5779 - Congregation Shaarei Shamayim

: 26 December 2021

SHEMOT 5782

SHEMOT 5782

This Christmas is So Much Like Shabbos

I thought long and hard about how I might begin my sermon on this special Shabbos. I agonized with this approach and with that approach, and I decided to do what I do every time Christmas falls out on Shabbos, which is to say one and all: “Merry Christmas, merry Christmas!” And let me say to you instead, a Gut Shabbos, and a Gut Yontif. Gut Yontif? It really does feel like Yontif, doesn’t it? Whether this is our holiday or not, it feels nice to see hardly any traffic on the road, and people home with their families. It really does feel Shabbosdik. It’s one day when the whole world, is behaving in a Jewish way. And that’s nice to see.

Rabbi Shamai Kanter writes about Christmas on Shabbos:

This is the only time of the year, when those of us who live in the Diaspora have an opportunity to experience something like a Shabbat in Jerusalem. The stores close early, by mid afternoon. The streets are pretty much empty of traffic. People have done their last-minute shopping in preparation for the holy day. A hush of anticipation settles over the city. It is the only time of the year when the environment around us supports, rather than distracts from a Jew’s efforts to create a Shabbat. And therefore, I love it when Christmas comes out on Shabbat. I feel as if everybody around me—not just me—is keeping Shabbat, and that is such a nice feeling.

I think of the wonderful passage in the Talmud (Shabbat 118b) that says that if the whole world kept just 2 Shabbot, the messiah would come. And the Midrash (Shemot Rabba 25:12) says even one. If the whole world observed Christmas and New Year’s in a Jewish way—with joy but not with revelry—wouldn’t that be wonderful?

I’m glad that our Christian neighbors have such a beautiful and joyous holiday. I even teach our Religious School students about the deeper symbolisms of Christmas, especially the Christmas tree. They live in a Christian world, and they should know that Christmas is more than television specials and crowded malls. This week’s Torah portion tells us about the Jews coming to live in Egypt. They were a small minority in a strange land. They had to face challenges that were not very different from the challenges we face now and have faced for 2,000 years. And Christmas has always been one of those challenges.

I once shared wih you a beautiful story by Rabbi Marc Gellman about Christmas and Christmas trees and a revered colleague. Its message is so powerful and timely that I’d like to share it with you again:

T’was the week before Christmas…and I was early for a meeting in New York City, and I had drifted into Bloomingdale’s to kill some time…When what to my wondering eyes should appear, but old Rabbi Moshe Forman (not his real name) ascending the escalator along with all the yuppies. Seeing an old Orthodox rabbi in Bloomies is like seeing Santa in a yeshiva. It makes you ask, “What’s wrong with this picture?” So sure was I that my old colleague and friend Rabbi Forman had wandered into Bloomies by mistake that I ran after him up the escalator. I guess I feared that he would be picked up by the security guards the next morning, lost, hungry and unconscious in ladies lingerie.

The crush of holiday shoppers made it impossible for me to get close to him, and modesty prevented me from shouting, “Hey Rabbi Forman wait up!” I saw him exit the ascending escalator on the 5^th floor, and I followed him, this time at a distance, to see if he had some destination in mind.

Words fail me in describing what I saw him do next. Rabbi Forman scholar of the Talmud, head of the orthodox rabbinical court in Queens, scion of a rabbinic dynasty from the Carpathian mountains, disciple of the Tzanzer Rav, the only person in his family to survive the Holocaust, was looking at the Christmas trees in Bloomingdale’s!

He stood motionless in front of the decorated Christmas trees. One tree was called, “Victorian Delight,” another, “Golden Dreams”…I walked up behind him and touched him slowly so as not to startle him, and I said, “Rabbi Forman are you all right?” But he did not answer me or move. He was staring at a table of golden Christmas tree angels under a sign, “Take 20% off ticketed price.” Then Rabbi Forman said in a low voice, as if to someone other than me, “There were no angels in the trees around Belzec.”

Belzec, along with Sobibor and Treblinka were death camps—not forced labor camps—but death camps. They were built for only one purpose, to kill all the Jews of Poland and 600,000 Jews were killed in Belzec, among them Rabbi Forman’s entire family. He escaped from the place in some way he would never reveal to me.

