IMPRISONMENT ?
Dear Family
Hope you are all well.
Welcome back from Australia Batsheva, and thank you Baty and Shmueli and Mrs Bassin for hosting.
This week we commemorated the release from Soviet prison of The Frierdike Rebbe in 1927.
The Stalin regime were known to have killed 20 million people, and many other people who were arrested at the same time as the Rebbe were killed.
Yet the Frierdike Rebbe was not only fearless with his imprisonment, but also made an absolute decision to not co operate at all with the prison officials.
Governments around the world rallied for his release, and even after he was granted freedom after his one month or so imprisonment, he refused to go in to the carriage because it would have meant travelling on Shabbos!
After his release the Frierdike Rebbe said a sicha on birkat hagomel.
This is a prayer said when a person has survived through 4 dangerous situations ie
1. Imprisonment - Chavush
2. Illness - Yissurim
3. Going over the seas - Yam
4. Going through a desert - Midbar.
The first letters of those 4 Hebrew words spell out CHAIM (life) and our Rabbis link this to the Pasuk 'Vechol HACHAIM YODUCHA sella'
The Frierdike Rebbe then goes on to show that besides the physical danger, each one of these areas has a Spiritual element ie
1. Imprisonment - the Yetzer Hara (evil Inclination) rules over the person and doesn't allow him or her to serve Hashem
2. Illness - The heart and head are blocked up ie the head cannot absorb or understand Torah, and the heart does not wish to come close to Hashem.
3. Seas - Person is drowning in the worries of business and the world, and disturbing him from keeping the Mitzvos.
4. Desert - Dryness with snakes and scorpions - person has no enthusiasm for anything Holy
AND THEN THE REBBE SAYS THAT ALL THESE ITEMS ACTUALLY COME FROM HASHEM!
AND WHY?
SO THAT THE PERSON, THROUGH THESE, SHOULD COME TO A HIGH LEVEL OF CLOSENESS AND SERVICE TO HASHEM. BECAUSE A JEW HAS THIS POWER TO OVERCOME.
Another very interesting point about Birkat Hagomel, and the beautiful integrated nature of all parts of Torah, is visible if we look at kapitel 107 (Psalm 107)
The kepitel starts HODU L'HASHEM.
If you then read through the kapitel you will find the word YODU come up 4 times.
And similarly the word YITZAKU (called out) comes up 4 times.
And within each of these 4 sections you will find a description of one of the 4 dangerous situations for which Birkat Hagomel is said!!!
And there is much more to it and deeper.
Wishing everyone a Gut Shabbos and success and joy with overcoming problems.
5 MINUTES OF RAMBAM PER WEEK - Sefer Tahara, Hilchos Tumas Meis, Chaps 1-7 - PAGE 3
https://docs.google.com/document/d/11HZfgZ_lp03yxfX9g1vYZbkseHUQzf7RaexeLEoU k0s/edit