Mendel Bluming | Blogger

The choice of words the Torah employs to describe the role of the spouse — "a helper against him" — seems contradictory. If a wife is supposed to serve as a helper to her husband, she is obviously not poised "against him?" Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi explains that the woman becomes a "helper" for her husband by sometimes being against him. For a husband to become the maximum he can be, he must profess the courage to welcome the ideas and feelings of his spouse which may be "against" his own. Some men cannot tolerate their wives disagreeing with them, and conversely, some women cannot handle another opinion. They grow angry and frustrated, exploding or imploding. What often transpires, as a result, is that the woman, or the man, in order to maintain a peaceful atmosphere in the home, remain silent. Or, to avoid confrontation, they just drift away from each other emotionally. Conversely, the arguments and fighting never cease. The Torah is

In the days of the Holy Temple the entire nation would gather to hear the Jewish king read from the Torah on Sukkot after the Sabbatical shmitah year. It was exactly at this time. Each mitzvah has continuous application even those that we no longer keep in their original form. By gathering together this year in your home or in your sukkah, in your office or wherever it might be and sharing the values of the Torah together you continue this important tradition and link yourself with the entire Jewish people keeping the Hakhel tradition this year. Covid lockdowns and isolations have taken a toll and the antidote is Hakhel, joining together to rejoice and celebrate, to study and connect. Happy Hakhel’ing! Mendel (Menachem) Bluming

The Torah uses numerology, a method of connecting concepts via numbers. Every Hebrew letter has a numerical value. The first letter, Aleph, has the value of one. The second letter, Beit, is two, and so on.  When the letters of two words have the same value, it indicates an inner connection between them.   So if “nut” and “sin” add up to the same number, there is something in that. Which is one reason why the Code of Jewish Law (Rema, Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 583:2) discourages eating nuts on Rosh Hashanah. The problem is, they don’t add up. The Hebrew word for nut is Egoz  אגוז , whose letters add up to seventeen. The Hebrew word for sin is Chet  חטא , which adds up to eighteen. Oops. Well, there is a possible explanation. The last letter of the word Chet is a silent Aleph. It isn’t pronounced as part of the word. So it isn’t counted. Aleph is worth one, so if you take the Aleph out of Chet, you get seventeen, not eighteen. But that itself seems a stretch. Can you dele

Do you know the song that is sung over and over again over Rosh Hashanah: "Zachreinu Lichaim Melech Chafetz Bachayim..." Remember us G-d for life, we pray over the High Holidays.   The basic meaning of it is a prayer to G-d for life in this coming year, undoubtedly a critical prayer, especially during a lingering pandemic. There is a deeper meaning too. Zachreinu can mean remember us and REMIND us. Zachreinu Lichaimn can thus mean "G-d please remind us to live this year!" Please G-d don't allow this to just be a year during which I wait for Covid to end and the S&P to improve. A year during which on Monday I look forward to Friday... Protest the time that is robbed from you, that slips through your fingers. Time is so precious... Our lives are so fleeting.... If you are reading this note you are the oldest that you have ever been in your life... and the youngest that you will ever be! In every stage of life we look forward to the next stage becau

Old age is not so easy to define. For a professional football player, forty is already over the hill. On the other hand, there are budding authors in their eighties publishing their first book. So who is old?   We do need a clear answer. There is a mitzvah to “rise before the aged, and give deference to the old.” (Vayikra 19:32) This means more than just offering old people a seat on the bus. It means listening to what they have to say and taking their words seriously.  The mere fact that a person has been around for a while gives a level of credibility and weight to their opinion. Of course there are some very foolish octogenarians, and there are some very wise millennials. But nothing beats life experience. Elders deserve respect just because they have seen a lot. But how old is an elder?  The most authoritative opinion in Jewish law (Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Deah 244:1) states that you are an elder and must be accorded honor from the age of 70. But a most delightful definition