“You see that snow on the branches of that Christmas tree?” Rabbi Forman pointed to that artificial snow you spray on the branches to fool people into thinking that it has just snowed in your living room. Before I could say a thing he said, “The trees around Belzec had snow like that on their branches all year long. It was gray snow, but it was not snow. It was the ashes of my parents’ bodies which coated the branches of the trees around Belzec.” After a long time during which he said nothing and I said nothing, we left Bloomingdale’s.

As was my custom, I gave Rabbi Forman a lift back home to Queens [after the meeting]. In the car I asked him, “Why did you go there?”

And he said, “I wanted to see the place before I die. I have never been in such a store in my life. I wanted to see the place the Christmas trees are sold.”

“Was it what you thought?” I asked.

“It was beautiful. Amazing and joyous. I have never seen such colored lights and the music and the angels…the angels were very beautiful.”

We drove on without saying anything. When we arrived at his apartment house, I waited to see him safely through the front door, as was my custom, and I heard him exclaim as he turned out of sight, “There were no angels in the trees around Belzec [just the Christmas trees adorned with the ashes of my parents].”

Christmas is a time of very mixed emotions for Jews. It’s an “amazing and joyous” holiday as Rabbi Forman said. Its theme is, “Peace on earth and good will to all,” and yet, for a good deal of history, this Christmas spirit was not extended to Jews. Just the opposite, for them Jews was a time of great suffering. The only day of the year that European yeshivas for hundreds of years would close, would be on Christmas because after thunderous and rousing sermons about Jesus’ birth and how the Jews killed him, scores of thugs would come out of the Churches and beat up on every Jew they could find. The rabbis then closed the yeshivas to protect their students. There are some European type yeshivas today that still close in remembrance.

Yes, “there were no angels in the trees around Belzec,” but I sense a profound change in Christians today—especially here in America. Before Rosh Hashanah, Chanukah and Passover I am visited by representatives of Christian Churches with holiday gifts telling me that they just want us to know that they love Jews, that we are Gd’s special people and that they believe in Gd’s promise to Abraham and his seed: “Whoever blesses thee I will bless and whoever curses thee I will curse.” These are among the more than 100 million Christians in America that are strong supporters of Israel.

So my friends, on this Shabbos day, when our Christian neighbors are also resting—just as we are—let us wish them with a full heart a Merry Christmas. Christmas deserves to be celebrated by Christians for what it is—a religious holiday, not a secular one. And so should Shabbos be for us. May we and they both think about what we can do today, not just a day off, but a holy day. Then perhaps it just might really become a time for “Peace on earth and good will to all.” Have a merry Shabbos. Amen!

: 19 December 2021

VAYECHI 5782

VAYECHI 5782

What Are You Waiting For? Write Your Ethical Will

In this week’s Torah portion, we read the 1^st ethical will ever recorded. Father Jacob, before he dies, gathers his children around his bedside and, one by one, he blesses them, chastises them and instructs them in how to live after he’s gone. He challenges them to live up to their Gd-given potential. This is the origin of what has become a beautiful Jewish custom.

Down through the centuries, Jewish fathers and mothers have written love letters—to be opened up after they’re gone—in which they try to tell their children and their grandchildren what they have learned in life, and what they want for them and from them after they’re gone.

This custom is having a kind of revival in our time. In the early years of my rabbinate, there were parents who left such letters. There are still parents who leave such letters, but now more common are parents who leave videos—and their families treasure them. Let me suggest that you consider writing such a letter or making such a video on your phone to leave behind for those whom you love. You don’t have to be a professional writer to write an ethical will. As the Talmud (Brachot 6b) teaches: “Words that come from the heart enter the heart,”. Some of the most moving wills that I have ever read come from plain, ordinary people.

It isn’t easy to write an ethical will or a script for such a video—this I know. To do so, you must come to terms with your own mortality. And you must think long and hard about what you want to say, and what you really believe in. You need to think about what you have learned in life that is most important to you; what are the values by which you have tried to live by that you want your children and their children to understand and carry on? You learn a lot about yourself when you try to do an ethical will. It isn’t easy—but it’s certainly worthwhile.

