Favorite Religious Stories

[Delta4Embassy]

Dunno if this was supposed to be a historical account or just a nice story. If historical event, I don't believe a word of it, but wish I did. Always makes me tear up when I read it.

Mother and Nest - Life's Passages - Parsha

Mother and Nest

By Chana Weisberg

Taking the child within the sight of the mother would cause the mother acute pain. A mother's love and compassion for her offspring is, in Maimonides' words, "not a function of the intellect or speech, but a function of the thought process that exists in animals as well as in people."

By performing this mitzvah, we are training ourselves to feel empathy for all G-d's creations.

According to the Zohar, this commandment also has a profound cosmic impact by arousing heavenly mercy for the Jewish people.

When the mother bird is driven from her nest, she cries bitterly and despairingly over her separation from her young.

The angel appointed over this species appears before the heavenly throne and complains: "Merciful One, why has Your Torah ordered such a callous act?"

The angels designated over the other bird species take up the protest, objecting to their birds meeting the same fate.

G-d then reprimands all the heavenly hosts: "The angels in charge of the birds complain against the birds' plight. But why has none of you expressed concern over the anguish of My sons and the Shechinah (Divine Presence)?

"The Shechinah is exiled. She is alienated from Her nest and home, the Holy Temple. My sons, the fledglings, dwell alone among their enemies, the nations of the world. But none among you cry out to arouse My compassion for them!

"For My own sake, then, I will redeem them!"

The holy Zohar records a miraculous story, about a time when Divine compassion was aroused through this commandment.

Rabbi Elazar, the son of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, was walking with his colleagues when a dove appeared. The dove informed Rabbi Elazar that his father-in-law, Rabbi Yosi, had fallen seriously ill.

Rabbi Elazar ordered the dove to assure Rabbi Yosi that in three days he would miraculously recover, and Rabbi Elazar and his colleagues would then arrive at his home to celebrate.

Soon afterwards, the distressed dove returned to inform them that since Rabbi Elazar had annulled the heavenly decree hanging over his father-in-law, the angel of death had taken in his stead another Rabbi Yosi--Rabbi Yosi of Pekiyin.

Hearing this tragic news, Rabbi Elazar decided to travel to Pekiyin to comfort Rabbi Yosi's family and to personally take part in the burial of this great sage.

Upon their arrival, the rabbis were informed that Rabbi Yosi was survived by a young son and daughter. Rabbi Yosi's wife, the mother of these two young children, had died a short time before, and these youngsters were now doubly orphaned.

In the room where the departed lay, the son would not allow anyone near his father's body. He laid his head close to his father's and wept bitterly and uncontrollably. Looking heavenward, he declared:

"Master of the Universe, You wrote in your holy Torah these words:

"'If you chance upon a bird's nest, in any tree or on the ground, with fledglings or eggs, and the mother is sitting over the fledglings or on the eggs, do not take the mother together with her young. Let the mother go and take only the young...'

"Master of the Universe! According to your holy Torah, we must let the mother live, and surely we must not take the mother and leave the children unattended.

"You, G-d, must fulfill the words of Your holy Torah. My sister and I are two little birds. My mother has died, and so our father has taken her place to care for us.

"According to Your Torah, dear G-d, You may take either me or my sister, but You may not take away my beloved father!"

Hearing the poignant plea of this innocent child, Rabbi Elazar's colleagues began to weep.

Suddenly, the room became silent, as a pillar of fire appeared, hovering over the bed of the departed. Everyone in the room ran out, and Rabbi Elazar's frightened colleagues wanted to do the same.

Rabbi Elazar calmed them, saying, "A great miracle is about to occur."

Out of the fiery pillar, a heavenly voice sounded: "Fortunate are you, Rabbi Yosi, to merit such a wise son whose justified complaints split the gates of heaven, ascending before G-d's Throne of Glory.

"A new verdict has been passed. You, Rabbi Yosi, will live twenty-two more years, in order to have the privilege of teaching this wise child."

Then, as suddenly as it had descended, the pillar disappeared, as Rabbi Yosi's eyes fluttered open.

Rabbi Elazar exclaimed to his friends, "How fortunate are we to have witnessed with our own eyes the miracle of the dead coming to life!"

Rabbi Elazar then blessed Rabbi Yosi, "How fortunate are you to have experienced the miracle of the resurrection of the dead because of the wisdom of your young son!"

Meanwhile, the young child had fainted from the overwhelming events. When he awoke, it was impossible for him to fully express his elation, as he smothered his father with hugs and kisses.

Rabbi Elazar remained for three days to celebrate. During this time, he asked Rabbi Yosi to describe what he had observed in the heavens.

Rabbi Yosi replied, "I may not disclose to human ears what I have seen. I can only reveal that when my son was pleading, weeping and protesting to G-d from the depths of his being with utter sincerity, and he referred to the mitzvah of sending the mother bird away, three-hundred thousand heavenly chairs shook, as three-hundred thousand tzaddikim (righteous individuals) stood up in the heavens, begging G-d to return me to the living!"

