For many years it has been the custom of Rabbi Dr. Moshe Dovid Tendler, famed posek, professor, and son-in-law of the great Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, זצ'ל to perform the commandment of "Mora Mikdash" - showing reverence to G-d at the place of the Holy Temple, by ascending the Temple Mount in strict accordance with halacha - Jewish law.
The Rabbi ascends the Mount every time he is in the land of Israel. He has made tens of visits to the Temple Mount.
The above visit was filmed on the 23rd of Tevet, 5769 - January 19th, 2009.
33 YEARS of the TEMPLE INSTITUTE
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Her beginnings were unremarkable, her life extraordinary. Her end — a bullet by a Hungarian execution squad — catapulted her into history, turned her into a symbol of courage, an inspiration for generations.
At the time of her death, Hanna Szenes was 23, innocent of all crime. On that fatal November 7, 1944, my heart leaped across the ocean and I cried. I cried for the injustice. I cried for Hanna Szenes who was — and still is — my hero.
If her young life had not been cut short, her writing might have become a welcome addition to the Israeli literary canon.
We never met. Our lives flowed only as two parallel lines. Five years after she was born on July 17, 1921, circumstances deposited my cradle not far from her native Budapest — in Brno, Czechoslovakia. Both of us came from solid Jewish families; Hanna’s, upper middle class, assimilated; mine, more modest, Modern Orthodox.
Hanna grew up surrounded by culture and love. Vivacious, precocious, protected, she possessed all: a good school where she excelled in all her studies, friends who sought her lively company, summers in the countryside. She learned French and English, played the piano, tutored weaker pupils. Popular with her peers, she partied and danced, she traveled, swam and skied.
She had boyfriends who proposed marriage to her. Years later, thinking of her Right Man whom she never found, she confessed to her diary, I am 22 and have never been kissed.
Her diary was her confidant: to it, she entrusted her thoughts, her feelings, her ambitions.
Like her father, Bela Szenes, well-known for his plays applauded on the Budapest stage, Hanna also wrote. She composed poetry and prose that was read and admired in her many circles. Bela died when she was a child of six; all her life, she remained fiercely attached to her mother Katerina and to her brother George.
Hanna and her brother, George, in Budapest. (From the collection of the National Library)
Both Hanna and I could have continued to live our separate cultured European lives.
It's Tisha Be'ov and we are all wondering why we are still mourning.
The Parsha that we all heard in shuls around the world this shabbos, was Parshas Devarim. Moshe Rabbeinu, using hints and riddles, chastises the Jewish people, reminding them of all what transpired in the 38 years prior.
But there was one sin that the Jewish people did that Moshe Rabbeinu didn't mince words, didn't hint and didn't use riddles but was very direct, and that was the "Chet of the Meraglim."
Why?
Because Hashem never forgives someone who bad mouths Eretz Yisrael, you could learn Torah and do chesed, you could be a great rabbi who authors the greatest sefarim, but if you bad mouth Eretz Yisrael, Hashem will never forgive you.
Last night was the 3,330th anniversary of when the Meraglim brought their treasonous words to Moshe.
Hashem promised that this day would be בכיה לדורות "a cry for generations" and Hashem was true to His words; the first and second Bais Hamikdash were destroyed on the anniversary of this very day.
The Talmud in Yoma (ט':ב)cannot understand why the Second Bais Ha'mikdash was destroyed, after all the Jews were involved in Torah, Mitzvois and Gemillas Chassadim
?שהיו עוסקין בתורה ובמצות וגמילת חסדים מפני מה חרב
It would have been much easier to understand why Hashem destroyed the Bais Hamikdash , if the Jews at the time would have been involved exclusively "in Torah and Mitzvois" and not in involved in chessed, then we could reason, that the Jews were only interested in mitzvahs that were between them and Hashem בין אדם למקום,but mitzvahs that pertain between them and their fellow Jews,בין אדם לחבירו they neglected, and that's why Hashem destroyed the Bais Hamikdash.
But a careful reading of the Talmud's question includes גמילת חסדים, the Jews were very much involved in doing chessed,
so if they were doing "chessed, why was the Bais Hamikdash destroyed?
The gemmarah answers that it was because of "baseless hatred"שנאת חינם`
Wait one minute, they were doing chessed and hated their fellow Jew? How do we understand that, it's a contradiction!
