Monthly Archives: February 2009

Medinat Yisrael: A Breslov view

Medinat Yisrael

 

War of Independence – 1948

Rabbi Avraham Sternhartz, a leading figure in the Breslov community in Kremenchug and Uman and later in Eretz Yisrael, lived through the turbulent years of early Zionism, culminating in the War of Independence in 1948 and the stablishment of the State of Israel. He once told his disciple, Rabbi Gedaliah Kenig, "The medinah (secular state) is the klippah (husk) that precedes the fruit – but it is also a shemirah (protection) on the fruit.”

In a similar vein, Reb Gedaliah once explained to his disciples that despite the problems created by secular Zionism, we must appreciate that because of the existence of the medinah, tens of thousands of Jews put on Tefillin, keep Shabbos, etc.

(source: http://asimplejew.blogspot.com/2009/02/medinat-yisrael.html )

 

Finding Perfection

By Tzvi Freeman

(The Rebbe's response to a girl who wanted to leave her school for what she thought to be a better one:)

You have to begin with the knowledge that there is nothing perfect in this world. Our job is not to hunt down perfection and live within it. It is to take whatever broken pieces we have found and sew them together as best we can.