From The Desk of Rabbi Yehuda

 Eight nights, eight lights. Then it’s over. 

Success breeds… 

It’s healthy to pursue success the results of  success however, are often overlooked.

The Torah in the week’s Parsha describes Joseph as successful. It’s a unique description that isn’t used in the description of the many Righteous and Holy leaders of the Torah. 

Ironically, he is called successful at the lowest points of his life. He is sold as a slave by his brothers, accused of rape, incarcerated in prison — and yet even before he rises to the second highest position of the Superpower nation of his times, he is described as a successful man. 

Clearly, his success wasn’t in his achievements—those still lay ahead of him. Rather, it lay in his attitude and philosophy in life. 

His Master, the Torah recounts, was palpably able to discern that Joseph was different than others pursuing success; that his conduct was permeated in an elevated manner. His goals for success weren’t solely motivated for his own self aggrandizement.

Perhaps this is the definition of success. The recognition that whatever we achieve is as a result of Hashem’s blessing — specifically channeled through us — in order for something even greater to happen. Our lives as a conduit. 

Success breeds…. Our job in life is to fill in the blank and if we learn from Joseph, we can be sure that success breeds goodness, humility, compassion and yes, true success. 

At the end of it all we realize,  it’s not success that breeds, rather, the preceding attitude and acknowledgment of the source of our blessings that breeds success. 

As we look to a New Year ahead, our goal should be for success — one that enhances ourselves, our families, our communities and the whole Am Yisrael — with a deep and humble acknowledgment of the source of all blessings — Hashem!

With best wishes for a Shabbat Shalom.

Rabbi Yehuda & Dina Kantor 

P.S.  Get your 2024 deduction in and help support your favorite organization  — RSVP GALA here. 

Much in life is defined by perspective. 

Two people. Two perspectives. Yet one truth. 

Perspective doesn’t change truth. 

At times we wrestle with truth. Our perspective, which can derive from so many sources, tug at our senses. 

The inner battle is on. Constant. 

Right from wrong, good from bad, truth from deceit, all bound together with so many nuances, making it so confusing at times. 

The beacon of light however, lovingly handed to us, accessible and practical, transcendent yet immanent. Antiquated yet current. 

Torah. 

Our story. Our wisdom. Our anchor. Our wings. Our strength. Our guiding light. Our blessing. 

Perspective is formed like AI. Aggregated from multiple sources and experiences. An open google doc that can be added to by anyone and everyone, the screening process too loose and exploited to create truth based perspective in life. 

Torah. 

Our story. Our wisdom. Our anchor. Our wings. Our strength. Our guiding light. Our blessing!

As we wind down 2024 — whether feeling beat, euphoric, cynical, inspired, indifferent, just battling-to-be or whatever, know the source of our indomitable spirit, our eternal inspiration, our clarity and vigor, our eternal nature. Our secret sauce as in source. Torah. 

Let’s make 2025 a year of truth and perspective through Torah and Mitzvot. Now that’s a New Year’s resolution worth celebrating!

With best wishes for a Shabbat Shalom,

With best wishes for a Shabbat Shalom.

Rabbi Yehuda & Dina Kantor 

P.S.  Get your 2024 deduction in and help support your favorite organization  — RSVP GALA here. 

It was a jarring and sobering piece of news to end last Shabbat with. 

I was in Brooklyn for the International Conference of Chabad Shluchim. Thousands of us from all corners of the globe. 

Closer to home, I was spending Shabbos with my parents, my four brothers, in laws and many of my friends, all united with a common bond — the inspiration of Lubavitcher Rebbe— the energy was high. 

Then I heard the news. My first cousin’s son — Zamir Burke obm, had fallen in Gaza. 

“All the world’s a stage”. 

Entrances and exits, we all have our part.

The Torah describes the journey more like a ladder however. Feet firmly attached to the ground stretching up, reaching the heavens. 

It’s not about the entrance or exit, both of which we have no control of. It’s about the ladder. The direction we live our lives. Firmly planted on the ground, directionally striving for something higher. 

