"Shabbat Shalom from Bangkok"

Here is another AI vs human intelligence contrast.

I started to write an article and although it was starting to take form and develop into a nice article, time constraints are not going to allow me to finish it.

AI wouldn’t have let me down, it would have ‘produced something’.

I am human. 

This week my efforts did not bear fruit in the timeframe I intended.

So, I turned to my Shabbat Shalom from Bangkok archives to find an article that would be appropriate to share.

I found this miracle story I shared fifteen years ago and really connected to the lesson.

Enjoy the below.

Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Yosef Kantor

Dear Friend,

For the bad news that goes on in this world, you don’t need me to point it out. Just go to any news service and unfortunately you will be pelted   by an avalanche of not very exciting pieces of information. But when it comes to the GOOD news, this is where I feel I have a ‘niche’ to ‘harp on it’, to highlight it (with a figurative bright yellow neon marker) and bring it to the forefront of our awareness.

Less than one month ago on a Monday morning as I was driving through the traffic filled streets of Bangkok an urgent call came through to my phone. It was not anything that concerned me or my immediate family, but it was something that affected me as a member of the Jewish people. ‘There is an El AL plane that has problems in its landing gear and is dumping its fuel as it prepares for a  landing without functioning landing gear’. The person who called me ended with one short word, Rabbi, Pray! This was the reaction of tens if not hundreds of thousands of Jews around the world who all began doing the only thing they could do to help a planeful of people circling over the Mediterranean. A short while later emails and sms messages starting arriving informing of the most welcome news that the 777 Jet landed safely. Of course in my mind it was a miracle. Yet, it was difficult to announce conclusively that it was a miracle as there was some suspicion that perhaps the landing gear was never faulty rather the signal that alerted the pilots may have been lighted up in error, caused by a short circuit or something similar. In other words, maybe the scare was misplaced.

Below I bring you quotes from one of the main Israeli news sites that clarifies in ‘black on white’ what a miracle we were blessed to receive three weeks ago.

May 26, 2011 – Ynet (Hebrew News from the Israeli Newspaper Yideot Achronot) The headline reads, “Fracture in -777: Boeing engineers had never seen such a thing.” The article continues, “Aviation accident investigators from Boeing in Seattle and from Israel’s Ministry of Transport dismantled the Boeing aircraft landing gear of the plane that carried out an emergency landing earlier this week and were surprised to find a big break in it. ‘It was a great miracle,’ said a senior source in the aviation industry. Boeing engineers were stunned. They had never seen anything like this . . . ‘The plane was hanging by a thread, and it is clear to everyone that this is a big miracle,’ explained a senior aviation official. ‘Technically, the landing gear was destroyed.’ . . . Boeing engineers were no less amazed.”

One of the most important attributes that one needs to inculcate into ones personality is the concept of ‘hakarat hatov’ which means recognizing, acknowledging and thanking someone who has been kind to you. In the reverse, there is nothing as disturbing as an ingrate. It is therefore my distinct pleasure and I actually consider it one of the most enjoyable parts of my job to point out the happy, good and openly miraculous things that G-d provides for us in this world. Take a moment and think about it. Miracles happened back then, they are happening right now and G-d willing they will continue to ‘appear’ whenever needed.

I would like to use this forum to say a public ‘thank You to G-d’ for his great miracle. I cannot and do not even want to think of what could have happened in the absence of the miracle... Thank You Hashem for the great gift of life.

In summation:  Say a prayer for a loved one who may be in a situation that seems hopeless. G-d will definitely listen and He may just grant you that miracle that you are praying for.

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Yosef Kantor

By the Grace of G-d

Dear Friend,

How long is too long.

In reverse, how short is too short.

It really depends on the situation. 

And it depends on who you ask.

A child will tell you that school holidays are too short.

The parents may argue that school holidays are too long.

On the eve of Pesach after the Seder, some sing the ‘who knows one’ song. 

One is Hashem in the heaven and the earth… it continues number by number till it reaches nine. Who knows nine? Nine are the months of a baby’s birth.

This number is embedded into nature by G-d Almighty.

For some aspects of life, we see clearly that it is G-d who determines the pace of life.

Other things seem much more dependent on human intervention and they are constantly changing. 

Like travel speeds for example.

How far can a person move in one day?

Up to one hundred and fifty years ago approximately the furthest a person could travel in one day was the speed of his horses.

Once we had automobiles that changed. 

Airplanes changed the dynamic even more.

For decades now we have been ‘stuck’ at subsonic speeds. 

Flying from New York to Thailand took around 17 hours when there was a nonstop flight.

Hypersonic planes are not yet feasible but if the challenges are overcome, one would be able to have breakfast in Bangkok and lunch in New York before even getting hungry.

It’s simultaneously thrilling and unnerving when I think about it.

Let me home in on the topic of speed of travel for a moment as its related to our weekly Parsha of Beha’alotecha.

This week we read about the continuation of the journey that the Jews took through the desert.

Initially Hashem had the Jews traveling at a divinely fueled supernatural speed. Instead of the eleven-day journey it would naturally take to enter Israel from Mount Sinai, G-d shortened the way supernaturally to become a three-day trip. 

In this week’s parsha they were still on the intended ‘G-dlysonic’ track. 

In next week’s parsha of Shelach we read about the sin of the ‘spies’. The Jews cried and wailed in fear of the mighty and awesome inhabitants of the land. This threw all the plans of expedited entry into Israel into awry. 

The inexcusable lapse of faith and trust in G-d and the serious ingratitude towards G-d’s prior miraculous treatment of plunged the newly formed nation of Israel into a forty-year delay. 

The journey now included a slow-paced wandering of forty years in the desert before entering Israel.

To use a modern analogy, it would be like looking at the flight path screen in an airplane and watching the ‘approximate arrival time’ change from next week to forty years later. 

To me the discussion about speeding and rushing is one that seems to be increasingly relevant.

Maybe it’s because I am no longer in my twenties. 

I have seen enough cases where delays were blessings in disguise.

Also, things that looked like they were about to happen didn’t always materialize as quickly as I thought.

Hashem directs everything.

Even the things that look like we are in charge.

Last week I wrote about saving time and effort by using AI.

Thank you to all those who assured me that they enjoyed my writing more than AI’s writing. This gives me the needed inspiration to invest myself fully into communicating these Torah thoughts.

This week by Divine Providence the following PS to a letter by the Rebbe in 1968 came to my attention.

It points in the same direction. Inasmuch as it reminds us that we must be careful about the technological advances that we include in our lives. The things we choose change, the ‘hacks’ we use to speed things up. We cannot embrace every new technology immediately. There is a long-term effect that is easy to overlook till it becomes a real issue.

P.S. In reference to the matter you raise in your letter, relating to the endeavor to increase soil productivity by means of electrical currents, etc., I wish to make the following point (though, technically speaking, this is not my field). It is that it surprises me that no one has yet suggested doing basic research in the nutritive aspects of those plants and crops whose manner of growth has been artificially interfered with, whether by means of electricity or radiation, and the like, not forgetting developments in hydroponics.

I think it is high time that a study was made of the effects of such foods upon humans in general, particularly those who are still going through physical growth and development, namely children and youths. Even to a layman like myself it seems incredible that the methods of speeding plant growth by means of techniques which are quite abnormal to it should have no effect on the food in relation to humans, who for thousands of years have been accustomed to eat only naturally-grown foods – all the more so since such effects would be cumulative.

As already mentioned, this is entirely unconnected to my field; but that a problem exists here seems to me so plain and logical that surely even a layman may call attention to it.

This was fascinating to me as I think about the year it was written. To give some perspective the letter was written to someone who had just visited the Western Wall in Jerusalem which had just been liberated.

The Rebbe’s incisive look at the developing advances in farming were incredibly ahead of the times.

While todays generation sees AI as incredibly beneficial, there are some side effects which we may not yet be aware of.

For example, here is an issue that came to my attention (probably via an AI algorithm) from a study by University of California, Riverside, titled “Making AI Less Thirsty,”. 

Every short AI request—just a simple email—can quietly consume a bottle of water, hidden behind the screen.  Vast, unseen data centers hum day and night, draining water and energy at a staggering scale to sustain the illusion of effortless intelligence.  As usage explodes, this invisible demand could surge into billions of cubic meters of water, putting real pressure on already strained global resources.  And with all this, a troubling question emerges: are we creating more value—or silently causing more harm than we realize? (I asked AI to summarize and it delivered the above).

Bottom line:

We must embrace the gifts of technology.

Human advancement is a gift given to us by G-d. It is He who endows humans with intelligence.

How much more so we must expend efforts to strengthen our faith, trust and dependence on G-d. 

However long it takes, we need to invest the time and energy to ‘get to our promised land’. 

We are all on a journey.

From our Egypt, our land of constraint, be it physical, emotional or spiritual bondage.

To our ‘land flowing with milk and honey’ – our ‘promised land’.

Some may get there with more (seeming) ease. Others may have a longer, more challenging journey.

Click here for great article on this topic.

Happy traveling.

If the ‘destination’ seems elusive, remember the journey is also the destination.

Till we reach the ultimate collective destination.

Of all of humanity. 

