"Shabbat Shalom from Bangkok"

By the Grace of G-d

Dear Friend,

Have you ever heard people using the term ‘making sense of the madness’

That is what it feels like sometimes in this world. Especially when things don’t turn out the way you anticipated and hoped.

Some people dismissively say, don’t bother trying to making sense of it. Its madness after all. It doesn’t have to make sense.

Others say its not ‘madness’. Nothing happens by ‘chance’.

Everything is from G-d. Therefore, quite obviously it is not madness. It DOES make sense.

As believers in G-d -

By the way, the Torah states unequivocally that all the people of ‘Israel, are believers the children of believers’. Which is why if a Jew tells me that they don’t believe in G-d. I respond that because I do believe in G-d and His Torah, ‘I don’t believe you that you don’t believe’.

- should we be trying to figure things out, or just go with the flow without meditating too deeply on why things unfold the way that they do.

To be honest, I used to think that it’s better not to try and search for meaning in those haphazard things that seem to make no sense. Hashem knows what He is doing, and he doesn’t need me to try to understand.

But is this the case?

Is it really showing that I trust fully in G-d’s supervision of every single things when I DON’T look for reason, or perhaps when I DO look for a pattern in the world, it highlights the depth of my believe in G-d’s presence in every detail of life.

Let me give you a scenario (pre mobile phone days) and you decide.

Scenario: You live out of town, and you have just come to your doting parents’ home after not visiting them for some time. You have told them that you are arriving on this and this day. They confirmed that this is suitable for them and that they will be expectantly awaiting you. You travel to their home, show up to their front door and surprisingly the house is dark! No one answers the doorbell. You let yourself in, and find that your parents aren’t there.

Would you just shrug your shoulders and say ‘this is pretty random’ and go about your life without a second thought? Or would you look around to see if your parents left a note about where they may be. Perhaps you would call one of your siblings to see if they have heard from your parents lately while you were in transit to them. (Remember, no mobile phones in this parable).

I daresay that every single one of you who is reading this article would be uneasy or at the very least inquisitive about why your parents aren’t home as they said they would be.

Why? Because you know that your parents are responsible people. You know that they love you. You had confirmed your time of arrival in advance. They are usually dependable in their scheduling. It can’t just be carelessness. There must be a reason that they are not home.

When they walk in ten minutes later with your favorite desert that they picked up at the store, and describe the unusual traffic on the way home, you now understand why they weren’t home when you arrived.

Do you get where I am headed with this?

Believing in the Almighty as taught by our Torah means that every single aspect of the universe is created and directed by G-d.

It is not just ‘madness’ or ‘chaos’ or ‘random’.

When we search for reasons WHY things happen, we are acknowledging that there IS a supreme being who makes everything happen.

As created beings who are finite, we also know that we cannot always be privy to WHY things are happening.

So that when we don’t understand things that are happening we don’t doubt that Hashem is here, we simply know that His thoughts are infinitely higher than ours and we humbly submit to His will.

Yet, many times Hashem does give us a window into His wondrous workings by showing us blatant acts of ‘Divine Providence’.

I am referring to seemingly ‘random’ things that happen and somehow fit in and form part of a mosaic in which there is a clear pattern. From what seemed to be something random, you now are able to see that there is rhyme and reason to what seemed before to be haphazard unrelated events.

Let’s face it. Hashem doesn’t get ‘stuck in traffic’ or have to deal with any other unforeseen event. He knows everything in advance, for He directs everything. Thus, there is truly nothing ‘random’.

Searching for Him, and possible reasons that He has for the events that happen to us in the details of life is the strongest statement of belief in His Presence.

When you reframe your life, seeing it from this perspective, miracles start to happen. You come to a deeper understanding of how G-d works through the multiple layers of ‘nature’ that He has created. Nature no longer obscures Him, rather it highlights Him.

I am going to share an example that someone just shared with me after hearing a talk where I shared this concept. it’s a little thing. It may even sound childish. But it’s precisely in the ‘small stuff’ where we can often find the guiding ‘hand of Hashem’.

