By Rabbi Craig H. Ezring

In ancient days during the Yom Kippur Service, the Kohen Gadol, the High Priest would have a moment when he would hold up a scarlet red thread. This red thread represented the sins of the people and when the thread was held up, it would be a way of expressing that the sins of the people were forgiven and that they were as white as snow.

But why would red represent sin? Many of us can remember the story of the Scarlett Letter, where a woman convicted of adultery had to wear a bright red scarlet letter “A” on her chest. I have often wondered why that would be her punishment. After all, wouldn’t that have made many of the menfolk back in her day stare at her chest and wouldn’t that tend to lead them to lust? We talk about the color red for anger as we have the expression, “I was so mad, I was seeing red.”

In “The Color Song”, written by Patricia Shih, we learn that red is “The color of the climbing rose and tomatoes.” We learn that red is “The color of chickenpox and a bloody nose and angry words.” And, while it’s not in the song, red can also be the color of a delicious apple and, if you read the story of Adam and Eve in most English versions of the Bible, then you have been taught to associate red with sin via an apple.

And yet, red is also the color that we see on a stoplight or on a stop sign. Now, it’s no secret that many people behind the wheel of a car down here in Sunny South Florida don’t observe the rules of the road and they fail to stop at a red light, I think the idea of the color red being used as a sign that we should stop is a wonderful thing.

Red also happens to be the color we turn when we feel embarrassed. I have long been a fan of watching shows along the ilk of Judge Judy and I have noticed something. Next time you watch, check it out. You see, people don’t just get red with anger. When someone listens closely to the judge and is scolded for what they failed to realize they had done wrong, some turn red, not in anger, but red with embarrassment.

Okay, maybe not many, but some. And let me tell you something, those who turn red with embarrassment realize that they have done wrong, they are the ones who have a good chance of stopping themselves before making the same mistake again. But those who don’t turn red, well, sadly, there is a good likelihood that they will never admit their mistakes and, therefore, they will see no reason to stop themselves from doing the very same thing in the future.

So look around at all the beautiful colors that G-d has put on this earth and the next time you see the color red, let it remind you to stop and think before you do something that will cause you embarrassment.

Shalom my friends,

Rabbi Craig H. Ezring

Rabbi Ezring is the spiritual leader of Temple Beth Israel of Deerfield Beach. We welcome you to join our warm and caring family for Shabbat and festival services. We’ll make your heart glow…who knows, you might even fall in love with Shul all over again.

There is a time for everything under the heavens, a time to be born and a time to die … a time to open your mouth and a time to keep it shut! May 5th is Yom HaZikaron, Israel’s Memorial Day, a day of tears and remembrance. The very next day, the 6th, is Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israel Independence Day, a day of joy and merriment. Such is the way of the world. We have times that we are lost in grief and we have times that we are feeling high as a kite. Yet, there are people who seldom, if ever, have a chance to look on what Brian of Monty Python fame would call “The Sunny Side of Life.”

Have you ever brought a smile to someone’s face? It feels pretty good, doesn’t it?

Have you ever gotten someone to laugh so hard they were rolling in the aisles? It feels great, doesn’t it? Now, let me ask another question — have you ever hurt someone? Have you ever made someone cry? Doesn’t feel so good, does it?

And yet, without thinking, we, arguably the most intelligent beings on the planet, have an incredible habit of causing pain to others. One particular example got me in the midst of the Passover Holiday. An elderly woman I know was rushed to the hospital. As her friends and neighbors found out that she was having health difficulties, they began calling her. One took care of her beloved poodle, another took care of her mail, another came to visit her each day. Everyone was helping the hospitalized woman, putting her mind at ease and, even in the midst of her pain, she couldn’t help but smile at how her friends were rallying around her.

But then her friends began to question why the woman’s sister, who lived in the area, was not doing anything to help. They began gossiping about the sister, and it went from bad to worse. They were saying how cold she is, how she must not care about her sister at all. And, before long, one of them just had to say something to the hospitalized woman and it wasn’t pretty.

