Amos and Chanukah

AMOS- is one of the 8 distinguished leaders.  He was a student of Hoshea and the teacher of Yeshayahu.  Amos was a shepherd before the spirit of prophecy came over him. He was a herdsman from the village of Tekoa, and a dresser of sycamore trees.  He prophesized during the time of King Jeroboam.  Which was about 185 years before the destruction of the First Beit Hamikdash.

Amos is very relevant for today’s times.  Amos talks about the nations of the world.  How they will not be forgiven for their sins after the third time, and especially if they hurt Israel, they will not survive.  Then he goes on to rebuke Israel and how they will not be forgiven, for perverting justice, taking from the poor, idol worship and immorality.  This was a rebuke on their times and our times.  In their times the judges were bribed, and the poor had no one to fight for them. The rich just took and took, and ignored the laws of the Torah.  We see today that the justice system seems to be perverted and not up to the task of judging righteously, and over half of Israel’s poor today are children, and yet nothing is being done to help them by the government.

While there is no real idol worship today – Amos relates idol worship to traps set by the nations of the world with the help of the yetzer hara to prevent the Jewish people from shining.  We understand this as referring to technology especially the internet, which with all of its good things also brings a lot of unsuitable stuff into the public eye and makes immorality much more easily accessible and acceptable.  He moves onto rebuking the Kingdom of Judah for turning against their brothers.

It goes to show that we cannot judge our fellow Jews because we will bring judgement upon ourselves.  In the last perek we go on to talk about galus and redemption.  He talks about the Jewish people who are like wheat kernels and sifted through the sifter and only those who are righteous will survive to see the redemption.  How those who are evil will basically become part of the nations of the world who will be destroyed during the war of Gag and Magog.

How does this all relate to Chanukah?  Well as Chanukah is all about   מי לה’ אלי.  So is Amos in that if we do what the Torah tells us to do, then we will be considered righteous and worthy of seeing the final redemption.  Let us not be like the kernels that fall through the sieve and become like the nations of the world, but rather let us use the message of Chanukah and Amos to be like the hardened stubborn pebbles and kernels of wheat that stay on top.  Mashiach is on his way.

Lighting the Menorah

Taken from Halachah highlights by Rabbi Goldstein:

Correct time to light the Menorah:

• Ashkenazim best time to light is at Shkia ( sunset) R’ Moshe Feinstein Ztz”L ten minutes after sunset
• Sephardim and Chassdim- Tzeis Hakochavim when three stars are out.
• One may light the Menorah until an hour and a quarter before sunrise, it s preferable to light when people are still out.

One should not eat before lighting the menorah and should interrupt there Torah learning in order to light at the proper time.

• During Chanukah it is better to daven Maariv earlier then later in order to fulfill the  mitzvah of lighting candles at the right time.
• If one is unable to light at the proper time it is best to appoint a shaliach from his household to light for him.

How should the menorah be set up?

• In a straight line with the Shamash above all the other lights or noticeably different.
• The candles and or oil should all be the same size.

The Menorah

The laws pertaining to the placement and height of the Menorah! Taken from Halachah Highlights By Rabbi Goldstein

• The ideal place to light the menorah is outside your home facing a public thoroughfare on the left side of your door.
• If you have a courtyard in front of your home, light at the entrance to the courtyard.
• If you are lighting inside your home it is preferable to light in the window that faces the  public thoroughfare  then at the entrance to your home. If such a window is not available then you should light at the entrance to your home on the left side of your door.

 

What height?

The menorah must be placed above 11.9 from the ground up to 38 feet above the ground.

If you live on a floor that is higher then 38 feet above ground you should light in the doorway to your home.

If you lit the menorah in a lower place or a higher place then above, then you have not fulfilled your obligation and must relight the menorah without saying the bracha.

The menorah should be lit in the place it is intended to stay, in order to fulfill your obligation. If you are moving the menorah you should extinguish the lights and relight in the new place without the bracha.

Choice and Change

Choice and change, two different things or two very similar ideas? Let us start by defining our terms: choice is the freedom to make a decision based on the merits of each factor; change is not just the coins we get back from the cashier, but it is when we transform ourselves to be different to how we started out.

 

I feel that the two are related. We have been given free choice, even babies have free choice though it is not obvious to us. How are these two ideas related? Like this, every action we do ultimately affects us. How so, you may ask? Not a single one of us is perfect and we are constantly faced with choices to make. For example, do we choose to lie in order to please the people around us and not get into an argument, or do we choose to be honest with ourselves and others even if it makes us uncomfortable?  That  is the essence of free choice, the chance to choose between right and wrong.

