Proud of My Jewishness
Posted 6/16/2026
“Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction
and do not forsake your mother’s teaching.”
Proverbs 1, 8.
As we enjoy the blessings of summer, the Jewish people spend three weeks in remembering, mourning, and pondering the loss of our crown jewel: the Holy Temple -בית המקדש.
Not once, but twice, did we suffer this horrific experience.
As we read the Scroll of איכה-Lamentations, we cry not only over the graphic description of suffering and subsequent long Exile, but “How -איכה’ did this happen.
Today, with the miraculous rebirth of the State of Israel, at the same time we ask, how is it possible for the people of Israel to thrive, despite the consistent Israel bashing across the world. The trauma that we as a people endure from so many activist “educated intellectuals” internally and externally is beyond anything normal.
As G-d taught us throughout our holy Torah and Scriptures, it all begins with the spiritual strength of the family. We are counseled not to deviate from the Torah’s path. After all, who knows better than our Creator!
The DNA of our success, despite what we have persevered, has been our continued education of the greatest scholarly papers: The Torah-תורה, Mishna;-משנה, Talmud-תלמוד, and Shulchan Aruch-שולחן ערוך. These are the foundations of our individual policing ways.
The world has and is benefiting from our scholarship. It all endures with staying the course of what G-d expects of us.
May G-d bless us all with peace, spiritual strength, and the rebuilding of the Beit Hamikdash in our time, Amen.
Rabbi Tzvi Berkowitz