By the Grace of G-d
Dear Friend,
PESACH AHOY!!!!
Ahoy is ship language.
It comes to mind because our shipment of Passover goods is on a ship at sea. Just a few days away from Thailand. We are praying that all goes with G-d’s blessings of success and that the eagerly awaited goods have a smooth arrival and clearance so that we can soon put the Passover items out for sale as soon as possible in JCafe.
We are also awaiting confirmation at one of the local Sukhumvit area hotels for use of their ballroom for SEDER night.
Yes, please G-d, on Saturday night March 27, a Seder will be held. Once we have confirmation, I will send out a reservation link as it will be filling up rapidly (halls cannot operate at full capacity due to Covid restrictions).
We will also be offering take away seders to accommodate all levels of caution during these still unresolved health-challenged times.
Of course, the most important item, Shmura Matzah for your Seder will be readily available.
PURIM ASTERN!!!
Once in the ship lexicon, I may as well continue with ship lingo. Purim is behind us.
About ships, here is a wonderful lesson.
Rising waters are dangerous. To people on dry land that is. Flooding can G-d forbid be lethal. Sadly, we all remember the Tsunami when peoples lives were tragically snuffed out through rising water.
If however you are in a boat, waters don’t bother you.
On the contrary, they are elevating. The higher the waters, the more uplifted the boat is.
It’s that way in life too.
The same things that can threaten to engulf you, if you are in the safety of a proverbial ship, they elevate you.
It gets even more confusing and inspiring (yes, both at the same time).
Even if you were the one that caused the flood, and the imminent results of your ill-chosen path seem catastrophic. Even then, if you are determined enough, the waters can turn into a transformative and uplifting addition to your life.
I will never forget the Jew who was jailed in the ‘Bangkok Hilton’ (code word for one of the prisons here…) for more then two decades. He would tell me that the best thing that happened to him is that he was imprisoned. His life was on the fast track to nowhere. Prison time enabled him to totally turn around his life. He has since been released thank G-d and shares his experience with at-risk youth, to inspire them to aim for a better life. I felt humbled every time I met him. He was in shackles, yet his spirit was truly unfettered.
Sometimes the road to a great place goes through a very narrow and constricted unpleasant and smelly path.
Purim is a great example.
The entire people of Israel were slated for execution by Haman and our enemies. It was darker than dark for our people during that time.
In the end a miracle was wrought by G-d.
Things got flipped. Not just did we not suffer a tragic defeat, we gained a victorious success over all of our enemies. Joy instead of gloom. Light instead of darkness. Not just any light. Dazzling light.
The transformational effect this had on the Jewish people, remains an uplifting inspiration for us till this day. More than two and a half millennia later.
We wouldn’t have the epic celebration of Purim without the troubled anxiety ridden saga before that.
This week’s Parsha is an a great example as well.
The Jews engaged in the ultimate mess-up. They worshiped the golden calf. Merely forty days after the greatest moment of G-dly revelation in human history. The Ten Commandments were communicated to every Jew by G-d Almighty personally. Yet forty days later they violated the second commandment prohibiting idols.
Like raging waters. The anger in Heaven caused by this blatant sin, threatened to unleash the wrath of G-d against our nation.
Till Moshe took up our cause and prayed for us. And we, the Jewish people, joined in, with intense and complete feeling of remorse and return to G-d.
Eighty days of remorseful prayer and recommitment to G-d later, we were blessed that G-d said ‘I FORGIVE YOU’.
This became the day of Yom Kippur for ever after. A day of forgiveness.
How could we ever have imagined life without Yom Kippur?
We got Yom Kippur via the travails of the sinfulness of the golden calf.
It sounds incongruous but it’s the simple reading of the Torah’s narrative.
And it was not just a one-time pattern. This is the recurring pattern of our collective and individual destinies.
In a soul-penetrating teaching, the Chassidic masters point to the name of our Parsha. ‘Ki Tisa et Rosh’ literally means ‘when you uplift the head’. The portion speaks about the gravest sin of the golden calf. Yet, the destination that was arrived to after that sin is one of the greatest ‘uplifting of head’.
That’s the way G-d has embedded things in life.
‘Uplifted-ness’ follows ‘fallen-ness’.
Oh no, you can’t plan this stuff.
Just like you don’t plan to jump off a cliff without being sure you have been attached to a bungee rope. You don’t plan to sin because you can rebound higher. You may get stuck in the morass of sin.
But if you do find yourself taking an unplanned misstep and you have fallen or still falling… recognize that all is not lost. G-d has placed you on a bungee style rope and if you take the proper steps to grab onto that rope, you will bounce back and up, to an even higher place than you started.
It’s a paradox I know. On the one hand we say ‘be careful not to fall!’ Falling is dangerous and disastrous. On the other hand if you did fall? We say, ‘don’t give up’. Aim for that opportunity of elevation that G-d has embedded into the fall for those who grab onto the bungee rope.
The flood waters are rising? Disaster. Unless you get into the boat.
If you immerse yourself into the protective walls of G-ds Torah, Mitzvahs and Prayers, the waters will lift you up.
Those ‘words’ of light and holiness of Torah and Tefilah represent the ‘boat’ that can protect us from the raging waters.
Try it.
Next time you are anxious, try reading Psalm 20 in King David’s Tehilim (Psalms). Read the entire chapter first. Then repeat the verse ‘May Hashem answer you on a day of distress, may the name of the G-d of Jacob fortify you’ with emphasis.
You will feel the aura of protective light and holiness that it creates around you.
You will feel the intensity of G-d’s loving embrace more than you felt Him before you felt the anxiety.
How is that?
Have you ever experienced a fight with a loved one? And then made up?
You definitely know what I am talking about then. The intensity of the relationship after making up from a fight is much more powerful.
Here is a little secret that I can only share at the end of a long article. Because it means you are a serious reader and will not take me out of context.
Not every mistake we make could have been avoided. Sometimes it was just sprung upon us. Our Sages teach that sometimes G-d implants falls and personal failures into our lives so that we should be granted the opportunity to dig into even deeper recesses of our soul and come back to Him with an unprecedented fiery passion.
Purim has passed. The gift of life was handed to us.
Passover is upon us. The gift of liberation was gifted to us for ever.
Let us use these gifts of life and liberation wisely.
To serve G-d. By fulfilling the relationship builders with Him = Mitzvahs, as well as the Mitzvah’s he has instructed us regarding our treatment of others. With benevolent forbearing and kindness.
I thank the Almighty for all His miracles.
This week many items of good news have been shared with me.
Things that are unfolding over weeks, months and even years.
Really important things take time.
Really really really important things may take even more time.
I heard a bunch of good news about really really really important things. Thank G-d for His kindness and benevolence!!!!
Thank you to those who have shared their good news with me.
It’s a great time to have JOYOUS and HEALTHY news. The month of Adar is an incredibly blessed month. And we still have NINE FULL DAYS of Adar. Let loose with some joy my dear friends. Hum a joyous melody. Tap your feet to a rhythm. Hey, if you are not scared of people thinking you are a little ‘weird’ break out into a full-blown dance!!!! Its still the month of Adar after all.
May all of you who are reading this (and if you have read this far you deserve extra credit and blessing) and all of us, be blessed with the blessing of Purim and Pesach to be taken from darkness to light, from slavery to redemption with Mashiach’s coming, AMEN.
Rabbi Yosef Kantor