My sister Polly was the bravest person I’ve ever known. She was born into a world not ready for her and spent all her life trying to figure out her place in it.

Blue eyed and honey blonde, Polly was an adorable little girl. In every family picture, she looks out, pigtailed and smiling. It was a while before she realized that the world was moving a little bit faster than she was and from then on, she struggled, both inwardly and outwardly, to hang on.

Polly never shrank from a challenge, never said “I can’t do that.” She always tried and tried her best and then tried some more. If she were entrusted with a job, she would keep at it no matter what the obstacles. Very proud and protective of her place in the law firm where she worked for 18 years, Polly almost never took a day off – she felt both irreplaceable and at risk. At the end of one morning commute to her job in Manhattan, Polly broke her ankle getting off a bus but made her way to the office anyway. She didn’t want to let her employers down.

The world seen through Polly’s eyes must have been a terrifying place but you would rarely see the sadness that I know dwelled inside her. My sister would always move aside if she saw you coming, not because she didn’t want to interact with you. She was just afraid of being in the way. I think Polly always felt that she was somehow in the way. She tried to make herself invisible because she thought that was what people wanted from her.

The best way to provide for Polly was to ask her what she wanted and do the opposite.

“Do you want more chicken?” “No thank you.” But she really did want a second helping.

“Would you like to go to a movie?” “No thanks.” But she really did want to go to a movie.

“What time should we pick you up to go to Arline & Denny’s Chanukah party?” “Don’t bother, I don’t want to go.”

But she really did want to go, to do something, to be with people, even if she didn’t have the same social skills that others did.

Polly had no vanity and therefore approached the world with honesty, naiveté and a forthright manner. Not caring how you appear to others is emboldening. After 9/11, Polly would approach any police officer or fire fighter on the street and thank them for their service. She did not always get the response she anticipated but it was the only way she knew to approach the world – straight on and hoping for respect in return.

Of course, my sister’s life wasn’t all sadness. In Polly’s world, certain things were important and gave her pleasure. Star Trek gave her pleasure. “Law & Order” and “MASH” were important. Doing needlepoint was a pleasure. Knowing the entire lineage of the kings and queens of England was important. After all, our grandfather was a Londoner and our great-grandfather started the first Yiddish daily in England. Polly’s very name was British. (But people who asked her if she wanted a cracker risked her wrath.)

Which brings me to the subject of humor. Polly did not suffer bad puns lightly. We grew up in a household full of a type of humor, which elicited much laughter from guests but merely groans from us. If you came up short in the humor department, Polly would assume that you got your wit from the Victor Geller humor academy and would dismiss you with a sad shake of her head.

While I’m not sure having Deena, Maury and me for siblings gave her pleasure, but being an aunt and a great-aunt definitely brought Polly both pride and joy. In her way, she was a loving aunt to Avigayil, Rami, Yehuda, Batsheva, Aliza, Akiva, Yael and Shlomo, never forgetting a card and a wish of “Hippo Birdie” at each birthday. When the next generation came along, she said “I was always a great aunt and now I’m a great great aunt.”

Her favorite relative though was always Izzy. When Polly was about nine years old and I was 15, we were stuck together for a shabbos in Bnei Brak with relatives we had never met. I’ve shut the memory of it out of my mind but it must have been some long shabbos because Polly did not speak to me for the next three years. Silence. Not a word. “Please ask my sister to pass the ketchup” silence. And then, one day, I brought Izzy home and instantly regained Polly’s grudging respect. She started to talk to me again and we began to rebuild our relationship.

Of course, the people to whom Polly showed the deepest love and loyalty were the members of the New York Yankees organization. Polly was an expert on the Yankees and their most devoted fan.

This was not an easy path to tread in our family. Before she was married, our mother had season’s tickets to seats behind the dugout at the Polo Grounds and our father, who grew up in the shadow of Yankee Stadium also was a proud NY Giant fan. When Willie Mays and the rest of the team betrayed New York City and moved to California, family loyalties reluctantly shifted to the hapless Mets. All except for Polly. Before there was ever a family photo on her walls, my sister hung a picture of Mickey Mantle. She wore a Yankees cap to work and carried her keys on a Yankee chain. And when she got sick, the Yankees sent her a blue teddy bear – whom she named Yoggi Beara. She kept him with her and held him tight during her last few months.

Throughout her illness, Polly was a brave patient. She did not complain when her vision was compromised or when her hearing diminished. She did everything that was asked for her because she wanted to recover. She never complained, not through surgeries, procedures, blood tests, chemo, radiation, medication. Polly placed her trust in Hashem and always assumed that, like the Yankees, she would make it to the post-season, that things would turn out well.

That’s how I knew that Polly’s illness had run its course. The last time I spoke with her was on Friday morning. I told her about Thursday’s exciting Yankee game. How they hit a record breaking three grand slam home runs and how they came from behind and won 22-7. My little sister said nothing. She didn’t cheer or belittle my surprise at their prowess. She didn’t react at all. If Polly no longer cared about the Yankees, I knew that she was ready to end her long battle with this world and move on to an easier one – one with a place for her.

