Jewish Gifts and Knowledge

I attended a Bar Mitzvah this past Shabbos.

The boy is a Yeshiva day school student and was reading the entire Torah portion.

And that’s no small feat for anyone.

But this young man was presented with a very unique challenge.

In the middle of the Torah reading?

His nose started bleeding!

Amazingly, he didn’t lose it!

He read a little further, stopped, got the bleeding under control and read again.

And like just about every synagogue on Shabbos?

There was a doctor in the house!

He came up and did what was necessary to actually stop the bleeding

Everyone felt bad for the poor Bar Mitzvah boy.

And like many others, I wished I could think of something encouraging to say to the boy.

It was the doctor who came up with it, and he said to the Bar Mitzvah…

“Today, you personified the strength of the Jewish People…

Many times in our history we got “bloodied”…

But we kept on going!”

… And this really spoke to me!

I’m sure you remember my Uncle Jack.

As I told you recently, he grew up in Riga, Latvia.

He’s one of the very few survivors of the Riga ghetto.

And he spent his “teenage years” in more “camps” than I can remember

He’s also one of the very few who survived a concentration camp called Stutthof.

He was on a “death march” when the Russian Army liberated him on March 10th, 1945.

… Yesterday was an amazing day for him.

He celebrated a very special simcha (joyous occasion).

It was a bris, a circumcision.

Of his great grandson!

That’s something amazing for anyone to celebrate.

But for my Uncle Jack! A holocaust survivor!

It’s beyond comprehension!

… I just spoke to Uncle Jack and he told me something else amazing.

(Just about everything he tells me is amazing!)

He was coming back from the celebration with his son and with his grandchildren.

(The grandfather of the new baby and his kids.)

And what did his son do?

He took out a book of the Talmud and started reading.

And they all studied it together.

… My Uncle Jack suffered in ways we can’t imagine.

He was “bloodied”.

But like the doctor said to the Bar Mitzvah boy,

Uncle Jack kept on going. He rebuilt his life.

And like the Bar Mitzvah boy? He kept reading the Torah!

He just returned from the birth of a great grandchild.

With three generations learning Torah together!

All the best,

Rabbi Moshe Katz

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… Last Shabbat Jews all over the world read the Torah portion of ‘Kedoshim’.

The Torah tells us that we need to be holy. To live spiritual lives.

Which is not surprising.

After all, what’s a Bible without talking about holiness?

What religion doesn’t talk about spirituality?

But what is surprising?

What the Torah considers a holy life.

The portion starts by telling Moshe…

“Gather all the Jews together. And tell them to be holy.”

It’s making a point.

Who’s supposed to be holy? A select few?

No. Every single one of us!

And there’s another point.

When we talk about being holy?

There’s a great way to do it.

A monastery!

It’s pretty easy to be spiritual there!

Or you can go to the top of a mountain and meditate all day.

The Torah doesn’t consider that holiness. It considers it something else.

A cop out!

Because in Judaism spirituality isn’t about withdrawing from the world.

It’s about interacting with other people but living an elevated life.

About joining with other people to help make this a better world.

And it’s about how we deal with other people.

Some of the examples of holiness in this Torah portion?

Not speaking lashon harah, gossip.

Because being holy isn’t just about connecting to G-d.

It’s about seeing G-d in every human being.

About giving them respect and dignity. And not focusing on other people’s shortcomings.

Another example of holiness?

A farmer leaving the corner of his field for the poor.

Because you can’t connect to G-d if you don’t take care of His children!

… I visited a holy place recently.

No. I wasn’t in Israel. I didn’t go to the Western Wall.

And it wasn’t even a synagogue.

It was at the JCC in Northbrook!

I hope this rings a bell. That it reminds you of the e mail flyer you just got.

I was at the KJ Café.

It’s something very unique. And very holy!

KJ Café is staffed by young Jewish adults with special needs.

And it helps give them dignity and respect.

And I want to personally invite you to be part of it.

Please join me at the CTN Lunch, Learn & Mitzvah!

The food will be provided by KJ Café, and lunch will be followed by one of my favorite workshops, ‘Living Life to its Fullest’: Judaim’s powerful tools for getting greater pleasure and meaning out of life. (Click HERE for complete details and to register.)

I really hope you will join me for a great lunch, great learning and a great mitzvah!

All the best,

Rabbi Moshe Katz

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Passover is around the corner!

And I wanted to share one more thing about my Uncle Jack.

… At the Seder we celebrate our freedom.

But first we remember our suffering as a People.

