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Phone: 074-7800643
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The Schechter Institutes, Inc. (a 501(c) 3 tax exempt organization)
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Phone: 416-789-2193, ext. 2139
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Please mail a check to:
The Schechter Institutes
Attn: Dina Gudai, Finance Department
PO Box 16080,
Jerusalem, 9116002
Israel
For assistance, please call Dina Gudai at 074-780-0643 (8:00 AM – 3:00 Israel time Sunday through Thursday).
Your donation will be tax deductible in the US to the extent allowed by the IRS.
To make a tax-deductible donation by wire transfer in the US, please contact:
Avrum Lapin, North American Representative
Toll-free: 1-866-830-3321
Email: schechter@thelapingroup.com
To make a tax-deductible donation in Israel, please contact:
Dina Gudai, Israeli Representative
Phone: 074-7800643
Email: dina@schechter.ac.il
Please mail your check to:
The Schechter Institutes, Inc. (a 501(c) 3 tax exempt organization)
Box #3566
PO Box 8500
Philadelphia, PA 19178-3566
Attn: Mr. Avrum Lapin, North American Representative
Toll-free: 1-866-830-3321
Email: schechter@thelapingroup.com
Please indicate the donation is "for your joint Schechter Institutes program."
Checks should be made payable to the Jewish Theological Society of Canada and mailed to:
Jewish Theological Society of Canada
c/o Camp Ramah in Canada
3845 Bathhurst St., Suite 310
Toronto, ON, M3H 3N2
Phone: 416-789-2193, ext. 2139
E-mail: accounting@campramah.com
Please mail a check to:
The Schechter Institutes
Attn: Dina Gudai, Finance Department
PO Box 16080,
Jerusalem, 9116002
Israel
For assistance, please call Dina Gudai at 074-780-0643 (8:00 AM – 3:00 Israel time Sunday through Thursday).
Light and Darkness are elemental in the human journey: from the days of the Exodus until today.
If you could escape for a moment back to your childhood, back to the plague of darkness. How did you imagine it when it said that the Egyptians experienced darkness and the Israelites had light?
As the pasuk says (Exodus: 10:23):
ולכל בני ישראל היה אור במושבתם
“but all the Israelites enjoyed light in their dwellings.”
The Egyptians for three days could not move. It says, “They sat” (Exodus 10:23)
לא ראו איש את אחיו
“They couldn’t see each other, one could not see their brother.”
ולא קמו איש מתחתיו
“And they could not actually get up from what was beneath them.”
שלושה ימים
“for three days.”
You know in our tradition everything is three days. Abraham and Isaac walked to הר מוריה (Mt. Moriah) for three days. We didn’t have water when we exited מצריים (Egypt) for three days. Everything, preparing for Mt. Sinai (revelation) three days. So for three days this plague of darkness.
So when we were children, when you were a child, how did you imagine? There was this border, all of a sudden darkness ended and there was light. I mean, as a child, that is what I thought.
But as an adult, and right now the times that we are.
Actually, the Chassidic masters, have made our lives somewhat easy ‘easy?’ What is easy today?
But, thinking about the plagues as situations of our soul, conditions of our heart, we know what it is to be in darkness right now.
So much, I want to say confusion, but confusion means that we don’t actually understand our feelings. It means that we don’t understand what we are seeing – light and darkness all of a sudden are this mixture.
Like heaven is shamaim (שמים) fire and water (אש ומים) .
I want to suggest the following: What does it mean to be in light? What does it mean that we experience light in where we were sitting?
You know, yesterday I saw a clip from Kikar Hachatufim (Hostages’ Square in Tel Aviv) where all the demonstrations are happening in Tel Aviv, people were crying. For a moment I saw this three times because I could not understand what the crying was about.
Then I understood that is was actually a clip of seeing when three of our hostages were returning. Right now, we don’t know light and darkness. We don’t know what we are seeing. We don’t know how to interpret our emotions. We don’t know what we are feeling sometimes, as well.
Darkness means that we don’t understand what it is that we are seeing. Because the truth is, the science is, and I don’t understand the science at all, but I have been told actually that light is hidden within the darkness.
What to be redeemed from the plague of darkness is the difference from being in exile or being enslaved in מצריים (Egypt) is that when you are in darkness, when you are in מצריים, when you are enslaved with constricted consciousness, is that you cannot get up and you cannot move and that you cannot see your friend, you cannot even see your brother.
But (Exodus 10:23)
בני ישראל היה אור במושבתם
“but all the Israelites enjoyed light in their dwellings.”
Light where they are sitting, light in their dwelling, is that you can actually have in the moments of darkness you can depict moments, sparks of light.
That is redemption. That is salvation. That right now is the biggest gift that we have that we can give each other. That no matter where we are right now, where we are sitting, where we are dwelling, we have the ability, the capability of sharing moments of light.
This Shabbat should bless us all to sit במושבתנו to sit where we sit to take a moment to sit and share light.
Shabbat shalom
Reb Mimi serves as the Mashpiah Ruchanit (spiritual mentor) of the Rabbinical School, and teaches Talmud and Hassidic Thought. She will guide and walk with the rabbinical students on their personal-spiritual journeys. She served as the Mashpiah Ruchanit of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies in Los Angeles for the last 16 years. Prior to this Reb Mimi was one of the founding administration and faculty members of the “Yakar” Beit Midrash and community.