Speaking about Polly is hard. It is hard because her life was profoundly difficult, because the obstacles she encountered daily were never fully within her control and were never her fault, and because she died far too soon after being born too early. It is hard to think about Polly and not be sad- in many ways because sad is not what Polly did and not how she went about her life. If we were sad for her she was never sad for herself- at least not outwardly- and I think that it is that knowledge- that she has had to overcome more obstacles than we can imagine and yet remained, to the end, optimistic, proud, and completely lacking in self pity- that makes understanding her life and death so difficult for those she’s left behind.

Polly was at bottom a deeply courageous and a profoundly proud person and I don’t think that we can ever know what she thought about the world around her and cards that she was dealt. But we know for a fact that she loved us. We know that we were central to her life in a way that few people could be central to anyone’s life. We, her family, were Polly’s life, and while we may not have not always felt like we were able to give back in equal measure what she was gave to us, (I, for one, am certain that I was unable to do so), we did know that we were loved and that Polly did matter, to us, in a way that was at times a challenge, at times a rebuke, and at all times a fact, as strong and resolute as she was.

Polly took being an aunt very seriously. I think that she took nothing else as seriously as her duties as an aunt, save her love of the Yankees. She remembered all our birthdays and called us every year with a chirpy “hippo birdie”! She never forgot. Not our birthdays, not Jack’s, not Dan’s, not Rose’s, Ryan’s or Wolf’s. She gave us shalach manot every year. This year she had bags for Jack and Dan as well. She was determined to be as great of a great aunt as she was a great regular aunt. I’m sure that if we asked him to, Jack could write an essay in French as to how she was a great great aunt.

Avigayil remembers Polly taking her to Fantasia on Continental and I remember her taking me to see Clue on Austin Street. (I think that in the version we saw everyone had done it.) I don’t think that Polly thought that it was the best movie ever but that didn’t matter. Being with us is what mattered and being a good aunt was paramount. I don’t know when she understood that she would not be having children of her own but she knew and so her role as an aunt would have to make up for some other things that she was not going to have. And no one would ever be able to say that she couldn’t do that. That she couldn’t be a great Aunt. That she could control.

No one could tell her how to love and she was never impaired, limited or otherwise deficient in her abilities to do so. She was, if anything, more capable that others in this regard and we, as her nieces and nephews, became the object of that determination and the means by which she could do something right, do it well, and do it total.

And then she became a great-great aunt. And watching Jack and Daniel and Rose interact with Polly over the past few years has reminded me of how we used to act around her when we were kids. The way they said hello and goodbye to her, running to give her a kiss and a hug, the way Jack would ask her how she was feeling and if she was extent uninformed by the knowledge of her limitations, and the extent of her illness – has been a pleasure to watch.

This is how we used to be, how we understood Polly as children, before we knew more and had less time and lived further away and had found it harder to know what to say, and exactly how to be the nieces and nephews that she believed us to be. She, as an aunt, was a tough act to follow. Jack, Dan, Rose, Ryan and Wolf were another opportunity for Polly to be the aunt that she was so good at being and it is all of our losses that she was not able to be a great great aunt for a new generation.

Polly was in many ways, the family encyclopedia. She did not forget anything, ever. If there was a discussion about what happened when to whom and there were differences of opinions we usually learned to trust that it was Polly who was right. She did not forget. Especially if it involved family. She was right. It falls on Avi to be the family historian now, she seems to know everything about everyone in the family going back to when she was, I think, two years old but not in the same way as Polly and not of course with the same breadth.

I talked to Avigayil last night and we mainly cried and talked about Polly and how wonderful she was to us and how deeply sad this made us feel, sadder than we expected to be, and how profoundly grateful to her we are for what she tried to do in her life and for the effort that she put into what she did. We also have memories, Avigayil, Aliza and I, more than 30 years of memories of Polly, the most indelible of which came in our role as children – as nieces and nephews, of walking over to Saba and Savta’s on shabbos, of reading Peanuts cartoons and doing puzzles and reading Life magazine and being with Polly.

Avi told me that she remembers being in Polly’s room in Forest Hills surrounded by books about the royal family and playing Polly’s 45 of the Beatle’s Yellow Submarine over and over. I still have no idea if that is a good song or not (I am told from time to time that it is in fact an awful song) but it reminds us of Yellowstone Boulevard, of running around Saba and Savta’s house, of Polly, of candy drawers and long seders and afikoman hunts. Seder will not be the same without Polly. Shabbat at my parents will not be the same. The Yellow Submarine will not be the same.

Finally there is baseball. To talk about Polly without talking about her love of baseball and more specifically her love of the Yankees would be a terrible incompletion. Polly and the Yankees. Gehrig, Babe, Di Maggio, Polly.

I was watching the first of episode of Ken Burns’s Baseball the other night when the narrator explained that female baseball fans in the late 1800’s were known as cranklets. Polly was a cranklet. She might have been the biggest Yankees cranklet to ever wear a retro Mickey Mantle jersey. She loved Don Mattingly. She worshiped Mantle. She watched every game that wasn’t on shabbat or yontif. She had every Yankee yearbook from 1971 to 1986.

