לבודקה לבשה חג: אלפים בראשם המנהיג מרן הרב לנדו ומרן הרב הירש פיזזו לכבוד התורה במעמד היסטורי

 לבודקה לבשה חג: אלפים בראשם המנהיג מרן הרב לנדו ומרן הרב הירש פיזזו לכבוד התורה במעמד היסטורי

@בקודש-פנימה

 

אלול בפוניבז': רגע מרגש של ניצחון וכבוד התורה כשמאות תלמידים מלווים את נשיא הישיבה הגר"א כהנמן

 

תיעוד מרומם ומרגש מהיכלה של "אם הישיבות" - ישיבת פוניבז' המעטירה בבני ברק: נשיא הישיבה הגאון רבי אליעזר כהנמן שליט"א בעלייה נרגשת לגבעת הישיבה, כשהוא מוקף במאות עמלי תורה ובחורי חמד המלווים אותו בכבוד התורה ובשירה מרוממת בימי אלול הקדושים. תיעוד: קובי ישראל An inspiring and historic moment at the Ponevezh Yeshiva in Bnei Brak: The President of the Yeshiva, Hagaon Rabbi Eliezer Kahaneman, ascending "HaGiv'a" surrounded by hundreds of yeshiva students expressing deep respect for the Torah during the holy days of Elul. 📢 אנחנו בשליחות להפיץ את אורם של גדולי הדור לכל יהודי בעולם! 🌍 בקרוב נעלה תיעוד היסטורי גנוז ומצמרר שמעולם לא פורסם! לחצו כאן עכשיו, הירשמו לערוץ והיו שותפים לקידוש השם העצום הזה כדי לא לפספס: 🔔    / @gedoleihador   מה הרגע שהכי ריגש אתכם בתיעוד הזה? כתבו לנו בתגובות! 👇" יש לכם תיעוד או הצעה לסרטון?* שלחו למייל gdoleyhador@gmail.com

AISH: The Kurdish Jews Who Never Stopped Speaking Aramaic

For most Jews today, Aramaic is a language locked behind the gates of ancient Judaism. It's the dense, scholarly text of the Talmud, the mystical language of the Zohar, the legal phrasing of the Ketubah (marriage contract), the solemn declaration of Kol Nidre, and the comforting cadences of the Kaddish. It serves as a linguistic snapshot from an era when the Sanhedrin sat in Jerusalem and the sages debated Jewish law in Babylonia. 

As a living, breathing mother tongue, many assume Aramaic drew its last breath millennia ago. But history has a way of defying expectations.

In the rugged mountains of Kurdistan that span the isolated border zones of present-day Iraq, Iran, and Turkey, an ancient Jewish community managed the impossible. For roughly 2,500 years, through the rise and fall of empires, Islamic conquests, and brutal persecutions, this community kept the Judeo-Aramaic language of the Talmud alive, in the marketplace, around the dinner table, and in the lullabies sung to their infants. They were the only Jewish community in the world to preserve the oldest Jewish Diaspora language all the way into the 21st century.

To understand how this linguistic miracle happened, we need to trace how the Jewish people fell in love with Aramaic in the first place, how the rest of the Diaspora lost it, and how one indomitable community carried it home to the modern State of Israel.

The Transformation: From Hebrew to Aramaic

The language originally recorded in the Torah and spoken by the Jewish patriarchs, prophets, kings, and common people in ancient Israel during Biblical times was Hebrew. The books of the Prophets and Writings (Tanach) are also written in a vibrant, classical Hebrew that reflected the daily vernacular of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Hebrew's dominance in the First Temple period is confirmed by discoveries like the Siloam Inscription (commemorating King Hezekiah's water tunnel), the Ketef Hinnom silver scrolls (containing the oldest known fragments of the Priestly Blessing), thousands of "LEMELECH" (for the king) royal storage seals, and personal bullae, clay seal impressions bearing Judean names mentioned in the Bible, found throughout the land.

Not only was Hebrew the native language of Jews in ancient Israel, but most Jews during the First Temple period didn't even understand Aramaic, which was fast becoming a regional language across the ancient Near East. In the Book of Kings (2 Kings 18:26), when the army of the Assyrian king Sannacherib besieges Jerusalem, the royal envoys mock the city's defenders in Hebrew. King Hezekiah's officials panic and beg the envoys to switch to Aramaic when addressing them personally, so the common Jews on the wall won't understand the terrifying threats being hurled at them. At that moment, Aramaic was understood only by elite Judean diplomats. The average Jew on the streets of Jerusalem spoke Hebrew, and only Hebrew.