Well, there are phones in the hospital, but the woman was not up to using one just yet. So she lay there in that bed fuming. She got angrier and angrier at her sister. Then, the day came when she was able to make a call and she got no answer. Want to know why? It seems her sister had been rushed to the hospital the very same day and was going through her own medical crisis, and her friends were wondering why her sister wasn’t there to help her.

So, did all these well-meaning friends help the situation or hurt it? How much better would it have been if they simply concentrated on what they were able to do to help instead of deciding what someone else should or shouldn’t be doing? As the Talmud teaches us, “People eat and drink together, yet pierce each other with the sword of their tongues.” (Yomah, 9b)

When I was a young boy, I came home from school and saw the ugliest thing I had ever seen on my Momma’s kitchen sink. It was a huge cow’s tongue. I couldn’t believe that something that tasted so delicious could possibly be so gross. I guess it was that day that I learned that the tongue can be sweet as sugar or it can be gross as can be. It all depends on what we do with it.

Shalom, my friends,

Rabbi Craig H. Ezring

Rabbi Ezring is the spiritual leader of Temple Beth Israel of Deerfield Beach. We welcome you to join our warm and caring family for Shabbat and festival services. We’ll make your heart glow…who knows, you might even fall in love with Shul all over again.

This week, I Googled “skin deep.” I came up with a ton of hits, but the first was for a line of cosmetics. What do we use cosmetics for? We use them to make ourselves look better. We use them to cover up various real or perceived flaws on our face and elsewhere. I think we all deal with skin conditions over the course of our lifetimes as sometimes we are quite thick skinned and sometimes we are quite thin skinned.

Sometimes, we are so sure that we are right that we stubbornly refuse to even consider for even a split second that we might in some way be in the wrong. And, other times, we are so sensitive that no matter what someone may say to us or how they might look at us, we view it as a sleight.

And on those occasions, where we find out that what we perceived as an insult was in no way, shape or form meant as one, or when we find that we were wrong and someone else was right, apologies and admissions of error do not come so easily. In fact, we will often try to cover up the error of our ways.

But imagine if each time you said something bad about someone, that an icky, pussy growth appeared on your face, or your hands, or somewhere else so apparent that anyone seeing you would notice it immediately. What would you try to do?

Well, not too long ago a woman, who suffered her third fall, as she continued to insist she did not need the walker that had been prescribed for her, was re-admitted to a local health center. Only, this time, I was informed by staff that, unlike the other times, she was not coming out of her room. She refused to go to therapy and she turned down all the activities that were available at the center. I went to her room to see her and when I got a look at her face and saw the giant shiner, the big black eye on her face, I figured it had happened during the fall. And do you know why she refused to go out of her room? That’s right, she didn’t want anyone to see her like that.

One of the staff offered to put some cosmetics on to cover it up as much as possible, but I am not so sure that that was the wisest thing to do for this particular woman. I think this woman needed to let others see her shiner and I think, when they asked her what happened, she should use it to teach others the error of her ways … that she should admit that she got it because she was too darned stubborn to listen. And, I think, in doing so, she might not only have helped convince someone else to use a walker, but she would constantly be programming her own thought patterns to use it in the future.

On this Pesach, this Festival of Freedom, I hope that each time you hear yourself complaining about something that someone else does or says that you don’t like, instead of immediately trying to change them, go home, stand in front of the mirror and take a good long look at yourself and, then, go about admitting your own faults and begin the work of freeing yourself from those very faults that you so plainly see in others.

Shalom my friends,

Rabbi Craig H. Ezring

Rabbi Ezring is the spiritual leader of Temple Beth Israel of Deerfield Beach. We welcome you to join our warm and caring family for Shabbat and festival services. We’ll make your heart glow…who knows, you might even fall in love with Shul all over again.

