Chanukah
starts Sunday night buy your candles or oil learn the Halachos from sources
listed below.
Re: Direct main receivers. I changed my password on
my AOL account after a hack or clone use of e-mail came to friend.
No doubt! How did I know? I didn’t, but felt somehow the need to make a prayer for the two people in the Shemona Esray.
Parsha Vayeishev
Yacov
was 99 when he returned to his 159-year-old father. Here was his base in Beer
Sheva but he also had purchased land in Schem. Our Parsha opens up with Yacov
teaching Torah to his son Yosef. Yacov is now 106-years-old and has in his
opinion reached the age of rest and aboding in his tent while the sons take
over from him.
Rabbi
Simcha HaCohain Kuk Shlita asks: “Where is the Holy One Blessed Be HE in our
Parsha?” HE is busy making Moshiach Ben David and Moshiach Ben Yosef.
37:1 And Jacob dwelt in the land of his father's sojourning’s,
in the land of Canaan. 2 These
are the generations of Jacob. Joseph, being seventeen years old, was feeding
the flock with his brethren, being still a lad even with the sons of Bilhah,
and with the sons of Zilpah, his father's wives; and Joseph brought evil report
of them unto their father.
What is this favoritism? Yacov has 12 sons and
these are the generations and it focuses on Yosef only! Lashon HaRa even if it
is true can kill. In this case it gave Yosef a name of a tattletale and maybe
gossip. There is the Hebrew word Malshin which means to bring an evil report.
When one does this in the Charedi Community they can sometimes drive him and
his family out of the town. Yosef almost brought death upon himself not only
because the four brothers but with his dreams they incited the other brothers
against him.
3 Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his
children, because he was the son of his old age; and he made him a coat of many
colors.
Yosef was very handsome and looked very much
like Rachel. So Yacov spoiled him partially because he was an orphan and
partially because he reminded Yacov of Rachel.
4 And when his brethren saw that their father
loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him, and could not speak
peaceably unto him.
Favoritism made them hate Yosef.
5 And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it to
his brethren; and they hated him yet the more.
They knew what the dream meant and hated him
more.
6 And he said unto them: 'Hear, I pray you, this
dream which I have dreamed: 7
for, behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and, lo, my sheaf arose, and
also stood upright; and, behold, your sheaves came round about, and bowed down
to my sheaf.' 8 And his brethren
said to him: 'Shalt thou indeed reign over us? or shalt thou indeed have
dominion over us?' And they hated him yet the more for his dreams, and for his
words.
V’YOSIFU added more hatred on the high hatred
of Yosef. They added on to their very high level of hatred.
9 And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it
to his brethren, and said: 'Behold, I have dreamed yet a dream: and, behold,
the sun and the moon and eleven stars bowed down to me.' 10 And he told it to his father, and
to his brethren; and his father rebuked him, and said unto him: 'What is this
dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed
come to bow down to thee to the earth?'
Seeing the reaction of the brothers, Yacov
shuts him up. Parts of dreams are false as Rachel has died years ago. (See the
section on dreams in Tractate Berachos Dafim approx. 53 to 58.)
11 And his brethren envied him; but his father
kept the saying in mind.
He accepted it as prophecy but when the coat of
many colors came back bloody, he did not remember it any more.
12 And his brethren went to feed their father's
flock in Shechem. 13 And Israel
said unto Joseph: 'Do not thy brethren feed the flock in Shechem? come, and I
will send thee unto them.' And he said to him: 'Here am I.' 14 And he said to him: 'Go now, see
whether it is well with thy brethren, and well with the flock; and bring me
back word.' So he sent him out of the vale of Hebron, and he came to Shechem. 15 And a certain man found him, and,
behold, he was wandering in the field. And the man asked him, saying: 'What
seek thou?'
Certain man - if it was after the time of
Eliyahu HaNovi, it would be him, but here it appears to refer to an angle sent
for the purpose of sending Yacov and the Bnei Yisrael into Egypt.
Then a man found him: This is [the angel] Gabriel, as it is said: “And
the man Gabriel” (Dan.
9:21). [From Tanchuma Vayeishev 2]
16 And he said: 'I seek my brethren. Tell me, I
pray thee, where they are feeding the flock.' 17 And the man said: 'They are departed hence; for I heard them
say: Let us go to Dothan.' And Joseph went after his brethren, and found them
in Dothan. 18 And they saw him
afar off, and before he came near unto them, they conspired against him to slay
him. 19 And they said one to
another: 'Behold, this dreamer comes. 20
Come now therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into one of the pits, and
we will say: An evil beast hath devoured him; and we shall see what will become
of his dreams.'
