Introspection

Rabbi Shmuel Silber on Parshas VaYishlach: Vayishlach: Introspective Identity - Excellent Torah thought.

Everything or a lot – the key to happiness

Staying on the topic of happiness, the Daily Mail reported today about Samra Kesinovic, 17, and Sabina Selimovic, 16, who had fled Austria to Syria. It seems that "Sabina insisted she was enjoying life in Syria, where she felt free to practise her religion in a way that she did not in Austria."
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3331846/Teenage-Islamist-poster-girl-fled-Austria-join-ISIS-beaten-death-terror-group-trying-escape-Syria.html#ixzz3sRw2g0bq

Unfortunately, one can't ask the girls if they are still enjoying their lives as they don't seem to be alive anymore.

A reader at TLS posted an idea if an offer to donate money to a charity of his choice is rejected by an individual who gets to decide whether his brother should be cremated or receive a Jewish burial.


In the event that the large amount of money raised is not taken, it would be very appropriate to it donate to Poile Tzedek – the shul in New Brunswick that had a fire where all the Sifrei Torah were burnt.
http://www.thelakewoodscoop.com/news/2015/11/court-of-appeals-rejects-appeal-for-stay-in-mendelsohn-cremation-case.html#sthash.TQhZTZLJ.dpuf


Mark Knoller tweeted about President Obama bestowing the Presdential medal of freedom on the likes of Steven Spielberg, Barbra Streisand and Itzhak Perlman.

"I didn't know you were Jewish, Barbra," kids Pres Obama, as he mentions Streisand's childhood in Brooklyn.

Listen to Itzhak Perlman play John WIlliams' theme from Schindler's List. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qLePhm-xGs … Hard not to tear up.
https://twitter.com/markknoller