The Jewish Link

Yes, folks, despite conventional wisdom, I think you absolutely SHOULD press your luck.  Now, I don’t mean you should go running through traffic on a busy street during a blackout wearing a scuba suit, or that you should pick a fight with some angry bikers at a highway rest stop because you didn’t like how one of them was looking at you, or that you should ask for seconds of Cousin Rosie’s world-famous gefilte fish blintzes.  I said press your luck – not do something crazy.

Judaism doesn’t believe in luck.  We have Mazel.  Mazel, for the uninitiated, is not Hebrew for luck.  Mazel means planet, and refers to the effect the placement of various planets and stars in the Heavens at the time of one’s birth have on each of us.  I know; you figured that astrology was all hocus pocus and was just made up by the tabloids to give us something to read next to the comics, but it’s not.

True astrology has its roots in the fact that everything in the Universe was created by HaShem, so it all works together.  The Creator instilled in His great machine the fact that certain things cause other things to happen.  I can’t tell you why someone’s sign or natal chart affects them, but the really good astrologers can tell you how.

To me, it makes no difference if someone is a Leprechaun with a Son on Jupiter, or if they’re a Cancer with a Bad Moon rising.  The bottom line is, the Universe was created with interconnecting aspects, and Mazel is one way G-d affects people’s lives.

Everyone knows “Mazel Adar Dagim,” the Zodiacal sign for the Hebrew month Adar is Pisces, the fish.  The Jewish People are compared to fish, and Adar is known to be “our month,” when we believe we will be more successful in court battles, business dealings, and other undertakings. You know who else knew that?  Pharaoh.  Yes, when Moshe went to Pharaoh all those thousands of years ago, Pharaoh thought that his time was about to come because Chodesh Nisan was just around the corner.

According to the Aruch HaShulchan (OC 429) He figured Moshe had been able to subdue him with Makkos because the Egyptian’s god, the sheep, wasn’t at full power.  When Nisan arrived though, the month of the Zodiacal sign t’leh, or sheep (Aries for those who understand it), Pharaoh was sure he would be victorious.  He had to be; it was time for his Mazel!

HaShem turned the tables on Pharaoh by saying, “HaChodesh HaZeh Lachem,” this is your month, and telling Moshe and Aharon that the Mazel of Nisan would work for the Jews just like Mazel Adar.  In fact, this wasn’t the first time HaShem had done something like that.

Avraham Avinu told HaShem that he had seen in the stars that he was not destined to bear children.  HaShem told him, “Don’t believe everything you read,” then manipulated Jupiter, moved things around, and presto! Avram becomes Avraham and fathers the Jewish People.  Though the basic structure and rules are there, nothing is set in stone when it comes to Klal Yisrael.

The Midrash says, “Everyone and everything needs mazel, even the Sefer Torah in the Ark.”  The simple understanding of this is that there are often numerous Sifrei Torah in a shul, but not all of them are “lucky” enough to be read from regularly.  It was that phrase that struck me as I reached for a chumash one day in shul.

As I stretched my hand out to the neatly arranged row of seforim, deciding which one I would take, I thought about the mazel they each needed to be the chosen one.  I ended up picking the one that was slightly forward of the rest of the row, noting it would be the easiest one to take off the shelf.  And that’s when it hit me.

Yes, you may need Mazel to find success, but you can “press your luck,” meaning to shove it aside or otherwise move or nudge it, and find ways to help your mazel.  This chumash was easily accessible so I chose it.  When we want to be picked for a promotion at work, invited for a meal on Shabbos, or chosen as a partner for a project, we have to make sure we’re visible and that we’re the easiest choice to make, one that the decider will find gratifying.

It’s been said that MaZeL is an acronym for Makom – place, Zman – time, and Lashon – speech.  If you can be in the right place at the right time and say the right thing, that’s mazel.  Well, you may not know what the right time is, but if you put yourself in the right place, when the time comes you’ll already be there!

