Never give up

A young Abraham Lincoln went to war a captain and returned a private. His business career was a failure, as was his stint as a lawyer in Springfield. He was defeated in his first try for the legislature, defeated in his first attempt to be nominated for congress, defeated in his application to be commissioner of the General Land Office, defeated in the senatorial election of 1854, defeated in his efforts for the vice-presidency in 1856, and defeated in the senatorial election of 1858.

Thomas Edison’s first 1000 experiments to invent the light bulb failed.

Dr. Seuss submitted his first book to twenty-seven publishers before one agreed to print it.

They and dozens like them reinforce Winston Churchill’s contention: “Never, never, never, never give up!”

Whoever persevered, laughed at the odds and succeeded had the ultimate role model to follow. Moses, hearing from G-d that he would never enter the Promised Land, launched into a marathon 515 prayers to try to get Hashem to change His mind.

Hold on! I said “succeeded”, but Moses didn’t succeed. G-d rejected his plea again and again, reiterating that He could not enter the Land.

Interestingly, when Moses prayed for the 515th time, G-d responded “If you pray one more time, I will accede, so please don’t pray for this again.” In fact, G-d intended answering Moses’ prayer, just not right then and there. The Talmud tells us that Moses was the original redeemer, leading the Jews out of Egypt, and he will be the one to lead the Jews into Israel with Moshiach.

Until that happens, G-d wants us to take a lesson from this story. He wants us to realise that if we pray and pray for Moshiach and don’t see answers, we need to pray again. G-d’s message to us is to never give up, because we never know which prayer will be the one to tip the scales and launch the Messianic Age.

We always read the story of Moses’ pleas to Hashem on the Shabbos following Tisha B’Av, the Shabbos called ‘Nachamu” (comfort). Having just recalled centuries of Jewish tragedy on Tisha B’Av and how our hopes for a better life have been dashed again and again, G-d reminds us in this Torah portion that we are just one step away from His consolation and Moshiach. Let us pray that we see His promise fulfilled this Shabbos.

WORDS

Remember when you were a child and someone insulted you, you’d reply: “Sticks and stoned may break my bones, but words will never harm me”? As you grow older, you appreciate that this is not true. Words can inflict as much pain- sometimes more- than physical blows.

A person can only injure you from close-up. Words can hurt you from a distance, over the phone for example, and even when you’re not around to hear them. When a person spreads Loshon Horah (negative information) about you, it harms you even without you knowing that anything’s been said. That’s why the Talmud compares words to arrows- once they’re out, you can’t take them back.

We accept that words can harm from far, without you knowing they’ve been said, but can they help from far as well?

Most people believe that Loshon Horah is bad because it spreads negativity about a person, tainting their image. That is true. But, it’s also bad because words create realities. What swims around in your mind remains theoretical; as soon as you mention it, it becomes tangible. Let’s say you notice that someone tends to be arrogant. You could mull over the problem and possibly guide them subtly towards modesty. Dong that, you would not have highlighted their problem, and you may even have solved it. Once you tell them (or others) that they are arrogant, you fuel that emotion, because words bring into reality something that floated potentially in the ether.

It works the other way too. You know that if you compliment someone, they will respond positively and probably behave that way again. Your positive words encourage them. Even when you talk well of them without them hearing it, you release positive arrows into the reality of the world and you subliminally encourage them from a distance. Positive-speak helps, even when the person who needs to hear it isn’t there.

Devorim, the name of the Parsha this week, means words. We always read this section on the Shabbos before Tisha B’Av, the day of Jewish national mourning. Tisha B’Av reminds us how our holiest site fell because we spoke ill of each other. Devorim reminds us that we can regain our Temple by speaking well of each other- when we speak to each other and when we speak about each other.

The Eagle has landed

Today 40 years ago Neil Armstrong, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin and Michael Collins blasted into space en route to the Moon. Millions watched fixated as the massive Saturn V rocket propelled them into orbit within twelve minutes. At 2:56 on the morning of July 21st 1969, Neil Armstrong stepped where no human had stepped before.

Today, forty years later, the Apollo mission has recaptured the world’s attention. For the fortieth anniversary, you can even track the Moon mission in real time on a special website, replete with photos, video and audio clips from both the astronauts and Mission Control.

