Does Jerusalem Exist?

The purpose of this blog is to build a city of peace at the Friday night dinner table.... Please forward / like / tweet....
Happy birthday shoutouts to Joan (turning 80!) and Kyle. And wishing EF a speedy recovery.
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This may be a first.

Imagine you found out that you had poison ivy.

How would you react?

Not too thrilled?

This morning, a friend told me just that - that he has poison ivy.

And this news made him happy.


So this week's first question for your table is a riddle:

When would a person be happy to learn he has poison ivy?

The answer (of course) is: when he had thought that he had had something even worse.

You see, for several days, he had thought that the itchy pain keeping him up half the night was shingles.

Shingles is a painful rash caused by the varicella-zoster (chicken pox) virus.

Everyone knows that if you had chicken pox, you're now immune for life, because your blood now has anti-varicella-zosters.

But some of those varicella-zosters stick around in nerve tissue near your spinal cord and brain. If your immune system should ever weaken, the virus can wake up....

So that's one secret to being happy even while in pain: knowing that it could be a lot worse.

But Question #2 for your table: Can this wisdom apply to any situation? Could it ever be so bad that a normal person could not be happy?

And here's a real douzy - Could an increase in pain ever make someone happier? (hint)

Our confusion about pain reminds me of our confusion about "peace".

Peace is not the end of war. That's a truce, but that's not shalom.

Shalom is harmony.

So it's ironic that the world's most-contested real estate is called Jerusalem - if you know what the word means.

Hint: in Hebrew, it's Yeru-shalayim.

Now that you know what it means, you can ask this question at your table: Does it exist?


Shabbat Shalom
and Happy Shavuot

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Yes, But Are They Evil?

In memory of my father, Dovid ben Eliezer (Dennis Seinfeld), whose 9th yahrzeit was observed this week.
We are wishing Nosson Tzvi ben Sarah Rivka Kashtia, a toddler in a coma, a speedy and complete recovery.
The goal of this blog is to meld some minds around your Friday night dinner conversation. Please print and share.

They use human shields to protect their weapons.

They invest millions of donated funds in sophisticated attack tunnels instead of schools, hospitals and roads.

They regard every Jewish community in the Land of Israel, without exception, as "occupied territory".

They aim to kill as many civilians as possible.

They celebrate death.

All these facts are well known.

But we still have the question: Are they evil?

Try asking this at your dinner table and you will likely be surprised at the range of opinions.

My father, who died 9 years ago yesterday, enjoyed ethics discussions.

He was eulogized by the local paper as "one of the good guys".

His epitaph reads, "Champion of Justice" but it could just as well have read, "Champion of Peace".

He fought tirelessly for justice, but he also had the wisdom to see that sometimes peace requires foregoing a bit of what you "deserve". In Jewish talk, this quality is called being mevateir.

He was able to see both sides of an argument. Doesn't mean he always agreed, but he could disagree without being disagreeable.

Someone asked me to write about what Jews and others around the world could do to help bring shalom to the Land of Israel. Here's my top four:

First and foremost, cultivate peace in your own relationships. Greet people with a smile, your family members, your neighbors (even the ones you don't like), strangers. Try to be mevateir.

Second, put your money where your mouth is:

Feed a Soldier
Adopt a Soldier
Thank a Soldier
Support Terrorized Civilians
Share this Video Liberally
Help Israeli Farmers
Visit Israel
Buy Cool Israeli Stuff (have you seen the Zaksenberg juicer?)

Third, if nothing else, be better informed And here. And here. Oh yeah, and here.

Fourth, ask this question at your Shabbat table:

True or False - "There are no evil people. Only very confused people."

Shabbat Shalom

PS - Have you told your kids'/grandkids' schools about the Amazing Nature for Teachers program?

Being Mivater

בס’ד
My Bas Mitzva D’var Torah

Let’s say you walk into the dining room Friday night, to eat your meal. As you approach your normal seat, you notice someone sitting there. Who’s that someone?

Your most annoying, pesty little brother.

What do you do? Well, you have three choices.

Either you:

a. You shout “Get out of my seat! You have your own seat!” You run towards him, shove him off your chair causing him to cry, plop down in your seat, satisfied at what you just did.

b. You say “Please give me my seat.”

c. Quietly, without a word, you walk to a different chair, causing no problems.

What’s the difference between these three responses?

#A is getting really mad and totally going out of control and lousing your temper.

B, however, is different. There's nothing wrong with it. You have every right to ask for your seat back.

#C is what we call being mivater. You care more about other people’s feelings than about what you deserve.

It’s very hard to do #C, be mivater. You are thinking “What chutzpa does he have to sit in my seat!! You have to fight your Yetzeir Harah, hold back your anger, and quietly be mivater.

Why is it so important to be mivater?

We all know that after 7 years of working, Yaakov (Jacob) was able to marry Rochel Imeinu (Rachel). They were ready to get married. But did Yaakov marry Rochel? Oh, no! Tricky Uncle Lavan came along and gave Yaakov Rochel’s sister, Leah, to marry. He hid her face with a veil so Yaakov would not be able to see who it was. Yaakov and Rochel knew Lavan would do this, so they made secret signs so they would know if the kallah (bride) was really Rochel. But when it came time for the wedding, Rochel knew her sister would be so embarrassed if she didn’t know the signs, so she told them to Leah.