This was the life of Zamir. He dedicated his life in its entirety. He loved life. He defended life with his very life. His feet firmly planted on earth with his soul soaring, plumbing the depth of the Heavens above. 

May his memory be for a blessing. Yet better, may it serve as an inspiration for us all to climb one rung of the ladder of our personal lives by adding some Torah and Mitzvah  to our lives, reaching just one bit higher in our journey. 

A photo says a thousand words — this photo captures an eternity!!

With best wishes for a Shabbat Shalom.

In memoriam — in honor — in solidarity — in perpetuity!

This past week started off with the upsetting news of the murder of Tzvi Kogan — the Chabad Shliach in the UAE and is ending with the International Gathering  of Chabad Rabbis — many thousands of them— in Brooklyn. 

One could say it’s bitter sweet. A stark contrast bookending the week, emotionally, they would be correct. But the truth is, the significance runs way deeper — to an essential truth. 

Yesterday, as I attended the conference, a scribe was sitting at a table writing a Torah (dedicated to the late Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky) and everyone had an opportunity to write a letter. 

The letter that I penned on behalf of our community, was the letter “vov” from the story of this week’s Parsha that tells of the Philistine’s  jealousy of Isaac who in turn, was asked to move away. As he migrated to a new area he encountered “water wells” that had previously been dug by his father Abraham but plugged up by the Philstine’s after Abraham’s death. He re-dug them and titled them with the same names his father had named them.

The story continues; the servants of Isaac start digging new water wells and multiple times — despite them finding new water sources —run into issues of ownership. The shepherds of the area quarrel with the shepherds of Isaac, claiming ownership. Eventually, with new discoveries their false claims abate. 

The story sounds so familiar. Whilst today’s challenges for ownership and legitimacy aren’t over “water wells”, we constantly need to assert, prove and create new opportunity’s that benefit everyone but create tension and contention. 

Yet here’s the catch. At the end, the shepherds of Isaac prevail. And at the end of it all they create opportunity for everyone around, including their adversary's. 

Here again, it sounds familiar. The Jewish mission is to make the entire world a better place. It’s not a provincial mission — it’s a universal one! 

Haters will be haters but the power of love and light far overpower hatred and darkness. 

The week started with really bad news — but the weekend conference of over 5,000 Chabad Shluchim speaks of thousands of communities represented and supporting the Shluchim. 

We can wax eloquent about the Rabbi but that would be miss the main point — the community. This weekend will inspire many thousands of Rabbis but most importantly it’ll dig new wells of inspiration for millions which in turn will lift the roof in so many ways. 

We can look at life Tzvi Kogan’s in memoriam — in honor — in solidarity but the truth is, by each of us increasing in our Judaism, Torah and Mitzvoth we ensure his life —in perpetuity!

With best wishes for a Shabbat Shalom.

Rabbi Yehuda & Dina Kantor 

P.S. To help his family in this challenging time here’s a link to donate. 

P.P.S. To join the Mitzvah campaign — join here. 

P.P.S. To ramp up your Thanks— Giving digging new wells in our community — RSVP GALA here 

“Never forget where you come from”.

I heard that phrase often when I was growing up and throughout my life. I now find myself repeating this in all sorts of situations.  

It’s fairly simple, when one knows where they come from, they have clarity on where to head. 

As a Jew, Ashkenazi or Sephardi, it is not hard to trace where we come from. All arrows point to our Homeland, Israel. 

It started with Abraham and Sarah — the first founding father and mother of the Jewish people —who unsolicitedly were promised by G-d the land of Israel, reaffirmed through Yitzchak and Rivka only to be reaffirmed yet again to Yaakov and Rachel / Leah. 

Clearly and carefully chronicled in the Torah, enshrined in our daily prayers multiple times, celebrated and yearned in numerous other ways in Judaism, handed down from generation to generation, the Jewish nation definitively know where we come from. 

