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Leah’s Blog Feb 26 2016

Leah’s Blog     The Golden Calf     February 26, 2016

Growing up Jewish in the 1970’s meant a lot of different things depending on your own personal experience. For me, leaving Yeshiva and going to a public high school in the 10th grade laid at my door a new kind of Jewish kid, hundreds of them for that matter. They were assimilated, or at best they were the “kosher style” kind. For many, their last bond with Judaism happened a few years before at their Bar Mitzvah ceremony. They all had, curiously, a one and the same confession. They remember wearing tuxedos and having cufflinks with their initials and their parents excitedly fluttering around the hall they had hired with the photographer, caterer, entertainers, band, party planner, balloon lady and flower arrangements. The presents were piled up high- especially the envelopes of money. They all forgot what parsha they had to read and barely remembered  how they even read those Hebrew words without the vowels! Or what they meant! It was almost as hard as going to Yizkor on Yom Kippur and attempting to fast.

The laws customs and traditions that all the generations before them held on to by hook or by crook started melting in that fleshpot, quickly dissolving but a new form was emerging out of it.

We were growing up in the Land of Opportunity and the 70’s gave birth to the 80’s. There wasn’t one kid who didn’t know what wholesaling, retailing, deal making, trading and rolling dough was -like their grandparents knew how to haggle and bargain. The parents talked securities and interests. Return yields. It was the Land of good and plenty.

And it became a religion.

I would pivot out of that scene some years later. I hungered for something more, something else. The face value of it exploded when in a Temple sermon one day the Rabbi was passionately speaking about the prohibition of pressing for the end (of the final redemption)”  “לדחוק את הקץin that palatial synagogue of his. The Torah was being carried around in its ornate coat and the tassels glittered, the windows of mosaic colored stained glass glimmered in the sun and peoples outfits blinded in their beauty. Something was wrong. “Is it hot in here or am I crazy?” I wondered. Taking the bull by the horns I moved on to an unsown Land.

Two years after our Aliyah (in 1987) a huge sculptured bull was put out on display on Wall Street. It was meant to signify that the demand exceeds supply. People were just wanting more and more and demand was exceeding supply, no-one really being satiated. That’s part of the bull and bear motion on stocks. It’s a whole new language, a whole new kind of Hebrew but one that you understood. Have you ever seen the inside of a brokerage house or what happens when a stock goes up or down BIG TIME?

Where were you when the World Commerce buildings came crashing down exactly a year after the Tomb of Yosef was destroyed? What did you learn from it?

We are now at the end and it is forbidden to distance the end”להרחיק את הקץ” . I plead with 80% of the Rabbis that have remained there behind the walls of their synagogues. Go Out! Lead reality! Rectify the world by if not bashing your golden Calves, at least share with Israel. Israel needs you now. It is late and it is likened to a person holding the manna for too long. It begins to reek. There is a way to remedy the need for gold and something we demand and need now even if it’s not here right now. The Torah teaches us to give some of it. Give half a shekel if you can.

Shabbat Shalom, Leah

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Leah's Blog

Leah’s Blog Feb 11 2016

Just after the Tomb of Josef became a blackened ruin I returned to it one night.

What once stood as an enchanted familiar meeting place, the courtyard adorned by the old hearty Mulberry tree, cool slabs of marble flooring and then the inner chamber, intimate. Always rushing in reveling in the feeling of it, “Surely Hashem is in this place!” is the way I felt there .But that night I hesitated as the personal ambience was shattered, gone, violated. I hesitated to take even another step past the reeking gravel that lead to the hollow entranceway. I don’t know what was blacker, the night or the place. The front view from the cloister showed a torched outer wall and the roof had been blown off. The paneless windows gave a glimpse in to the piles of decaying garbage on the floor covered in burnt and singed pages of Scripture. The place we came to rest our heads and embrace, cry, pray, sing, speak to the Tzaddik was no longer the gold embroidered parochet but a heap of broken stones.

We were broken stones.

Someone soon after gave a torah in the candlelight there that night about Rabbi Akiva.

