English Blog

As is customary on Sukkot, we had a few ushpizin or guests, over in our sukka. As she does every Friday night and Yom Tov, my five year old daughter lit her candles and made the blessing. One of the guests didn’t realize that girls start lighting at such a young age so she turned to ask Rosie how long she had been lighting. Rosie looked at her and without blinking an eye responded: “For thousands of years.” This guest was extremely moved and even  e-mailed me after the holiday saying that she was still amazed with my daughter’s response.

We are about to celebrate the wonderful and joyous holiday of Simchat Torah. When we dance with the Torah in the streets, we are celebrating the gift we were given thirty three hundred years ago. This is the celebration of our millennia old tradition. This is the Torah that has given us the strength and perseverance to continue onward. This is what gives us the ability to overcome our enemies.

Yesterday, like much of the Jewish world, I was watching the homecoming celebrations for Gilad Shalit in Israel. He is finally home and we no longer have the burden of worry hanging over us every day. When we pray to G-d every day to release our captives, we no longer have to add in Gilad ben Aviva. At the same time, I was also watching how the Arabs in Gaza were celebrating. They blatantly and with no shame proclaim as national heroes the murderers of men, women, and children. The contrast is stark. They draw their strength from hatred, and we draw ours from achdut, unity. Our power lies in the Torah. Our force emanates from the Shabbat candles that have helped to sustain us for thousands of years. It is this strength that we will all celebrate together on Simchat Torah. 

On this Simchat Torah, please come and dance with us in unity, in celebration of our Torah and our tradition, as we prevail together over the forces of darkness.

The death of one of our generation’s greatest intellectuals has come as a mighty blow. Without the genius of Steve Jobs, whom some have compared to Einstein, we would still be fixed in a limited communicative world devoid of iPads, iPods and iPhones. In 2005, Steve delivered an intriguing speech at a college graduation, during which he shared three personal stories. When I listened to the speech, I was greatly moved by these narratives and sought to apply them to my own life.

Story number one dates back to Steve’s conception and birth. His mother became pregnant while still in college and signed her baby up for adoption. When Steve’s adoptive parents were informed that a little boy was available, they initially weren’t interested since they had hoped to adopt a girl. In the end though, they decided to take in the little boy. In college, Steve had no bedroom in the dormitory and thus slept on the floor in a friend’s room. After just one semester, he dropped out of college and went on to establish what would eventually become Apple in the garage of his home.

Who would have imagined that this luminary of a man whose efforts and personality inspired millions around him originated from absolutely nothing!

Before Yom Kippur last week, I texted a community member asking “r u ready for the big day?” He replied that he was dreading the holy day since he had spent his whole year sinning. I explained to him that that is why we have Yom Kippur- G-d grants us the opportunity to resolve to become a better individual. If Steve Jobs could rise out of his “mistaken” conception to become one of the world’s most powerful people, how much more so can a sinner transform himself into the opposite. On Yom Kippur G-d declares, “It doesn’t matter who you were until now, what matters is the now.”

In the second story, Steve described how he almost single-handedly built Apple into what it is today. For ten years he slaved until the company was worth two billion dollars and had 4 000 employees. At age 30, he was fired from his own company and despite the hurt and rejection he experienced, he was determined to start over. Looking back, Steve described his dismissal as the best thing that ever happened to him because it freed him to do what he wanted. It was at that point that he resolved to put his life in order. He married the woman he loved and started being creative about his ideas. He founded two companies, one of which is Pixar, the world’s most successful animation studio.

When Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur loom on the horizon, Jews start to contemplate teshuva- repenting. The question is-- how is it done? Do we need to start keeping all 613 mitzvot overnight? No. What G-d wants from us is one mitzvah at a time. When you take too much on yourself, eventually you drop it all. So start with little changes. Come to shul more often. Make peace with an old rival. Help a needy person. The path of return must be trodden carefully and slowly.

Steve’s third story could probably have been related by a rabbi. When Steve was seventeen, he read the following quote: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." The saying made a huge impact on Steve and since then, for the past thirty-three years, Steve has looked in the mirror every morning and asked himself, "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?"

When Steve was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer back in 2004, his life expectancy was three to six months. It turned out to be a rare form of the disease that was curable, and so Steve lived on.

As morbid as it sounds, death awaits every man and every man should prepare accordingly. If you knew today was your last, would you spend an extra hour working in your office or would you rush home into the warm embrace of your loving family? Would you chase another million dollars or would you focus your concentration onto more meaningful endeavors such as tefillin, Shabbat and kashrut?

Steve’s passing has affected many. Millions of people are shattered by the crumbling of one of technology’s pillars, but personally, I mourn a precious individual whose grasp on life was so profound and so inspirational, one cannot help but be moved.

(An excerpt from Yom Kippur Speech at Chabad Israel Center)