Yet despite this indisputable truth, defending our birthright,Heritage, borders and civilization — regardless of relentless attacks and self defense— seems to be disputable by far too many. The advice to remember and revere, coupled with the reality that the Jewish nation does tenaciously hold on to our precious Heritage is one that triggers a visceral reaction. Antisemitism at its best. 

The decision of the International court at the Hague to issue an arrest warrant of the Prime Minister of Israel and the former Defense Minister is simply shocking. A complete outrage and an assault on the Jewish nation.  

Yet despite the millennia of our enemies conniving to eradicate our memories — we will always be cognizant from whence we come. 

You see, at the end of the day it’s not about muscle memory — it’s our essence and identity. It’s not affected by level of observance nor conscious life decisions. It’s totally transcendent. Beyond courts of law, physical assaults or even the allure of the material. It’s a core, soul identity!

How do I know it? Simple — we’re here. We’ve endured. We’re vibrant. The erosion of time having had the opposite effect — just as fine wine — better with time!

So yes, let’s remember where we come from on a conscious level so that we can maximize our identity but let’s also not fall into the trap of being defined by others. For ultimately, Judaism is our eternal Heritage and Israel is our eternal Homeland and tonight we usher in the eternal gift of Shabbos. No amount of erasing the truth will change it and we continue to celebrate it. Am Yisrael Chai!

I was tracking my steps one day and was feeling quite accomplished as I hit the 10,000 steps mark. 

It occurred to me that compared to the speed of light or even the speed of sound — walking 10k steps in a day is hardly a feat. 

In this week’s Parsha we read of the founding parents of Judaism, Abraham and Sarah. We aren’t told how many steps they walked in a particular day — we are told however, the direction in which they walked.  

Skip forward.  An infinite amount of steps have been tread, plod and run in the very direction beat out by by our illustrious lineage and here we are, powerfully, still at it. 

One would think that it would get easier as we walk in the same footsteps beat out by our ancestors but as life shows us — nothing ever gets easier — the challenge merely shifts.

Indeed, from the very advancements that continue to evolve in life, arise the very challenges. Yet it’s the deliberate step by step in the prescribed direction that puts us squarely on our journey. 

Gd says of Abraham, “for I have known and cherished him because he instructs his sons and his household after him to keep the way of Gd — acting with charity and justice”. 

The direction is very clear. After all, we have the roadmap of life right at our fingertips in the Torah. Whether it’s a few step or many steps; fast or slow; long strides or forced timid steps — ultimately it comes down to the direction of the steps. 

No, it doesn’t get easier — but the deep satisfaction and the ultimate goal of adding another link to the illustrious chain of Jewish life ensuring Dor L’dor, keeps the number on Abraham and Sarah’s step counter leaping forward one deliberate step after another. 

Onwards and upwards — Am Yisrael Chai!

What’s your name?

Seemingly a pretty benign question and not really an area in which we had much choice. 

Yet perhaps it’s not so benign. After all, certain names bring out emotions of attraction or the opposite. If a name is just a name it would be totally irrelevant. 

It struck my attention as in this week’s Parsha it is Gd that changes Abraham and Sarah’s names from Abram and Sarai. They seem similar but the intentionality is clear. 

Their names were changed because their destinies had changed. They went from regional players to universal role models. Turns out, names do make a difference. Well, sort of…

In Hebrew when asking someone their name it translates to, “how do you call yourself”? And with that phrase I think it all falls into place. 

There’s your given name and then the name you create for yourself. It starts with recognizing our inherent capability to enhance this world in our unique and specific way. 

“How do you call yourself”? Isn’t quite just a linguistic backwards way of saying what’s your name dude? It’s actually a deeply insightful question that can only be answered by you! 

No, it’s not what’s going on around you that creates your name it’s what you do with your Gd given talents that makes the name. We control but what we do with what is sent our way. 

Abram and Sarai became Abraham and Sarah because when they were relatively unknown they were already blazing a new path. No victimization or weakness rather faith and inner strength their garb. 