He said , “Just like the prophesy of tearing down comes to be, so will the prophesy of building up come true!” “After the destruction of our Holy Temple, Rabbi Akiva, Rabbi Yehoshua, Rabbi Elazar Ben Azarya and Rabban Ben Gamliel went up to Mount Scopus to see the burnt and broken stones of the Temple. They saw a fox coming out of the place of the Holy of holies and began to cry. Only Rabbi Akiva laughed. The other Rabbis looked at him in disbelief . Maybe he was losing his mind? Akiva argued and won teaching them just like there was a prophecy about the Temple being broken, there is also a prophecy that it will come to be rebuilt. Rabbi Akiva was able to see that destruction serves as a foundation for building.

We came home even more committed to making this Land come to life as it says in all prophesies about Israel at the end of days.

The Ark of the Covenant was the most secluded, hidden in the innermost chamber of the Holy of Holies. It was made to hold the broken stone tablets that Hashem created, together with the ones that Moshe Rabbeinu carved. Am Yisrael took this ark to every battle (namely to Jericho but many more), to every major event ( like to Mount Eval right here outside our door). It stood as a reminder that what breaks down – becomes rebuilt. The shattering of the vessels gave birth to the creation of the world. We can’t always understand, but our faith takes us above our logic.

Things are always breaking.

Yet things are also always being built, being blessed.

Especially now. The Jewish presence in the heartland of Israel has more than doubled since that night that broke my heart. Construction is at an all-time high and people are building like no tomorrow. When visitors come and see how it has grown they can only say, “Surely Hashem is in this place.” No power in the world can stop it- and the secret of it is revealed to us in the contents of the Ark of the Covenant.

Shabbat Shalom, Leah

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Leah’s Blog January 29th 2016

Leah’s Blog – Yitro- January 29 2016

My grandmother Alvina had orange eyes and a strong German accent. More than the color of her eyes, it was the twinkle in them that got you going. Probably her most “famous” remark was “You are not G-d’s police!” when we would sit around talking about this one from the family that “married out” or that one that was eating out in a not exactly a kosher pizza place. I’m not saying she condoned assimilation but she certainly didn’t let you feel that you could or should judge or preach. Most of her family was murdered by the Nazis for being Jewish but she came to feel that America was the new Promised Land, a place you had to blend in becoming an ingredient in the vast melting pot. Many Jewish people there came to ask, “Who am I?” “What am I” because of this. And also question “Who is G-d.”

We’ve been trudging through exile for too long. We are tired and want to be comfortable. We want to fit in. The Jewish people that held on for so long to their traditions and Torah throughout the generations are reaching a capstone in leaving yiddishkiet. We made it this far in time and now as redemption MAMASH unfolds before our eyes, at this very same time that the Land miraculously comes back to life like Sleeping Beauty awakening after such a long slumber, we struggle as a people to maintain even the very basic Ten Commandments. Why?

Mount Sinai in our timeline in history is that place somewhere between being freed from the shackles of slavery in a land not ours and becoming a free nation in the only Land G-d intended for us to be. On the timeline today, we are ushering in a new era as more and more people throughout the world have a true knowledge of Hashem, as Rashi explains that “G-d is One” manifests when all peoples will call upon the one G-d of Israel in the end of days. Jewish assimilation rates are on an all- time high yet more and more and more Yitros are finding the Torah and the truth.

Perplexed?

Hashem says to Isaiah in this Haftarah: “Go and tell the people: Hear indeed, but do not understand, see indeed- but do not perceive.” The Prophet asks, “How long!” and Hashem answers, “Until the cities lie waste without inhabitants, houses without men, the Land utterly desolate. Until G-d has sent the people far away, and if even one tenth remain in it, it will be consumed again. But, like a terebinth or an oak whose stump remains when it is felled, so the holy seed will be in the stump.”

There is always a remnant.

