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"Mr. Gorbachev! Tear Down This Wall"

How a Single Letter in the Torah Captures the Story of Five Millennia

59 min

Class Summary:

Sometimes there is a difference between the way a word is written in the Torah (and printed in the Chumash), and the way that it is read. The textual spelling is called the “ksiv” and the traditional way we read the word is called the “kri.”

As every letter in the Torah is meticulous, dictated by G-d to Moses, these are not merely careless editors’ typos; rather these are two ways to interpret the same word; G-d is essentially saying “Write it like this, but read it like that.”

This class will explore not a section from the weekly portion, Behar, not a story recorded in the portion, not a law, a mitzvah, not even a paragraph, a sentence, or even a word in the portion. Rather we will explore a single, solitary letter, a single cell. The class will embark on a fascinating journey upon which we will discover how a single letter in Torah often encapsulates all of history; from a single letter, you can glean philosophical, psychological, sociological and historical perspective.

In this week’s Portion, Behar, we discover something shocking: The kri and the ksiv—the way the word is written vs. the way it is pronounced—not only have two separate meanings, but they diametrically contradict one another!

The Torah is discussing the laws concerning the sale of land in Israel. After the Jewish people entered the land of Israel in 1273 BCE (2488 in the Jewish calendar), Joshua assigned a plot of land to every tribe and family. If a Jew fell upon hard times and was compelled to sell his ancestral field or his home, the Torah gave him the right to “redeem it” from the buyer. The seller would refund the money to the buyer and take his property back. Even if he did not redeem the land, the field would return to the seller automatically with the arrival of the Jubilee (Yovel) year."

But there is one exception. If a poor Jew sold his home located within a walled city in the Holy Land. Here the law changes dramatically. This home, the Torah states, could be redeemed only until the first anniversary of the sale. After that it remains the property of the buyer permanently, and did not return to the seller, even with the arrival of the Jubilee year. Even Jubilee could not cancel and reverse the sale; it remains forever in the domain of the buyer. It is here we encounter a stunning discrepancy between the “kri” and the “ksiv,” which captures the defining secret of Jewish history.

Please leave your comment below!

  • shmuel רוזנבלום -1 year ago

    שלום לך רבי ומורי

    בשיעור על פרשת בהר (בעינן לו\לא חומה)ציינת 

    ליקוטי שיחות כד שיחה לפרשת וילך.

    טובי החבדניקים באה"ק תובב"א-אינם מוצאים.אולי תוכל לשלוח?

    שמואל רוזנבלום החונה כאן גבעת שמואל

    [email protected]

    תודה מראש

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  • D

    danny -7 years ago

    חזק ברוך ממש מחזק!!!!

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  • AL

    Aryeh Lev -10 years ago

    Very good!
    Amazing class. Thanks!

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  • ML

    Meira L. -10 years ago

    B’’H
    For almost five years we are showered with fascinated insight of Torah knowledge from TheYeshiva.net and it it’s nice to see when we really get it or, on the contrary,  when we couldn’t get it:  

    Questions and Exercises



    1. What were the legal differences between sales of fields, homes in open cities, and homes in walled cities in ancient Israel?


    Strictly legally it is all about long term right to “redeem” your property from the buyer in case of field (with or without a house) V. short term right to get it back only until first anniversary of the sale in case of a home in walled city, and lose it forever after first annivasery.

     But on pure psychological level we can glean a lot of wisdon from this:

    “ It is painful to lose things (“fields”) in life. It is far more painful to lose people (“homes”) in life. But the worst pain of all is when we lose our connection with the quintessence of life and reality, with G-d. We simply can’t afford to lose our souls. None of us can afford to sacrifice our few intimate moments of prayer and communion with G-d because of other responsibilities or pleasures. For without this relationship, we might one day look in the mirror and observe a living body encasing a dead soul.” (http://www.algemeiner.net/g... />


    1. What is the difference between “kri” and “ksiv” in the Torah?


    On Pshat level it is the same as difference between “likrot” and “liktov”-" to read" and "to write" in Hebrew.