It is just two short weeks to the Festival of Pesach, or, as most of you know it in English, the festival of Passover (begins evening of Apr. 14). Many of us are in the midst of cleaning our house of Chometz, of any products that we are forbidden to have in our possession during this Feast of Unleavened Bread.

We search our houses from one corner to the next, making sure not to miss a single crumb of leavened bread so that everything is totally Kosher l’Pesach, that it is fit for use … meeting the requirements for food that is acceptable during this holiday.

There is a wonderful tradition that certainly grabbed me as a child. It added a lot of fun and anticipation to the start of the festival as my parents would hide little bits of bread in various places in the house and to prepare for the week.

We would shut off the lights and light a candle and walk around the house ,trying to find each and every remaining piece of bread. When a piece was found, we would use a large feather and gently brush the pieces of bread we found into a plastic bag that would later be taken out of the house and burned the next morning. The truth is, I didn’t really care for the feather … and I never particularly liked the heat from the fire that was created to burn the last of the bread. But the search for the bread, that search always filled me with awe, with joy, with excitement.

And sure enough, when the festival actually began, and the first and second night we held huge Seders in our house, there was yet another search that I anxiously awaited — the search for the Afikomen, for the special dessert served on Passover. But, for those of you who might be attending your very first Seder this year, don’t get too excited, because the dessert itself is just a plain piece of matza … no margarine, no jelly, just a plain, simple piece of unleavened bread.

After the luscious meal served at the Seder, the Afikomen for dessert might be quite a letdown, but the search, as I’ve already told you … I loved the search.

And isn’t that what we are all doing? We are searching. I guess the big question is what are we, better yet, what are you, searching for?

I know that to prepare for the festival many of our children will delight in searching the house for every last bread crumb they can find, so that our homes are totally free of any leavened bread. But ridding the home of such foods that we put in our mouths is not enough. If we really want to teach our children the importance of Passover and of ridding the house of breads that rise, if we really want to teach our children about making the house Kasher L’Peach, then we must not only get rid of those things that are forbidden from going into our mouths. We must also get rid of those things that are forbidden from coming out of our mouths.

Our body is a temporary home. It houses our soul. Our mouths are a doorway, allowing things to enter and to leave. May G-d give us the wisdom and the strength to watch not just the foods we put in, but the words we allow out.

Wishing you all a most joyous pesach,

Shalom my friends,

Rabbi Craig H. Ezring

Rabbi Ezring is the spiritual leader of Temple Beth Israel of Deerfield Beach. We welcome you to join our warm and caring family for Shabbat and festival services. We’ll make your heart glow…who knows, you might even fall in love with Shul all over again.

Not long ago, I had an issue with my blood pressure. Fortunately, I have a wonderful Cardiologist, Dr. Lawrence Weinstein, and, with his wisdom, and a bit of mazel, the very first medicine he prescribed for me worked like a charm. Of course, while it worked, the first few samples I was given needed to be cut in half and, let me tell you something, it was not exactly a mechaya to my taste buds.

Mary Poppins sang, “Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.” And while a spoonful of sugar can, indeed, make the medicine go down, it can also make your glucose level go up. And that is when someone mockingly said, “Why don’t you just take it with a grain of salt.” But any of you who have dealt with high blood pressure know that salt is not such a wise thing either as it will make your blood pressure go up. Oy, sometimes you just can’t win.

Truth is, I love salt and most of you who know me know that I also love chocolate … chocolate covered almonds, chocolate covered peanuts, chocolate covered macadamias, chocolate covered pretzels and, let’s not forget the various chocolate pastries we have at our Kiddush at the end of our services.

Then again, we also have things like white fish salad, lox and chips, and do you know what all of those have in common? That’s right, they are loaded with salt. The other day I felt like I was coming down with something and I went out to get some chicken soup. The regular kosher soup I looked at had over 1,000 milligrams of salt in it, so I got the low sodium version, and it still had some 570 grams, enough to overdo my quota for the day.