Rabbi, thanks for your class. In the spirit of what you taught; I too just had an interesting Divine Providence story that I would like to share. There was an issue with some of the catered food we ordered. We unintentionally over-ordered potato knishes. I got in touch with someone who delivers food to people in the community in need to see if they could use it. I got this response

‘Just letting you know of Hashem's beautiful ways. A family who hasn't requested food from us in a while reached out today and asked specifically if I had potato knishes available for them. Hashem always provides for his children before we even know that we have the need. Thank you for helping us be a part of the mitzvah.

That incident was special because it happened so instantaneously. Things don’t always happen so quickly. It may take many years to see why things happen.

In this weeks Parsha it took more than twenty years till the story of the sale of Yosef was understood. It seemed like a simple case of jealousy that led to Yosef’s sale to the Egyptians. After many twists and turns, Yosef becomes the second-to- the-king of Egypt and is positioned to save and support his entire family.

Now, after all of this unfolds, Yosef said to his brothers

Though all of you together intended me harm, God intended it for the good, in order to bring things to their present state and to save the lives of many people.

Ultimately, Yosef’s being positioned as the man in charge of Egypt actually contributed to the fact that the Exodus from Egypt was sooner than it otherwise would have been. Ultimately the things happening in our day and age are also leading up to a redemption. THE Redemption. With Mashiach. Amen.

On a practical note, here is what I would like to propose.

May I humbly suggest, that if you are ready to put on transformational glasses and embark on this journey, you will not regret it.

Adopt this approach. Recognize that the Almighty is in ‘charge’. Then open your eyes and search actively for the things in your life that come together in symmetry. Particularly the unplanned things.

When you open your eyes and mind to seeing life in this way, you too will have many stories. ‘Small miracles’ you could call them.

They are always there. Everybody has these things happen to them. But like anything else in life you have to develop a sensitivity to see and hear them.

It behooves us, as believing Jews to ACTIVELY search for these ‘Divine Providence’ points.

(For those reading this who are familiar with Hebrew, here is a link to the letter of the Rebbe that clearly teaches this concept. To me, it was something new. The importance of proactively looking for ways that Hashem’s Providence can be found in your life).

Once you do, your life will not be the same. It will be like a form of ‘alchemy’. Turning mundane life into excitement and curiosity about how Hashem is working miracles and wonders through the happenings of the world.

And lo and behold, once you get those special glasses, you will be blessed to have even more loads and loads of inspiring and positive things that unfold before your eyes. And then you will be blessed to have wagonloads of amazing things to give thanks to Hashem for!

Shabbat Shalom

Rabbi Yosef Kantor

PS on a personal note, Nechama and I are blessed to give gratitude to Hashem for the upcoming Bar Mitzvah of our youngest, Leibel. See below.

 By the Grace of G-d

Dear Friend,

Babies are so cute.

Don’t you agree?

The soft skin, cherubic smile, and countless other feature cause us to instinctively adore our babies, toddler and infants.

Thank G-d for that!

I want to be a bit provocative here.

First a story.

Grandpa was pretty poor and grumpy. It wasn’t fun to have him around. He came to his son’s house to ask for a winter coat yet again. He had misplaced his coat for the umpteenth time. The exasperated son sent his own son (grandpa’s grandson) upstairs to find an old coat to bring to dad. Grandson brings back and old coat. Cut in half. When his father angrily asked, ‘why did you cut the coat’? the naïve grandson responded innocently ‘I will give grandpa half the coat and I wanted to leave the other half of the coat for you, father, when you will be a grandpa, old and forgetful’.

I say thank G-d that we treat our newborns who are helpless, dependent on us and quite limited in their ‘quality of life well.

And that we don’t treat them like large segments of society treats those who are in the waning hours of their life. They too are helpless, dependent and quite limited in their quality of life. But for some reason they are often not treated with the same care.

I would like you to join me in thinking this through.

An elderly person I was helping to work through adapting to some of the limitations of being in the late 80’s once wrote to me

Someday?

They will ask "Where is the Rabbi" and they will say he was put in the Jewish Home for the aged.

Beware!!!!!

He is right.

Because one day you and I will be old.

The way we treat our elders should be the way we would like to be treated.

Interestingly, in a standard healthy society, raising children, notwithstanding all of its challenges, is seen as something positive and meaningful.

It is seen as an entry way to a productive life. Investments of time, love, care and money are made into raising children. Then they mature and enter the next stage of their life where they are please G-d independent and active participants and contributors to society.

