Do you see that light bulb?

Vehi Sheamda

וְהִיא שֶׁעָמְדָה לַאֲבוֹתֵיֽנוּ וְלָנֽוּ. שֶׁלֹא אֶחָד בִּלְבָד, עָמַד עָלֵיֽנוּ לְכַלּוֹתֵנֽוּ. אֶלָּא שֶׁבְּכָל דּוֹר וָדוֹר, עוֹמְדִים עָלֵיֽנוּ לְכַלּוֹתֵנֽוּ. וְהַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא מַצִּילֵנוּ מִיָּדָם

Vehi She’amda, La’avotainu Velanu Shelo Echad Bilvad, Amad Aleinu Lechaloteinu Ela Sheb’chol Dor VaDor Omdim Aleinu Lechaloteinu V’HaKadosh Baruch Hu Matzilenu Miyadam.

And it is this [covenant] that has stood for our Forefathers and us. For not just one enemy has stood against us to wipe us out. But in every generation there have been those who have stood against us to wipe us out, and the Holy One Blessed Be He saves us from their hands.

To hear this passage sung:

http://www.chabad.org/multimedia/media_cdo/aid/847035/jewish/Vehi-Sheamda.htm

The values of the Torah are timeless and so every generation finds a new way of interpreting the Haggadah which has meaning in it for them.

One explanation is that the Torah is alluded to in the word Vehi as each Hebrew letter refers to a different part of our written and oral law:

Vav = numerical value 6, refers to the six tractates of Mishna.

Hei = numerical value of 5, stands for the five books of Moses.

Yud = numerical value 10, stands for the Ten Commandments.

Aleph = numerical value 1, stands for the one God.

This explanation implies that it is the Torah, and our connection with it, that has always given us strength, direction and hope.

Every Jew has an internal spark. Our enemies can try and extinguish this spark. They might enslave us as Pharoah did, they might try and annihilate us physically as Hitler did, they might try and take away our Jewish identity as Stalin did, but they can never take away our hope and the Jewish spark within us. By keeping the Jewish traditions and learning about who we are, we keep this flame alight.

By understanding that our soul is from the Divine, and that we have the strength to fulfill our mission of Tikun Olam, to make this world a better place, we can rise above the most challenging situations.

The soul is like a flame; even a small light can disperse a whole room of darkness. Just like a flame does not get extinguished when it lights another wick, we all have the ability to strengthen others, and inspire our surroundings. This does not diminish our light, but in fact strengthens us and the world around us.

A college student once asked the Lubavitcher Rebbe what is his job. The Rebbe gestured to the ceiling of his room and replied:

Do you see that light bulb? It is connected by wires to a power plant that powers the whole of Brooklyn. And that plant is connected to turbo-generators at Niagara Falls that power the whole of New York State and more.

Every one of us is a light bulb wired in to an infinitely powerful generator. But the room may still be dark, because the connection has yet to be made. Our job is to turn on the switch.

We are not alone, we have traditions, our moral convictions and our beliefs that we need to tap into. We need to take the inspiration and ethical principles outline for us by the Torah and use them to illuminate the world, to create a place that is better because we are here.

When we understand that the “Vehi” is within us, we will indeed have the power to overcome all odds, to be a source of inspiration when the world is dark, and to pass on this strength to future generations.

First Passover Seder

Monday, April 18

Choose to celebrate Pesach as you would at home but without all the prep work and with an amazing extended family.

Join the Community Kollel for our warm community wide Seders. The Kollel's Passover Seders have become a local tradition and attract hundreds of people. Experience an inspiring evening full of insights, singing of Passover songs and of course, a full gourmet Passover Seder meal.

Four Seders:

Kollel Seder

Kollel

1965 West Broadway

8:30pm

Featuring:

* Plenty of great wine

* Four course meal catered by Maple Grill

* Follow along at the Seder with our special Haggadas that include a transliteration of the Seder and with step-by-step directions that spell out the practical and spiritual dimensions of each ritual and symbol.

Led by Rabbi Shmulik Yeshayahu.

Suggested donation: $36 Students: $18

Please RSVP to info@communitykollel.org

**Everyone is welcome!**

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Family Passover Seder

Maple Grill

1967 West Broadway

7:30pm

Join the Community Kollel and JFSA for our co-sponsored warm community family/speed Seder.

