COLlive Magazine - Iyar 5784

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Marian Stoltz-Loike, Dean

The Lucky Ones

Editorial I Mica Soffer

A Lesson for Pesach Sheni

A Letter from the Rebbe

Capturing History

Marc Asnin

South Africa’s Pioneer

Tzemach Feller

Never Too Late

Shlichus stories

Free Speech to Hate Speech

Essay I Rabbi Yehuda Ceitlin

Brotherly Love

Danit Schusterman

Israel’s Unlikely Advocate

Ariel Kahana

Parading with Rashbi

JEM gallery

Reb Volf on the Run Book excerpt

A Comedian’s Comeback

Daniel Lobell

Fostering Growth

Libby Herz

Chinuch Matters

Menachem Education Foundation

Rashi and Onkelos Save a Life Story I Asharon Baltazar

Bidding up a Shul Auction

Halacha I Rabbi Shraga Homnick

Will AI Replace Therapists?

Health I Rabbi Daniel Shonbuch

The Inside Track Music I Sruly Meyer

Kosher Spread Food I Sruly Meyer

Kids Korner Fun I Sari Kopitnikoff

Lag BaOmer Craft

Activity I Parsha Studio

The Challah Craze Humor I Mordechai Schmutter

Then and Now

Local I Zev Gotkin

Rami Davidian, a farmer from Moshav Patish, rejoices with Chabad Shluchim during JLI’s Land & Spirit Israel trip, April 2024

Publisher

Mica Soffer

Editor

Yehuda Ceitlin

Associate Editor

Mendy Wineberg

Contributing Writers

Asharon Baltazar

Tzemach Feller

Yossi Feller

Zev Gotkin

Rabbi Shraga Homnick

Sari Kopitnikoff

Sruly Meyer

Mordechai Schmutter

Danit Schusterman

Daniel Schonbuch

Dovid Zaklikowski

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COLlive Magazine is published in print and online periodically by the COLlive Media Group Inc. and is distributed across the United States. COLlive does not endorse any products or services reported about or advertised in COLlive Magazine unless specifically noted. The acceptance of advertising in COLlive Magazine does not constitute a recommendation, approval, or other representation of the quality of products or services or the credibility of any claims made by advertisers, including, but not limited to, the kashrus or advertised food products. The use of any products or services advertised in COLlive Magazine is solely at the user’s risk and COLlive accepts no responsibility or liability in connection therewith.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Our family typically enjoys attending concerts together featuring popular performers like Avraham Fried, Benny Friedman, Gad Elbaz, and boys' choirs during Chol Hamoed and other occasions.

However, this past Chol Hamoed Pesach was a first for me as I attended an all-women's concert with my daughter. While I admire female Jewish singers and musicians, I had never experienced a concert exclusively featuring women, leaving me unsure of what to expect.

We were part of a sold-out crowd at the Newark Symphony Hall in New Jersey. The energy in the room was palpable. Women and girls of all ages and from different communities sang and danced with the greatest joy, free of the constraints of events with men and boys.

Creating this magical atmosphere was the headliner of the concertChayala Neuhaus. Dressed beautifully and regally, exuding elegance and modesty, she proved an incredible talent and performer with a beautiful voice.

But it was the lyrics that enthralled me. Her songs convey themes of Jewish pride, simcha, achdus, overcoming adversity and challenges, motherhood, and love of Yiddishkeit. Each song has more depth than the next, and watching my daughter absorb and sing along to these themes was the icing on the cake.

Her songs' messages, conveyed so beautifully and with such confidence, resonated that evening and left us inspired for days to come.

Some of the songs Chayala has composed have become known in recent years, such as 'A Yid’ sung by Benny Friedman, 'Eicha' by Gavriel Pelcovitz, 'Mama Rochel' by Benny and Baruch Levine and the upbeat 'Dugma' by Eli Marcus.

Her song 'Heroes,' about the sacrifice of our ancestors from the perspective of a modern-day Yid, hits me every time I hear it:

"Through every struggle, every sacrifice, they stood triumphant in the face of fear

They knew their convictions were worth any price; they cried 'hineini'the choice was so clear.

"And I too, want to live my life for what I believe in...With strength from my past, I can follow their dreams."

As the song concludes, the words remind us of how fortunate we are:

"You stand today, no threats, no shadows, no one standing in your way... living lives of freedom that's outwardly displayed

"Do you recognize, appreciate, the deeds you do with ease? That our ancestors once offered up, with heartfelt tears and pleas?"

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This to me is the greatest gift we can share with our children, the certain knowledge that not only do we aspire to follow in the path of Torah and Chassidus, but that we are the lucky ones who are privileged to do so.

May we share good news,

MICA SOFFER

By the Grace of G-d Rosh Chodesh lyar, 5741 Brooklyn, N.Y.

To All Participants In the Annual Dinner of Oholei Torah G-d bless you all!

Greeting and Blessing:

I was pleased to be informed about the forthcoming annual dinner on the 13th of lyar, on the eve of Pesach Sheni. May G-d grant that it should be with much hatzlocho Pesach Sheni came about, as the Torah tells us, when (on the first anniversary of the Exodus from Egypt) there were several Jews who were unable to offer the Korban Pesach and celebrate Pesach with all the Jewish people, and they voiced their unhappiness with a heartfelt appeal: “Why should we be deprived of this mitzvah?” And for the sake of these several Jews, indeed for the sake of each one of them, an entirely new chapter was incorporated in the Torah, and a special day was designated in our calendar, Pesach Sheni, with its particular mitzvos - and all this “unto your generations” — for all posterity.

Thus the Torah, Toras Chayim(“instruction in living”), emphatically reminds us how precious each and every Jew is, and that no Jew should ever be deprived of his natural right to fulfill all the mitzvos, by reason of circumstances, such as being on a “far away journey,” and the like.

A Lesson from Pesach Sheni

Every Mitzvah for Every Jew

It has often been emphasized that the best way of coping with spiritually “deprived” Jews, as in the case of any problem, is — prevention: to see to it that no Jew should ever find himself in a state of being on a “far away journey” from Yiddishkeit This can be achieved only through a Torah-true education, permeated with the spirit of dedication that is implanted in Jewish children from their earliest childhood, in keeping with the principle, “Educate the youngster in the proper path; even when growing old he will not depart from it.”

Such is the kind of education that is implanted in the students of Oholei Torah, with much hatzlocho, as is well known to those who are familiar with this educational institution.

However, it is up to all of us to see to it that this Torah institution should not find itself in a position where it must come with a heartfelt appeal: “Why should we be deprived?” Surely, it must not be kept back, by the lack of financial means, from carrying on its vital educational work, and, moreover, from expanding its facilities for a growing number of students. This is the obligation and privilege of the loyal friends and supporters of Oholei Torah.

With prayerful wishes to the honored guests and all who are active participants in this great endeavor, and with esteem and blessing for hatzlocho,

Menachem Schneerson

No Jew should ever be deprived of his natural right to fulfill all the mitzvos.

Capturing History

February 2, 1992

By Marc Asnin

Photographing Rebbe Schneerson back in 1992 was all about the present. As a documentarian, I was on a mission to get the best photographs for the New York Times Magazine. For the most part they would have to be straightforward great photos, as they would not receive some kind of long-winded descriptive caption.

“Rabbi Schneerson addresses his followers at 770 Eastern Parkway,” read one caption, “headquarters of the Lubavitch movement, which reaches out to all Jews and tells them not to assimilate.”

I spent many days in Crown Heights, and photographed anything I found interesting. It did not make a difference if I understood what was going on or not. Once I felt that I had enough photos, I developed them and I marked the proof sheets. I then delivered the proof sheets to the New York Times Magazine photo editor and she made her choices.

Over the years as my relationship grew with Chabad, I chose the best imagery with the idea to publish one day a book. Those images were the ones that I was proudest of. It was similar to my other projects,

including the one about my Uncle Charlie. Out of hundreds of pictures, there were one or two I liked. At times there were none, and I would try to photograph something similar.

Developing a friendship with Dovid Zaklikowsi and when I began to collaborate with him on a photobook, he impressed on me that the pictures were important not just photographically, but also as a historical document. It was not the process that I normally think about. But thirty years later, for future generations those pictures that were not my greatest, I realized served another purpose.

It was a little more than a month before the Rebbe’s stroke when I photographed Rebbe Schneerson. Those moments would soon never be replicated again. It was infectious watching Dovid’s enthusiasm for the historical times recorded by my camera. This brought us to interview and photograph the people in many of the photos.

When I came one Friday morning, it was the funeral of Mrs. Phyllis Lapine. I took many photos, and we chose from them for a section of our

new photobook The Oracle: Portraits of Rebbe Mendel Schneerson. The photos are very raw, and the Rebbe looks very pained.

It was very moving to meet her daughter to interview and photograph her. “The fact that he made the effort to come to the funeral of an ordinary woman,” she said, “not a famous person, just a kind, good, and loving mother, tells me that to the Rebbe it was who you are that mattered, how you live. The Rebbe understood what we were going through, and what we would go through in the future. He was there for us at that moment.”

It was history, and we can also make it present, if we take the lessons from Rebbe Schneerson’s life.

Marc Asnin is an award winning photojournalist, he has photographed for New York Times Magazine, Time Magazine, Reader’s Digest and many other prominent magazines. His images of the Rebbe will be published in a forthcoming book The Oracle: Portraits of Rebbe Mendel Schneerson, and is available for preorder at a discount at www.RebbeSchneerson.com or www. HasidicArchives.com.

South Africa’s reluctant pioneer South Africa’s reluctant pioneer

Rabbi Nachman Bernhard built up yiddishkeit in Johannesburg while fighting the apartheid regime.

By Tzemach Feller

pioneer pioneer

Throughout his life, Rabbi Nachman (Norman) Bernhard lived in two worlds — and sought to meld them into one.

“He moved between Heaven and Earth seamlessly,” said his son Kivi Bernhard. “He synthesized those worlds in a way people could relate to.”

He was at once scholarly and worldly; a renowned orator and a sensitive soul; a talmid of the Rosh Yeshiva Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik and a chossid of the Rebbe.

Today, he is remembered for his decades-long leadership of the South African Jewish community as the Rav of the Oxford Synagogue, one of South Africa’s most prominent and largest shuls. He is remembered for his human rights activism, seeking to improve the lives of the Black community during the height of apartheid.

But the road to that legacy was a long and winding one.

As a young man, Bernhard studied at Yeshiva University in New York, where he became an ardent talmid of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, the legendary rosh yeshiva of the university’s Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary.

“He came from the school of Rav Soloveitchik,” said Kivi Bernhard, a noted author and speaker.

“My father would always say that there is a way to speak, a way to conduct yourself, a way to get dressed, and a way to transact in life and business.”