In order to take us out of Egypt, something that could not have happened naturally because it was inescapable, the Jewish people had to unite with the concept of Divine Providence. Hashgacha we call it. The more you feel it and connect to it, when you know- He is doing it for me, in every facet of life- from my own life to world events, you see nature overturn. That’s how you leave Egypt. This is why at every opportunity we have we remember and repeat “I am your G-d, Who has taken you out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.” Leaving the spiritual exile of Egypt and the physical exile of outside the Land – we become the masters of ourselves knowing who we are and what we need to do, where we need to be, Knowing G-d.

Israel will have a majority of Jews living in it by the next Sabbatical year.

“I heard G-d’s voice saying, “Whom will I send! Who will go!” “Then I said, Here I am, send me!”

Shabbat Shalom, Leah

 

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Leah's Blog Tu B'shvat

Leah’s Blog Tu Bishvat 2016

Leah’s Blog – Tu B’Shvat January 23 2016

Our earliest neighbors here on Itamar were (and are) organic farmers. Back in those days, for all of us though, regardless of what you did, it was a life removed from amenities, supermarkets, malls and even pavement. So bare, the remoteness of it in its new beginnings enabled you with getting deeply attuned to nature. Walking in the wild woods into the remnant of ancient brambles, over mossy stones, old trunks and branches of wood from who knows when and thorny bushes that scratched, you could hear the mountain silence and even the faintest of sounds far away. As we were striking roots, organic gardens were shooting up in the wind washed hills all around us. Forests were being planted as hundreds and thousands of trees made a home right here on Itamar. The climate even changed.

I recall observing this neighbor of mine’s blackened hands, earth embedded under her fingernails as she seemed to display them proudly like they were exquisite. I pondered this as I too loved the earth but wasn’t a hardwood like her and enjoyed a nice manicure- even if I had to give myself one! There was also the sheep herder who was always covered in mud ….and he smelled! I remembered then the first Aliyah pioneers that left Europe wearing tailored suits and later wore white scarves and thin cotton work clothes wet with sweat as they dried out the swamps. We had it easier. Now tractors replaced hand tools and drip systems took over the worry of the blistering hot sun of July and August. Technology blossomed along with the crops and Israel was pushing its head out of the sand reaching out to countries like Haiti and Darfour, being a light unto the nations, healing and nurturing.

Fast forward ahead and this barren forgotten shire is vibrant with life, the earth here raising a wealth of delicious things like strawberries, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, kale and dill. The grapevines cascade over rocks in Summer in a niagra of luscious clusters of green gems. The gold medal wine is stored in cellars built from the time of Joshua! We have streets now, public parks running with children being raised to value the ideals of ecological and environmental awareness. They are guided by the loving spirit for this earth and specific Torah ethics that apply to this one place in the world- indigenous to the Jewish people.

As much as we have done, Hashem has done it for us.

“But you, oh you mountains of Israel shall shoot forth your branches and yield your fruit for My people. They will soon be coming!” Ezekiel 34.

This is our answer to all of the subjects of today’s current events. THESE are the current events!

As part of the Itamar family tree, I know you would love to get your hands into the earth and some of you have! We have planted trees together and we have planted trees for you. Maybe right now you are on the 17th floor of an office building. Maybe you just had a baby. Maybe you are swamped with clients. Maybe you have to cook for Shabbat! Maybe you are having a manicure. You can be and are part of it. Friends of Itamar has been supporting our farmers and continues to rely on your loving kindness in all Land reclamation projects. Let’s remember our farmers who are holding down the Land for all of us now, especially on Tu B’Shvat this year.

Tu B’Shvat Sameyach!

Shabbat Shalom and Besorot Tovot, Leah

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Leah’s Blog – Jan 15 2016

 

Leah’s Blog     “Bo” January 15, 2016

 

My jetlag is finally ebbing away. It was very redeeming, waking up in the blackest part of pre dawn- 4 AM every morning. Sitting bolt upright there in the dark I asked myself “If not now- when!?” as I made a dive for the koom koom (kettle) fixing hot coffee and soon enough day break flared into an apricot sky dyed glow, spreading slowly like a tide. I was slowly beaming back, morning by morning to that portal to Heaven- here, to the Land of KiTavo right outside our wet and cold window. Bliss.