The midrash tells us that years later, when the Jewish People went into Gulus (exile), each of the Avos and Imohos (Forebears) pleaded to God to set their children free. But Hashem said “no” to each one.

First, Avraham came forward and said, “Please, in the merit of bringing my son up for a sacrifice, You should free my grandchildren,” but Hashem didn’t listen.

Then Yitchok (Isaac) came and said, “How about in the merit of my allowing myself to be a korban (sacrifice)? I asked my father to tie me up so that I would a kosher sacrifice for you!” but Hashem didn’t listen.

And so on, every Forefather and Foremother came forward to plead for the Bnei Yisroel (Jewish People) but Hashem didn’t listen.

Then Rochel Imeinu came to plead to Hashem. She told Him that even though she really wanted to marry Yaakov, she gave up her whole life to her sister just so that her sister wouldn’t be embarrassed. Then Hashem said: “Because of what you did, in your zechus (merit), I will bring the Bnei Yisroel back to me.”

We therefore learn from Rochel the importance of being mivater.

But the story needs an explanation.

Why is being mivater any better than Avraham Avinu and Sara Imeinu’s Hachanasas Orchim (hosting guests in their home)? Or Avraham giving up his only precious son to Hashem? Or Yitzchak Avinu giving up his life to be a sacrifice to Hashem? Or Yaakov learning so many years of Torah? After all, we learn that Talmud Torah Kineged Koolam - learning Torah is compared to everything! Surely Hashem should have agreed to take Bnai Yisroel out of exile in Yaakov’s zechus (merit).

I think that there are 2 ways to be mivater.

Lets say 5 year old Shprintzter Shloigenboigen wants his mother to give him a dollar for a soda, and Shprintzy who is a year older also wants one. Their mother only has one dollar in cash on her and so finally, after much arguing, Shprintzy is mivater and lets her younger brother have the dollar for soda. Shprintzy wanted the dollar. She didn’t deserve it. And she gave in. That’s the easy way to be mivater.

The second way to be mivater is like this.

Let’s imagine Rochel Imeinu’s chasunah (wedding). She had been engaged for 7 years. It wasn’t only that Leah was taking her chosson, she was taking her chasuna too! It was her invitations, her guests, her music, her banquet. She’s been planning this for 7 years already and she didn’t even get to get married - instead, she let Leah get married. And she did all this just so that her sister would not be embarrassed in front of everyone.

That’s the hard way to be mivater - when you totally deserve something, yet you let someone else have it anyway. This gives us a clue why Hashem only listened to Rochel’s pleas. All the other Avos and Imohos did what was right, but Rochel did beyond right.

If we really want Hashem to listen to our tefillos (prayers), we should concentrate less on what we deserve, and more on what other people need.

- Goldy Seinfeld


Shabbat Shalom

Contents: Contentment

This week, our 13-year-old Avrami departed for his first-ever 'sleep-away' camp.

It’s the first time he has been away from us for more than a single night.

The camp then visited Baltimore on Thursday, so I popped in to see how he was doing.

When I caught up to them, they were in a pizzeria.

Avrami doesn’t like pizza.

(I know that's hard to believe; but he does like hamburgers and hotdogs, and Emuna’s the opposite, she’ll eat any amount of za and won’t touch the burgers or dogs with a 10-foot pole.)

Yet every signal I got from him was that he is extremely happy.

The question is: why?

Before you read on, let me throw the question to you, for your table:

What does it take for a person to be happy in a new situation?

I think it’s due to a convergence of 3 things:

- nice people
- activities that are fun and/or meaningful and sometimes challenging
- great leadership

The one thing I don’t think he necessarily has – nor needs – is like-minded people. OK, they’re like-minded enough to enjoy the same activities and basic values.

I suspect that if any one of those three factors were missing from a person’s daily life, life could become tiresome.

Question 2 for your table: If what I wrote above is true, what do we need to do to make this situation we call “Judaism” or “The Jewish People” a happier place to be?

As the 3rd promised installment of remembering Avrami’s grandfather, my father, today’s 3rd question is, Who is rich?

The answer is told by this memorable anecdote. My father was a partner in a law firm where there were sometimes….disagreements about compensation. Some lawyers feel that bringing in big clients, even once every year or so, is worthy of the greatest compensation. Others feel that producing steadily, even at a smaller scale, is more important.

My father would sit in meetings, listen to these discussions that seemed to go nowhere, and patiently wait his turn.

Finally someone would ask, “What do you think, Denny?”

“I’ll tell you what,” he said with a smile. “I’ll leave the room and you all decide what my compensation should be. Whatever you decide, that’ll be fine.”

He was the richest one in the room, because true wealth is a measurement of how contented you are with what you have.

On a scale of 1-10, how contented are you with what you have?

Shabbat Shalom

(PS – my mother always wished he would be less contented with his clothes, especially when a particular shirt or pants passed the 20-year mark!)


“Although personally I am quite content with existing explosives, I feel we must not stand in the path of improvement.” - Churchill