TO WORK OR NOT TO WORK?

Dear Family,

I hope that everyone is well, have had wonderful Yomtovim, and have all returned back to regular schedules!

Yom Tov here was very nice having the Vogel Family with us, plus guests, and it was also great having Lyss (Pollock) and Nadav join with us from Birmingham and Leeds BH!

Mazal Tov again to Avi for his birthday today. It was great being with you and the whole Family over Sukkos etc Avi. Thank you all, and wishing you a shnas hatzlochah, and a carry through of all the brochos from Hashem over Yomtov into your whole year!

Mazal Tov to Netanel whose birthday is next week. Wishing you a great year Netanel, with success in all your schoolwork and leisure activities!

Attached find our updated Family Tree to reflect the new addition of Chava Nava Glick BH. Mazal Tov again!

The theme that I found interesting this week was about WORK, relating to this week's Sedra Noach, which I learnt from a maamer of the Alte Rebbe, and also from the Sedra itself. I would like to share 3 points

Maamer (from Torah Or much summarized)

• The 'many waters' of the flood of Noach are compared to the 'many waters' described

by Shlomo HaMelech in the verse "The many turbulent waters are unable to extinguish the great inner love." (within ourselves)

The 'many turbulent waters' are referring to the worries and EXERTIONS OF WORK that we need to employ to earn a living. And this turbulence is unable to drown the hidden love within the soul of every Jew.

Explanation:

Before coming down to this world, our G-dly soul had been basking in the rays of light of the Shechinah.

It now gets enclothed in a physical body, and has to TOIL and WORK with all the challenges it has to face in this world, and it comes to a state of discomfort and darkness.

It may therefore seem that it not worth all the trouble and our impulses would want to opt for an easy way out.

But the opposite is true. The Alte Rebbe explains that this lowly world has its source from a place higher than where our souls originated.

This can also be seen with food for example, which is apparently at a 'lower level' than human beings. Yet the food has the power to keep us alive.

Similarly, by engaging with the world and all its darkness through WORK, and by battling against our impulses, and contemplating on Hashems Creation through prayer, we have the opportunity to come to a greater light, out of the darkness, than our original source.

Similarly the floods of Noach were not just a punishment, but their essential function was to purify the world.

• Another way of understanding this is to look at the Hebrew word for Ark which is teiva.

Teiva also means 'letters (of the alphabet)'. Ie in the same way as Noah's Ark was not at all affected by the flood, and on the contrary, the flood waters kept raising it higher. Similarly, in the turbulence of our WORK and challenges, we can be elevated by entering into our teiva, being the words of prayer, where the turbulence raises us higher

Sedra

• When the dove returned to the Ark (V8:11) and it had an olive leaf in its beak, Rashi

comments as follows: "Let my food be bitter like an olive from Hashem's hand (referring to HARD WORK), rather than sweet as honey from the hands of human beings (referring to receiving charity)

Wishing everyone a Gut Shabbos and a Gut Chodesh!