Spanning the entire history of the universe.

The coming of Mashiach.

There is a prophecy by the prophet Yeshayahu (Isaiah 66:23): And it shall be from new moon to new moon and from Sabbath to Sabbath, that all flesh shall come to prostrate themselves before Me," says the Lord. 

I am thinking out loud here, how do you think everyone will travel to the temple mount every week?

Will it be on ‘clouds of glory’ literally? Hypersonic vehicles? Or some other interpretation.  

The answer of how it will exactly look is unknown to me, but that is fine. The word of G-d is eternal and true and when it happens we will see exactly what the Almighty meant in His prophesy. Till then, we do everything possible to hasten the coming of Mashiach.

When Mashiach comes, we will find out the answers to all of our questions, this one among them.

Let him just come already!

Shabbat Shalom

Rabbi Yosef Kantor

Someone just sent me this little video.

I almost didn’t write my own weekly email because of it.

It shows how manual sewers at a garment sewing factory will be made redundant by artificial intelligence. 

It caused me great angst.

Why? 

I don’t work as a garment sewer.

But I do teach, write and lecture about Torah.

And it seems that AI is capable of generating an article about the weekly Parsha.

Even using my voice with my style. It takes just a few seconds to produce, vs the several hours that I invest into my weekly article.

I did a test:

I asked ChatGPT to give me a hundred-word article about this week’s parsha in Rabbi Yosef Kantor’s voice and include an anecdote.

Here is the result:

Parshat Nasso teaches that every individual is counted and uplifted; no one is insignificant. A traveler once hesitated before putting on tefillin, unsure if such a small act truly mattered. With gentle encouragement, he did—and his face lit up with a quiet sense of connection. In that moment, it became clear how one mitzvah can awaken a soul. The Kohanim bless the people with love, פנים אל פנים, teaching us that blessing flows through care and sincerity. Each of us carries this ability: to notice another, to encourage, to act. Through small, heartfelt deeds, we transform ordinary moments into channels of Hashem’s light in the world.

So tell me, why should I bother writing articles anymore?

The AI obviously plugged into the content of the Parsha, was eavesdropping on my Hebrew WhatsApp in which I received an uplifting story and picture of a tefillin laying.

R’ Shalom Boossi, the head of our kosher certification for restaurants ( see the full list here) was headed way up the mountains in northern Thailand to Pai to inspect the kosher restaurant and stopped to say Mincha in a picturesque mountain stop. Hearing Hebrew he asked the young fellows if they wanted to put on tefillin. One of the young men had not put on tefillin for more than ten years. He had undergone a deeply disillusioning experience in his teen years and had stopped laying Tefilin daily as he was used to. It took a chance meeting at a scenic high altitude mountain range to reintroduce him to this most mighty holy mitzvah.

How did AI know that this would have been the anecdote I would have shared in my weekly email. 

AI is highly intrusive. Highly intelligent. Don’t underestimate its power and pervasiveness).

I decided that YES, I would still go ahead and invest the time, energy and thought into writing my weekly Torah article. 

Here is why:

This is the realization that became apparent to me in full force as I read the Parsha this week. 

In honor of the consecration of the Mishkan, the leaders of the tribes brought a potpourri of valuable gold and silver vessels, filled with grain, incense and oil. Alongside this they also brought generous amounts of animal sacrifices to be used for the inauguration of the Altar in the Mishkan.

Initially, Moshe was unsure whether he should accept their gift.

In the event that he did get an instruction by G-d to accept it, he wasn’t sure whether the entire twelve gifts should be offered up on one day or to spread them out over a longer period.

Hashem responded to Moshe on both counts. That he should accept the gifts. And that they should not be sacrificed on one day all together, rather they should be offered up over twelve days. Each day would be the offerings of an individual tribe. One leader of one tribe per day. 

Twelve consecutive days of identical offerings.

This raises a question when reading the narrative of this event in the Torah.

Each of the gift packages was exactly the same down to the last detail.

The Torah writes out twelve times the exact same gift ‘menu’ with nary a word different in all twelve renditions other than the name of the tribe and its respective leader. 

For a Torah that is meticulous about using as few words as possible to convey even the subtlest of laws, this largesse in repetitive verses and words screams redundancy. 

Why does the Torah repeat these offerings twelve times one after the other when they are one hundred percent identical?

I want to remind you about this well-known parable.

A wealthy businessman was walking along a beach. As he enjoyed his stroll, he suddenly noticed a fisherman lying comfortably in his small boat, resting in the sun.

The businessman was shocked.

“Why aren’t you out fishing?” he called out. “There is still plenty of time in the day—you could be catching more fish!”

The fisherman looked up, calm and unhurried.
“Because,” he said, “I already caught enough fish for today. Soon I will go home, spend time with my children, and tonight my family will gather with friends to sing, to laugh, and to enjoy life.”

The businessman could not understand this at all.

“You don’t realize,” he said, “if you go out again, you could catch more fish. With more fish you could make more money. With more money you could buy a bigger boat. With a bigger boat you could go further out, catch even more fish, build an entire fleet… and become very rich.”

The fisherman listened quietly.

“And then what would I do?” he asked.

“Then,” said the businessman, almost triumphantly, “then you would be able to really enjoy life.”

The fisherman looked at him for a moment and asked simply:

“What do you think I am doing now?”

Our generation seems to be constantly rushing.

We have been trained to try and save time. To make life more effortless.

To create new blocks of time to be used at our own discretion.

Even the most basic tasks like washing laundry used to take the larger part of a day back in the ‘olden days’.

We solved that with washing machines and dryers.

Till very recently, going shopping for groceries was a chore that required getting to the store, pushing a trolley, bagging, loading, schlepping into the house. 

Today we have online grocery shopping delivered to the front door.

Robots are sweeping and washing our floors.

No need to go to the bank as you can deposit, withdraw, pay, trade stocks and do a million other things from the apps on your phone.

The post office? Governments are struggling to decide whether they are still viable in the era of the internet and drones.

This is saving us time. Creating new blocks of free time.

What are we creating time for?

For raising our children, one would think. 

So why are we so often seating our children in front of screens to be baby sat by movies?

To spend quality time with our spouses would be a nice thing to carve out time for.

Why then are more and more couples seen at cafes, not even looking at each other, rather each one peering into their gadget.

Are the only beneficiaries of our extra time the moguls of Hollywood?

When one hires a nanny to sleep with their child at night, give him breakfast in the morning, take them to school, pick them up for school, cook the meals in the house and bathe the kids and ready them for bed, while the parents self-care (good stuff like exercise, nails, health spas and massages) and socialize with friends, is this really the kind of life we aim to live?

I know I have exaggerated somewhat but I think you get my point.

Eating a family meal together at least once a day, at the very very very least once a week should be sacrosanct. (Friday night/Shabbat Kiddush and meal is the super-best time for this). 

These should not be rushed events. Rushing away from holy quality time with family to what? To party? For this you sit through a family dinner impatiently waiting to be ‘free’ from spending time with your dear ones?

Telling a story to your child at bedtime is holy and special. 

Can you imagine the sacrilege of doing this at double speed, like so many of us have become accustomed to doing when listening to messages.

What is the main thrust and point of your life?

‘Free time’? 

Free time is not an end unto itself.

We do not say in eulogies or write on tombstones ‘he/she managed to organize their life to be with the most free time’.

Automation, delegation, effective techniques for saving time, these are all wonderful.

They are means to reaching the true and priceless items of life.

Let us take a few moments to think about what we are freeing up time for.

What is our life truly all about at its core and at its deepest dimension.

It makes sense to say that if one aligns their life behaviors and patterns with their inner purpose, this would lead to equilibrium and happiness. 

It seems elusive, but it’s absolutely not a mystery. We just have to ask the ‘Manufacturer’ of humanity to see His ‘manual’ and ‘instructions’ for life.

Coming from Shavuot we know that the Torah is the manual of life.

For us Jewish people we are instructed to study Torah whenever we have free time. The Torah teaches us about the mitzvahs we have.

They spell out leading a balanced life. Here is how.

It’s a mitzvah to go to work and support oneself, one’s family and be generous to those in the community who need help.

It’s a mitzvah to lay Tefillin, to pray daily to light shabbat candles and keep the day of Shabbat holy, to live the laws of Jewish Family Purity, to help others, to educate oneself and others in Torah and mitzvahs and the list goes on.

It’s an overarching mitzvah to take care of the body Hashem has loaned us. Time must be spent on eating, resting, exercising and socializing to stay well balanced physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually.

If one can spend less time on certain tasks and chores because of the advances of technology, this allows for more time for doing the holy and meaningful things of life.

For me as a Jew, learning Torah and teaching Torah are the very elixir of life. At the core of my mission as a spiritual leader of our community is sharing and communicating Torah and Mitzvahs.

Studying, and then thinking about a Torah subject, distilling it, finding the right words to articulate it, and finally communicating it is a major part of my work. Whether it be via a speech or class given face to face, or via video or a written article, the privilege of having you engage and learn from what I teach is one of my main goals in life.

Should I try to cut that out by asking AI to pull together something ‘artificial’?

So that I can have more time for ‘life’?

I don’t think so.