I consider being a Yankee fan to be a great gift in that I get to root for a local team that isn’t an embarrassment and Polly was one of the biggest reasons that I became a Yankee fan. A few years ago she gave me her baseball card collection. She had every card Topps made from 1977 to 1983, all in mint condition. She would go to the stadium with me or Saba or Abba and watch, while listening to the radio on her Walkman. I don’t think that anything made her happier than being at the stadium.

I also don’t think that anything made her more unhappy than having to listen to John Sterling on the radio. She did not suffer fools gladly and she believed that John Sterling was a fool, and a clown, and refused to listen to the games on the radio. Polly was a hard one to pin down at times but her hatred of John Sterling attested to her seriousness as a Yankee fan and as a general arbiter of good taste.

I grew up watching the Yankees when they were on Channel 11 and I honestly do not remember how many of those games I watched with Polly, listening to Phil Rizzuto and Bill White talk about Piniella and Guidry and Winfield and Mike Pagliarulo, but I feel like there were many, and that she was my cool aunt who had a Snoopy doll in a Yankee uniform who loved the same thing that I loved. I consider my being a Yankee fan as a shared thing, as something that belongs to me, to Polly, and also to Abba. It may not be the most profound thing in the world, but it’s mine, it was hers, and baseball never dies.

We will miss you Polly. We will make sure that you are remembered by us and known and understood by our children, even those yet to come. The extended Geller, Metal, Gorodezter, and Porath families were central to your world and we will make sure that you are a permanent part of ours.

Here’s my response: Dear Mr. Tauber,

I started reading your oped piece in todays JPost and stopped when you wrote that Yerushalayim could fall again. I beg to differ as vociforously as I can. We are only in the Land through HaShem's promises to us. We can see it everyday in the diversity of Jews walking the streets of the Land. The prophesies of our return have come true. One of the promises was the promise of the four galuyot – four exiles: Egypt, Bavel (Babylon), Poras (Persia) and Rome. The Rome exile lasted until the gates opened for Jews to return to the Land beginning in the late 1800's. THERE WILL NOT BE A FIFTH EXILE!

We care for our security and well being more from a place of confidence that this truth brings – that no politician from anywhere, within or without – can bring us down, than from a quaking fear that anyone is more powerful than HaShem's promises.

Until this internalized, we will make it more difficult, but it won't be the catastrophe you envision. Indeed, America, Europe and China have so much more to fear, as they have no protection of promises from Heaven. Even more, their downfall is Divine decree to make room for the world that HaShem intended before Creation. We see it coming more true everyday.

The boldness and courage of Jews speaking this truth, in a gentle, confident manner is our greatest resource. Please consider this and re-examine your vision. If we were only subjects of politics and politicians, we would have been gone long ago. Please write to encourage and give faith and trust and confidence through your words and work, rather than convey unfounded fear based upon a seeming logic that defies our entire 4,000 year existence.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Moshe Pesach Geller
052-733-6791

www.carlebachlegacy.com

Join us in this awesome journey.

Hearing the Bas Kol

Now I want you to know, the whole story between Yosef and his brothers was mamesh from heaven because this was the beginning of us Jewish people going into exile.

I want to tell you something awesome… awesome is not the word.

Here the brothers want to kill Yosef. Let’s assume they were convinced they were right. So it says(Breishis 37:20) ‘let’s throw him in a pit’, and then it says ‘we will see what will happen to his dreams’. So the way it’s translated is that they said it cynically ‘yeah, let’s see what happens to his crazy dreams’.

But the Medrash says (Medrash Breishis Raba 84:14) that a Bas Kol, a voice from heaven said ‘Nireh Ma Yihiyu Chalomosav’, let’s see what happens to his dreams.

Then it says ‘Vayishma Reuven’ (Breishis 37:21), what did Reuven hear? He mamesh heard something and wanted to save Yosef. So the way it is simply learned is that Reuven heard and said ‘ahhh, I got to get him out of the pit’. You know what the Zohar Hakadosh says? The only person who heard this voice was Reuven. ‘Vayishma Reuven’. He heard a voice from heaven saying, we will see what will happen to his dreams. You think it’s the end? It’s the beginning.

He asks his brothers ‘did you hear something?’

They said ‘no’.

So he should say to himself ‘I must be dreaming, I’m crazy. I have to see my therapist, I hear voices’.

Where would Reuven be if he wouldn’t have listened to this voice and want to save Yosef?

I want you to know friends, the prophet Hosea, who is the master on tshuvah, Shuva Yisrael, was the great grandson of Reuven who did tshuvah. Mamesh, awesome.

You see what it is? This is so deep, and yet it sounds so simple. Every person has to realize what they need for the fixing of their own neshama. G-d is not a Yenta who is telling everybody everything about me. G-d is telling me what I have to know for the fixing of my neshama.

please also visit us at: www.carlebachlegacy.com

I bless you with taking on the challenge and have safe, liberating journeying. See you on the Great Day.

Shabbat Shalom, Moish

This is from Rav Sholom Brodt in Jerusalem:

In honor of Reb Shlomo’s yahrtzeit you will find a collection of his teachings on this week’s parsha- Va’yeira.

