Earlier this week, what started off as a regular Tuesday turned out to be a beautiful mosaic of Jewish life. I got an inspiring look at the true source of power ensuring Jewish continuity.
In the morning, I helped a community member lay Tefillin in honor of his eightieth birthday. He commented that he had laid Tefillin at his bar mitzvah sixty-seven years ago and this was the first time that he had put them on since then.
(We had planned this special event a few years ago. Thank G-d he and I were both able to fulfil our commitment in good health).
Later on in the day I had the great pleasure to teach Dov Yaakov Soicher, a soon to be Bar Mitzvah boy how to put on Tefillin. He is intending to put them on every day please G-d as do his father and brothers.
Proud Bar Mitzvah boy and family
The realization that these exact same Tefillin are equally relevant to an eighty-year-old Jew as they are to a thirteen-year-old young Jew gave me a lot of inspiration.
It is the answer to the challenges that our people face today.
It is the secret to building Jewish resilience and strength.
Never in recent history have Jews felt the reprehensible menace of anti-semitism as we do now.
It can feel overwhelming.
We are a small minority when compared to the world’s population at large.
How can we ensure that we are not intimidated or overwhelmed?
From where can we draw strength and optimism?
The answer is:
From our oneness!
The unity of the Jewish people all over the world and spanning the millennia since the formation of Am Yisrael, is what makes us beyond giant and gives us the power to stand unwavering and firm.
What we talk about being ‘one people’ it requires a deeper dive into the topic.
What unites us?
Food?
Jewish people around the world have vastly different eating choices.
Look back historically, do you still eat the foods that your great grandparents ate?
I doubt it.
Many have switched gefilte fish for sushi or spicy Moroccan fish.
Do Jewish people all dress alike today?
Not at all.
I highly doubt that many of us dress like our ancestors did.
Language?
Many of us don’t speak the same language that our great grandparents spoke.
What makes us one? In what matters do we act with uniformity?
We are obviously all so different from each other.
Even in our Torah study, each of us is at a different level of depth and understanding.
We are all one though when it comes to the practical act of doing mitzvahs.
We all do the same acts and fulfil the same mitzvahs.
The same Shabbat candles before sundown, with the blessing beforehand.
The same tefillin.
Four fringed Tallit.
We all give Tzedaka. (Rambam writes that there has never been a Jewish community in history that operated without an active Tzedakah/social welfare system).
The laws of kosher. Jews have been keeping away from non-kosher animals and ritually slaughtering (shechita) kosher animals since we left Egypt.
Similarly, when it comes to the mitzva of ritual immersion in a kosher mikvah as part of Jewish Family Purity.
There are mikvahs (ritual pools of naturally sourced water) that have been uncovered from thousands of years ago in the holy land of Israel Click here for historical mikvahs from Jerusalem and beyond
And there are mikvahs that dot the globe today.
In Thailand itself, Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Ko Samui and Phuket all have mikvahs. And just this week we have finished a Mikva in Pai, Northern Thailand. The Mikva in Ko Phangan is well underway as well.
Above: First kosher Mikva in Pai opened this week.
Below: Rendering of future preperation room
Thousands of years later, thousands of kilometers apart, one mitzvah of Mikva that unites us all.
When you do a mitzvah, it is first and foremost a connection to the Almighty. There can be no greater delight, pleasure and honor than fulfilling the instruction that G-d has given us.
There is another angle as well.
When I do a mitzvah, it is not just the lone deed that I as an individual Jew is doing.
The physical action of doing the mitzvah is the common thread that binds all living Jews around the world, and all Jews that have ever lived during the entire gamut of history.
From the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai when we became a nations of Am Yisrael, to the 21st century in 2025, the practical deeds that Hashem has instructed us to do - the mitzvahs - are what unites us.
The Rebbe conveyed this message in the context of his famous ‘Mitzvah Campaigns’ as it makes doing mitzvahs even more empowering and exciting.
When you do a mitzvah, regardless of the depth of your knowledge and piety, the action is the same from the simplest to the holiest Jews. The doing of the mitzvah thus binds us with every single Jew around the world and of every generation.
When you walk in the street of a bustling metropolis, you may be a single Jew walking alone in a world that sometimes hates us, but you are not alone.
By virtue of the fact that you are a Jew who performs mitzvahs (every Jew performs some mitzvahs, of this there is no doubt) you are seamlessly connected to the hundreds of millions of Jews who have lived as Jews throughout the ages and acted exactly as you have, in performing mitzvahs.
So next time you meet up with a mitzvah opportunity, jump up and grab it. Don’t wait to turn eighty, don’t even delay for a few minutes.
Especially as we start to prepare for the new year, let us perform as many mitzvahs as we possibly can.
When a mitzvah comes your way, don’t delay (it even rhymes)!
Every mitzvah brings Mashiach ever closer.
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Yosef Kantor
PS. next week our annual ‘giving day – matching fund campaign’ will be officially launched.
Please consider giving a ‘head start’ on the campaign and partner with us in providing Jewish life in Thailand.