Counting the years

The Torah tells us (Behar 25:8) to count the years, then to count each seven years for Shmita, then to multiply it get to forty nine for Yovel. Why all these calculations?

The Dubno Magid explains with a Mashal. There was a poor beggar who spent many years collecting money from door to door. Later in life he managed to escape his plight and become a regular Ba'al HaBayis in a small town. In this town he bragged to the other townspeople how wealthy he was despite being a man of meager means. "Fool!" said one his neighbors to him. "All the years you were a beggar you counted your money in pennies. Even now that you earn a meager living, you are still counting your wealth in pennies and are proud of your thousands upon thousands of pennies. However if you count your money in the larger denominations that normal people use, you have but a few gold coins which does not make you rich."

Our life in this world is fleeting, says the Dubno Magid. We are here today and gone tomorrow. However we mistakenly measure our life in years, days and hours, and we think we've been here forever and will continue to be here for a very long time. Not so says the Torah. Count Shmita and Yovel. You will see from seven years you have one shmitta. You'll only be here for a few shmittos, and probably not even two Yovlos. Think of it that way and you will be less concerned with your temporary dwelling and more concerned with your permanent one. Then, instead of collecting trivial events worth mere pennies, you will instead focus on collecting gold coins in the form mitzvos. Each one is worth not a Shmita or even a Yovel, but an eternity.
http://revach.net/article.php?id=3734

Ger Mandolin Orchestra

After tracing his family roots to Gora Kalwaria, Poland, and erecting a memorial stone in honor of them and the entire Jewish community that was wiped out in the Holocaust, Avner Yonai still felt incomplete.

....During his research, Mr. Yonai discovered that in the 1920s and '30s. his maternal grandfather, David Rybak, and two of his brothers played in a band -- the 11-piece Ger Mandolin Orchestra, Ger being the Yiddish name for Gora Kalwaria. Most of the musicians died in the Treblinka death camp, but not David; he left Poland for British-mandate Palestine in 1935, before World War II.

Mr. Yonai set about reconstructing that orchestra,...
Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/ae/music/grandson-recreates-orchestra-as-tribute-to-polish-jewish-roots-685397/#ixzz2RmWEg9vr

Observe the Sabbath day to sanctify it

I began reading an article in the New York Times about London's Jewish soccer team when I was struck by the words, "about 90 minutes before kickoff on a recent Saturday" and wondered how Jewish is a team that disregards the Jewish Sabbath.

...There are about 285,000 Jews in England, according to the 2011 census, and roughly two-thirds of them are said to live in or around London. The Lions were initially known as Maccabi Association London — and played in a Sunday league with other Jewish teams — but changed their name before the 2000 season when the club decided to enter into England’s more formal soccer structure.

 

At that time, there was some resistance from leaders of Britain’s Maccabi Union, who said it was not appropriate for the team to continue using the Maccabi name if it was going to play on Saturdays (the Jewish Sabbath), as is customary for most leagues in England. Club management considered several alternatives, and ultimately settled on Lions as a tribute to the lion of Judah, which is a symbol of one of the biblical tribes of Israel.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/28/sports/soccer/lions-of-judah-and-of-london-a-jewish-soccer-team-plays-when-saturday-comes.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Rabbi Wallerstein's words posted on Torah Anytime in a shiur titled The Correct Definition of Olam Habah particularly resonated with me. Click here to listen.

 

 

 

Guilty

Mohamed Mamdouh, 22, a naturalized citizen from Morocco, had pleaded guilty in a closed-court proceeding last year to conspiracy and weapons possession as crimes of terror; his co-defendant, Algerian citizen Ahmed Ferhani, got a ten-year sentence last month as the scheme's mastermind.

The two had been taped during an eight-month NYPD undercover operation plotting to throw a grenade into an unspecified synagogue, and to wire multiple bombs to a single detonator so as to blow up several synagogues simultaneously.
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/moroccan_would_be_synagogue_bomber_5PIV61VnWPhvbs2C5ImppL

A jury in South Bend, Indiana has found that fraud put President Obama and Hillary Clinton on the presidential primary ballot in Indiana in the 2008 election. Two Democratic political operatives were convicted Thursday night in the illegal scheme after only three hours of deliberations. They were found guilty on all counts.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/04/26/officials-found-guilty-in-obama-clinton-ballot-petition-fraud/#ixzz2RhMo9TOz

The United Nations official who angered critics by blaming the Boston Marathon bombing on “American global domination” will keep his post, because not enough other countries took offense at his comments.
Richard Falk, the United Nations Human Rights Council's Palestinian Territories monitor, will remain on the job until his mandate expires in mid-2014. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has rejected Falk’s comments, but the council's 47 member states have no plans to force him out.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/04/27/un-official-will-keep-post-despite-controversial-comments-about-boston-bombings/#ixzz2RhOB8BAv

Happy Lag Ba'Omer!!! Fabulous music and atmosphere at Meron, as evidenced by the live broadast at Kikar Hashabat.