Experience an inspiring and traditional Passover Seder that will be both educational and fast and of course, a full gourmet Passover Seder meal.

Kids program will start at 7:30 and will include:

* A kid- friendly meal and snacks

* A children's Seder and program with activities.

Led by Rabbi Yossi Goldberg, Youth Director at the Community Kollel.

Suggested donation: $25/child and $36/adult.

(This event will be geared towards families)

**This event is by registration ONLY.**

Please call Community Kollel - 604-738-7060 to register, or register by email, info@communitykollel.org

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Seder in Hebrew

Generously hosted by Tamir and Saryta Ofri

8:00pm

Featuring:

* Plenty of great wine

* Four course meal catered by Maple Grill

* Feel at home with other Israelis

* Seder will be ran in Hebrew with wonderful Israeli traditional songs and customs

Suggested donation: Adults: $36 Students and Children: $18

Please email or call the office to RSVP and to receive more information and the address:

604-738-7060

info@communitykollel.org

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Seder in Burnaby

Choose to celebrate Pesach as you would at home but without all the prep work and with an amazing extended family.

Featuring:

* Plenty of great wine

* Four course meal catered by Maple Grill

* Feel at home with other Israelis

* Seder will be ran in Hebrew with wonderful Israeli traditional songs and customs.

Suggested donation: Adults: $36 Students and Children: $18

Please email or call the office to RSVP and to receive more information and the address:

604-738-7060

info@communitykollel.org

Second Passover Seder

Tuesday, April 19

Schara Tzedeck

3476 Oak Street

(Entrance on Oak, close to 18th ave.)

8:30pm

Please join the Kollel and Schara Tzedeck for the second Seder this year at their beautiful new hall. Experience an inspiring evening full of insights, singing of Passover songs and of course, a full gourmet Passover Seder meal.

Featuring:

* Plenty of great wine

* Four course meal

* Follow along at the Seder with our special Haggadas that include a transliteration of the Seder and with step-by-step directions that spell out the practical and spiritual dimensions of each ritual and symbol.

Suggested donation: Adults: $36 Students and Children: $18

Please RSVP to info@communitykollel.org

**Everyone is welcome!**

KOLLEL!!!

JOY??? Now?

We are supposed to be happy on Purim. How can we be commanded to feel happy? There is tragedy all over the world – Japan, Israel, Many Middle East and North African countries. It seems as though every day we hear more and more horrible new – this can make one feel scared, worried, depressed, sad and angry. How are we supposed to just turn these emotions off and experience JOY?

The answer of the Torah is that joy is natural and inherent to every person. Joy is not something that we experience as a response to external triggers, but it is a part of us that we need to learn how to reveal. It is part of our essence, but sometimes it is repressed. Experiencing joy means to dig through everything that is suffocating our inner happiness. Just witness the natural happiness and cheerfulness of a young child. The bright joyous face of a child is something that every adult envies. A child begins to lose his natural cheer due to external causes. His inherent joy starts to erode when he begins to experience the disappointments and tragedies of life events, the despondent attitudes of parents, educators and other adults affecting the child.

We access the inner joy innate in each of us by accessing the cheer and enthusiasm of our inner child -- the part of us connected to God that precedes the sadness that life circumstances imposed and continues to impose upon us.

Purim is a day of joyous abandon that transcends conventional boundaries. We are told to celebrate “ad de lo yada” - which means to be joyous until you reach a place beyond the doors of perception, where we transcend dark and light, even the pains and disappointments of our lives. The story of Purim teaches us that despite how dark it gets, even when all hope seems to be lost, the joy of the inner child surfaces in an eruption of joy. It is a delight that transcends any pain you may be dealing with in life.

We cultivate the inner soul child by internalizing the feeling that God put you on Earth for a unique purpose, that we have an indispensable contribution to make, realizing that all else in life pales in comparison to the essential power of our soul.

Joy is contagious. Often when we can't access it on our own, a way of igniting it is by celebrating in dance and song with others. Behavioral change, acting joyous (even when you don't feel like it), coupled with the fact that deep inside (or not so deep) lies a reservoir of pure joy, is a way to actually become joyous.

