Avraham ben Yaakov | Torah thoughts from the celestial city of Tz'fat
These letters are sent to you with love, offering Torah insights and paths of empowerment so that we may together make something better out of today’s troubled world.
Let us seek the Unity that underlies our diversity, and learn to respect one another and follow the ways of peace.
“For then will I turn to the peoples a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of God to serve Him with one accord.” (Tzephaniah 3:9)
“Then they that fear God will speak to one another, and God will listen and hear, and a book of remembrance will be written before Him for those who fear God and think upon His Name.” (Malachi 3:16)
The massive explosions of glaring hatred against Israel, Zionism and Jews all over the world have taken many by surprise. They cannot but remind us of the hatred systematically aroused by the Nazis in the 1930’s culminating in the evils of the Holocaust. We may well wonder where all this may lead. Taunting, cursing and actual wanton violence against Jews are now everyday occurrences throughout...
Further to my last message, “Not nice to have to say, but…”: There are a couple more points that must be added as to how the leaders, rabbis and people of Israel need to return with pride to our true mission. The Children of Noah “Tell His glory among the nations”. Israel are commanded to spread the knowledge of God and the Seven Commandments of the Children of Noah to the people of the world...
B”H Safed, Galilee, Israel, Eve of the New Moon of Adar II, 5784 It is not nice to have to say, but please allow me to discuss certain hard lessons I believe we must learn from the events of Shemini Atzeret 5784 / October 7, 2024 and since. Jews in Israel and across the world are facing war on all fronts. In the words of King David, I am peace, but they are for war” (Psalms 120:7). In...
Thank G-d my family and I are safe and well here in Israel. At this moment my wife and I are staying in Yerushalayim. Our eldest son normally lives with his large family in the southern town of Netivot, which is adjacent to Gaza and was among the targets of the October 7 Hamas terror invasion. However, through G-d’s grace he was not at home when the terrorists struck, as he had taken all his...
My last message was long and somber, so let me follow up with something shorter and, I hope, sweeter. People all over are feeling highly challenged on many levels, yet we will find strength when day by day we repeatedly affirm and re-affirm our EMUNAH: that God rules over all, God is good, and that ultimately everything, down to the tiniest detail, is only for good. For me, the true “Northern...
A rabbi writes: Many people have increasing mistrust in the mainstream media and social platforms like Facebook and Twitter, where increasingly heavy-handed censorship set in from the time of the Covid “pandemic” and the run-up to the 2020 US elections and continues until now. The recent acquisition of Twitter by multi-billionaire Elon Musk and his subsequent loosening of some of the previous...
I am writing to you from the celestial city of Tz’fat (Safed), set amidst the green hills of Israel’s beautiful Galilee, where I moved from Jerusalem with my dear wife just over a month ago, finally fulfilling a dream of many years to live in this holy place. It is close on 5 years since I fell ill and had an operation to remove a life-threatening cancerous growth. After four years of treatments...
As we approach the festival of Shavuot, season of Receiving the Torah (Saturday night-Sunday-Monday June 4-6), it is noteworthy that the Book of Ruth, which is customarily read on this festival, begins with FAMINE. “And it was in the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land…” (Ruth 1:1) This makes the book of Ruth (which traces the genealogy of David, King Messiah) particularly...
Just as we thought we were emerging from the Covid pandemic and started feeling the bite of steep inflation, months of intelligence warnings we did not want to believe have now culminated in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, plunging the entire world into deep crisis and thick gloom. Personally, I am not too fazed by the threats of imminent nuclear war, because I remember my Bar Mitzva day in October...
Several people who read my previous Letter from Jerusalem, “Year’s End”, sent five weeks ago, wrote back with some very positive reactions. Yet one or two found reason to take offense on the grounds that “rabbis should not meddle in politics”, angrily demanding to be unsubscribed. This simply underlines the deep polarization in today’s world. However, having recently passed my 72nd birthday on...
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