    1. What is the dramatic discrepancy between the “kri” and the “ksiv in the portion of Behar?


    It is similar to contemporary phenomena at mainstream media when their avoiding of mention or ignoring something can be easily recognizable and got sudden shadow between the lines.   

    What is the reason for this discrepancy, according to Rashi?

    Pshat level: “It took place only in the past; in ancient Israel where there were walled cities but not now”

     (… so go back to your sluggishness, reading what it is written and thinking WYSIWYG… )

     And according to a deeper symbolic explanation? -Talmud Baba Basra had left for us eternal Torah evidence: “I am a wall”.



    1. What was the significance of the “Jubilee year” in ancient Israel?


    Is it about G-d and His evidence: “Kelee haoretz!”?



    1. Do you feel a sense of entitlement? Sure, but it is only when I look at my name in my vehicle title.  Are you humble with your successes and your resources? Can I have taste of them and then I will decide to be or not to be. It’s difficult to be humble without any reason to be opposite.  


    2. Is there anything in the world that can withstand the natural cycles of “Jubilee” in which all ownerships’ are canceled?


    Dear Rabbi YY Jacobson and Co.!

    Thanks for our “transactions” but now what had come from you to my sieved, full of holes head is MINE! And in case if you (G-d Forbid) decide to return my money back or put limits on what got from you to my mind-, it's all irreversable: and "Jubilee” is powerless to do that!



    1. Why did Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakei ask the Roman Emperor Vaspasian for Yavneh and its sages?


    Because he wanted to preserve for us the only eternal power that a mortal man can preserve: Divine Knowledge. He wanted us to know among other splendor of the Divine script that:

     “When you allow the external pressures or enjoyments of life to rob you of your core self, when you no longer dedicate twenty minutes a day to speak your heart out to your Creator, when you have no time for the essence of it all, you will soon lose touch with the notion that you ever had any innocence to lose. You may no longer know that there was anything to liberate.” (or to live for) (http://www.algemeiner.net/g... />


    1. What is it that you are giving your children or students that no storm can wipe away?


    We’ll came back with it after the storm will be over…

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  • LMA

    Leo Michel Abrami -11 years ago

    Viktor Frankl
    Setting aside Mr. Fuchs' accomplishments as a lecturer on the Shoah at various institutions in Argentina, for which he should be congratulated, his comments contain many unfortunate errors and regrettable misinterpretations about a fellow survivor of the Nazi concentration camps whose memory he is trying to tarnish for no good reasons. 



    . The late prof. Viktor Frankl was invited by the Hebrew University for the first time in 1988 and he gave a number of lectures which were very well received. During that same visit, a ceremony was organized by Dr Mignone Eisenberg at the Kotel to enable him to be called to the Torah, seventy years after his Bar Mitzvah in Vienna before the war. 

    . Prof. Alexander Vesely of Vienna has just confirmed to me in a recent email that Viktor Frankl attended High Holiday services in the great Synagogue of Vienna every year and on other occasions too.

    . When he was invited to the USA, he would usually meet with prominent Jewish colleagues and on one occasion lectured to the students at a Rabbinical school, as I mentioned in another comment.

    . He had a long and meaningful correspondence and several visits with Rabbi Reuven Bulka of Ottawa, Canada and with my teacher Dr Joseph Fabri-Epstein of Berkeley, California who became the pioneer of Logotherapy in the USA.

    . The one thing Mr Fuchs will not forgive Frankl is the fact that he visited prof. Martin Heidegger after the war while he was writing his doctoral thesis on existential philosophy. True, Heidegger had some sympathy for the Nazi regime in the early years, but he was also a great philosopher and Frankl was eager to pursue his research at this stage. 

    . Frankl's book "Man's Search for Meaning" has done more to expose the evil of the Holocaust than many other survivors' testimonies. It was, no doubt, the reason Mr. Fuchs was invited to speak to the Institute of Logotherapy of Buenos Aires.



    So Mr Fuchs' complaints are too self-centered to be paid much attention. 