In order to help you with this, let me share with you 2 ethical wills found in my colleague, Rabbi Jack Reimer’s books on ethical wills. The 1^st was written by a man who was 52-years-old. He was dealing with cancer and so this letter is real honest. He was a Baal Teshuvah—one who came to an appreciation of Judaism late in life, but who had enormous enthusiasm and commitment. His will is upbeat, and wise, and I think that we, as much as his children, have much to learn from it:

My life has not been easy. The members of my family when I was growing up added new meaning to the term, Meshugener. On the one hand, I feel that every one of them did their best. I fall into the same category. There is much that I would do differently—if I was then who I am now. These words are addressed especially to my children. I apologize for many of the things that you lived through as kids and the baggage that you carry as adults.

On the other hand, the past was a blessing because you can see from my life that no one is bound to spend his whole life on a single path. We can all change. I am living proof—no pun intended—that you can be what you want to be. It takes work and tenacity. That is the key character trait that I got from my father. I could not have asked for anything more valuable.

Vince Lombardi said that the game doesn’t go to the fastest or strongest man, but to the one who thinks he can. Play the hand that you are dealt by life. Keep the good cards and discard the rest. My Dad was a good poker player. Though I don’t play cards, I have learned which cards to keep and which to throw...

I want you to remember me. I worked, I did. I am a person who became what he could not, who did what he was not able to, who developed a dream and made it a reality. I may die from this cancer. I don’t fight it. I learned to give up fighting a long time ago. I spend my time and heart simply loving. And by living—loving you. I leave you my legacy—that the story of the rising of the phoenix can be true. It worked, I did it.

As important as each of you are to me, there is more. There is my Jewishness and the world. Until a few years ago, my Jewishness was repressed, never developed. But thank Gd, I now see that my Yiddishkeit was always there. I hope for the community that you will each work at ensuring the continuity of our 3,000-year-old story and will help redefine it so that your children will have its benefits at a younger age than I did.

Please remember, we are bound together, and you must do all that you can to make our dreams a reality. Our Jewish heritage has always been changing, based on what came before, and on where we are now. I ask you to work at making it more engaging, more vibrant, more inclusive. Thank you.

The 2^nd ethical will comes from a man who is in a very different physical and spiritual place. He is a light-hearted man, one who often writes parodies and Purim songs. But in this ethical will, he does not kid around. Listen to what he writes:

If I had only 10 minutes to live, what would I share with my loved ones? What did I do in my life that I was satisfied with, proud of? What didn’t I do, or not do enough of, that I would want my loved ones to learn from?

LOVE MORE. Receive more. Give more. Express it openly and in ways that no one will ever know about.

CARE MORE. Share Gd’s blessings that you have received with others. Don’t just give money; make sure that it is helping those in need.

LAUGH MORE. Life was created for Gd’s pleasure. Gd’s enjoyment increases when we laugh and enjoy the lives that were given to us.

BE A MENSCH. If you love, care, share and laugh, you will be a mensch, a fully expressed human being. Your life will serve as a model for your children, and they too will be menschen. So, what I’m really saying is, make sure the members of our family are always menschen and “mentioned” in the Book of Life.

Live more, love and laugh! Care and Share! I love you.

Do you find these 2 wills as powerful and as moving as I do? They say simple honest truths, the kind that it can take a lifetime of living to learn. On this Shabbat, when we read of Jacob’s ethical will—as we look back over the secular year that is closing quickly and look forward to the year ahead—let us think about what legacy we would want to leave to the ones we care about the most. Consider making an ethical will or video yourself. If you do, those whom you love will bless you for it. So, what are you waiting for? Amen!

: 12 December 2021

VAYIGASH 5782

VAYIGASH 5782

How Long Would You Like to Live?

In this week’s Torah portion, there’s a dramatic scene where Joseph introduces his father Jacob to Pharoah. Pharoah seems astonished by how old Jacob looks and asks him (Gen.47:8): “How old are you?” So, this morning I’d like to speak about growing older—especially in light of the death this past Sunday of Bob Dole at 98!