This week’s Torah portion, Masei, also recalls an unprecedented journey of discovery, forty years after its first small step was taken. It took 42 journeys, spanning forty years, to go from Egypt to the Promised Land. The Torah labels all forty two of them as “journeys out of Egypt”. To leave Egypt, the Jews only needed to cross the border. To escape the mind-set of Egypt, the sense of personal inadequacy, took another 41 journeys.

At each junction, they needed to accept that their new environment was not home and that they needed to keep moving. We all go through the same experience: We only reach spiritual objectives if we keep moving.

Like NASA, G-d supplies a huge booster rocket to propel us out of the gravitational pull of our habits and foibles. Each booster that He offers us must eventually fall away so that we can take control and achieve our objectives independently. Yet, even when we feel alone in a dark expanse, He remains at Mission Control, guiding and encouraging us.

Apollo 11 almost ran out of fuel, and just made it to the Moon. Had they not managed to land the Lunar Module, their incredible journey would have been a waste of time.

It took 42 journeys to get from Egypt to Israel. If the Jews had run out of steam after 41 journeys, we would still be in the desert.

Our personal challenge is to keep improving our spiritual game until we are the best we can be. Mission Control has invested heavily in us and is waiting with bated breath for us to report back that “the Eagle has landed”.

Let's get it together

No weddings. No music. No haircuts. No new clothes.

What a glum time of the year! Each year, I dread it and can’t wait until it’s over. This is the time known as the “Three Weeks” or Bein Hametzarim, when we recall the destruction of our holy Temple in Jerusalem.

I’m not sure we all appreciate what it is that we’re supposed to mourn. Surely it must have been glorious to have a central Shul in Jerusalem, where miracles unfolded daily and you would always leave feeling inspired. But, we are used to finding G-d with us wherever we go and are certain we can connect to Him anywhere.

Are we simply mourning a beautiful building?

People often imagine that Jews visited the Temple because it was a holy place. Actually, the Temple became a holy place because Jews visited it. Our Temple fell because our People had fallen. Every crack in the fibre of our society manifested as a crack in those powerful walls. Jewish unity held that Temple together and disunity destroyed it.

Our Temple was an icon of G-d, His people, goodness and peace. With the Temple gone, the world forgot G-d, abused His people, allowed evil to flourish and went to war after war. All of that happened because we were not whole. When Jews are united, G-d is with us. When we are divided, He steps away.

These three weeks are not a time to cry over what we have lost. They are a time a to think about what we can regain. This is a time for unity. Our sages describe how King David lost many righteous men in battle because they were disrespectful to each other, while the wicked king Achav did not lose soldiers because they were unified.

Now is the time to connect with each other, to end a faribel or to do something to help one another. Jewish unity is our single most important responsibility. It will change us, change our community and heal our world.

Please G-d, we should enjoy the restoration of our national unity and, through it, the restoration of our Temple, which will bring world peace, with Moshiach now.

|| PAUSE

Yesterday was Gimmel Tammuz, the 3rd of Tammuz, the day that the Rebbe left us physically. A Tzaddik never leaves, his guidance and inspiration remains with us always, but we’re simple people and we need to see and hear a person to relate to them.

Gimmel Tammuz became famous long before the Rebbe. 3284 years ago it marked the date when Joshua suspended the sun in midair so he could rout a band of enemies who had attacked the Jews’ allies, the Gibeonites. G-d could have chosen any of a host of miracles to keep the battlefield lit long enough for Joshua to defeat the attackers. By choosing to stop the sun, Hashem set the tone for this unusual day- the third of Tammuz.

We Chassidim were spoiled, inspired and guided by the Rebbe through life’s every step for over forty years. The Rebbe was an expert teacher, weaving tapestries of Torah that intrigue the greatest Jewish minds until today. The Rebbe was a revolutionary, prodding us on to achieve what we were certain was light-years beyond our abilities. The Rebbe was a prophet, predicting the unexpected twists and turns of an ever-changing world. The Rebbe was a father, caring for the disenchanted Jew and the Israeli politician and the Chareidi scholar and the rebellious teen.

We were the fortunate followers, swept up in the raging tide of the Rebbe’s energy. A world without the Rebbe’s presence and guidance was unthinkable. Gimmel Tammuz surprised us completely, challenged our thinking and forced us to reassess our role.

But, the Rebbe had prepared us for that day and its subsequent reality. He had coached us through it from his inaugural address through to the last discourse he distributed. Again and again the Rebbe argued that a righteous individual- Moshe on the banks of the Jordan, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai in ancient Israel or the Rebbe in New York- could have single-handedly achieved G-d’s mission for Life and brought Moshiach. But, that would defeat the purpose of Creation.