      

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  • LMA

    Leo Michel Abrami -12 years ago

    Viktor Frankl, initiator of Logotherapy



    I actually heard Dr Viktor Frankl z'l tell us that he had been laying Tefilin every day after his liberation from the camps. It happened in 1962. I was then a student at the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio. When Dr Viktor Frankl was invited to give several lectures at the University of Cincinnati, our professor of human relations, Dr Robert Katz z'l, invited him to lecture also at the Hebrew Union College and he gladly accepted to do so. He gave three or four lectures to the fourth year students and in one of them, he told us that he had had an amazingly profound experience while he was in the camps.





    One of the inmates had been able to smuggle one tefilah (phylactery) into the camp and hold on to it for some time while they were in the stalag. Every morning, at down, before the head count, they would lay that tefilah and recite the Shema before taking it off rapidly and passing it immediately to the others who were waiting to do the same. Some fifty or more inmates were thus praying every morning with this tefilah. It made such a deep impression on Frankl, that after the war, he decided to repeat the experience every day in his home, as you described it in your story.
    I think there is a minor mistake in the article. You refer to 'Frankl's non-Jewish son-in-law, Dr Alexander Vesely.' I heard that he was actually of Jewish descent. The name Vesely is an old Jewish Russian name (you may check in 'A Dictionary of Jewish Surnames in the Russian Empire'). Since I had the privilege of meeting him a month ago at the International Conference of Logotherapy which was held in Vienna, I shall ask him and report to you. Leo Michel Abrami




    Arizona Institute of Logotherapy


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  • JF

    jack fuchs -12 years ago

    Viktor Frankl
    I am sending you all some thoughts that I had, after reading the essay:





    Viktor Frankl: his other life



    I think one cannot see only one side of Viktor Frankl’s life. It’s OK, he used to put tefilin every day, hidden, from 1945 until his death, almost during 50 years. It’s hard to understand the reasons. May be he was ashamed in front of his wife and daughter who knew he was a jew, or maybe he was afraid someone would denounce him. It must have been very sad to live with your wife and daughter, after Theresienstadt, Auschwitz and Dachau, where his first wife and mother were murdered. Where he helped his father to die in dignity. He was the master of his life but no one has the right to tell part of the story only because he gave a few dollars for Chabad Lubavitch. In his autobiography, he never mentioned this or denied it. Have you may be made a story about it? G’d knows. Viktor Frankl never visited Israel, never had contact with the Jewish Community. When he visited the USA, he never entered a Synagogue, not even to say Kadish for his father he saw die. He never got in touch with Survivors Organizations, nor survivor writers like him-Primo Levi, Elie Wiesel-. In Vienna, he never contacted the Jewish community, nor visited the Synagogue, not even for Yom Kipur. But he did publish a picture form himself with Martin Heidegger, the famous philosopher and big nazi in one of his books.



    I was myself invited by the Chabad Center a few months ago in Buenos Aires, where I live, to speak about Jewish life in Lodz and the tragedy lived during the Shoa. I was invited by a very important Rabbi. I spoke in Yiddish. For the last ten years I am invited periodically to speak at the Logotherapy Association in Buenos Aires about the atrocities committed by Nazism during the Second World War and the extermination camps. I don’t talk about Viktor Frankl but therapists are interested in knowing about the camps where he was, the same where I was.



    Some years ago, I was invited to the commemoration of Frankl’s 100 years of birth, in a catholic University in Salta, Argentina. It is interesting to see how in Argentina, for example, there are a lot of different psychology, psychoanalyst and other therapy organizations where lots of Jews participate but the curiosity is that in the Logosophy Association you cannot find a Jew. To be honest, I don’t understand the meaning of your writing.



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  • AW

    Akiva Wagschal -12 years ago

    Victor Frankel
    Avrohom Sonenthal, after listing some of Frankl’s post WW2 published works and academic achievements and appointments, concludes, “So-he was despondent and unknown and ridiculed and ready to quit in 1959? Yeah right.”



    Avrohom, perhaps your cynicism is uncalled for. It is very reasonable and sadly quite common for some people to experience bouts of depression even while encountering significant success and worldwide recognition. The mind of a depressed person can and often does grossly distort its perceptions of reality.