It is not easy, this schlepping that we do, this coming and going several times a year into the abyss of the diaspora which got me thinking about BO and LECH. The pendulum of coming and going are reoccurring symptoms from time immemorial from Avraham Avinu to this very day. As we progress in our narrative from wandering Jew to Jew come home, the ideal for being a gesher tzar meod (a narrow bridge) between The Land of Israel and the people that are still in diaspora takes on a new urgency as time ticks slowly as usual but things speed up too. The message we bring is BO. “Come with us”. It’s less startling than “Lech Lecha!” There is a comfort about leaving a place together with someone. Like Moshe Rabbeinu, who throughout the whole exodus held Bnei Yisrael’s hand until it was time to go.

On this last trip we had a lot of interesting experiences and realized challenges that can only be discerned on the turf outside the Land, another planet literally. There were Rabbis we met with that said they weren’t READY yet for their congregations to hear about Israel. (yes, you read correctly). There were shules that would not have us at all and cancelled our speaking event at the last minute. (puzzled?) There were Rabbis that looked over our heads and not into our eyes as they didn’t have an answer as to why they forgot to invite us as planned- up the Bima to speak on Shabbat. There was even a Rabbi, white sparkle of light bouncing off his eye tooth who is endorsing the brainchildren of the Oslo Accords , (WTH!), the travesty that murdered most of my friends here. There were also Rabbis who dryly checked off a V in letting us in if at all, not smiling nor connecting on a human level with us even.

If I could, I would embrace any of the congregants of those shules and simply say, “Come!”

But there were also people who we had pleasure to meet and bond with. The AIPAC activists who feel that political activism there also makes a difference. There was a small but so sweet group led by an even sweeter old Rabbi who received us with open arms and wanted to hear the message of where we come from- what it’s like to live on the mountains of Israel. There is the pizza store owner who had taped up pictures of Itamar years ago in his store trying to bring the taste off Israel into his store in Eretz Goshen (Florida actually). We have to mention the clothing gmach lady that lives to send boxes to Israel, and the teddy bear like Tzaddik that has been supplying people out even on the furthest hilltops with Pesach food every year. Our wonderful brother and buddy from the Anusim– we go back 500 years together! Thank You for your networking for us- we have discovered a tidal wave of Spanish speaking people thirsty for knowing Israel. The “bulldozers” I like to call them- a woman whose every free moment is pushing the colorful, vibrant message of Eretz Yisrael come alive in that black and white movie so far behind the times there in that place of shteibels and black garbage bags. There are people there that if it wasn’t for them- we wouldn’t or couldn’t have gotten any of our mission off the ground like the pastor who runs a mitzvah mission collecting people off the streets and letting them have a second chance in life- reaching out close and far- to Israel, one of the first to stand on the mountain beside us way back in 2001.To our old childhood bosom buddy aised in the same playpen who despite being a criminal lawyer and in court every day found the time to actually drive us day and night to every event. Another childhood best friend who took me on nostalgic trips through Brooklyn making me realize where I came from (and appreciate even more where I went to).She infused me with careless laughter and fun times, the remedy for the sometimes very heavy burden of being the first ones to come to a place riddled with trials and tribulations and of course much kedusha that you pay for with never a dull moment, where selflessness is the name of the game as you leave behind puddles of sweat and blood. And of course there were the families that hosted us enthusiastically and generously despite their own burdens of family, parnassa and local tzeddakah projects and there are many- our own Goldsmith cousins in Brooklyn who if it wasn’t for their input- there would be no Friends of Itamar. No words. And of course to all of you, our steady friends and backbone.

To you we say “Go.” You are on track already- Baruch Hashem!