Hashem made an imperfect world for us ordinary people to fix. We don’t believe we can do it and prefer to defer to the greats of our nation, to let them guide us. Our great sages believe in us more than we do- not only did they trust that we could follow their instructions, but they believed we could even see our own way clear to fulfilling Hashem’s dream.

Just less than a year before the Rebbe took ill, he announced that he had done all he needed to for Moshiach to come and that he was handing the task over to us. On Gimmel Tammuz, the sun of the Jewish nation went still. The sun is still there, illuminating our path, but it has paused, waiting for us to win the battle.

We are an empowered people who can and must rise to the occasion and quite literally change our world. That may sound like a big ask, but one step in that direction is actually all we need. When G-d sees us recognize our potential and step up to the plate, He will push “play”, hopefully right away.

"Bad Jews"

Korach was a rogue, a rabble-rouser who challenged the rabbis of his time and everything Judaism held dear. Korach’s call for reform attracted hundreds of the Israelites’ best and brightest. They gathered, cried foul and insisted on change.

But, Korach and his anti-establishment crew all died in a public show of G-d’s support for His leadership structure, swallowed by the earth in front of the whole community. Ever since, Korach’s name evokes echoes of rebellion and disrespect. He is the paragon “bad Jew”.

It should surprise you, then, to find his name in lights. The Torah names the portion describing Korach’s uprising after him! King Solomon taught us to obliterate the names of the wicked and we usually relegate the rogues of history to obscurity, stamping out their memory. Here, we give Korach a platform that even Moses does not get- a Parsha named for him.

Korach’s uprising may appear to be a jealous spat targeting his cousins, Moses and Aaron, who got it all. On closer inspection, you can detect a wistful ambition for spiritual advancement in Korach. The irony of Korach is that he had the right motives, he just did not know what to with them.

His contention was that every Jew is holy and every Jew should be able to attain the coveted position of Kohen Gadol- high priest. Moses even agreed with his sentiment, responding that he, too, wished to become High Priest, but that G-d created systems and job allocations that we need to accept.

Korach knew something else- in the Messianic Age the Levites (he was one) would serve as kohanim, as priests. He wished to fast-track the process and become a kohen there and then.

When the Torah named this portion Korach, it wanted to teach us that yearning for a higher spiritual platform is a virtue. You only need to ensure that you keep idealism in check, or you could go off the rails as Korach ultimately did.

The Lubavitcher Rebbe teaches that this portion holds a vital lesson on how to view “bad Jews”. People often write off the rebels within our Jewish community. Traditionalists recoil at free-thinkers who reinterpret Judaism against convention; who vie for roles that Orthodoxy bars them from.

Rather than rush to condemn, the Torah wants us to recognize the Korach-like yearning to participate that every Jew feels. Not every Jew expresses that wish; not every Jew knows what do with it. Every Jew has it.

Each of us needs to nurture the yearning for greater spiritual participation that we feel and that others feel. We also need to learn how best to channel that want, so that its passion can spiritually uplift us rather than distract us.

This week we commemorate the Lubavitcher Rebbe (Thursday, the third of Tammuz, is the Rebbe’s yahrtzeit), someone whose life-mission epitomizes recognizing the soul-thirst that every Jew has and innovating methods to grow it into proper focused spiritual success.

We would all do well to emulate his example, and cultivate the spark within the Korachs we encounter.

Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.

Sunday, 14 June 2009- South Africa is on fire; cars zoom by trailing red, blue and green, Joburgers smile at each other. You can hear our anthem hummed at the supermarket, punctuated with vuvuzela blasts. We are the host nation!

Monday, 15 June 2009- Joburg is gloomy. Our hearts flutter with the forlorn flags. Vuvuzelas whisper the reality: Bafana will never make it.

Thursday, 18 June 2009- Yes, there is hope. 2-0!

After Bafana’s dismal showing against Iraq, there was a flurry of told-you-so’s. We all knew our team was sub-standard and were disappointed, but not surprised at their weak leg-work. Today, the die-hard patriots are warning against writing SA soccer off prematurely. Saturday night will tell who’s right, when our national team takes on one of soccer’s giants.

Just hours before the whistle, we’ll be at Shul, reading the secret of winning that match. More importantly, we’ll read the secret of winning the matches we play daily in our lives.

