HaMikdash

eretzyisrael:

Flip Flop

at the Western Wall with Reb Gutman Locks on Mystical Paths

 The young man wearing tefillin walked into the Kotel thinking that he was not Jewish, and the young man without tefillin walked in thinking that he was Jewish. They were both wrong.

     The boy with tefillin was told by his mother that she was a Jew. I explained to him that this means that he is a Jew, and that he could put on tefillin, and that he had to marry a Jewish girl. He was very happy.

    The boy without tefillin has a Jewish father. The boy converted to Judaism, but it was a Reform conversion. I explained that we discourage people from converting to Judaism. But, if their father is Jewish, then, for the father’s sake, we do not discourage them from converting. I told him how to follow up on his desire and to have a Kosher (Orthodox) conversion. I also told him that I would wait at the Kotel for him to come back after his proper conversion and put on tefillin.

eretzyisrael:

Even From the Farthest Corners of the Heavens…

by Reb Gutman Locks @ Mystical Paths

 “If your outcasts be at the utmost parts of the Heaven, from there He will fetch you and Hashem will bring you into the land which your fathers possessed, and you shall possess it; and He will do you good…”[ii]

     These Jews are from India. They have just come to live in Israel. It was the first time he had ever put on tefillin. He told me their history. Some 2,100 years ago their ancestors sailed from Israel to India. [This was approximately 170 years before the destruction of the Second Temple.] A storm destroyed their ship and only 7 families survived. They stayed together and did not intermarry.

     “If someone would marry a ch-ristian or a Hindu we would not allow our children to marry with their children. We lost almost all of our Jewish tradition, but we kept Shabbos. The Jewish DNA test found us to be from the tribe of Moses.”

     When I first saw the boy I thought that he was an African-American. I asked him why he was wearing a Jewish star. He answered me in Hebrew saying that he was a Jew and that he was living in Israel. I was surprised, and asked him his history.

     The older, darker man walked up and the boy told me that he was his father. The father was born and raised in Brazil. He is not Jewish, but he married a Jewish woman who was praying on the women’s side of the Kotel. As you can see, he was very happy that his son was putting on tefillin for the first time.

    Jewish souls are coming into the world any way possible so they will be able to come home and witness that G-d keeps His word.

     “He who scattered Israel will gather him, and will keep him as a shepherd keeps his flock.”[iii]

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[ii] Deuteronomy 30:4

[iii] Jeremiah 31:10