It's not a contradiction ... because doing a chessed to a neighbour or to another Jew is a personal thing, you feel bad for his or her circumstances, so you will go out and do them a chessed...
Hating another Jew is anonymous thing, because usually you hate a group and you may not even know them personally ...
"That other group doesn't dress like me, doesn't follow my minhagim, or even because they are not religious. So yes, I will do them a favor a chessed should they need something, but in my heart I hate them, I don't want them living anywhere near me."
So how does a Jew who learns Torah, does mitzvahs and does Chessed, hate another Jew? Where does it start?
For that we have to thank Hamas!
What? Hamas?
Yes absolutely... Hamas and Hizbollah train their toddlers to hate Jews, and set up summer camps to make sure this happens. They train them when they are still very young.
There exists a very large Chassidus that is known for chessed, if G-d forbid you or a loved one was ever hospitalised, you benefited from that chessed. They will take their shirts off their back to help another Yid, no question.
But at the same time they embed hate of other Jews such as Zionists, in their children and they do it when their children are still very small
Another point that I want to make in reference to this gemarrah in Yoma....
If you open the book of Josephus or even the gemarrah itself, you will see that there were large groups of Jews that were not at all frum and some of them were even murderers. For example, the Sadducees and the Essenes were groups of Jews that went against the Torah, so why is the gemmarah searching for a reason for the destruction of the Bais Hamikdash and why does the gemmarrah seem to say that all Jews were involved in "Torah, Mitzvahs and Gemillas Chassadim?"
Why doesn't the gemmarah simply say that Bais Hamikdash was destroyed because many Jews were violating the Torah, weren't holding shabbos?
The answer is that Hashem looks what the Frummies are doing. Hashem is looking at the guys that learn all day, learn Mussar sefarim, do Mitzvois and do chessed who are "Torah True Jews" ....yet hate each other.
Hashem is looking at the Jews who instead of voting, make illegal protests, protesting the "light rail" in Yerushalyim because it "will bring "prizus into their neighbourhoods, yet destroying millions of shekels worth of equipment." Hashem is looking at Jews that throw rocks and beat up other Jews because they were brave enough to join the army to protect their very rights to protest. Hashem is looking at Jews that train their children to call other Jews "Nazis" Hashem is looking at the "holy" Jews in Meah Sharim who threw rocks and eggs, just like Arabs, on 60 innocent Jewish girls that walked thru their neighborhood.
The Bais Hamikdash was not destroyed because of "chillul Shabbos" it wasn't destroyed because of Jews that may have distorted the Torah ....
The Bais Hamikdash according to this gemmarrah in Yoma was destroyed because of the "Tzaddikim" it was destroyed because those learning Torah and doing Mitzvois and going out of their way to do another Jew a chesed, were at the same time carrying around hate in their minds & bodies..
Remember that the roshei teivois of
איכה ישבה בדד העיר
is איבה ..hate
and that brings me to my headline ...
about Harav Yitzchok Dovid Grossman...
This book is a must read, and every Jewish home must run out and buy it. It's about a Yerushalmie Jew brought up in Meah Searim and who loves every single Jew... see what he has and continues to accomplish.
I have seen his work first hand, and he is truly a tzaddik.
If you want to celebrate Tisha Be'ov next year, buy this book and start in your own small way emulating a true Ohaiv Yisrael!
Ha’aretz is more than just a left-leaning newspaper.
It is an enemy of the state, and in fact, an enemy of the Jewish people, whose future depends on the state.
Today, when Israel and Jews are under attack throughout the world, when international organizations have been turned into lie factories targeting Israel, when the Jewish State is accused of the very crimes – terrorism, murder, apartheid, genocide – that her enemies are either guilty of or aspire to, an Israeli newspaper, owned and operated by Jews, is a primary propaganda organ of those enemies.
Every day, the paper – which publishes both a Hebrew print edition that few Israelis read, and an English internet edition that is read around the world by decision-makers in governments and businesses – pumps out its vileness. Every day its writers present a slanted version of events in which Israel and Israelis are oppressors, occupiers, murderers, racists, thieves, and liars.
By virtue of its Israeli origin, this Stürmer gains credibility. Perhaps you don’t believe everything you read on Aljazeera’s website, but this is an Israeli newspaper; indeed, it’s been called the NY Times of Israel, the paper of record.