“You shall season your every offering of meal with salt, you shall not omit from your meal offering the salt of your covenant with G-d, with all your offerings you must offer salt.” (Vayikra 2:13)

To this day, when we partake of Challah on Shabbat, it is traditional to either dip it in salt or to sprinkle some salt on the piece we are about to eat as Challah is representative of one of the sacrifices and a sacrifice requires salt.

While my blood pressure causes me to say “No” to salt and to look at salt in a negative way, I cannot forget that there is a positive side, a holy side to salt as well. For instance, to this day when my throat gets sore, it is not unusual for me to take to gargling with warm salt water.

Isak Diinisen talks about the healing power of salt saying, “The cure for anything is salt water – sweat, tears or the sea.” When I dance, sweat pours out of my pores literally cleansing my body of many impurities. When I am by the sea, my mind is cleansed by the sound of the waves and the beauty of the waters. And, as for tears, what is the main ingredient in tears? Salt water! Tears, too, are cleansing. The falling of those precious drops from your tear ducts cleanses your heart and your soul and enables you to let go of a lot of hurt.

So have a good sweat. Have a good cry. And go spend some time relaxing down by the sea, and, while you are there, I hope you can feel Gd calling out to you reminding you that you are the salt of the earth.

Shalom my friends,

Rabbi Craig H. Ezring

Rabbi Ezring is the spiritual leader of Temple Beth Israel of Deerfield Beach. We welcome you to join our warm and caring family for Shabbat and festival services. We’ll make your heart glow…who knows, you might even fall in love with Shul all over again.

I have this thing about using various melodies for the hymn Adon Olam. Recently, I did it to the tune of the theme from Gilligan’s Island. This was the story of the Skipper and his little buddy Gilligan, along with those who sailed with them on a three-hour tour on the S.S. Minnow, a trip that went horribly awry.

Bob Denver, Bob Hale Jr., Jim Backus … the movie star, the professor and Marianne … every one of these castaways was very different from one another. Each had their own talents, and each learned that, if they were going to survive on that island, then they had better learn to live together as one.

Of course, as far as I can remember, religion never seemed to come up in the show. I guess that was a good thing too, because they would have spent far too much of their time arguing over how many houses of worship to build and which one was better than the other and why.

Most of you remember that old joke about two people who are marooned on a deserted island for several years and, finally, a ship comes to rescue them. When the ship’s captain gets off to meet them, he finds that they have built three houses of worship … and, since there are only two castaways, he has to ask, “Why three?” To which they reply, “One is for me to pray in, the other for him, and the third neither of us would even think of ever walking into.”

According to the Torah, we were like one heart and one soul when we accepted G-d’s Law. That’s right, we were one … and isn’t that what we say of G-d in the Shema, Hear, Oh, Israel, the Lord our G-d is One!

Most of you have heard about the new math. But, while two plus two equaling three might be a bit confusing for you, get this, if you look up the word ONE in the dictionary, one of the definitions will say something along the lines of constituting a unified entity of two or more components … or being in agreement or union.

What on earth does that mean? Does it require two or more to make one?

On Friday nights, we chant L’Cha Dodi which tells us to greet the bride of Sabbath to greet Shabbat as we would a bride. In order for there to be a bride, there has to be another component. There has to be a partner, a groom. Of course, there would be no bride or groom without a mother and father … no mother and father without a bubbe and zaide, etc., etc. And there would be no one if not for G-d.

When Moses gathers all of Israel together again, it is not just to gather them together in one and the same place, at one and the same time, but to instill in them again one and the same vision. Sadly, I have heard far too many politicians on TV lately say that they do not share the same vision. It is time for all of us to gather and find that joint vision again– for that is what makes this country great.

If you want to be Echad … if you want to be one, then you have to EeChed. You have to unite. Let us unite again as one family, one nation, under one flag, under One G-d.

