#Jasper county recorder plus#

#Jasper county recorder plus#

Lubavitch is a village in Russia where Chabad was based prior to its move to Brooklyn, New York, in 1940. The Chabad House is located at 30 North Hadley Road in Amherst and holds Shabbat services on Friday evenings during the school year and every Saturday at 10:00 a.m., year-round, plus special services for Jewish holidays. Jasper hosts “Kabbalah & Chasidic Philosophy” at his home at 34 Washington St in Greenfield, Sundays at 7:00 p.m., taught by Rabbi Chaim Adelman of Amherst. For Sunday classes, call 41. Jasper Lapienski is a congregant at the Chabad House at Amherst, Chabad-Lubavitch, as well as a city counselor of Greenfield.ĬhaBaD is a Hebrew acronym for “wisdom, understanding and knowledge” and is a branch of Chasidic Judaism. Whatever it is that you feel called to do in life that will make this world a better place – even for just one person, and only for an instant – you have to do it now. Any one (good) deed you do could tip the scales for you and for the entire world to the good.”

Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, popularly known as Maimonides, put it this way: “See yourself as though the entire world is held in balance. Struggling to stop watching pornography? Ask a friend for support and stop now. Are you considering solar panels to reduce your carbon footprint? Get them now. Are you weighing whether to forgive someone for a mistake that they made? Call that person right now and forgive them. The world needs you, and the world cannot wait for your good deeds. Even recycling is a mitzvah, as many experts view G-d’s injunction against destroying fruit trees as a general prohibition against wanton destruction of resources. When I host Kabbalah classes at my house, I fulfill G-d’s commandment to create for Him a dwelling-place in this world. When I invite my father over for lunch, I fulfill G-d’s commandment to honor my parents.

The point is that we can hasten the arrival of the Messiah by doing mitzvot in other words, by fulfilling G-d’s commandments to the best of our ability.Īnd it’s much easier to do a mitzvah than you may think. The Hebrew word mitzvah is one of the least understood Hebrew words in the popular lexicon, often mistranslated as “good deed.” In fact, the word literally means “commandment.” And while it is absolutely a mitzvah to give to the poor and to not steal, it is also a mitzvah to refrain from sex outside of marriage, to eat matzah on Passover, and to simply believe in G-d. So what does this mean? Can our actions really serve to hasten the arrival of the Messiah? As it turns out, the answer is yes. “We want Mashiach now, we want Mashiach now, we want Mashiach now, and we don’t want to wait!” And to accomplish this, he sent out his followers, known as Chasidim, to do good in the world and to urge others to do the same. “We want Mashiach now!” he would sing, and the crowd would echo him. Towards the end of his life, Rabbi Menachem Mendel exhorted his followers not to simply expect the coming of the Mashiach (Messiah) in due time, but to demand the coming of the Messiah this instant. This past Thursday was the 29th anniversary of the death of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the seventh and final spiritual leader of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement. In fact, even if, in our entire life, we do only one good thing (mitzvah) – then our entire life, and therefore all of creation, and all of history, was worth it. Rabbi Kook’s poetic insight is probably based on the Mishnah, which says that “Every person must say, ‘The whole world was created for me.’”īut not only that – not only has all of existence, up until this moment, been created so that you could take part – this remains true even if we do not always pursue what is right. In addition to this, we have the Mishnah, the oral tradition, passed down from generation to generation for thousands of years, which fills in crucial gaps and helps bring the Torah’s directions to life. Instead we should think: I’m here… what am I going to do with this golden opportunity? How can I use it well? What is my mission, that the entire world is depending upon me to fulfill?Ĭontrary to the common wisdom, the Hebrew Bible actually has three parts: the Torah (the five books of Moses), the Prophets and the Scriptures. Most of these questions are best answered with the old quip, “only G-d knows,” but the truth is that it doesn’t matter why we are here – here we are. It’s not often that we come across a statement that makes us feel so deserving and so very humbled at the same time.Ī number just shy of all of us pause every now and then to think the opposite of this: Why am I here? Why do I bother? Would anyone miss me if I were gone? ‘The day you were born was the day G-d decided that the world could not exist without you.” – Abraham Isaac Kook