This is the two hot-heads Shimon and Levy.
21 And Reuben heard it, and delivered him out of
their hand; and said: 'Let us not take his life.'
Reuven will not only save Yosef but return him
safely to his father.
22 And Reuben said unto them: 'Shed no blood;
cast him into this pit that is in the wilderness, but lay no hand upon
him'--that he might deliver him out of their hand, to restore him to his
father. 23 And it came to pass,
when Joseph was come unto his brethren, that they stripped Joseph of his coat,
the coat of many colors that was on him; 24 and they took him, and cast him into the pit--and the pit was
empty, there was no water in it. 25
And they sat down to eat bread; and they lifted up their eyes and looked, and,
behold, a caravan of Ishmaelites came from Gilead, with their camels bearing
spicery and balm and ladanum, going to carry it down to Egypt. 26 And Judah said unto his brethren:
'What profit is it if we slay our brother and conceal his blood?
Yehuda looks pretty poor from our standpoint.
But think about his point of view. He has two older brothers who just
slaughtered everybody in the town of Schem. He wants a brilliant leadership
idea but is in no position from family hierarchy to go against them. The poor
choice he makes is to suggest selling his brother. Still it is his doing and we
shall see at the end of Parsha Mikeitz and the beginning of Vayigash that
Yehuda takes full responsibility.
27 Come, and let us sell him to the Ishmaelites,
and let not our hand be upon him; for he is our brother, our flesh.' And his
brethren hearkened unto him.
We see this as a cruel and wicked thing to do.
He sees this as Pekeuach Nefesh. In order to keep Yosef alive. Rather a live
slave than a dead brother. It was Reuven’s failed leadership for had he stayed
or kept Yosef by him, he would not have been sold.
28 And there passed by Midianites, merchantmen;
and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the
Ishmaelites for twenty shekels of silver. And they brought Joseph into Egypt. 29 And Reuben returned unto the pit;
and, behold, Joseph was not in the pit; and he rent his clothes. 30 And he returned unto his brethren,
and said: 'The child is not; and as for me, whither shall I go?'
He did not instruct the brothers to wait for
him and now he had to make up for their bad decision.
31 And they took Joseph's coat, and killed a
he-goat, and dipped the coat in the blood; 32 and they sent the coat of many colors, and they brought it to
their father; and said: 'This have we found. Know now whether it is thy son's
coat or not.'
Yacov gets
Mida Knegged Mida (measure for measure) just like he deceived his father with a
goat when it came to the blessing so too was he deceived. Just like he was away
an extra 22 years so Yosef would be away from him 22 years.
33 And he knew it, and said: 'It is my son's
coat; an evil beast hath devoured him; Joseph is without doubt torn in pieces.'
34 And Jacob rent his garments,
and put sackcloth upon his loins, and mourned for his son many days. 35 And all his sons and all his
daughters rose up to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted; and he said:
'Nay, but I will go down to the grave to my son mourning.' And his father wept
for him.
Usually after 12 months ends the mourning and
the dead is forgotten [not altogether but not upon the heart daily]. In the
case of Yosef, he was alive so inwardly Yacov could not be comforted for him.
36 And the Midianites sold him into Egypt unto
Potiphar, a castrated officer of Pharaoh's, the captain of the guard.
Potiphar
was neutralized to be chief of security for Pharaoh. However, beforehand, he
had a family like anybody else and a daughter named Osnat. Potiphar’s wife in
the spiritual sense saw the Moshiach Ben Yosef as her descendant. She thought
directly from her but it would be from her daughter. The Medrash places Dina as
having delivered Osnat and giving her up for adoption.
38:1 And it came to pass at that time, that Judah
went down from his brethren, and turned in to a certain Adullamite, whose name
was Hirah. 2 And Judah saw there
a daughter of a certain Canaanite whose name was Shua; and he took her, and
went in unto her. 3 And she
conceived, and bore a son; and he called his name Er. 4 And she conceived again, and bore a son; and she called his name
Onan. 5 And she yet again bore a
son, and called his name Shelah; and he was at Chezib, when she bore him. 6 And Judah took a wife for Er his
first-born, and her name was Tamar. 7
And Er, Judah's first-born, was wicked in the sight of the LORD; and the LORD
slew him.