G-d took the Jews out of Egypt with the promise of a land. Every promise He had made to us, he kept. He guaranteed that He would take us out of Egypt, get us across the sea and miraculously care for us in the desert. He delivered every time.

To enter the Promised Land, He wanted the people to work out how they could succeed. G-d resisted playing Guide and allowed them to try figure it out. It should have been their crowning moment. They should have understood that He wasn’t abandoning them, only maturing them. But, they missed it. Rather than believing in themselves as their Maker did, they doubted.

They considered the goal, to take over a land occupied by pagans and transform it into a haven of holiness and hesitated. Impossible!

As soon as they declared the mission impossible, it became impossible. They could no longer enter that land and, instead, died in the desert. Only their children, who were naive enough to believe in miracles, went on to create the miracle of the Promised Land.

Bafana may or may not make it through to the semis., but if they see themselves as winners they stand a chance.

We have an advantage, G-d has assured us of success in our spiritual endeavors. If we only trust that we can succeed, we will.

Get rich quick schemes

Bernie Madoff rocked the financial world last December when his $50 billion Ponzi scheme was exposed. Last week, South Africa uncovered its own ponzi mastermind and the smouldering trail of the billions that he took from investors.

South Africa's Jewish community is hurting as many have lost huge sums in this scam. Some have lost everything. People are shocked at how what looked like a watertight investment, proposed by a decent guy was really a skilfully contrived money-sucking plot.

I suppose this is one of those times to be grateful if you don't have much money. Nobody approached me to invest in this "amazing opportunity".

Timing is everything and G-d always designs events to happen around Torah portions that help you understand what has happened- or at least what you should learn from it.

Yesterday's Torah portion (which we read just hours after the story broke) describes the dangers of greed and worse, of expecting too-good-to-be-true returns on investment. It recalls how the Jews complained to Moses about the food he provided for them in the desert. Now, Jews complaining about food is not too unusual (after all, waiters at kosher restaurants often ask the patrons during the meal if anything is ok), but this fuss went beyond the norm.

Jews in the desert ate manna, a spiritual food that tasted like anything you could imagine and was nutrionally balanced to perfection. Still, that apparently wasn't enough and the Children of Israel insisted they needed meat. Moses wasn't happy, and neither was G-d who warned that the meat would come, but at a hefty price. With meat still stuck between their teeth, the carnivorous faction all died.

Lesson 1: When you have what you need and are still greedy for more, beware! As attractive as it may seem, greed always comes back to bite.

Even more intriguing than their urge to replace manna with meat was the line of argument the rabble-rousers used. "We remember the fish that we ate in Egypt for free!" they exclaimed.

For free? What higher price can there be than paying for something with your independence? They were slaves in Egypt, they paid with their lives for the "free" fish. Technically, the meals in Auschwitz were also free, but who would be as callous as to refer to them that way.

Rashi (the first commentary you consult to decode a Torah verse) solves the mystery. Nobody believed that the food in Egypt was free. They were saying that they missed eating for "free", without any moral responsibility.

Chassidic teachings develop the theme, stating that whatever appears to be "free" belongs to Egypt. Egypt is the antithesis of holiness. To attain spiritual meaning requires effort. Anything that comes too easily belongs to Egypt. It is treif.

If someone tells you to invest money and you will get near-immediate over-the-top returns for doing nothing, know that is Egypt speaking. It is treif.

If they assure you that you can fix your marriage by simply reading a book or attending a seminar, Egypt is at it again. When someone proposes that you can raise wholesome children in a few easy steps, he is coming at you from the Nile Delta. And let nobody assure you that erratic shul visits and an occasional shiur will mature your soul.

Anything valuable in life comes through effort. Nobody should try to convince you otherwise, because only nothing is for nothing.

How to heal yourself

Just the other day, the Hayom Yom (daily inspirational thought from the Rebbe) compared spiritual ailments to physical illness.

Before you can begin healing, it said, you need to admit you are unwell and identify the cause of the illness.

Here's a good example: http://tinyurl.com/lts4fy

I guess our challenge is to do for our souls what she did for her body.

Don't throw it out

Joe Goldberg phones his stock broker in a panic. “Sell everything immediately,” he shouts into the phone. Joe’s broker is stunned and tries to dissuade Joe from making such a rash move. Seeing he is getting nowhere, the broker asks Joe what has prompted him to suddenly want to sell up.

