Rabbi’s Musings & Amusings

Before Chanukah, a few weeks ago, my younger children were listening to a kid’s story about Chanukah. The storyteller shared the story behind the custom of playing dreidel. When Torah study had been outlawed by the Syrian-Greek government, the Jews would clandestinely sit together and study Torah with dreidels on hand. When the studying Jews heard the Syrian-Greek soldiers approaching, they immediately hid their scrolls and began playing with their dreidels.

If you’ve ever spoken to an Israeli, you’ve undoubtedly noticed that he or she says “ehhhh” a few times. I don’t have empirical statistics, but experience dictates that, on average, an Israeli says “ehhhh” once or twice per sentence.

I was taught the stories of the Torah and of our greatest leaders when I was young and always felt the stories were fascinating and intriguing. But as I have gotten older, I increasingly wonder how it was possible for those heroes to have become as great as they were.

Every time that I have had the opportunity to meet one of the G’dolei Yisrael, it’s been an uplifting experience. The common denominator is that these great, busy people, who bear such immense responsibility and have to make such weighty decisions, somehow make time to make everyone feel special.

In 1833, Lord Alfred Tennyson lost his closest friend, Arthur Henry Hallam, when the 22-year-old Hallam died suddenly. Hallam’s death shattered Tennyson’s world.

Here’s the understatement of the day: Life is complicated, challenging, and confusing. But along the way Hashem provides us with guides – spiritual lights, emotional lights, and psychological lights, i.e., great individuals who infuse us with encouragement and chizuk to keep us going.