 

Yet there is another aspect to the idea of free choice that we sometimes forget about. That is the idea that every choice we make affects us. It affects our neshomas(souls). That  is how choice and change are connected. Every time we choose not to lie, or to make that after-bracha, or to daven in the morning instead of sleeping in, our neshomas are elevated to another level. It works in reverse too. If we choose to sleep in instead of utilizing that time to daven, our neshoma does not get elevated.

 

Recently I had to make a choice in my own life. I have known for a long time now that I did not want television or movies in my home when I have children, but as a single girl I was still attached to the shows that I had grown up with. Even though I refrained from watching any new shows, and I stopped watching many shows that I felt were inappropriate, I still watched some. I also grew up reading, and as a young teenager I grew to enjoy romance novels, which once upon a time were a lot cleaner than those I picked up as an adult. So what’s the point here? I was dating a young man this summer who was not someone who had grown up with television but had picked up this habit later on in his life. Now I liked this young man, but as we got more and more serious, I realized we had a problem in that if we both watched television, that is what our home would be based upon instead of the Torah values that I had hoped for. It was at this point that I understood that if I wanted a husband who holds Torah in the highest esteem and lives his life that way, then it was up to me to make a change and choice in my own life. For I realized that the books that I was reading were affecting how I viewed the world, and the men in it. While I knew that books based on millionaires marrying the regular girl were not based on reality, I could not stop myself from looking for a strong man who would take care of me. So this summer I made a choice to change, to stop the television and the books. While it is not as much as a struggle as it once was, the desire is still there.

 

Everything we do, every choice we make, whether to be truthful or dishonest, will affect us, and generations to come. We have zechut avot ( merits of our forefathers), we have their spiritual DNA, but will we pass that on to our children if we continue to let our lives be polluted by all the wrong things? Everyone has their own challenges, and I am not here to tell you what to do, but rather to remind you that by every choice we make, we change ourselves. I shared my personal dilemma with you to show you that while change is difficult, it is not impossible as long as we will it.

I choose to follow the path of Torah and to work on myself so that my children will grow up with holiness rather than the tantalizing falseness of television. Let’s join together in working on ourselves to become better and holier people.

What can be used to light the Menorah

Taken from Halacha Highlights by Rabbi Goldstein:

One may use any type of oil or wax candles. Any kind of wick is permitted.

One should preferably use an oil with Kosher Certification, but if one wants to do so he may be lenient as long as does not know for sure that the oil is a mixture of forbidden fats and oils.

Wicks that where already used one night of Chanukah may be used again.

Meat after Dairy

Most of us know that we have to wait between eating meat and dairy. But how many of us know the halachas of eating dairy than meat?

Taken from the book Kashrus in the Kitchen Q & A by Rabbi Weisenfeld.

Because the taste of dairy does not stay in your mouth over long period of times and dissolves quickly one is not required to wait to eat meat after having dairy. Yet Chazal has required a few things to be done in order to meat directly after diary.

There are people who have a custom of waiting a set amount of time between diary and meat, if you have such a custom you should continue to follow it.

The procedures as instituted by Chazal;

• Kinuach- the eating of pareve food to clean the mouth, teeth and palate of any residue
  • One may not use leafy green vegetables, flour or dates for this purpose; as they stick to one mouth’s without cleaning it properly
  • Brushing of the teeth and tongue can also be used for this purpose.
• Hadacha- washing one’s mouth out .to remove any left over diary, this can be done with water, or any other pareve liquid
  • You need to only rinse out the mouth once.
• Washing of ones hands– Should be done, if you touched the diary food with your hands and may have residue left over on it.
  • One does not need to use soap, or wash with a cup.
  • Your fingers must be washed, the palm of your hand is not needed unless it became dirty.
• Changing the tablecloth in order for there to be a clear separation of meat and dairy.

There is more on this topic such as hard cheese so stay tuned for the next installment!

Shabbat Shalom!

Thoughts on Parsha Vayeshev

Yaakov Avinu observed his parents marriage and their chinuch and he used this with his own children. Yaakov saw that he and his brother where not loved equally by both of their parents. He saw his parents not communicating and took this into his own neshomah. He loved his children, but he loved Yosef the most, Because Yaakov loved Yosef more than his other children the brothers became jealous of him, and did not want to listen to him. They where so sure they where right that they judged him worthy of death, and caused their father untold grief for 22 years.  We learn that Yaakov sat Shiva for Yosef, but he refused to be comforted. Yaakov Avinu said I have to sit shiva but I will not be comforted because I do not have a body and I refuse to give up on him. This kept Yosef strong because he had someone who believed in him.

What do we learn from this, treat your children equally and communicate with them openly and honestly. This does not mean that they each should receive the same education, because we learn form Yitzchak that you cannot raise two children exactly the same. This does not mean that you should not love them equally and treat them equally.  By communicating with your children and raising them in the way that suits them best. You do not have to love their actions, but you have to love them. As long as you do not give up on your children and you believe in them, then no matter how far away they have strayed from the right path they can come back as long as you love them and believe in them.

