Mendel Bluming | Blogger

The Persian Empire of the 4th century BCE extended over 127 lands, and all the Jews were its subjects. When King Ahasuerus had his wife, Queen Vashti, executed for failing to follow his orders, he arranged a beauty pageant to find a new queen. A Jewish girl, Esther, found favor in his eyes and became the new queen, though she refused to divulge her nationality. Meanwhile, the Jew-hating Haman was appointed prime minister of the empire. Haman convinced the king to issue a decree ordering the extermination of all the Jews on the 13th of Adar, a date chosen by a lottery Haman made. Mordechai, the leader of the Jews and Esther’s cousin, urged Esther to plead with the king to save the Jewish people. He tells her that if not it will be her loss because G-d will find another way to save His people. Listen to that incredible Jewish clarity! He did not say that if you do not intercede with the king we will all be annihilated; it will be all be over! Nothing of the sort. He was confident...

Imagine that you are chosen for a role in a brand-new movie that you are very excited to play. You'll be required to show great motion and involvement personifying that role as perfectly as you can.   But then when you read the script you find out that later on in the movie the character is going to die! You protest. “I can't play that role, I don't want to die!” The producer laughs, “You won't die. The character will and you will go on to win an Oscar!” In life we are assigned roles that we play really well. We cry with the sadness that our bodies experience and we rejoice in its successes but we don't die with it because we are only acting that role, our true self remains independent. It is not that you have a soul, it is that you ARE a soul and you have a body. Your body is your role in life and you must act it really well just don't get too caught up in the character you play... Mendel (Menachem) Bluming and Rabbi Aaron

The Talmud in Ethics of the Fathers chapter 4 shares both of these seemingly contradictory comments:   A single moment of repentance and of good deeds in this world is greater than all of the World to Come. A single moment of bliss in the World to Come is greater than all of this world. Wait a second... If one moment of good deeds in this world is so much greater than the next world, why would the bliss of the next world be so much greater than this world?? Right now you are in the world of accomplishment and mission. After the soul departs the body it embraces a very blissful existence but one that is devoid of mission. Heaven can be compared to a lovely retirement home, where nothing is expected and everything is provided. You will never need to cook another meal, plan another day, or clean another mess. Sounds like an idyllic place, but no one rushes into a retirement home! Embrace life because today your every deed is so meaningful! Mendel (Menachem) Bluming

Miraculous food was provided from heaven in the desert for the Jewish people each day. But there was a catch. You were only allowed to take enough for one day and if you took more than you needed for one day, that extra food would spoil (Exodus chapter 16). How would you feel if you were eating a wonderful dinner but you had not a morsel of food left after this meal? Would you be able to eat comfortably knowing that you were consuming your last scrap of food? The desert was the training ground for the future of the Jewish people. If God provided for me yesterday can I trust that He will provide for me tomorrow... When my pantry and bank accounts are full, I feel that I need not trust in God, I can trust in them. What would it take for me to trust that everything will be okay? If God provided for me yesterday can I trust that he will be there for me tomorrow without worry? So yes, the manna was miraculous food. Each day it descended from heaven ready-to-eat but it beckoned of ...

What a US President says in his inaugural speech very often sets the tone for his presidency. The only way to know for sure if his inaugural address will inspire; to know if he will keep his promises and commitments is to look in retrospect once a little time has passed. This week marks the 70th anniversary of the inaugural address of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson. But this was a most unusual candidate, in that he had no desire at all to be elected to the office of Rebbe. While candidates usually run for the position, this candidate had been running from the position. But this night, after a full year of refusing the title, the Rebbe relented. And the words the Rebbe spoke that night was clearly a historical inauguration address. There were no dazzling campaign promises, no melodramatic oaths of office. There was no soaring rhetoric and no thundering theatrics. 70 years later we look back and realize, with an overwhelming sense of gratitude, that the R...

The Mourner's Kaddish is recited for the departed, to assist in their soul's journey upward. For eleven months after the passing, the soul ascends gradually to its place of rest. And then each year, on the anniversary of its passing, the soul graduates to an even higher place in Heaven. The Kaddish said down here by the living helps ease the journey of the soul up there.   For this exact same reason we say Kaddish at different junctures in the prayer service. Our prayers are a ladder up. We begin on earth and we slowly climb heavenward, each section of the service a step higher. The Half Kaddish is inserted between sections of the service, when the soul of the person praying is about to ascend to the next level. The Complete Kaddish is said at the end of a service, to deliver the prayers just said to higher realms. And the Rabbi's Kaddish is recited after studying a Torah passage. Just as the Complete Kaddish delivers our prayers on high, the Rabbi's Kaddish delivers ...

Unsurprisingly, Merriam-Webster has chosen “pandemic” as their word of the year. It has been the most researched, analyzed and studied word in all of 2020—a year that has certainly left its mark on the world.  But may I humbly suggest that perhaps the word “humility” better represents the year we’ve just endured? If there’s one thing 2020 has hammered into our consciousness, it’s humility. This time last year, we had grand plans for 2020. Certainly none of us could have predicted what happened next! In fact, as we ushered in the New Year, the pandemic had already begun in China. As it spread, the world was shaken to its core. We were entirely unprepared; we had no tools to handle the situation foisted upon us. Without doubt, the events of 2020 will feature heavily in history books. We thought we had the mightiest weapons in our arsenal, including F16s and hydrogen bombs, and then we discovered just how powerless we are against a tiny, invisible virus. Humbling.  Even as it spr...