After a four-year stint as a congregational rabbi in Wichita, Kansas, Rabbi Bernhard and his wife Joan had just moved back to New York when the Oxford Synagogue came knocking. They had asked Rabbi Soloveitchik to recommend potential candidates to take up

the prestigious position of Rabbi of the Oxford Synagogue Center in Johannesburg, and Nachman’s name was on the shortlist.

But South Africa was a long way from Kansas.

Rabbi Bernhard, however, wasn’t sure whether the move would be right for him. He had a litany of concerns; how would his children’s chinuch be affected? And Bernhard, who’d just spent four years in Wichita as a congregational rabbi, wanted to go back to the beis medrash. He also planned to attend the Julliard School of Music to study composition and theory. Ultimately his dream was to live in the Holy Land and conduct the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra.

“Meet with the Lubavitcher Rebbe,” he was advised by Rabbi Yosef Wineberg. “Seek his advice about South Africa.” His Rosh Yeshiva concurred, telling Nachman to listen to whatever the Rebbe advised him. So one evening in 1964, Rabbi Nachman Bernhard went into yechidus for the first time.

“He walked in as a clean-shaven, tall, highly presentable Yeshiva University graduate,” Kivi described. “The magic was that the Rebbe didn’t attempt to change that. In fact, the Rebbe promoted that; the Rebbe encouraged him to continue in his derech. The Rebbe wanted him to utilize the elements of his character that were not in the milieu, the genre of a typical Chabad chossid.”

And the Rebbe made clear to Rabbi Bernhard that his personal aspirations to sit and learn could not supersede this opportunity to serve klal Yisroel, which the Rebbe would later describe as his purpose and shlichus in this world.

“Don’t you think that I too would like to be there (in Eretz Yisrael), close to the Kedushah (holiness)? But we have responsibilities,” the

Rebbe said. In a second yechidus, before Rabbi Bernhard returned home, the Rebbe told him, “Your decision should not be made with the resignation of one who has reluctantly accepted a decree. Rather, it should come happily and good-heartedly!”

“I really wanted to get back into learning Torah, really get into learning seriously,” Rabbi Bernhard

related in an interview for JEM’s Living Torah (Disc 97 Program 387).

“The Rebbe said to me, in a classic statement I’ll never forget, ‘There’s a fire raging in Jewish life today, and everybody who has the ability to help extinguish it, must do so.”

The Rebbe pointed at Rabbi Bernhard and said, “You have no right to sit yourself down now and become a talmid chochom. If G-d has

Rabbi Bernhard played a major role in the growth of Chabad in South Africa, serving on the board of Lubavitch Foundation for many years.

given you the ability to be the leader of a community, that’s what you must do.”

That initial, life-altering yechidus lasted one hundred and eight minutes.

Rabbi Bernhard presented his concerns, one after another. The Bernhards had left Wichita so that their children should be able to get a good Jewish education in New York.

South Africa had little in the way of Jewish education opportunities at the time. The Rebbe told him that what he would do for the community would be a zechus for his own children.

Bernhard quoted Shir Hashirim (1:6): “They made me a keeper of the vineyards; my own vineyard I did not keep.” His own children, his vineyard, would suffer from his focus on activism, on guarding the vineyard of South African Jewry.

The Rebbe responded, “This is your vineyard. This is your vineyard.” All of South Africa was to be his vineyard.

In 1965, Rabbi Nachman and Joan Bernhard, and their young children, moved to South Africa and began tending to their vineyard.

It took but a year and they had founded Menorah Oxford, the first elementary school in the country to offer a Torah education. In time, this grew into what is today the Torah Academy and Shaarei Torah Primary Schools.

Rabbi Bernhard tended to his vineyard meticulously, and with the sensitivity that has been the calling card of so many of our greatest leaders. “Once, on the way home from shul, my father saw a young man pluck a honeysuckle off a bush,” Kivi Bernhard related. “My father said, ‘Do you realize what just

happened? You destroyed a living part of G-d’s world; removing it from its source. Now it will shrivel up and die. You did so randomly—without purpose; you disrupted something Hashem put in the world! Who are you to do that? Speak to Hashem and apologize, tell Him you will learn from this and try not to do it in the future.’ These were the sensitivities he lived with and imbued in his children and those around him.”

That deep care and sensitivity for every one of Hashem’s creations made it natural for Rabbi Bernhard to become active in opposing apartheid and standing up for human decency for everyone — regardless of the color of their skin. Eventually, his efforts would be recognized and applauded, but at the time, it made him the target of South Africa’s apartheid regime, which arrested him a number of times, repeatedly denied the

Oxford Synagogue in Johannesburg

Bernhards permanent resident status, and finally asked Rabbi Bernhard to leave the country as a result of Bernhard’s activism on behalf of South Africa’s beleaguered Black community.

A staunch Zionist, Bernhard “saw part of his function to shape South African Jewry into traditional Jews with a strong Zionistic identity; a love and responsibility for Israel and to klal Yisrael,” Kivi Bernhard related. But now, Rabbi Bernhard felt the time had come to make aliyah, realizing his longtime dream.

Rabbi Bernhard went to the Rebbe for yechidus and asked the Rebbe about his decision, requesting a bracha to make aliyah

Aware that her father would be seeing the Rebbe, Rabbi Bernhard’s then thirteen-year-old daughter Adeena Singer had written a severalpage-long letter to the Rebbe. “In Eretz Yisroel, my father could still have a lot to do with saving Jewish souls, even if he were not a practicing rabbi,” Singer wrote. “As a girl of thirteen who wants to see her father and family happy, I implore you to please take into consideration my feelings about living in Israel when the matter comes up.”

The Rebbe responded to her, explaining why Rabbi Bernhard’s moving to Eretz Yisroel wouldn’t be a good idea, and explained why staying in his current position as a rabbi in South Africa would be the best thing not only for his community, but for himself as well.

“Supported by what you and all the other members of the family have seen of your father’s hatzlocho not only in your city, but South Africa as a whole, you will surely realize without any shadow of a doubt that your father will feel in his element, and be truly happy if he continues his present situation in your country,” the Rebbe wrote. “Experience has shown that where there is a suitable and determined person with courage and determination to guide the young generation, the response is gratifying, and often highly gratifying. This has also been the experience of your father, who has succeeded, with G - d’s help, to literally save many Jewish men and women from complete assimilation and to lead them in the way of G - d within the Jewish fold.”

Despite the answer his daughter had received, Rabbi Bernhard still wanted to discuss the matter with

the Rebbe.

Late one Thursday night, Rabbi Bernhard went in for yechidus. The Rebbe asked him, “Are you asking me for an eitza (advice) or a bracha?”

“An eitza,” he replied. “I want the Rebbe’s advice on what to do.” In that case, the Rebbe told him, the best thing for him would be to stay in South Africa. “But I can be active in outreach in Eretz Yisroel,”

Rabbi Bernhard tried to reason.

The Rebbe’s response was, “It is not needed as much in Eretz Yisroel as it is in South Africa.”

“He also sacrificed a big personal dream for the good of our community,” wrote Rabbi Yossy Goldman, one of the first shluchim to South Africa who served as the Rabbi of Sydenham Shul in Johannesburg for many years.

“When he told the Rebbe of his plan to go on aliyah, the Rebbe shared his opinion that while aliyah was a desirable thing to do, his own view was that communal leaders, especially spiritual leaders, had as their first obligation and priority the good of their community.

“It was the Rebbe’s belief that Rabbi Bernhard could do more for the Jewish people as a rabbi in South Africa than as a private individual in Israel. As a result, Rabbi Bernhard decided to shelve his aliyah plans and remained in Johannesburg where, indeed, his contribution was most significant.”

The Rebbe did more than advise Rabbi Bernhard. According to Adeena Singer, the Rebbe also asked people in positions of influence to intervene, successfully reversing the government’s expulsion of Rabbi Bernhard and allowing him to remain in South Africa, where he would serve as a rabbi for another 26 years, until he retired in 2000, leaving a legacy of a 2,000-familystrong vineyard at the Oxford Shul. Today, numerous frum families —

“Don’t you think that I too would like to be there (in Eretz Yisrael ), close to the kedushah?" said the Rebbe. "But we have responsibilities.”

“Don’t you think that I too would like to be there (in Eretz Yisrael ), close to the kedushah?" said the Rebbe. "But we have responsibilities.”

stemming from congregants of the Oxford Synagogue — trace the roots of their Yiddishkeit journey to Rabbi Bernhard’s influence.

He left another legacy as well: the thriving Chabad-Lubavitch mosdos in South Africa, which he was instrumental in founding. Along with Rabbi Koppel Bacher, Rabbi Bernhard welcomed Rabbis Shmuel Lew and Yosef Wineberg— who visited the country and had a positive impression on the Jewish community—and then Rabbi Mendel Lipskar, who founded and directs the Lubavitch Foundation of South Africa. Rabbi Bernhard sat on the Foundation’s board, lending his knowledge of and connections within the Jewish community to the growth of the movement. Today there are more than 65 shluchim couples in South Africa, and they have Rabbi Bernhard to thank for paving the way.

Rabbi Bernhard’s transition to a Lubavitcher chossid was gradual, occurring over seventeen years. He never forsook the derech that he had received from his Rosh Yeshiva, even as he absorbed and incorporated Lubavitcher minhagim and Chassidus into his life.

“He had a Rosh Yeshiva — Rav Soloveitchik — and he had a Rebbe,” Kivi Bernhard said. “What he took of darkei haChassidus was ahavas Yisroel and mesiras nefesh for ahavas Yisroel.”

But he took more than that as well. One day, when young Kivi was nearly Bar Mitzvah, his father walked into Kivi’s room and handed him a Siddur Tehillas Hashem. “We now daven Nusach Ari,” he told his son. “Keep your other siddur, it is precious too, but from now on, this is the nusach we daven. Don’t forget that most of klal Yisroel daven Nusach Ashkenaz.”

It was around this time that Rabbi Bernhard began donning Rabbeinu Tam’s tefillin, grew his beard, began wearing a gartel, and started davening Nusach Ari. But if he walked into a Chabad House and there was no Nusach Ashkenaz siddur available, it rubbed him the wrong way. He’d make a donation of ten Nusach Ashkenaz siddurim— something Kivi Bernhard saw his father do a number of times and which he has done himself many times as well.

When he saw the rundown conditions at the dormitory at 1414

President Street, where his son was studying, he was appalled. “We’re paying for mitzvah tanks but we don’t have money for working toilets?” he wondered. “Bochurim are supposed to be absorbing dveikusdike ideas in ruchniyus and they’re living like this?” He was so bothered by it that he took it up in discussion with the Rebbe, who agreed with him entirely and strongly encouraged him to discuss it with Rashag, who oversaw the Yeshiva.

To him, the physical world had to be taken into account in order to reach the heights of the spiritual world. His sensitivity toward others, his passion for leadership, and his focus on taking the resources of the world and using them for spirituality— these are his legacies.