Shalom my friends,

Rabbi Craig H. Ezring

Rabbi Ezring is the spiritual leader of Temple Beth Israel of Deerfield Beach. We welcome you to join our warm and caring family for Shabbat and festival services. We’ll make your heart glow…who knows, you might even fall in love with Shul all over again.

(Great thanks to Rabbi Jacqueline Mates-Muchin for getting the creative juices flowing.)

I know you probably weren’t expecting a Rabbi to bring up Valentine’s Day, but, in case you haven’t figured it out in reading my columns here in The Observer, I am a romantic at heart. So, when I studied the Torah Portion the other week, I couldn’t help but find connections between them.

This Torah reading gave a description of the special clothing, the Kohanim, that Aaron and his sons were to wear. Since Valentine’s Day was coming up, many ads were pushing clothing and jewelry. They showed items of adornment that can be worn on the head, the neck and on the wrist. Why are these items shown as gifts for Valentine’s Day? Well, aside from the fact that the stores are hoping to make lots of money, hopefully, these types of gifts are a way of telling someone you love that they are special to you.

After all, I would not advise you to get the love of your life a new vacuum or a new mop along with a Cupid Card. Why? Because that would not be a very good way of saying that they are special.

So how does this connect with the Torah Reading? Well, for that, we have to look at why Aaron and his sons had special vestments to wear and I can think of no better way of finding the answer then looking at that last piece of the coordinated outfit, the frontlet that the priest was to wear on his forehead, because that piece was inscribed with the words “Holy to the Eternal.”

Of course, reading this, you might think for a moment that only the Priests were special to G-d, that only the priests were to be holy. But we are told to be “A Kingdom of Priests …”

In other words, we are all supposed to be special and we are all supposed to be holy. We are also supposed to emulate G-d. If G-d feeds the hungry, then we are to feed the hungry. If G-d clothes the naked, then we are to clothe the naked. And, if G-d finds people holy … if G-d loves others, then we to are to find people holy and love them.

Now, please don’t get me wrong, in Judaism we are not exactly fond of tattoos, so I am not suggesting that you have your loved ones tattooed on the forehead with the words “Holy to me.” But, I would suggest you try this to add to the holiness and the love in your life … each time you look at those you love, imagine those words on their forehead. Remember that we have the ability to decide what is holy and special to us.

In a perfect world, we would all be special to one another; but, for now, having just celebrated Valentine’s Day, at least see those words on your spouse, on your parents, on your children and then let those words change how you treat them.

Before you do something like getting angry or giving the silent treatment, before you tell them you don’t have time for this or that, don’t just imagine the words “Holy to me” on their forehead. Show them how Holy they are to you and show them how very much you love them as, when you do, you truly show them that they are consecrated unto you.

Shalom my friends,

Rabbi Craig H. Ezring

Rabbi Ezring is the spiritual leader of Temple Beth Israel of Deerfield Beach. We welcome you to join our warm and caring family for Shabbat and festival services. We’ll make your heart glow…who knows, you might even fall in love with Shul all over again.

Yitro was a complex man, living in complex times, in a complex neighborhood. Sounds pretty complex doesn’t it? Do you recognize the words I just used? They are the same words that Vice President Joe Biden used at Ariel Sharon’s funeral.

Yitro is indeed a complex man. He is a priest of Midian. Some would say Yitro was the first convert to the Jewish Faith as after hearing of Israel’s liberation, Yitro went to join the Children of Israel. But his words are that of someone who still believes in many gods as he tells Moses that the G-d of Israel is surely the most powerful of all the gods. So you see, Yitro is a complex man where theology is concerned.