Don’t give up, even if there is no one physically alive who cares about you, Hashem has not given up on you. So do not give up!

Taken form Rabbi Zecharia Wallersteins Vayeshev shiur on TorahAnytime.com

Chanukah

    Chanukah is supposed to fill us with light that endures throughout the dark winter months, until Pesach when spring arrives. Why is this so, what makes Chanukah so special?  Chanukah is all about  מי לה’ אלי this is what the Maccabees went into battle with. They went into battle for Hashem not for honor or prestige, but because they saw that Hashem’s name was continually being desecrated.  That the Jewish people were not being allowed to serve Hashem.

    Chanukah is all about bringing the light of spirituality into this world.  How did the Maccabees do this?  They went out to fight against the largest most advanced army in the world at the time, the Greek army, with complete emunah and bitachon. What is Emunah, emunah is the thought process of thinking about Hashem and what he wants from us and how he is always with us. Bitachon on the other hand is translating that thought process into action, and knowing that because Hashem is with us, when we do something for his honor for his name, we will succeed (Rav Shimshon Pincus-Shaarei Emunah). This is the light of emunah and bitachon that the Maccabees brought into this world, by going to battle against the Greeks and it is what guides us through the dark winter months. They chose to be the opposite of the Greeks.  They chose to focus on spirituality, the inside not what is on the outside. The ancient Greeks were all about physicality which is the anathema to the Jewish People.  The Jewish people are aware that while physicality has its place it is supposed to be used as a tool to reach higher spiritual heights.

    We say Hallel all eight days of Chanukah, to commemorate the numerous miracles that took place.  Yet, I think that there is a deeper meaning here which is sometimes forgotten when we look at the physical miracles of the oil and the battle.  Which is that the Maccabees took their cue from Moshe Rabbeinu, when he had to deal with the Jewish people who had created an idol in the form of the golden calf.  After, they had received the ten commandments, he issued a proclamation in the form  מי לה’ אלי and the only people who responded where the Leviim.  So here too we see their descendents, being for Hashem.  Compared to the general attitude of the Jewish people, who were not able to go out and actively be for Hashem.  That is the message of Chanukah that guides us through the winter, to be for Hashem, and He will be with us.

Ahavas Yisrael

The first step is to judge everyone favorably, and love them in your heart.

A great thing to do when you are jealous or angry at someone is to remember that Hashem gives each one of us what we need.

Third thing is to know that if you are struggling with a specific middah or mitzvah; consider it a test that you are meant to pass. As ‘ה  does not give us something we cannot pass!

Let us know your ideas for Ahavas Yisrael or your struggles!

Ideas are taken from the Ahavas Yisrael Project put out by the Chofetz Chaim Heritage Foundation and Sharon Warren

What is our job in this world?

Our job as the Jewish nation is to be a light unto the nations. To bring the light of Hashem into this world. How do we do this? By being satisfied with our lot, by being full.  As Yaakov Avinu said to Eisav when Eisav commented on his family. He said Hashem has graced me with everything. He was saying that he was blessed with what he had and did not want more. Therefore, making sure there was no barrier between him and Hashem. According to Rav Wolbe Ztz”l our forefathers experienced a taste of Olam Habah in this world, by constantly being attached to Hashem.

Now this is all very nice and easier said then done. So, here is what I recommend to help us connect to Hashem.

1. Be happy with what you have, and know this is what you need and anything more is a want.

2. Take time out of your day to focus on Hashem and all he has done for you that day.

2a. A great way is to look for Hashgacha Pratis throughout your day.

2b. Or just to talk to Hashem through out your day. Having a hard time getting up in the morning, don’t feel well. Say Hashem “Help me, I want to accomplish so much today for you, but I don’t feel well. Help me get up and start my day.”

I did this recently on Shabbos. My lunch meal started very late for the winter. About 12 and we didn’t finish until about 2. So Seuda Shilishit is in about 2 and half hours, I daven mincha when I get home then go to lay down as I hadn’t slept well the night before due to allergies. About 4:20 I realize that its gotten quiet outside and the sun is setting, that it is time for Seuda shlishit. But, I am still so full from lunch that I don’t feel like getting out of bed. So I say to Hashem “I don’t feel well, but this is a huge mitzvah help me please. He did, when I got out of bed and washed netilat yedayim, I realized I am not very hungry. But, I am hungry enough to wash and have a little bit of bread. So thank you Hashem for helping me accomplish so many more mitzvahs today.

Do you have ideas on how to bring Hashem into this world? Leave us a comment we’re interested in hearing your ideas.