    But by all accounts, up until the late sixties and early seventies, Freudian psychology was the accepted ‘truth’ and anything different was ridiculed and debunked in academia. Not unlike the ridicule and debunking today of those who question the validity of contemporary ideas. The bias and arrogance in academia is notorious for its intolerance of anyone who questions such popular notions as secular humanism, progressivism and the like.



    The Lubavitcher Rebbe zt”l, as indeed many other Rebbes, Rabbonim and Roshei Yeshiva was renowned for his insight into the ‘ba’ayos ha’zman’ and ability to say the right words or covey the right message to various people at precipitous moments in their lives.



    I found it fascinating that a world renowned psychologist, who by all outward appearances was an assimilated ‘secular’ Jew, was able to “compartmentalize” his life and continue davening daily with tefilin. But perhaps that was one of the yesodos of his theories in human psychology, the idea that if you can’t accept all the tenants of a valid belief system, it is better to live in accordance with some of them than to reject all of them.

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  • SG

    Sholem Gimpel -12 years ago

    Victor Frankl
    BS"D

    While a public shouting match between a respected speaker and a respectful audience does not show either in the best light, I would like to offer a possible explanation of what Mr. Orman had the zechus to witness, and why he might consider revising his impression of Victor Frankl--whom I did not have the privilege of knowing and whose books I have not yet read.

    According to Rabbi Jacobson's article, Prof. Frankl survived internment in a Nazi death camp and the loss of his wife and all but one member of his family. He subsequently returned to Vienna, the city of his birth, where he apparently found opportunity to teach and write in security and favorable and familiar circumstances. According to Mr. Orner, a member of the audience, another Survivor, directed a question to Prof. Frankl that might have been completely innocent in intent, but that Frankl understandably took as a personal attack: "How could you return to a German speaking country? Shame on you!" Clearly that is how Prof. Frankl heard it, and, in similar circumstances, that is how many other Survivors would have understood it, too. In such a situation, an elderly man who has endured and survived what Frankl endured and survived with his humanity and his sanity intact may be forgiven for losing his self-control when publicly called to account in such an insensitive manner.

    On the other hand, the question was an important question, because the answer contains the secret of coming to terms with the world in which we live. Sure, it is a pity that instead of answering the question, Prof. Frankl reproached the one who asked it. But very likely, in his talk, Prof. Frankl had already addressed the very same issues, and had already answered it--all the more infuriating.

    I suspect that there a very few people who can claim to be perfect in their speech and their behavior. When a person survives years of terror, grief, humiliation and degradation, yet manages to return to a life of dignity, sanity, and serene, honest and productive labor, that is truly a marvel. And if another survives the same experience with anger and resentment against all the rest of the world that can't feel or appreciate his personal pain, who can judge such a person?

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  • B

    Benveniste,Tsfat -12 years ago

    Genome
    Bs"d

    Inspired as usual. The way the word in English is pronounced ,articulated and written is:

    ge·nome/ˈjēnōm/Noun

    Fingers on the blackboard to a semanticist.

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  • AS

    Avraham Sonenthal -12 years ago

    Victor Frankel
    The article claims that in 1959, Victor Frankl was despondent and on the verge of giving up psychiatry and moving to Australia. Here is an excerpt from the timeline of his life from the Viktor Frankl institute. This is what he did from the war up til 1959:



    1946-Becomes director of the Vienna Neurological Policlinic.

    Dictates "Mans Search For Meaning"

    1947-Marries Elinore Schwindt, has a daughter, publishes 3 major books.

    1948-Obtains PhD

    1949-Frankl is promoted to "Privatdozent" (Associate Professor) of Neurology and Psychiatry at the University of Vienna

    1950-Frankl creates the "Austrian Medical Society forPsychotherapy" and becomes its first president.

    1954-Universities in London, Holland and Argentina invite Frankl to give lectures.

    1955-Frankl is promoted to Professor at the University of Vienna. He begins guest professorships at overseas universities.

    1956-The theoretical and practical aspects of neuroses from the viewpoint of logotherapy are treated in the book "THEORIE UND THERAPIE DER NEUROSEN" nieder.



    So-he was despondent and unknown and ridiculed and ready to quit in 1959? Yeah right.