Instead of reproducing to make the Moshiach he
wasted his seed that Tamar would not lose her beauty and become pregnant. For
this he was killed as the marriage was neutralized by his wasting of seed for
he viewed Tamar as a wife for his enjoyment only. He died in what we call this
Meta bedai Shemayim (death by the ‘hands of’ heaven and before the age of 50).
8 And Judah said unto Onan: 'Go in unto thy
brother's wife, and perform the duty of a husband's brother unto her, and raise
up seed to thy brother.' 9 And
Onan knew that the seed would not be his; and it came to pass when he went in
unto his brother's wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest he should give
seed to his brother. 10 And the
thing which he did was evil in the sight of the LORD; and He slew him also.
He wanted to use the woman like his brother for
fun only and not was she was created for. He also did not want to raise seed
for his brother’s portion. So G-D took him too.
11 Then said Judah to Tamar his daughter-in-law:
'Remain a widow in thy father's house, till Shelah my son be grown up'; for he
said: 'Lest he also die, like his brethren.' And Tamar went and dwelt in her
father's house. 12 And in
process of time Shua's daughter, the wife of Judah, died; and Judah was
comforted, and went up unto his sheep-shearers to Timnah, he and his friend
Hirah the Adullamite.
Yehuda is a robust young man still perhaps in
his mid to late thirties.
13 And it was told Tamar, saying: 'Behold, thy
father-in-law goes up to Timnah to shear his sheep.' 14 And she put off from her the garments of her widowhood, and
covered herself with her veil, and wrapped herself, and sat in the entrance of
Enaim, which is by the way to Timnah; for she saw that Shelah was grown up, and
she was not given unto him to wife. 15
When Judah saw her, he thought her to be a harlot; for she had covered her
face. 16 And he turned unto her
by the way, and said: 'Come, I pray thee, let me come in unto thee'; for he
knew not that she was his daughter-in-law. And she said: 'What wilt thou give
me, that thou may come in unto me?' 17
And he said: 'I will send thee a kid of the goats from the flock.' And she
said: 'Wilt thou give me a pledge, till thou send it?' 18 And he said: 'What pledge shall I give thee?' And she said:
'Thy signet and thy cord, and thy staff that is in thy hand.' And he gave them
to her, and came in unto her, and she conceived by him.
The cord and staff of kingship for the coming
of the Moshiach! Why did a Tzaddik like Yehuda do something like this. A Yetzer
to be with her was beyond human power to resist.
19 And she arose, and went away, and put off her
veil from her, and put on the garments of her widowhood. 20 And Judah sent the kid of the goats
by the hand of his friend the Adullamite, to receive the pledge from the
woman's hand; but he found her not. 21
Then he asked the men of her place, saying: 'Where is the harlot, that was at
Enaim by the wayside?' And they said: 'There hath been no harlot here.' 22 And he returned to Judah, and said:
'I have not found her; and also the men of the place said: There hath been no
harlot here.' 23 And Judah said:
'Let her take it, lest we be put to shame; behold, I sent this kid, and thou
hast not found her.' 24 And it
came to pass about three months after, that it was told Judah, saying: 'Tamar
thy daughter-in-law hath played the harlot; and moreover, behold, she is with
child by harlotry.' And Judah said: 'Bring her forth, and let her be burnt.'
Burning is for a daughter of a priest and Tamar
was from Shem a generation or two back.
25 When she was brought forth, she sent to her
father-in-law, saying: 'By the man, whose these are, am I with child'; and she
said: 'Discern, I pray thee, whose are these, the signet, and the cords, and
the staff.' 26 And Judah
acknowledged them, and said: 'She is more righteous than I; forasmuch as I gave
her not to Shelah my son.' And he knew her again no more.
Yehuda was driven by a powerful Yetzer for
Tamar that Tzaddik or no Tzaddik was above the human power to resist when he
impregnated her but now that the Moshiach was to come he would avoid being with
her.
But he no longer continued: Heb. וְלֹא-יָסַף. Some say: he did not continue [to know
her] (Targum Onkelos), and others say: he did not cease (Sotah 10b). (A similar
instance is found in connection with Eldad and Medad (Num.
11:25), [where the verse reads:] וְלֹא יָסָפוּ, they did not continue,
which the Targum renders: וְלֹא פָסְקוּ, they did not cease). I hope that
what happened is as Achilles wrote “did not cease” for this provided a stable
home for the twins to grow up in.
