Mousa Kalim-allah

Persian Jews were exposed to varied forms of anti-Semitism in Iran throughout the history. As a minimum, they were called najes (unclean), and to top it up, entire communities were forced to convert to Islam. You can read about it and many other fascinating topics of the Persian Jewish history in Esther’s Children, a project of The Center for Iranian Jewish Oral History. It is curious then, that the Iranian Moslems refer to the Jewish Prophet as Mousa Kalimallah (Moses, the one who spoke directly with G-d), acknowledging the fact that the prophet who had the closest encounter with the Al-mighty Himself was no other than Moshe Rabbeinu.

You may have seen the Hollywood version of this encounter many times, but given its track record, you may be easily persuaded to read the very original script of the encounter in last week’s Torah portion, Shemot:

... Moses tended the sheep of his father-in-law Jethro, sheik of Midian. He led the flock to the edge of the desert, and he came to God's Mountain, in the Horeb area. God's angel appeared to [Moses] in the heart of a fire, in the middle of a thorn-bush. As he looked, [Moses] realized that the bush was on fire, but was not being consumed. Moses said [to himself], 'I must go over there and investigate this wonderful phenomenon. Why doesn't the bush burn?' When God saw that [Moses] was going to investigate, He called to him from the middle of the bush.

God: Moses, Moses!

Moses: Yes

God: Do not come any closer. Take your shoes off your feet. The place upon which you are standing is holy ground. I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob.

Moses hid his face, since he was afraid to look at the Divine.

God: I have indeed seen the suffering of My people in Egypt. I have heard how they cry out because of what their slave-drivers [do], and I am aware of their pain. I have come down to rescue them from Egypt's power. I will bring them out of that land, to a good, spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, the territory of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Yebusites. Right now the cry of the Israelites is coming to Me. I also see the pressure to which Egypt is subjecting them. Now go. I am sending you to Pharaoh. Bring My people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.

Moses: Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh? And how can I possibly get the Israelites out of Egypt?

God: Because I will be with you. Proof that I have sent you will come when you get the people out of Egypt. All of you will then become God's servants on this mountain.

Moses: So I will go to the Israelites and say, 'Your fathers' God sent me to you.' They will immediately ask me what His name is. What shall I say to them?

God: I Will Be Who I Will Be [is My name]. This is what you must say to the Israelites: 'I Will Be sent me to you.' You must [then] say to the Israelites, 'YHVH, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, sent me to you.' This is My eternal name, and this is how I am to be recalled for all generations. Go, gather the elders of Israel, and say to them, 'YHVH, the God of your fathers, appeared to me - the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He said, 'I have granted you special providence regarding what is happening to you in Egypt. I declare that I will bring you out of the wretchedness of Egypt, to the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Yebusites - to a land flowing with milk and honey.’

They will take what you say seriously. You and the elders of Israel will then go to the king of Egypt. You must tell him, 'YHVH, God of the Hebrews, revealed Himself to us. Now we request that you allow us to take a three day journey into the desert, to sacrifice to YHVH our God.' I know in advance that the Egyptian king will not allow you to leave unless he is forced to do so. I will then display My power and demolish Egypt through all the miraculous deeds that I will perform in their land. Then [Pharaoh] will let you leave. I will give the people status among the Egyptians, and when you all finally leave, you will not go empty-handed. Every woman shall borrow articles of silver and gold, as well as clothing, from her neighbor or from the woman living with her. You shall load this on your sons and daughters, and you will thus drain Egypt [of its wealth].

Moses: But they will not believe me. They will not listen to me. They will say, 'God did not appear to you.'

God: What is that in your hand?'

Moses: A staff.

God: Throw it on the ground.

When [Moses] threw it on the ground, it turned into a snake, and Moses ran away from it.

God: Reach out and grasp its tail.

When [Moses] reached out and grasped [the snake], it turned back into a staff in his hand.

God: This is so that they will believe that God appeared to you, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Place your hand [on your chest] inside your robe.

When [Moses] placed his hand in his robe and removed it from his chest, it was leprous, [as white] as snow.

God: Place your hand in your robe again.

[Moses] placed his hand [back] into his robe, and when he removed it from his chest, his skin had returned to normal.

God: If they do not believe you, and they do not pay attention to the first miraculous sign, then they will believe the evidence of the second sign. And if they also do not believe these two signs, and still do not take you seriously, then you shall take some water from the Nile and spill it on the ground. The water that you will take from the Nile will turn into blood on the ground.