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  • RF

    Reuven Frank -12 years ago

    Victor Frankl
    Jews are truly amazing people.

    There are probably thousands of survivors like Dr. Frankl ztz"l, but none who have touched so many lives.

    I was going to relate a story here about the faith of survivors. Instead:

    When Victor Frankl visited a displaced persons camp, he recognized a man once very religious, shunning Jewish rites. When asked, the man told of how he had seen someone making others "pay" with a portion of their bread ration for wearing T'filin, and as a result he was angry with G-d for creating "people" of such a low nature.

    Dr. Frankl replied, "Don't be so foolish to look at the man who took, rather think of those who paid and gave."

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  • SBBL

    Sara bat Baruja Levy -12 years ago

    Remarkable
    Unbelievable but true as life. Amazing no words simply amazing.

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  • D

    Dovid -12 years ago

    Vocab
    I love your classes!!



    For future reference Genome is pronounced jee-nohm.



    http://dictionary.reference... (click on sound button).

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  • DL

    dena levin -12 years ago

    class
    Is there not going to be a new class on Mondays by rabbi Jacobson?

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    • A

      Anonymous -12 years ago

      Re: class
      Next Monday G-d willing I will begin a new series on the book of Ruth. YY Jacobson.

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  • S

    steven -13 years ago

    Rebbe Rashab & Freud article
    What do you make of this: http://www.jhberke.com/Freu...

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    • AP

      a. plotkin -12 years ago

      Re: Rebbe Rashab & Freud article
      steven, your link didn't work for me. could you please send me a better 1 or an attatchment? - [email protected]

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  • DALGS

    Dr Aryeh Leib Gershon Sank -13 years ago

    Understanding your purpose
    Thank you for sharing this connection with the greater community. A yeshacoach for the inspirational work that you do and the the lives that you influence every day.

    On Gimmel Tamuz, it is fitting for each individual to reflect on why this great Tzadik, The Rebbe, is truly meant to be part of your life.

    Since reading Frankl's work and understanding The Rebbe's connection and ecouragement of Frankl's theories, I have based my practice of medicine on his concept that "people are primarily driven by a "striving to find meaning in their lives," and that it is this sense of meaning that enables them to overcome painful experiences." It is this very concept that has enabled me to motivate many a depressed patient to understand the true purpose of life, as it is on earth today, living in this seeingly impossible world. It is Frankl's optimism and hope, and having viewed his experience in the camps not as adversity, but as a stimulus to search for(and see) the true meaning of life, that motivates me to helping others(and myself) every day in my practise of Family Medicine. It is this connection with Chabad and The Rebbe, that gives me the understanding in why H'Shem guided me to become a physician.

    This article clearly illustrates how H'Shem is able to use us as conduates/conduting rods for his greater work. This is not about the greatness of man, it is about the greatness of G-d. How great is he that he can reach out to the world through people like The Rebbe, Marguerite Kozenn-Chajes and Dr Frankl.

    May every single person see their full potential and understand G-d's purpose in having created them. Like the letters of The Torah, every one of us are needed to complete His great work.

    G-d Bless

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  • J

    joe -13 years ago

    To Mark
    Yes it was rabbi william berkowitz, who ran these evenings. In fact, this Berkowitz who died like two years ago, was a close friend of Rabbi Jacobson. He was a writer for the Algemeiner Journal.

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  • JF

    Jack Fuchs -13 years ago

    taire reb. diemaise vegen frankl nish a zoi kasher, un es is a hape emes,

    Jack Fuchs

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  • MO

    Mark Orman -13 years ago

    observation
    Rabbi:

    I am reproducing below a reply that I sent to your brother's email message on this topic (obviously culled from your essay).

    While I appreciate the Rebbe's role in inspiring Dr. Frankl, I'd like to add a different perspective about this individual, for whom I personally do not have such great admiration. I do this since Dr. Frankl was a public figure, his works have influenced many people, and I therefore think that it worthwhile that people have a fuller appreciation of his personality.