Rabbi Bernhard’s later years were spent largely out of the limelight. Much of his time was spent counseling people and being involved in community situations. He was able to dedicate time to his passion—learning Torah— and enjoyed spending time with his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. When former President Nelson Mandela passed away in 2013, Rabbi Bernhard joined the crowd of more than 2,000 who gathered at Oxford Shul to remember him.

Rabbi Nachman Bernhard passed away on 8 Tishrei, 5775 - October 1, 2014, leaving behind six children, more than 30 grandchildren, and many great-grandchildren.

“He was a broad, multifaceted, well-read, eclectic, highly educated and developed person. A Yid, a dugma chaya—my father was owned by no one but Hashem,” said Kivi Bernhard. “His magic lay in this synthesis: he could seamlessly take the material, corporeal, and secular world and make it part of Heaven.”

NEVER TOO Stories of second chances from the world of Shlichus

WORTHY INVESTMENT

As told by Rabbi Levi and Hindy Wilansky, Chabad of Portland, Maine

Bob* had attended Maine’s Jewish day school as a boy, so he was familiar with the most basic aspects of Yiddishkeit. Unfortunately, religion didn’t play a paramount part in his life, and he ended up intermarrying.

I’d been visiting Bob for years, toting challah and chicken soup, inviting him to programs, and dropping off holiday packages. He was always thankful and polite, but it seemed like I was making no headway whatsoever. Our relationship felt very one-sided.

One day, Bob asked me where he could purchase a set of tefillin. I was surprised but happy, and I helped him buy his own pair, which he promised he’d use daily.

Like drops of water carving a pattern into stone, each visit had eroded the shell around Bob’s neshama, allowing his pintele Yid to finally shine through. Bob asked to talk, and began describing his confusion. It was a mid-life crisis, of sorts. The man he thought he’d always been was at war with the pintele Yid fighting to be seen. We had a deep, heart-to-heart conversation about the meaning of life, G-d, religion, Torah, and more.

Bob not only continues to put on tefillin every day, but he’s also shown renewed interest in learning more about Yiddishkeit.

Created by Zach Hainsworth from the Noun Project

izzul fikry

Noun Project

Rabbi Moshe Wilansky and his son Levi pose with the campers and staff of Camp Gan Izzy of Portland, Maine.

Rabbi Levi Wilansky enjoys a special moment, putting on tefillin with a Jew in Maine

LATE PREGNANCY DILEMMA

As

told by Rabbi Eli Moshe Levitansky, Chabad at S. Monica College, S. Monica, California

My wife Mirel was shopping when she noticed a girl in the next aisle with a distinctly Jewish look. She hung around, hoping to start up a conversation.

“Would this be a good hot plate for Shabbos?” the girl asked. My wife pounced on the opportunity and asked her about herself. Hila* was Israeli and had recently enrolled in SMC. My wife immediately invited her for Shabbos, and over the next couple of months, Hila attended a few events sporadically.

One day, she called me, hysterical. “I need help! This is a matter of life and death! I wrote a letter to the Rebbe. Can you help me place it in the Igros?”

She placed her letter in a random volume, and I read the letter on that page. There didn’t seem to be anything pointed in the letter, and,

without knowing her dilemma, there was no way of knowing whether it contained an answer for her.

“Can you share what the problem is?” I asked her.

Hila began crying. She was pregnant, and her partner demanded that she not have the baby. He gave her an ultimatum - if she chose to keep the baby, she’d have to leave their apartment. Hila had nowhere else to go, and was desperate. She thought losing the baby was her only choice, and wanted an answer from the Rebbe that would assuage the guilt she felt.

“Hila, the Rebbe answered you very clearly!” I exclaimed. “This entire letter is about raising children! The Rebbe describes how raising a child is like planting a tree, and explains the analogy at length. And look here, how the Rebbe writes, 'Until

the tree can stand on its own and bear fruits, and you can benefit from the fruit.' The Rebbe is promising you success in raising this child!”

Hila shook her head. “I knew that’s what the Rebbe would say, but I still can’t see how it can be done.”

I was at a loss for words. A story flashed in my mind, about how a man informed the Rebbe he’d be marrying a non-Jew. The Rebbe told him he envied him for the opportunity to overcome a challenge the Rebbe would never encounter.

“I have never, and will never be in your shoes - for multiple reasons,” I told her. “But since you find yourself in this situation, it means you can overcome it.”

Hila hung her head and remained for some time in deep, contemplative thought.

“If it’s a boy, I expect you to be at the bris,” she whispered.

It was an honor and privilege to attend that memorable bris.

Rabbi Levitansky and his family tabling on campus

ADVANCING ON A GIFT

As told by Mrs. Shterna Gruzman - Vienna, Austria

My husband Dov is the prison chaplain, and every Rosh Hashanah, he blows shofar for the inmates before returning home for our family meal.

One Rosh Hashanah, he was on his way to the prison, dressed in his kapoteh and tallis, when a man stopped to wish him a startled “Shana Tova!” My husband turned to find a young Israeli man, and from the sheepish smile on his face, deduced he’d only just realized it was Rosh Hashanah when he’d seen my husband.

My husband offered to blow the shofar for him, and Barak*, as he introduced himself, delightedly agreed. Of course, my husband also invited him to join us for the meal, so we could get to know him better. Barak soon became a frequent visitor, and we eventually learned that he was in Vienna because he’d met a Viennese, non-Jewish woman.

My husband invested much time and effort into convincing Barak he’d made a mistake. Barak’s mother was also in touch with us, begging us in tears over countless phone calls to return her son to her.

I was arranging a women’s auction event at that time, and was collecting auction prizes from merchants throughout the city. One jeweler offered to donate a diamond ring.

“I know you were originally asked to donate a prize for my wife’s event,” my husband told him. “But I have the perfect recipient already! There’s a young man here who is currently struggling to understand the importance of marrying Jewish. Can

I present him with this ring to give to his future kallah?”

The jeweler graciously agreed, and my husband gave the ring to Barak, explaining its significance.

Barak was touched that we’d gone to such effort and expense on his behalf, and clearly shown how much the issue mattered to us. Baruch Hashem, our efforts eventually bore fruit, and Barak broke up with his

Created by Kristina Margaryan from the Noun Project

girlfriend and returned to Israel.

A few years later, we received a beautiful invitation to Barak’s wedding to a wonderful Jewish girl. The wedding date was Chof Beis Shevat, the yahrzeit of Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka, wife of the Rebbe. I thought it was so fitting for Barak, whose life had been changed by the Rebbe’s shliach, to establish his home on such an auspicious day.

An evening of prayer and song for women in Vienna arranged in the aftermath of the October 7th attacks

Rabbi Gruzman poses with a group of Jewish teens in Vienna

from to FREE SPEECH HATE SPEECH

By

Rabbi Yehuda Ceitlin

Brendan Howard/ Shutterstock

British author Neil Gaiman said, "Libraries are the thin red line between civilization and barbarism." Sadly, we're seeing how libraries—and the universities that contain them—are enabling people to not only cross, but stomp on, that thin red line.

Protestors have been allowed to openly chant approval for the murder, rape, and abduction of Jewish people. Under the veneer of free speech, this was allowed to persist for weeks.

The United States Congress recently passed the Antisemitism Awareness Act, with an overwhelming majority codifying the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, the first time such a definition was enshrined into federal law.

The few opposed to the bill claimed that it curtails free speech. This country was built upon the premise of freedom of expression, and the same First Amendment that protects freedom of religion protects freedom of speech.

But in this instance, freedom of speech is not at risk— quite the contrary.

Jewish people have long championed free speech and care for minorities. In fact, the Torah instructs us to be compassionate to the stranger "for you know the feelings of the stranger, since you were strangers in the land of Egypt" (Shemos 23:9).

But the speech here should never have been free. It should never have been protected, let alone enthusiastically cheered on. This is not a call for peace, justice, or care for the oppressed. This is an open call for the annihilation of Jewish people and of the only Jewish country in the world.

I have experienced just such hate first-hand back in 2004. I was working at the time at the Rabbinical Centre of Europe based in Brussels, Belgium. As part of my dealings, I was invited to a European interfaith conference focusing on tolerance and peace. Organizers were considerate enough to order kosher food for me that came packed and fully sealed for the evening gala. As the Saran Wrap covering my plates crinkled, a conversation about Jewish dietary laws

and general practice was sparked. Those seated around the table found it fascinating, and I enjoyed sharing the information.

Then, the man sitting alongside me, dressed in an orange robe indicating he was a Buddhist monk, interrupted the friendly conversation about the Jewish religion.

"Don't you think Ariel Sharon enjoys seeing the blood of Arab children being spilled?" he abruptly asked.

The table went silent. I am embarrassed to say that I was quiet as well. His question was disturbing on so many levels that I remained speechless for some long moments.

How do you respond to such an antisemitic fabrication that is rooted in the blood libels of the primitive Middle Ages? The age-old claim that Jews drank the blood of Christians was now updated to Muslims (when, in reality, Jews are prohibited from consuming even the blood of animals, going so far as to discard any egg in which a blood spot is found).

How can a religious figure make such a dubious statement during an event whose stated purpose was promoting mutual understanding?

Young at the time and not wanting to create a scene, I smiled sheepishly and engaged him in a conversation. Until today, I regret that I did not respond with the same force with which he presented his original question/ statement.

Because the red line between free speech and hateful speech can be razor-thin, the red line between hateful speech and hateful actions is razor-thin as well.

We have seen how decades of demonizing Jews allowed the Hamas atrocities of October 7, 2023, to take place — and how that same philosophy enabled their justification and even encouragement by otherwise welleducated professors and students in the United States.

Rabbi Yehuda Ceitlin, Editor of COLlive.com and COLlive Magazine, is the outreach director of Chabad Tucson, and Associate Rabbi of Cong. Young Israel of Tucson, Arizona. He coordinates the annual Yarchei Kallah gathering of Chabad Rabbonim and Roshei Yeshiva.

Brotherly Love

Largest trip to Eretz Yisroel uplifts October 7 heroes

by Danit Schusterman

This past April, the Rohr Jewish Learning Institute-JLI led the largest solidarity trip of any group to Israel since the October 7th attacks. Over 170 people from across the United States embarked on the lifechanging JLI Solidarity Trip led by 30 Chabad Shluchim and Shluchos.

“Our annual Land and the Spirit trip was planned for these dates well in advance of the attacks on October 7th,” said Rabbi Efraim Mintz, director of JLI. “When Israel went to war after the attacks, many people asked to cancel, and the assumption was that we would postpone the trip. I immediately realized, however, that canceling a trip to Israel in a time of crisis was not the Rebbe’s way at all and we needed to go ahead with it.”

The mission of the trip was changed to reflect the times. “Instead of a more leisurely trip, we aimed to make it extremely meaningful, both for the people on the trip and the Israeli people we encountered,” Rabbi Mintz said.