Reb Shlomo zt”l mammash lived like a child of Avraham Avinu, always doing chessed, always inviting people for Shabbos and Yom Tov, always moving beyond himself. People often think that great people were just born that way. Sure, it’s true that there are great people who are endowed with great talents and what is difficult for most comes easily to them. But all the truly great people had to work very hard; they had to turn themselves inside out and traverse over a deep and frightening abyss. Like Avraham Avinu who was tested with ten awesome trials, every one of us must go through adversity and hardship to actualize our potentials and beyond.

These tests that we must go through may just come upon us, unexpectedly, or they may just be there waiting for us to ‘take the test’. Though we may understand how important it is for us to take the test, or work on it sincerely, we sometimes are just too lazy or scared to proceed, even though we know that we must. I once heard Reb Gedaliah Fleer say that most people prefer to continue living in their misery because they are familiar with it, rather than try to make changes and improvements for the better, since that would require them to enter into unfamiliar territory and realms which they are frankly afraid to approach.

There are people who are very kind, but so long as they are kind because ‘they’ are kind, their kindness has limitations. However, says the Piasetzner Rebbe zt”l, when one gives him/herself completely over to Hashem and wants to be and do kind things because that is what Hashem wants them to do, their kindness reaches way beyond anything they imagined. Avraham Avinu went into the beyond and he got there by submitting his will completely to Hashem’s will. May we all be blessed to grow beyond as we approach each life-test joyously. Amen!

Yehi ratzon mil’fa’necha H’ Elokai, in the merit of the ‘yom ha-hilulah’ of the holy neshamah of our Rebbe ztz”l, that I may have the ‘zchut’ to share with you divrei Torah and stories “from the heart” as our holy Rebbe Reb Shlomo ztz”l learned Torah with us. He would sing and he would cry to Him and to us “for the sake of my brothers, for the sake of my sisters, I will speak now, ‘sholom bach’ peace be in YOU”.

Master of the world, we want to be in You. Bless us to want to be in You sincerely. Hashem help the student to give honor to his Rebbe. Help him not to steal from Your Honor, nor to steal from his Rebbe’s honor. Bless the talmidim to be matzliach “for the sake of my brothers, for the sake of my sisters”.

It has always frustrated me, because to do justice to your questions, require responses truly long. They require explications of context and history. But there is too limit time for truly just responses nor to study them.

There was a time before the Liberation and Unification of the Land in June 1967. There was what created the new circumstances of Liberation and Unification. There was a time when Israel was less than 20 years old. When Israel was small, both in physical size as well as numbers. It is less small than it was. It still is squite small; smaller than New Jersey, with a population smaller than some U.S. cities!

The link is to a recording of the words spoken by Abba Eban at the U.N. Security Council the day after the Six-Day War erupted. It is 40 minutes long. Please give it a serious, close listen, with no distractions allowed. Listen two more times.Think about it. Let me know what conclusions you’ve come to.

http://savethemusic.com/bin/archives.cgi?q=songs&search=title&id=Address+before+the+Security+Council+of+the+United+Nation,+June+6,+1957

Blessings, Moish

Reprinted with permission of Connections Magazine. Copyright (C) 1986 Congregation Kehilat Jacob Hakrev Ushma Division

There is a teaching from the lshbitzer Rebbe Master, lived 175 years ago) that says that a man brought an object from somebody and he thought that it was copper and worth one hundred rubles. And someone stole it from him. Then he discovered it it really was made of gold. They caught the thief, who had sold the object, and asked the Holy Rosh (Rabbinic Authority of his time) how much he had to pay. The Rosh ruled, and I don’t know if all the rabbis agree with him, that he is only the baal bayis (the owner) to as much as he thinks it was worth. Since he thought that it was only copper, and only worth one hundred rubles, the thief has to give him back only double that amount. (In Jewish law. a thief repays double the value of what he stole.)

The Ishbitzer says something very deep. Things belong to you only as much as you think they are worth. So, if a Jew thinks that Yiddishkeit (Judaism) is worth only a little to him, that is how much he is really a Jew. Obviously it is not hard to find out how much something is worth. But, on a deeper level, you really only know how much something is worth after you lose it.

That kind of knowledge, how much something is worth, is so deep, so infinite. because as long as you have it, you only have the object, but suddenly you lose it, and you feel as though you are losing a little part of your heart

I had this thought. Whv is our Mother, Rachel, the one who is bringing us back to Eretz Yisrael? “Rachel is weeping for her children.” Because Rachel was the first Jew who met a Jew who had lost Eretz Yisrael. After Yaacov left Eretz Yisrael, the first Jew he met was Rachel. And the Torah says that when he met Rachel. “He lifted up his voice and cried.” The Midrash says that he cried over the destruction of the Temple. You know what he told her? He taught her how a Jew feels when he misses Eretz Yisrael. Therefore, Rachel is the master of how a Jew feels when he has lost Eretz Yisrael.

To our Fathers, to Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaacov, Eretz Yisrael is given over on the level of receiving it for the first time. To our Holy Mothers, Eretz Yisrael was given on the level of receiving it after it was lost. Our Mother Sarah’s connection to Eretz Yisrael begins when she left this world. An entire parsha (section of the Torah) tells of how Sarah was buried in the Land. Our Holy Mother Sarah made the connection to Eretz Yisrael that even if a Jew dies, and there is nothing left, there should always be the connection to Eretz Yisrael.