I say interestingly, because nobody enters the world and immediately lives the lifestyle of a fully mature adult.

They go through the process of being totally dependent on their parents and caregivers. Slowly growing into independence. This process takes several years. In our current society it is not even uncommon for children to be supported financially till their twenties. Things like cooking meals and doing laundry are often carried by parents when the children are still living at home.

Shouldn’t we look at life as a spectrum.

A soul enters a body and is born into the world from its mother’s womb as a helpless newborn. Newborns grow up to be toddlers. With time, children grow up to be teens. The progress to becoming young adults. Older young adults. Middle age. Just past middle age. Elderly and independent. Old and dependent. Sick and not much quality of life. Soul leaves body – death.

We do pretty well in doing our moral and ethical duty during the first stages of the spectrum. We raise kids to be independent adults. But I think we need some rethinking of the end of the spectrum.

What I have observed, and all the more acutely lately, as I am involved with some ageing members of our community, is that our instinctive feelings towards old age are tinged with immoral overtones.

We are not to blame. We live in a society that has shed many of the classic moral values that used to be sacrosanct.

But we need to be aware. So that we don’t look to newspaper articles to find out what our moral code should be. So that we educate ourselves about our Jewish values and make sure not to be led astray. We need to set the moral tone, not drift lifelessly pulled by the waves.

Yesterday, I studied the below Chapter of Rambam (Maimonides) as part of my daily study.

Meilah Chapter 8 scroll down to Paragraph 8

To paraphrase:

Rambam writes that when G-d gives us a Mitzvah we ought to treat it with much respect and guard it meticulously.

Particularly when it comes to Mitzvahs that don’t make much sense to us as mortals.

Say, not stealing, not murdering, respecting father and mother, these are mitzvahs that we relate to intellectually and we are all fully cognizant of the reasons behind them. We recognize these behaviors to be critical to the benefit of society at large.

There are other mitzvahs that are not so logically imperative. Like not eating pig produces, or not mixing meat and milk, or the law of the ‘Eglah Arufa’ or ‘Para Aduma’ (red heifer) or the Goat sent away on Yom Kippur.

Not just do we not understand them and thus feel challenged not to keep them, but the society around us may ridicule us about them.

Concludes the Rambam, if they are from G-d, we need to cherish and respect and of course adhere to, all the rules that Hashem gives. Whether the Mitzvahs in discussion are understandable or totally non-understandable.

A Mitzvah is an instruction by G-d. It is thus holy and requires our vigilant attention and fulfillment.

Did you notice what I noticed?

Two of the ‘logical’ mitzvahs that are listed are not allowing bloodshed and honoring parents.

Let me clarify ‘bloodshed’. Obviously, the readers of these words don’t need to be told not to take a knife or a gun and kill someone cold-bloodedly. Our moral compass would totally abhor that.

How about letting someone drown when you could save them?

Or choke to death when you could do a Heimlich maneuver and eject the blockage.

Sometimes people need that kind of help.

We have a responsibility to prevent loss of life. This too is part of the mitzvah of not shedding innocent blood.

How about if they are not in their ‘prime years’ anymore?

What about if they are alive, but not blessed to have a ‘quality of life’.

Talking about ‘quality of life’ I must interject with a story.

It was nearly thirty years ago. I was asked to visit a young man who had suffered a terrible motorbike accident. He was in a nursing home with elderly people. He was lucky to be alive, but his leg was shattered, and he needed to have his leg suspended for several months as his bone healed.

In making small talk, this young man said ‘the old people here should be shot’. I couldn’t believe my ears and I asked for some clarification. He explained ‘there are some old people here who have dementia, one old woman even walks around at night in her sleep and talks nonsensically. These people have no value to society and are a burden on the taxpayer being supported in a nursing home’.

I didn’t know much about this young man, but I did know that he loved playing soccer and was quite good at it. I asked him ‘do you think you will be able to play soccer again’. He responded that he probably wouldn’t resume soccer playing.

To which I retorted ‘Then I think that you are pretty valueless to society because what is someone worth if they can’t play soccer’.

Obviously, I was just trying to make a point.

Life, quality of life, contribution to society or burden on society, these things have nothing to do with the moral questions of life and death.

For some reason our values when it comes to honoring or ageing parents or saving infirm elderly patients when they may be drowning in water on their lungs or choking on their food unless a feeding tube is inserted, center around ‘quality of life’.