So when did Aramaic enter the picture?

Everything changed in 586 BCE. The Babylonian Empire destroyed the First Temple and exiled masses of Jews from the Land of Israel to the rivers of Babylon. There, in the heart of the Babylonian empire (present-day Iraq), the Jews underwent a profound cultural shift.

Babylon ran its bureaucracy in Imperial Aramaic. Over the 70 years of exile, displaced Jews absorbed the new language of their surroundings into daily life, social interaction, and business, while keeping Hebrew for liturgy and prayer. In southern Iraq, archaeologists found roughly 200 cuneiform clay tablets dating to 572 BCE, over a decade after the Temple's destruction, recording the financial, agricultural, and daily dealings of exiled Judean families (identified by distinctive Judean names like Ahiqam and Shelemiah) living in settlements such as Al-Yahudu, "Town of Judah."

This kind of rapid linguistic shift within a generation is something we can all relate to. In the 20th century, Yiddish-speaking Jews from Europe became fluent in English within a generation of settling in North America, while Arabic-speaking Jews from the Middle East and North Africa became fluent in Hebrew after moving to Israel.

Wherever Jews settled, they typically adopted the local language while folding in elements of Hebrew, giving us Yiddish (Judeo-German), Ladino (Judeo-Spanish), Judeo-Arabic, and others. In Babylonia, Jews developed a Hebraic variety of Aramaic known as Judeo-Aramaic, which quickly became the mother tongue of the generation born in exile.

The Voice of the Second Temple

When Cyrus the Great, king of Persia, allowed the Jews to return to the Land of Israel and rebuild the Temple, only a small wave of Jews actually went back. Most Jews stayed in Babylonia. But the roughly 50,000 who returned brought Aramaic with them, and it remained their primary language in the Land of Israel for centuries.

Later books of the Biblical canon written during the early Second Temple period, such as Ezra and Daniel, contain large sections in Aramaic rather than Hebrew, recording royal decrees and prophetic visions in the language of the masses. When Ezra the Scribe read the Torah aloud to the returning exiles, Nehemiah 8:8 notes that the Levites translated the reading (from Hebrew into Aramaic) so the people could actually understand it.

Throughout the Second Temple period, Aramaic was the most widely spoken language among the Jews of Judea, and many customs, prayers, and liturgy still in use today were composed during this time. The Ketubah, early versions of which have been found in Judean Desert caves, was written in Aramaic rather than Hebrew, so ordinary people would fully understand their binding legal and financial obligations. 

The first-century sage Yonatan ben Uziel, Hillel the Elder's greatest disciple, composed his Targum (Aramaic translation) of the Prophets during that period. About a century later, the sage Onkelos translated the Torah into Aramaic. The Kaddish prayer, woven throughout the prayer service, also emerged during this era.

Aramaic wasn't the only language ancient Jews spoke, even though it dominated in both Babylonia and the Land of Israel. Rural pockets of Judea that had escaped Babylonian exile kept speaking late Biblical Hebrew, which eventually evolved into Mishnaic Hebrew. And the largest Jewish population of this era actually lived outside both Judea and Babylonia, thriving in Mediterranean cities under Roman rule such as Alexandria, Damascus, Antioch, Cyrene, and Rome, where daily life ran in Greek. Of the 5 to 8 million Jews alive in the late Second Temple period, roughly half spoke Aramaic (in the Near East) and half spoke Greek (in the Western Diaspora).

Becoming the Dominant Language of World Jewry

Those large Greek-speaking Jewish populations of the Roman Mediterranean were decimated by violent massacres during the Kitos War (115-117 CE). Greek-Jewish hubs in Egypt, Cyrenaica, and Cyprus were wiped out not only by ethnic cleansing but by plagues that thinned Mediterranean Jewish communities over the following centuries. Later Byzantine Christian laws further restricted Jewish life and pushed conversion and assimilation, shrinking what remained of the Greek-Jewish world even further.

In the Land of Israel, the Romans crushed the Bar Kochva Revolt (132-135 CE), destroying 985 villages in rural Judea where Hebrew was still spoken, killing hundreds of thousands of Jews in the process. The last native Hebrew speakers migrated to the Aramaic-speaking Galilee, where the Mishnah (the compiled Oral Torah) was being assembled in the late 2nd century. Rabbi Yehuda HaNassi, who wrote the Mishnah in Hebrew, famously employed domestic workers from Judea who may have been the last native Hebrew speakers alive. The Talmud records his students, native Aramaic speakers themselves, asking his maidservants what certain Hebrew words meant.