Let’s go back to Rachel. Rachel is teaching us the Torah of how a Jew feels when he doesn’t have Eretz Yisrael. Then comes our Holy Mother, Leah. Leah, in the deepest sense, never had Yaacov. To receive something again, after it was lost, that is our Holy Mother Rachel. Leah never dreamt of Eretz Yisrael – she never thought she had any connection to it. And suddenly she had a connection. Rachel and Leah gave each other signs; they each knew what the other was thinking. Leah is teaching us – I didn’t even dream that I had a connection to Eretz Yisrael. I never thought of it.

The most unbelievable thing today is that we are living in a world where young people discover Eretz Yisrael. A whole generation is discovering Eretz Yisrael. and they didn’t even dare think that they had a connection to it.

We are living today in a world in which there is so much interest in Kabbalah. More than ever befor. But, the people who teach it don’t really understand it. The people who want to learn, mean it for real. Kabbalah teaches that basically Judaism has two parts. There is a niglah (revealed) path – keeping Shabbos, fasting on Yom Kippur, learning Torah, doing everything right. Then, there is a nistar (hidden) part; that which is inside. I didn’t keep anything, but somehow I am connected to Yiddishkeit

Our generation comes mostly from parents who, on a revealed level, had no connection to Judaism. All their parents gave to them is this hidden part of Judaism. So, when they come to Judaism, they are looking a little bit for the niglah, but first of all, they are looking for not what they are supposed to do, but what is their connection to it. They are looking for the deepest connection to Judaism.

Let me tell you my favorite story about Mr. Green. In my father’s synagogue there was a young man, Mr. Green, who would come only for Yiskor prayer, (memorial services). As I grew up, on the West Side, every Saturday night I saw him with a different non-Jewish girl on his arm Suddenly, I see Mr. Green is going with the same woman four times, which was unheard of. Then, one Saturday night, I see him alone. I say: “Mr. Green, what’s happening?” He says: “Remember that girl you saw me with the last four times? I want you to know, I really love her. But, I decided not to marry her, because she isn’t Jewish.” I thought to myself, gevalt, if I were Mr. Green I don’t think I would have the strength not to marry her if I loved her. I
said, “Mr. Green, why did you decide not to marry her?” He answered, “I’ll tell you the truth. Basically, I do
nothing for my Judaism. The only thing I do is make Kiddush Friday night, And, if I marry a non-Jewish girl, I
won’t even make Kiddush anymore.”

Now, listen to me. What is Mr. Green’s Kiddush? He doesn’t even know the blessings. He gets a little bit drunk every Friday night. So. what’s so hard for him to give up? But, inside, in the secret place. in the hidden part of him, he doesn’t want to give it up.

Yaacov gave over to Rachel not that Israel belongs to us, but the deep, deep connection, that which cannot be given up.

All the nations of the world, when they are driven out of their country, they look for another country. Why? Because that country belonged to them, but when it’s taken away, they will find another to live in. For us and Eretz Yisrael the connection is so deep. We can be separated from it for 2,000 years, but the connection remains.

Everybody knows that Eretz Yisrael has all kinds of Kedushot (holinesses), First of all, it has Kedushat Aavoth (Holiness of our Ancestors), Avraham, Yitzhak and Yaakov, G-d gave them the land. Then there is the Kedusha of Klal Yisrael, of all Israel. And then, Eretz Yisrael itself is holy, The Midrash says something beautiful. We don’t find Eretz Yisrael mentioned until Avraham Aveinu. There is a teaching from Ray Leibele Eiger. He says, until I meet the girl I love the most, I don’t need a special place. When I meet the girl I love the most, I want a very special place to be in with her. He says, until Avraham, G-d was never so close to anyone to need a special place. But, when Avraham appeared on the scene, then G-d wanted a place where He could speak to Avraham.

I want to say this a little bit differently. Imagine, I have a place that is my favorite place I am not going to show it to anyone. I’ll only show it to the girl I love the most. So, basically, Eretz Yisrael is the Land from which the Ribbono Shel Olam (G-d) doesn’t ever remove His eyes. He showed Avruham Aveinu that place.

Everybody asks, why did G-d forgive us for the sin of the Golden Calf and didn’t He forgive us for the sin of the spies? Imagine, I love a girl very much. She says, “I’m no good.” I can forgive her, I can understand. But, imagine if I show her the place that I love the most and she says that it’s a disgusting place! This I can’t forgive. This means that she is not connected to the depths of my soul. When we said the calf is G-d, G-d forgave us. But, when G-d showed us the place G-d loves the most, and we said it’s no good, that He
can t forgive.

Everybody asks, how could we have performed the Korbon Pesach (sacrifice of the Paschal lamb) in Egypt? We had Korbon Pesach the night G-d took us out of Egypt. But we are not permitted to eat korbon Pesach outside of Jerusalem! There is a Midrash in the holy Zohar. The Torah tells us: “I carried you on eagles’ wings.” The Zohar asks, when did G-d carry us on eagles’ wings? For forty years we shlepped ourselves through the desert! So, the Zohar answers. while we were in Egypt clouds came and picked up every Jew and carried us to Jerusalem, and we ate the Korbon Pesach in Jerusalem. Then. we were brought back. And then, we walked out of Egypt.