It is an insidious pervasive societal misvalue.

As if the sanctity of life as prescribed in the Torah is somehow hinged on what you and I consider ‘quality of life’.

I will be first to say that it is excruciating and painful to watch a person who is elderly and infirm, bedridden and sometimes uncommunicative. But they are very much alive. Breathing, digesting, and reacting.

True, they don’t have any ‘quality of life’ if we define life as actively contributing and interacting socially with society.

But they do have LIFE. Their soul and body are together. And we don’t know what is going in their minds, hearts and even less so in their ‘soul’.

Who are we to define at what stage of ‘quality of life’ life is sacred?

LIFE is given and taken by the Almighty.

The same G-d who GIVES life, instructs us to PRESERVE life and eventually TAKES life.

Important to note, that there may not always be an obligation to engage in ‘heroic medical interventional acts’ to preserve a person’s life.

At the same time, I have found that most people are not familiar with the difference between ‘heroic act’ and simple ‘life-saving’ procedures that we morally must administer. Even to people who’s quality of life we don’t envy or understand.

(The details of what should or shouldn’t be done during end of life scenarios in hospitals and so on, is intricate. The contemporary rabbis who specialize in ‘medical Halacha’ are very advanced in their knowledge and application of eternal Torah law to modern day medical situations. I am not trying nor am I qualified, to lay out the details of this matter conclusively in the course of a few paragraphs.

My intention is to educate about the need to ask these moral questions before just deciding to end someone’s life based on ‘hearsay’ or ‘water cooler’ discussions. Or ‘google searches’.

These are moral Halachic questions of the highest degree, and we must consult competent Rabbinic authority if we are to know what to do from the standpoint of G-dly morality.

Societal norms cannot be our moral barometer ).

Perhaps, and I am just thinking out loud here, it would help us to view the spectrum of life a bit differently.

To use a very simple example, when you bake a cake, you need to consider the cleanup of the work area before you take out the ingredients and make a mess. Baking a cake has three parts. The work of mixing ingredients. The fulfilling smell of a baking cake wafting through your home and subsequent enjoyment of eating the cake. The clean up after baking. In my house it is said ‘the clean up after baking is part of the baking’. i.e., don’t offer to bake a cake and do the fun part if you are not ready to do the tedious part.

Naturally, many of us view the work in preparing the cake much less tedious than the clean up after the baking.

Couldn’t life be viewed that way?

Shouldn’t we see the end years of life as being a precondition to being born.

Humans are not disposable that we discard them after they have contributed.

There is a build up from birth to adulthood. We do that beginning part lovingly thank G-d.

Then there is fully active life. When the person interacts, contributes and makes their mark in G-d world.

Following that comes gradual easing out of life.

Dying a sudden death is not a blessing.

Living till 120 with ALL our senses, being able to take care of ourselves and just passing in our sleep, is certainly the most peaceful option.

But it doesn’t always work that way. Oftentimes elderly people reach a stage of being dependent. Sometimes even reaching the stage reminiscent of a newborn. Eating and sleeping most of the time.

Don’t our elderly deserve to be cherished?

And have their lives protected?

Here is the gazillion dollar question.

How does our Creator, G-d Almighty expect us to treat our elderly?

Indeed you will ask, how do we know what is Eternal G-d’ly morality?

The answer always was, is and always will be.

By looking in the Torah….

The Torah is our G-dly moral compass.

ALWAYS and EVERYWHERE.

That is why it is so exciting that we just began writing a new Sefer Torah in Bangkok.

The Torah is our LIFE and it instructs us how to live our moral LIFE and thus provides us with long meaningful and spiritual LIFE.

Shabbat Shalom

Rabbi Yosef Kantor

PS I would love to hear from you about this above very sensitive topic.

PPS This new Torah is being written by our community and for our community. For the sake of Unity. Not in memory of someone. No sponsored by someone in their families honor.

A UNITY Sefer Torah in which please G-d all of the Jews connected to Thailand ( if you are reading these lines, you are part of that group 😊 ) will participate in this ONE Torah that UNITES us all together.

Click here of details on how to become a partner in the Torah.

Letters can be purchased starting from THB 180 (USD $6).

Options for dedication parshas etc can also be found at this link.