We are their descendants and we each have this quality deeply imbued in our DNA. 

What’s “your” name? I can tell you mine — but I’d rather tell you how I call myself and let you determine my name!

With best wishes for Shabbat Shalom,

“Why can’t we all just agree”?

Great question — and probably a good time to be asking it — as we head into an election week.

But it’s not elections that inspired this question it’s the weekly Torah portion that brings it to the fore. 

The fascinating story of “The Tower of Babel”. A time when everyone on the face of the earth spoke one language, pooled their resources and create a united front in a concentrated area (current day Iraq) to rebel against G-d.

G-d’s solution? 

The introduction of multiple languages. Such, that one couldn’t naturally understand the other and from one location there was dispersion to different corners of the earth. 

Solution?

Yes, a Divine solution. The Divine gift of speech and communication. Uniformity isn’t the modality that G-d intended for Homosapiens. Intelligence, communication and the resulting action is the Divine design of humanity and it’s what makes every day infused with consciousness, excitement, substantial challenge and earned results. 

The Divine design is a gift to each of us. It involves hard work, potential for conflict enormous self control, deep satisfaction and the challenge to communicate in a language that the other person understands whilst endeavoring to understand the other language being spoken to us. 

G-d’s solution? Well, actually, it’s more like we were each handed the keys for the solution and now it’s in each of our hands to work it out!

With best wishes for a Shabbat Shalom & Chodesh Tov,

One year ago on the Jewish calendar — on the Holy and Joyous day of Simchat Torah - which is also the last day of the month long marathon of Holidays — the unthinkable happened. 

It was deliberately orchestrated for this day as on the Jewish Holiday many are on leave from the army and the country in general is in a state of celebration.

In Israel, religious or not, the Festivals are felt by the entire society. Businesses are closed and festivities permeate the very fabric of society. 

Instantly, the most joyous day became a day full of tears —for us all, time froze and our worlds stopped.

In many ways life hasn’t resumed as “normal”. We are incomplete so long as the hostages aren’t home and incomplete because so many families are incomplete. 

Yet our enemies can’t and won’t define us. In the words of the former Chief Rabbi of the UK, Jonathan Sacks, “ Simchat Torah was born when the Jews had lost everything else but they never lost their capacity to rejoice. A people whose capacity for joy cannot be destroyed is itself indestructible”!

Yes!! We are an eternal nation it’s precisely because despite our adversity we continue to celebrate our core essence — time and time again and this Simchat Torah (Thursday night) we’ll do it once again. 

In the merit and memory of those who are no longer with us it would be “the” year to dance on their behalf… check the info at your Synagogue or check out the program at Chabad — regardless of where —for the Nation of Israel— this is the way to ensure that Am Yisrael is CHAI!!

Chag Sameach & an early Shabbat Shalom,

 High Holidays are now behind us. 

No doubt we’ve all been sealed for a blessed year and can’t wait to see what’s in store for us!

Most immediately is the Festival of Sukkoth that begins tonight. It runs for eight days and culminates with Simchat Torah. 

It’s been described as Gd’s embrace. A hug from Gd. 

Totally surrounding us like an embrace and providing shelter we recall the glorious string of miracles that have unfolded throughout our history and the bounty that we each have in our lives. Yes, despite the challenges —which we are feeling the extreme pinch currently — there’s an overarching reality — the miracle and the love of Gd. If it wasn’t there neither would we be, we all know that. But we don’t necessarily celebrate that!

So we move on from the introspective, somber High Holiday season and wear our gratitude on our sleeves.

We sit back and feel the attention, care and love of the Divine. We celebrate our blessings and show appreciation for all that we have despite the list of things we still need. 

We sat in Synagogue over HH and did the heavy lifting now it’s time to rejoice and PARTY!

With best wishes for a Chag Sameach and an early Shabbat Shalom,

 We are now in the week of Rosh Hashana.

The last two weeks have been a whirlwind with each day bringing another difficult-to-believe feat by the IDF. 