When the sages later compiled the legal debates, stories, and rulings that became the Talmud (4th-6th centuries), they wrote them in Aramaic, their native tongue, so it would remain accessible to the majority of world Jewry, most of whom by then lived in Aramaic-speaking regions.

As the Greco-Roman Jewish world shrank and spoken Hebrew faded, the center of gravity for world Jewry shifted east to Babylonia, a stable, thriving environment where Aramaic was the native tongue of Jews and non-Jews alike. This cemented Aramaic as the primary vernacular and literary language of most of world Jewry for centuries.

Why Did Most Jews Stop Speaking Aramaic?

Given how deeply Aramaic was embedded in Jewish life, it's striking that it vanished as a mother tongue from nearly every Jewish community within a relatively short span of time.

Jews who migrated or were forced across the Roman Empire picked up Greek, Latin, or Punic, and dropped Aramaic within a generation. But Jews who stayed in the East -- the Land of Israel, parts of Syria, Babylonia, western Persia (Iran), and eastern Turkey -- kept speaking Aramaic for centuries longer.

That changed with the seventh-century Islamic conquests. Within a few decades, Arab armies swept out of the Arabian Peninsula and conquered the Levant, North Africa, and Mesopotamia, the historic heartlands of Jewish life. The new rulers brought with them a new language: Arabic. Over the following two to three centuries, Jews across the Middle East and North Africa gradually abandoned Aramaic and embraced Arabic, the new language of trade and government across a vast empire. Most communities in the region developed Judeo-Arabic, a Hebrew-Aramaic variety of Arabic, between the 8th and 10th centuries -- the language in which giants like Rabbeinu Saadia Gaon and the Rambam (Maimonides) wrote their most influential works of Jewish philosophy and halacha (Jewish law).

By the late Middle Ages, spoken Aramaic had been wiped out across the Middle East, replaced almost entirely by Arabic, Persian, and European languages. Except in one impossible geographic fortress.

An Island of Aramaic in the Heart of the Middle East

While the rest of the Jewish world moved on, one community in a corner of the Middle East kept speaking Aramaic all the way into the 20th century. What enabled the Jews of Kurdistan to hold onto the old Jewish language of the Talmud against all odds?

The answer starts with geography. Kurdistan is defined by the Zagros and Taurus mountain ranges, a maze of steep ridges, deep gorges, and isolated valleys. The Jewish presence there predates even the destruction of the First Temple, tracing back to the earliest Israelite exiles. 

According to local tradition, Kurdish Jewry's roots lie with the Ten Northern Tribes deported by the Assyrian Empire in 722 BCE. The Book of Kings notes the Assyrians settled them in the cities of the Medes, which lines up with the geography of historical Kurdistan.

While the rest of the Jewish world shifted to Arabic after the Islamic conquests, Kurdistan's terrain acted like a time capsule. The conquering Arab armies built their administrative centers on flat plains and in river valleys -- Baghdad, Basra, Mosul -- with little interest in pushing into the rugged mountain peaks where fierce Kurdish tribes and isolated minorities lived on their own terms.

Cut off from the main currents of global trade and empire, the region's language simply stayed put. The local Jews kept speaking what they'd always spoken. While the surrounding Muslim majority spoke Kurdish, Arabic, Persian, and Turkish, the Jews held onto their Aramaic mother tongue.

Beyond isolation, having a language only Jews understood was a serious practical advantage. It served as a secure internal channel for business, courtship, communal decisions, and travel across borders without outsiders following along. It also drew a sharp line around Jewish identity, acting as a natural barrier to assimilation into the surrounding Muslim culture. 

Because they studied the Talmud, recited the Kaddish, and read the Targum alongside the Hebrew text every week in synagogue, speaking Aramaic in daily life felt like maintaining a living chain back to the Temple in Jerusalem.

Culture and Traditions of the "Lishan Didan"

The Judeo-Aramaic spoken by Kurdish Jews wasn't identical to the Talmud's text. Over 1,500 years, the language evolved, as all languages do, into a distinct dialect known natively as Lishan Didan, "Our Language." Judeo-Aramaic shifted from an ancient, synthetic structure into modern Jewish Neo-Aramaic, trading old verb conjugations for participle-based tenses and absorbing heavy doses of Kurdish, Persian, and Arabic vocabulary.