Teaching Torah is exactly what I want to do with my life. It is why I try to delegate many other things so that I can do what I truly yearn and love to do.

Which translates on Thursday and Friday to writing these Torah articles.

The twelve tribes brought identical sacrifices.

Yes they did.

Sameness doesn’t mean that they become repetitious, boring or lifeless.

Just like you may have had the honor and pleasure of attending many different weddings or other life-cycle events in your life.

It may seem laborious and repetitive to you. Yet another event.

To the one who is celebrating the lifecycle event it is absolutely not a bore. It is totally new and exciting. 

As it should be.

Your birthday, even if you have celebrated many of them, should be cherished and appreciated every single year.

Every breath should be celebrated. Every bowel movement is a miracle. Every baby who is born healthy is a wonder of the world.

Don’t take your relationships for granted. 

Your wedding anniversary should get more special from year to year. Getting married is one thing. Staying married in our day and age is a gift that requires input, maturity and commitment to G-d’s manual for marriage (Family Purity – Mikva). Every year that your marriage ages, is a gift and a celebration. Not at all repetitive or boring.

If you have parents, appreciate them, cherish the opportunity to spend time with them and honor them. 

Make your children the epicenter of your life. And make sure they know that they are the dearest thing you have in your universe. 

This is what we should be doing with our ‘free’ time.

Reading about the twelve sets of sacrifices and gifts, when read properly and understood properly, is not ‘more of the same’. 

It is the most exquisite and delightful telling and retelling of a commitment of love and enraptured passion of one tribe after another tribe. Every single tribe without exception joyfully and enthusiastically joined the inauguration of the House of G-d.

This is exactly what the Torah’s message is to us. 

It is about savoring and delighting in every interaction with G-d. As often as we do it, it must be fresh as if new.

The Torah must be viewed as a freshly minted communique. We all know how often we refresh our news website to search for ‘new’ news. That is the kind of curious interest and hunger for new information we should learn Torah with. Even if we are studying exactly what we studied last year, last month or even yesterday. You are one day older, the Torah you study will uncover new depths.

So back to the central question.

Save time?

If you are talking about working in the fields, or in today’s workplace, on your computer screen, it is nice to whittle down your ‘work week’ hours. Use AI and ‘buy’ yourself more ‘free’ time.

Now you have time to LIVE.

Utilize the time for authentic and timeless eternal interactions.

The Torah is our life.

Our families are our life.

Serving the Almighty is our life.

Don’t rush through life, to get to the chores or even worse to the questionable values transmitted by Hollywood.

Coming from Shavuot, I urge you to take on a new commitment of Torah study. 

Chabad.org is one of many sites where you can study Torah in all styles, multiple languages and across many mediums. 

Lechayim, TO LIFE.

To a world gone mad, we pray for SHALOM with Mashiach NOW.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Yosef Kantor

If I were to ask you—what is your favorite mitzvah? Which one speaks to you, uplifts you, comes naturally?

And then, on the other hand, which mitzvah do you find most challenging?

Take a quiet moment with that question. 

Over the years I have had the privilege of learning with young men and preparing them for their barmitzvah. I posed this very question to them. Most of my students responded that their favorite mitzvah is helping others. One of them chose wearing tzitzit.

And what about the most difficult? 

Their answers were very relatable. The struggle is mostly with refraining from eating non-kosher food items that are readily available. 

They know what Hashem asks of them, and mostly they do refrain from eating blatantly unkosher food, but they admitted that it requires effort.

There is something deeply moving about this natural tendency to want to help others.

Even at such a young age, the instinct to help another comes naturally and brings genuine joy. 

One does not need to be a wealthy person or have vast fortunes in order to feel the beauty of giving. Even children, with limited abilities and resources, experience the profound satisfaction of helping someone else according to their level.

That desire to help others, I believe, never diminishes. But as life becomes more complex, so too does the implementation.

Part of my life’s calling is to help people strengthen their relationship with Hashem, including guiding them in the mitzvah of tzedakah. 

The Torah speaks clearly: to give ten percent of one’s earnings, and even more beautifully, to aspire to twenty percent.

And yet, even those who feel deeply positive about giving can find it challenging when it comes to actual practice.

There is a debate about what is easier when it comes to tithing for tzedakah. Is it easier to give ten dollars out of a hundred, or one hundred thousand out of a million? 

I cannot say with certainty—but my strong sense is that those who train early, when the amounts are small, carry that strength with them as the numbers grow.

Let us return to the question we began with—your favorite mitzvah, and your most difficult one.

This was not merely an exercise. Each of these categories holds a unique and powerful quality.

When you perform a mitzvah that you love, you do so with joy, enthusiasm, and often with impressive attention to detail. There is something deeply precious about serving Hashem in that way. Joyful mitzvot are radiant—they elevate both the person and the moment.

But what about the mitzvah that feels difficult?

In a way they are even more special.

For the only reason you do it is because it is the will of Hashem. 

It may be that you do it (initially) without the same joy. You may even undergo some twinge of inner resistance, and yet, it precisely in that experience that something even deeper is revealed.

When a person fulfills a mitzvah that does not come naturally, solely because Hashem asked, that is a moment of profound connection. 

A connection not based on inspiration or excitement, but on faithful commitment. 

It is based not on passion and emotion, but on commitment and truth.

How do you know what is right?

To truly know what is objectively right, one must turn to the Torah, our eternal guide. And, when needed, seek the counsel of a teacher grounded in its wisdom.

When a person sets aside their own inclination and follows Hashem’s will not because it feels right, but because it is right, this creates a relationship with Hashem that is real, deep, and enduring.

As we approach Shavuot—the time when we recommit ourselves to the entire Torah—I would suggest something practical and personal.

Return to those two mitzvot you identified: the one you love, and the one you find challenging.

Strengthen your observance in them both.

Enhance the one you love—bring even more joy, more care, more beauty into its observance.

And with conviction and faith strengthen your commitment to the one that challenges you - because it is there that your deepest connection lies.

In doing so, you will hold both gifts: the joy of inspired mitzvot, and the depth of committed ones.

Wishing you a Chag Sameach and a Shabbat Shalom 

Rabbi Yosef Kantor

I think that this is a record-breaking week for Jewish life in Thailand.

On Sunday a Pidyon Haben – redeeming ceremony for first born son at thirty days old.

On Monday a Bar Mitzvah.

A Brit Milah on Tuesday.

The grand finale for the week was on Thursday night. A wedding (held in Israel) of two young Jews who were raised from infancy in Bangkok. Dvir and Danielle were students of ours since they were little children, and today they represent the future of our community. It was a wonderful nachas to officiate at their wedding.

In one week, the gamut of Jewish lifecycle events.

Mazel Tov!

It feels like the Thailand Jewish community has come of age.

The USA embassy met with me last week to ask about antisemitism in Thailand. 

I shared with them the way it used to be.

My beard caught people’s attention.

People giggled and called out ‘Bin Laden’ when they saw me in the street after the 9/11 attacks on the twin tower. 

Kids laughingly pointed at me at shopping malls in December calling me ‘Santa’. 

Most of the local population was clueless about the Jewish religion. 

You cannot have antisemitism if no one knows what Jews are.

Today that is not the case.

I would not be telling the truth if I didn’t say that the growth and deepening of Jewish life in Thailand is taking place against a backdrop of increasing anti-semitism (for PC purposes presented as anti-Israelism).

Thank G-d the Royal Thai Government is doing an admirable job in upholding the safety and security of the Jewish community in Thailand. We are grateful and thankful to live in this truly amazing kingdom. 

The fomenting of bigotry and scapegoating seems to be sponsored by agitators from the headquarters of antisemitism, Iran and its proxies. 

In today’s uber-connected world, there are no borders. One can be sitting on one side of the world and creating hatred on the other side of the world. And with google translate and ChatGPT it's not hard to import and adapt hatred from one language and culture to another.

If it is that way with negativity, how much more so when it comes to positivity.

You can push a few buttons and do kindness and charity in all four corners of the earth. You can study and teach Torah across all borders.

We don’t like antisemitism. That is an understatement. We detest it and decry it and do anything in our power to rid the world of any form of racism and intolerance. 

On the other hand, we don’t back down, get disillusioned or G-d forbid run away from our Judaism. 

On the contrary. G-d blessed the Jews in Egypt, ‘as much as they afflicted them, so they multiplied and exceeded all expectations’.

In contemporary times we too are witnessing a strengthening and deepening of Jewish resurgence far outpacing the hateful voices, vibes and violent actions.

We are not strangers to being singled out for hate.

The Haggadah says that in every generation there are those who wish to annihilate us. Hashem saves us from their hands.

We are still here. G-d has promised that we will be here forever. For we are G-d’s people who He loves like a young child – unconditionally. 

As I stood under the Chupa in the holy land of Israel wedding two Jewish souls, I was overwhelmed with gratitude and shed tears of joy. Dvir and Danielle are children of families with combined histories that survived the Holocaust, the perils of living in Islamic regions and more recently the strong pull of assimilation so pervasive in our open societies.

Standing under the open sky, enveloped under the traditional canopy of the Chupa, dedicating themselves to build a Jewish home together, the eternity of the Jewish People was highlighted and celebrated.

