בס׳ד

"Where does it say that you have a contract with G-d to have an easy life?"

the Lubavitcher Rebbe



"Failure is not the enemy of success; it is its prerequisite."

Rabbi Nosson Scherman



6 Jan 2013

Al-

Al Arabiyah reports that police in Saudi Arabia arrested "a man found carrying papers that show he is looking for a Jewish woman to marry, according to a report by the daily al-Hayat newspaper." Apparently the spokesman for the police said that the man might be suffering from a “mental disorder.”
http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2013/01/04/258636.html


5 Jan 2013

Baruch Hashem

The other week I received the following email about thanking Hashem. A few days later I came across a post written in 2011 titled Baruch Hashem I discovered a fantastic source of Torah learning.
It reminded me to thank Hashem for all that has been bestowed upon us, including finding a fantastic source of Torah learning.  

WHAT HAPPENS IN HEAVEN WHEN WE PRAY?
I dreamt that I went to Heaven and an angel was showing me around. We walked side-by-side inside a large workroom filled with angels. My angel guide stopped in front of the first section and said, "This is the Receiving Section". Here, all petitions to God said in prayer are received.
I looked around in this area, and it was terribly busy with so many angels sorting out petitions written on voluminous paper sheets and scraps from people all over the world.
Then we moved on down a long corridor until we reached the second section.
The angel then said to me, "This is the Packaging and Delivery Section. Here, the graces and blessings the people asked for are processed and delivered to the living persons who asked for them." I noticed again how busy it was there. There were many angels working hard at that station, since so many blessings had been requested and were being packaged for delivery to Earth.
Finally at the farthest end of the long corridor we stopped at the door of a very small station. To my great surprise, only one angel was seated there, idly doing nothing. "This is the Acknowledgment Section, my angel friend quietly admitted to me. He seemed embarrassed." How is it that there is no work going on here? ‘I asked.
”So sad," the angel sighed. "After people receive the blessings that they asked for, very few send back acknowledgments"
"How does one acknowledge God's blessings“? I asked…

"Simple," the angel answered. Just say, "Thank you, Lord.”

4 Jan 2013

Sefer Hageulah

The Ramban says that Sefer Shemos is called Sefer HaGalus and also Sefer HaGeula since it is the story of both the Bnei Yisroel's descent into Gauls Mitzrayim and their ultimate redemption. Not only is it the story of Galus and Geulas Mitzrayim but also encompasses the future Galus and Geulah.

Rav Elyashiv in Divrei Aggadah explains that Shemos is not simply the first significant word of this Sefer it is the actual reason for the Geula. The Medrash Yalkut Shimoni says that the name of each Shevet represents the future Galus. Two examples are Levi "V'Nilvu Goyim Rabim El Hashem" and Yosef "V'Haya BaYom HaHu Yosif Hashem Sheinis".

This says Rav Elyashiv explains the significance of the fact that they did not change their names in Mitzrayim. They kept these names and guarded them carefully because they did not give up on the Geula. Their names gave them hope and showed their faith. Because of this faith which was expressed by the keeping of their original names they were eventually redeemed. That is why the Sefer of Galus and Geula is called Sefer "Shemos". Similarly the future Geula will come if we have faith and live our life waiting for that day.

Continue reading divrei torah on this week's parsha over here.

3 Jan 2013

Kindness and evil

Jeff Jacoby discusses People are truly good at heart? Sadly, no.

For countless people, especially on the left, it's axiomatic that Adam Lanza's bloodbath was caused by America's gun culture. Many angrily demonize guns and the advocates of gun rights; they are convinced that only an ignoramus or a moral monster could oppose tighter gun control. In an interview on CNN, Piers Morgan lashed out at the executive director of Gun Owners of America, calling him "an unbelievably stupid man" and seething: "You don't give a damn, do you, about the gun murder rate in America?" When the National Rifle Association's Wayne LaPierre argued for more armed security rather than fewer arms, he too was drenched with scorn.

"Look, a gun is a tool," LaPierre said. "The problem is the criminal." But that can only be true if crime is rooted in the bad character, depraved values, or evil choices of those who use guns to murder. And that can only be true if men and women, by and large, are not innately good and kind – if decent behavior, like monstrous behavior, is a matter of free choice, not a hardwired instinct.

It is fundamental to the Judeo-Christian outlook that human beings are not naturally good. "The intention of man's heart," God says in Genesis, "is evil from his youth." To use the Christian formulation, man is "fallen." All of us are tugged by conflicting moral impulses, and whether we do the right thing or the wrong thing is up to each of us.
Read in full: http://www.jeffjacoby.com/12724/people-are-truly-good-at-heart-sadly-no

Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz discusses the force of kindness and brings examples of sterling character traits exhibited by great individuals who lived Torah lives.