The whole leadership of the most advanced and well funded terror organization in the world, crumbling like a cheap suit. 

We ought to pinch ourselves to make sure this is true. Truly miraculous!

Yet, this past year has been anything but easy. So much pain yet so much beauty. So much loss yet so much opportunity. So difficult to make sense of it all yet the need to march forward with pride and determination. 

We rarely get to choose what’s thrown our way but we are entirely empowered to choose how to respond. 

As I prepare sermons and collect my thoughts for a Holiday that will be inspirational, joyous yet reflective and empowering — I reread the story of Rachel Edrie the mother and grandmother in Ofakim who staved off terrorist with coffee and cookies for 20 hours till she was saved by Israeli security forces. 

Rachel quickly became a sensation. Her clearheadedness and immense faith helped saved her and her husband’s life.  

By popular request, she later shared the recipe for her cookies. Here’s a link to it.  You may want to integrate some deep feelings into your Rosh Hashana meal — this is one way to do so.

How about this for a topic. Thousands of non-Jews order mezuzahs after a pro-Israel Christian puts one on her door in solidarity.
Or researching one of the remaining hostages in captivity and sharing  a quality of theirs at the Rosh Hashana meal. 

It’s been well documented by released hostages that the knowledge they had of the public support whilst they were in captivity was a tremendous source of strength to them and sadly they won’t be celebrating — we need to do so for them at a minimum. 

I wish just to end with the last words of the Israeli Prime Minister at the UN last week which rang so powerfully from a podium that rarely represents anything good for Israel. 

With strength Bibi declared —Am Yisrael lives — Now. Tomorrow. Forever!! AMEN!

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This Shabbat is the last one of the year— 5784. 

A lot has happened in each of our own personal lives overt the year, and then there’s the collective reality of Am Yisrael — something that we all share in oh, such a deep and essential way. 

Earlier this week I read an article referencing a report coming from the Arab Research Institute that concludes that “the firm stand of Israel is not what was expected. They expected that Israel would not last, that the pressures from home and abroad would  overwhelm her”. 

That’s not what caught my eye however. The report continues that this campaign (aka war)urges them to learn more about the “distraction and confusion tactics” used by the Israeli media which has flooded the Arab and Western media recently — with leaks about  conflicts between Israeli officials on subjects about the war. 

Simply put they can’t understand how despite all the conflicts internally in Israel and the seeming fracture in society, Israel is able to move forward as one collective body. The only explanation is that Israel is engaged in a disinformation war designed to confuse the enemy. 

This is a Laugh Out Loud moment! We all know that the difference of opinion —very strong opinions that is— is the reality in Israel and the Jewish world as a matter of fact. We also know that the miracle of the Jewish nation, is that we are ONE nation. 

Say what you want about this past year, one thing is indisputable. The level of oneness and unity that was experienced this year post October 7th is a life changer for each of us. It needs to be recorded in posterity because it highlights the indivisible nature of Am Yisrael seldom experienced — usually relegated to the books. 

One Nation Undivided Under G-d! A truth that runs deeper than ALL other distractions and that has totally befuddled our enemies. 

Indeed, it’s no surprise that the Shabbat before Rosh Hashana we always read the Torah portion called Nitzavim which means “standing firm and resolute”. It’s Moses’s last message to the Jewish nation and for this address “everyone” as in  of the people were there as Moses passed the torch in covenant to the eternal nation. 

In truth, we only know one way and that’s why we are here. The torch has been passed to us and difficult as it is — we are holding that torch firmly, with strength, pride and joy. Am Yisrael Chai!!

Bring on 5785 we have what it takes, we’ve proven that — SHABBAT SHALOM!!!

With best wishes for a Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Yehuda & Dina Kantor 

P.S.  Tzedaka is one of the 3 pillars that ensures a blessed year (liturgy). Please consider allocating some Tzedakah to Chabad of Westport — you know what we do and we look forward to a wonderful year together.