If you want to become wise, the place to be is surrounded by wise people, Talmidei Chachomim who usually know what to say, and what not to say.  That will help your mazel because you’ll learn the power of the tongue, the L of mazel, the final piece of the puzzle.

And, my friends, the time has come.  We’re in the month of Nisan now, when HaShem told us that we’d overcome the standard-issue mazel by following His rules.  When we make ourselves more accessible, put ourselves in the right environment, and open ourselves to the possibilities of the Universe like the chumash or the sefer Torah in the Aron, we may find ourselves being picked for greatness we had no idea about.  We may find goodness and “mazel” chasing after us.  Yes, by manipulating our place in space, we can cheat destiny in a way that no one else can.

So go ahead and press your luck, but please, take my advice on the blintzes.

By: Rabbi Jonathan Gewirtz

Jonathan Gewirtz is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in publications around the world.  He also operates JewishSpeechWriter.com, where you can order a custom-made speech for your next special occasion.

For more information, or to sign up for his weekly Dvar Torah in English, e-mail info@JewishSpeechWriter.com and put Subscribe in the subject.

© 2013 by Jonathan Gewirtz. All rights reserved.

We of course know that our redemption from the bondage of Egypt occurred in the month of Nisan, but we also have been told by the Midrash that our future redemption will also come in the month of Nisan. So whenever Nisan comes along, we wait in breathless anticipation for our redemption, for the coming of Moshi’ach. It seems only fitting, then, that we should study about the future redemption, hoping that this will be the year when we will be redeemed and see the gathering of the Jewish people in Eretz Yisrael.

In fact, the Great Maharal of Prague likened the history of the Jewish People—itself reflected by the days of the holiday of Pesach—to a tunnel that leads from a light at one end—the brilliant age that began with the Exodus from Egypt and the Giving of the Torah, to the conquest of Eretz Yisrael and the building of the Temples in Jerusalem, ending with the destruction of the Second Temple—to a light at the other end, the light of the future redemption shines. This is the Messianic Age and the great era of Revelation of the coming period, when all of humankind will be redeemed along with the Jewish People, who will lead them.

That tunnel in between—a tunnel in which we have been living in for some 2000 years—could be divided into three areas, three periods: the first is the area of the tunnel just after the Destruction of the Second Temple. There was still light coming in from Am Yisrael’s earlier glorious period, some 1500 years long, during which the Jewish People created a great civilization based on Spirituality, Humanity and Law. Then the tunnel becomes dark, as the Jewish people was besieged and persecuted across the civilized world. In spite of its great thinkers and leaders of spirit, the Jewish nation suffered and endured a precarious existence. But now we come to the third part of the tunnel: a part in which we sense the light ahead of us, coming from a future period that will be filled with greater light and greater spirituality and G-dliness than we or the world has ever known.

Thinking about and studying that future Redemption is useful for two reasons: First, it prepares us for the great upheavals that will accompany the coming of Moshi’ach, so that we will not be overwhelmed and swept away by the great historical forces the coming of Moshi’ach will unleash. But second, the act of studying Torah and thinking about the future redemption in terms of Torah teachings and values actually hastens the coming redemption. We have been taught that G-d created the world in accordance with the “blueprint” that is contained in the Torah—more than that, the blueprint for all Creation is the substance of the Torah—and even that is only a small portion of the Divine mentality that is contained in the Torah. So is it any wonder that all of history unfolds in accordance with what is contained in the Torah.

Many people are hesitant to even think about Moshi’ach, because they are fearful of the great changes and upheavals that will characterize the Messianic Age, even if those changes will be positive and better. Some of that anxiety is due to the sorry examples we have had to endure in which a single monarch or a ruling class wields power over people’s and nations’ destinies. In our modern world, we have grown to become suspicious and anxious about great power being invested in a single individual or a single group—and who could blame us?