A packed itinerary was planned, with visits to the site of the Nova Festival and the kibbutzim on the Gaza border which were attacked. Meeting with soldiers, leaders, and survivors, many moving stories and experiences were shared. We present here three moving stories heard from Israeli residents during the trip.

Rami Davidian

Rami is a farmer from Moshav Patish, located a few minutes from where the Nova festival was held.

On October 7 at 7 AM he received a phone call from a friend with an urgent message to rescue their son from the massacre happening at the festival. Without losing a moment, Rami got in his car and drove straight there.

“While I was driving to his location I saw in the distance a swarm of people running for their lives.” Davidian told Humans of Tel Aviv, “It was like the Exodus. They were running but they didn’t know where to run.”

On his first trip into the festival site, he was able to rescue 15 terrified and injured people. They were crammed into his car, on his trunk, on the roof, any possible way, in order for him to drive them to safety.

Without weapons or a bulletproof vest, he drove back and forth over and over again straight into the lions’ den to rescue more and more people. He describes how the victims were terrified, hiding in the bushes as they watched their friends getting brutally slaughtered in front of their eyes.

His phone kept ringing, with people sharing their locations for him to come and get them.

Davidian’s bravery even led him to save people right from the terrorists’ clutches. “A girl named Rotem reached out to me to come rescue her from where she was hiding behind a tree. I drove to her location honking my car so she could hear me approaching her. When I got there, I saw she was surrounded by five terrorists. Without flinching, I shouted at them in Arabic: ‘Ahalan, my name is Abu Rami, and I’m Muslim. It’s better that you give the girl to me and escape from here as fast as you can because the whole area is full of armed security forces.’ I wasn’t afraid. It was pure instinct. Luckily, they thought I was a bedouin, and because they were already on the run they gave the girl to me and ran off.”

“In the first two weeks after the attack, I really couldn’t sleep,” recalls Davidian. “The horrors of the massacre haunted me every time I closed my eyes. I cried a lot from the anguish, sorrow, and emotion that overwhelmed me.”

“But I’m an optimistic person. I see the farmers going back to harvest their fields and it fills my heart with joy.”

Avigail Gimpel

During the first two weeks of the war, the Shura military base was used to bring the bodies of over 1,300 people, among them 311 soldiers who were killed during the October 7th massacre.

Over the course of two weeks, constant efforts were made to identify the bodies that were sent to the military base.

Not only were bodies brought there, but many Sifrei Torahs, some riddled with bullets, were brought there as well.

Avigail Gimpel, a mother of six and oleh to Israel since 1998, is a volunteer for the Chevra Kadisha.

Avigail addressed the JLI group talking about her experience as a volunteer for a full week straight, working 15 to 16-hour daily shifts.

She shared a story about one of her colleagues whose son was in the Israeli army serving on the Gaza border and was coming home for his time off.

Knowing that he was coming home, she asked him what he would like for her to prepare for him upon his arrival. She expected him to ask for a special dinner or

something from a store to help him rehabilitate after beingon the Gaza front.

To her surprise, the young soldier asked his mother to get him a picture of the Beis Hamikdash to put up in his bedroom. When he finally arrived home, she asked him the reason for this interesting request.

He looked at his mother and told her that when they were on duty in Gaza, they went into every single home in the area looking for terrorists. He noticed that in every home that they were in, whether it was a lavish palace or the tiniest hut, regardless of the status of the house, every single home had a picture of Al-Aqsa (the mosque on the Temple Mount), and their holiest religious site.

He said that this made him realize that all of these people have a very clear sense of purpose as to who and what they are fighting for.

He said that he did not feel that this is the case in Israel, and he thought that every single Jewish home in Israel and around the world should have a picture of the Bais Hamikdash in it, so we can all align ourselves with who we are, our identity, our purpose, and our common mission.

Oren Cohen

Oren Cohen, Israeli photographer and journalist, had been commissioned by the IDF in the days and weeks after October 7 to take photographs and document the horrors and atrocities of what had happened.

His powerful book “Moments of the IDF” features many of his photographs over the years of the IDF.

Since October 7, he has been very busy showcasing his photographs, flying to Washington and showing the world what had happened.

Oren was also the photographer hired to document the JLI trip.

Having witnessed the atrocities of October 7th, he started having a very difficult time emotionally. The terrible things he saw were beginning to take their toll on him, and he was feeling extremely heavy.

While he is not a religious person, he shared that he started praying to G-d that he needed some sort of anchor to lift him out from all the misery and darkness that he had witnessed.

He said that photographing this trip of 130 people from America led by their Shluchim changed his life. He had never met a group like this before. He was with them for a full week and he was so inspired by their unity, mission, optimism, positive outlook, and hope for the future.

On the last Friday that he was with the group, he told them that when he got home, he was going to keep Shabbat with his family. He was given a bottle of wine along with a few JLI Yarmulkas.

On Motzei Shabbat, he let his friends in JLI know that he had kept the entire Shabbat along with his family. They even made Havdalla. His children wore their new Yarmulkas. The entire trip really moved and inspired him in a very meaningful and lasting way.

Israel’s Unlikely Advocate

Democratic Congressman Ritchie Torres has every reason in the world to keep a low profile when it comes to Israel. There is not a day that goes by without pro-Hamas activists harassing him. Videos against him on social media are routine. His positions are very unacceptable in the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. Even his mother suffers from the fallout.

But Torres, 36 with the life story of a 63-year-old, does not let up. His support for Israel is not only general or partial. Torres gets to the root of the issues, argues with hostile interviewers, fends off annoying activists, and stands by Israel without any buts or caveats. In the international landscape of non-Jewish supporters of Israel, he undoubtedly stands out prominently alongside figures like Douglas Murray.

Torres visited Israel with the UJAFederation of New York in early April. Unlike many American

By Ariel Kahana - Israel Hayom

politicians who initially came for a solidarity visit but over time criticized Israel – Torres has remained consistent, defending Israel’s just cause in defending its civilians and destroying Hamas.

In the first weeks of the war, the President, Vice President, and Secretary Blinken unequivocally supported Israel’s cause, but now the rhetoric has turned in the other direction and they are mainly criticizing Israel. What is your take on this change and what does it mean for Israel?

Look, the keyword is rhetoric. The change that we’ve seen is at the level of rhetoric, but US policy toward Israel remains fundamentally the same. The US-Israel relationship remains fundamentally the same. And President Biden continues to provide us with the supplies that it needs to win the war.

You know, it is healthy to have disagreements in a relationship and a friendship. But I wish the

disagreements were in private. I think when those disagreements surface publicly, it plays into the hands of Hamas and the information war against Israel. And I would tell that to both sides because I think what we’re witnessing is not a change in policy, but a clash of personalities, between the Biden administration and the Netanyahu administration.

I thought the US abstention from the Security Council resolution was a profound misjudgment. But it was an aberration in an otherwise proIsrael administration.

In your opinion, can Israel be confident that at the practical level, Biden will continue to support the war’s goal of eliminating Hamas until the end?

President Biden is a Zionist to the core. He feels it in his kishkes [Yiddish for guts] and there is no doubt in my mind that he will remain supportive.

Congressman Ritchie Torres shares his views on the US-Israel relationship, the shocking silence from the progressives in his party, and why he continues to unflinchingly support Israel despite the pushback.

If you judge him by the standards of history, he has actually given Israel more latitude than any president who came before him. It was George W. Bush who pressured Israel to end the Second Lebanon War, and the international community pressured Israel to enter into a ceasefire that kept Hezbollah in power. That ceasefire has come back to haunt Israel with the present crisis in the north which caused a displacement of thousands of Israelis; They’ve become exiles in their own land.

As a black, Latino member of the Democratic Party, someone like you is supposed to be a critic of Israel. Instead, you are supportive, and you pay a heavy price for it. What leads you to take this position?

“It’s the right thing to do. The US-Israel relationship is one of the most important friendships in the world. For me, Israel is an oasis of liberal democracy in a region where none exists. There is no country

in the Middle East and there are a few countries on earth that are as protective of women’s rights and minority rights as the State of Israel. There is no country on Earth that has a greater density of ingenuity. Even though 60% of Israel is desert, it has emerged as a water superpower on the strength of its own creativity. It has been a leader in desalination technology and boasts one of the most impressive high-tech economies in the history of the world. I cannot help but stand in awe of what the Israeli people have achieved. And for me, a country that provides a sanctuary for historically oppressed people is profoundly progressive.

You mentioned the issue of human rights. We are still seeing silence from organizations working for women’s rights and human rights despite the irrefutable horrors of October 7th.

“I think those so-called human rights organizations have betrayed

their mission. UN Women, which is the women’s rights arm of the United Nations, went nearly two months without uttering a word condemning the atrocities perpetrated by Hamas.

I’m reminded of a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. who said that history will record that the greatest tragedy was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people. And what we’ve seen in the aftermath of October 7 is appalling silence, cowardice, and indifference from socalled progressives from so-called human rights organizations and institutions that we once admired.

For me, this is not only about Israel and the Jewish community; it’s about the future of our civilization. If we as a civilization cannot condemn with moral clarity the butchering of babies and the murder of children and civilians, we have to ask ourselves, what are we becoming as a civilization?

Congressman Ritchie Torres attends Through the Voice and Eyes of Hamas presentation organized by Mission of Israel at UN Headquarters in New York on November 20, 2023.

Lev Radin / Shutterstock

PARADING WITH RASHBI g

Lag Ba'omer 5744

Photos: JEM/The Living Archive

Lag Ba’omer is a special day on the Jewish calendar as it celebrates the yom hilula (date of passing) of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai and the ending of a plague that claimed the lives of thousands of Rabbi Akiva’s students. It is an oasis of rejoicing and celebration amidst the days of sadness during sefirah. For chassidim especially, Lag Ba’omer was a day filled with anticipation when the Rebbeim would share special words of Torah and give unique brachos. In our generation, the Rebbe made Lag Ba’omer a day focused on Jewish unity and pride. In the years that it fell on a Sunday, the Rebbe encouraged the practice of making a grand parade where thousands of Jewish children from all over the New York area would come together to proudly march on Eastern Parkway carrying Jewish signs and symbols. Flatbed trucks would carry massive floats displaying different mitzvos and themes from the Rebbe’s

campaigns. The Rebbe’s pleasure from these parades was immeasurable as can be seen by the amount of time he devoted to it and the smiling countenance he showed, waving at the children and paying attention to their signs and floats.

The climax of these parades were the Rebbe’s talks that he delivered from a large podium overlooking the crowd. As these talks were addressed to children, the Rebbe often spoke in more simple terms, deriving practical lessons for children from the themes of the day.

We present here a gallery of pictures from the Lag Ba’omer parade of 5744, exactly 40 years ago, accompanied by a synopsis of some of the ideas that the Rebbe shared at that parade. The messages the Rebbe shared are as relevant today as they were then and we hope that they serve as an inspiration to all of our readers as we celebrate Lag Ba’omer again this year.