27 And it came to pass in the time of her
travail, that, behold, twins were in her womb. 28 And it came to pass, when she travailed, that one put out a
hand; and the midwife took and bound upon his hand a scarlet thread, saying:
'This came out first.' 29 And it
came to pass, as he drew back his hand, that, behold his brother came out; and
she said: 'Wherefore hast thou made a breach for thyself?' Therefore his name
was called Perez. 30 And afterward
came out his brother, that had the scarlet thread upon his hand; and his name
was called Zerah.
Perez
meaning breach will be the father of the part of the tribe where the Moshiach
shall rise.
39:1
And Joseph was brought down to Egypt; and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh's,
the captain of the guard, an Egyptian, bought him of the hand of the Ishmaelites,
that had brought him down thither. …17
And she spoke unto him according to these words, saying: 'The Hebrew servant,
whom thou hast brought unto us, came in unto me to mock me. 18 And it came to pass, as I lifted up
my voice and cried, that he left his garment by me, and fled out.' 19 And it came to pass, when his
master heard the words of his wife, which she spoke unto him, saying: 'After
this manner did thy servant to me'; that his wrath was kindled. 20 And Joseph's master took him, and
put him into the prison, the place where the king's prisoners were bound; and
he was there in the prison.
I believe the other servants told Potiphar
what was going on with his wife and her desire for Yosef otherwise he could
have killed him. Rather he knew Yosef was innocent and therefore put him in
prison.
21
But the LORD was with Joseph, and showed kindness unto him, and gave him favor
in the sight of the keeper of the prison.
I wonder if Yosef thought something like
the song: “I dreamed a dream” at first it was “life worth living” but turned
into a nightmare “turned your dream to shame”. Tzaddik and Ra Lo (bad for him).
The Tanya speaks of the Tzaddik who had still a Yetzer HaRa inside of him. That
was his teenage pride towards his brothers. Now he had no coat of many colors.
A loin cloth or prison outfit of sackcloth and he had no freedom.
A loin cloth or prison outfit of sackcloth and he had no freedom.
22
And the keeper of the prison committed to Joseph's hand all the prisoners that
were in the prison; and whatsoever they did there, he was the doer of it. 23 The keeper of the prison looked not
to anything that was under his hand, because the LORD was with him; and that
which he did, the LORD made it to prosper.
40:1 And it came to pass after these things, that
the butler of the king of Egypt and his baker offended their lord the king of
Egypt. 2 And Pharaoh was wroth
against his two officers, against the chief of the butlers, and against the
chief of the bakers. 3 And he
put them in ward in the house of the captain of the guard, into the prison, the
place where Joseph was bound. 4
And the captain of the guard charged Joseph to be with them, and he ministered
unto them; and they continued a season in ward. 5 And they dreamed a dream both of them, each man his dream, in
one night, each man according to the interpretation of his dream, the butler
and the baker of the king of Egypt, who were bound in the prison.
They dream
dreams and Yosef interprets them. Yosef could have been released from prison if
he had trusted in Hashem instead of the chamberlain. But he asked him to remember
him, but like most ungrateful people, he forgot Yosef.
20 And it came to pass the third day, which was
Pharaoh's birthday, that he made a feast unto all his servants; and he lifted
up the head of the chief butler and the head of the chief baker among his
servants. 21 And he restored the
chief butler back unto his butlership; and he gave the cup into Pharaoh's hand.
22 But he hanged the chief
baker, as Joseph had interpreted to them. 23 h did not the chief butler remember Joseph, but forgot him.
15% of the Shulchan Aruch is on-line. http://www.shulchanarach.com/
The laws of Chanucha can be found: Example: http://www.shulchanarach.com/ch/SAr_Ch_670_and_671.html
OU Chanucha. https://www.ou.org/holidays/category/chanukah/
Kathy
sent me this article from Rabbi J. Sachs https://israelseen.com/2017/11/10/jonathan-sacks-the-worlds-oldest-man/?fbclid=IwAR0Pl7Po6mPq7I0DhsArUADx15laYzoPHr6DA2QbCM_yYdIfOYTknr3Dy1c
The oldest man alive in modern living history lived for another day
in the future his recipe for longevity was just so simple it was to not dwell
& ponder on the past .....HIS
THOUGHTS WERE FIRST BUILD A FUTURE & ONLY THEN REMEMBER THE PAST.
