{get your tickets - loewy white party}

Internet Outage Explains why Mitzvahs are so precise:

This morning major airlines have grounded their flights, medical systems and banks are down and other critical infrastructure have been affected by a mass IT outage for Windows users. The outage was caused by software update from cybersecurity company CrowdStrike.

A few missing lines of a code, a misplaced comma or the like, have been able to bring large swaths of our global society to its knees.

There’s a lesson in this moment. At times we can view our actions, our impact on the world, as beyond grasp.

’What change can I, a mere limited human tethered by my limitations, make in the world around me?’

Others may reverse the question, becoming flippant and viewing the value of what we do as immaterial.

’What difference does it make if I don’t do more. Surely those missing details won’t disrupt some vast cosmic scheme.’

Throughout the Summer, there is a custom to study Pirkei Avot, the Ethics of our Fathers.

The instruction in Avot, to “Know what is above you¹” takes on new meaning in Chasidic thought.

“‘Know that everything above’ all that transpires in the spiritual realms is ‘from you,’ dependent on your conduct,” teaches Rabbi Dovber of Mezritch. Each of us has the potential to influence even the most elevated spiritual realms.”

Our actions of critical importance to the cosmic scheme - the smallest positive move - or Heaven forfend the opposite - creates a ripple effect that sets off changes of global impact.

Wishing you an uplifting Shabbat,

Rabbi Mendy & Mussy

p.s. As always, we would love to chat with you over coffee or drinks, about Judaism, or just life - reply to this email.

Of Interest

• Robert Putnam Knows Why You're Lonely More than two decades ago, Robert Putnam became something rare: a celebrity academic. In 2000, he published a groundbreaking book, “Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community,” in which he demonstrated, with copious data, that America was transforming from a nation of joiners to a nation of loners — we were going to church less, joining clubs less and, he warned, losing trust in our fellow Americans and our institutions.

• The Quest of Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela

•  Diminished Light? A fascinating look at the Kabbalistic concept of diminishment and contraction by Eli Rubin.

• From Shtetl to Pogrom. Modernist Issachar Ber Ryback created two series of paintings memorializing his childhood home in Ukraine, where eruptions of murderous violence swept away Jewish hopes for the brotherhood of man

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