THE FAILURE OF RABBI AKIVA’S STUDENTS

One of the reasons for the celebration of Lag Ba’omer is the fact that the plague which took the lives of 24,000 of Rabbi Akiva’s talmidim ended on that day.

The gemara says that the reason why these students were stricken by the plague was because “Lo nohagu kavod zeh lazeh1” - “They didn’t treat each other with respect.”

This is puzzling because Rabbi Akiva famously stated that the mitzvah to love one’s fellow Jew is a “Klal gadol batorah2” - “ The greatest principle of the Torah.”

How could Rabbi Akiva’s very own students fail in this important precept which their teacher so strongly espoused?

1. Yevamos 62b

2. Talmud Yerushalmi Nedarim 9:3; Rashi to Kedoshim 19:18.

GREAT EXPECTATIONS

The answer is that Rabbi Akiva’s students did treat each other with respect, but not to the degree one would expect from students of Rabbi Akiva. As people who merited to be students of such a great person as Rabbi Akiva who is “the source for all of Torah Shebal Peh1 ,” the level of honor and respect that they deserved from each other was of the highest level; anything less was a form of disrespect, unbecoming of such great scholars. When they changed their behavior beginning on Lag Ba’omer, the plague stopped.

This story teaches us how the mitzvah of Ahavas Yisrael must be fulfilled; not only to treat one’s fellow with a basic level of respect, but rather keeping in mind their exceptional status as a Jew to whom Hashem pays constant attention and for whom the whole world was created. When we begin to look at another Jew this way, our attitude and level of respect for them will surely grow.

RASHBI’S GREATNESS

Lag Ba’omer is also the yom hilula (date of passing) of the great tanna, Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai (Rashbi). His request that his yom hilula be celebrated by klal yisrael indicates that, despite his incredible greatness, there are lessons to be learned from his life in our service of Hashem.

Rashbi’s entire life was devoted to his service of Hashem, to the extent that “Toraso umnaso” - Torah was his sole occupation. Nevertheless, he achieved the greatest unity with Hashem on the day of his passing, as he is recorded in the Zohar as saying on that day: “I am bound to Him with one knot.”

CONSTANT CONNECTION

In a similar vein, we need to constantly find ways to unite our lives with Hashem. This should begin right away when a baby is born into the world by surrounding them with words and symbols of kedushah, thereby enveloping them in holiness and purity.

This should increase as the children grow by teaching them words of Torah when they begin to speak and for girls to light candles when they reach the proper age. Through these and other similar activities, one’s entire life becomes connected to Hashem similar to Rashbi on the day of his passing.

MAKING TORAH YOUR BUSINESS

Although Rashbi’s trait of “Toraso umnaso” made him unique even amongst his peers, there is a lesson for us to learn from this aspect of his life as well.

A businessman may have many responsibilities besides his business, yet his mind is constantly thinking about his work because that is his primary occupation.

Similarly, as a Jew lives his life and goes about his schedule, his mind needs to be fixed on his “primary occupation” - the moments in his day that he has set aside to learn Torah. This way, not only is his time for learning utterly focused and without distraction, but his entire day is connected to this pursuit of studying Torah.

HASHEM IS WITH YOU!

The teachings of Rashbi also provide powerful lessons for our times.

For many parents, raising children in the Torah way can be challenging with all the negative influences from the world around us. With all the distractions and temptations that our children face, it might feel like an impossible task to raise upstanding Jewish children in this dark galus (Here the Rebbe pointed out the good fortune that we have to live in a country that allows us to learn and teach Torah freely without fear of oppression. Unlike the Jews of the Soviet Union who needed to physically risk their lives to ensure a Jewish education for their children, all that we require is mesiras haratzon, to truly desire it, a much easier challenge to overcome.)

To counter this, Rashbi taught 1: “Come and see how precious the Jewish people are to Hashem that the Shechinah goes with them wherever they are exiled.” The fact that Hashem is here with us in galus means that He, too, desires for it to quickly end, At the same time, His presence here with us means we are not alone and abandoned; rather, He sends us blessings and strength, both in spiritual and material ways to overcome the obstacles and raise our children in the path of Torah and Mitzvos.

1. Meggilah 29a

Reb Volf on the Run

Harrowing stories from Reb Volf Greenglass’s escape from Nazi occupied Poland

Excerpts from the recently published book The Mashpia about Reb Volf’s life and teachings

War Outbreak

On Friday, 17 Elul 5699 (September 1, 1939), the Second World War broke out. The German Wehrmacht surged into Poland, breaching the border on several fronts. Slightly further to the east, Lodz was captured after about a week of fighting, while German forces set siege to the better-defended city of Warsaw the same day. After three weeks, it too fell. Reb Volf was still living in Otvotzk, and recounted some of his memories from that time:

“A few days after the war broke out, in the month of Elul 5699, the Frierdiker Rebbe and his family left Otvotzk and traveled to Warsaw. Most of the students went home, but I remained in yeshiva with about 15 other students.

“I received a notice from back home in Lodz, about two hours from Otvotzk, instructing me to return immediately, since my family had received a letter from the Polish government drafting me into the army. In a time of war, one who was drafted and did not report he would be severely punished.

“Through the Rebbe’s secretary, R. Chatche Feigin, I asked the Rebbe if I should travel back home and the

A letter from the Frierdiker Rebbe to Reb Volf and some other bochurim encouraging them to strengthen their limmud hatorah.

answer was not to go. After a couple of days, my hometown was under Nazi rule. The Rebbe’s answer saved my life.”

Within days of the Nazi occupation of Lodz, a curfew was imposed on the city’s Yidden, along with the yellow star, forced labor and worse. A few months later, a “Jewish residential quarter” - the infamous Lodz ghetto was established.

Any Jews who had not yet escaped or been deported elsewhere in Germany or Soviet-occupied Poland, 160,000 or so, were herded into a ghetto that had terrible conditions, no electricity, gas or running water. From this point on, writes Reb Volf, “all the letters I received from home after this were from the ghetto. We all know the terrible fate of the Jews in the ghetto...”

A Frightening Experience

Otvotzk was spared a little more time compared to Lodz, but German planes had hit the town on the very first day of the war. Its countryside calm would not hold for long, and Polish forces stationed in the area were soon withdrawn.

Reb Volf related: “One Erev Shabbos, when we were in the middle of Shemoneh Esreh for mincha, dressed in our Shabbos clothing, two German soldiers burst into the yeshiva with their rifles drawn and began yelling at us to follow them.

“We later found out the reason that they suddenly came. At that time, the Polish army was already collapsing, and the Polish soldiers were in retreat from the German army. Before the Poles left, they hid their weapons and bombs in the ground, perhaps thinking they

R. Chatche Feigin

would one day return to retrieve them, or simply because they didn’t want the German army to use them.

“When the German army found out that there were buried weapons and bombs in Otvotzk, they came to find them. When they ordered the Polish inhabitants of the city to dig them out, the people told the German soldiers that it was better to ask the students from the Jewish school nearby.

“So we were drafted into slave labor. We started following them while we were still wearing our Shabbos clothing. We were terrified and didn’t know what was going to happen to us. There was one soldier in front of our group, one soldier behind, and another officer who was in charge.

“We dug out the bombs, which were very heavy. Each one was powerful enough to blow up a four-story building. We were then forced

to carry everything to the train station, where the German army was waiting. The station used to belong to the Polish government but was now occupied by the Germans.

“For some reason, they thought I was strong, and they ordered me to carry two bombs. While heaving the bombs along the route to the train station, I soon felt that my last strength was leaving me, and I fell to the ground. When the soldier saw this, he commanded, “Halt!” and everyone stopped. The soldier approached me and asked me what happened. I replied that I felt my arm would dislocate from my shoulder if I carried the bombs any further: I simply could not continue. The soldier called the commanding officer, who checked my pulse. He confirmed that my pulse was low and I could not carry both bombs. He then asked me if I could carry one bomb, and I said that I could.

“When we reached the train station, our ‘reception’ was a slap in the face. They started making fun of us and abusing us, and then forced all of us to mop the floor in our Shabbos clothing. They took Reb Yosef Rodal and another bochur and dunked them headfirst into a pool of water, and then again, in and out, until they almost died, G-d forbid. I made myself seem sick so that they wouldn’t bother me.

“In the morning, they told us that we could go. I got up to leave with everyone else, but one of the soldiers who saw me leave started yelling.

“This boy claimed to be sick last night, but now he is running home like someone who is perfectly healthy!”

“They started after me, but I ran with all my strength. Two soldiers chased after me with drawn rifles, and then fired at me. I felt the bullets fly by me.”

17 Adar I 5700 (1940). Bochurim and staff from the Vilna yeshiva. Reb Volf is seated bottom right. Library of Agudas Chasidei Chabad

Thankfully Reb Volf made it back home, in one piece but deeply traumatized. After this denigrating and terrifying event, he was sick for two weeks from the fear and pain. The bochurim were all very broken, and they didn’t know what would happen to them or to their families.

From Japan to Montreal

By that time, it had become clear that the yeshiva students were still in grave danger. Lithuania had been temporarily spared, but soon it would come under Soviet control before being invaded by the Nazis. The chassidim began to realize that this war wouldn’t end so quickly, and that any Jew who remained anywhere in Europe was in serious danger.

Through a concerted international effort, the Frierdiker Rebbe secured safe passage off the continent via Stockholm. Reb Volf and his colleagues put together all their mental powers into devising an escape plan from Europe.

As Reb Volf described it, “We were in Vilna when we heard the good news that the [Frierdiker] Rebbe arrived in the United States, on 9 Adar II 5700. We originally also had visas to come to America, with the necessary support letters and documents. But just as quickly as they had been offered, the American visas were challenged on the grounds that we were suspected of being spies for the Germans.” In the end, the American government canceled the visas completely despite the patent absurdity of this claim.

There was no time to lose. A few days after Shavuos, the Red Army rolled into the Baltics, placing Lithuania under a brutal occupation. When the Nazis arrived a year later, the Jewish population would be utterly

"I asked the Rebbe if I should travel back home and the answer was not to go. After a couple of days, my hometown was under Nazi rule. The Rebbe's answer saved my life."

destroyed. The boys needed to find another exit.

At this point, some chassidim from Canada started working on arranging Canadian visas for the bochurim. But in the meantime, the boys needed to get out of Europe. Suddenly, salvation came from somewhere completely unexpected.

After the Soviet Union had taken control of Lithuania, the Russians started moving all foreign government embassies to Moscow. The Japanese embassy was one of the few embassies remaining in Lithuania with the ability to issue visas. The Japanese embassy located in Kovno declared that it would issue visas to anyone wanting to travel to Japan, under the authority of an official named Chiune Sugihara. However, there was a concern. Some people believed that the Russians would get angry with those who requested visas to Japan, and would exile the would-be escapees to Siberia.