"And those that repose in dust will come to life" (Isaiah 26:19)

The cry of one earnest, sincere, orphaned child who longed to be rejoined with his father was all it took. The tender voice of the young son of Rabbi Yosi of Pekiyin broke through the heavens and stormed directly to the Throne of Glory to perform an unexpected miracle.

Certainly, then, the earnest, sincere cry of each of us, G-d's orphaned children, can ascend to the very heavens and bring upon us the promised Era of Redemption that we have awaited for so long. Certainly, our sincere pleas, too, will evoke the many hundreds of thousands of tzaddikim to storm the heavens to bring upon us this epoch.

And then, we will no longer experience the orphaned child's sad cries, or exile's harsh pains, as the good in all of creation will become openly manifest and revealed.

 

[Delta4Embassy]

Another, not really a story, but discusses the movie "The Matrix" as a Jewish metaphor is kinda neat.

Beyond the Matrix

 

[Avatar4321]

I have to say I saw this thread and I was immediately reminded of this story. I am not sure while. It's a section of a larger talk called The Bitter Cup and the Bloody Baptism given during the 80s. Ill quote the relevant passages.

Our Christian Challenge

I think perhaps so far I have made you think only of the rather obvious transgressions young Latter-day Saints face, the temptations Satan never seems to keep very subtle. But what about the gospel-living that isn't so obvious and may be of a higher order still? Let me shift both the tone and the temptations just slightly and cite other examples of our Christian challenge.

On the night of March 24, 1832, a dozen men stormed the Hiram, Ohio, home where Joseph and Emma Smith were staying. Both were physically and emotionally spent, not only from all the travails of the young Church at the time but also because on this particular evening they had been up caring for their two adopted twins, born eleven months earlier on the same day that Emma had given birth to—and then lost—their own twins. Emma had gone to bed first while Joseph stayed up with the children; then she had arisen to take her turn, encouraging her husband to get some sleep. No sooner had he begun to doze than he heard his wife give a terrifying scream and found himself being torn from the house and very nearly being torn limb from limb.

Cursing as they went, the mob that had seized him were swearing to kill Joseph if he resisted. One man grabbed him by the throat until he lost consciousness from lack of breath. He came to only to overhear part of their conversation on whether he should be murdered. It was determined that for now he would simply be stripped naked, beaten senseless, tarred and feathered, and left to fend for himself in the bitter March night. Stripped of his clothing, fighting off fists and tar paddles on every side, and resisting a vial of some liquid—perhaps poison—which he shattered with his teeth as it was forced into his mouth, he miraculously managed to fight off the entire mob and eventually made his way back to the house. In the dim light his wife thought the tar stains covering his body were blood stains, and she fainted at the sight.

Friends spent the entire night scraping and removing the tar and applying liniments to his scratched and battered body. I now quote directly from the Prophet Joseph's record:

By morning I was ready to be clothed again. This being the Sabbath morning, the people assembled for meeting at the usual hour of worship, and among them came also the mobbers [of the night before. Then he names them.] With my flesh all scarified and defaced, I preached to the congregation as usual, and in the afternoon of the same day baptized three individuals. [HC 1:264]

Unfortunately, one of the adopted twins, growing worse from the exposure and turmoil of the night, died the following Friday. "With my flesh all scarified and defaced, I preached to the congregation as usual"! To that slimy band of cowards who by Friday next will quite literally be the murderers of your child? Stand there hurting from the hair of your head that was pulled and then tarred into a mat, hurting right down to your foot that was nearly torn off being wrenched out the door of your own home? Preach the gospel to that damnable bunch of sniveling reprobates? Surely this is no time to stand by principle. It is daylight now and the odds aren't twelve to one anymore. Let's just conclude this Sunday service right now and go outside to finish last evening's business. It was, after all, a fairly long night for Joseph and Emma; maybe it should be an equally short morning for this dirty dozen who have snickeringly shown up for church.

But those feelings that I have even now just reading about this experience 150 years later—and feelings I know that would have raged in my Irish blood that morning—mark only one of the differences between me and the Prophet Joseph Smith. You see, a disciple of Christ—which I testify to you Joseph was and is—always has to be a disciple; the judge does not give any time off for bad behavior. A Christian always stands on principle, even as old Holland is out there swinging a pitchfork and screaming an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth—forgetting, as dispensation after dispensation has forgotten, that this only leaves everyone blind and toothless.

No, the good people, the strong people, dig down deeper and find a better way. Like Christ, they know that when it is hardest to be so is precisely the time you have to be at your best. As another confession to you, I have always feared that I could not have said at Calvary's cross, "Father forgive them for they know not what they do." Not after the spitting, and the cursing, and the thorns, and the nails. Not if they don't care or understand that this horrible price in personal pain is being paid for them. But that's just the time when the fiercest kind of integrity and loyalty to high purpose must take over. That's just the time when it matters the very most and when everything else hangs in the balance—for surely it did that day. You and I won't ever find ourselves on that cross, but we repeatedly find ourselves at the foot of it. And how we act there will speak volumes about what we think of Christ's character and his call for us to be his disciples.