Rabbi Abrams Blog

  About 15 years ago, I was visiting offices on a Friday afternoon (as I still do) to put on tefillin with people.  I stumbled into an office and after ascertaining that the fellow was Jewish, offered to put on tefillin, which he declined.  His excuse was that he doesn't want to be a hypocrite.  "With all the bad things I've done in my life, how could  I do this religious thing?  It's just not me."  He seems to have a valid point.  However, as we learned this past week in JLI, we have two souls: (1) G-dly soul which is selfless and totally aligned with G-d's will, and an (2) Animal soul, which is self oriented.  Whenever you do something good, don't question it's authenticity.  It's coming from your G-dly soul and is 100% legit.  The voice inside trying to convince out of doing good things on the basis of authenticity is called "impostor syndrome" and should be sent out the window.  May we all continue doing good things until we are total

A year or so ago, I was at at another Chabad for a morning service and noticed a Jew standing with a tallis praying.  I approached him and offered to put on tefillin with him. He looked at me, and with a heavy Israeli accent responded, "I only put on tefillin at the Western Wall.  You have no clue how close of a relationship I have with G-d, and He doesn't need my tefillin." Given the sincerity of his prayers, I was kind of taken about with his rejection, especially since I could tell from his answer that he wanted me to respond to him (some Israelis are like that.  They just want to see how you'll respond). I said to him, "Are you married?" "I was" he said.  "Divorced now." "In that case" I said, "you know at least kind of what marriage is about." "Imagine if your wife asked you to take out the trash, and you responded by explaining her how your love transcends taking out the trash for her, and she doesn't