Because the community lived in rural isolation, Hebrew literacy was often limited to  the local rabbis. To bridge the gap, the community built a rich oral culture around the Tafsir, an oral Aramaic translation of the Torah. On Shabbat, the rabbi would read the Hebrew text and the community would recite the Tafsir aloud in Aramaic, echoing the same translation practice used back in the Second Temple period.

Aramaic-speaking Kurdish Jews were unusual in that many worked as farmers, shepherds, and weavers, staying closely tied to the land, unlike their European counterparts who were often barred from agriculture. They were deeply spiritual, known for making long pilgrimages to the tombs of Biblical figures like Jonah, Nahum, Daniel, Mordechai, and Esther in and around Kurdistan.

Surrounding populations saw the language itself as spiritually powerful. Kurdish Jewish chachamim (sages) were respected by local Muslims and Christians alike for writing protective amulets (kameot) in Aramaic script to ward off illness, trusting the ancient resonance of the language to bring healing. This may even be the origin of "abracadabra" -- literally "I create as I speak" in Aramaic.

Making of the Judeo-Aramaic Diaspora

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For centuries, the Jews of Kurdistan lived in a delicate balance with their Muslim neighbors. Despite intermittent violence and heavy taxation under Ottoman and local tribal rule, they were generally respected as a distinct, honorable ancient community. The 20th century shattered that balance.

The collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the rise of Arab nationalism in Iraq, and the founding of the State of Israel in 1948 made Jewish life in the region unsustainable. Antisemitic riots, economic boycotts, and political targeting surged across Iraq, forcing families to abandon their ancestral mountain homes.

Between 1950 and 1952, Israel launched Operation Ezra and Nehemiah, a massive airlift that rescued over 120,000 Iraqi and Kurdish Jews. Entire mountain villages packed up what they could carry, trekked down to transit points, and flew home to the newborn Jewish state. Prominent Israelis born in Kurdistan -- like former Defense  Minister and Chief of Staff Yitzhak Mordechai -- grew up in native Aramaic-speaking households before emigrating to Israel during the operation.

Aramaic-speaking Jews across the border in Iran stayed in place for a few more decades. Sanandaj was historic Persia's main center for Aramaic-speaking Jews, and through the mid-to-late 20th century, prominent families from the Sanandaji and Kermanshahi Jewish communities ran key trade hubs, schools, and medical facilities across western Iran.

But after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, virtually the entire remaining Jewish intelligentsia and business leadership of Sanandaj and Kermanshah left, mostly via Turkey or Pakistan, resettling in Great Neck (New York), Los Angeles, and Israel, carrying their regional traditions and Aramaic heritage with them. I've met a number of second-generation Persian-American Jews and asked how much Farsi they'd picked up from their parents. To my surprise, several told me their parents didn't speak Persian at all growing up -- they spoke Aramaic. That conversation is what sparked this article.

Spoken Aramaic in the 21st Century

Are there still Jews who speak Aramaic today? Yes, but the language is facing an existential crisis. When Kurdish Jews arrived in Israel in the 1950s, they landed in a society fiercely committed to the melting pot. The young state pushed all immigrants toward modern Hebrew as their sole language to build a unified Israeli identity, and Judeo-Aramaic was sidelined right alongside Yiddish, Judeo-Arabic, and other Diaspora languages. .

Today, only a few thousand fluent Judeo-Aramaic speakers remain, most of them elderly Israelis living in Jerusalem neighborhoods like Mahane Yehuda, or in agricultural villages like Nashia and Azaria. Despite the steep decline, a few notable figures have kept the heritage in the spotlight.

The legendary Israeli singer Itzik Kala, who is of Kurdish-Jewish descent, has woven Aramaic lyrics and melodies into his music, bringing the sounds of the Kurdistan mountains into mainstream Israeli pop culture. Descendants of the famous Barzani rabbinic dynasty, including Asenath Barzani, the world's first recorded female Kurdish Jewish leader in the 17th century, still maintain deep ties to their ancestral linguistic traditions.

The Race Against Time to Preserve the Ancient Tongue

Judeo-Aramaic is classified by UNESCO as an endangered language, and a dedicated group of academics, community leaders, and activists have launched efforts to keep it from disappearing entirely. Researchers at institutions like Hebrew University and the Jewish Language Project are recording elderly native speakers to preserve mountain dialects like Zakho and Amadiya before they're lost.