 

Hashem said to Avraham Avinu, “Lech lecha” I will show you. He later says Lech lecha again “Lech el Eretz HaMoriah” Go to the place of the Even Hashtiya– to the cornerstone of the entire world – and Avraham’s tenth and final trial in being asked to give up the thing he waited for most, the promised child. This is the final countdown. He should be paralyzed and frozen but the movement of Avraham going and bringing a burnt offering instead has him moving forward in complete faith into the light of the promise of LIFE for the entire nation of the Jewish people and for the generations through time to this day. In the tenth and final plague in our parsha, the setting in Bo is the blackest of night- but only for those that can’t see. Am Yisrael realizes it can’t be in Mitzrayim anymore. As Pharoh’s heart is made hard in the foreshadowing of the Exodus at that  witching hour as the spell breaks, all idols are bashed. Hashem is saying the ultimate power of life and death is in My hands. The ones that took heed moved on and lived.

All the signs of Mashiach are here today. What’s down is up – what’s up is down. The truth is hidden, chutzpah is flourishing in every facet of life. The wine is gold medal and expensive as it says it will be in the prophets and most of all, Eretz Yisrael is flourishing! You don’t need blood moons to see a sign, please! The month of Shvat is fixed at a hibernal time, really in the dead of winter, yet the life force is hidden and alive and kicking- this is the time to plant trees in the delectable rich earth of this Promised Land! There seems to be a complete hester panim in our day to day reality in Israel – there are knifings, traffic jams, rotten politics, bureaucracy ……..- there is always a flip side. One of the signs of this dichotomy is Hashem’s covered/revealed face in our parsha- in the plagues. The two entities of fire and ice in the form of hail have two opposites working together to shoot down the Egyptians. They come together to proclaim Hashem’s complete control in the chaos- all for one goal- to LET MY PEOPLE GO! But it is hard to see in the black of night sometimes. You can’t even move in it. If you can’t see, you can’t go which is why BO comes into play as you can literally pull someone out.

Hashem says “Come with Me”. He wants you to able to see, hear, feel taste and touch it. In the dark.

Shabbat Shalom, Leah

 

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Leah’s Blog Nov 20th 2015

Leah’s Blog – November 20, 2015

I pulled out our living room windows today. I was right in the middle of the frenzy of this day, like any other Friday – pots simmering on the stove, trays of hot things getting too crispy in the oven, not all the groceries even all put away yet. But I had the urge to see the view more clearly, a luxury only a remnant have, standing  in the bleachers of the great stadium of where all of these portions of the week really happened. We live right here, in view of the lay of the land – The Land. Facing the mountains of the Blessing and the Curse, I always like to tell people “A mountain of course can never be cursed.” Today I hear my own echo and contemplate trying not to spy on it but feast my eyes on it and its blessing.

It is not easy to climb the rungs of the ladder that connects Heaven to this dwelling place below. We that live in the Land never say die, keeping the faith and putting a bold face on. We say the Land is good, very very good. But there are times that there is Hester Panim. Like Yaakov Avinu, we know that there is no letting off easy. It’s hard to climb this ladder because there is no skipping and you need the perfect balance to maintain your grip on it without falling off. If you give it all, you fall off. If you hold back, you loose. Straddling complete chesed and total Judgement, Yaakov achieved the perfect balance. He was Shalem, complete in the combination of both and reached the top of the ladder. Old Chinese folklore teaches that a lack of balance is the cause for all illness.

We are living in miraculous times. Everything that people ever said were impossible are possible and happening right here right now as the Land becomes more and more alive. It was only in my own parent’s time that the bulldozing of the bones of millions of our people into mass graves meant for the world “Where is their G-d now?” Am Yisrael and Eretz Yisrael is in a state (Tartey Mashmah) that has completely gone beyond logical dimensions. We still have so many challenges ahead. This is not a time for indifference or remaining unbothered or unmoved.

Jonathan Pollard is out on Parshat Vayeitzey- how apropos. IMG_7265[1]Yaakov didn’t make it home right away either as he had more “tikkunim” to experience before reaching Shalem and buying it for an everlasting inheritance. So too will Jonathan, but as my mom Z”L used to say, a door is closed in your face and Hashem opens a window!”