A common thread of middas hachessed is evident in theShemos parshiyos of shibud, geulah, Matan Torah, cheitand teshuvah. The concept of olam chessed yiboneh, the force of kindness and compassion rebuilding the world, is a common theme throughout Sefer Shemos. Just as the world was brought about and created with the Divinemiddah of chessed, it is that middah which enables us to conquer the impediments that hinder our growth and existence.
http://matzav.com/the-thread-of-chessed

Speaking of evil, below Edgar Feuchtwanger gives an interview about his childhood recollections of living next to the German leader whose name doesn't bear mentioning.   



Names

by Rabbi Dr Raymond Apple

The translation of the title of the sidra is “Names”. The subject matter is the names of the Children of Israel who migrated to Egypt with Jacob and – despite themselves – inaugurated Jewish history. Using this as a springboard, this D’var Torah focuses on the word “Name”.
Every one of us is often asked, “What’s your name?” Sometimes the question is “Who are you?” Actually the two questions are not the same. “What’s your name?” denotes “By what name is your family known? What first name or names did your parents give you?” That’s a factual question: it says very little about who you are.
The rabbis note in the Midrash (Kohelet Rabba 7) that everyone has three names – one his parents give him, one is what people call him and the third he acquires himself. The first name is the technical mark of identity connoted by “What’s your name?” The second denotes one’s reputation – “He (or she) is such a sound thinker, such a generous person, such a good soul…” The third name sums you up qualitatively: “What’s your essential nature?”
Ahad HaAm wrote an essay about Moshe Rabbenu in which he asked, “Who was Moses?” It sounds like a foolish question since everyone can look Moses up in the Bible and biographical dictionaries. There’s no secret about who Moses was in that sense, but that’s not what Ahad HaAm was interested in. His question meant, “What was the essence of Moses?”
The answer is suggested by the third name spoken of in the Midrash: the name you acquire for yourself, which depends on the gifts God gives you, how you use your gifts, what you do with your life – and what your life does with you.
http://www.oztorah.com/



2 Jan 2013

An attack and an error

A gang of Arabs brutally attacked an American yeshiva student visiting with his family in Venice, Italy, in what local community leaders said was a rare instance of anti-Semitism.
The student was knocked unconscious on Tuesday when he strolled late at night in the center of the city. A band of 15 Arab youth pounced on him, dragged him into a dark corner and pummeled him, using sharp weapons.
Read more: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/163803#.UOQ-wLbuadc

Israel’s chief rabbis on Wednesday called on the European Union to establish a committee to investigate anti-Semitism in Europe.
They issued the call the day after an attack on a Jewish tourist in Venice.

The British publisher of a textbook that featured a map that labelled Israel as “Occupied Palestine” has apologized for the error. A message posted to the Garnet company’s website read in part, “This was a serious editorial error and was subsequently corrected. The book in question has not been in print for several years.”

In a further twist, The Commentator revealed that the company is owned by the Tahseen Khayat Group of Lebanon.
Read more: http://www.algemeiner.com/2013/01/02/publisher-of-british-textbook-that-erased-israel-from-map-we-are-taking-this-matter-extremely-seriously/

Devotion to the cause

The NYPost writes about a young girl's devotion to her faith.

She doesn’t spin on Shabbos.

Ping-pong prodigy Estee Ackerman, an 11-year-old from Long Island, was disqualified from her final event at the 2012 US National Table Tennis Championships in Las Vegas last Dec. 21 when her match fell on the Jewish holy day of rest and she chose not to play.

“I advanced in my round robin and then we looked at my schedule and saw the next match would be during Friday night, which is our Sabbath, so of course I’m disappointed,” Estee told The Post.

“I practiced and trained for six months for this,” the sixth-grader from West Hempstead said. “Ping pong is important to me, but my religion of Judaism is also very important to me.”
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/devotion_wins_out_POutVvQtroB2paMGIT3z9K

Below are two comments.

From a goy.....you did the right thing....in G-d's eyes, He is happy with your sacrifice. You will be blessed.

Your Kiddush HaShem moment of the day.


And here's an article about devotion to a nefarious cause.

Police are seeking the public's help regarding a bias incident at the Roosevelt Field Mall on Long Island.

