“I want to dedicate my side of this trophy to the fifteen Jewish people we lost on Bondi Beach a month and a half ago — Am Yisrael Chai” Israeli tennis star Guy Sasson upon winning the Double Quad Final at the Australian Open last week.
A personal victory not quite so personal.
Why?
“And you shall be for me a Nation of Ministers and a Holy Nation…” G-d to Moses instructing him to relay this message as the Jewish nation encamped by Mt Sinai…
A nation — one people— tasked a mission. We didn’t ask for it but we don’t know life without it and I’ve yet to meet a Jewish individual that would trade it in.
“I know, I know. We are your chosen people. But, once in a while couldn’t You choose someone else?” Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof.
A nation with a sense of humor too…yet when asked by G-d whether we agreed to receive the Torah we eagerly responded yes — yet before asking for the enclosed details.
Famous refusenik Natan Sharansky spent nine years in the gulag. Close to half of them in solitary confinement. Yet he never broke. His oppressors, the Soviet Union, broke. He understood the profound concept of the Jewish family better than anyone. “The moment you feel yourself deeply connected you are never alone. In all my years of imprisonment I never felt alone [because I knew I was a Jew].
When a widow shared how lonely she felt with the Lubavitcher Rebbe, he shared a powerful message of hope and the essential truth: We're never alone, because G-d is always with us.
Clearly Moses delivered G-d’s message effectively. It’s not only been heard it’s been practiced. Each of us interconnected ambassadors for G-d to the world and our Jewish people— both those physically alive today and those that preceded us!
What?
This week we read of the giving of Torah at Mount Sinai. It’s all in there. The blueprint. Our interface. The interconnect portal to the past, the present, the future, to humanity, to our souls to eternity -- Am Yisrael Chai!
With best wishes for a Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Yehuda & Dina Kantor
P.S. Here's a torah thought from Rabbi Yehuda Kantor -- Live it, Love it, Learn it!
Westport Journal: Former Soviet dissident speaks in Westport on freedom, identity and Israel at Chabad event