Cultural revitalization is happening on the ground in Israel too, where the National Organization of Kurdish Jews hosts the annual Seharane festival, celebrating Kurdish-Jewish music, dance, and spoken Aramaic for younger generations. Grassroots digital archiving projects have also begun uploading Aramaic dictionaries and oral recordings online so future generations can keep studying the living dialect.

The story of the Aramaic-speaking Jews of Kurdistan is one of the most remarkable chapters in Jewish history, a reminder that our people's past is a living tapestry, capable of preserving its oldest threads in the most unlikely places. The next time we stand in synagogue reciting the Kaddish or open a page of Talmud, it's worth remembering: those words aren't just ink on ancient parchment. For twenty-five centuries, a resilient community in the mountains of Kurdistan kept them alive as a living, spoken language, proof that the tongue of our sages never actually stopped speaking.

Article by Avi Abrams
https://aish.com/the-kurdish-jews-who-never-stopped-speaking-aramaic/?utm_source=ac 

Photos:  Screenshots from article

נכנסים לתוך ביב שופכין בשביל לעזור לציבור: רה"י הגר"י עמית מתייחס לבחירות ופעילות נציגי דגל התורה

"The Election" 

Following is a google translation of the above video; obviously there will be mistaken or misappropriate word usage, so please use your common sense:

This whole election thing, they say that the Ponivezer Rav, a blessed righteous man, told the boy, so he said I'm going to fulfill a mitzvah from Torah to listen to the voice of the Chazon Ish. And they told the Rabbi of Tishbin that it was a mitzvah to vote, so he said yes, right, but it's not like eating matzah, it's like eating maror.

So we need to know, I copied some phrases that Stiepler wrote in a collection of letters. We need to understand, these elections for the Knesset, in fact it was forbidden to vote there at all. In fact, what do we have to do with this Knesset? What do we have to do with this mocking seat? In fact, going there is not easy. At the time, the Ponivezer Rav was asked to run to be a member of Knesset. His cleverness, his ability to speak, he was extremely clever, he was clever with quick thinking. At the time, he was with a certain gentleman, and the gentleman was willing to give money, a large sum of money for a yeshiva, on the condition that they put his picture in the Beit Midrash. What would you do? A large sum, and in that situation it was critical. What would you say to something like that? That was the offer. As soon as he finished speaking, the rabbi from Ponivez replied, "In my room, I'll put the picture! In the blink of an eye, in my room!" And he put it in his room. The speed...

And he said he couldn't be a member of Knesset. They told him why? You were also the representative there in Lithuania. He says yes, but he doesn't have enough shirts. After all, they have to tear them every day, they hear insults there every day, they have to tear them. One day I was at a wedding, my wife's cousin was there, he was a military rabbi. A military rabbi, a lieutenant colonel, with all eight clothes, came to the wedding. So one of them said to me, well, what do you say about him? And he knows my opinions. I said I admire him. He was surprised. So I told him, look, someone who has been in the army for fifteen years and hasn't taken off his kippa, I admire him. Anyone who has been in the Knesset for four or five years and hasn't taken off his kippa, they should be admired.

We need to see them as people who enter the public square to help the public. This is the public square. Now, in fact, we don't expect anything from this place. We are going to vote only because the elders of Israel told us to, otherwise we wouldn't go to vote. It's not a matter of, I think so, I think so. There was someone who came to the Hazon Ish and told him that he was going to make a Haredi list in the municipality where he lives. The Hazon Ish encouraged him and gave him money. When he left, the Hazon Ish told those who were sitting there, they have no chance, they won't put a representative in. So why did the rabbi encourage him? He said, what does it mean? Every vote that votes for this means I want a government of Torah, it's Kiddush Hashem!

He added with a sting to the Shas and Otzma Yehudit parties: Now if you vote for Shas... then you say I'm troubled by the situation of the deprivation of the Sephardim, I don't want this deprivation. I oppose it, I want to help the backward classes. Someone who wants to vote for Ben Gvir, he says I want Beirut to be occupied no matter how many people are killed. It doesn't matter. That's what I want.

Now we've passed the days of mourning for the destruction, it says in the Gemara, "Here are the bullies of Dehav in Jerusalem." "Here are the bullies." Rashi says, what is a bully? Empty and rushing to war. Empty, every generation has its own Ben Gvir. Empty and rushing to war. Empty and rushing to war.