Today there is a typical example. In an editorial, they excoriate the Yamam, the Israel Police counterterrorism unit, accusing it of committing a “cold-blooded execution” of a man named Ahmed Abdu. They call it “Israel’s own death squad,” equating it with the ones operated by South American dictators.
Their accusation is based on a security camera video: it shows someone in a car getting shot. That is all it shows. But let me quote the Ha’aretz editorial:
Who killed Ashli Babbitt? His name is Lt. Michael Byrd. So the only deliberate killing on January 6 was a black male police officer who shot a white female Trump supporter through the neck. Are you still puzzled why the media is hiding Byrd's identity? https://t.co/6nAMThNHSt
Do not release your pet goldfish in lakes or ponds. That's what officials are saying after a huge goldfish was recently pulled from a Minnesota lake, an issue that has been seen across the United States in recent years.
National Geographic said while a goldfish typically weighs just 0.2 to 0.6 pounds, they can weigh more than five pounds in the wild, CBS News reported.
"They grow bigger than you think and contribute to poor water quality by mucking up the bottom sediments and uprooting plants," the City of Burnsville, Minnesota, tweeted on Friday, July 9.
In recent years, huge goldfish were also reported in bodies of water in South Carolina, Missouri, Virginia and Kentucky, CBS News said.
Large, invasive goldfish have also been seen in New York. In March, an angler in Syracuse reported that he caught a 14 1/2 inch goldfish Onondaga Lake, according to Syracuse.com.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has posted guidance on how goldfish owners can "break up" with their pet without damaging the ecosystems of any bodies of water. The agency said after freeing your pet, it can still grow huge under the right conditions.
"Imagine a goldfish the size of a football and weighing four pounds," the agency said.
Some alternatives include rehoming the fish or donating it to a school, learning institution or pet store.
The apparently deranged stranger who snatched a boy off a Queens sidewalk and threw him into a car — only to have the child’s quick-thinking and faster-moving mom grab him back — handled the kid “like he was a bag of garbage,” the victim’s big brother told The Post.
Dolores Diaz Lopez, 45, was walking along Hillside Avenue in Richmond Hill Thursday night, taking her three kids to see their mechanic dad, Benjamin Diaz, at work, when a man she didn’t know leapt from a nearby maroon sedan.
Jacob had just let go of her hand, running a little bit in front of her on the wide and fairly empty sidewalk. She said she was watching him.
The next thing she knew a man sprinted out of a car, grabbed Jacob and ran back to the vehicle with him.
“Then I saw the man coming out of the car. He ran towards Jacob,” Lopez told The Post. “I was scared. I screamed, ‘Oh my God, he is taking my kid!”
“He picked him up like he was a bag of garbage,” said Jacob’s 9-year-old brother, Benny. “The car was close by. He opened the passenger door in the back and threw my brother in the car. He shut the door and locked it.”
Diaz Lopez, Benny and 8-year-old daughter Zuriely sprang into action like a trio from an action movie — and rescued a stunned Jacob.
“I ran around the other side of the car and tried to open the door,” Zuriley told The Post. “I pulled it but it didn’t open. The man locked the door with my brother inside the car.”
Benny recalled McGonagle’s passenger in the sedan ask the apparently crazed kidnapper, “What are you doing?”
“He was sitting in the passenger seat in the front,” Benny said of the man who police sourced identified Saturday as McGonagle’s father. “The man who took Jacob said, ‘We are kidnapping the kid.’”
It was up to Mom to finally save the day.
“Jacob stood up in the back seat and I pulled him out through the front passenger window,” she said as she gestured out both arms, made fists and pulled her arms in, showing how she grabbed her son out of the car.
She grabbed Jacob through the front window because the windows in the back were locked.
“Give me that stupid kid back!” McGonagle yelled. But by then a crowd had gathered and the men took off.
“He didn’t want to get caught,” said Benny.
Lopez said she was beyond relieved when Jacob was back in her arms.
During the course of the past few months there have been weekly and almost daily protests on Bar Ilan street in northern Jerusalem against the building of a new line of the Jerusalem light rail which will be traversing the street in a short while. The demonstrators claim that the planned route of the new line -from the Hebrew University on Mount Scopus to the Givat Ram university campus – will bring hundreds of secular students and staff through the predominantly chareidi neighborhood, changing the atmosphere and negatively influencing local children.