Moses: I beg You, O God, I am not a man of words - not yesterday, not the day before - not from the very first time you spoke to me. I find it difficult to speak and find the right language.

God: Who gave man a mouth? Who makes a person dumb or deaf? Who gives a person sight or makes him blind? Is it not I - God? Now go! I will be with your mouth and teach you what to say.

Moses: I beg you O Lord! Please! Send someone more appropriate!

God: Is not Aaron the Levite your brother? I know that he knows how to speak! He is setting out to meet you, and when he sees you, his heart will be glad. You will be able to speak to him, and place the words in his mouth. I will then be with your mouth and his mouth, and I will teach you what to do. He will speak to the people for you. He will be your spokesman, and you will be his guide. Take this staff in your hand. With it, you will perform the miracles …

And with this encounter, Moshe Rabbeinu was tasked to save the Jews out of Egypt and to bring them to the borders of the Promised Land.

Let us hope that we will all be inspired to know and appreciate our greatest Prophet For an easy-to-read translation of the Torah, please consider the Living Torah, by Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan

A Perfect World

Do not bother with cnn, abc, bbc, cbc, and the rest of them, as they have decided to say nothing nice or truthful about us. We as the Jewish People have got a great mission to accomplish, and although not completed, we have done a great job so far. So, without getting too haughty, read and marvel as how the history has judged us;

John Adams, 2nd U.S. President:
"I will insist that the Hebrew have done more to civilize men than any other nation. If I were an atheist and believed in blind eternal fate, I should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations. If I were an atheist of the other sect, who believe or pretend to believe that all is ordered by chance, I should believe that chance ordered the Jews to preserve and propagate to all mankind the doctrine of a supreme, intelligent, wise, almighty sovereign of the universe, which I believe to be the great essential principle of all morality, and consequently of all civilization".

Christian scholar & historian Paul Johnson in "History of the Jews":
"One way of summing up 4,000 years of Jewish history is to ask ourselves, what would have happened to the human race if Abraham had not been a man of great sagacity; or if he had stayed in Ur and kept his higher notions to himself, and no specific Jewish people had come into being. Certainly the world without the Jews would have been a radically different place. All the great conceptual discoveries of the intellect seem obvious and inescapable once they have been revealed, but it requires a special genius to formulate them for the first time. The Jews had this gift. To them we owe the ideas of equality before the law, both divine and human; of the sanctity of life and the dignity of the human person; of the individual conscience, and so of personal redemption; of the collective conscience, and so of social responsibility; of peace as an abstract ideal, and love as the foundation of justice; and many other items which constitute the basic moral furniture of the human mind. Without the Jews it might have been a much emptier place. Above all, the Jews taught us how to rationalize the unknown. The result was monotheism and the three great religions which profess it. It is almost beyond our capacity to imagine how the world would have fared if they had never emerged."… "It is almost beyond our capacity to imagine how the world would have fared if they had never emerged."

You cal learn about Jewish contribution to the world civilization, at the fantastic WorldPerfect Seminar by Rabbi Ken Spiro.

Meeting the good Rabbi

This true encounter demonstrates the love of Jews for one another, to the point of personal and national sacrifice.

She sat across from the rabbi in his modest, yet serene Ashdod apartment and stared at him, commenting that he looked familiar to her, but she didn't know where to place the face. The Rabbi asked her when she came to Israel, and she answered 1978, right about when Khomeini came to power. She went on to excitedly describe how the plain-clothed Israeli Special Forces commandos had come to her street to usher the Jews to waiting planes on the edge of Tehran airport, flying them out and leaving behind 2500-year old memories.

The rabbi smiled and described her old neighborhood to her with high precession, expected only of special-mission commandos. She understood and was visibly moved when she recognized the face.

More on the good Rabbi here

Baba, Maman I Love You

There have been circumstances that a newly observant and over-enthusiastic Ba’ale Tshuvah (Returnee to traditional Judaism), has refrained from eating at his parents, or has not attended a family function, etc. In the process he has come to dishonor and disrespect his parents. Although the feeling of hurt is real on the part of the parents, especially Persian parents, it is absolutely against the teachings of our Torah and our sages to disrespect parents.

Nothing can be further than the truth that the observance of Torah should necessitate disrespecting parents. These unfortunate situations usually arise because our over-enthusiastic Ba’ale Tshuvah has not discussed the matter with a wise and competent rabbi to come up with a practical solution to address the sensitivities of the situation at hand.