"On 11 August 2017, the world’s oldest man passed away, just a month short of his 114th birthday – making him one of the ten longest-lived men since modern record-keeping began. If you knew nothing else about him than this, you would be justified in thinking that he had led a peaceful life, spared of fear, grief and danger.
The actual truth is the opposite. The man in question was Yisrael Kristal, Holocaust survivor. Born in Poland in 1903, he survived four years in the Lodz ghetto, and was then transported to Auschwitz. In the ghetto, his two children died. In Auschwitz, his wife was killed. When Auschwitz was liberated, he was a walking skeleton weighing a mere 37 kilos. He was the only member of his family to survive.
He was raised as a religious Jew and stayed so all his life. When the war was over and his entire world destroyed, he married again, this time to another Holocaust survivor. They had children. They made aliyah to Haifa. There he began again in the confectionery business, as he had done in Poland before the war. He made sweets and chocolate. He became an innovator. If you have ever had Israeli orange peel covered in chocolate, or liqueur chocolates shaped like little bottles and covered with silver foil, you are enjoying one of the products he originated. Those who knew him said he was a man with no bitterness in his soul. He wanted people to taste sweetness.
In 2016, at the age of 113, he finally celebrated his bar mitzvah. A hundred years earlier, this had proved impossible. By then, his mother was dead and his father was fighting in the First World War. With an almost poetic sense of fittingness, Yisrael died on Erev Shabbat Ekev, the Parsha that includes the second paragraph of the Shema with its commands to wear Tefillin and teach Torah to your children, “so that you and your children may live long in the land that the Lord swore to your ancestors.”
Yisrael Kristal faithfully did both. On his bar mitzvah he joked that he was the world’s oldest Tefillin-wearer. He gathered his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren under his tallit and said, “Here’s one person, and look how many people he brought to life. As we’re all standing here under my tallit, I’m thinking: six million people. Imagine the world they could have built.” This was an extraordinary man.
His life sheds light on one of the most tantalizing verses in the Torah. Describing the death of Abraham, our parsha says that he “breathed his last and died in good old age, old and satisfied” (Gen. 25:8). His is the most serene death in the Torah. Yet consider his life, fraught as it was with trial after trial.
To pursue the call of God, he had to say goodbye to his land, his birthplace and his father’s house and travel to an unknown destination. Twice, famine forced him into exile, where his life was in danger. Promised countless children – as many as the dust of the earth and the stars of the sky – he remained childless until old age. Then God told him to send away his son by Sarah’s handmaid Hagar. And if that trial were not heartbreaking enough, God then told him to sacrifice his only son with Sarah, Isaac, the one whom God had told him would be his spiritual heir and bearer of the covenant into the future.
Seven times promised a land, when Sarah died, he owned not a single square inch of territory in which to bury her, and had to entreat the Hittites to let him buy a field and burial cave. This was a life of disappointed hopes and delayed fulfillments. What kind of man was this that the Torah can say that he died “in good old age, old and satisfied”?
I learned the answer to this question through a series of life-changing encounters with Holocaust survivors. They were among the strongest, most life-affirming people I have ever met. For years I wondered how they were able to survive at all, having seen what they saw and known what they knew. They had lived through the deepest darkness ever to have descended on a civilization.
Eventually I realized what they had done. Almost without exception, when the war was over, they focused with single-minded intensity on the future. Strangers in a strange land, they built homes and careers, married and had children and brought new life into the world.
Often they did not talk about their experiences during the Shoah, even to their spouses, their children and their closest friends. This silence lasted, in many cases, for as long as fifty years. Only then, when the future they had built was secure, did they allow themselves to look back and bear witness to what they had suffered and seen. Some of them wrote books. Many of them went around schools, telling their story so that the Holocaust could not be denied. [1] First they built a future. Only then did they allow themselves to remember the past.
That is what Abraham did in this week’s Parsha. He had received three promises from God: children, a land, and the assurance that he would be the father, not of one nation but of many nations (Gen. 17:4-5). At the age of 137, he had one unmarried son, no land, and had fathered no nations. He uttered not a single word of complaint. It seems that he realized that God wanted him to act, not to wait for God to do the work for him.
So, when Sarah died, he bought the first plot in what would become the Holy Land, the field and cave of Machpelah. Then he instructed his servant to find a wife for Isaac, his son, so that he might live to see the first Jewish grandchildren. Lastly, in his old age, he married again and had six sons, who would eventually become progenitors of many nations. He did not, except briefly, sit and mourn the past. Instead he took the first steps toward building the future.