We have become more comfortable with authority being shared by the largest possible group of people, and that has given rise to the modern positive attitude toward democracy as a desirable—or, as Churchill put it, the least objectionable form of government. And even if authority would be invested in a single individual, we may wonder why that individual must be a monarch—why not a sage, a scholar, a teacher who will offer wisdom and advice that we can accept or not accept? Why must the future Redeemer be a solitary king?

Yet, that is how the Navi, the Prophet Yeshayahu describes the Moshi’ach, the future redeemer: a single individual who will rule by a sense of majesty and will be accepted as ruler by all of humanity. The last days of Pesach is a time filled with the light and energy of the future redeemer—we, in fact, read the section of Yeshayahu, Chapter 11, as the Haftorah portion in Shul on the last day of Pesach for this reason.

In the beginning of Chapter 11, the Yeshayahu Hanavi describes the Moshi’ach as a descendant of the House of Yishai, the House of David—a man of great wisdom and, more importantly, with a power of Prophecy that is nearly as great as Moshe Rabeinu’s—nearly, but not equal, for the Torah tells us that no prophet can exceed Moshe, and thus no one can change or revise the Torah that we received through Moshe at Sinai.

Yet the question remains, why does this require a king; why can’t this wonderful state of affairs be the work of a teacher, or a group of teachers and leaders, or of a representative government? But to understand this, we have to understand the Torah concept of a king. While a king is a teacher, lovingly guiding his people in the ways of righteousness and justice, he is a monarch who rules by virtue of the sense of the majesty he projects. That majesty comes from his unique connection to the highest reaches of understanding of the hidden aspects, the light concealed in the depths of the Torah.

In our world, leaders have become nothing more than managers who “open the store in the morning, close it at night, and watch the cash register.” But Moshi’ach will be much more than a manager, a clerk—even more than a rabbi or a teacher: he will also be a fount of inspired insight into the reality of G-d’s creation of the universe and how that reality heals and inspires the human spirit—how it gives rise to a world ruled by justice and compassion instead of greed and power.

The gap that will exist between the Moshi’ach’s understanding of the deepest secrets of Existence, Creation and the Divine Will is going to be so great, that it will be beyond the grasp of nearly everyone he touches and reaches. Make no mistake, the Melech HaMoshi’ach will have to pass the most rigorous test and meet the incredibly high standards of the greatest minds and the most sensitive and wise people of spirit—yet even they will fall short of matching his level of understanding. Even they will have to accept his teachings and his instruction—his rule—on faith. No one will be able to learn what he has discovered in the usual, plodding way we learn things from a textbook or a teacher. (Sorry, there’ll be no “For Dummies” title in this to help us.) Moshi’ach will inspire the world with his teachings and with his insighst into the deepest mysteries of creation. Yes, we will accept the teachings of Moshi’ach and be his loyal subjects as a matter of faith, because we will none of us be able to fathom every detail of what he has discovered in his explorations of the higher reaches of Existence and the majestic spheres of the Divine.

But this sort of soul does not happen by accident or come out of nothing. It arises out of the generations of people who have studied and observed Torah—and especially the ceremonies of the Seder on the first days of Pesach—for centuries and centuries. Whether we do it in the most correct way—mehadrin min ha’mehadrin: “to the most exacting standards of observance”—or in an approximate way only clumsily following the rules of Passover, millions of Jews all over the world will sit down and eat Matzah and dip herbs in salt water at the Seder, as they have done for centuries.

That’s the connection between the first days of Pesach and the last days. Jews for thousands of years have steadfastly and stubbornly observed the Passover Seder—in the dark cellars of Spain during the Inquisition; in corners of concentration camps during the Holocaust, and while ridiculed in America for our “quaint customs” by so-called sophisticated moderns. From that stubborn, persistent performance of the Seder on the first nights of Pesach, will arise the faith of the Jewish People to be loyal subjects of the Moshi’ach—and the special soul of the Moshi’ach that will, speedily in our day, redeem us all on the last days of Pesach.