A deeper look at the teaching of Torah and our sages will help understand the greatness that is bestowed upon our parents:

…

“The commandment to honor one's parents –

It is written:

"Honor your father and mother." [Exodus 20,12] And it is written:

"Honor God from your youth." [Proverbs 3,9].

The Torah equates the duty to honor one's parents to the duty of honoring God.

It is written:

"Man should hold his father and mother in awe." [Leviticus 19,3], And it is written:

"You should be in awe of the Lord your God and serve Him." [Deuteronomy 6,13]

The Torah equates the awe of one's parents to the awe one must have towards God.

It is written:

"One who curses one's mother or father must die." [Exodus 21,17] And it is written:

"Whoever curses God must bear his guilt." [Leviticus 24,15].

The Torah equates cursing one's parents with cursing God. ... this is fitting because they are all partners in his creation. [Talmud, Kiddushin, 30b]

Most of us are fortunate enough to have nice parents whom we love dearly and who inspire powerful feelings of gratitude in our hearts. No human beings ever do as much for us as our parents. But very few of us have parents that inspire us with a sufficient degree of awe that could justify comparing the feelings of awe we experience towards them to the sort of awe that we feel towards God. There is nothing awesome about our parents! How can we relate to being commanded to hold them in awe?

According to the Maharal of Prague, considering this question tells us about a much deeper role that our parents play in our lives. The Torah's commandment to honor our parents should not be interpreted as God's way to reinforce the natural feelings most people entertain towards their parents in any case. The Torah commandment is issued from a standpoint that invites us to understand that our attachment to God can only be reached through the mediation of our parents. The “awe” in the commandment to honor one's parents is actually the awe of God. The person who sees the spiritual world properly can always get a glimpse of God by observing his parents. ”…

You can read the whole of this fantastic article here. The author, Rabbi Noson Weisz is a scholar of the highest caliber. While studying at the famed yeshivas of Chaim Berlin, Lakewood and the Mir in Jerusalem, he also received a degree in Microbiology from the University of Toronto, MA in Political Science at the New School for Social Research and his LLB (law degree) from the University of Toronto. He is currently a senior lecturer at Yeshiva Aish HaTorah in Jerusalem.

I don’t know Rabbi Weisz, but I am a great fan of his writings and consider him my teacher, and such is the power of wisdom.

A Measure of Spice

I remember that as teenagers we used to philosophize and discuss the meaning and purpose of life. We somehow felt that wearing torn jeans or mini-skirts, or having Tom Jones-style sideburns or Afro hair-dos will help us get there. Well, later on we got busy with settling in America, school, family, work and responsibilities, and along the way forgot all about the meaning and purpose of life.

Quite frankly, after a hard and long day at the office or downtown, buying and selling this, that or the other real estate deal, or myriad of other activities that we are all involved with (not to mention all the mehmoonis that we must attend), there is simply no energy or motivation left to amuse such ponderings as the meaning of life.

Spending quality time with our parents, grandparents and family elders, and visiting an old-age home and chatting with those who also at one time had busy lives will provide an instantaneous reality check as what is important in life. And of course, spending meaningful time with our own spouse, children and other loved ones, looking them straight in the eyes, and telling them that we love them, does not hurt either. I once heard that the founder of Wal-Mart said on his deathbed, something to the effect: "I blew it; I should have spent more time with my family". Imagine that.! The founder of one of the richest corporations in America is remorseful that he did not set his priorities straight.

The observance of authentic Torah-based Judaism provides a way of life that allows the observant to develop a crystal clear view of life's priorities. Rabbi Noach Weinberg of Aish HaTorah calls it the "5-Finger Clarity". Just look at your hand; you get the point. Torah, as the G-d given instruction manual for life, provides a practical system of maximizing one's true potential in all aspects of life. Meaning, any type of a person that you aspire to become, you will become that much greater if you live a Torah-centered life. Now, this is a big proposition, not to be taken lightly. Of course, the voice in the back of the mind cries out: "Come on, give me a break, are you telling me that shaking a bunch of plants and vegetables (the four species) inside a man-made flimsy hut that can hardly stand a breeze, or blowing into a sheep’s horn (shofar), will bring me closer to the Source of creation?” The answer is an absolute, a definite, and an unshakable YES!,

Our rabbis teach us that one of the fundamental reasons that we are born is to work on our character traits. That is each and every one of us is a soul which has certain deficiencies. The soul is put into a body and therefore given a chance to improve itself. All the life circumstances are tailor-made for each particular soul to give it ample opportunity to rise above each circumstance and better itself.