At present the street – a vital thoroughfare which connects the northern entrance to Jerusalem with its main western entrance – is clogged with numerous buses with both internal and intercity routes passing through and creating significant congestion. The planned train would reduce local public transport and ease the congestion but at the same time change the character of the neighborhood. Trains are more frequent than the buses and this would lead to more people getting off trains to make purchases in the area, leading to a drop in modesty standards.
Eda Chareidis leaders say that just as another planned line crossing Meah Shearim is to be placed under the streets of Strauss and Yehezkel, the Bar Ilan line should also be placed underground in order to “prevent spiritual harm to residents of the neighborhood.”
The demonstrations have also turned violent on some occasions, with extreme elements destroying equipment and setting fires in an attempt to halt the ongoing construction. Police have used water cannon, arrests and other measures in attempts to disperse the demonstrations but protesters continue the daily vigils, which have also disrupted traffic in the area on numerous occasions.
During the nine days the Eda Chareidis decided not to initiate demonstrations but rather to make a prayer vigil near the site, where Tikkun Chatzos was recited by the elders of the community, according to a report by B’Chadrei Chareidim and Kikar Hashabbos
No machlokes
10 hours ago
“demonstrations have also turned violent on some occasions, with extreme elements destroying equipment and setting fires in an attempt to halt the ongoing construction.” Children aren’t negatively influenced by this behavior? Destroying equipment is stealing, an issue d’oraiysa.
Judith
5 hours ago
Arrogant souls think they own the whole country . Secular people don’t fret when Haredim walk through their neighborhoods, buy homes and move in , usually because of housing shortages in orthodox neighborhoods .
CudahyKid
8 hours ago
Unfortunately for the Jews that live in these neighborhoods, Israel a democracy, where citizens have the right to wear what they choose to wear. The Orthodox just have to deal with that. The Orthodox do not have the right to impose their rules on everyone.
The sea is a mirror
7 hours ago
>>> Trains are more frequent than the buses and this would lead to more people getting off trains to make purchases in the area, leading to a drop in modesty standards.
This is the entire issue? Residents don’t want more transit riders getting off the trains and making local purchases?
The solution is simple. Run an advertising campaign:
“Buy dati, not chareidi.”
Everyone should shop in their own neighborhoods, and support their own institutions.
Johnson & Johnson said Wednesday that it is recalling five of its sunscreen products after some samples were found to contain low levels of benzene, a chemical that can cause cancer with repeated exposure.
The affected products, packaged in aerosol cans, are Aveeno Protect + Refresh aerosol sunscreen, and four Neutrogena sunscreen versions: Beach Defense aerosol sunscreen, CoolDry Sport aerosol sunscreen, Invisible Daily Defense aerosol sunscreen and UltraSheer aerosol sunscreen.
The recall includes all can sizes and all levels of sun protection factor, or SPF. The products were distributed nationwide through retailers.
The health care giant said the benzene was found after testing by the company and an independent laboratory. It is investigating how the chemical got into the products.
J&J said it’s working to get all lots of the five products removed from store shelves. It urged consumers to stop using the sunscreens immediately and said customers can get a refund by calling J&J’s Consumer Care Center at 1-800-458-1673. More information is available at the websites for Neutrogena and Aveeno.
J&J said in a statement that “use of these products would not be expected to cause adverse health consequences” and that it voluntarily decided to recall them “out of an abundance of caution.” The statement added that people should use an alternate sunscreen to protect themselves from the skin cancer melanoma.
Benzene is a highly flammable, widely used chemical that’s present throughout the environment. It can cause cancer with repeated exposure at high enough levels. It also can damage the immune system and prevent cells from functioning properly, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The chemical’s effects vary by whether a person accidentally inhales or ingests it or gets it on skin and clothing. Symptoms range from dizziness and irregular heartbeat to convulsions and, at very high levels, death.
J&J, which is based in New Brunswick, New Jersey, said it has notified the Food and Drug Administration of the recall.