He is also complex as a father and as a father-in-law. He takes his daughter and grandchildren away for a time; some say because Moses was going to war, others say because Moses was so busy with his work. But, it is also Yitro who brings them back to Moses. As I said, Yitro is a complex man. Yitro loves his daughter and his son-in-law. He watches Moses and what does he see? He sees that Moses is busy at work from dusk to dawn. He takes him aside. He lets him know that he has taken on an impossible task. He lets him know that he is working so hard that he is endangering his own health. He lets him know that his working such hours is damaging his marriage and he is also missing out on the joy of watching his children grow, and the children are missing out on quality time with their father.

He goes on to tell him that when you have used up all your brain power you can make mistakes in judgment, and when you have used up all your physical stamina, you just can’t think clear enough to make proper decisions.

Let’s put this in terms we can all understand. If you had to have surgery, would you prefer to have the surgeon do the operation first thing in the morning when he is all rested and ready to face the day, or would you rather be the last surgery of the day after the surgeon has already had to perform more surgeries than were originally scheduled, as there were some emergency cases … and the doctor is exhausted and has not had enough to eat or drink, and has been standing on his feet all day with his back bent over the surgical table? I think you get the idea.

As I look back over the story of Yitro and as we read the Aseret Hadibrot, the Ten Commandments, in this very same Parsha, I cannot help but see that the first commandment is shouting out loud and clear — If you think you can do it all by yourself, then, my friend, you think you are G-d … and let me be the first to tell you that while each of us may go through a period where we think we can do it all on our own, it won’t be long until the body begins to show symptoms of doing too much. It won’t be long until the brain is not functioning up to full capacity … decisions you make will be affected, and your family will be affected as well.

And remember this — just as you need somebody. Somebody needs YOU. “Everybody needs somebody sometime.”

Shalom my friends,

Rabbi Craig H. Ezring

Rabbi Ezring is the spiritual leader of Temple Beth Israel of Deerfield Beach. We welcome you to join our warm and caring family for Shabbat and festival services. We’ll make your heart glow…who knows, you might even fall in love with Shul all over again.

I had a dream. I saw manna falling from the sky, but rather than it just being manna, it was falling as my favorite foods … that’s right, chocolate and corned beef on rye. Oh, my!

And, as if that wasn’t odd enough, everyone else in the dream had their favorite foods falling from the sky as well … and when the brisket started to fly, well, I had to cover my head or I was going to wind up getting injured by a whole roast turkey or a side of beef. I didn’t have an umbrella handy in the dream, but, thank goodness, I did happen to have a helmet. No, wait, it wasn’t a helmet. It was a metal kippah, a yarmulke.

Well, I woke up from that dream and headed into my office to turn on the computer and what do I see? I see a story about food, and the title of the article seems to have misspelled Yarmulke; but, as I look again, I see that it is not a misspelled word at all. It is a story not about food and a yarmulke, but, rather, about Yarmouk and the Palestinians in that particular refugee camp who are literally starving to death … and not via hunger strikes … but by leaders of a government stopping food and aid from getting into the Yarmouk Refugee Camp.

Can you hear the world screaming about how awful Israel is for doing this? Have you heard about all the special meetings at the U.N. condemning Israel for treating the Palestinians in such horrific fashion?

Oh, wait a minute … Yarmouk isn’t in Israel, nor are the Palestinians who are starving to death. Yarmouk is in Syria. That’s right, Syria is showing just how much they care about their beloved Palestinian brothers and sisters, and they are doing so by allowing them to starve.

Many of us keep our head covered with a yarmulke during the day or at least during prayer. It reminds us that HaShem has us covered, and, as Children of G-d, we try to emulate Him so now we cry out for those in Yarmouk to let them know that HaShem not only has us covered; but, through our acts, He has them covered too.

And now, let me get back to the manna for a moment … at least the manna in my dream … as it included beans, stuffed cabbage and all manner of things that can make one suffer from what Barry Fitzgerald would refer to as a wee bit of the winds …

Don’t be surprised if Israel will also be blamed soon for giving the Palestinians a lot of gas … only it’s not what you think … You see, the PA electric company just signed a $1.2 billion deal with Israel’s Leviathan group that will produce power for the West Bank in a new $300 million plant. This natural gas will be used to light up the life of those in the West Bank with a great source of electric power.