So Pharoah asks Jacob how old he was. Now, what kind of question is that? This is a strange question for Pharaoh to ask. Why does he need to know? Would he have ever asked this of a woman? And then Jacob gives a strange answer. He says 2 things: “The years of my sojourn on this earth are only 130, which is much less than the life span of my fathers.” And then he goes to say: M’at v’ra-im, (Few and bad, have been the years of life). What kind of an answer is that? I don’t know about you, but I think that 130 years ain’t bad—I’d be happy with 120—and surely 130 isn’t just a few!

But Jacob speaks of his years as if they were all but over—as if he were on his death bed. He doesn’t say, “My age is 130 so far,” or “My age now is 130, poo poo poo.” No, he says, “The days of my years are 130,” as if they were almost over, and yet, we know that Jacob lived on for another 17 years—years of peace and serenity, years in which he watched his grandchildren grow up.

Why does Jacob negate his future—as if there wasn’t any, as if it was all over? And why does he devalue the quality of his past saying, M’at v’ra-im, that his years were few and bad, few and painful—few and bitter?

The truth is, he did have many challenges in his life. He had to compete for his father’s affections with his twin brother, Esav. When he ran away after Esav sought to kill him, he had to deal with Uncle Laban, who was conniving, dishonest and mistreated him again and again. And then, on the way back home, he had to battle a mysterious stranger, from which he came out wounded and limping.

Then he had the heartache of seeing his only daughter, Dinah, raped and kidnapped by the people of Shechem. And just when it seemed he could finally settle down, his favorite son, the 1^st-born of his beloved Rachel—Joseph—disappeared.

So I don’t blame Jac entirely for describing the days of his life as ra-im (bad). Some of them surely were. But is that a fair description of his whole life? Is that all there was?

No, he had a mother who loved him and looked out for him. Not everyone can say that. He got a blessing from his father twice. Not everyone can say that. And he had a dream in which he saw angels climbing up and down a ladder and then Gd appeared to him. Now, that’s not such a bad day, is it?

The day he met Rachel—it was love at 1^st sight. That wasn’t such a bad day, was it? He had all these children—13 of them, 12 boys and a girl. Somehow, he was able to acquire a considerable fortune, while working for Uncle Laban. That’s not so bad, is it?

Then there s the day when the unbelievable happened. After years of inconsolable mourning for his lost son, he found out that Joseph was alive—and not only alive—he was Prime Minister of Egypt. Ok, maybe that’s not as good as a Jewish child becoming a doctor, but still, it isn’t so bad to have a son who’s a Prime Minister. That wasn’t such a bad day, was it?

So how should Jacob have answered Pharaoh’s question of how old he was? I wouldn’t have said, “The days of my years have been few and bad.” Let me suggest that he was making the mistake that we all make of focusing on the hardships in our lives and minimizing the good we receive and forgetting the source from which they come.

Or, as my colleague Rabbi Jack Reimer suggests, maybe he had a toothache. You can have 30 good teeth but if one hurts, everything hurts. Maybe that’s what it was that day he met Pharoah. But maybe, just maybe, Jacob was making the same mistake that many make, focusing on the past as if our lives are over and forgetting how much good may still lie ahead.

The fact of the matter is, it’s not over till it’s over! A few weeks ago, a colleague directed me to an article in the New York Times (10/25/21). Now, as you may know, I don’t usually read the New York Times because of its decided bias against Israel. But I was drawn to this article because of its headline: “A Hundred-Year-Old Priest was Nudged from His Parish. He Has No Plan to Retire.” Yes, there ARE priests who don’t want to give up the pulpit at 100. And I’m not so sure I’ll want to give up this pulpit when I turn 100—im yirtzeh Hashem (Gd willing).

I mentioned earlier Bob Dole. His political rival was George Bush senior. Do you remember what George Bush senior did to celebrate his 90^th birthday? That’s right, he went sky diving! Yes, there are people skydiving at 90! In this week’s The Week Magazine, it mentions a man, veteran Pat Moorehead, who celebrated his 90^th birthday jumping out of an airplane 9 times—one for each decade of his life!