That, in his own way, is what Yisrael Kristal did – and that is how a survivor of Auschwitz lived to become the world’s oldest man. He too died “in good old age, old and satisfied.”
That is what the Jewish people did collectively when, a mere three years after standing eyeball-to-eyeball with the angel of death at Auschwitz, David Ben-Gurion proclaimed the Jewish State in our people’s ancient homeland, the land of Israel. Had world Jewry sat passively and wept from then till now for the murdered generations of European Jewry, it would have been an understandable reaction. But it did not. It was as if the Jewish people had said collectively, in the words of King David, “I will not die but live” (Ps. 118:17), thereby giving testimony to the God of life. That is why the West’s oldest nation is still young, a world leader in life-saving medicine, disaster relief, and life-enhancing technology.
This is a transformative idea. To survive tragedy and trauma, first build the future. Only then, remember the past."
"On 11 August 2017, the world’s oldest man passed away, just a month short of his 114th birthday – making him one of the ten longest-lived men since modern record-keeping began. If you knew nothing else about him than this, you would be justified in thinking that he had led a peaceful life, spared of fear, grief and danger.
The actual truth is the opposite. The man in question was Yisrael Kristal, Holocaust survivor. Born in Poland in 1903, he survived four years in the Lodz ghetto, and was then transported to Auschwitz. In the ghetto, his two children died. In Auschwitz, his wife was killed. When Auschwitz was liberated, he was a walking skeleton weighing a mere 37 kilos. He was the only member of his family to survive.
He was raised as a religious Jew and stayed so all his life. When the war was over and his entire world destroyed, he married again, this time to another Holocaust survivor. They had children. They made aliyah to Haifa. There he began again in the confectionery business, as he had done in Poland before the war. He made sweets and chocolate. He became an innovator. If you have ever had Israeli orange peel covered in chocolate, or liqueur chocolates shaped like little bottles and covered with silver foil, you are enjoying one of the products he originated. Those who knew him said he was a man with no bitterness in his soul. He wanted people to taste sweetness.
In 2016, at the age of 113, he finally celebrated his bar mitzvah. A hundred years earlier, this had proved impossible. By then, his mother was dead and his father was fighting in the First World War. With an almost poetic sense of fittingness, Yisrael died on Erev Shabbat Ekev, the Parsha that includes the second paragraph of the Shema with its commands to wear Tefillin and teach Torah to your children, “so that you and your children may live long in the land that the Lord swore to your ancestors.”
Yisrael Kristal faithfully did both. On his bar mitzvah he joked that he was the world’s oldest Tefillin-wearer. He gathered his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren under his tallit and said, “Here’s one person, and look how many people he brought to life. As we’re all standing here under my tallit, I’m thinking: six million people. Imagine the world they could have built.” This was an extraordinary man.
His life sheds light on one of the most tantalizing verses in the Torah. Describing the death of Abraham, our parsha says that he “breathed his last and died in good old age, old and satisfied” (Gen. 25:8). His is the most serene death in the Torah. Yet consider his life, fraught as it was with trial after trial.
To pursue the call of God, he had to say goodbye to his land, his birthplace and his father’s house and travel to an unknown destination. Twice, famine forced him into exile, where his life was in danger. Promised countless children – as many as the dust of the earth and the stars of the sky – he remained childless until old age. Then God told him to send away his son by Sarah’s handmaid Hagar. And if that trial were not heartbreaking enough, God then told him to sacrifice his only son with Sarah, Isaac, the one whom God had told him would be his spiritual heir and bearer of the covenant into the future.
Seven times promised a land, when Sarah died, he owned not a single square inch of territory in which to bury her, and had to entreat the Hittites to let him buy a field and burial cave. This was a life of disappointed hopes and delayed fulfillments. What kind of man was this that the Torah can say that he died “in good old age, old and satisfied”?
I learned the answer to this question through a series of life-changing encounters with Holocaust survivors. They were among the strongest, most life-affirming people I have ever met. For years I wondered how they were able to survive at all, having seen what they saw and known what they knew. They had lived through the deepest darkness ever to have descended on a civilization.
Eventually I realized what they had done. Almost without exception, when the war was over, they focused with single-minded intensity on the future. Strangers in a strange land, they built homes and careers, married and had children and brought new life into the world.
Often they did not talk about their experiences during the Shoah, even to their spouses, their children and their closest friends. This silence lasted, in many cases, for as long as fifty years. Only then, when the future they had built was secure, did they allow themselves to look back and bear witness to what they had suffered and seen. Some of them wrote books. Many of them went around schools, telling their story so that the Holocaust could not be denied. [1] First they built a future. Only then did they allow themselves to remember the past.