And, you should know that the Israeli Gas conglomerate is holding similar talks to supply this natural gas to Jordan’s Hashemite Kingdom. Baruch HaShem.

So there you have it my friends, Yarmouk … Yarmulke … HaShem … HaShemite …

What a wonderful world it would be if only we could remember that we all stem from the same Source. Maybe, just maybe, if we remembered that, we would feed each other and keep one another covered.

Shalom my friends,

Rabbi Craig H. Ezring

Rabbi Ezring is the spiritual leader of Temple Beth Israel of Deerfield Beach. We welcome you to join our warm and caring family for Shabbat and festival services. We’ll make your heart glow…who knows, you might even fall in love with Shul all over again.

Do you believe in magic? Over the past few weeks, I have been asking this question? It all started with a commentary I was reading on a Parsha from the Torah, the one where Moses and Aaron go to Pharaoh; Aaron puts his staff down and it turns into a snake.

I don’t know about you, but if I saw someone do that, I would be pretty amazed. Yet, according to the Biblical account, Pharaoh is not amazed at all. In fact, according to Midrash, Pharaoh is rather bored with this feat.

And we find out why very quickly as he calls out the Royal Magicians and each of them is able to perform the very same magic trick. Better yet, according to Midrash, Pharaoh goes even further. He calls out his children and his wives and, they, too, are able to do this bit of magic.

How could this be? Well, for the very same reason that Pharaoh was not impressed at all with what Aaron had done. You see, magic was a regular everyday thing for the Pharaoh and his family. They were surrounded by magic tricks that were performed over and over again. They had seen them so many times that they were able to figure out how they were done. And because of that, those tricks had lost their magic.

I hear the word magic a lot, but I wonder how many miraculous things that occur all around us on a daily basis have lost their magic.

The funny thing is that, at the same time I was studying this chapter of the Bible, I found myself sitting with a patient in a health center when the doctor knocked on the door. As the doctor came in, I got up to give them some privacy, but as I headed out the door, I couldn’t help but hear the patient tell the doctor that he was having a problem with constipation and the doctor said, “Don’t worry, I will get you a pill that will work like magic for you.”

I don’t know if you are aware of it or not, but something as mundane as going to the bathroom is nothing less than miraculous; but, we seldom, if ever, see the magic of it until we have a problem with our plumbing.

In fact, traditionally we have a prayer that we say after using the bathroom, thanking G-d for the miraculous blessing of our urinary and our bowel tract working properly. The prayer might sound funny to many, but it sure reminds us of how amazing it is that our system works.

There is magic all around us, but we so often behave like Pharaoh. We have become so accustomed to being surrounded by it that we don’t even notice it is there. And that is why I started my Health Center Services the other week by asking if those in attendance would like to see a bit of magic.

When they said, “Yes,” I stood up from the chair I was sitting in and put out my hands dramatically and said, “Ta- Da!”

Those who were stuck in wheelchairs saw the magic. Those who needed walkers saw the magic. Those who had trouble standing saw the magic. They all knew how miraculous and magical the simple act of being able to stand is.

Dear readers, being able to hear is magical; being able to see – wow!— being able to walk – amazing — being able to talk – unbelievable— being able to dance –heavenly— the sun coming up each day —awe inspiring—the ocean waves — magnificently magical.

Do you believe in magic?

Shalom my friends, with wishes for a miraculously magical New Year!

Rabbi Craig H. Ezring

Rabbi Ezring is the spiritual leader of Temple Beth Israel of Deerfield Beach. We welcome you to join our warm and caring family for Shabbat and festival services. We’ll make your heart glow…who knows, you might even fall in love with Shul all over again