Mel Brooks just wrote his memoir at 95 and it’s a bestseller. Dr. Michael DeBakey—the pioneering heart surgeon—on his 90^th birthday performed a quadruple bypass operation for more than 3 hours. You must admit that this was remarkable! But let me tell you: I’m not so sure I would have wanted him operating on me!

And listen tohis. A colleague shared with me that in his shul this Shabbos, the reading the Haftorah will be done by someone celebrating the 90^th anniversary of his Bar Mitzvah! My friends, you don’t have to be 103 to do remarkable things. I know a lot of people whose bodies have almost worn out, but whose minds and spirits are still strong. Whenever I see them, I stand in awe. I ask myself: how do they do it?

This week I discovered a partial answer in an article in USA Today about Francis Kompus. It was about Francis celebrating her 100^th birthday. That’s nice, but not so unusual in today’s worl. What made this celebration unique was that her older sisters, Lucy 102 and Julia 104, celebrated with her. Now, I know that this takes a lot of mazel and genes and chromosomes and whatever! But Francis Kompus reminds us all of what else it takes. When asked what was the key to her longevity? She simply said, “Keep going, just keep going.”

I think there’s something to that. Jacob, despite his despondency, was able to keep going for another 20 years. My friends, I hope all of us will keep going for another 20, 30 years till 120. May Hashem help keep us all going. Amen!

: 05 December 2021

CHANUKAH 5782

CHANUKAH 5782

I’m sure you’ve heard Chanukah referred to as a minor holiday—that the only reason it’s become so popular is because of its proximity to Christmas...and that in our desire to match the glitter of Christmas with a holiday of our own, we’ve over-stated the importance and the observance of Chanukah. We exchange gifts like the Christians do, even though Purim is our holiday for gifts and not Chanukah. We send Chanukah cards just like Christians send Christmas cards. And we have lavish Chanukah parties—well we used to pre-Covid—to match our neighbors’ Christmas parties. Chanukah is no big deal. We’ve made it a big deal just because of Christmas.

WRONG!! It’s a mistake to conclude that Chanukah is just a minor holiday. Listen to Maimonides, who lived among Arabs who didn’t celebrate Christmas, who writes that the lighting of the Chanukah menorah is:

an extremely beloved mitzvah...Even if a person has nothing to eat, and has to accept charity to survive, he should sell some of his clothing, if necessary, to buy oil and wicks to light the Chanukah lights...If he only has one small coin and must therefore choose between purchasing oil for the Chanukah menorah and wine for Shabbat Kiddush, he should buy the oil for the Chanukah menorah.

It seems from Maimonides that Chanukah is an important holiday.

Chanukah speaks to the Jewish soul in a way that no other holiday does. If you take a look at all the surveys of the American Jewish community, you will see that lighting the Chanukah menorah is the one ritual more Jews do every year than any other. What is it about Chanukah that draws in every Jewish soul? It’s not the gifts nor the cards nor the parties—not even the latkes. It’s the light, the Chanukah lights. Jews don’t celebrate the miracle of the military victory of the Maccabees over the mightier Syrian Greeks that terrorized them. No, they celebrate the miracle of light they brought into Gd’s house by lighting the Menorah right away and not waiting till sufficient pure oil could be found. We celebrate the miracle of that Gdly light lasting 8 days till new pure holy oil could be made.

Kabbalah teaches that the lighting of the Chanukah lights is a re-enactment of the 1^st moment of creation, when Gd said, “Let there be light.” Even though we may not understand it in our heads, we get it in our kishkas, our guts, that it is this light, representing the light of Gd that draws us all to Chanukah. It’s the light that helps us look beyond the shadows of our world and see the truth.

Let me read you a story that demonstrates the strong pull of the Chanukah lights on the Jewish soul. It’s about a 12-year-old boy in Auschwitz whose Bar Mitzvah was supposed to be during Chanukah: Since it was impossible to be called to the Torah for his Bar Mitzvah, he decided to commemorate it by fulfilling the mitzvah of the Chanukah lights instead. So, a few weeks before Chanukah, he began to save potato peels and crumbs and fashion them into makeshift candles.

