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Before a holiday, I like to take the time to really understand its meaning, especially one like Pesach, which is so clouded with its stigma of being difficult, a hardship, all that cleaning…As I related in a previous post (See “Rosh HaShana, the Sweet Circle”), there is the idea that time stands still and we move through it.  Each day, then, on the Jewish calendar, is the same in terms of its spiritual reality, as it was in previous years, and it will always be so.  Therefore, Rav Dessler tells us in Michtav MeEliyahu, when we celebrate a holiday we are not simply commemorating a past event.  We are reexperiencing the spiritual power of the day that manifested itself in the event that we are remembering.

So just what is the special spiritual power of Pesach?

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As our boys defend our homeland, possibly with their lives, in the Gaza strip, we all must stop and take a few minutes to say Tehillim for them, or add a personal prayer for them into our daily routine. For the skeptics who don’t see how prayer can help such a situation, allow me to offer an example that might illustrate the power of prayer.

A friend related this short Dvar Torah to me today, and it struck a chord with me: Two of the most well known celebrations in the Jewish calendar are Purim and Chanukah. On Purim, we remember how Haman tried to wipe all the Jews in the Persian kingdom off the face of the map. He did not care if this Jew was assimilated or didn’t believe in Judaism, he wanted to physically kill out every single trace of Judaism he could. On Chanukah we remember how the Greeks tried to assimilate us. Our life was not their desire, just our culture. As long as we acted as Greek as we could, they were happy. They wanted to destroy Judaism not physically, but spiritually. On Purim, we combated Haman’s physical threat to our existence with prayer, fast and a slew of spiritual acts. On Chanukah, the Maccabim raised their weapons and waged war on the Greeks.

In both stories, the Jews were not destroyed. After all, here we are, reading Tzipiyah.com! Interesting to note that in both stories, the Jews successfully overcame their enemies with the force opposite that of the threat. When we were physically intimidated, we fought back with prayer, with spirituality. When we were spiritually intimidated, we fought back with war, the physical.

As a physical war wages on in the Middle East, as our boys put their lives on the line to protect those of the citizens of Israel, perhaps what we need to gain an edge is the force opposite that of the threat. Perhaps, to combat the physical attacks on our lives, we need some spirituality. Some prayer?

And, on another spiritual note, we are about to commemorate Asarah B’Tevet, the day that the Babylonian army laid siege to Jerusalem, eventually leading up to the destruction of the first Holy Temple. We commemorate this day spiritually, with fast and prayer. Over the course of the day, every time you get a pang of hunger, a desire to break the fast, if it really isn’t an emergency, think of our boys, risking their lives, and in their merit, overcome the hunger! Persevere as they are trying to do for us. A few hours without food is comparatively a small gesture for us to do for them.

May we soon see the end of this hardship, and may we merit seeing the light pierce this heavy, heavy darkness. May we witness the coming of Mashiach, Bimhera BiYamenu, Amen!

Representatives from different midrashot (seminaries) are starting to come around to the various girls’ high schools in the area and tell us, the seniors, about the different institutions they represent, what each place has to offer. The choices are astounding: new midrashot seem to be springing up all the time, offering this special program or that special program. There is a program for everyone at every end of the religious spectrum, and the influx of all the information is really quite dizzying.

Interestingly enough, within the past two days, representatives from two very different midrashot said several similar things. When asked about their dress code, they both replied “Halachik.” Both brought up the movie Ushpizin, though for different reasons. But the similarity that struck me was the Dvar Torah they both used to introduce their programs.

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Sukkot has always been a favorite holiday of mine. Besides many rational reasons, like school vacation, my birthday, and its culmination in the ever-so eventful, sugar-high-induced Simchat Torah, something about this chag has always appealed to me on a deeper, more personal and emotional level.

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Shalom!  Reb Itzchak Broide of Kelm, Lithuania, proclaimed “You say that time passes- time stands still- you pass!”  To understand this baffling statement, picture a round room with 365 doors.  Each door is a different day, and we pass through these rooms over and over as the years “go by.”  You see, we often think of holidays as commemorations of events of the past.  That’s not at all what they are, though.  In Judaism, a holiday (”chag”, circle) is a recurring opportunity to evoke the spiritual powers of the day, which manifested themselves on the great events that we commemorate.

So what exactly is the spiritual power contained behind Door Number One, Rosh HaShana?

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