greatest gift is to be able to give,

Israel, he says, ‘thought it was different because it was different: it constituted an egalitarian social system in the midst of stratified societies.’

Hessed is the gift of love that begets love.

There were times when, in crisis, I would await the reassuring word from a friend, until I suddenly saw that I should be the one giving reassurance. The discovery changed my life. That was when I knew that we experience pain to sensitize us to the pain of others. Turning our emotions outward, we can use them as the key to free someone else from the

We are commanded to serve God in joy out of the abundance of good things, not through self-denial.

‘What have you done with the gift I gave you, of life? How have you used your time? Have you lived for yourself alone or have you lived also for others? Is your primary question, What can the world give me? or is it, What can I give to the world? Have you sought blessing, or have you been a blessing?’

From earliest rabbinic times there were such institutions as the tamchui, or mobile kitchen, which distributed food daily to whoever applied,

found strength and understanding in what I read, especially that God has faith in us. This was a new concept to me. It made me take responsibility for my faith and it filled me with joy to think of faith as reciprocal.

There are certain questions that, once asked, seem obvious, yet it takes a special genius to formulate them for the first time. That was the case with Rabbi Luria.