Reb Volf related how they made this life-and-death decision.

“We had in the past received instructions from the Frierdiker Rebbe that in situations where we were not able to ask his advice about what to do, we could rely on the opinion of the Amshinover Rebbe, R. Shimon Shalom Kalish. Since the Amshinover Rebbe was of the opinion that we should apply for the

Japanese visas, and even requested one himself, we went ahead and applied.”

As soon as they received the visas to Japan, the group of 35 bochurim began the journey to safety. As Polish citizens, they could pass through Lithuania and Russia relatively freely and soon they made it to Moscow. From there, it was a two-week train ride on the TransSiberian Railroad to the Far East, to the port city of Vladivostok.

From Vladivostok, they traveled by ship to Kobe, Japan. After some time there, they were relocated to Shanghai, China, which was then under Japanese control. They arrived shortly before Shabbos, and Rabbi Meir Ashkenazi, then the Chief Rabbi of Shanghai, gave them a warm reception. At the instructions of the Frierdiker Rebbe, Rabbi Ashkenazi was appointed to run the yeshiva.

Seforim were very scarce so Reb Volf copied over maamarim in a small notebook. He wrote in beautiful handwriting the first several maamarim from the beginning of Hemshech Ranat.

The Nine Bochurim

At some point, eighty Canadian visas were issued to be distributed among the students of the various yeshivos in Shanghai. Tomchei Temimim received nine visas.

It was decided that the older students, who needed to get married, should receive them. The chosen students were Rabbis Moshe Elya Gerlitzky, Zev Volf Greenglass, Yitzchok Hendel, Herschel Kotlarsky, Leibel Kramer, Yosef Rodal, Avraham Stein, Yosef Menachem Mendel Tenenbaum, and Yosef Wineberg.

The Frierdiker Rebbe instructed Rabbi Ashkenazi to secure places for the nine students from Tomchei Temimim on the first ship out to Canada. With little advance notice, the nine Lubavitch bochurim, along with twenty other Jewish refugees with Canadian visas, departed on the SS President Pierce. Among

the other student passengers was the famous future Rav HaRoshi of Montreal and gaon, Rabbi Pinchas Hirschprung, who would refer to Reb Volf as mein schiff brieder - “my ship brother.” They traveled a couple days before Yom Kippur, from Shanghai to San Francisco, California.

Reb Volf recalled the memorable departure.

“These nine students, including myself, had to say farewell to their fellow students. It was a very difficult parting, after having been through so much together. We nine would travel by boat to Canada, while the other students would have to stay behind in Shanghai,

with no idea when they would be able to leave. As it turned out, they remained there for another four years, until after the war ended.”

Shortly after Simchas Torah, they arrived in San Francisco. From there, the U.S. government assigned escorts - undercover FBI agents - to accompany them by train to Canada, as there was concern that they were spies and that they would remain in the United States.

The bochurim finally reached Montreal, Canada, on Friday, 3 Cheshvan 5702 (October 24, 1941). This day is commemorated every year by the Lubavitch community in Montreal.

R' Volf Greenglass receiving kos shel brocho from the Rebbe

WISHING everyone

A kosher un Freilichen pesach

Comedian Daniel Lobell credits Chabad’s warmth and positivity for his return to Yiddishkeit.

By Daniel Lobell

ComebackComedian’s

I was standing on the beach, watching a beautiful sunset, and talking to Hashem. It was right before the end of Yom Kippur, and I was nervous about how my year was going to be. I decided to strike a deal with Hashem.

“I promise to keep one Shabbat this year,” I told Him. “Please just protect me.”

After Yom Kippur ended, I quickly forgot my promise and went on about my life. It was 11 years since I’d been religious, having moved away from observant Judaism after getting kicked out of my yeshiva for poor grades in secular studies. I was shuffled around to different schools after that, and finally ended up graduating from public school and going into standup comedy. When I had to choose between performing on Friday nights or keeping Shabbat, I picked comedy.

But that Yom Kippur, I felt my soul stirring. It just didn’t last. And then, one day, a few months later, I was walking down Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg, on my way to do a show on a Friday night. A Chabad rabbi stopped me on the street.

Performing at Stand Up New York at fellow frum comedian Eli Lebowicz's comedy show in 2023

Daniel Lobell

“I’m Rabbi Shmuly Lein,” he said. “Come and join us for Shabbat dinner tonight.”

“I can’t tonight, rabbi,” I said. “Maybe another time. I promised Hashem I’d keep one Shabbat this year, so I’ll be back.”

“We can’t wait to see you,” he said. I forgot about the rabbi, until a few months later, and again, I was walking down Bedford on a Friday evening.

“Danny!” he said, somehow remembering my name. “Are you coming tonight?”

I looked at my watch. I had a few hours until my show.

“Well, I have a show tonight,” I said.

Performing for an audience in South Africa before I was frum

“Don’t worry. You can come to dinner and then go to your show. Just come.”

I agreed, and upstairs we went to his apartment, where his wife and children greeted me. There was an eclectic group of people there, most of them not religious, like Williamsburg artists and entrepreneurs and filmmakers. I had such a nice, warm experience, and the rabbi told me jokes and welcomed me in with open arms, even though he barely knew me.

I kept going back to the Chabad house, and eventually, when I started dating my non-Jewish girlfriend Kylie, I invited her too. She ended up having such a great

experience there that it sparked something within her, and she converted to Judaism.

It’s been 14 years since I first stepped into Rabbi Lein’s Chabad house, and now I’m married to Kylie, we have two beautiful daughters together, and I’m still doing comedy. While I don’t perform on Friday nights anymore – unless it’s at a shul and I don’t have to use a mic – I still love making people laugh. It’s so important, especially now, when everything seems so depressing.

People have a lot of stress in their lives: their jobs, their bills, their health. And on top of all of that, the Jewish community is dealing with the situation in Israel, grief, fear, and anger, and rising antisemitism around the world. I feel very blessed that Hashem has given me the gift to be able to remove people from all of that for an hour and help them to laugh, releasing positive endorphins and lifting their spirits. I can give them chizzuk.

It's so important that we don’t allow ourselves to get depressed, as it says in our tradition that depression is a tool of the yatzer hara. Once a person is depressed, their guard is down, and they are more likely to fall in their ways. I hope that by lifting people up with my comedy, I am doing my part to fight the yatzer hara and keep people strong during these tough times.

So, how do I do it?

I make silly jokes about everyday life.

For instance, I tell the audience about how my wife got me a FitBit for my birthday because, as she said, I am “completely inactive.” I love the way she said that, because I feel like I completed something.

So, every day, when she leaves, I put the Fitbit on my dog. I get in 80,000 steps before noon, and I’ve made the Most Active User list on my Fitbit

“2023:

“I saw another Jew proudly wearing his Tefillin in the airport, and it inspired me to do the same at my gate. Normally, I wouldn't, but I know that we can't be scared. Since I can't fight with a gun, I will with my prayers. Am Yisrael Chai! We are a people that are eternally strong because we cling to G-d. I'm never going to give in to the hate; lead with love, faith, and prayers. And humor too when there's an opportunity to add some in.”

app three weeks in a row!

Here’s another: I heard that when you eat a burger, it takes 6 minutes off your life. I calculated that I eat four burgers a month. So, I went home and threw away all my socks and got a 60-pack of all matching socks, because I figured out it was taking me 30 minutes a month to pair my socks. I gained 6 minutes a month on my life without having to give up any burgers. I think that’s the secret to immortality.

Recently, I did a show in Florida. Before I got there, my mom called and said, “I hope they’ll have

good security.” I was like, “Ima, it’s Florida, the entire audience is packing.” She then said, “You better be careful. I read that Jerry Seinfeld had a lot of Palestinian protestors outside of his show.” I said, “I’m not on the level yet where they feel it’s worth their time. But I’m trying to raise my profile, so maybe I’ll start hiring people to come out and protest my shows.”

Aside from standup, I recently made and released a documentary where I went back to Spain to perform and trace my Sephardic roots. I called it “Reconquistador!” It’s funny; they

expelled the Jews from Spain in 1492 and had to bring a Jewish comedian back hundreds of years later to make them laugh again.

I’m still very active in Chabad. I love going to Chabad of Beverlywood where I live in Los Angeles, California, as well as SOLA, where they have a Sephardic minyan. My wife and I recently spent Shabbat on the Big Island of Hawaii with Rabbi Levi and Rebbetzin Fraidy Gerlitzky. This was the second time they hosted us for a Shabbat in their home, and both times, we felt like we were family… because Chabad is family.

I’ve performed at Chabads all over the world, and I often talk about my personal story on stage and how Chabad was so instrumental in bringing me back to the joys of being Jewish.

Post-Oct. 7, that’s even more important than ever. I hope I can continue to do my small part by making people laugh, spreading happiness, and giving strength to the Jewish people.

Daniel Lobell shared this photo on social media following October 7,

Daniel and Kylie Lobell welcome their second daughter alongside family and friends in 2022

Fostering Growth

With interest free loans and flexible payment options, the Hebrew Free Loan Society is helping small businesses succeed.

By Libby Herz

Imagine that you are a business owner in search of much needed funds to purchase inventory, hire staff, or expand your store. You think of your options where you might procure those funds and realize that paying application fees plus interest on the loan will be crushing for your bottom line, effectively blocking you from growing your business. That’s why interest-free loans like the ones provided by the Hebrew Free Loan Society (HFLS) are so important. They provide capital for businesses when it is needed most; whether to overcome challenges or to pursue new avenues without the undesirable financial headaches that often come along with it.

Decades of Impact

In 1892, HFLS was established as a nonprofit organization in New York City by Rabbi Yaakov Yosef, the Chief Rabbi of New York. Originally known as the Hebrew Gemilat Chassidim Association, the society provided interest-free loans to immigrants who were pushcart vendors in the Lower East Side. Over

time, the society expanded to offer interest-free loans for other needs as well.

In 2005, the society launched a program specifically targeting lowerincome residents of New York City, Long Island, and Westchester with small business loans. Over the past 12 years, HFLS has also impacted the Crown Heights community, with 2.3 million dollars in loans to over sixty local Lubavitcher businessmen through collaborating with Rabbi Yehoshua Werde and Crown Heights Young Entrepreneurs (CHYE). “There’s a lot of entrepreneurship in Crown Heights, and a lot of very outgoing and capable people,” says Shlomo Haft, director of HFLS’s Small Business Program. “When they come to HFLS, the one ingredient they’re missing is money to finance their idea.”

Fostering Financial Independence

HFLS makes loans to businesses that sell a product or provide a service. The business can be home-based or have a storefront, wholesale or retail.