“Character Trait” in Hebrew is called “Midah” which means “Measure”, like a measure or quantity of spice that is added, say to your Gondi Shabbati! A little too much, or too little just ruins it all. You need a precise amount of each spice to get the perfect gondi. The idea is that all character traits (capacity to love, anger, strength, humor, etc.) are needed and are already present in a person in varying quantities, but it is our job in life to work on ourselves to adjust these quantities for our individual soul.

I submit to you, that our glorious Torah, the very words of the Creator which were spoken at Sinai, has instructions to help you work with that which you have been given, to adjust your spice-mix in order to become the best you that is humanly possible.

This idea is beautifully illuminated in the following story:

... concerning the famous violinist Itzhak Perlman. One evening, Perlman was in New York to give a concert. As a child he had been stricken with polio and getting on stage is no small feat for him. He wears braces on both legs and walks with two crutches. Perlman crossed the stage painfully slowly, until he reached the chair in which he seated himself to play.

As soon as he appeared on stage that night, the audience applauded and then waited respectfully as he made his way slowly across the stage. He took his seat, signaled to the conductor, and began to play.

No sooner had he finished the first few bars than one of the strings on his violin snapped with a report like gunshot. At that point Perlman was close enough to the beginning of the piece that it would have been reasonable to bring the concert to a halt while he replaced the string to begin again. But that's not what he did. He waited a moment and then signaled the conductor to pick up just where they had left off.

Perlman now had only three strings with which to play his soloist part. He was able to find some of the missing notes on adjoining strings, but where that wasn't possible, he had to rearrange the music on the spot in his head so that it all still held together.

He played with passion and artistry, spontaneously rearranging the symphony right through to the end. When he finally rested his bow, the audience sat for a moment in stunned silence. And then they rose to their feet and cheered wildly. They knew they had been witness to an extraordinary display of human skill and ingenuity.

Perlman raised his bow to signal for quiet. "You know," he said, "sometimes it is the artist's task to find out how much beautiful music you can still make with what you have left."

Please consider studying the following excellent series of articles called
Path of the Soul by Dr. Alan Morinis

Mazol Tov to PersianRabbi Website!

Mazol Tov on the launch of the PersianRabbi.
You should be successful to spread the light of Torah, far and wide throughout the Persian community.

shahreh-farangeh, az hameh-rangeh

Those of us who spent whole or part of our childhood in Iran, may remember simpler and perhaps more innocent upbringing, not withstanding the occasional or frequent anti-Semitic incidents.

There was a time that "Shahre Farang" was the highlight of the summer-day entertainment. Then came cinema, TV, Luna Park, Amjadieh, Shemran, Ghasre' Yakh, etc., and it was all somehow fun and innocent, at least it appears that way.

Our kids and teens are exposed to a whole new set of values now. The values that today's TV, media and internet promote are drastically different than what it used to be. The simple "Tom and Jerry" cartoon has been replaced with the 4-hour Sunday morning brainwashing bonanza, and cute family in the "Little House on the Prairie" (Khaneye' Koochak) has been replaced with so-called families with same-sex so-called parents, promoting alternative life styles with different sizes and shades of closets to come out of.

It is known even among American Jews that we Persian Jewish Parents are superbly protective of and concerned about our kids and their future. So, at the risk of sounding old-fashioned and backward (omol), the following question can be posed: "Do we really know what kind of damage we are causing our kids by letting them loose in front of TV and video?” See The Truth about TV for some possible answers.

Observant moms go high tech

This is an inspiration for our young daughters.

... "Lipman also believes that the religious training she and other ultra-Orthodox women share gives them a different and important outlook on high tech. "It has a lot to do with training and how you think. When you learn to read a verse and read a commentary by Rashi and not let any word get past you that you don't understand...if you're grounded properly, then nothing goes by without a question, and you assume that there's an answer. And that is a very different approach to engineering and invention, which is: Gee - who says I have to take it for granted that things are this way. Maybe there's another way...it's a different way of thinking, and it's an education which encourages you to think deeply, not to take things at their surface value. So I think that is a profound advantage." ...

Read the full article here, and while you are there, read about all the latest innovations coming out of the Land of Milk and Honey.