We regret to inform you of the Petira of Hagaon HaRav Yoel Kahan ZT”L, who served at the chief choizer (reviewer and teacher) of the Lubavitcher Rebbe ZT”L’s teachings and the Head Mashpia of the Central Yeshiva Tomchei Tmimim Lubavitch. He was Niftar after suffering a massive heart attack on Thursday. He was 91.
Known as “Reb Yoel,” he was revered by generations of Chabad students and scholars for his brilliance and his ability to distill and communicate subtle, complex concepts of Chabad philosophy to a wide and diverse audience. He was also the editor-in-chief of the highly acclaimed encyclopedia of Chabad Chasidic thought, Sefer Ha-arachim.
Born in the Soviet Union in 1930, he emigrated with his family to Israel at the tender age of five, where he studied in Yeshiva Achei Temimim in Tel Aviv. He spent his teenage years studying with several prominent Chabad Chasidic scholars. In 1950 he boarded a ship to New York where he quickly became attached to the Lubavitcher Rebbe ZT”L, devoting all his energy to interpret and disseminate the Rebbe’s teachings.
Reb Yoel’s unique talent for memorization, along with his intellectual abilities, made him the official “reviewer” and the authoritative exponent of the oral discourses of the Rebbe. Often held on Shabbos, when writing was not possible, Reb Yoel led the effort to reconstruct the Rebbe’s talks, with a team of scholars under his tutelage.
In his role as the head mashpia of the Tomchei Temimim Yeshiva at 770, Reb Yoel guided thousands of students in the teachings of Chassidus. He also traveled far and wide to give shiurim in Chassidus and to farbreng. His audio recordings, and books, are used by many more around the world.
He is survived by his wife, Rebbetzin Leah Kahan.
The Levaya will be leaving Shomrei Hadas Chapels – 3803 14th Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11218 on Friday 9:45 AM.
The procession will be passing Lubavitch World Headquarters – 770 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, NY 11213 on Friday 10:45 AM.
The Kevura will be at the Lubavitch section of Old Montefiore Cemetery – 226-20 Francis Lewis Blvd, Cambria Heights, NY 11411.
I surreptitiously angled my test paper so that light would filter through and I would be able to see the question. I was in the 9th grade, and we were taking the NYS regents biology exam. A giant white sticker covered question #19. Luckily, it was a sunny day and faint rays of sunlight filtered through. I could just make out a diagram of male anatomy with an arrow pointing to the vas deferens. Funny how the topics our school avoided teaching us ended up seared into our minds. “The arrow is pointing to which structure?” I filled in the correct answer knowing it wouldn’t help. We would all automatically get that question “wrong”. That was my high school’s policy.
It wasn’t surprising to us. After all, they tore out of our textbooks all the chapters covering evolution and reproduction. The former, perhaps is understandable, but the latter still baffles me; some of the students were literally 3 years away from getting married and starting families. I recall feeling anxious and angry. Somewhere, is some recess of my mind, I wanted to become a doctor. Would there be another five questions on reproduction or evolution causing my baseline score to tank? Would it affect my chances of going to college? My older sister had started the exam off with a 90% and I had even heard of one class that sunk to the 80’s.
But I shouldn’t have been so worried. There were only two “bad” questions on our exam and we started off with a 99%. In addition, it would be a while till I would actually pursue medicine and by then, this particular score wouldn’t matter that much. What should have worried me more was how the philosophical underpinnings of my environment would affect me in the coming decade. For example, the time a seminary teacher spent an entire lesson telling us a story of a graduate from our school who went to Touro College in Brooklyn (a college that is set up to serve the frum community, with separate classes for men and women and professors staying clear of topics that would be considered inappropriate) and then went on to marry her non-Jewish professor and become irreligious. The teacher then paused, closed her eyes dramatically, and said: “Then she got cancer. May it be a kaparah for her.”
I’m writing this essay in a format addressing those who are part of the charedi leadership. I’ll be using “you” when referring to the charedi world/leadership and “we” collectively to address myself, as if I am part of the charedi world, simply because this makes for easier writing. If you are curious to know why an otherwise successful product of charedi chinuch chose not to continue in this path, read on. If you are a charedi leader, you probably care to know why people are “leaving”, and rest assured, they are. Some make a lot of noise or go OTD. Some just want to live their life peacefully and make a quiet, graceful (I hope!) exit, finding other branches of Orthodoxy.
