Mendel Bluming | Blogger

In honor of Yom Kippur a Jewish newspaper interviewed me. Not that many read that paper :) so I figured that I would post the interview. Here goes: “So Rabbi Bluming when it comes to Yom Kippur most Jews think about how hungry they will be! If G-d wants us to be focused on prayer and returning to him why wouldn’t He allow us to eat so that we can better focus?” “Yes,” replied Menachem Mendel Bluming, “it is not easy to fast.” “Not easy?”, we asked. “It seems that when I fast I am so preoccupied by food and how hungry I am that I can hardly focus on anything else!” “You got it! That is exactly the point.” Mendel Bluming asserted. “Really? I am not sure what you mean by that.” We asked Bluming. “Yom Kippur is the day for me to put myself aside to focus on G-d and my spiritual destiny. By fasting I can reflect on what a pitiful existence my body is. Just withhold sushi and quinoa and bagels and lox for one day and I can hardly focus or think straight! I see mysel...

In honor of Rosh Hashanah a Jewish newspaper interviewed me. Not that many read that paper :) so I figured that I would post the interview. Here goes: “So Rabbi Bluming is it true about your congregation as well, that Jews seem to come out of the woodwork for the high holidays?” “Yes,” replied Menachem Mendel Bluming, “it is truly incredible and heartwarming.” “Heartwarming?”, we asked. “It seems that it is just Jewish guilt. After all, where are they all year?!” “Jews used to feel a lot of guilt. That is so last century.” Mendel Bluming asserted. “Really? We thought that guilt is as Jewish as bagels and lox!” We asked Bluming. “In my experience Jews see themselves as good people, not sinful people. They are right. After all after communism and the Holocaust and the previous generation that to a large extent gave them little or no Jewish education the mitzvot that they do are so incredible! How can they be called sinful?” Menachem Bluming shared. “So to wh...

Lately mass shootings have becoming painfully common. Everyone has an idea but meanwhile the carnage continues unabated in places of worship and places of work etc. Does the Torah give us guidance as to what we need to do to address this? In what must surely be one of the most enigmatic passages of the entire Torah, we read the section of egla arufa. An unidentified corpse is found abandoned in a remote location with no   clues available to help identity the murderer or the victim. The leading Rabbis and sages of the Jewish people gather at the site where the body was found to undergo a public cleansing ritual. As part of the ceremony, the Rabbis formally announce that they are personally innocent of the crime; our hands did not spill this blood, nor did our eyes see this crime (Shoftim 21:7). Almost all the Biblical commentators question the need for such a declaration by the sages. In the words of Rashi: would it enter one’s mind t...

The medrash in Leviticus Rabbah 32:5 teaches that the Jewish people were redeemed from Egyptian slavery in the merit of their not changing their names from Jewish names. It is alluring to sound more Egyptian or to sound more secular in order to fit in. Maintaining a Jewish identity inspires a family to maintain Jewish practice. Someone recently asked me my name and when I told him that it is Menachem Mendel Bluming they asked me but what is your real name? Menachem Mendel Bluming I said. They said no I mean the name that the doctor calls you in the office or that they called you in school? I acquiesced. Okay either Menachem Mendel Bluming, Menachem Bluming or Mendel Bluming. They became insistent. Don’t you know Jews who have names like Peter, Paul or Charles? I certainly do I answered, fine Jewish people. But my name is just Menachem Mendel Bluming, that’s it. Do you mind if people call you something different, he asked? I said sure how about Mendel Menachem B...

A teenage boy once asked the Lubavitcher Rebbe, "Do we believe in reincarnation?" The Rebbe's answer was short and cryptic: "Yes we do believe in reincarnation. But don't wait until then." A puzzling response. Wait until when? The boy asked a simple enough question, which could be answered with a yes or no. What did the Rebbe mean by "don't wait until then"? Here’s a thought: Reincarnation to many means a second chance at life. An opportunity to complete unfinished business. “Will we have that chance?” asked that young man. “Yes we do but that is not an excuse for procrastination. Start the next chapter, the next life, of your lifetime today!” Live this lifetime as if it's your last. You may have past lives, and you may have future lives, but don't wait until then. Do it now. Mendel (Menachem) Bluming of Potomac Maryland and Rabbi Moss