    About thirty years ago or so, there was a rabbi in NY by the name of Berkowitz who used to have dialogues with famous public people at (I believe) the Central Synagogue. On one occasion, he invited Dr. Frankl, and I attended. Given his reputation and background, the place was packed, including large numbers of Holocaust survivors and many Orthodox Jews (based on their dress). When Dr. Frankl was introduced, he received a rousing reception and applause. However, within one hour, after inviting questions from the audience, pandemonium had broken out. Members of the audience were standing and shouting at him with anger in their voices, while Dr. Frankl was standing on the stage with his fist upraised to the audience, screaming and shouting back at them, until his aged wife came onto the stage and literally dragged him off. So what pray tell do you think was the question that provoked such an unbelievable confrontation between the great psychologist and his audience of Holocaust survivors? Believe it or not, it was as follows (and I was there to hear and witness this): one of the survivors, I believe Polish (based on the accent), asked Dr. Frankl how he could continue to live in a German speaking country after all that they had done to us Jews during the war. Dr. Frankl became irate at the temerity of this question and started denouncing the individual who had asked it, whereupon the audience started to boo, which got Frankl even more irate, until it developed into the hostile laden confrontation described above. I'll never forget seeing this solitary older figure standing on stage, his fist shaking, the veins throbbing on his forehead, as he screamed at a bunch of fellow survivors because they had the nerve to ask him such a thing. Which unfortunately, just reinforced an opinion that I have had for years now that Yekky Jews are more German than they are Jewish (I myself am a Polish child survivor of WWII). So no, I was not so impressed with great Victor Frankl. But kudos to the Rebbe for recognizing and encouraging what was valuable in this man's work.



    Sincerely,

    Mark Orman

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  • D

    Dov -13 years ago

    Question
    Hi YY,







    Great article, I just have one question on Victor Frankel:



    If Man’s instinct to survive is his ability of transcendence, and therefore let Victor overcome his circumstance, so much so that he still “fed” his soul throughout his life through tfillin and tefillia, why didn’t he see the importance of marrying a Jewish woman?







    Regards,

    Dov

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  • DS

    Dovid Sears -13 years ago

    Thanks
    What an amazing story! Dovid Sears

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  • KHI

    Kochav Hashahar, Israel -13 years ago

    Always wondered
    Shalom Rabbi Jacobson,



    I always wondered about Victor Frankl's attitude towards Judaism. Thank you for this interesting and inspiring article.

    Do you know if it has been translated into Hebrew? I would like to show it to others here who are not fluent in English.



    Kol tuv,

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  • K

    Kayo -13 years ago

    To choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances
    Baruch HaShem

    This article have been giving me a tremendously profound spiritual impact on me. Dr. Frankl's words have been echoing in my soul - "The last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."
    "Those who have a 'why' to live, can bear with almost any 'how.'"
    "A person was not a son of his past, but the father of his future". I will try hard to implement these to my real life situations now on.
    Shalom

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  • T

    Thomoas -13 years ago

    defied convention
    this story demonstrates how the Rebbe defied convention and any easy classification. He was at home with the most ultra orthodox and yet at home with a Mrs. Mozart and a Dr. Frankl. And dealt with both witht he same integrity, wisdom and understanding.
    this is inspiring, I will pass it on.

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  • I

    issac -13 years ago

    amazing
    no words. simply amazing

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  • J

    joseph -13 years ago

    freud
    so why did one of the Lubavitcher Rebbes consult Freud in 1903?

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  • A

    Anonymous -13 years ago

    Wow. This was fascinating. I am amazed to see how much the Rebbe cared for each and every Jew regardless of their Torah observance.
    Thank you Rabbi Jacobson for sharing this powerful lesson with us. May you be gebentched.

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  • EB

    E. Bloom -13 years ago

    Amazing!
    Thank you for this essay - ultimately, like the works of Dr. frankl, the modes of thought which believe in and empower the divine essence of the human being will prevail.

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  • KK

    Kayo Kaneko -13 years ago

    You will make more time for study
    Baruch HaShem,

    Tzemach Tzedek was once asked by a Yid "I have only 30min. to study Torah. What should I study with the 30 min.?"
    Tzemach Tzedek said "study Chasiddus." He said if you study Chasiddus, you will make more time to study.
    Tzadik is always right.