And Steifler writes: The Torah-hating bullies blame all those who refrain from voting on the account of the Torah, may God bless him and not on the account of those who protest, and therefore they refrain from voting and, God forbid, reduce the honor of Heaven. He says, everyone who refrains from voting in any case strengthens the persecutors of the Torah, may God have mercy on them, without exception. And certainly all the results of the desecration of the name of Heaven he takes part in. The very fact of the large number of voters is a tremendous sanctification of God. It is unthinkable to let them, to let our enemies do as they please without a word. And without doing anything according to the place and time that is in their power to pass the decrees.

And this is certainly the case with these representatives (A.H. – speaking of the flag of the Torah), every choice among them is a choice that shows me Want a party that says we want Torah rule. And everyone who votes says I am another one who wants Torah rule here in this country. Today it is a war, do you want Torah or do you not want Torah. And besides, after all, with all the criticisms, there is no one who cares about the Abrahim and the Torah students as much as they do. No one cares. So anyway, we must do this and it is not an issue that should concern us at all. To fulfill the mitzvah, we hope that by the time the elections come, this state will be abolished, but the party that will be in power then must do what must be done, of course.

Documentation credit: Yeshiva Youth Conference.

מי נזר הבריאה? משא רוממות מהמנהיג הרב לנדו בועידת ראשי הכוללים אדאפט א כולל - בחשיבות מיזם המהפכני

 

שראל בראשם מנהיג הדור מרן שליט"א נערך ועידת ראשי הכוללים "אדאפט - א - כולל", למען הכוללים ברחבי ארה"ק, במרכז הועידה האזינו בחרדת קודש למשא מרן שליט"א: ברשות מורנו ראש הישיבה שליט"א אברכי הכוללים הם נזר הבריאה, הכוללים הם סוד ויסוד קיום היהדות בדורותינו, וחובה גדולה על כל מי שיכול לפעול בזה, להרבות עוד ועוד כוללים - שיתרבו לומדי התורה בארץ ישראל, שהיא מרכז התורה כיום, ותורת ארץ ישראל משפיעה תורה ויהדות בכל אתר ואתר. כמה נעלה הוא שגב פעלכם שלכם ראשי הכוללים, הנושאים בעול החזקת הכוללים, תמידין כסדרן, הינכם מעמידים את היהדות בדורנו בכל המובנים, גדולה אחריותכם, ורבה עד מאד זכותכם. קובעים ברכה לעצמם העוסקים במפעל הגדול הזה שמקשר קהילות בחו"ל עם כוללים בארץ, ומעמידים עמוד איתן להחזקת עולם הכוללים באופן קבוע ותמידי, ישלם השם פעלכם ותהי משכורתכם שלמה מעם השם אלוקי ישראל. ואחרונים חביבים, בני הקהילות בחו"ל, אשר דבר חודש בחדשו משתתפים בקביעות בתמיכות הגונות למפעל הגדול הזה, במעשיכם הגדולים הינכם מרבים תורה ולומדי תורה בכל עת ובכל שעה. והננו בזה בקריאה לכל הקהילות להצטרף למפעל הגדול הזה הנקרא אדאפטע כולל, ויתברכו כולם בכל מילי דמיטב לאורך ימים טובים הם ומשפחותיהם. קרדיט תיעוד: שיא לייב.

Boro Parkers Make Aliyah.....

 

Shiva for Lone Soldier

My Dear Friends,

It is with deep pain that I share with you the tragic passing of our student, Sergeant William Shakin Z"L. Will brought joy to all who knew him, and after October 7th felt the call to serve his people. He left his studies in America to go to Israel and enlist as a lone soldier in Golani’s 13th Battalion. He valiantly fought for Israel in Gaza and Lebanon and tragically lost friends and fellow soldiers who served with him in the war.

When he returned home, he struggled with PTSD and the profound challenges that so many soldiers carry with them after war.

As an expression of his courage and commitment to others, even as he was confronting his own pain, Will enrolled at Yeshiva University’s Wurzweiler School of Social Work with the goal of helping fellow soldiers facing similar struggles. His heroism in going to Israel to fight for his people, and his determination upon returning home to help others heal, spoke volumes about his character.

Our hearts are with Will’s parents, Karen and Eric, his brother, Jacob (SSSB ‘26), sister, Ella, and the entire Shakin family during this time.