If a business focuses only on cash flow, it can easily fail. The cash flow may be fine and yet the business falling off a cliff, G-d forbid. We are in the final Jewish month of the year. This month is called the month of accounting.   In Judaism cash flow is your daily actions. Being honest, saying a blessing, Tefillin, mezuzah, kosher food, honoring parents, tzedakah etc. That is making sure that your Jewish cash flow is okay and that is important. Once a year we step back and revisit the mission of the Business, the purpose of our lives. Am I advancing in the type of person I should be? Am I guiding my children toward their G-d-given destiny? Am I serving others as I should? Am I a worthwhile investment for the Almighty? On Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur we are judged, during this month we review our business and make sure that it is heading in a great direction. May G-d bless you with a sweet and prosperous new year materially and spiritually! Mendel (Menachem) Bluming based

Are you shocked by the resurgence of anti-Semitism in the world? When Jew-hatred comes from backward extremists and street mobs, it isn't so surprising. But when university educated, well-read westerners, who know history and have access to the facts, are able to demonize Israel and the Jewish people, something is wrong. Has the world gone mad? In truth however, history has shown that being educated has nothing to do with being moral. Some of the most cultured people have also been the most evil. The Holocaust was committed by men who appreciated classical music and read the works of great philosophers. From the very cradle of modern culture and enlightenment came the most barbarous attack against humanity the world has ever seen. The notion that evil stems from the ignorant masses, and the enlightened class are paragons of goodness is simply a myth. Ideas have consequences. An education that teaches moral relativism, that there is no right and wrong, that there is no absolut

As a parent, you need to make many decisions that will impact your child's future. Deciding whether to make a Bris is one of them. Here are the things you need to know before deciding what to do:    - A surgical circumcision is not a Bris. Apart from the missing blessings and prayers, the actual cut may be different. Which means one day when your son realizes that he didn't have a Bris, he may require a rather unpleasant procedure to get it fixed. A Bris is no big deal when you are a baby, but not quite as easy when you're older. - A Mohel is not an amateur. Quite the opposite. An experienced mohel does them almost daily, and has performed hundreds, or possibly thousands, over the years. The mohel who did my sons’ brisses claims to have done over 50,000. - Many Mohels are also medically qualified. Some are themselves surgeons, who will perform a Bris in their surgery rooms if you prefer.  - The risks involved with a bris or medical circumcision procedure are minimal

Question from a groom:    I understand the reason we break a glass at a wedding ceremony is to commemorate the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem some 2000 years ago. This indeed was a significant event in Jewish history, but it doesn't seem to have any personal relevance to me. What does a destroyed building have to do with my wedding? Here’s a Wedding/ Tisha B’Av thought: The destruction of the Temple has extreme personal relevance. It happened to you. The shattering of the glass commemorates not only the fall of Jerusalem, but also a cataclysmic shattering that happened to your very own temple, your soul. Before you were born, you and your soulmate were one - a single soul. Then, as your time to enter this world approached, G-d shattered that single soul into two parts, one male and one female. These two half souls were then born into the world to try and find each other and reunite. At the time, the split seemed tragic. Half of your soul went missing. What was onc

The ‘bless you’ response to a sneeze was enacted by one of the popes during the bubonic plague. So it definitely has a non-Jewish whiff about it. But long before that, Jews blessed each other upon sneezing. The Talmud records that in the earlier generations, people didn't get sick before they died. They simply sneezed and their souls left their bodies. So it was customary to wish a sneezer "To Life!" for fear that their sneeze was a herald of death. Things changed in the times of our forefather Jacob. He prayed that one should rather get sick some time before dying, in order to have a little warning and time to prepare for leaving this world. His request was granted, and so sneezing alone was no longer a sure sign of impending death. But it still could be a symptom of illness, so the custom arose to wish a sneezer good health - Assuta in Aramaic, Tzu gezunt in Yiddish, or Labriyut in Hebrew. Interestingly, one source says that after being blessed with health, the sn

The new pictures from the James Webb telescope are nothing short of incredible. We understand so little of the vast universe before us. With all the unprecedented scientific and medical knowledge and even with this incredible ability to see crisp pictures from a telescope placed 1 million miles away, we are still left in the dark. Do we know why there are 925,000 species of insects on earth? Why these billions of stars and galaxies exist in the vast universe? For me the lesson is humility. I know and understand so little of the vast universe before us and therefore for me to become conceited or arrogant is so out of place. Mendel (Menachem) Bluming