Our slavery in Egypt and the many enemies who have tried to destroy us.

Why is it so important that we do that?

Because the Torah teaches that being persecuted does not give us rights.

It gives us responsibility.

To remember what it means to be persecuted.

And to always be sensitive to others who are in pain or in need.

… At our family Seder this was not just philosophy.

Not with Uncle Jack at the table!

After liberation my uncle studied radio mechanics at an Ort vocational school in Germany.

And he arrived in America all alone in November of 1947.

With seven dollars in his pocket!

He worked very hard and became a successful television and radio repairman.

(You’re probably too young to know what that was.

There was a time when if something broke?

You didn’t throw it out. You actually had it fixed!)

… When I was a kid my father was in the retail business.

At one point he needed to make a career change.

And he didn’t have any training in anything else.

What did my Uncle Jack do?

A man whose humanity the Nazis wanted to destroy?

And who they hoped would be reduced to an animal and think only of self preservation

He taught my father, his brother in law, the business!

His attitude was?

“There’s enough out there for both of us!”

Despite the fact that my Dad lived in the same neighborhood.

And would be serving the same pool of people!

… My Uncle Jack will be with his family for the Seder.

But I will always think of him at our Seder.

And I hope that you will too!

All the best,

Rabbi Moshe Katz

Director

Chicago Torah Network

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The holiday of Purim is behind us.

And as important as the celebration of a Jewish holiday is?

It’s also important that we take something with us.

That are lives are somehow different.

Here’s something I was thinking about on Purim.

And something I hope to think about every day as well.

… I mentioned in my last Torah Minute that G-d’s name is not in the Megillah.

Because G-d was there, but He was hidden.

There was no “splitting of the sea” like on Passover.

Purim is a day that we need to look deeper to see G-d.

To see that He was there pulling the strings.

… It’s one of the most fundamental Jewish teachings.

Every human being is created in the Image of G-d.

There is something G-dly in every person.

And with some people?

G-d’s presence is like the splitting of the sea!

You can’t miss it.

With others?

You need to look a bit closer to see it.

And sometimes we meet someone and…

“It just isn’t there.”

The holiday of Purim should remind us that the problem is with us.

That we need to look deeper. And deeper. To see beyond the external.

And if we do that with every person we meet?

We will find the Image of G-d!

All the best,

Moshe

Rabbi Moshe Katz

No Comments | In: Rabbi Moshe Katz | tags: jewish gifts, Passover, purim. | #

This Torah Minute is about someone who has always been an important part of my life.

My Uncle Jack Ratz.

There was one thing about him that was unique in our family.

My parents and my aunts and uncles were all born and raised in America.

But Uncle Jack was “European”.

His native tongue was Yiddish. And he spoke English with an accent.

Other than that, he was just Uncle Jack.

Always with a smile. Always with a kibitz.

I will never forget our family Seder.

After we sang all the traditional songs?

Uncle Jack would teach us the Yiddish version.

He would sing it over and over with so much joy.

… As a kid, I had no reason to think that my uncle’s life was any different than mine.

Which brings me to why I am telling you about him.

Today is a very special day to Uncle Jack.

It’s the 65th anniversary of …

His liberation from the concentration camps.

My uncle grew up in Riga, Latvia. He’s one of the very few survivors of the Riga ghetto.

And he spent his “teenage years” in more “camps” than I can remember.

He’s also one of the very few who survived a concentration camp called Stutthof.

He was on a “death march” when the Russian Army liberated him on March 10th, 1945.

… In 1998, Uncle Jack visited Riga and went to see the city’s Holocaust Museum.

The tour guide pointed out a row of pictures of teenagers who perished in the Holocaust.

Imagine his surprise when he noticed the last picture in the row.

A heart breaking picture of a young man. Head shaven. Lifeless eyes.

With a large “# 281” attached to his shirt.

Jack Ratz!

… I think back to those family Seders. To my Uncle Jack singing, his face beaming!

It was maybe 18 years after that picture was taken.

I think of his heart of gold. How he has devoted his life to helping other people.

About his pride in studying Talmud with his grandson.

To the Nazis he was “#281”. Another Jew stripped of his humanity before being gassed.

But Jack Ratz outlived them.

He’s testimony to the Jewish spirit that the Nazis were not able to destroy.

And I am very proud to be his nephew!

All the best,

Moshe

Rabbi Moshe Katz

No Comments | In: Rabbi Moshe Katz | tags: holocaust, Jewish, seder, yiddish. | #