That is what Abraham did in this week’s Parsha. He had received three promises from God: children, a land, and the assurance that he would be the father, not of one nation but of many nations (Gen. 17:4-5). At the age of 137, he had one unmarried son, no land, and had fathered no nations. He uttered not a single word of complaint. It seems that he realized that God wanted him to act, not to wait for God to do the work for him.
So, when Sarah died, he bought the first plot in what would become the Holy Land, the field and cave of Machpelah. Then he instructed his servant to find a wife for Isaac, his son, so that he might live to see the first Jewish grandchildren. Lastly, in his old age, he married again and had six sons, who would eventually become progenitors of many nations. He did not, except briefly, sit and mourn the past. Instead he took the first steps toward building the future.
That, in his own way, is what Yisrael Kristal did – and that is how a survivor of Auschwitz lived to become the world’s oldest man. He too died “in good old age, old and satisfied.”
That is what the Jewish people did collectively when, a mere three years after standing eyeball-to-eyeball with the angel of death at Auschwitz, David Ben-Gurion proclaimed the Jewish State in our people’s ancient homeland, the land of Israel. Had world Jewry sat passively and wept from then till now for the murdered generations of European Jewry, it would have been an understandable reaction. But it did not. It was as if the Jewish people had said collectively, in the words of King David, “I will not die but live” (Ps. 118:17), thereby giving testimony to the God of life. That is why the West’s oldest nation is still young, a world leader in life-saving medicine, disaster relief, and life-enhancing technology.
This is a transformative idea. To survive tragedy and trauma, first build the future. Only then, remember the past."
Also
from Valerie how my grandmother survived the Holocaust. https://www.facebook.com/buzzfeedfyi/videos/665546720495669/?__xts__[0]=68.ARDV4GxBbN2GX0Ks0_wPR9OC4MJQ7JpkjJsF-wkMgNiuhtYQFiF_xzj0t1qD4QjoIjGTeV--t6mLVxOWB88JUqf59JuwjdhgwnrzWvFVmuNglupVufI64Z03rKsuSAAkVhdCa5K41l2kFzotkgxxfdkaYU4IeRSJb8-FQDhkDzk3cB2twD0ccTKi7D7bWr1168eOZgEYm3ueUqjFw8XJcVC3pJNTF52On3uTQ47HeqGqTQtEZrwBe43fJYlyDLApA3OMMTdKD1j96tEsp76glq0D38mEHzhaS3Gwx8UN8NwTvJtyODhY008c1LGdtE8gFjPefq0odNDZC4-gJN8HY2K2&__tn__=H-R
How Jews changed the world: http://www.aish.com/jw/s/How-the-Jews-Changed-the-World-and-We-Dont-Even-Know-It.html?s=mm
Columbus
and the Jews: http://www.aish.com/j/f/The-Jews-Columbus-and-Thanksgiving.html
7
mindsets to disregard before marriage. http://www.aish.com/f/m/7-Common-Mindsets-to-Discard-before-Marriage.html?s=mm
Abraham
Lincoln and the Jews: http://www.aish.com/ci/s/Abraham-Lincoln-and-the-Jews-10-Fascinating-Facts.html?s=hp3
From
Lee and Stephen. Luft Gesheft. https://jewtube.tv/innovation/say-goodbye-arab-oil-hello-israels-car-runs-air-water/?fbclid=IwAR021cauKzrUGt7Ydy2jH75H0rhpDwRU62n2KNONXhiBh2Rtl9vL24BIcng
War
of Ind. Fighter gets a higher rank. http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/255403
Chief
Rabbinate extends list of qualified conversion courts: https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5416824,00.html
Inyanay Diyoma
Iran’s
nuclear achieves 6 bombs were almost ready. https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5412157,00.html
Syrian
activist murdered. https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/255175
Former
Nazi guard indicted. https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/255180
El-Al
must apologize or face boycott. https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/255185
French
spy ship off Syria. https://www.debka.com/a-french-spy-ship-reserved-for-trouble-spots-joins-uss-truman-in-syrian-waters/
Psychological
warfare. https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5413470,00.html
Civilian
casualties and common sense. http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/23049
US
may close southern border completely. http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/255200
Russia
and Ukraine clash in Black Sea. http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/255245
Martial
Law in the Ukraine. http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/255250
African
Muslims need Israel vs ISIS Al Qaeda. https://www.debka.com/chad-president-seeks-israeli-intervention-in-africas-wars-on-isis-al-qaeda/
Bennett:
Soldiers not Jurists are the moral compass of the IDF. http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/255243
Ben
Yishai: Challenge of the new chief of staff. https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5413729,00.html
Hoffman:
Israeli Police are powerless against organized crime. https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5413696,00.html