Nope. It was never meant to be. In the Torah in Numbers chapter 19, the Torah says, “this is the statute of the Torah” and then it teaches about the red heifer. When the Torah refers to a statute it is speaking of a mitzvah that has no logical understanding. Rather than saying this is the statute of the red heifer, as the Torah does about Passover: this is the statute of Passover, instead it says this is the statute of the Torah. This teaches us that the entire Torah is predicated on its being a statute, a law that cannot be logically understood. We are encouraged and commanded to engage our minds in the study of Torah so that logic too can be a part of the process but yet the Torah itself never becomes logical. Even laws that make a lot of sense have details that defy logic. So what is the Torah? Pure Godliness. Yes, sometimes it is enclosed in emotion or in logic but it always remains way beyond our understanding. The opportunity to study Torah is an invitation to connect with

I have heard many people say that if G-d would only do a miracle they would believe. After all in the Torah we read of many miracles that G-d did on a regular basis. Why don't we see these miracles these days? The Lubavitcher Rebbe once addressed a similar question from a skeptic. If you look at his response with an open mind, it could change your perspective. In a letter from 1956, the Rebbe wrote the following. This  to someone who said that if G-d would show me a miracle I would then believe: “Take a good look at your own past, and you will recognize that you have already witnessed miracles and wonders. Do you really want to test G-d? Do you really want to be brought again into a place of mortal danger and have to be saved? You know very well the trauma that is experienced by being in danger, because you have been there. It is just the evil inclination’s voice inside you trying to come up with an excuse to avoid observing G-d's commandments.” May we all notice the mi

In the Jerusalem Talmud when the word mitzvah is mentioned it refers to tzedakah. The Talmud in Bava Basra page 9a teaches that tzedakah is equal to all the other mitzvot combined. The power of tzedakah is self transcendence. To give away that which can be used for your own food and shelter and basic needs for another is to put yourself aside. Even if this money is not needed for your basic needs the money means so much to a person to the point that in the United States we ask how much a person is worth and we refer to dollars! Every mitzvah connects us to Hashem and through tzedakah we are connected to G-d holistically. Mendel (Menachem) Bluming based on Tanya

We all know people who as kids misbehaved terribly, but turned out to be wonderful adults. It could be that they ended up that way not in spite of their childhood cheekiness, but because of it. You see, rambunctious kids get reminded of what they should and should not be doing more often than quieter children. It may not have immediate results, but the oft-repeated messages eventually sink in. As parents we sometimes forget what the goal is. It isn't about having well behaved children (though that would be lovely), it's about rearing well behaved adults. Childhood is the time to test boundaries and discover the do's and don'ts of life. Every naughty little episode is one such test, giving the parents another opportunity to define those boundaries. You are lucky. You get ten teaching moments every day. Your repeated chiding of your child, when done calmly and firmly, will help reinforce his sense of right and wrong. Even if he continues to break those boundaries, h

The days pass rather quickly and when you look back a week and then a month has flown by in the blink of an eye. In fact as you get older time seems to pass by more quickly. One theory offered for why it seems so is because a smaller percentage of your life goes by each day and therefore when taken in contrast the passage of time seems shorter and shorter.   If we did not go to sleep there would be no complete unit of time, life would just continue on and on. So here's an exercise. Every evening, don't just go to sleep, actually complete your day. Make sure that what you planned to accomplish that day was accomplished and make a plan for the next day. Assess honestly your performance in your mission of life. Rethink your relationships with G-d and people and recalibrate your priorities. Clear from your heart anger and reprisal. When possible forgive and cleanse your heart. Anger and revenge are ultimately drinking poison and allowing destructive forces rent free space in yo

Are there parts of your life that make absolutely no sense? Do you see certain chapters of your story as essential because they express who you are and others as just a distraction? On Purim this story only begins a few chapters into the Megillah and yet the Mishna asks (Megillah 2:3): To fulfill one’s obligation to hear the Megillah, from which point in the story must one begin to read? Rabbi Yehudah said, from the part of the story where Mordechai is introduced. Rabbi Yossi said, from the point where Haman is elevated to viceroy. Rabbi Shimon says one must hear from the point in the story where the king cannot sleep. Finally, the Mishna records the opinion of Rabbi Meir, who says, “One is obligated to hear the entire Megillah.” In Rabbi Meir’s view, there are no shortcuts; one must hear the entire story from the very beginning, including the sordid details of Achashveirosh’s wild parties and beauty pageants. And the Talmud proclaims (Megillah 19a), “The Halacha follows Rabbi Meir.”