What did you say?

I started reading "Positive Word Power" from the Chofetz Chaim Heritage Foundation and came across the following which I thought I would share with you.

What did you say?

...The Talmud (Chagiga 5b) teaches us that in the Next World, each of us will have to answer this question regarding every word we spoke in our lifetimes. It proves this by citing a verse in Amos (4:13) which states "u'maggid l'adam mah sicho - He recounts to a person what were his words."
....Rav Chaim Volozhiner writes in Nefesh Hachaim that there is a particular reason why the verse states "mah sicho - what were his words," rather than the more common formulation of "es sicho - his words."  The use of "mah" means that a person will not only hear his words, but he will see what his words did, what their consequences were to those who received them.

And just to reinforce the point that our words are being recorded to be played back later, here is an article about someone I am sure would like to take back some of his words.
H/T Memeorandum

Frank Luntz, the media-friendly Republican consultant and word wiz, told a group of college students this week that Rush Limbaugh and right-wing talk radio are "problematic" for the GOP and partly responsible for the stark polarization within the nation's political discourse. He only dared to speak so candidly about Limbaugh and other conservative hosts off the record. A secretly recorded video, though, captured Luntz's remark.
Continue reading: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/04/frank-luntz-rush-limbaugh-problematic-secret-tape

128-Year-Old Recording Surfaces of Alexander Graham Bell’s Voice — Hear It!

About wealth

A study published in the April issue of the Journal of Applied Social Psychology found that many people primarily driven by a desire for wealth are still willing to help someone in need.

...Whether the subject was intrinsically motivated by religion did predict helping behavior: those with intrinsic religious motivation (those who viewed religion as an end in itself rather than a means to an end) were 13 times more likely to help compared to a subject without intrinsic motivation (like those who viewed religion as a means to an end, motivated by social status or peer approval).

"The source of intrinsic motivation arises from following religious tradition, which calls for altruism and self-sacrifice," writes author Michael Babula, a senior lecturer in quantitative techniques at the University of Greenwich.
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-04/research-shows-rich-people-arent-entirely-awful-and-selfish

GVA reports that a Belgian mayor is calling on people to return money they picked up on a street after a safe was dropped by fleeing thieves this past Saturday. So far, people have returned 11,000 euro but the mayor stated that the amount lost was considerably higher.

A possible motive

An escapee from a psychiatric institution slashed a rabbi and his son with a box-cutter on Tuesday, prompting witnesses to tackle and subdue the attacker after a chase through a Paris synagogue, officials said.
...The assailant was of Iranian origin, and an official investigation was underway to determine a possible motive, Prasquier said.
Continue reading: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/escapee-from-psychiatric-hospital-slashes-rabbi-son-with-box-cutter-outside-paris-synagogue/2013/04/23/493d8252-ac23-11e2-9493-2ff3bf26c4b4_story.html

By the way, thank you to LondonMale for the interesting and informative comment on the last post.

Building collapse

An eight-story building collapsed Wednesday morning on the outskirts of the Bangladeshi capital, killing at least 123 people and injuring hundreds, a police official said.

...Several garment workers near the wreckage said a crack appeared Tuesday on the building's seventh floor.

At first, the workers said, managers ordered workers not to report to work on Wednesday.

Later, the factory owners reversed the order, telling workers that the building was safe, said Morjina Begum, who worked on the sixth floor. Many workers were hesitant to show up Wednesday but reported to work because they were afraid of losing their jobs, she said. More than a dozen other workers corroborated her story.
Read more: http://edition.cnn.com/2013/04/24/world/asia/bangladesh-building-collapse/index.html

Let's hope that survivors will be found speedily and what a shame about the order being reversed.

Speed painting

A friend of mine told me about an email that had been sent to her regarding a speed painter who painted a series of splotches. No one in the audience could figure out what he was painting until the very last second, when all was revealed. She said that it was a parable for life about how we can not begin to comprehend the whole picture.

Yesterday I came across a story about Eliyahu Hanavi who took a man with him on a journey in which the man could not fathom why bad things happened to good people and vice versa, until the prophet revealed all.

Click here to read the story.

Coming - the 17th of Iyar

After reading an article at KikarHashabat about a rabbi's prediction of a catastrophe occurring this coming Saturday evening, I translated some of it and posted about the event which will lead to "chevlei Mashiach." After posting, I discovered that Yeranen Yaakov had already translated the article in full so I will direct you to his post over here.
http://www.kikarhashabat.co.il/בהלה-בירושלים-קץ-העולם-הגיע.html

Israel Matzav reports on one person wating for Mashiach over here.

And here's news about a tragedy that did not occur.

An Associated Press spokesman told Reuters on Tuesday that an AP Twitter message reporting two explosions in the White House was "bogus."
Read more: http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/04/23/uk-usa-whitehouse-ap-idUKBRE93M12Q20130423?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews

Just a reminder of yesterday's post that this evening ushers in the yarzheit of Rabbi Meir Baal Haness.