I said to my friend that Pesach morning, when you walk to shul and you meet another Jew, and you feel connected to that Jew, probably, last night. when the clouds took you to Jerusalem, you saw that Jew and you were waving to each other through the clouds.

When did Eretz Yisrael receive the kedusha of clal Yisrael? Pesach night. The night of korbon Pesach.
Because, in order to make korban Pesach, you need the inhabitant to be in Eretz Yisrael. This is Pesach night. When all the Jews first came to Eretz Yisrael, that is when Eretz Yisrael received its kedusha as the everlasting home of clal Yisrael.

Avraham Aveinu said to G-d, “How shall I know that I shall inherit the land?” I am always asking on this:
Avraham didn’t inherit the land – his children inherited the land! Avraham should have said to G-d, “How do I know You will give me the land?” not “inherit.” My answer is, Avraham was given Eretz Yisrael on the level of kedushat ha-aretz, the holiness of the land. But, Eretz Yisrael, on the level of clal Yisrael, that Avrahani inherits from us.

Basically, a father doesn’t inherit from his children unless, G-d forbid, his children die in his lifetime.
Everybody knows that Avraham saw the galut. the exile,and saw that Mashiach is coming. All the Jewish children who died in exile, in Auschwitz, all the children who died – Avraham aveinu inherits Eretz Yisrael from them. That is what he meant when he asked, “How can I know that I will inherit the land?”

Avraham asked G-d, “Who will be the last one before Mashiach comes?” G-d answered, “You will be the one.” All those souls who died, giving Eretz Yisrael back to Avraham aveinu, Avraham gives it over to us. The way he gives it to us is: “Go thou from thy land, from thy father’s house.” When I inherit through my zaida (grandfather) I inherit because it belongs to me. But, when it goes back to Avraham, it goes back to “go thou from thy Iand.” Our generation inherits from Avraham. The whole teshuva (return to Judaism) movement began after Auschwitz, after the children gave Eretz Yisrael back to Avraham aveinu, and Avraham gave it back to us. The way he gave it back to
us is “Lech lecha” – (“Go thou out”) – G-d should give us the strength to leave the whole world behind us, and run to Eretz Yisrael.

It is so heartbreaking, it is so clear to me that the people who are in charge of the Israeli government don’t really know what brings people to Israel. The Minister of Tourism showed me a pamphlet they are putting out, a picture of the beach in Tel Aviv. I told him. with all due respect, if a person is looking for girls in bikinis he will go to other places. Do you think any person comes to Eretz Yisrael for that?

Here Avraham Aveinu comes in. In order in be a Jew you need three things. You need light. You need taste. Finally, you need smell. The Midrash says that the world was dark until Avraham aveinu came He is on the level of light: enlightenment. Yitzchok is taste He said: “Make for me good food that I love.” Yitzchok saw that unless you have a taste of Judaism, it won’t last. It is not enough to know it and to do
it. You have to taste it. Yaacov saw even further. “The fragrance of my son is like the fragrance of a field.”
Yaacov brought down to the world the idea that even a Jew who cannot taste Judaism, who is too far away to taste it, can taste it from afar – he can smell it He can smell something holy, the fragrance of Gan Eden.

Avraham is light. Avraham knew that G-d wanted, he knew true Judaism. The generation that inherits from Avraham, our generation, is looking for the deepest depths. It is obvious to me that until we fix the sin of the spies, we shall have trouble in Eretz Yisraet.

How do I know that I really love a person? I have a right to say about every person that he has good parts and bad parts. But, when I love a person the most, I just can’t see anything bad in him. If someone asks about my children, to me, they are completely good.

Why was Yitzchok laughing? When he was born? Most parents, when their baby is born, say: “I like your ears. but your nose could be a little better.” Can vou imagine the way Avraham and Sarah were looking at Yitzchok? Why was Yitzchok an olah temimah. a perfect sacrifice, completely holy? Because his parents looked at him as though he were completely holy.

I want to share a story with you. I once was going to perform a wedding. and a holy hippie was driving me. You don’t ask a hippie if he has a license. What a stupid question to ask, how establishment can you get, right? Still, he drives, and drives and passes all the red lights. Finally, there was a policeman at one corner. So he stopped us and said “You passed so many red lights. Show me your license.” So,
the hippie, let’s call him Moishele, says, “I forgot it at home.” Anyway, I begged the policeman, I said, “I must go to a wedding. This hippie is the brother of the groom Please give him a ticket. I promise he’ll pay. but let us go.” The policeman said “Okay. Park your car somewhere. and don’t come back without a
license.” Then he said to me, “I like you. You’re a good man. I’ll tell you the difference between a rabbi and a policeman. A policeman’s job is to look for the bad in people. A rabbi’s job is to look for the good in people.” That Italian policeman is one of my great rebbes.

We know how much it affects a person if you think that they are good, they are holy. Yitzchok’s parents thought that he was completely good. You can take the greatest speakers in the world and if you think they will stammer, and they know what you think, they probably will. So Yitzchok was laughing because his parents thought he was an olah temimah – perfect. This is true, too, of Eretz Yisrael. G-d looks at it as though it is completely good.