Typically, HFLS lends to individuals with low to moderate incomes; income limits are stated at www. hfls.org. “Most people qualify based on income,” says Haft, “but the key components are experience and the viability of the business.” If a business is a start-up, HFLS will only make a loan if the owner has prior industry experience, since that improves their chances of success. HFLS carefully considers each applicant before approving a loan to set them up for the best chances to avoid failure. “We aren’t looking to create debt,” Haft emphasizes. “We look for ideas that make sense.” This strategy protects small business owners from investing money and taking out debt over something that might not work out.

The organization welcomes applications from residents of New York City, Long Island, or Westchester but the business can be located anywhere in the tri-state area. HFLS supports a variety of businesses, except those tied to real estate.

HFLS offers business loans of up to $50,000 for applicants with a solid

business plan. Individuals who don’t qualify for a business loan are welcome to apply for an HFLS personal loan of up to $7,500 to get started.

Securing a Loan

Every loan requires a safety net, and that’s where guarantors come into play. Alongside their spouse’s signature, borrowers from HFLS are required to have a reliable third party as a backup in case things take a negative turn. Both the guarantor and the borrower’s spouse need to sign. One to two guarantors are necessary, depending on the loan amount.

Thanks to their guarantor policy, HFLS has a very high repayment rate; almost everyone pays back their loans. Even if a business goes under, the guarantors step up to make sure the loan gets repaid.

Guarantors can be from the neighborhoods of New York, New Jersey, or Connecticut—anywhere within the lender’s reach. They usually come from the borrower’s family or social circle, sometimes a Bubby and Zaidy or a friend from yeshivah. As they form the borrower’s safety net, they are required to have a minimum annual income and a solid credit score and cannot have a stake in the borrower’s business or share their home.

Flexible Repayment Options

Paying back loans can sometimes feel overwhelming, but HFLS aims to make it as stress-free as possible. They understand the unpredictable nature of business, which is why they’re committed to providing repayment options that fit each business’s unique needs.

The HFLS loan committee meets once a month and decides each business’s repayment term based on

its financial projections. Typically, the repayment term is 24 to 36 months. If a business is struggling and not meeting its original financial projections, HFLS will restructure the loan and lower the monthly payments to an amount the business can afford. Whether it’s granting more time to start repaying the loan or adjusting payment schedules to match the fluctuations of the market, they do their best to make it work.

Since 2005, HFLS has supported over eight hundred businesses with loans exceeding $27 million, and they are dedicated to continuing this support for many more years to come.

Turning Dreams into Reality

For many entrepreneurs, the dream of starting or expanding a business can feel out of reach due to financial constraints. However, with interest-free loans from the Hebrew Free Loan Society, these dreams become attainable goals. After three years, the society checks in on the businesses they’ve helped and they have discovered that most of them are still going strong.

Whether you’re just starting out, or looking to expand, HFLS is there to help. For more information please call 212-692-9023 or email

biz@hfls.org

Chinuch Matters

PRESENTED B Y COLLIVE AND THE MENACHEM EDUCATION FOUNDATION (MEF)

Chinuch With the Times

The Crux of Chinuch: Seeing Potential A LESSON FROM LAG BAOMER

A major theme of Lag BaOmer is revealing what is hidden within. On this special day, we celebrate Rashbi, who revealed the hidden dimensions of Torah. Traditionally, we go out to the fields on this day, a place where riches and limitless potential are hidden under the ground. There is an emphasis on children throughout the day, as Hayom Yom says that the Mitteler Rebbe would give brachos for people to have children. Many miracles were revealed on that day.

As parents and educators, there is a lesson here for us. Lag BaOmer is a day to look deeper for what may not yet be visible on the surface. Is that not the crux of chinuch - to find potential? To believe in it so strongly that you do everything you can to dig gently, plant seeds, and uncover?

Is there an area of chinuch you may have given up on that Lag BaOmer can inspire you to recommit to?

Teaching Tip

BY MUSHKIE LIPSKER @evergrowingeducator

Why Group Work is a must in 2024

Some teachers hesitate to introduce more group work in the classroom. Reasons for that can be the discomfort of students unwilling to collaborate with their assigned partners. Additionally, extended time may be needed to cover material, and some students prefer to work alone. Giving students tools to work effectively in a group is a gift. Learning to work collaboratively and stay focused will help students for the rest of their lives—at future jobs, in building their communities, and even in their marriages. Group work is super important these days because many people, even kids, feel lonely. Even though social media was supposed to help us feel more connected, it’s actually made us feel more alone. However,

doing group activities in class can help make students feel like they’re part of a team.

Here are 3 tips for group work:

Model: This might mean teaching students the language to use when forming groups and what to say if they agree or disagree.

Reflection time: Have students self-reflect (or reflect as a group) to see what worked or could have gone better during their group work.

Switch it up: Use a mix of grouping strategies, such as homogeneous (similar levels), heterogeneous (different levels), or student choice groups, to ensure that all students have opportunities to engage meaningfully in group work.

Please introduce yourself

the Mechanech

Rabbi Nossin Hoen

I live in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with my wife Ilana and seven children. I am currently a secondgrade Rebbi in Yeshiva Schools of Pittsburgh.

How many years have you been in Chinuch?

I have been a Rebbi for 18 years. My first teaching job was in Lubavitch Yeshiva Ocean Parkway, and the following year I taught at Yeshiva Darchai Menachem in Crown Heights. The past 16 years I have been a second and eighth grade Rebbi in Pittsburgh.

What was your most inspiring moment as a mechanech?

Seeing the lifelong effects your teaching has on your students is

News and opportunities

inspiring. For example, when a former student shares that something he learned in my class has stuck with them, or an experience they had in class or on a field trip that remains a core memory of theirs. I have also been zoche to have a number of my students become colleagues of mine as they entered chinuch as well, and have expressed to me that they try to bring some of my teaching techniques to their classroom.

What is a struggle that you have in Chinuch?

I struggle when I have a student who needs more than I am able to provide for him. In an ideal world, there would be endless resources to guarantee that every student maximizes their potential in a school setting.

Registration is now open for Kinus Mechanchos Chabad which will be held on 11-12 Tammuz 5784 - July 17-18, 2024 at Hilton Stamford Hotel in Connecticut. The convention and retreat brings together female educators for two days of inspiration, knowledge and networking. For more: ChinuchConvention.org

The 24th Annual Kinus Mechanchim Chabad, scheduled for this summer, will be jointly organized by Merkos Chinuch Office and the Menachem Education Foundation for the first time. “This partnership will not only enhance the Kinus but also set a precedent for future collaborations in Chabad’s educational initiatives,” organizers said.

Is there someone or something that motivates you to stay in Chinuch?

The unbelievable paycheck… In all seriousness, my motivation has always been that Hashem has given me the ability to engage a classroom full of children in an educational way. When I see, daily, how many people appreciate what I bring to the classroom, there is nothing more motivating than that.

Is there anything you would like to share with potential mechanchim?

1. Go for it! There is no more impactful and meaningful career that you can go into!

2. Nobody is perfect at any job in the first few years they do it. Just commit to learning from your mistakes and those unpleasant experiences will happen less and less. Guaranteed!

3. Be flexible! Never get stuck in one method of teaching. You're dealing with humans, and the humans you're dealing with need you to be flexible.

4. Always greet your students with a smile. Telling a joke can do wonders too. Create an environment where your students are comfortable, and when they are comfortable they are open to learning.

Rivka Fishman, author of Sara the Bucket Filler and Benny the Bucket Filler, created My Bucket Filling Journal. In today’s world, empathy and resilience are two crucial skills for children to have. With thoughtful prompts, this journal helps kids build these skills. The journal is available in stores and on Amazon.com.

New Chinuch Shlichus opportunities are available: Lubavitch Hebrew Academy (LHA) in Margate, Florida is seeking dynamic, growth-minded educators to join its dedicated team, while the Slater Torah Academy in Metairie, Louisiana is looking for a dedicated Rebbi for boys grades 6-8. For more: mymef.org/shlichus.

Ask the Mechaneches

Mrs. Danielle Forer

It’s a great opportunity! Any challenge should always be viewed as an opportunity. As generations progress, children are exposed to much more than they have been in the past, causing a ripple effect on their knowledge and behaviors. Whether you shelter your child at home or not, their friends can still be exposed to these influences, leading them to have questions. We now have the opportunity to be open in answering their inquiries on various topics while instilling the proper Torah mindset. And more importantly, teaching them that healthy and loving relationships require open communication.

Children won’t always come to you with questions. It’s important to create situations where they have the opportunity to ask questions. Let

New and available

Q: We all know that children are very uninhibited these days, is it only a problem or can it be a Chinuch opportunity?

the child lead the conversation while listening attentively. Encourage them to ask you about any topic, without feeling judged. Make space for discussions on various topics. If you’re unsure how to answer a question, let them know you’ll think about it and get back to them. Mashpiim can assist us in providing answers, and then our children will also learn that it’s ok not to know right away. We too have questions that need to be asked.

In class, you can allocate time for open-ended discussions or provide a platform for students to submit questions. Creating a comfortable environment for students is crucial for fostering open communication. Follow up with students to see how they prefer their questions answered, whether it’s by bringing in a speaker, answering them yourself, hosting a farbrengen, etc. Some students like to submit questions anonymously

'More than Meets the Eye' by Mrs. Malka Touger is a thoughtful look at tznius. The author explores the classical sources - Talmud, Midrashim, Rishonim, Acharonim, Chassidus, and Mussar - to reveal the rich, hidden depths of a concept that can meaningfully touch every aspect of our lives. Filled with powerful stories, the book empowers readers to grow personally and spiritually and live consciously in HaShem's presence.

"Most Precious to Hashem" was written by Morah Chana Brod to inspire her students' davening. It is based on the story the Rebbe shared with women of N'shei Chabad about the Baal Shem Tov. In the story, the founder of Chassidism tells the simple Yidden how Hashem appreciates every time they daven or perform any Mitzvah! (Igros Kodesh Vol 18 Letter 1.)

and others feel comfortable speaking in front of the whole class. Let your students know that honest and sincere questions will always be respected.

Our most important task is to make children feel that they’re never wrong for asking questions. There are times when we may inadvertently make them feel otherwise, but we must strive to do better each day. We need children to feel empowered. It’s beautiful that Hashem created this generation with their own unique tools, and we must meet them where they are. Our goal should not be to mold them the way past generations were. They possess different skill sets, and these very tools will help guide them through the challenges of the era at the end of galus. We must make them feel valued and empowered, so they know they can ask questions and we will do our best to guide them.

