A Little Shabbat Poetry For The Soul
Tech Tribe Dispatch #108
💡 Think:
A poem by famed Chasidic poet Zelda.
A Sabbath Candle
My heart asked the evening,
my deep and compassionate companion:
How can fire
sprout golden wings
and embark on a magical flight.
What is its secret?
A lonely flower replied to the heart:
Love is the root of fire.
The sea breeze
answered my thoughts:
The lily of all freedom in the universe,
this is the fire of wondrous light.
My blood hearkens--
and weeps bitterly.
Woe, a flame--even an auto-da-fe.
It was also said--
fire is a wondrous mockery of dust.
Is it proper for a mortal woman,
soft of heart,
to roam and wander
in the garden of fire.
How dare she
in the smoke of waste conjure
the ember of peace,
an ember with which Sarah Bat Tovim would light
a Sabbath candle in the gloom of pain.
Between the walls of nightmare
it would bloom, burning slowly
in the crumbling house, in the pit.
Facing it, the woman of sorrowful depths
shut her eyes,
to worry, to mourning, to shame, to the mundane.
The candle's sparks are palaces,
and in the midst of the palaces
mothers sing to the heavens
to endless generations.
And she wanders in their midst
toward God, with a barefoot baby
and with the murdered.
Hurrah!
The soft of heart comes in dance
in the golden Holy of Holies, inside a spark.
Taken from Seven Poems by Zelda, translated by Varda Koch Ocker
🏃 DO:
🍷 First Friday is back!
Join us for family-style #FirstFridaySociety Shabbat meal in our beautiful backyard space.
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💬 Speech:
A Torah thought from Berel. In memory of Tzivia Feiga bat Shmuel Hakohen
In the Haftorah this week it speaks about the menorah made, the whole thing, of gold.
In the Beis Hamikdash the menorah had seven branches representing seven ways different Jews can serve G-d. For example one is chesed, kindness, the other gevurah, severity.
The thing they all have in common is that they use their abilities to make the world light(stone - that’s a joke!).
That’s why in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, the windows were small on the inside and big on the outside, to show that the light of the menorah goes out to the whole world.
What makes the menorah shine? The candles. That represents the Jewish souls which shine and illuminate the world. Each Jewish should use the talents that G-d gave him or her to make the world lighter.
Each one will approach serving G-d in their own way - one with chesed the other with gevurah, the approach is different but they’re all still serving G-d the same.
There is one difference: When you approach with חסד you automatically see the good in others. Your approach is with love. Then you do not need to fight to help them share their light.
This is the approach of Aaron the Cohen Gadol, that he approached with חסד and brought people close to Torah even if the only positive thing they had was that G-d made them.
This means that they approached others with love, not only as the goal, but the way to get the goal.
This is what the Chabad Rebbes did as well: They approached each Jew with love to help them shine and illuminate the world.
🎉 Mazel:
⚖️ Big congrats to #ChaiSociety member Fitz Tepper on graduating with a Juris Doctor from Fordham University!
👰 Mazel Tov to #ChaiSociety member Rabbi Avraham Berkowitz on the marriage of his daughter Rochi!
🎂 Happy birthday to Berel Lightstone - on turning 11!
📚 Read:
🇦🇺 Outreach in the Outback: For 20 years, Chabad of Rural and Regional Australia has been connecting with Jews in unexpected places—far from Melbourne and Sydney.
🍞 We’ve been doing the challah thing since Sinai. But Hannah Goldfield writes in the New Yorker about Bringing Challah Into the Mainstream
📲 This App Brings the Power of Daily Torah to Your Life!
✨ #ChaiSociety Members - don’t miss Transcribing the Ephemeral: On Song and its Soul
😂 Social media companies, here are some free theme park ideas to comply with Florida’s deplatforming law. How to theoretically avoid Florida’s new social media rules.
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