Good Shabbos Email

FOR B’HAALOS’CHA

STINKING HUMILITY

It is difficult to believe that, as recently as a few months ago, people were talking of a drought in the Atlanta area. This past winter was one of the wettest on record, filling all the lakes and streams to the brim. It erased any worries about insufficient water. And the Atlanta area was hardly alone in assuaging fears of rainwater scarcity. Many places around the country and around the world – including Israel – were inundated with deluges of more-than-usual rain during this past winter.

The rains have still not stopped. This spring has also been one of the wettest on record in Georgia, and elsewhere. In an extremely rare occurrence, it has rained in Is… Read More »

FOR NASO

IT’S GOOD TO BE USED

Would you ever loan your car to a stranger? Most people would be extremely reluctant to loan their car even to a good friend…

The rental car business is an interesting one. In this business, their vehicles are essentially loaned, for a fee, to people they do not know. The risk of losing a vehicle worth thousands of dollar is great. At the same time, the business must be lucrative on some level, for they are still at it and going strong on all levels.

Yet, due to the competitive nature, the companies continue to seek ways for greater profits. Until recently, it would be expected of renters to return the vehicle with the tank of gasoline full. Lately, the companies… Read More »

FOR SHAVUOS

THE TORAH’S COVER UP

Not to be judgmental, but some of you, dear friends reading these words, may not have seen the inside of a synagogue for quite a while.

Regardless of the intervals between visits, it would be impossible to imagine that anyone would have forgotten the interior makeup of a typical synagogue. Among its most prominent features would be an ark positioned at the east wall. Seats are characteristically pointed towards the ark, since prayers are recited facing Jerusalem, east of the Western hemisphere.

The ark houses the Torah scroll, Judaism’s holiest object. The synagogue’s ark mirrors, in a way, the Ark created per instruction of the Almighty for the Temple, a… Read More »

FOR B’MIDBAR

COUNTING TO A RAISE

As the days are rapidly heating up, we were compelled to pay attention to our air conditioning problems before it would have become too hot to stand. We called in a repair service earlier this week, and a couple of men showed up at our house to fix the broken unit.

Upon completion, one of the fellows entered the house with the invoice. He looked at me and said: “Are you Jewish, by any chance?”

I could not resist it. I said, with a smile, “what could possibly make you think I am Jewish?... And, by the way, yes, I am Jewish.”

The fellow’s face lit up. He said was from a town in northern Georgia, called Winder, and he had never met… Read More »