Shiva information:

Location: Jerusalem, Waldorf Astoria Hotel

Sunday / Monday : 10:00AM - 1:00PM and Afternoon 4:00PM - 8:00PM

Tuesday 10-11am

פרטי השבעה עבור סמל זאב שאקין ז"ל

מיקום: ירושלים, מלון וולדורף אסטוריה

ימים ראשון ושני: 10:00–13:00 וכן אחר הצהריים 16:00–20:00

יום שלישי: 10:00–11:00

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Yeshiva University Israel Alumni | 40 Duvdevani Street Bayit Vegan | Jerusalem, 96428 IL

SOURCE:  Har Nof Community 

The State of Israel, Rav Moshe Feinstein, the Neviim, Meir Kahane and More

 

In this video, we dive into the comments and questions from some of our previous videos—and we don't hold back. We're responding directly to our viewers and commentators, addressing your questions, challenging assumptions, and getting down to the nitty-gritty, politically incorrect, and sometimes uncomfortable truths, facts, and opinions surrounding some of the holiest and most controversial issues facing the Jewish people today. What does the Torah really say about living in Eretz Yisrael? Is it still a mitzvah today? Who are we supposed to listen to? Can anyone reinterpret the Torah or make certain mitzvot seem less important? And who am I to even raise these questions? These aren't always comfortable conversations—but they're conversations worth having. Check out or new MERCH! https://homeboundmerch-shop.fourthwal... For questions or comments, you can reach us at Homeboundisrael@gmail.com Check out our website at Homeboundisrael.com If you want to help spread the truth of the Torah and make a tremendous kiddush Hashem, please partner with us and help support this amazing cause and help us get our Holy nation to return home to Eretz Yisrael so that we can finally bring Moshiach! https://homeboundisrael.com/donate For more information and inspiration, check out our website at https://homeboundisrael.com/ Homebound To Eretz Yisrael is an organization built to spread truth and Torah to Jews searching for the unfiltered truth about the Holiness of Eretz Yisrael, the land that Hashem designed specifically for the spiritual needs of Klal Yisrael, and how it plays a major role in our nation's destiny. We inspire and help Jews to return home, the Land promised to us by the creator of the universe. And we teach the Torah's perspective on the Holy Land, and why it is in every Jews best interest to live in Eretz Yisrael To sponsor a HomeBound episode or other motivational videos, or for any questions or comments on this video, send us an email at: Homeboundisrael@gmail.com

Hamodia Editorial: Selective Equality

click on image to enlarge (reminder)

 

Rebbetzen Tziporah: Find the Tzaddik

Dear friends,

How many times have you heard someone say to you indignantly, “You have no right to judge me!” The implication is that by judging them, you are asserting your superiority and leaving them to occupy that unhappy place called “less.” The truth is far more complex. Not all actions are equal, and actions are often done by humans. To make things even more opaque, the Torah tells us to appoint judges, which certainly implies that there is a sacred place for judging.

ASUR – MUTAR, TAMEI – TAHOR, CHAYAV – ZAKAI
FORBIDDEN – PERMITTED, DEFILED – PURE, GUILTY – INNOCENT

These six words describe the way halachah creates boundaries that are there to make it possible to make choices that give order and meaning to a world in which confusion is the norm. When Adam ate of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, the two were mixed as he ingested the fruit, and this mixture is the source of confusion within us till today.

CONFUSED? WHO, US?

As you know, there are sincere people who make disastrous choices. One of my most moral former students, Cara (not her name), ran an abortion clinic. It was only when she saw a late-term abortion that she recognized the horror in which she was involved. Murder (killing someone who is of no threat to you) is asur. Choosing what color sweater to wear is mutar. The same holds for tamei – spiritual defilement – and tahor, pure. This gives human beings, with all of our subjectivity, the ability to live lives of truth.

With halachah, you know how to judge deeds. The question is whether you will ever really know how to judge another person. Cara recognized that the road she was walking was not taking her to where she wanted to go. Can we judge her? Cara grew up in a society in which the spotlight was always on the mother. She began to question whether the image of the teenage victim was real when she read the Guttmacher survey that revealed that 2/3 of the abortions done were for women in their 20s and the reasons they gave were financial. It was years before she knew that the baby is human and that the mother makes choices.  

This is why the same Torah that tells you where the lines have to be drawn tells you to judge your neighbor justly. We know what deeds are wrong and irretrievable. We don’t know the inner workings of people who make choices. The Torah demands that we judge favorably.

