WELCOMING SHABBAT

Shabbat is more than a day of refraining from worldly activity.

When experienced to its spiritual fullest, its holiness enlightens all other days of the week.

We invite you to enhance your Shabbat with these words of Torah.

 

Painting of Jacon and the angel fighting

In the Merit of Esav

In the Merit of Esav

Haber, Rabbi Yaacov
November 19, 2021

“When R’ Yochanan ben Zakkai asked his disciples to go and see which is the best quality to which a man should cling, his disciple R’ Eliezer answered: ‘A good eye’. What he meant here was…the ability to see the good in a person or situation.

People who come up with negative judgments often think that they are cleverer than other people, and are sharp enough to see through false impressions to the real truth. In fact…it requires just as much cleverness and insight to arrive at a positive impression of a person or situation.

 

This was Jacob’s greatness: that although he had more reason than anyone else to view Esau negatively…what he noticed most clearly about Esau was his merit of honoring his parents, so much so that in his mind it dwarfed all his own merits.”