Shabbat Shalom, Leah Goldsmith

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Leah’s Blog Oct 23 2015

Leah’s Blog         October 23 2015

I was picking olives when all the winds in the world tried to knock the trees down. IMG_6682[1]

It has been one terror attack after the next, UNESCO and it’s rebranding of Jewish Holy sites here in Israel into Muslim ones (?!!)But the trees remain in place, weathered looking but rooted into the ground. As I write these words right now a “Rabbi” came with a group called “Rabbis for human rights” to side with the jihadists in their rants to destroy the Jewish people, to side with the sitra achra (dark side) against truth and goodness. Instead of coming into our community so distraught by the murdering of its residents, Ari Asherman has decided to come to stand with the murderers on the other side of our fence! He has also come to incite and still up turmoil- the antithesis of someone who should be OHEV SHALOM and RODEF SHALOM. Yes, the winds of insanity blow hard but they cannot uproot a people so connected to their source of vitality as it says “Eytz Chaim Hee Lamachazeekeem Bah!” (The tree of Life for those who hold unto her), as referred to the Torah and the Land of Israel.

The hills are alive here in Israel as Shemitah is over and the real dig in connection to the soil is celebrated. Here on Itamar we are all working together for a goal that is greater than any personal wish – it is a national and global wish in building the Land of Israel with every turn of the spade. Our ideal for an organic green kind to the earth community is a way of life so connected to many of the mitzvoth applied to plants, crops, grain, foods and attitudes to them. The plowing planting sowing and reaping are an integral part of the Torah and as our organic farmers here like to say, “The cucumber doesn’t grow on the shelf of the supermarket! It grows in this beautiful soil our forefathers farmed thousands of years ago- right here!”

A place that may seem so surreal during this time of tremendous anxiety in Israel – of relaxation, like home from home is right under the olive trees. For me, a beautiful sight is an olive tree laden with plum purple and green fruit, plump and decorating the silvery green leaves under the blue sky of Israel. The feeling of bounty poured as the olives are collected into a big bin is personification of the blessing of the Land of Milk and Honey. In order to make oil though it takes a lot of olives- 25 pounds to every liter of oil. We take our olives to the olive press right here on Itamar. First the fruit are crushed into pulp, then the pulp is put under tremendous pressure as the press squeezes out the oil. The olive tree is a symbol of the Jewish people who also are “put through the grind” to come out shining and pure. In Jewish life olive oil was used to light the sacred menorah and to anoint the king and High Priest. It was used as a food sacrifice and as a people our purpose and destiny is to be a light unto the nations. Oil also does not mix and rises to the top always. Our children that adorn the table are compared to “young olive saplings”.

The power and energy of the olive tree is felt in the core of your being, like standing next to an awesome individual. It can sustain on many many months of no rain or care. The oldest olive trees that are thousands of years old stand right here in our valleys. Come and see and feel them! If they could only speak and tell their testimony of how the tribes of Israel would journey to Jerusalem from here for the feasts laden with oil, the finest oil of this Land. The message of the olive tree is that NO POWER ON EARTH can put out the light!

