JEWISH HOME LA

Dear readers,

What a sense of free-fall—from the exalted feeling of z’man cheiruseinu to the horror of a hateful terrorist attacking one of the many Chabad houses in California and succeeding in killing one and injuring three! Last Shabbos’s events in Poway exemplified darkness attacking light in a most visceral sense.

Yet the response has been astonishing. It has brought out even more Jewish pride and resilience, causing people to commit to act even more openly Jewish, to attend synagogue more often, or to do more mitzvot.

Indeed, the experience of the Jewish people in exile is like the olive. When squeezed, the purest of oil comes out. Every form of oppression has been carried out against us in the past 3000 years, yet here we are, looking for even more ways to increase light and to make a kiddush Hashem.

Often in times of confusion, otherwise regular individuals show the way by example. Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein is currently that person. Beginning with running to save the children, through his nonstop positivity, his insistence that “Am Yisrael chai!” and his message that we need for ever increasing light, Rabbi Goldstein has shown that one can transform examples of extreme meanness within the human spirit into extreme dedication.

His dedication reminds us that although the world order seems to be crumbling around us, it is our job to be raiser focused on preforming another mitzvah, and another, and another until we banish darkness for once and for all. Ushering in the time when there shall no longer be suffering nor pain and when the nations of the world will be occupied with the knowledge of the Creator.

Wishing you a wonderful Shabbos,

Shalom