainly for the Best

One of Rebbe Nachman's most important, yet profoundly simple teachings is the key to emuna, to life itself, and to happiness: since everything comes from Hashem, everything is certainly for the best. The original words in Hebrew are:

Me'achar vehakol me'Ito Yitbarach, Bevadai Shehakol Letova.

Learn these words, and sing along with Menachem Herman and me. Remember this song - it's a lifesaver for difficult times.

Emuna Outreach and the Beams wish you a wonderful Shabbat Mishpotim, which is also Shabbat Mevorchim Adar Aleph, the Shabbat before the new month.

Unsupportive parents

Dear Rabbi,

My name is Sherrie. I live in California, and I became a baalas tshuva last summer, after attending a religious music festival (religious Jewish musicians are the greatest; I'm writing you because one of them told me that you rock!).

My parents are, in short, not particularly supportive of my decision. They think my keeping Shabbos is a waste of a day that could be spent on homework (I'm going into my junior year in high school, just turned seventeen), and that keeping kosher is a hindrance. Now, I have a lot of family issues - we don't have particularly great family dynamics in general. Anyway. So I wanted to ask your advice. Oh wait - I also go to public school and wear a kippah full-time. I got the impression from my musician friend - who's one of your fans - that you're not egalitarian, so I don't know if you like that, but it's what I've chosen to do. 

I've got to go. My mom is yelling at me. Thanks for listening!!

~Sherrie~

Dear Sherrie,

The way to get your folks on your side is to avoid any disrespect, and simply be a model daughter, just sweet, considerate, and loving; that'll be a showstopper! Disrespect to parents is worse than eating treif. Let them see how observant Judaism is simply making you a better person, but under no circumstances should you compromise on Shabbat, Kashrut, modesty, or what you know and believe is right (when in doubt, ask a rav that you trust). Be careful never to lose your temper, and even when your folks get all over your cage, simply grin and bear it - it'll cleanse your soul.

As for the egalitarian business, I'm not going to tell you what to do; if you're really searching for the truth, Hashem will help you get there. Most importantly, talk to Hashem for an hour a day in your own language. Make sure you read The Garden of Emuna too. Judaism without emuna is like a car without an engine - you won't get so far. May Hashem bless you always with all your heart's wishes for the very best, LB

Learning Morals from an Ant

If you see an ant, don't stomp on it; observe the little critter - he's carrying a message from Hashem:

Go to the ant, sluggard; see its ways and become wise. (Proverbs 6:6) [Perek Shira, Chapter 6]

Let's view an example of nature's classroom, the divine wisdom within each creation. Look at an anthill. Ants teach us three main lessons - honesty, faith, and diligence. Observe closely, and you'll see why.

Ants are invertebrates - they don't have a spine. Most invertebrates overheat and dehydrate in full sunlight; therefore, most of their activity above ground level is either in early morning, in late evening, or in full shade. If an ant tells a lie, his peers execute him immediately.

In bright sunlight, we don't see any ants crawling around. If we were to cast a shadow over the mound, a leader ant would peek his head out of the main entrance and walk around freely in the shade. Then, he'd return to the edge of the hole to call his buddies to come outside and join him. Meanwhile, if we were to remove the object that cast the shadow, and the emerging ants would not find shade, they'd kill the leader ant for lying to them. Ants don't tolerate the slightest form of dishonesty.

An ant lives for approximately six months, yet a grain and a half of wheat is sufficient food for its entire lifetime. If we were to dig down to the central warehouses of the anthill, we'd find about three hundred grains per ant. Each ant gathers enough food for two hundred years!

An ant never stops working, because he has faith that The Almighty will grant him a lengthy life. An ant never steals nor covets. The moment he takes a bite from a grain, the grain acquires the unique odor of its owner's saliva. No other ant will dare touch the grain of a comrade. So, by observing ants, we learn about honesty, diligence, and faith.

Shouldn't we demand from ourselves the minimal moral standards of an ant?

Advice for a Duckling

All we want is to live a quiet life of Torah and emuna in the holy Land of Israel. So many people - including the local secular media - seem to want to swallow us alive. Yet, with emuna, we take everything in our stride with a big smile on our face too.

This all reminds me of a pack of hungry wolves who saw a little duckling. Each claimed the poor little thing for their supper, so they began to fight each other in a ferocious melee of blood and fangs. Each clamping on to the other's jugular, until they all dropped dead in a puddle of their own blood. When everything quieted down, the duckling crawled out from his hiding place under the table, and resumed his happy life as normal.

Advice to all ducklings: hide under Hashem's wing; it worked for King David (see Psalm 17:8) and it'll work for us. 

The Ostrich Syndrome

Intelligence gathering and spirituality are amazingly similar. In both areas, there is a right way and a wrong way to draw conclusions and form a plan of subsequent action:

The right way - first, one does as much objective fact-gathering as possible, draws a well-founded conclusion, and acts accordingly.

The wrong way - first, one begins with a preconceived agenda, then discards or ignores any information that disproves the preconception, and acts accordingly.

If a person's pre-conceived agenda includes swindling, cheeseburgers and the neighbor's wife, he'll both discard and ignore Torah. That doesn't mean that the Torah isn't true, Heaven forbid; it means that the person doesn't want to hear. So what does he do? Sticks his head back in the ground...