This Shabbat:
Friday Candle Lighting: 5:08 pm
Shabbat Ends: 5:57 pm
Upcoming events:
Torah Message:
The Greatest Darkness
“No man could see his brother, nor could anyone rise from his place…” (10:23)
The greatest darkness is when we think we see other people — but we don’t really see them; they are just floating figures in the background of the landscape of our lives — mere bit-players from “Central Casting”. The result of “no man could see his brother” is that no one “could rise from his place” — the power of feeling sympathy becomes atrophied, dark and stunted. We can give others the lip-service of sympathy but our hearts can still be blind. In Hebrew the word for sympathy translates literally “to be a partner in grief”. Being a partner is not a spectator sport. It requires a “seeing” that is pro-active, that reaches out into the darkness of another’s life and joins that life to ease its pain.
- Source: based on the Chiddushei HaRim