So it is possible to be happy even while the whole world is experiencing pain???

It’s an interesting custom in Jewish tradition under the chuppah, the wedding canopy, to break the glass at the end of the ceremony. One of the reasons they do this is that it’s a reminder of the destruction of the Temple. So I always wondered, of all times to choose a reminder of the destruction of the Temple, it’s at the high point in two people’s lives, their wedding, the highest simcha, the highest joy? Couldn’t it have been done seemingly at the end of the wedding, or on another day? Why at that high point?

And the point is this. Those who know how to remember others’ pain at the height of their joy will also know how to remember to have joy at their height of pain. *

If you’re sensitive because you’re not so consumed with your own feelings, no matter how justified they are, but you leave that little opening, then one day, if G-d forbid you should be challenged where you’re faced with a trauma or some loss, it also won’t be all consuming. You’ll have that one percent opening of joy and happiness. And I think that’s the balance.

Life is about experiencing it all – we are never %100 happy or %100 sad. We need to learn to find the joy despite the pain, and to be sensitive to the pain despite the joy.

But – Purim is a time to try to uncover the joy, to experience as much happiness as possible!

Happy Purim!

____

* Interestingly, when the Jews came out of Egypt (the Egyptians had oppressed the Jewish people for many years, and they were enslaved by them, and after the Jews left Egypt, the Egyptians still didn’t give up but pursued the Jews), and the Egyptians were drowning in the parted sea and the Jews began singing praise to G-d, the Talmud says that G-d said to the Jewish people, “My children are drowning and you’re singing praise?”

Harrison Hot Springs!!!

Mission Possible:

The computer age and the information revolution have given all of us enormous power and the ability to reach virtually anyone at any time. Yes, technology allows us to live more comfortably and work more efficiently, but can we understand how it makes our lives more meaningful?

On its own, science is neutral; it attempts to give us an objective view of our physical universe and its natural forces, but it does not draw a conclusion as to how we should use these forces. It does not deal with good and evil or with questions of morality.

Technology, as with all forces in our lives, can be used either constructively or destructively. Developments such as television, computers and lasers, discoveries in nuclear energy, medicine, and biology -- these are all instances of G-dly forces that are manifested in nature.

Story:

In the early 1950’s, a couple and their young daughter had a private audience with the Rebbe. After the wife and husband had asked for advice on various issues, the Rebbe turned to the six-year-old girl and asked if she had any questions. Her parents tried to hush her up as she began to speak, so as not to take the Rebbe's valuable time. But the Rebbe encouraged her to go ahead. The little girl, with a concerned look on her face, asked the Rebbe whether he thought that atomic energy was good or bad. “In your kitchen at home, there is a knife,” the Rebbe said. “Is the knife good or bad?” The little girl replied, “It depends what it is used for. If it is used to cut food, then it is good. If it is used to hurt someone, then it is bad.”

“That is a good and true answer,” the Rebbe told her, “and the same could be said for atomic energy or any other technology that man has developed.”

Regarding the advances in communications, the Rebbe would explain how people across the globe, normally divided by space and time, are suddenly unified, creating an opportunity for them to study together, pray together, and resolve to do one more good deed, thereby forming a universal wave of togetherness. “One might think, ‘What can I possibly accomplish sitting in this tiny corner on this huge planet of billions of people?’” the Rebbe said. “Today, we see how one person lighting a candle in his tiny corner can illuminate the entire world.”

So the current technological revolution is in fact the hand of G-d at work; it is meant to help us make G-d a reality in our lives. We can choose to acknowledge the “hand inside the glove,” understanding where the power truly comes from, and use these forces as tools to lead a more meaningful life. Or we can choose to be distracted by the glove, to see technology only as a means unto itself, using it for indulgent, selfish, perhaps even destructive purposes.

There is much to learn from the technological revolution, as long as we understand its role in our lives and see it as a step in our dramatic search for unity throughout the universe. After all, developments in science and technology have taught us to be more sensitive to the intangible and the sublime: the forces behind computers, telephones, television, and so on are all invisible, and yet we fully recognize their power and reach.

Our mission is to always seek to elevate that which is neutral.

Shabbat Shalom!