Shabbat Shalom, Leah Goldsmith

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Current Events Leah's Blog

Leah’s Blog – Joseph Is in Flames Again

I woke up this morning to an acrid smell of smoke and fire. The shootings and screams are a nightly occurance- you hear them as the wind blows their echoes but you also learn to screen it out as you learn to screen out tumah. The smoke too is not uncommon- it’s what they love to do- burn.
But they did not by chance choose to burn down Yosef. Yosef is the one who had a dream and his brothers did not believe in that dream. It actually so annoyed them that they conspired to thro…w him in a pit. Later, after his dreams come true and he is collecting his brothers and sustaining them, blessing them- he is the first item on the list of things to do when entering the Land after the Exodus. His bones are layed to rest. Just like no other person is called the Tzaddik but Yosef- no other person’s bones are layed to rest- just Yosef. Yosef is the foundation upon which all is built, the backbone of this Land. The fresh produce, the productive again soil, the supermarkets filled to the brim of KOL TOV (all goodness), the buildings going up at a matrix rate, the high tech and the now oil found in many places in this land. It is a coming together of a mixed multitude of Jews coming and returning in droves to their ancestral Land. In the subconsious mind of the adversary Yosef is attacked time and again in an effort to quell this growth, to burn it down- to stop it. In vain.
The people that live here in these areas of Yosef, In Itamar and her surrounding communities have felt like Yosef when we went looking for our brothers, as Yosef did when he came here and said , “Et Achay Anochi Mivakesh!” when hundreds of our friends were murdered after the first burning down of Yosef in the year of Oslo Peace- 2000. WE call for peace- they call for death and our own brothers shook hands with the devil, turned their backs on us. Major Jewish organizations turned their backs on us when we went to speak and plead because we were not politically correct. When the bones of Yosef were put to rest almost at the very spot he was sold, all the tribes of Israel were collected there and “Shechem Echad al ACHECHA” a new call for unity was established in that place. This is a time we turn to our brothers again- a wake up call AGAIN to ask – please recognize us and our dreams- please help them come true.
Yosef represents perseverance steadfastness, rooted into the groud, unwavering. We will never turn our backs on this place, the heart of Israel. UJA, JNF, WZO- all of you! STOP HIMMING AND HAWING! Stop backing down! There is only one Israel- the only place where there is a Jewish army fighting for Jewish rights! You are all in a temporary place! Stop straddling the fence! redefine your missions! Please- we call to you to stand united as watchmen on the walls!
Shabbat Shalom, Leah Goldsmith

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Leah’s blog October 2nd 2015 – They Kill We Build

They Kill- We Build Sukkot 2015

Again, almost on the yartzeit of our Rabbi, HaRav Binyamin Herling HY”D who was killed on Har Eval on Hoshana Raba after the Tomb of Yosef HaTzaddik was desecrated destroyed and burnt 15 years ago- new beautiful souls were taken last night, murdered in front of the eyes of their 4 little children just outside our community, Itamar. How many déjà vu’s is this for us? We teach and emulate life- the monsters teach death. We teach to love the Land, the torah, Am Yisrael and the people of the world and they teach to hate and to do evil. It is hard to fathom. On the beautiful magical holiday of sukkot when all decorations glitter and the family sits together in that special ambience only Sukkot has, of the fresh new season of Autumn coming in, there are more orphans now that only see a blood stained car and the vision of their parents that will never return to them. Why does this happen we ask. Time and time again. How stupid are we? Can we really trust monsters to drive on our roads? Why open the roads to know such a thing can certainly happen? Just before the chag a family was driving right in the same place when a molotov cocktail was thrown into their car. Why take down the army barricades? To be nice to Abu Mazen? To pacify, to placate? You can’t calm a monster, the monster is a vicious creature that no gesture of good intent will ever satisfy.
There are those naïve kind of people that live in an urban center padded with people and say, “well, why live there? Why live in so dangerous a place? Why endanger all of us? Maybe fold up shop and retreat.” I say to those people that there is no place closer to “home” than this place- right here in the heart of our Land, the place that serves as the foundation stone of Israel, the place that in every direction you look you see and feel time connected from the way past to now as the redemption unfolds. They kill- build. We must overcome and we must have YOU support this. Help us man the lighthouse. Help us build and make it safer, make it better. Tell other people about us. Come and visit in droves. Blast the roads with your coming out to identify with the cause of a Jewish presence in the only Home the Jewish people have. Retreat is not an option as we plow forward to make Hashem’s word come to be. There are times we pray and there are times we act. Today we do both- the torah commands us. Please don’t turn your backs on your brothers and sisters trying to make it ready for you.
Shabbat Shalom    Chag Sameyach     Leah Goldsmith
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Leah’s Blog Yom Kippur Message 2015

Leah’s Blog   September 21, 2015

A story that Reb Shlomo Carlebach once told gave me more mussar than any shiur I had ever been to. I want to share it with you now before Yom HaDin and bless all of our friends with a Chatimah Tova- May you be sealed into the book of Life for a wonderful year of asiyah leshaym shamayim! It should be a great year of wonderful things with besorot tovot and blessing.