Israeli
security Co. uncovers plot to assassinate Georgian Politician. https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5413604,00.html
Syria
uses poison gas and blames rebels. http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/255257
Cultural
bill faces opposition. http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/255252
Rabbi
Commend Chabad Greece. http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/255212
Charedim
to boycott El Al. http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/255255
Terror
attack in Gush Etzion. http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/255275
LA,
CA Mohamed-Mohamed attempted ramming attack. https://www.algemeiner.com/2018/11/26/man-arrested-after-allegedly-attempting-to-run-over-jews-near-los-angeles-synagogue/?utm_content=news1&utm_medium=daily_email&utm_campaign=email&utm_source=internal/
Challenges
of the new Chief-of-Staff: https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5413729,00.html
Money
talks Jewish blood runs. http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/255318
How
Iran is preparing to kill us. http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/255304
Syria
– Iran training soldiers to kill US troops on the ground. https://www.debka.com/iran-trains-squads-for-terrorizing-us-forces-in-syria-us-air-naval-buildup-for-striking-back/
S.
Korea buys ELTA Green Pine radar. https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5415162,00.html
Trump
threatens not to meet Putin. http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/255366
From
Valerie: Argentina fans chant kill Jews: https://www.timesofisrael.com/argentina-soccer-fans-chant-kill-jews-to-make-soap-at-team-with-jewish-roots/?fbclid=IwAR2Zhfolblwl9YDGuUHKeju4_Z3azmVUpgrjERSO_RhexWm2kTozH90oGN4
John
James to replace Haley. http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/255372
Now
tell this to the Ayatollah. http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/23070
Noah’s Ark coming to Israel. https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5415765,00.html
Fishman Hamas is booster at the expense of the
PLO. https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5415012,00.html
Home Front warns about next war. https://www.debka.com/mivzak/idf-home-command-chief-in-pessimistic-forecast-for-2019/
Trump
Admin, Congress Slam Airbnb Boycott of Israel as ‘Anti-Semitic’ Decision to
stop some services in Israel met with strong opposition BY: Adam Kredo November
28, 2018
The
recent decision by Airbnb to stop its services for Jews living in the West Bank
of Israel is being met with criticism by the Trump administration and
pro-Israel leaders on Capitol Hill, according to sources who spoke to the
Washington Free Beacon about the company's choice to join the anti-Israel
Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, or BDS, which aims to wage
economic warfare on the Jewish state.
Airbnb, a
growing tech company that allows travelers to rent lodging across the globe,
announced that it removed some 200 Jewish-owned rental homes in the West Bank,
sparking fury in pro-Israel circles. America Jews sue them. https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5416531,00.html
Netanyahu meets with former
chief of staff. https://www.debka.com/mivzak/netanyahu-meets-with-former-idf-chief-benny-gantz/
Netflix more expensive in
Israel. https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3750864,00.html
Trump
cancels meeting over Ukraine. https://www.debka.com/mivzak/idf-home-command-chief-in-pessimistic-forecast-for-2019/
Merkava
IV a good tank. https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5416670,00.html
War
against Hamas tunnels. https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5416868,00.html
Per
Syria: https://www.debka.com/syria-wide-ranging-israel-air-strikes-in-three-waves-over-damascus-region/
https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5417116,00.html
Iranians
going straight to Beirut as US sends general to Lebanon to calm the situation. https://www.debka.com/iranian-air-freighters-now-routed-to-beirut-instead-of-syrian-air-bases/
The general was mentioned in Israel not by Fox. https://www.foxnews.com/world/for-israel-a-rearmed-hezbollah-in-lebanon-is-top-concern
Sometimes it is back page stories like
this that indicate a developing situation as was in the Jerusalem Post
Oct. 5, 1973.
San
Francisco antisemite arrested: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/255510
Temple
U. will not fire this antisemite: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/255508
Maryland
wants to demolish Chabad House too close to curb. http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/255504
Have
a good Shabbos and a happy Hanukah,
Rachamim
Pauli
