"One year, most of Adar went by and it didn't rain. They sent for Choni the Circle Maker. He prayed and the rains didn't come. He drew a circle, stood in it and said: 'Master of The World! Your children have turned to me; I swear in Your great name that I won't move from here until You have pity on Your children.' The rains came down." (Talmud, Taanit 23a)
Link:
Choni the Circle-Maker
Adar 20 is the yahrtzeit (anniversary of the passing) of Rabbi Yoel Sirkes (1560?-1640), Rabbi of Krakow and author of the Bayit Chadash ("Bach") commentary on the great Halachic work, the Arba'ah Turim.
R. Shlomo Zalman Auerbach was a renowned halachic authority who lived in Jerusalem. Many of his rulings pertain to modern technological advances as they apply to Jewish life.
Link: Contemporary Halachah
Sometimes an opportunity to do something good comes along, but you’re not sure it’s worth the effort. So here’s a thought to ponder:
On the one hand, Maimonides wrote that the world is held in such delicate balance that one good deed can change everything.
On the other hand, go out and look. Does this seem like a balanced world? Like a world where goodness and wickedness come in equal measure?
Or is this a world where the bad guys keep winning and the good guys are tread underfoot?
A world, as the kabbalist Rabbi Chaim Vital wrote, “where the wicked dominate, where most of life is harsh and brutal; a world that is almost entirely wicked with but a tiny infusion of goodness scattered throughout.”
But then, we really have no idea how to quantify the ratio of goodness to bad.
Because goodness is light. Wickedness is darkness.
One flash of light disrupts a huge amount of darkness. One sincere good deed is even more powerful.
So powerful, that if the Creator would infuse just a sliver beyond the minuscule ration of goodness alloted to this world, wickedness wouldn’t have a chance.
But He placed you in His universe. You, a human being, who has access to light from beyond the system.
You, who with one small but earnest act of goodness can radically disrupt the balance of this entire universe and transform its nature forever.
Do it now.