 By: Rabbi Reuven Wolf

Rabbi Reuven Wolf is a world renown educator and lecturer who has
devoted his life to reaching out to Jews of all ages and circumstances and
rekindling their spirit of Judaism. Raised in the Ropschitzer Chassidic dynasty, he was educated in the Belz and Bluzhev Yeshivos, and later in the
celebrated Yeshivos of Slabodka and Mir. He is profoundly influenced by
Kabbalah and the Jewish Mystical teachings of Chabad Chassidic philosophy. Since 1995, Rabbi Wolf has taught Jews of all ages, all across North
America. In 2006, Rabbi Wolf and Haki Abhesera founded Maayon
Yisroel as a center dedicated to spreading the profound mystical teachings
of Chassidic Judaism and to fostering the love of Jewish tradition among all
Jews, particularly the young Jewish population of Southern California.

Believe it or not, I have always found Passover to be one of the most inspired holidays when it comes to making connections between Jewish living and mental and spiritual well-being.  Although we all know that Rosh Hashanah is considered the Jewish New Year, the truth is that Nissan, and for that matter Passover, are truly the start of the spiritual new year.  On Rosh Hashanah we celebrate our physical creation and existence, and on Passover we are given the opportunity to reflect upon and celebrate our spiritual creation and existence.  This concept is particularly deep and meaningful, yet subtle.

At first glance, it would seem Passover is very much about the physical—deep cleaning, so much food to purchase and prepare, table to set, clothes to buy, business to get in order.  Yet underneath it all what it is really all about?  From the standpoint of cleansing, re-birthing  and nourishing our souls, there are some amazing opportunities waiting for us in the coming weeks that should simply not be missed.

Let’s take the cleaning for example.  We are commanded to remove “chametz” from our lives and our dwelling places.  We must scrutinize every corner of our homes by candlelight ensuring a thorough and detailed search for any last crumbs.  But what is chametz?  What does it represent?  We learn in the Jewish texts that chametz is much more than just the physical element of bread or wheat.  Chametz represents that within us that is darker—thoughts, emotions, behaviors—that hold us back from revealing our greatest Light.  The cleaning of our homes is more symbolic and a tool through which to find the strength and platform to explore ourselves on a more profound level.  We are not meant simply to physically clean, but to clean our psyche as well.  To review our nature and decide what stays and what is chametz to our soul.  As diligent as we are with scrubbing the oven, so must we be diligent in examining our intentions and our desire to improve as human beings.  Yes, it is hard work.  There is nothing easy about being an observant Jew.  However the rewards are great and usually surpass the investment of time and energy.

I’ll share with you a funny, personal story.  I was speaking on the phone one day with my husband’s ex-wife (yes, she is lovely, and yes, we get along well).  We were making plans for how to share the days of Passover with my husband’s children and we got to talking about the holiday of Passover itself.  At one point in the conversation we were laughing and she jokingly said, “Well, I got rid of my chametz a long time ago!” making a clear reference to my current husband . . . at which point I burst out laughing and replied, “You see??  One woman’s chametz is another woman’s matzah!”  We laughed hysterically for a couple minutes but the point of this story is important:  we each have our own spiritual chametz—what is bad for one person may be quite wonderful for the other—and this is why the work of Passover is so personal and so important.  No one can do this spiritual soul searching for you.  You may be able to hire someone to clean your home, but no one other than YOU can clean your heart and soul.  And, by the way, for all of those fortunate enough to do a Passover vacation experience, you can run from the cleaning but you can’t hide from yourself!  So, no matter what your plans are for this holiday, take advantage of the beautiful opportunity you have to create a new, shinier you.  Remove those blockages that hold you back.  Be real and honest with yourself.  Decide today that the status quo is never enough and that being a spiritual human being requires dedication to constant self-improvement.

So much of our happiness and personal fulfillment rests in our own hands.  Wishing everyone a blessed Passover holiday, chag sameach v’kasher

 By: Mia adler Ozair, Ma, lPCC, NCC