“Well,” Joe explains, “For the last twenty years I’ve lied to my wife. She doesn’t trust the markets and forbade me from investing. So, whenever I’ve invested money, I’ve told her I was stuffing it into the mattress for safekeeping.”

“Ok,” the broker slowly replies, wondering where Joe was headed, “So, what’s the problem?”

“Well, you see,” Joe continues, “She’s just bought a new mattress- and they’re delivering it tomorrow!”

I heard this story less than a week ago, and smiled. Yesterday, I heard a bizarre real-life version of the same story. A woman in Tel Aviv - known simply as Annat- surprised her mother with a new mattress for her birthday, tossing her old one into the garbage. When mom arrived home, she was horrified. Over decades, she had stuffed $1 million of her savings into her tattered old bedding.

Now, the search is on at dozens of Israeli dumps and landfills, as the family hopes to recover the missing mattress.

Annat and her mom embody the Jewish story. Our zeides and bobbas painstakingly invested emotion and energy to create a heritage that would keep the next generation Jewish. Many of their children felt ashamed of the grey, worn and outdated “bed” their parents clung to. They threw it out and replaced it with a new-fangled, ergonomic version. And only then, when the old “mattress” was gone, did they appreciate what they had given up. Now the search is on- to recapture the treasure that our heritage offers.

If you have an “old mattress”, don’t rush to throw it out. If you don’t have one- start searching. You never know who will find it first.

(What) were you thinking?

In 1859, New York Congressman, Daniel Sickles gunned Philip Barton Key down in cold blood. Twenty-three years later, Charles J. Guiteau assassinated U.S. President James Garfield at a Boston railway station. The former was acquitted, the latter hanged. Both accused used the same line of defense- one that would become both notorious and intriguing: “temporary insanity”.

Had either case gone before a Beth Din, the judges would have laughed their defense right out of the courtroom. Judaism teaches that a person only ever does something wrong if they are temporarily insane, because a thinking Jew would naturally do as G-d wishes. The legal term for this is “shtus” or foolishness and the Talmud preaches that a person does not sin unless they have momentary shtus.

You might feel uncomfortable with the thought of lapsing into insanity a number of times a day (an hour?), but it really is a comforting notion.

We all know that we’re not perfect and that we mess up regularly. We promise ourselves that we will treat people better, keep the gossip down, learn more and grow spiritually. With all good intentions, much of the time we let ourselves down.

Some religions preach that messing up is part of being human; that we are inherently sinners, programmed to fail and destined to pay the price.

Judaism sees things completely differently. It teaches that we are innately spiritual and that spiritual success is programmed into our systems. When we mess up- regardless of how frequently that happens- we get up, dust ourselves off and move on.

You’ve surely stopped to ask yourself “what was I thinking” after behaving in a way that you know doesn’t suit you. In fact, you should probably acknowledge that “I wasn’t thinking”. Messing up happens when we stop thinking for a moment; when we lose our focus and succumb to shtus. Fixing that is merely a matter of getting back on task, refocusing our mind and getting in touch with our true self.

Judaism argues that getting it wrong is temporary and out of character. And easy to fix.

Do you echo?

You know that feeling when you stop at a Joburg intersection and a taxi pulls up next to you, heavy bass booming from his radio, into your car, through your chest and stomach and out the other side? That is a sampling of what the Jews felt like at Mt. Sinai.

When G-d’s voice blasted the Ten Commandments at us from all six directions, it produced the most powerful sound every heard by humans. G-d’s thundering announcements hurled the people hundreds of metres backwards, knocking their souls our of their bodies. G-d had to dispatch an emergency angel team to revive them and bring them back to the foot of the mountain.

Every nation in the region quaked from the intense sound. Birds stopped chirping, animals froze and nature paused as the Divine sonic boom overwhelmed them all.

But, the powerful noise did not echo.

If you have ever visited the Sinai, you will know how stark and rocky it is. In that stony, sandy environment, you would think that every sound should echo, certainly a very loud one. Why did G-d’s voice defy nature and not reverberate?

The simple science of echoes might help us understand. Noise is really a series of sound-waves that emit from a source. If those sound-waves hit an obstacle that will not absorb them, they bounce back in the direction they came from. This is an echo.

Torah and its directives are designed for the real world. G-d does not want us to escape normal life to attain spirituality; He wants us to embed holiness within the normal life that we live. In other words, He intended His message to sink in to the world, not to bounce off its surface. If His message had echoed, it would have implied that it was too spiritual and could not be absorbed by our world.

On Shavuos you should ask yourself: “Do I echo?”

