From The Desk of Rabbi Yehuda - Chabad Lubavitch of Westport

Kadima!

Friday, October 27, 2023 - 10:00 AM

Stability is in short supply nowadays. Our foundation has been shaken in many ways and yet, our foundation has strengthened in other ways.

Heroism, compassion, unity, hospitality, care, selflessness, mitzvah, Torah, are but a few words that keep on popping up as I voraciously scan the news on a daily or is it hourly basis.

Stability may be in short supply nowadays but stabilizing opportunities exist in abundance. The ground has been pulled out from beneath our feet and we need to pivot to firmer ground. Anchoring and stabilizing beachheads that help bring balance and equilibrium back into our lives.

Abraham is the focus of this week’s Parsha. He was instructed to go “forth” from his home — essentially uprooting himself from all that was familiar to him and head on over, to the place that G-d was to show him, the Land of Israel. A very destabilizing move!

Being uprooted from everything that was familiar to him couldn’t have been easy for him. Yet Abraham, a man of faith, conviction and the embodiment of “charity and Justice” had the tools with which to navigate. After all, essential and foundational truths are transcendent of time and place. They are eternal and universal.

Our Chassidic masters peel back an extra layer on the instruction to Abraham to “go forth” and explain that it was an eternal mission and instruction for all the generations that follow — to go forth— as in to refine this world with acts of goodness, kindness and mitzvot. A guiding instruction if you will, for each of us with our individual capabilities to hone in and to do our bit to make this world a better place.

The playing field has unfortunately and irrevocably changed over the past weeks. Causes, campaigns, necessities and sensibilities have shifted and need to be refocused but our core mission hasn’t. It remains that same and I for one, continue to be inspired by the intensity and selflessness of the Jewish response to the current challenge.

We need to take a page out of our ancestors books to double down — each with their own personal touch — to ensure that it’s not circumstances that take us out of our personal comfort zones rather our deliberate and premeditated going forth to answer the call of duty!!

We can do it and we will do it. We’ve always done it and we’ve done it impeccably, with class and honor. Am Yisrael Chai!

Every fiber of our being!!

Friday, October 20, 2023 - 10:00 AM

I’ve been reviewing the week in my mind. It’s been long. So many peaks and valleys within such a short amount of time that the mind can hardly adjust.

Yet there are some things that the mind doesn’t need to adjust to. They are so foundational and essential to our beings that one doesn’t need to adjust. It’s simply who we are at the core, from birth, handed down generationally — gifted to us through the Torah that Moses received from the Almighty on High.

Some of us call it ethics or morals. The Divine code that guides us in our conduct, our ethos. The Jewish way.

It was as clear as day to me this past week —when the news started reporting the rocket strike on a hospital in Gaza— that this wasn’t the work of the IDF. It simply runs against the very core of a Jew. Regard for life and living is the highest priority in Judaism. In the words of this week’s Parsha — “for in the image of G-d, he made man”. Living is G-dly. The raison d’etre of every Jew.

Yet the news stations didn’t react quite as emphatically as my flowery paragraph above. And perhaps many of us didn’t feel so sure of this either. Indeed, the world jumped on the news reported by the very perpetrators of this heinous act. Summits were cancelled and condemnations issued all based on falsehood. Nothing new.

At times like this we need to be strong. We need to be confident. Secure with who we are and what we represent. We need to remind ourselves that our very miraculous existence is precisely because we are guided, inspired and dedicated to the word of the living G-d. Period.

Want to see this truism in real time? Just take one look at the soldiers dancing as they bide their time waiting for instruction. Take one look at the army-of-citizens in Israel all working overtime with compassion and dedication to each other to fill in and provide assistance wherever needed.

At the end of the day, the proof is in the pudding and I stand taller and prouder than ever before!

AM YISRAEL CHAI!

With best wishes for a Shabbat Shalom!

Strength

Friday, October 13, 2023 - 7:00 AM

I wake up —as I’m sure you do— hoping that this is all a bad dream. I scour the news but it only keeps getting worse. Who could ever have thought that possible?

I stop scouring the news, there’s so much that needs to be done. Help that specifically can be given by those out of Israel —stretching their long hand to a place that is geographically distant, but feels as close as the dining room of our homes. One day morphs into another…

In ways, having the luxury to read these news reports from the comfort of our homes and living our lives relatively removed from harms way —presents its own set of challenges.

Is it right to steal away to go to the gym when our brethren are suffering elsewhere? Can one really go shopping for yet another item that we don’t really need or take a break for a mid-day massage when there’s been an enlistment of 360,000 soldiers in Israel? You can fill in the blank here — but you get the point …

Yes. Not only can one but one must! We must not let feelings of guilt nor despondency engulf us. If we do, we neutralize our greatest strength. We cancel out our greatest abilities of helping our brethren and divert the great resources of love, endurance and compassion from where it needs to be directed.

Each of us need to be physically and “mentally” strong. We can not equivocate for a second in both our physical support and importantly our moral support. This can only be done with full intensity when we are in good shape.. let’s say it the way it is..it’s not heroic to allow this to shlep us down nor can we slide into victim mentality. We are the Jewish nation which has endured the worst and created the best. Fact!

This week we start to read the Torah anew from the beginning. The first theme that’s introduced is “And G-d said, let there be light”! From that moment on, we’ve been empowered to partner together with G-d in creating light.

We must continue to create light despite the intense darkness that has been inflicted upon our nation and we must do this with strength. AM YISRAEL CHAI!

With best wishes for a Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Yehuda & Dina Kantor