What is so special about Eretz Yisrael? Basicaly, the sky is over all of the world; water is over all of the world. The Torah says: “And G-d saw that it was good.” Where do we connect to that “good?” Obviously. if G-d says it in the Torah, we have to be connected to it.

Eretz Yisrael is the land that, when you are there you are connected to what G-d saw that was good.

You can live in the whtile world, even if it doesn’t look good to you. In Eretz Yisrael, if it doesn’t look good to you, vou cannot be there. The highest revalation of G-d is to see that it is completey good. G-d said to Avraham. I shall show you that it is completely good. “And Leah’s eyes were soft.” Leah is the real, utmost fixing of the Jews. Softness. She was crying so much. The spies were crying for no reason. The beginning of the fixing was Leah. By her crying, she was fixing the sin of the spies. When did G-d tell Moshe that he could not go to Eretz Yisrael? When Moshe said: “Listen to me, you rebellious
ones.” Gevalt. If you see something wrong with Jews, you cannot go to Eretz Yisrael. If you see something wrong with Jews, then you see something wrong with Eretz Yisrael. The spies made something wrong in Moshe, that’s why he saw bad things in Jews. Moshe said to G-d, “A’abra nah ve’areh et ha’aretz hazoth” – “Please let me pass over and see this land.” “A’abra” also means “uber” – fetus. Moshe asked, let me be reborn, make me reborn and I promise I shall see Eretz Yisriel and Jews in a new light.

In order to see Eretz Yisrael in the deepest depth, you have to see the world in the deepest depth, and this is what our generation is all about Our generation wants something completely good. There is a tremendous yearning in the world. The world is tired of good and evil. The world wants to be connected with something which is completely good!

Yitzchok knew that Esau was a little bit bad. But. he thought that blessings are there to make the good parts stronger and, eventually, Esau will have strength to overcome his evil inclinations. But, the truth is, blessings,brachoth, have nothing to do with good or bad. Brachothcome from the world of kulo tov – completely good. When G-d created the world, it was completely good. Amalek
took away this goodness.

I want to say to all of my friends, it’s so special if you can give over to children this kulo tov – completely good. On Simchat Torah we read the parsha where Moshe gives us Eretz Yisrael. Eretz Yisrael has to be completely good. When Jews come to the Holy Wall they don’t overcome their evil. They go back and do whatever bad things they usually do. But, something inside touched them which is completely good Something so holy. Our children need this the most.

Rachel represents the holiness of the end. Rachel teaches us what to do when we lose Eretz Yisrael. Rachel herself goes through the whole thing – she is losing Yaacov. When she gave over the signs to Leah (at her wedding, thus enabing Leah to marry Yaakov instead of her) gevalt was Rachel crying. The holiness of Rachel and Leah – they both built the House of G-d. Rachel teaches us how to respond when we miss something. Leah is different. Yaacov didn’t think he hid any connection with Leah. Suddenly he discovered that he had a connection with her; he discovered a new beginning with her.

I was in a store in Mea Shearim and I discovered a little book. It was dusty so they sold it to me for fifty cents. I am sure it was worth hundreds of dollars. It was called “Midrash Eretz Yisrael. ” It was stolen from me a few days later. Obviously, I didn’t have the privilege of owning it, but I remember the first part. It begins like this: One rabbi says that before G-d created the world, He created Eretz
Yisrael. He stood in Eretz Yisrael and then He created the world. Then somebody else says that before G-d created the world, He created Yerushalayim. And He stood in Yerushalayim when He created the world. Then, somebody else says that before G-d created the world, He built the Holy Temple. And He stood in the holy Temple, and He created the world. And then another says that before G-d created the world, He stood with children. He stood with children, and He created the world. That means that the first thing G-d did was to put into the world something that is completely holy.

We have to bring the message to Eretz Yisrael to the whole world. The world is so hungry to hear something which is completely untouched by evil.

Let me tell you a story. During the Yom Kippur War we were playing in Hadassah Hospital. When a soIdier is wheeled in a wheelchair, you know that something, G-d forbid, is wrong with his feet. When a soldier walks in, you look at his hands. So, I see a soldier walk in, a Sephardic boy, about eighteen years old. In his ordinary life he must have been a very simple boy ! see that, nebech, he has no hands. No arms. During the concert, I don’t know why. I started talking about Avraham aveinu. Suddenly he stops me and says: “Did you ever see Avraham aveinu?” I say: “No, why do you ask?” So he says, “I’ll tell you later in private. “
After the concert he told me he wanted me to know his story. During the war, he and his friend were in the middle of battle, and they had to retreat a little. He suddenly saw that his friend was shot. His friend couldn’t move, but he was still alive. So this boy went back and picked him up, put him on his shoulders. and ran with him. While he was running with his friend, he was shot himself – Both his arms were shot off.
Do you know what he did? He said that even though he didn’t have strength. he kept his friend on his shoulders. Baruch Hashem. he saved his friend’s life. But now, he himself has no arms. He said to me: “I want you to know, Avraham Aveinu sits on my bed every night, all night long.” Avraham Aveinu.