It's all a numbers game

“Not one, not two, not three...” anybody who has been at the morning minyan will know about counting the crowd and waiting for that 10th man to arrive.

The Jewish community seems obsessed with numbers: “How many members does your Shul have?” “How many people were at the talk last night?” “How many guests did the Goldbergs have at their son’s barmitzvah?”

Is Judaism simply a numbers game? Do we rate the value of an institution, event or family by how many followers they attract?

In the early days of Facebook, a friend of mine won a radio competition for having the most “friends” in Joburg. I doubt whether he knows more than half of them, but he’s winning the numbers game anyway.

There are two ways to count people: You could reduce each person to a simple number, a statistic in a census, a mark on a ballot paper or a cog in a massive machine. Just 65 years ago, one-third of our nation was demeaned into a faceless sea of numbered bodies.

Or you could count them like the attentive collector, who proudly counts his artifacts or diamonds again and again- with love.

Jews don’t count Jews. We dare not relegate our fellow to a simple number. Hence the “not one, not two” formula for figuring out how many minyan-makers are present. It reminds us that a person is not a number.

G-d does count Jews. He obviously knows how many of us there are, so He’s not counting for numbers’ sake. He counts us to express His love and pleasure, like one who relishes knowing exactly how much he has of what he loves.

We are expected to emulate Him, to always see the preciousness of our fellow Jew.

Are you really better than the next guy?

Reb Hillel of Paritch was a tremendous Torah scholar who “crossed the floor” and became a Chabad Chossid. Over the years, he became a dedicated student of the second and third of the Chabad Rebbes, but never managed to meet the Alter Rebbe, founder of Chabad.

It’s not that he hadn’t tried, but Providence ensured that each time he arrived in a town that the Alter Rebbe was visiting, he just missed the Tzadik by a day. Eventually, Reb Hillel researched the Rebbe’s movements ahead in advance and arrived in a small shtetl ahead of the Rebbe’s brief visit there.

To make sure he would not miss the chance to meet the Rebbe, he smuggled himself into the Rebbe’s room, hid under the bed and waited...

Excited by the prospect of meeting this great Torah personality, Reb Hillel had prepared some intricate questions on the obscure topic of “erchin” (the appraisal of people’s value to donate to the Temple) to pose to the Alter Rebbe.

As the Rebbe walked into the room, before Reb Hillel could move, he announced: “If a young man has a question regarding appraising people, he should first concentrate on appraising himself!”

Reb Hillel fainted; the Rebbe’s message had hit its mark. By the time he came to, the Rebbe had left and Reb Hillel never got to meet him.

A man once asked the fifth Lubavitcher Rebbe why he allocated so much of his time to simple Jews, when he could surely have better invested his time with scholars. The fellow happened to be a diamond merchant, so the Rebbe asked to see his stones.

As he looked through the collection, the Rebbe remarked that he didn’t see why a particular stone was so expensive, it seemed rather ordinary. The dealer patiently explained that, as an expert, he could see the value of a stone that an inexperienced person could not see.

“I,” said the Rebbe, “am an expert in people, I can see a value that you cannot...”

If we are unable to see that preciousness in the next Jew, it is ourselves we need to assess.

What I learned from Jacob Zuma

Like him or hate him, you've got to respect him. Jacob Zuma may have a checkered past, but he stole the hearts of South Africa and led the ANC to a landslide election victory last week.

I wouldn't advocate learning morals or honesty from Zuma, but here are a few things you can learn:

1. Don't limit yourself by what other say

Zuma stared down raging condemnation and campaigned his way to the country's top position.

As a Jew, you can expect plenty global criticism. Turn a blind eye and get on with what you know you need to do.

2. You don't have to know how it will all work out

I doubt whether JZ knew quite how he would wiggle out of his corruption trial. His skeleton-filled closet threatened to burst open right up until literally moments before the poll.

Today was the birthday of the fourth Lubavitcher Rebbe, whose motto was Lechatchila Ariber: Stay focused on your goal, put your head down and go for it. Don't waste time worrying about what could go wrong- just make it happen.

3. They don't care how much you know...

... but they know when you care. Zuma ousted the dispassionate and aloof, AIDS-denier Thabo Mbeki using his suave, people-friendly personality. He showed that he could relate to real people and their real problems, and that swung the electorate.

