"Tzippi" was originally from the Los Angeles area. After finishing university with honors, she discovered her roots and became a baalat teshuva, a newly observant Jewess. That was about seven years ago. She landed a job in the midwest, met a seemingly-Orthodox guy, and married him. The marriage was a disaster on all counts. She wanted a husband who loved Torah, but her husband neither loved Torah, hard work or her. He liked looking at movies, magazines and women in the street. Tzippi went through a painful divorce, was left with almost nothing, and began a new life in Israel.
In Israel, Tzippi met a sweet, humble, G-d fearing righteous convert who strongly follows the teachings of Breslev and Rav Shalom Arush. Recently, Tzippi and her husband Avi celebrated their third wedding anniversary. They have a gorgeous toddler who just turned two years old. Tzippi recently wrote me, thanking me for the spiritual guidance I was privileged to give her along the way. She asked me to quote her, as follows:
"Rabbi Brody, you can quote me: being married to a guy who doesn’t guard his eyes is worse than Gehinnom (purgatory - LB), and being married to a guy who guards them is mamash Gan Eden (truly the Garden of Eden - LB). I am incredibly humbled by how far Hashem has brought me. thank you again for your major role in bringing me here, and to more true happiness, fulfillment, and shalom bayis (marital bliss - LB) than I ever dreamed was possible."
Guys, if you want a great marriage, start guarding your eyes. Girls, if you don't want your husband to look at other women, then don't make other women's husbands look at you, for that's not fair. Modesty applies in the summer, too. Hashem wants us to be a nation of holiness; once we are, we'll see even bigger miracles than we do today!
With Hashem's loving grace, our weekly emuna lesson and live broadcast will take place as usual this Wednesday evening at 7:00 PM local time, at our Chut Shel Chessed Yeshiva, 13 Shmuel Hanavi Street, Jerusalem, in the main sanctuary. Everyone is welcome, both men and women.
This week's lesson and live broadcast is entitled "The Power of Giving" and it will help us virtually in every area of life.
As always, the live shiur is open to the public - both men and women are welcome - so if you're anywhere near Jerusalem, come on by! You can see today's lesson here - the broadcast, as well as our lessons posted from now on - are Mac and iPod compatible. If you tune in too early to the live broadcast link, you'll be sent to the main page of the Breslev Israel website, so try to tune in on time as follows:
9:00 AM in LA and the West Coast, 10:00 AM Denver, 11:00 AM Mexico and Central, 12:00 PM Eastern Daylight, 5:00 PM in the UK, 7:00 PM Johannesburg and Capetown, 7:00 PM Israel. As soon as we can, G-d willing, we'll post a link to the lesson for all those who couldn't see it live. If you can't see the broadcast, you might need to download a new version of Flash Media player, which you can do here. We hope you enjoy the broadcast.
We'd like to thank everyone for the warm feedback about our short inspirational film clips. Here's another one to brighten your day:
I don't come into contact with too many couch potatoes. Most of the people I know are serious and industrious, self-starting individuals. Most of them are diligent, too, with big aspirations. But many are suffering from "clogged" emotional drains. Happiness and gratification don't seem able to flow through our hearts and brains, which are clogged with worry, anxiety, tension and depression.
What can they do?
They need the right tools in life. Read all about it in The Right Tools, in this week's Breslev Israel web magazine.
Also featured this week:
Rav Shalom Arush - Time for Our Children
Dr. Zev Ballen - Mills or Millstein?
Rivka Levy - A Nation of Journalists
Racheli Reckles - Focused on Themselves
Howard Morton - More Soul than Body
Chaya Ovadia - One Heart, One People
Dovber Halevi - An Answer to Our Prayers
D. Yaakoba - Feminism and the Kotel
Rabbi Dovid Charlop - Anatomy of a Curse, about this week's Torah portion, "Balak"
Bright Beams blessings for a beautiful week!
Here's something special for your Shabbat table: in the clip below, Cantor Ushi Blumenberg and I are on the banks of the Bugg River in Breslev, Ukraine, where Rebbe Natan composed his famous Oz VeHadar niggun. Here's the story behind it and here's the niggun. Also for your Shabbat table, don't miss the post right below this, with our weekly mini-lesson on the parsha. Shabbat Shalom!
Jewish unity means so much to me; so, when I see the infighting, slander and mudslinging that is so prevalant nowadays, how Jews are verbally slitting each other's throats, I'm simply horrified to think of what's in store if we all don't make teshuva fast. That's why the film staff of Breslev Israel and I put together the following film clip. Please forward it to everyone you know, especially before the Three Weeks, which will soon be upon us. Let's all say "No" to lashon hara, evil speech.