Transcript
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[Music]
My brother, Rabbi Simon Jacobson, author
of Towards a Meaningful Life and many
other books, shared with me an email
that he received a few days ago. A man
writes to him the following. Dear Rabbi
Jacobson, I'm a musician who lives in
upstate New York. I usually play secular
rock music. Thursday, June 12th, 2025. I
was invited to do a concert in a bar in
Pikipsy, New York. This was Thursday
night. Everybody knows that Friday
morning around 3:00 a.m. Israel began
its surprise attack on Iran's nuclear
facilities. That was early evening by
us. So, as I am doing my concert in this
bar in Pikipsy, we hear the news that
Israel has just attacked Iran. Even
though I looked around and it didn't
seem like anybody was Jewish, I still
felt compelled to talk about it. So
during my performance, I announced what
was happening and I asked that everyone
should pray for peace in their own way
and make a commitment to do an act of
kindness to help make the world a better
place. The next night, Friday night, I
have a very strange dream. A man comes
to me in the dream. His name is Rabbi
Label Groner. The late Rabbi Label
Groner was the personal secretary of the
labba. And he says to me in the dream,
"The Rebba asked me to call you and
thank you for what you did last night
when the war began in the bar in
Pikipsy. As a result of your
announcement, there was a Jewish woman
who decided that Friday evening before
Shabbat to light Shabas candles. and her
mitzvah of lighting Shabas candles
helped the Israeli oil force to be
successful in Iran. It helped protect
the people of Israel and it helped bring
down more divine blessings into the
world. So the Reb says thank you. I woke
up in the morning remembering the dream
vividly and I think to myself, okay,
it's a nice dream. It's a pleasant
dream, but of course it's nonsense. The
man continues his email to my brother
and he says, "On Sunday, I receive an
email from a woman. She searched my name
in social media and she found my email
address and this is what she writes to
me. I was in the bar in Pikipsy when you
did your performance. I was inspired and
I decided that day to light Shabbat
candles. I haven't lit Shabbaz candles
in 50 years since my but mitzvah but I
did light it that day because of your
words. We look at the world from a very
external perspective. We don't see the
power of a mitzvah. But when you have
that deeper perspective when you
appreciate that we are all part of one
organism really that the entire planet
as the medra says is a goofle. It's one
large super oranism. It's the body of
Hashem's presence and all of us are
part. We're all limbs in that large
kofkle and therefore we're all
integrated and we're all interconnected
and what I do and what I don't do has a
direct impact visible or invisible in
ways that we know and much more in ways
that we don't know. One woman lighting
shabas candles, one man putting on
fillain, holding back, abstaining from
something immoral and destructive has a
ripple effect on the entire body, on the
entire planet, on the entire world.
[Music]