I am epically optimistic about our future. 

In Israel of course. And anywhere that we create pockets of Jewish life – spiritual Israels.

The hate? 

Yes, it is still here. We thought it was stamped out. But like a bushfire that was almost extinguished only to start raging again from some lingering smoldering trees, so it is with the fires of antisemitism. They were receding and dying down when whoosh, in the most irrational way they flare up. 

Our unique role in the world started when G-d gave us the Torah 3338 years ago at Mount Sinai.

Ironically, this was also the same time that the hatred toward the Jewish people intensified. 

Who even noticed though. 

Imagine you were just named the administrator of all the diamond mines in the world, do you think you would not have opposers? 

It wouldn’t matter what you did. Even if you intended to let everyone have their fair share of the business there would be those who could not bear to see you receive this special appointment. 

Would you turn away or repeal this epic gift because there are some jealous disgruntled haters?

The gift we received by Almighty G-d conferring His great and holy name on to us makes anything and everything else immaterial and of no real consequence. 

This is why as painfully and agonizingly torturous our history has been, Jews have continued to be Jewish and follow Hashem’s path of Torah and Mitzvot, defiantly and more importantly joyfully 

As we come to the anniversary of our becoming a people by receiving the Torah at Sinai it is a great time to reflect on what a gift it is to be a Jew.

There is something else we should take to heart when facing so many voices who seek to delegitimize us.

Our strength is in our unity. We have differences to be sure, but we are ONE people at our core.

At that time, when G-d gave us the Torah just after liberating us from Egypt, there was one main preparation that the Jewish people made which made them ready and worthy to receive the Torah.

The Jewish people camped at the foot of Mt. Sinai ‘like one man with one heart’.

That pristine unity was the final act of preparation that sealed the deal and positioned the Jewish people to receive the Torah a few days later.

In our times too. 

As we prepare to receive the Torah on Shavuot this coming Friday, let us prepare by being united.

Feeling united and acting united. 

Get together with fellow Jews who you may not usually associate with.

Reach out to say hi to fellow Jews you may have had a falling out with.

And meditate on this simple metaphor: one twig can be easily broken. Multiple twigs bundled tightly together cannot be broken.

AM YISRAEL CHAI. 

One people connected to the One G-d who gave us His One (and only) Torah.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Yosef Kantor

Computers are so prevalent that it’s hard to remember life before them. And for many younger people it’s impossible to imagine life without them.

Recently, when I asked a bar mitzvah student who looked tired, ‘how did you sleep last night’ he looked down at his watch and pressed a button. He proceeded to give me a rundown. He was in bed for nine hours. Of those hours there was some better sleep, some less quality sleep, his heart rate was steady, all of these myriad details measured by the small watch he wears. Incredible.

I took a stroll down memory lane to my bar mitzvah. When I celebrated my bar mitzvah (besides for the Sifrei Kodesh – holy books that I received and still use to this day), the most memorable tech gift I got was a calculator watch. Tiny buttons, a small screen, hard to use, but a full-on calculator. It was the coolest thing you could imagine.

Once down memory lane I reminisced about our arrival to Thailand in 1993. When we first got to Thailand Mrs Myra Borisute bought us three very memorable and expensive items. A top quality, full-size American oven and stovetop for Nechama. A mobile phone ‘so we can reach you when needed, a rabbi needs to be reachable’ and a computer for making flyers and writing newsletters. 

With these ‘tools’ Nechama and I were able to start our work with full power.

Nechama’s oven and stove produced challas, cakes, chicken soups and all of the other goodies that builds family and communal life.

I started to get my ‘feet wet’ in (pre-internet) computer usage and started to use it for community programing. 

For example, one of the ways I used my computer was as follows. When Pesach came, it was up to me to figure out how many kg’s of matzah, how many bottles of wine, how many chickens and how many dishes we needed to order.

For those of you who remember the olden days, there was pen, paper, calculator and using your mind to figure things out.

Now that I was becoming computer literate, I was introduced to the Windows program called Excel. 

The beauty and power of the spreadsheet was that once I put in the formula, I just needed to update the amount of people, and all those calculations were computed automatically.

A rabbi can use spreadsheets for community events planning. 

A chef can use it for menu planning.

A business can use it for earning forecasts. 

And an army general could use it for soldier deployment planning.

If a general were planning how many soldiers would be needed to drive the invading enemy away from your borders the formula may look something like this.

If the enemy has one hundred soldiers positioned to attack; what is the number of soldiers needed to drive away the enemy.

Once that number is established, the greater the number of enemy forces, the larger the army one needs to assemble to vanquish the enemy.

In this week’s parsha the Torah says that if the people of Israel study Torah and listens and fulfils G-d’s commandments they will be blessed with peace. 

If someone tries to upset that peace, if an enemy rises against them, five Israelite soldiers will be sufficient to repel one hundred enemy troops.

That sounds like a miraculous and blessed formula.

Five ‘good guys’ are stronger than twenty ‘bad guys’.

If you take that blessed supernatural Torah formula and put that into excel as the basis of computing security need you wouldn’t be wrong if you called for five hundred troops when faced with an enemy buildup of ten thousand troops. 

If five are needed to repel one hundred, five hundred are needed to drive off ten thousand.

One hundred divided by twenty is five.

Then thousand divided by twenty is five hundred.

It’s uneven but G-d will make it work.

This is an incredibly miraculous promise in terms of the power of Jewish soldiers when armed with G-d’s blessing.

It gets much better than that.

The continuation of the verse throws this computation totally off the predicable mathematic charts.

The full verse in the Torah (Vayikra-Leviticus 26:8) reads: ‘five of your soldiers will drive away one hundred of the enemies. One hundred of your soldiers will drive away ten thousand of the enemy forces’. 

This does not compute using a mathematical formula.

The mathematical based spreadsheet would compute: five can be victorious over one hundred, one hundred can be victorious over two thousand. 

Our Sages introduce a concept that is powerful and empowering.

‘The combined power when there are ‘many’ who follow in G-d’s path yields incomparably more blessing than the power when there are but a ‘few’ who do G-d’s bidding’.

When five are jointly committed to G-d’s path, they can miraculously be victorious over one hundred enemies.

One hundred who are jointly serving G-d, are assured victory of ten thousand opponents.

This is Divine ‘compounded’ Mathematics.

This is awesomely uplifting.

Think about it.

You may say to yourself, what is the big deal if I don’t join the ranks of my fellow Jews in doing the mitzvah available to me. 

Of course, I don’t want to harm anyone, certainly not my Jewish brethren. I want to be community minded and do what is best for my people, you think to yourself. 

But sometimes one can get dispirited and think ‘how much difference will my one lone action make’?

One more or one less, how important can that be to the collective?

First of all, the power of one deed cannot be underestimated. As the Rambam summed it up as if the world is totally balanced and your one good deed can tip the scale. 

And then there is this weeks Torah portion that injects yet more power to the deeds of each and every one of us. 

The Torah teaches us that our one good deed is not just one more deed. When added to the mitzvahs that others are doing, it equals compounded and collective power that is much greater than the ‘one’ that was added. 

This reinforces in the most powerful way possible the critical importance and the immense power inherent in Jewish unity.

The divine miraculous power that Jewish unity injects into our collective journey is our ‘secret weapon’.

During these turbulent and unpredictable times, when our people are under attack in countries that one never would have imagined, we need to access and ‘power up’ our invincible weapon.

Jewish unity.

It is easy to call on ‘them’, the government, the ‘leaders’ to foster peace and unity. One can choose to point fingers and blame this one or that one for debilitating disunity among our people.

The real truth is that it needs to be a grassroots effort. You and I have the power to ‘keep our eyes on the prize’ and highlight, generate and promote our unity.

Not just that we are all equally hated by our sworn enemies.  It is true that in the eyes of an antisemite we are all one group. But that is a depressing way to think of Jewish unity.

Rather we ought to think about the things that bring us together and unite us in a positive way.

Our joint past. 

We all stood together at Mount Sinai and received the Torah united ‘as one person with one heart’.

In the present, although at the surface it may not always be obvious, at our core, we all love each other and each and every Jew, we all love the Torah and we all love G-d!

And G-d loves us all equally and unconditionally. 

And we ought to project the way it will look in the glorious Messianic future that we await.

The Prophet says in the name of Hashem, that in the future Redemption, NO JEW WILL BE LEFT BEHIND.

We, each and every one of us will be redeemed by Mashiach as a united people. 

Let us strengthen our resolve to act in a unified way, and add – even if they are small steps that we start with - in mitzvahs of loving kindness between each other and strengthening our connection to G-d.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Yosef Kantor

One of my favorite days is today.

Pesach Sheni – literally ‘Second Pesach’.

The quick story about this day is:

A year after the Exodus, G-d instructed the people of Israel to bring the Passover offering on the afternoon of the fourteenth of Nissan, and to eat it that evening, roasted over the fire, together with matzah and bitter herbs, as they had done the previous year just before they left Egypt.

“There were, however, certain persons who had become ritually impure through contact with a dead body, and could not, therefore, prepare the Passover offering on that day. They approached Moses and Aaron . . . and they said: ‘. . . Why should we be deprived, and not be able to present G-d’s offering in its time, amongst the children of Israel?’” (Numbers 9:6–7).

