Stories Of Greatness

When Rabbeinu Moshe ben Maimon zt”l moved to Fostat, Egypt, in 4925 (1165), his fame as a physician spread rapidly, and he soon became the court physician to Sultan Saladin, the famous Muslim military leader, and his son al-Afdal. He also continued his private practice and lectured before fellow physicians at the state hospital.

The Cities of Refuge are where one goes if he killed another by accident and he is protected there from the wrath of an avenger until the death of the Kohen Gadol. The pasuk is clear that there was no premeditated murder, and it only applies to one who “strikes his fellow unintentionally, whom he did not hate in times past.”

One of the first and most successful kiruv organizations in the US is Hineni, founded by the dynamic Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis a”h in the 1970s. The organization was an instant success and the Rebbetzin was asked to speak and engage with people at many events all over the world. She recalls one very special event that she was asked to speak at.

Hashem sends us blessings every day, but unless we make an effort to look out for them and “see” them as blessings, we may not even realize that we are being blessed! In fact, the greatest blessing we receive daily is life itself. Rav Avraham Pam zt”l would say that when we wake up in the morning and say Modeh Ani, we should look at our breakfast as a s’udas hodaah (thanksgiving feast). By employing a singular term, “R’ei!” (See!), the Torah reminds us that each individual should see his blessing as an individual, and not as part of the klal, because everyone looks at life through his own individual lens. Since people don’t always realize the brachah they receive daily, it often gets misused, and that same brachah can turn into a curse (klalah).

Among the many decrees that were issued by the evil Nazi government in the ghettos was the prohibition for Jews to immerse in a mikvah. The mikvaos were sealed (by the Germans), and on the door was affixed a note stating that opening the mikvah or using it will be considered an act of sabotage with punishment ranging from ten years in jail to the death penalty.

In the years following the Churban Beis HaMikdash, many Jews continued to go up to Jerusalem to cry over its ruins. They gathered at the Kosel – testimony to the magnificence of the Holy Temple – and saturated it with their tears. The “Traveler from Bordeaux,” the first Christian tourist to record impressions of his visit to the Holy Land, visited the country about 250 years after the Churban. He wrote that Jews come to Jerusalem once a year, on the Ninth of Av. They cry and lament next to a stone that remains from the Temple. Close to one hundred years later, in 4993, a Persian tourist described thousands of Jews crying over the ruins of the desolate House during the holiday of Sukkos, in remembrance of aliyah l’regel.