When Chanukah arrived, he lit his little candles with great pride, but also with great fear. As fate would have it, during one night of Chanukah, however, there was a surprise inspection. Before he knew it, a German officer ordered him to explain the candles. Defiantly he announced that it was the Festival of Lights. The officer then ordered him to put out the lights. Then, in a quiet voice, with a courage he didn’t know he had, looked up and said, “Sir, Jews don’t extinguish light, we bring light into the world.” And for some unfathomable reason, the officer —instead of shooting the boy right then and there—turned around and walked away.

How could this young boy defy the German military machine? And with what? Potato peels and crumbs? From where did he get that Maccabean courage? He probably couldn’t explain it, but I’m sure he felt deep within him that when one is with the light, when one is with Gd, one can weather any storm. As that Bar Mitzvah boy of Auschwitz said to the German officer, “Jews don’t extinguish light, we bring light into the world!”

One more storys: Before the former Soviet Union let Jews leave for Israel, Jews used to hire guides to smuggle them out. One Chanukah a group of Jews were playing “cat and mouse” with a Soviet army patrol as they approached the border. When the guide thought they had lost the patrol, he announced a ½-hour break before continuing the trek. One of the escapees, hearing the magic number of ½-half hour—the minimum time a Chanukah candle must be lit to fulfill the mitzvah—pulled out his menorah, set up the candles, said the blessing and began lighting the candles. The other escapees immediately pounced upon him and the menorah to put out the candles. Just then the Soviet patrol moved in and encircled them.

The head of the army patrol told them: “We were just about to open fire and wipe you out when I saw that man lighting the Chanukah candles. I was overcome with emotion; I remember my zaide lighting Chanukah candles...I have decided to let you go in peace.”

Is this not a Chanukah lights miracle? This Jew elevated himself as he braved all the dangers for a chance to do a mitzvah and deep within him the Soviet officer remembered the power of those lights from his youth and let him go!

Yes, there’s light hidden in everything. King Solomon taught (Proverbs 20:27): Neyr Hashem nismat adam, “Gd’s candle—Gd’s light—is the soul of a person.” Being Gd’s candles, helping to bring out the light hidden in the world is our job as Jews.

A Parisian artist once complained to the renowned sculptor Jacques Lipchitz that he was unhappy with the quality of the light he was painting. He had even gone to Morocco in search of a better light, but to no avail. “An artist’s light,” Lipchitz told him, “comes not from without, but from within.”

And so, my friends, it is for us. When we gaze tonight at the 7 lights of the menorah on this 7^th night of Chanukah, may it help draw out that unique light hidden within us all. Amen!

: 14 November 2021

VAYEYTZEY 5782

VAYEYTZEY 5782

One of the great things about today’s media is the availability to watch classic movies any time we want. There’s a great scene in the classic movie “Forrest Gump” that sheds light on a verse in today’s Torah portion. If you haven’t seen the movie, let me suggest that you do. In one of the saddest points in the movie, Forrest and Ginny, the love of his life, return home. They walked down a dirt road until they came to her childhood abode—a run-down, uninhabited shack. As she drew nearer, we could see the anger and pain on Ginny’s face. As she approached, she reached down, picked up some stones and threw them at the shack. Some of rocks brake off some pieces of paint from the wood—others crash through windows. When she can’t find any more rocks, she falls to the ground, exhausted and tearful. Forrest then lovingly says, “I guess sometimes you just don’t have enough rocks.”

Forrest, who was never really “big” on words, has a way of distilling great truths in just a few words. What did he mean when he said, “I guess sometimes you just don't have enough rocks?” My guess is that he was telling Ginny 2 things: 1. that she was not going to bring that house down—no matter how many rocks she threw; 2. But more importantly, he was telling her that even if she were to throw every rock at her childhood home, she would never be able to end the torment and the agony which was hers after suffering such horrible emotional and physical abuse as a child. There aren’t enough rocks to lessen her misery and her anguish.