In response to their plea, G-d established the 14th of Iyar as a day for the “Second Passover” (Pesach Sheni) for anyone who was unable to bring the offering on its appointed time in the previous month.

Read the Original Narrative

This day is very special to me. 

Because this day represents the “second chance” achieved by teshuvah, the power of repentance and “return.” In the words of Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak of Lubavitch, “The Second Passover means that it’s never a ‘lost case.’

Our conduct can always be rectified. Even someone who is impure, who was far away and even desired to be so, can still correct himself.”  There is no justification for despair. Every individual, no matter what his situation, always has the potential to make a “leap forward” (the literal translation of the Hebrew word pesach) in his service of G-d.

As I write these words on Friday afternoon, I am running a bit off schedule as I am coming from a morning funeral.

Not a happy event. 

Yet, the mood was not a depressing one.

To me, it seemed like the bereaved sons had a feeling of accomplishment and a sense of relief that they were able to provide their 73-year-old deceased father a true Jewish burial.

The vigor and dedication with which the Chevra Kadish, (comprised of the local rabbis and lay community members) carried out their labor of love was outstanding.

Hashem provided a clear and very sunny day. In the pastoral and quiet fields of rural Chachoengsao you could hear the birds chirping in the background. 

The deceased Tzi’s family name is Shinzinger which literally translates to ‘beautiful singer’. That is what the chirping of the birds sounded like to me. 

Overall, it felt somewhat surreal. 

As if I could hear the melody and song of a life properly balanced and aligned as things were unfolding in the way they should, in the lifecycle of a Jew.

It wasn’t always like that.

I cannot forget the first time I was called up to officiate at the funeral of a Jewish woman in 1993 or shortly thereafter. 

The burial grounds that had been used by Jews living and passing in Thailand was the Protestant cemetery. In perusing the Halachic sources, it was very evident that presiding over a Jewish funeral in a non-dedicated Jewish cemetery was problematic. 

However, it was clear to me that unlike the communities of yore, in Eastern Europe or even modern-day diaspora, where Jewish burial options exist, here there were not acceptable options. 

Cremation, which was the only other option, is totally anathema to Judaism and is 100% forbidden according to Jewish law. 

I gave a speech in English eulogizing the deceased woman. 

Then I followed up with a short statement in Hebrew. 

‘Truthfully, I am not allowed to preside over this funeral as we are interring a Jew into a non-dedicated Jewish cemetery plot. However, the other choice – cremation - is infinitely worse. I pledge beli-neder on behalf of us all, that we will see to get a Jewish cemetery and we will move this deceased to the new Jewish cemetery’.

Miraculously, not long after that the adjoining plot of land, separated by a high wall, was discovered to be a possible location for a Jewish cemetery.

Through the joint efforts of the pioneering members of our community, Mr. Mike Gerson of blessed memory, Mr. Abi Kashani, Mr. Ron Cristal and Mrs. Myra Borisute and several others (apologies for not naming everyone involved) may they all be health and well, the funds were raised and the cemetery was established.

It’s been more than thirty years, and the initial piece of land is almost full. Several years ago, we began a campaign to buy new cemetery land. This was purchased in Chachoengsao, registered as a burial place, and inaugurated and sanctified by the Chevra Kadisha as we did ‘circuits’ around the perimeters of the land. 

Today’s burial is the third person to be buried in this new cemetery.

As I mentioned at each of these three burials, the deceased who are buried in this opening stage are ‘pioneers’ of sorts as they ‘pave the way’ for enabling proper Jewish burial for as long as Jews live in Thailand. 

Of course, we pray to arrive at the Mashiach stage very soon and not need to bury any more.

Once we have arrived at this stage, we can move forward please G-d in the plans to landscape the premises and create an ascetically pleasing, pastoral, serene and quiet final resting place for our loved ones.

Why do I sound passionate about a topic so sad and disheartening?  

Because of its primary importance in Jewish life.

This week’s Parsha provides a very clear instruction about our obligation to bury a Jewish person who passes away.

Usually, the family would be the ones to lovingly bear that responsibility.

In the instance that a Jew passes away without any relatives, and no one to look after interring him.

This is referred to as a ‘met mitzvah’ i.e. ‘a deceased whom it is a mitzvah to care for’.

Torah law obligates a Kohen Gadol, on Yom Kippur, to leave the "holy of holies" to take care of a met mitzvah(!) 

This is how important taking care of our dead and burying them properly is.

There is a cultural epidemic in the Jewish world today that I want to address.

It used to be a given, a default for anyone who was even mildly Jewishly inclined to choose burial as their wishes after death.

I was born a Jew, I wish to be buried as a Jew. 

Whatever journey one may have had in the interim, the final wishes of Jews throughout the thousands of years has always been burial. Whether we were living in Israel, in the Diaspora, whether during times of suffering or times of plenty, the choice has always been Jewish burial.

This long held assumption is under assault and challenged in today's climate and that is why I want to talk about it and address it.

For some inexplicable reason it has become fashionable to think that cremation has benefits over burial.

There are multiple reasons why throughout our history, a traditional Jewish burial was always considered a highest priority. There are many reasons that cremation should be off the table for a Jew.

 Click here for a full essay on the topic.

Let me just add that if one fully grasps and visualizes the process of cremation they would recoil from that choice.

In my humble opinion, the real and foremost reason that Jewish burial is under assault, is the economics. Simply the price of carrying out a Jewish burial in many countries is expensive. 

In Thailand, where cremation is the default and so many options exist, where burial is almost nonexistent it is particularly challenging.

Add to this the economic factor. Many of the Jews who move here as elderly people are living on small pensions, often with no family safety net, and when they pass away it seems that the only option within financial reach is cremation G-d forbid.

Through the donations of philanthropic Jewish visionaries, our community has been blessed to be able to provide a solution to this option. 

In our new cemetery, the cost of burial is very affordable as the large tract of land  sits in Chachoengsao, a rural area 60-90 minutes’ drive from Bangkok. 

Most importantly, our community is blessed with some generous friends who see to it that if a Jews passes away and does not have funds, they will donate to the ‘Met Mitzvah fund’ will cover the burial from A-Z. (If you wish to be one of those who participate in this mitzvah please let me know).

If burying a fellow Jew is important enough to take the High Priest from his holiest role (in a met mitzvah situation), we must take this mitzvah very seriously and take responsibility to provide proper Jewish burial in the most feasible way possible.

Enough said about passing away.

We choose LIFE.

If this is the way we ought to treat our dead, HOW MUCH MORE SO must we treat our fellow living Jews with love, care and compassion.

The mitzvah of helping the dead is called ‘chessed shel emmet’ , a kindness of truth. 

Do you know why?

Because when you help a living person there may be an angle in how you think you will be reimbursed with a favor by the person you are helping. When you help someone who passed away it is a ‘true’ favor as they can no longer repay you.

This is the way we ought to do acts of compassion and kindness to others.

Without expecting anything in return.

Pure kindness and benevolence with no agenda or motive.

Look around you and see who you can help.

When you rejoice, see who else you can invite to rejoice with you.

Even though you are doing it with purity, you will by default be a recipient of the greatest feeling possible.

The feeling of partnering with Hashem in spreading chessed kindness to His creations. 

Shabbat Shalom

Rabbi Yosef Kantor

There is a wise saying.

What is worse: A clock that is (unbeknownst to you) thirty minutes late, or a clock that has stopped working?

Instinctively one may say that an inaccurate clock is better than no clock.

At least there is some keeping of time.

How about if you were in the airport departure hall, on your way to board your flight and you stopped to shop at duty free because your inaccurate watch told you that you still had thirty minutes till the gate is closed.

I am certain you would then tell me that a broken watch would have been better.

At least you would have known to ask someone for the time. 

You would not have been lulled into thinking that you had time to shop when in fact you didn’t.

This is one way to understand the ‘allergy’ that the Torah has to the existence of non-exact weights or measuring tools in your house. 

Even if you didn’t steal anything yet by having those inaccurate weights, just owning them is prohibited by the Torah.

Cheating on weights and measurements is even more abhorrent in the Torah’s eyes than classing stealing.

When someone takes something that doesn’t belong to him unlawfully, it is a clear-cut act of immorality.

One who engages in theft chooses to overlook his better moral sense and greedily steal from his fellow.

There is no way to whitewash this in your mind or in the mind of the society around us.

No so when one has slightly inaccurate weights or measuring tools. It presents itself more respectably. 

And that is what makes it so shocking. 

The whole notion of a measuring tool is to enable and provide a fair and honest transaction.

Taking that very tool and hiding behind it to cheat, is sly, sneaky and duplicitous.

A judge dressed in robes who uses his courtroom to render unfair judgements is more immoral in a more despicable way than an armed bandit.

A broken clock is clearly not a tool that can be relied on to tell time.

An inaccurate clock can misleadingly lead people to believe that they know what the time is.

Click here for more teachings about honesty in weights and measures.

There is a joke that brings out this point well. It is a cruel punchline but most important to hear and absorb.