Nassau County police say a swastika and the words "Death to the Jews" were scrawled in large red letters on a door in a service corridor of the East Garden City mall.
Continue reading: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/swastika_found_scrawled_in_li_mall_VHFFmt7lhJCfPg3kf5rsKI

Acts of kindness

This morning I received an email titled a daily dose of kindness.
Shmuel Greenbaum writes:

Partners in Kindness and A Tradition of Kindness are dedicated in memory of my late wife, Shoshana (Hayman) Greenbaum z"l. Shoshana was murdered by a suicide bomber. She was one of over 100 victims that were killed or injured at 2:00 P.M. on August 9, 2001 at the Sbarro restaurant in Jerusalem. Shoshana had the rare ability to serve as a role model for kindness and Godliness to thousands of people.

An anecdote of kindness accompanied the email.

A friend knows that I love kindness stories so he always tells me a story when we speak. My friend’s father overheard this story when he went to visit a mourner during shiva (the 7 day period of mourning):

* One of the visitors who came to pay respects told the man who was mourning the loss of his father:

"We don’t know each other, but I just wanted to tell you why I came:

Many years ago a woman had just left a cemetery in Long Island and was sitting outside the cemetery, waiting at a bus stop for the first of several buses she would have to take on a trip that would last several hours in order to get back to her home in East New York, Brooklyn.

A man driving by noticed her and asked her if he could give her a lift. She told him she was going to East New York.

The man said "what a coincidence, I live in East New York too!"

He drove her home and told her. "Since we have the same yahrtzeit (anniversary of the death of a loved one) at the same cemetery and we both live in East New York, I would be happy to take you to the cemetery every year."

That woman was my mother and the man was your father.

The man sitting shiva told his guest. "My father told me that story many times about how he always drove a woman to the cemetery once a year. But there is something you should know about my father – he did not live in East New York and he did not have yahrtzeit on that day….


Mi keamcha Yisrael.

This morning I read about a man who is severely ill and needed the assistance of the MDA to get to his doctor in Jerusalem. After the medical check-up, the man asked if he could pray at the Kotel, perhaps for the final time. After receiving permission, the ambulance crew set about fuflfilling the man's wish. An emotional visit for both the bedridden patient as well as an ambulance staff member was captured on film over here.

Mi keamcha Yisrael.

1 Jan 2013

A man of truth

When I told my husband this morning about the passing of  the Sadigura Rebbe, zt'l , he related to me an anecdote I hadn't heard before. Around the time of our marriage, my husband's grandfather needed an operation and he told him to go to the Rebbe for a blessing. My husband had an audience with the Tzadik and received a blessing. After he told the Rebbe that he would shortly be getting married, the Rebbe handed him a coin, told him to take it under the chuppah and to ask a brocha from the Mesader Kiddushin. He followed through with the Rebbe's instructions. When he asked the Mesader Kiddushin for a blessing, the rabbi replied, "But, I am a Litvak, I am a Litvak. Nevertheless, he proceeded to bless him.  

Chadrei Charedim writes about what Baruch Marzel had to say on the passing of the Sadigura Rebbe zt'l. He called him a
.אוהב ישראל ללא גבולות

He related a time when Prime Minister Netanyahu came to visit him and the Rebbe wouldn't let him leave until he extracted a promise to build a military base in the Abu Sneneh neighborhood in Hebron, a promise that wasn't fulfilled but one that allowed the Israeli leader to leave the Rebbe's presence.

אצלו לא היה חשוב מה יאמרו, אלא מה הקב"ה יאמר
He was not ashamed of  his detractors. He wasn't concerned with what they had to say but, with what G-d would say.

ואני מתפלל שהקב"ה ימלא את חסרוננו בדור בו חסרים אנשי אמת שילחמו על מה שהם מאמינים
Mr. Marzel prays that Hashem will fill the absence in this generation which is lacking in people of truth who fight for what they believe in.


INN news

Below are a few items from IsraelNationalNews.

Rabbi Avrohom Ya'akov Friedman, the Sadigura Rebbe, passed away, Tuesday morning, at the age of 84.
...After his father passed away in 1979, he succeeded him, and in 1989 was chosen as a member of the presidium of Agudat Yisrael's Torah Sages Council.

The Rebbe was a proponent of the Jewish communities in Gush Katif and vehemently opposed ceding parts of the Land of Israel to the Arabs. He was considered the most nationalist member of the Agudat Yisrael presidium.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/163768

Chairman Moshe Feiglin of the Manhigut Yehudit (Jewish Leadership) faction of the Likud was detained, Tuesday morning, after he prostrated himself during a visit to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem's Old City.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/258802

Dieter Graumann, chairman of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, urged the Green party to withdraw a candidate from a list for state election after he used expletive language to describe Jews and Muslims who practice the religious rite of circumcision.

According to The European Jewish Press (EJP), Ulf Dunkel has come under fire over two anti-circumcision poems he published which include expletives and refer to those who practice the religious ritual as "blind fanatics."
Read more: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/163749