Being Jewish is not all about knowledge- despite what people may tell you- but about sincerely caring for your fellow Jew. Knowing the Talmud backwards, but being judgmental of the Jew who drives on Shabbos undermines the fundamentals of our faith.

4. Dare to conquer your enemy

The greatest coup of this election was the ANC's overwhelming victory in Kwazulu Natal. KZN is a traditionally Zulu stronghold and the most powerful base of Mangosuthu Buthelezi's IFP party. Never before has the ANC made such inroads into this region.

But Zuma is a Zulu. He campaigned heavily in volatile territory- and won.

A Jew is expected to venture into the "enemy territory" of our the mundane world, and transform it into holy territory. Be it business, excercise or eating- a Jew can and should convert the experience from its default position to serving a new and higher purpose.

Missed opportunities?

My brother has recently made Aliyah and moved to Modi'in. Over Pesach, he came to visit and told us all about the vibrant lifestyle in this fast-growing town. From the way he described their ultra-modern home, spectacular public transport system and overwhelmingly warm community, I can't wait to see it for myself. (I might have even considered moving there myself, but we've got plenty work to do here in S.A. so Israel's on hold till Moshiach).

Modi'in is clearly one of the most attractive places in Israel to live and real estate is very valuable. That made me wonder about people who had owned land there twenty some years ago, when Modi'in was little more than a Bohemian settlement. Those who had foresight to buy then must be sitting pretty now.

Then I remembered that we actually had family who almost moved to Modi'in in the early nineties. They almost became millionaires (considering that they almost bought property that would have fetched a fortune in today's market).

We all have "almost" stories. "Almost" made a fortune of money, "almost" met a public figure, "almost" this and "almost" that. Life is full of opportunities, but we almost always seem to miss the really good ones.

Last Wednesday was election day in South Africa. Like a good citizen should, I headed to the polling station up the road. Voting was moving very slowly and it took over an hour to cast my ballot. Normally, I would have stood and chatted to the strangers in line, possibly daydreamed or fretted at the inefficiency of it all.

For once, though, I had enough foresight to take advantage of the time. I took a book that I had needed to study and got through about half of it during the wait. Opportunity used.

Standing there reading reminded me of the Vilna Gaon, who quipped that he became a Torah giant in all those five minutes' that others simply wasted.

We are currently counting the Omer. The Omer days are not festivals, they're ordinary days. Counting the Omer each day transforms each day into a meaningful time- a mitzvah day.

You need less than five minues each evening to to count the Omer. In that short mitzvah-moment, you transform you whole day. Here is a cheap investment that offers great returns.

Counting the Omer is all about not missing opportunities. Yom Tov is always an inspiring time and, be it Pesach or Rosh Hashanah, we naturally feel we need to take advantage while the opportunity lasts. The Omer shows us that we don't need to wait for special days to find opportunities for meaning. They are there every day. And they only take a few minutes.

Five minutes of focus each day can change your whole day. Use five minutes each day for something worthwhile- a Torah-byte, chapter of Tehillim or one kind deed. It will change your day, possibly you life.

And, at the end, you won't have to look back and say "I almost made my life meaningful".

Make it count

Did you vote?

I did. I even have the purple thumbnail to prove it.

Counting votes slowly continues today. One by one by one, IEC officials are tallying the tail end of some 20 million ballots. Some didn’t bother to vote, figuring they wouldn’t change the Zuma fait accomplis. Each result-update emphasizes how every ballot paper really does combine to create a grand total.

In Pretoria they’re counting the polls. Around the world, we’re counting the days. It’s now the time of numbers, of counting. It’s the period called Sefiras Ha’omer.

From second night Pesach until Shavuos, we count each day and tally each week in the longest seasonal mitzvah marathon of the year. Simply put, we’re counting the days until we re-receive the Torah on Shavuos.

Sefiras Ha’omer is more than a simple day-by-day count, though. Numbering the days as we do at this time alerts us to the message of counting.

You count things that are valuable. Some people count their money, others their blessings. Judaism teaches us to count every day that we live, to cherish each one and to make it count.

At the end of his life, our patriarch Avraham is described as “old and ‘come’ in days”. Avraham didn’t waste a day. When he looked back over his long and productive life, he could proudly recall how he had filled each day with meaning.

As the IEC does their counting, let’s make sure to do ours. Our challenge is to fill each day with meaning and growth.

Giving charity makes you money

There's new proof to show that giving charity makes you wealthy. Take a look.