Yankel, a Yiddish speaking immigrant walked into a restaurant in the days when the Lower-East- Side was the Yiddish speaking part of New York. It was a Chinese restaurant and to his amazement the Asian waiters were speaking fluent Yiddish. Yankel asked the owner incredulously, ‘wow how did you teach the waiters Yiddish?

To which the owner replied ‘Shh… they think they are learning English’.

Thank G-d it’s only a joke. Because if it was real, it would be horribly deceitful on the side of the employer. 

Upon further reflection it is not such a joke and tragically many people engage in this deceit. Knowingly or unknowingly.

During the communist times in Russia, one’s child would be indoctrinated by the teachers of communism. To the extent that the parents who sent their kids to school with one set of truths, could find those very children turning against their parents with their new set of immoral values.

 How careful we must be when we propose to teach the truth of Judaism that it actually remains genuinely and honestly a representation of the instructions of G-d.

The Torah is Divine.

All twenty-four books of the ‘original’ ‘testament’ are G-d’s word.

The ‘Oral Law’ as laid out in the Talmud and codified in Rambam and Shulchan Aruch are the only and sole interpretation of G-d’s words that define the Jewish religion.

We need to be so vigilant that Jewish doesn’t get altered G-d forbid to be JEW’ish like ‘blueish’ or ‘sweetish’ as in an approximation.

It is critical that we remember and affirm that the Torah, written and oral, is not changeable. 

Otherwise, it’s like providing our students and children a set of values that profess to be truth but that are actually a distortion of the truth.

The Torah promises that if we stick to our values, with true measurements and weights, with honesty and integrity, G-d has joy and delight in the people whom He redeemed from Egypt.

Let us embrace authenticity, honesty and integrity in our relationship with G-d and with our fellow.

During these tumultuous times, our prayers are more fervent than ever.

HASHEM, please bring the Redemption, the promised utopian secure, peaceful and love-filled days of collectively ‘knowing’ and serving G-d joyfully and eternally.

WE WANT MASHIACH NOW.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Yosef Kantor

He is in his seventies, Mr. T., an only child of Holocaust survivors.

I was enthralled and inspired by his story that I ‘happened’ to hear not long ago.

His mother was about to give up her life during the daily march from the concentration camp to the labor camp. All it took was not to get up from the brief stop along the way. Anyone who remained sitting was promptly shot by the Nazi guards.

Life was not worth living under those conditions is what she felt. The day she planned to give up, she fell asleep and dreamed of her father.

‘Don’t give up. The Americans are going to liberate you within a week’.

This gave her the willpower to stand up and continue.

One week later her camp was liberated by the Americans.

The emaciated state of the inmates caused many tragic deaths. The liberating forces had not yet understood the type of care needed for nursing these walking skeletons back to normalcy. Many died those first few days of overeating.

Mr. T. continued telling me the story about his mother.

The American soldiers handed the survivors a few dollars each so that they could buy something of their choice. 

‘My mother looked down at her feet and thought to herself, what could be better to buy than a proper pair of shoes instead of the rags that covered her feet. As she reached up to scratch her head, she realized that as an observant Jewish woman who had been married before the war, she ought to cover her hair which was beginning to grow back’.

‘My mother took the money and bought a piece of fabric to cover her head’ continued Mr. T.

‘My mother desperately wanted to have a child after the war although medically it looked like the ravages of the concentration camp may have caused irreversible damage to the possibly of bearing a child. My parents went to a holy Rebbe and asked for his blessings, that he should beseech G-d on their behalf to have a child. Promising that if they had a child they would move to Israel’.

They had an only son. 

‘This was me. Indeed, I was raised in Israel, with the same pre-Holocaust Jewish traditions of my parents and grandparents, concluded Mr. T.

Today Mr. T. is a grandfather and great grandfather many times over, a successful businessman who supports Jewish life in Israel and around the world. 

This is the true story of authentic, blessed, Jewish continuity.

Jewish continuity is a real issue.

We need to do more about it.

Israel's bureau of statistics published a report that says we are still almost a million Jews less than we were before the Holocaust. 

This is eighty years later. We need to do more for Jewish continuity.

The best way to build Jewish continuity is by marrying Jewish and having many Jewish children. 

We need to plan large families contrary to the popular voices in the secular arena which advocate small families. 

To retain the Jewish growth and not lose Jews to assimilation and intermarriage it is critical that we raise our Jewish children as Jews with a strong Torah based identity.

As a community we ought to celebrate and put on a pedestal the heroes of our people. In a sense, the most unsung heroes of our time are the parents. They ought to be venerated as they are the ones who do the heavy lifting in terms of raising the next generation. 

The responsibility of raising children is daunting. It’s a 24/7 undertaking. This is why it needs to be encouraged and promoted. A philanthropist who is a child of a Holocaust survivor once told me that he offered his kids one million dollars as a gift for every Jewish child they have. He mused to me that as we enter the modern era of the 2020s he is wondering whether a million dollars is enough of an incentive.

Raising children is constant work. It is rewarding, this is true. At the same time, it requires selflessness and dedication.

Kudos and blessings to the valiant parents who are bringing more souls into the world.

Judaism teaches that children are the most cherished Divine blessing known to mankind. Not only are they a blessing, but tradition teaches us that every additional child brings a new flow of blessings to a family. Each additional child does not decrease from the material, financial and spiritual stability of the home; on the contrary, the entire family actually benefits from the Divine blessings that each child brings.

The  Rebbe once said that it is unnecessary for us to take over G-d's bookkeeping to figure out how many children He is able to care for. "He who feeds and sustains the whole world" the Rebbe said, "is able to take care of the children, as well as the parents."

Sometimes it is a struggle financially in the short term. To the parents I encounter who have large families and are temporarily struggling financially, I remind them that they are the truly wealthy Jews. For true Jewish wealth is not money and possessions, rather it is authentic Jewish nachas from children and grandchildren. 

It is not pleasant to pinch pennies, nor does it feel good to receive financial support from others, but the holiness of fulfilling G-d’s directive ‘be fruitful and multiply’ literally, is a blessing that no money can buy.

In Israel they have a wonderful term to describe large families.

משפחות ברוכות ילדים

‘Families that are blessed with (many) children’.

I acknowledge that many of my readers are already past the age of having physical children.

To the grandparents who are reading this I say, make sure that you support your children as they have children. Emotional support. Financial support. Keep on cheering and applauding your kids for their giant contribution of raising kids. 

Yes, kids make a mess and are noisy, but the noise stands in stark opposition to the deathly silence that resounded in Europe after the holocaust with nary a Jewish child in sight. And the children that survived in hiding were terrified to utter a sound. Many of them needed to reclaim their Jewish identity having hidden under the guise of being Christians. 

Thank G-d our communities today resound with the humming sound of youthful exuberance. The sound of children in a Jewish community is music. It sings the melodies of a Jewish future please G-d.

To those who didn’t have the gift of having their own children. Help those families who do have children. Offer a helping hand in whatever way you can. Give money to Jewish organizations who educate our next generation. Give money during your lifetime. Consider a bequest in your will to vibrant organizations that foster and develop Jewish continuity. 

The Torah teaches that one’s good deeds are their ‘offspring’. The more mitzvah’s we do, the more positivity and G-dly energy we bring into the world. These become our spiritual children. 

Everyone must take part in this communal responsibility to proudly and joyously continue the mission that G-d has entrusted His chosen people with here on earth. 

The first exodus was out of Egypt. From there we went to Mount Sinai where we got our ‘marching orders’. 

We have been hard at work since then perfecting the world and bringing G-d consciousness to the universe through studying and living with Torah and Mitzvahs.

The final exodus, the one we all await with intense and insatiable yearning, will be the coming of Mashiach as we march out of this exile to the holy land - Israel. 

An expansive Israel, a land that exudes holiness and is flowing with milk and honey, a land that is peaceful and secure forever. 

And most importantly we will witness the Messianic building of the Third Bet Hamkidash, may it be speedily in our days.

Shabbat Shalom

Chodesh Tov

Rabbi Yosef Kantor

I am ‘high’.

I mean to say that I am uplifted from the eight days of Pesach.

So many moments of Yiddishkeit and Jewish camaraderie.

The Passover Seders were uplifting, rejuvenating (read reJEWvenating) and inspiring. 

The joint Torah study and praying was meaningfully uplifting. The festive Passover holiday meals were delicious and joyous.

And now it is a post Pesach ‘regular’ Friday.

No 10am holiday prayers today. Back to 7:30 am weekday prayer schedule. After prayer and a Torah class I am back at the office. Phones are ringing. Secretaries are typing. The bank needs to be attended to. Back to the familiar hecticness of coordinating the multiple aspects of Jewish life in Thailand.

I don’t want to come down from my ‘high’.

I am sure you join me in this sentiment.

Here is the good news. We don’t have to – actually we shouldn’t - climb down from the heights. 

Pesach doesn’t really end.

The experience of liberation is one that we take with us. 

Here are two examples of implementable Pesach moment that you should take with you.

Something doesn’t go your way. You are about to get into a funk. 

Anger is welling up. 

An inner voice reminds you that anger never gets you anywhere positive, but you shush up that voice and feel you are enslaved to your nature.