We are taught to be the masters of acceptance. All that G-d does is for the best, Judaism teaches us repeatedly.   Yet we do not become comfortable with death, internally we do not accept it. When Jacob was faced with the tragic death of his precious son Joseph, the Torah tells us, “Vayimaen lihisnachem” (Breishis 37), he refused to be comforted. Some understand that to mean that he had an inkling that his son was really alive, and he was indeed right. Others say that this is a general rule for the Jewish approach to refuse to be comforted or to accept the “reality” of death, because our loved ones are never really dead. Yes, the body is buried and that is very tragic and painful. Yet if we used 3 words to describe our departed loved one it would rarely describe their body. Kindness, thoughtfulness or happiness are not properties of the body they are expressions of the soul. The soul doesn't die when the body is buried and we instinctively know that and therefore refuse to ac

A lot of people call themselves "culturally Jewish." They feel connected to the Jewish people, are active in the community, advocate for Israel, and may attend shul on major festivals. But they don't keep Jewish law.   For example, when it comes to Shabbat, they will argue that the laws are not important, it is all about family time. If you come to Shabbos dinner, whether you walk or drive doesn't make a difference. As long as you eat chicken soup, it doesn't matter if it was cooked before Shabbos came in or after. These people believe it's all about the feeling, not the little details. Let's call them Chicken Soup Jews. On the other side of the spectrum, there are some Jews who are scrupulous in their observance of Shabbos, keep every law down to the last dot, but do it without joy. They keep Shabbos neurotically, obsessing over what you can't do and making the day of rest into a day of stress. Let's call them Chicken Coup Jews. Both are mis

It is so hard to see a loved one fade after living a vibrant and active life. How we approach this painful stage will depend on our perspective. And the Jewish perspective on the end of life differs greatly to much of mainstream thinking today. To approach life and death the Jewish way, we need to make sure we have that perspective very clear.   It often happens that immoral ideas creep into the minds of even those who have otherwise good values. Usually, the way these concepts infiltrate is via catch phrases and clichés. First they enter our vocabulary, then they become a part of our mentality. One example is "dying with dignity." This is a phrase that deserves to die. True dignity comes from the soul. The good deeds we do in our lifetime, the meaning we bring to our days, the beauty and joy we bring to those around us all come from the soul. Your value comes from G-dliness expressed uniquely through your soul. Our body is the vehicle for our soul. It is through

The Jewish people can best be described as a spiritual family. We are connected by our souls, and every Jew is a part of this invisible web by virtue of our Jewishness. You can either be born into the family or join by choice. But once you are in, you are family, no matter what. If Jews are a family, the Torah is the family rules. It recounts the family history, defines the family identity, and lays out the expectations of how members of the family should behave and the good they can contribute to the world. Some of the Torah is universal, but much of it is about our particular family and its relationships - with our brothers and sisters, our ancestors, our homeland and the Head of the family - G-d. If you break the rules, you are still a member, because family is family. But those who keep the rules keep the family together. Those who reject the rules usually find their children or grandchildren will drift away from the family entirely, not even knowing what they are leaving beh

The Mishna (Brachot 54a) teaches: Just as we bless G-d for good things, so should we bless Him for bad things. This seems to say that we should make no differentiation between good news and bad. Whether we just won the lottery or a major catastrophe just befell us, we should bless G-d in exactly the same way. But the Gemara elaborates: When we hear good news we say, "Blessed are You G-d, King of the Universe, Who is good and does good." When we hear bad news we say, "Blessed are You G-d, King of the Universe, Who is the Judge of truth." Those two blessings are clearly different. When we win the lottery, we praise G-d for His goodness. Not only is He good, but He does good that we can experience as good. However, when tragedy strikes, we humbly acknowledge that G-d is the one who decides our fate. So, the Gemara asks, what does the Mishna mean by "just as", implying some parity between good and bad tidings? Answers the Gemara: We should ac