Message from a guy in a dogbox

If you have ever visited Covent Gardens in central London, you'll know just how diverse and entertaining a place it is. If you've never been, put it on your itinerary for your next visit.

We stepped off the Underground and into the human sea there last Sunday morning. As we turned into the pedestrian mall, I noticed a guy with his purple hair tied back in a ponytail. Figuring my kids would find that intriguing, I planned to surreptitiously snap a shot without attracting his attention.

My brother-in-law, who is far more audacious than I, decided to create the photo-op for me. He strode over to Purple-Hair, offered a loud American "hello" and asked if they could pose together for a photo. Politely, our model agreed, but I couldn't help thinking that he probably looked at our beards, tzitzis and yarmulkes and figured: "Boy, these guys look strange."

We continued on past jugglers, mimes and buskers, while the "how do they look at us" complex bounced around in my head as we walked.

A creative busker caught our eye. He sat under a table, with his head protruding into a dog travel-box (you know, the type they use to take dogs on planes) and his face painted Fido-like. Two paw-gloves and a fluffy tail sticking out of the box topped off the costume.

The guy in the dog-box teased passersby, sang and made everyone smile. Seeing us, he asked: "Are you Loob'evitch?"

I'll admit, I was surprised.

"I like the Loob'evitch," he continued, "they're cool!"

Now, I was truly gobsmacked.

Purple-Hair had given me a frum-appearance complex, but Guy Dogbox restored my perspective.

Yesterday, we started reading the third book of the Torah, Vayikra. The first word, Vayikra, is spelled with a shrunken letter Alef. It is unusual for a letter in the Torah to be enlarged or minimised, so when it happens, you need to pay attention and learn something.

Elsewhere, the first word of the book of Chronicles starts with an enlarged letter Alef at the head of the name "Adam".

Vayikra describes how G-d calls Moses, while Chronicles talks about Adam, the first human tasked with making the world a better place. Between the two Alefs we learn a powerful lesson: When dealing with G-d, shrink your Alef* and stand humble and ready to hear His instruction. When facing the world, let your Alef stand tall and proud so that the world respects who you are and is ready to learn from you.

Unfortunately, we often get our Alefs mixed up. We express our opinion when it's time to listen to G-d and sit back daunted when we look the world in the eye.

Luckily, Hashem sometimes sends us reminders- in the most unexpected ways- to reset our Alef perspective.

We continued down the cobblestone, while the Dogbox struck up a lively "Hava Nagilla".

* Alef is the first letter of "Ani", the Hebrew for "I".

Stealing the limelight

Every tourist to London inevitably stops for a photo-op at Buckingham Palace. We were no exception and chose to get there for the much talked-about “changing of the guard”.

We arrived just moments before the royal spectacle began and the streets were already overcrowded with Nikon-wielding tourists from around the globe, vying for front row spots. We joined the throng to the first strains of march music as the Bearskins rounded the corner, followed by the stiffly synchronised marching guards.

We were not close enough to watch all the proceedings inside the palace grounds, but caught glimpses of flags marching back and forth and heard the barking of orders as the shifts changed. My camera captured more than my eye could and- thanks to digital technology- I was able to watch everything frame-by-frame a few seconds after it happened. Stretch arm, snap, look at photo, stretch, snap, repeat.

One photo is particularly revealing. It shows a flag-bearing guard and his armed counterpart brusquely marching along, while a nondescript suit ‘n tie clad man with an ID tag dangling from his neck looks on from inside a doorway.

My first thought when I saw it: “There’s the real security of Buckingham Palace”.

The honour guard at the palace is a great tourist trap, but the royals are most likely watched over by people you wouldn’t even notice.

Serving the King of kings is not too different. Some strut their Mitzvah stuff with a display that turns heads and elicits gasps of admiration. Others go about doing what needs to be done, with nobody noticing.

As we start the third book of the Torah this week, we will read the secret of offerings to G-d: “Adam (a man) who brings from you an offering to G-d”.

In Hebrew, you could also call a man ish, gever or enosh, yet the Torah chooses the name Adam in this context. It wants to remind us of the first person to ever give something to G-d: Adam. Soon after his creation, Adam offered a sacrifice to G-d. Nobody else was around to see what he had done. Adam was not out to impress anyone with his dedication to the Divine, because there was nobody around to impress.

The Torah highlights this message: Before you get into the details of what you plan to do for G-d, make sure you know how to do for G-d. Be like Adam, unconcerned for the approval of others, focused instead on what G-d needs you to do .