My friends, many are the times that we throw rocks in our lives, and we would do well to think about the simple words of Forrest Gump. We sometimes so want to throw stones at people and at situations—both in the past and the present—but it doesn’t do much to alleviate the pain. Those rocks may be a nasty look, hurtful words, gossip or petty bickering. And whether we like it or not, the more rocks we throw, the more likely we are to hurt ourselves.

Much of my time counseling people involves trying to pick up the emotional and spiritual rubble after years of throwing stones. All too often, people who love each other seem to know just where to throw those stones. But the ones they’re throwing at are just as good marksmen as they are. And you can bet that the stones will be hurled both ways.

Parents, for example, are experts in knowing just the right words that will hurt or embarrass their children into doing what they want them to do. But while they may get the immediate desired result, the damage done is, most often, not worth it!

None of this is new. Look at our Torah reading about the family of Isaac and Rebecca. It’s a family not lacking for rocks, and strife and pain. Isaac and Rebecca had twins—Esav and Jacob—who couldn’t be more different. Isaac favored Esav and Rebecca favored Jacob. Jacob pressured his brother into selling him his birthright and then stole his brother’s blessing—at the insistence of his mother. It’s a real mess of a family. This kind of favoritism helps stockpile an entire arsenal of rocks.

But there’s something very curious that happened in this morning’s parsha. When Jacob was running away from his brother Esav who sought to kill him, he camped-out for the night. There was no “Best Western” or “Hampton Inn,” so Jacob had to make his own bed. He took a bunch of rocks and made a rather harsh pillow for his head. Where did those rocks come from?

According to the Midrash (Pirke deRabi Eliezer), these very same rocks were used by Abraham to make an altar for the Akeda—the sacrifice of Isaac. The Torah (Gen. 28:18) tells us that when Jacob woke, there was only one rock! The sages say it was a miracle—all of the rocks fused into one! Jacob then made that rock into a new and improved altar, and poured oil upon it; and because of this transition, Gd made it the keystone of the earth and the foundation of the Holy Temple. Whereas this place was previously known as Luz, from this time on, it was to be called Beyt El (the House of Gd).

Think about what Jacob did. He took the very rocks that caused such turmoil in his family—the rocks upon which his father was almost killed by his grandfather. He took that pain and that angst and that anger and transformed them into a symbol of unity and cohesion and spirituality. Jacob did a remarkable think: he recreated the rocks—symbolic of strife—and transformed them into an altar—a symbol of love.

My friends, we have such choices in our lives. We can choose to use the rocks in our lives, our words and our actions, as weapons, or we can use them as building blocks. We can do damage with those rocks, or we can create wonderful things. We can use our tongues as daggers and our words as stones, and we will build nothing of value. In so doing, like Forrest Gump, we’ll come to recognize that there never are enough rocks! Or we can use our words to heal and build caring relationships. We can turn a home into a living hell; or we can erect a Beyt Eyl, a House of Gd, where everyone in that home is uplifted in the process.

The 1^st step must be to take the stones in our lives which we’ve used as weapons and transform them into altars. That can only be done when, like Jacob, we realize that we are not the center of the universe. We were placed upon this earth to serve Gd and to bring blessing and healing to each other, to leave this world a little better than when we came here.

We need to destroy less and love more; we need to throw fewer rocks, and offer, instead, words of kindness. We need to stop demolishing our homes and relationships. Instead we need to build trust and compassion, so that our homes, our workplaces, and our shul can earn the title, Beyt Eyl, “a House of Gd”!

When Jacob woke up fm his dream, he was a different person. He recognized that he had changed—and as his perception of himself had changed, so too did his perception of the world around him. His 1^st words on that fateful morning were, “Indeed Gd is in this place, and I didn’t know. How awesome is this place? It can only be the House of Gd, and this is the Shaar Hashamayim, the gateway to Heaven.”

My friends, I tell you now from the pulpit of Shaarei Shamayim, our gateway to Heaven, that we must transform the rocks in our lives with the realization that Gd’s Presence is always with us and knowing this, we should always behave accordingly. Let’s wake up tomorrow and recognize like Father Jacob that we can transform our surroundings—no mater where we are—into a House of Gd. Anywhere we find ourselves can be OUR gateway to Heaven. Amen!

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