There was once a tailor that lived a pretty regular life, ordinarily Jewish tailors in Poland in the late 1800’s weren’t fancy people. He was extremely talented though and somehow a Polish nobleman took the good tailor under his wing. He was given luxurious quarters and mixed with upper echelon having an upgrading most people would be envious of.. Sadly the tailor began to leave the customs of his parents and grand- parents as he stopped going to shule, eating kosher, and keeping mitzvoth. His good fortune caused him to move away into another lifestyle. Slowly slowly, fixing pants for the nobleman went to his head. One day the nobleman went to Paris to bring new fantastic fabrics for making new garments. “Tailor, I bought the most expensive fabulous material- you have to make me the best suit you ever made in your life!”

The tailor worked with the utmost style and graces of his hands and cut sewed basted, the whole time priding himself on how he got to this place in his life, the wonder and sheer pleasure of it! And being able to use such exquisite material! But when his patron put on the new suit he threw it back at the tailor and said ” You dirty Jew! I am going to kill you for ruining my cloth.” He kicked the tailor so hard in his behind out the door and threatened that he if he didn’t bring back a new and perfected suit as soon as possible, he and the whole shtetlyl would surely perish. And he meant it.

Shaking, the tailor didn’t know what to do! He picked up the suit from where his master threw it and ran straight to the Rabbi. ” Rabbi! You have to help me! I have been working for this nobleman, by the way- that’s why you haven’t seen me around- I’ve been very busy! I made the best suit for him and now he wants to kill me!’ The Rabbi rubbed his beard in deep thought looking closely at the suit and was quiet for a long moment looking at the tailor. He then said, “Go home. Cut the suit open on the seams you made and sew the whole thing up with new thread on the same seams. When you go back, I am sure he will be very pleased!” The tailor couldn’t believe his ears. “What do you mean? Then I’m not changing the suit in any way! He’ll kill me!” He shook and cried like a baby.

He did however do what the Rabbi said. He cut open the seams, pulled out the old threads and sewed the pieces back together crying and shaking the whole time. He brought everything back to the nobleman’s house barely able to stand and with his head down, he handed the “new” suit to him. Reluctantly the nobleman put it on and buttoned it up. “Magnificent! What a terrific suit! You really outdid yourself this time!’ and paid him twice as much as he normally would for this labor of love.

The tailor ran like the wind straight to the Rabbi to thank him for saving his life. He begged the Rabbi, “Rabbi! What did I do wrong the first time!”. The holy Rabbi turned to him with a warm smile and said, “Let me tell you something. First of all- we miss you! I hope to see you around more.When you went to work for this man your pride went to your head. You forgot who you are, where you belong and Who gave you this good fortune, Hashem! Arrogance has a terrible smell. Your nobleman couldn’t hack such a retched odor and he had to get out of those clothes fast. When you went back to make the suit the second time,as you worked, you assessed your life as you cried over every stitch. It wasn’t your pride but your tears that made this garment so pleasing to Him.

End of story

Teshuva Tefilla and Tzadakah are the three words on call for this time. It is a time we should be shaking and crying, not in sadness but in realizing what a speck we really are in the scope of things. Today’s culture says we have to prove who we are, and how great we are at what we do. We should be proud of doing good things- if we’re doing them totally for Him. Having a day every year to review, to reassess and then come to a decision on how we need to be in the G-dly realm of our actions is something our whole year rests upon. Baruch Hashem for this day! May this Yom kippur be a kapara for us a time to rid our psyche of false ideas which lead to impulse and doing the wrong thing. May we have a fruitful davening and ask Hashem to fix things and make them pure again. May we always be able to look past our own needs into the needs of others, in realizing our own insignificance and know that and recognize that only Hashem alone grants wealth. Assist others as you want Hashem to assist you!

Shana tova Umetukah! Chatimah tova to all of our dear friends and supporters

Leah Goldsmith