IS JUDGING FAVORABLY NAÏVE?

The words, “Don’t be a fool,” resonate. I know that I can’t judge people, but does that not leave me in the position of being the eternal doormat and what Israelis call a “fraier” (sucker)? What does halachah actually say? It demands some level of social discernment. You have to look before you leap.

TZADIKIM

When you see a person who has earned the title tzadik, and what you see is not what fits your sense of rectitude, open your mind to three possibilities:

1 – YOU MAY NOT KNOW THE HALACHAH
2 – YOU MAY NOT KNOW THE WHOLE PICTURE
3 – HE MAY HAVE MADE A ONE TIME ERROR

YOU MAY NOT KNOW THE HALACHA

The tzadik with his foot on the pedal as he heads down Ocean Parkway Shabbos morning may be driving to the hospital, not to the beach, with someone in the back having a heart attack. He is not only allowed to drive; halachah demands that he drive. No, he should not wait for a non-Jew. No, he should not ask a non-observant Jew who, in any case, doesn’t keep Shabbos. He should move as quickly as possible and set the example of breaking Shabbos to save a life.

YOU MAY NOT KNOW THE WHOLE PICTURE

You see the tzadik run after a teenager who is screaming, “Let me go!” You didn’t see the teenager break into the elderly woman’s home and throw her down a flight of stairs moments before the tzadik appeared on the scene.

HE MAY BE WRONG

You can assume that the best of us make mistakes, sometimes serious ones. Moshe wasn’t perfect, and neither is anyone else. You can assume that a one-time failure isn’t a total definition of the person you “caught”.

Moshe split the sea, gave the Torah and, yes, failed when he struck the rock. You can also safely assume that it is likely for him to do teshuvah.

RESHAIM – EVILDOERS

It ain’t easy to be a rasha. If you have ambition for evil-doing, here are some criteria.

1 – YOU DO THINGS THAT THE TORAH ACTUALLY FORBIDS

In today’s society, people are very generous with their words. Calling someone “toxic” can mean that they don’t give you what you need emotionally.

How much are they actually obligated to give you? A question rarely asked. A listening ear and open heart whenever you want one? Validation? Unconditional love? None of this makes a person a rasha. It doesn’t make them righteous or perfect, but that is far from being a rasha.

2 – YOU DO THE FORBIDDEN ACT KNOWINGLY, PUBLICLY, AND WITH PRIDE
3 – EVEN IN YOUR TIME AND PLACE, THE ACT IS DESPISED

Don’t give a genuine rasha the benefit of the doubt. When you do, you are participating in his making victim after victim.

ORDINARY PEOPLE – THE OTHER 80% OF US

You are obligated to question the way you interpret the interactions between you and the other person.

Someone is late. It may be that they really don’t value your time. It also may be that he has a touch of ADHD and being prompt is just not his thing. It also may be that unanticipated delays – traffic, demonstrations, something going wrong in the car – may be the real villain.

You have to choose a positive interpretation as long as it makes sense. You don’t have to assume that the circus came to town, the elephant escaped, and the roads are all closed.

Be generous. Remember how many times you felt trapped because your reasons for failing to meet someone’s expectations were real, but beyond your capacity to change.

FIND THE TZADIK

When you have someone in your life who is “toxic” or “narcissistic” – at least, that’s how you feel – step back.

YOU MAY BE RIGHT!

I know that isn’t what you expected me to say.

You can’t recreate people, but you can choose what to look at. Even if the screen is 90 percent black, you can find a white spot if you look honestly enough. This doesn’t mean falling into the trap of talking to yourself in clichés (“everyone is basically good”). Find something that they actually did that you recognize as good. Perhaps they did you a favor at one time. Focus on that favor. Force yourself to see it when you look at the person. What will happen is that he will intuit the way you are relating. At times, this is the moment in which real change begins. Even if it doesn’t, it makes our judgment far more honest than it would be when you reduce him to a one-dimensional block of psycho-jargon.

FIND THE TZADIK IN YOU!!!!

You did good things. Definable ones. See yourself as the bit of tzadik that you are. Find the part of you that longs for Hashem; it is inside your heart. Turn to Him.

Soon (it will be) Elul. The (words) letters stand for “I am for my Beloved.” The tzadik in you is genuinely there. Hashem will be there for you. He sees the tzadik in you better than you do.

Love,

Tziporah