Think Pesach. 

Liberation. 

First of all, pause. Take a deep breath. You are not enslaved to your natural reactions. 

Being liberated means that you can choose in what state of mind you wish to be.

This next point I am about to make is of critical importance during these times of upheavals in the world. 

Particularly as I am referring to our reactions to the ubiquitous anti-semitism that has reared its ugly poisonous head from all sides of the world. 

Our enemies would like us to focus on fear. They would like to see unhappy fearful Jews who curtail their involvement in active Jewish life.  

If you read all the reports from around the world that describe incidents of Jew hatred it is easy to fall into despair and panic.

Pesach empowers us to be liberated.

It is our choice about what we focus on.

We ought to focus on the incredible gift of being a Jew.

Hashem extracted us – an entire nation – from slavery – to liberation.

That was just the first part of the Supernal plan.

From Egypt we embarked on our seven-week journey to Mount Sinai.

It was there that Hashem gave us our title as his chosen nation. After we stated our complete acceptance of Hashem’s word, He gave us the most precious otherworldly G-dly gift. A gift beyond human or even angelic imagination.

G-d gave us His Torah.

His most precious ‘thing’ given to His most precious people.

You and I are the recipients of this pedigree of being the nation that G-d placed His holy name upon.

Think along the lines of ‘purveyors’ to royal courts. Having the royal emblem on a company product picks up the prestige and honor of the company. 

We are the people whom G-d places his holy name upon.

The only way we have survived for more than three thousand years when so many other nations have faded and disappeared as independent nations, is by G-d’s miracles.

For reasons known only to Him, Hashem chose to take us through the harrowing and challenging roller coaster of exile and persecution and performs miracles of all types, shapes and sizes to save us, time and time again.

When you make that switch in your mind to focus on the fact that we belong to a nation who G-d constantly protects with miracles you breathe more calmly. 

You and I are children of the illustrious Avraham, Yitschak and Yaakov. Hashems special ‘forces’ whom He redeemed from Egypt with a 'mighty hand and an outstretched arm’. A people who Hashem continues to shepherd and protect, nurture and love.

That is a reason to rejoice. To sing and to dance.

Even more important than your own rejoicing about your Judaism is educating your children, students and those you have an influence on to also rejoice and relish their heritage.

Over this Pesach I heard from various people about the special and joyous Jewish moments that they experienced as children. It is critical that we transmit the beauty and inspiration of Judaism, community and family in a joyous way.

This means making it fun for the children. Adapting the methods of injecting joy and enjoyment to be age-appropriate.  Don’t expect your little kids to get excited about a deep spiritual epiphany that you have had as an adult. On the other hand, as a mature thinking adult, don’t get stuck at having a relationship with G-d only about the Jewish culinary traditions. Latkes are sufganiyot are nice and bring back warm memories but as a sophisticated adult you could be engaging with the beatify and depth of the Torah.

Jump into a deeper Jewish experience. Study something meaningful from the Torah and converse daily with G-d in prayer.

This is liberation. 

Whatever may be going on outside in the world, you and I have the choice to create our own liberated space in our minds and hearts. This will spill over into our homes and communities. 

So, as you and I emerge from the heights and giddiness of eight days of Pesach, let us reengage with the nitty gritty of everyday life in a challenged world, with a new energy and inspiration. 

To refine, elevate and change the world by living in a more elevated space. 

As we get closer to the coming of Mashiach the Rebbe encouraged us to learn more about this topic. Moreover, we can try living in a mindset reminiscent of the changes that the world will undergo in its redeemed state, after Mashiach’s coming.

Mashiach will usher in a new world order of peace and harmony. There will be no jealousy, no unfair competition. Good things will be readily available to all, and we won’t live with a scarcity mindset that causes us to hoard,

When Mashiach comes G-d’s presence will be openly manifest so that we will desire to do what is right rather than what is convenient. Our choices will be obvious. Humanity at large will do what is G-d centered not what is ‘me’ centered. 

Doing the right thing will come naturally. Just as one doesn’t put their finger into fire as they don’t want to get burned, we will all naturally do what G-d has prescribed as it will be a no-brainer. 

Sounds utopic? 

It is. 

Sounds challenging.

It is.

Enjoy the challenge while we still have it.

Ironically, the one thing we will wistfully and nostalgically remember after Mashiach comes is the great challenge of doing the right thing even when it is difficult. 

Pesach, in which we remember our first liberation through Moshe and yearn for our final liberation with Mashiach, empowers us to live a liberated and Mashiach oriented way of life.

It’s a two-pronged personal exercise. 

On the one hand we have our personal Egypt to struggle with, overcome, and exit from.

On the other hand, we can uplift, develop and evolve into living life in a transformed mode. We can choose to live in an uplifted and inspirational mindset of wealth and abundance that allows us to be kind, giving and sharing. 

In reality we are still in deeply uncertain times.

And openly miraculous times.

Simultaneously. 

Our minds and hearts were focused on Israel where the barrage of rockets and missiles was unabating during Pesach. Even while at the same time we recognize the incredible miracles that are happening in Israel all the time.

Impossibly exhausting for those going through the unimaginable reality of missiles being shot incessantly into populated civilian areas.

Impossible as well not to see the miracles that G-d is performing as time and time again near calamities are averted.

We seem to be a nation that is called upon to live with competing emotions.

On the one hand we are acutely aware that we are a nation that faces enemies who wish to annihilate us in every generation. The names and characters change but their agenda of destruction is the same. 

On the other hand we have Hashem’s promise to us that keeps us enduring, resilient and thriving.

May Hashem give us the ability to have strong faith and continue to follow G-d with love and joy till He takes us out of this state of exile to bring us Mashiach and the ultimate and consummate redemption. 

After which there will be no further exile.

No suffering. No war. No jealously.

Eternal peace, harmony, blissful connection to G-d.

We can’t wait!

We want Mashiach NOW.

Rabbi Yosef Kantor

The Haggada that is recited at the Seder on the eve of Pesach should be recited with a JOYOUS tone and in an UPLIFTED voice.

It is the celebration of our liberation. 

No one can ever take us back into the abject slavery in which we found ourselves as slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt over three thousand years ago.

This is not a nostalgic historical celebration. The Passover Seder is a reenactment. A reliving of what it means to go from the lowest point in human experience, that of degrading slavery, to the heady and uplifting space of freedom and liberty.

Jews have celebrated Passover in the best of times.

Today there are many Passover ‘resorts’ where Jewish families combine the religious celebration with beautiful views and destinations and fine kosher cuisine.

Jews have celebrated Passover during the inquisition. 

During the holocaust. 

In the Siberian gulags.

And today Jews living in Israel are preparing for Pesach even as they dash in and out of shelters.

Tragically, some families are mourning fallen sons.

When I saw the name of the fallen Israeli soldier a few days ago, I knew it was a relative.

You see Moshe Yitschak Katz was named after his great-grandfather Rabbi Moshe Yitschak Hecht, who was an older brother of my grandfather. 

The dynamic Hecht brothers (there were six), American born and bred, became emissaries of the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s to build the foundations of Jewish learning and living in the USA starting in the early 1940’s. 

Rabbi Moshe Yitschak Hecht spent more than fifty years from his early adult years till his passing, tirelessly heading a Yeshiva day-school in New Haven CT in which thousands of Jewish boys and girls received a Jewish education. It was a labor of love, one that took every ounce of his energy, between covering the perennial deficits and steering the curriculum blending Torah studies and general studies.

Many decades later, his great grandson who felt a passion in his soul to defend our people in Israel enlisted in the Israeli army and in his first deployment in Lebanon, Moshe Yitschak Katz lost his life tragically and heroically.

It is impossible for me to imagine how my second cousin and his family are going to transition from the shiva mourning to the Pesach Seder. 

I know that they will. 

They are Jewish. 

And the Jewish people at their very formation are referred to as G-d’s ‘army’.

They will march on. With determination, hope and positivity.

May G-d comfort them and give them the strength to carry on the legacy of their heroic son.

I quote from the Rebbe’s entry in the Hayom Yom Diary about the Jewish fortitude and absolute commitment:

From the time of the exodus from Egypt the Jewish people are called the "Army of G-d."1 They are also called "servants." The difference is this: A servant performs his master's service which may be on many different levels; he may work at the delicate craft of threading pearls, he may do other kinds of expert work or he may perform simple tasks. His service involves great toil and labor, but this does not constitute mesirat nefesh - a willingness to sacrifice self, to lay down one's life. Soldiers are servants who serve with great toil and labor and with self sacrifice, in wars of defense or attack. The soldiers stand at their posts with the highest degree of stalwart determination, undeterred by the opposing enemy; their service is not one of comprehension, for they act according to the orders of their commander.

The Jews in Egypt were utterly degraded under their severe and bitter affliction. Yet, despite it all, they did not change their names, their language, or their distinctive clothing. With absolute determination they stood at their posts, for they knew that G-d had promised to redeem them.

Whoever behaves as they did under such circumstances is a soldier in the Army of G-d, and the Al-mighty will come to his assistance in a manner that manifests itself in nature - yet transcends nature.