Every other creation was created ready to go. When G-d created camels and hippopotamuses and horses He created them, body and soul, united ready to do what they need to. Only human beings were created as a lifeless body and then as the Torah shares in Genesis 2:7: “G-d formed the human from the dust of the ground, and He breathed into its nostrils the soul of life.” He breathed a soul of life into that lifeless body to remind us that our soul is not (just) about animating our bodies, your soul is independent from your body. It existed before it was joined with your body and it will continue its journey beyond your body’s passing. Don’t get too caught up with the indulgences and fears and narrow vision of your body. Your body’s life is so fleeting while your soul’s relationships and vision and G-dly awareness are eternal. Mendel (Menachem) Bluming, Maryland

When lighting Shabbos candles, it is customary to wave our hands three times inwards before making the blessing. There’s a deep reason for this… Resting takes a lot of work. Many people are great at achieving, but find it hard to stop achieving. They know how to do, but don't know how to just be. Shabbos is the day of rest, and to do it right you need to know what resting means. Resting is not doing nothing. If it was, there would be no reason to feel rejuvenated after a rest. Not doing may not drain us, but why should it replenish us? True rest is the ingathering of our soul energies. After expending our powers outward, we draw our energies back inward. During the work week we are pulled in all directions, and our frantic activities drain our soul. The creativity and inventiveness that lies within has been exhausted, and so we need to draw our energy back to its source to be replenished and renewed. This is symbolized by the waving motion inward at candle lighting. We are

Remember when your little brother was born? After being in your mother's tummy for such a long time, he finally came out to be with you and the family. How exciting. You'd been waiting for so long to meet him and play with him, and then he finally arrived.   Your baby brother was very comfortable inside mummy's tummy, where it's warm and he had everything he needed. But he couldn't stay there forever.  When it was time, he came out to be with you. In a strange way, death is similar to birth. We leave the world we know and enter the great unknown world outside.  All the people who have passed away are in that peaceful and happy place. Just as you were waiting for your brother to come and be with you, the souls of past generations were waiting for your grandfather to join them. Now they are all together. We miss them. But there's nothing to be scared of. Remember you used to talk to your baby brother, even before he was born? He heard you, though he couldn&#

There are two types of workers: employees and contractors. A contractor is there to do their job, and that's it. As long as I have completed the tasks given to me, as long as the items on my to-do list are accounted for, I’ve done my bit and I can go home.   But an employee has to work until the day is over. It is not enough that my immediate tasks are complete, I have to seek out more work and ensure every moment of the day is productive. Otherwise I am short-changing my employer. We live in G ‑ d's giant factory, and we are all workers, each with a specific role to play. We each contribute our part to the grand scheme of creating a better world. And we have a choice. We can either suffice with fulfilling our obligation alone, and no more, or we can go beyond that. As long as the job is not yet done, as long as the world is not yet full of goodness, we still have work to do. If you choose to work like a contractor, only looking to fulfill your mission, once your job is d

Love is like a fire. It can generate a lot of light and a lot of warmth. But to keep any flame alive, it needs to be fed. If you don't keep throwing logs on the fire, it will fizzle out and there will be nothing left.   The logs that fuel love are time spent together, shared experiences, and emotional bonding. Without this nourishment, even the strongest love can dissipate. If we become too distracted with other things, if we are too busy for each other, the love goes stale and we soon drift apart. Like a fire unfed, a love unattended eventually burns out. But logs are not all a fire needs. A fire also needs air. All the wood in the world will not be enough to maintain a fire if the fire can't breathe. And the same goes for love. To be able to love, we need space for ourselves, we need some oxygen. Without it, we lose our individuality, we have nothing to bring to the relationship, and we become boring. Allowing each other to explore interests, maintain friendships and ha