How did this simple boy get so much holiness? Imagine, if I would learn Torah day and night. for two thousand years, I could not reach that level of holiness. I could not. That is Avraham Aveinu’s holiness.
Everybody asks, when G-d spoke to Avraham for the first time, why didn’t He tell him to keep Shabbos, to keep kashrut? Why did He immediately tell him, “Lech lecha – Go thou from thy land, and from thy father’s house … ?” G-d gave over to Avraham Aaveinu what this soldier knew – to leave everything behind you for G-d, for Israel, for somebody else. This awesome holiness comes from the deepest depths, from inside. This is what Avraham Aveinu is all about.

Avraham saw everything until Mashiach. He saw this soldier also. He asked G-d, “How do I know that I shall inherit … ?” How can I inherit the holiness of this soldier?

When Mashiach comes it will be revealed to us how holy our children are. You never know, sometimes you see somebody and you don’t have the faintest idea of how holy they are inside. This is why our generation is so much in touch with the mystical part of the Torah, with the deepest secrets. This generation contains people who, from outside, look like nothing and yet, inside, they are completely holy.

We cannot have redemption unless we are connected to Eretz Yisrael. Eretz Yisrael has to be first, and after that comes redemption, Yaacov met Rachel first, and then he met Leah. But, he married Leah first, and then Rachel. He could not have Rachel until he had Leah first.

Rachel teaches you how terrible it felt to leave Eretz Yisrael for the first time. Leah teaches us how good it feels to return. Together, they both built the House of G-d.

Leona Strassberg Steiner J Street is the only organization that is trying to make real change in the way we see Israel, the way we connect with Israel and the way we can convey to the rest of the world that there are so many people that are unhappy with the shenanigans that are happening over the green line in Israel. Please join and help make… a difference in our life time for a just and sensible peace for everyone in the region. Gmar Hatima Tova!

Moshe Pesach Geller: The assumptions of ‘shenanagins’ is offensive to those who regard for our Divine patrimony as a precious, neccesary gift. Easy for you to give away something that you have no identification with, are 7.000 miles away from and IS NOT YOURS TO GIVE AWAY, and anyway, are impotent to do so.

How you people ‘over there’ see us is only ultimately important only to you. It is how we see ourselves here that counts and J Street has zero influence. Indeed, I would bet that not more 10% of Israelis have ever heard of it. What is relevant to the inexorable flow of Jewish History happens in the Land. As it should be.

Moshe Pesach Geller: Try this on for size: http://www.theothersidevideo.com/ and this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_uk5nx5yyI and this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-_sICgOkMY and finally this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBtFGHKPRHY

Leona Strassberg Steiner: my brother, me thinks you need to do some serious homework and read history books…… religion and politics is the downfall of this world…. our fanaticism and our cousins fanaticism is exactly the same….. I pray for open hearts on all sides every time I light Shabbas candles

Moshe Pesach Geller: Leona, trust me, I’ll challenge you to a history debate on any history of the planet anywhere, anyplace anytime. Religion? I’m a rabbi of the most radical kind, as you know. If religion and politics are the downfall of the world (you’re wrong.It’s people, many who are politicians and religious people, many who are doctors who beat there wives, artists who sleep with their children, and the list is endless.) If not politicians, who will make what you want to have happen, happen? And having lived here, how many people do you think will actually listen to what you say, let alone implement what you think?

In Ofakim, you are irrelevant, unless you’re there to help them feed themselves. In Meah Shearim as all charedi places and as most all Arab villages where honor murders still take place, as a woman, you aare invisible. By the time we gather whatever audience you would have, there wouldn’t be many left. Pretty impotent. So the question becomes, at what point will you look at the truth of the people on all sides who live there.

With the Christian Arabs blaming the Jews for their situation when everyone knows they say it because if they lay the blame at the source, they will suffer even more, the truth is crushed. When Arab women’s voices and talents are stifled in Muslim society, especially Gaza, the truth is crushed. With Yishuvnikim tar and feathered as Chas v’Shalom, I won’t use the words, the truth is crushed. When the Tzahal you were a member of likened to Yimach Shemom from Germany, the truth is crushed. With Hamas laughing at you, they know with the smiles they offer you, the truth is crushed.

With Fatah and Hamas at each other’s throat’s and Nabil Shaath fighting with Saed Ekerat over who should lead the negotiations on Fatah’s side, the truth of ‘partnership’ is crushed. With ignoring that ALL OF JORDAN is Mandatory Palestine and the majority of the population ‘Palestinian’, the truth is crushed. When history is selelctively started 40 years ago or 60 or 100, the truth is crushed.

When our cousins say that there was no Bait HaMikdash and no Jewish historical association with Yerushalayim, the truth is crushed.

You can’t build redemption and peace on lies.

So you guys can shout all you want, tear you hair out all you want and pound your hearts for lack of vessels for HaShem forces us to go through until the real, the ultimate Shalom comes for EVERYONE. For finally, there is no such things as ‘peace’. ‘Peace’ is a bastard English word with no intrinsic meaning of its own.

Ahh..SHALOM! That has meaning and a shoresh that reveals it’s meaning: SHALEM! Whole, complete. Peace is not negotiated by corrupt western white men in suits who have only a temporary poistion of influence anyway.It is beyond all that. And until people give up their KMart discounted version of peace to only hold out for the WHOLE SHEBANG: SHALOM!!! Will Shalom be clear on the horizon.