I got an emotional and uplifting note from someone in our community in Bangkok. He came especially to put on Tefilin in honor of Moshe Yitschak, although he rarely does so.

As he put it, ‘that's the least I can do to honor a fallen brother.’

Especially during these tense days and trying times, we need to redouble our efforts to strengthen our mitzvah observance. Especially putting on Tefillin as often as we can (daily besides for Shabbat and Chagim). 

Lighting Shabbat and Holiday candles are especially significant as they add more light of holiness to the world.

Our Mitzvah’s are critical and contribute strength and security to our nation.

Let us do our bit as links in the golden chain of the ‘legions of Hahem’ who emerged from the House of Bondage to become the moral lighthouses of the world, chosen by G-d at Mount Sinai to be his special nation, with positivity and joy.

In a joyous upraised voice!

Hopefully things are going well for you, and it is natural and easy for you to rejoice. 

If G-d forbid you are going through a challenge of your own, make the effort, even if it requires a herculean effort, to celebrate Pesach, Zman Cherutenu the holiday of our freedom.   

The main agendas of the day:

Making sure you have no Chametz in your possession by selling it or disposing of it totally.

Joining a Seder click here.

Getting Matzah for eating on Wednesday (and Thursday) night. (JCafe is open tomorrow (Wednesday) and then again on Sunday-Tuesday of next week selling matzah and other kosher for Passover food items).

Relating and reliving our Exodus from Egypt by saying the Hagada tomorrow night. Click here for Hagada instructions. 

May we merit to have the fulfillment of what we proclaim at the end of the Pesach Seder

LESHANA HABAAH BEYERUSHALAYIM

Chag Kasher Vesameach,

A happy and kosher Pesach

Rabbi Yosef & Nechama Kantor

Yesterday a young man came to the Synagogue to make the blessing of thanksgiving – Hagomel.

(Perfect timing for this discussion as this week’s Parsha Tzav is where the thanksgiving sacrifice of Todah - the forerunner to the Hagomel blessing is taught). 

After the first few words he choked up with tearful emotion and struggled to get the remaining words of the blessing out of his mouth. It was a raw and powerful moment. I was standing right next to him as the Torah reader, and I found my eyes filling up with tears of emotion. The other members of the minyan all stood reflectively. It was an intense moment.

The Hagomel blessing is made reminiscent of the sacrifice that was brought as a thanksgiving for being saved from a life and death situation. These days, we most commonly say it after overseas travel, which means that in a place like Thailand, which hosts so many travelers, people are constantly saying this blessing. Sometimes at one Torah reading we can have multiple Hagomel blessings being recited. 

Usually, this blessing is said without extraordinary emotion. 

I can only speculate as to why the young man who made the blessings yesterday was so full of emotion. What near-death experience had he been rescued from? I do not know, he didn’t share any background. 

I was envious of this young man’s emotionally laden prayer. 

(Envy of someone else’s good behavior is encouraged by the Torah unlike envy of someone’s material possessions which is the tenth of the Ten Commandments)

This is what true prayer should look like. 

The words of the Baal Shem Tov came to my mind.

It is a "great miracle" and a profound act of Divine mercy that a person remains alive after intense prayer.

When one prays with proper Kavana and intensity, the emotional feeling of desire to be one with G-d could lead to enrapturement. Literally the soul could fly back to its source of oneness with G-d leaving the person lifeless. 

Hashem wants us to live life in this physical world, so he miraculously keeps us alive even if our feelings of desire to cleave inseparably from G-d are overwhelming. 

Giving thanks to Hashem ought to be deeply meaningful.

One of the challenges we face in life is the fact that we are never totally problem free even as we are blessed in an exceptional and overwhelming way. 

For example, one may have been blessed with a new baby, the greatest gift possible. At the same time there may be some serious difficulties like not having enough money to support the family. If you just hear the person complaining about not having enough income, you may think that their life is full of difficulty. On the other hand, if you hear that they just had another healthy child, you recognize that their life is also so blessed. Yet at the same time the money issue is a real issue. 

Competing emotions. 

The Torah teaches us to thank Hashem for the blessings.

Even as we cry out and pray for salvation from the problems.

Israel is under attack right now.

Our hearts, minds, prayers and mitzvahs are dedicated to our brothers and sisters in Israel.

Millions of citizens are running back and forth to shelters as the enemy fires ballistic missiles and cluster bombs. 

At the same time the Jewish people are being showered with G-d’s openly miraculous protection.

Thank G-d most of the incoming missiles are intercepted by the Israeli army defense system. Alas, some missiles have made their way through taking innocent lives and wreaking havoc.

Even within the devastation there are miracles bearing the unmistakable markings of being direct protection from G-d to His people in His holy land of Israel, the land on which the eyes of G-d are focused at all times.

An example from Monday of this week:

An Iranian ballistic missile carrying hundreds of kilos of explosives hit a Tel Aviv apartment building directly on Monday night. Despite scenes of “widespread destruction after the missile impact left a large crater alongside mangled buildings and vehicles at the scene of the attack,” only four people were lightly injured, none of them requiring hospitalization. (Times of Israel, March 24, 2026).

If you read the in-depth reports coming out of Israel you will see that together with the unbearable devastation, there are openly Divine miracles.

This week’s Torah reading about Todah – thanksgiving reminds us to sing out to Hashem in song and praise for the miracles He does.

Just as we pour out our hearts in emotional prayer that He save us from our enemies.

Let us remember to also give thanks to Hashem for the blessings in our personal lives. And there are myriads of blessings. If one pays attention ones heart is full of song and thanksgiving to Almighty G-d.

On this Sunday we give thanksgiving to Hashem for the blessing our generation with the birth of the Rebbe on Nissan 11 in 1902.

Click here for more about the Rebbe and his absolute Ahavat Yisrael the cornerstone of his mission to reach out with love to every Jew in every corner of the globe with the Mitvzah Campaign.

The Rebbe and his enduring vision continue to guide and shepherd our generation as we inch ever closer to the final Redemption with the coming of Mashiach.

Prepare for inner liberation this Pesach by visiting some of the links below.

The Rebbe’s teaching on Postivity teach us how to view life through the uplifting and energy generating lens of positivity.

The Rebbe’s teachings on Purpose give a practical path to living a meaningful and purposeful life even as modernity surrounds us from all sides.

The Rebbe’s pronouncement that Mashiach and Geula-Redemption are imminent and immediate  fuels our deeds, our aspirations and our yearning for the greatest moment of history – the coming of Mashiach!

Best wishes for continued success in all your preparations for Pesach.

See below to sell chametz, order matzah, reserve your spot at a Pesach Seder.

Shabbat Shalom

Rabbi Yosef Kantor

This Thursday we will celebrate the Rosh Chodesh beginning of the month of Nissan. The month of the exodus from Egypt – Pesach. The month of miracles!!!!

We are living in a time of miraculous and detailed oversight by G-d. 

The more you read the news, the more you observe and see the statistically impossible miraculous protection of our Holy Land. 

It is incredible to see the hand of G-d working through the sophisticated weaponry that we thank G-d have in our arsenal.

The Jewish people is in a time of war. In Israel, and the world over, we are praying more and connecting more to Hashem by upgrading our mitzvah efforts.

There is a theory out there in the internet that it is possible to predict USA military moves by the ‘pizza index’.

The way this thinking goes is that when there is a spike in pizza orders to the Pentagon in the wee hours of the morning, it’s a sure sign that people are working around the clock planning a military action.

Whether this is true or not I will leave for others to debate.

There is an organization that provides Tefillin for Israeli soldiers who request them. They say that just before the latest Israel air force action in Iran there was a flurry of Tefillin requests from the air force soldiers. 

I do not know this information firsthand. 

What I do know, is that the Rebbe quoted the Talmud’s statement that deterrence against our enemies is generated by Jewish men putting on Tefillin.

And knowing the nature of my fellow Jews, as non-observant as they may seem to be, deep down is a pulsating, living and thriving Jewish soul-neshama that turns to G-d when salvation is needed.

So its not hard to believe that when the action is imminent, soldiers reach out to strengthen their Tefillin observance.

As well, it is clearly stated in the Torah that having a kosher Mezuzah on one’s door is a sure way to ensure a secure and protected home.

This has led to a surge in those requesting mezuzahs.

Around the world more mitzvahs are being done for the protection of our brothers and sisters in Israel, civilians and soldiers alike. And for the protection of Jewish communities around the world.

We are all ONE.

Below are links for providing 

Tefillin for those who commit to wearing them.

Mezuzahs on the homes of IDF soldiers.

If you would like help in Thailand with obtaining a mezuzah for your home please contact me by clicking here.

Giving Tzedakah is always important, 

Here is the link to a ‘tzedaka PUSHKA app’. The default on this app is tzedakah for helping poor people in Israel. Chabad of Thailand has been privileged to be selected to be added to the list of causes that are on this app. 

Click here for an easy way to give tzedakah electronically. 

Make sure to start making your Pesach plans. 

Sell Chametz

Order Matzah in Thailand (order internationally here)

Participate in a Seder

And most of all, combat anti-semitism by doing acts of Judaism.

Joyously and energetically and proudly.

Shabbat Shalom

Rabbi Yosef Kantor