    Shalom

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  • S

    Sholomke -13 years ago

    'Ki Li Kol Hooretz'
    Very amazing session. Thank you Rabbi Jacobson.

    I was taken aback when you explained that on the 50th year G-d returns the land to its original owners, to remind us ‘Ki Li Kol Hooretz’.

    For the last few months I’ve been discussing with some people how buying land in Israel is so uncertain because tomorrow the government might decide to ‘return’ the land, and the buyer would be required to vacate the land he purchased.

    When I heard ‘Ki Li Kol Hooretz’, I was mildly stunned.

    While Yovel may not be applicable today, G-d is very clearly reminding us ‘Ki Li Kol Hooretz’, albeit in a very unfortunate way.

    Back then: Yovel was only applicable in Israel.

    Today: Of how many countries can it be said that they are involved in a territorial dispute which affects citizens to the point of uprooting?

    Simply Phenomenal.

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  • Y

    Yisroel -13 years ago

    The Picture
    Great, wise, uplifting, inspiring! By now could be said, as usual!


    (But why a picture of the Jerusalem Old City Wall chosen to be next to the title: "Tear down that Wall"? A little disturbing, or is there a hidden meaning?..)

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  • Y

    yc -13 years ago

    Wall done!:)
    Seriously, as usual, engaging, inspiring, goosebump inducing--you give hope and strength and lots of food for thought...

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  • SBSI

    shlomo bekhor, shliach italy -13 years ago

    THIS SHIUR WAS BEYOND
    kol hakavod rabbi Jacobson
    yelhu mehail el hail

    by the way there are many more "yovel" that cames like the vulcano just an exemple the incredible increase number of earthquakes happening in the world.
    for exemple:
    http://earthquake.usgs.gov/...

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  • S

    Suri -13 years ago

    Mamesh a Taam of Moshiach
    Thank you for this incredible lesson. You should be gebentched.

    Reply to this comment.Flag this comment.

  • MS

    Miriam Swerdlov -13 years ago

    Wow
    Your webcast on behar was WOW.
    When you bring it all together, its mamesh don't mind the vernacular) GEVALDIK.

    Reply to this comment.Flag this comment.

  • CG

    Chaya Gross -13 years ago

    Lamed aleph, lamed vav...
    BH
    Day 36 of the counting of the omer

    Learn oneness/aleph and learn connecting, as seen in the vav, the line between the yud above and the yud below (also in the aleph).Could be the message of the paradox. As you said so eloquantly, it really is about recognizing the oneness of the universe and that it is all HIS...
    Yasher Koach from the Land.

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  • A

    Anonymous -13 years ago

    How many cities had walls in Joshua time?
    How many cities had walls in Joshua time? Jerusalem was built by Solomon later after Joshua time. What will happen with properties in Jerusalem?

    Reply to this comment.Flag this comment.

  • KK

    Kayo Kaneko -13 years ago

    Lubavitch gave the Wall of Torah
    Baruch HaShem,

    I am a 44 year old Japanese planning to convert in Israel in 5 years. Many Japanese go to Pseudo-conversion in Japan because we can not convert halahically in Japan. It is difficult to convert in Israel especally with my age. But I have gotten the Wall of Torah by Lubavitch. I will not astray.

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  • MK

    mendel kaplan -13 years ago

    the class
    it was beautiful and it is a very good lesson for daily life.

    Reply to this comment.Flag this comment.

  • MC

    Mario Chechelnitzky -13 years ago

    Bin Nun

    Is the name of the hebrew lerrer wich is numrical 50

    Reply to this comment.Flag this comment.

  • J

    joe -13 years ago

    great
    beautiful, majestic ideas. great. thanks

    Reply to this comment.Flag this comment.

    • V

      v -8 years ago

      any source sheets? thanks

      Reply to this comment.Flag this comment.

Parshas Behar

Rabbi YY Jacobson

  • May 3, 2010
  • |
  • 19 Iyyar 5770
  • |
  • 2987 views

Dedicated by David and Eda Schottenstein In the loving memory of Alta Shula Swerdlov; and in honor of their daughter Yetta Alta Shula, "Aliyah" Schottenstein

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