The Jewish Reggio Curriculum for Early Childhood by Mimi Wilhelm, Chabad Shlucha, M.Ed. and veteran director. An engaging experiential Jewish curriculum with activities that stimulate the whole child and promote higher-level learning and skill development with an emphasis on socialemotional learning primarily inspired by the Reggio philosophy with components of Montessori. For more: mimiwilhelm@gmail.com

Jewish Women History Curriculum by Aviana Dahan includes over 20 stories of women in Tanach, self-discovery through creative projects, text-based learning, a comprehensive teacher's guide, a student workbook, and additional resources. For more: JudaicResources.com

Rashi and Onkelos Save a Life

by Asharon Baltazar

Our story begins during Rabbi Eliyahu Vanhozker’s childhood when he was in sixth grade. His teacher shared a story that gripped the Israeli public in those days, an account so sensational it etched itself into the impressionable minds of the young students:

That very year, on Lag Ba’Omer, tragedy struck on the road leading to Meron. A van, loaded with students of the Pressburg Yeshiva en route to Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai’s celebration, overturned. Numerous students sustained injuries, some quite severe. Others tragically lost their lives.

In a room in the intensive care unit, one of the wounded students had a constant stream of visitors of friends and family. Unconscious and in critical condition, his bedside was never empty. His friends rotated in shifts to remain with him, rallying groups of people to recite Tehillim in hopes of a swift recovery.

One morning, the injured student opened his eyes. Immeasurable joy, mingled with tears of relief, swept his parents and his friends, buoyed by the realization that G-d heard their prayers. However, something was off. Despite attempts by doctors and family members

to gain his attention and speak with him, the injured student remained unresponsive. It seemed he had awakened from a profound dream and was still mulling its significance.

It was a while before the boy began to communicate. He made it clear something significant weighed on the tip of his tongue, but first, he inquired about his friends who had been in the van with him. Whatever happened to them? After some deliberation and an exchange of sympathetic glances, those present mustered the courage and gently conveyed the news of his friends’ deaths.

Tears flowed from the injured student’s eyes, his throat too constricted to say a word. He eventually regained some composure and told his story: As he lay unconscious among the burning wreckage and motionless, bloodied friends, the injured student experienced a vivid vision of his chavrusa with whom he regularly studied. The injured student realized the deadly accident had claimed his chavrusa, prompting him to blurt out, “Where are you up there?”

A story about how learning Rashi and reading Targum saved a boy’s life and impacted others

His deceased chavrusa replied he was in the presence of Rashi. And in response to the astonishment on the injured student’s face, the deceased chavrusa explained he had been diligent in his weekly parsha study, adhering to the tradition of “shnayim mikra ve’echad targum,” as well as completing all of Rashi’s commentary.

“I came to tell you,” his deceased chavrusa continued, “that you will recover from your severe injuries, but it all depends on one condition.”

“What is the condition?” asked the injured student in his vision.

“Only if you agree to spread awareness about the significance of completing shnayim mikra ve’echad targum and Rashi’s commentary on the entire parsha.”

“Of course, I agreed. And I immediately woke up,” the injured student recounted his story to a stunned audience.

Such a powerful story quickly reverberated across the Torahobservant world and even the public beyond it.

Many years pass. In 1997, Lag B’Omer coincided with Motzei Shabbos, and already a week earlier, crowds of pilgrims began to

converge upon Rashbi’s tziyun and the sprawling Meron area. Every conceivable lodging option, from vacation rentals to guest houses and even makeshift shelters fashioned from poles and canvas, was brimming to capacity.

A contingent of students and their chaperone from the Pressburg yeshiva in Jerusalem arrived in Meron on Friday at noon. With nowhere to sleep and Shabbos looming closer, their quest for suitable accommodations took on a more earnest tone, and the determined yeshiva students resorted to rapping on the doors of Moshav Meron’s residents, hoping someone would extend hospitality.

Their knocks continued echoing until they reached the house of Rabbi Eliyahu Vanhozker, who also owned a farm in Moshav Meron. Upon opening the door, the students pleaded with him to allow them refuge for Shabbos. “We have no choice,” they insisted. “Returning to Jerusalem at this hour is simply not feasible.”

In keeping with the noble tradition of hospitality set forth by our patriarch Avrohom, the Vanhozker family warmly welcomed the yeshiva students despite the

unexpected nature of their arrival and the logistical challenges it posed. The Vanhozkers provided the group with Shabbos meals and a restful overnight stay.

As Shabbos came to a close, the group set out to ascend to Rashbi’s tziyun, only to realize they lacked the necessary oil to light a neshama licht by the tziyun. Turning to their host again, the yeshiva students asked whether he had any extra oil. Rabbi Eliyahu searched his home and returned with just a single liter of oil, offering them to take all of it.

Touched by his warm hospitality throughout Shabbos, the yeshiva students resolved to include prayers for him and his family. Just as they were about to bid farewell again, Rabbi Vanhozker suddenly recalled a forgotten cache of oil. Years ago, a local Arab gave him a container containing eighteen liters of oil, yet it remained untouched in his warehouse. Excusing himself for a few minutes, he dashed to retrieve the tin and handed it to them.

Rabbi Eliyahu’s unwavering kindness deeply touched the yeshiva students and left an enduring impression. Grateful for his hospitality and particularly his recent efforts to secure some

oil for them, the yeshiva students once again expressed their heartfelt appreciation before beginning their ascent. As he walked the students towards the door, Rabbi Eliyahu inquired about their yeshiva affiliation.

“We hail from the Pressburg yeshiva in Jerusalem, and I am a member of the yeshiva’s staff,” the chaperone replied. “Are you familiar with our yeshiva?”

Rabbi Eliyahu didn’t need to do much remembering as the story he heard as a child immediately popped into his head. “Certainly,” he replied to the chaperone before recounting every detail he recalled about the van accident, the injured student who made a recovery, and the subsequent awareness of completing shnayim mikra ve’echad targum and Rashi’s commentary.

As Rabbi Eliyahu shared these memories, the chaperone’s expression transformed, his face lighting up with surprise.

“So, it appears,” he remarked with a smile. “The awareness around that matter has traveled far and wide. I am that wounded student.”

Translated from Sichat Hashavua #1322

Lag Ba'Omer Celebrations on Mount Meron. Government Press Office

Is Bidding Up a Shul Auction Allowed?

by Rabbi Shraga Homnick, Sgan Rosh Kollel of Kollel L'Horaa Maasis

One of the methods by which shuls raise money to cover their running expenses entails a practice variously known as selling, or auctioning, the ‘mitzvos,’ or ‘kibbudim,’ i.e. aliyos or related activities which members of the congregation may desire to receive the honor of performing. The scope of the practice (which originated in medieval Ashkenaz1) varies across shuls, with some performing a quick sale before every krias ha’torah, even during the week, while others only do so on special occasions. 2

1. For an overview of the phenomenon and its history, see e.g. Vezot Hatorah: The Customs of the Torah Reading in the Various Communities (Hebrew; 2017) by Rabbi Dr. Haim Talbi, chapter 2, pgs. 75-96. For very thorough discussions of the practice’s history and its applications, see the following essays by Ron S. Kleinman (all in Hebrew): Selling Aliyot and Kibbudim (‘Mechirat Mitzvot ’) in the Synagogue: The Custom, Its Evolution and the Rationale Behind It (2010), Selling Aliyot and Kibbudim in the Synagogue: Endurance Amidst Social Challenges (2014), The Halakhic-Legal Basis for Selling Aliyot and Kibbudim in the Synagogue (2018) and Legal Aspects of Selling Aliyot and Kibbudim in the Synagogue and About a Person who Bought Maftir Yonah and Fell Asleep (2018). For a short halachic monograph dedicated to this topic, see Mechiras Hamitzvos Bahalacha (2018), 124 pgs. 2. The minhag in 770 was that the ‘mechiras hamitzvos’ would take place on Shabbos Bereishis. See a special sicha ‘Al dvar mechiras hamitzvos ’ in Sefer Hasichos 5750, vol. 1, pgs. 83-85; and numerous other farbrengens. And

While the practice is explained to have been conceived in part as a means of reducing friction between mispalelim and of streamlining the process of dividing the kibbudim, sometimes the auction itself can become a source of strife. One such scenario may be when an individual is declared the winner after a lengthy and costly bidding process, only to realize that his competitor had sensed his determination and figured they’d just ‘bid him up’ so as to force him to buy the desired honor at a steeper price, never having any personal desire and intention to buy it themselves. In fact, the gabbai himself may sometimes be guilty of inventing a phantom counterbidder, a common auctioneer tactic. While some ‘victims’ may just laugh the matter off and take it in stride, others may react more harshly upon uncovering this behavior after the fact, and they might feel that the final sale price that they ended up on the hook for ought to be invalidated due to what they regard as fraudulent bidding. The two questions here, among others, are a) is this bidding tactic halachically sanctioned and b) would a disgruntled winner be entitled to call foul -- or even demand that the bogus bidder reimburse him for the

see Otzar Minhagei Chabad, Elul-Tishrei, pgs. 396-398.

money he needlessly spent?

Interestingly, the first question was already raised by R. Chaim Yosef David Azulai (Chida) in a work of responsa that he published in 1798.

Chida 3 describes a case of a wellmeaning fellow who sought to take advantage of individuals who ‘need’ a certain kibbud (he mentions a chosson getting married, a husband buying ‘pesicha’ during his wife’s ninth month of pregnancy[4]4 , and someone with a yahrzeit buying the haftorah), and embarked on a persistent campaign of bidding against them to drive the price up. He even conspired with the shul treasurer, that were he to go too far on occasion and accidentally end up making what turns out to be the final offer, he’d only be on the hook for half of his winning bid. Perhaps unsurprisingly, some people in the community really resented this. Was the fellow responsible for this to be regarded as a noble do-gooder or misguided mischief maker?

Chida takes an exceedingly dim view of this type of behavior. He invokes the pasuk in Tzefaniah (3:13) ‘The remnant of Israel (she’eiris yisrael) shall neither commit injustice (avlah), nor speak lies, nor

3. Yosef Ometz, siman 57.

4. In fact, Chida is considered a primary source when tracing the origins of this segulah. See Minhagei Yisrael, vol. 3, pgs. 126-128.

shall deceitful speech be found in their mouth’ and argues that this fellow is in violation of all three: 1) they’re committing an ‘avlah’ against these hapless people who just want to celebrate a simcha or benefit from a segulah, 2) they’re speaking lies by pretending to be after an honor which they don’t want, and 3) they’re guilty of deceitful speech by pledging one amount and only paying half that. Chida notes that he’d received reports of actual incidents in which baalei simcha in this community quit the bidding in disgust and anger. He points out that chachamim enacted takanos to avert ‘eivah’ (hostility) and ‘mipnei darkei shalom,’ and argues that this should be a consideration here as well. He ends by heartily recommending that the man responsible desist from this practice despite his good intentions. He does not, however, address the other question of a sore winner’s counterclaims.

These questions are addressed in a number of contemporary seforim 5One of those seforim6 raises

5. See the aforementioned Mechiras Hamitzvos Bahalacha, pgs. 78-83; Shaalos U’teshuvos Amudei Mishpat, vol. 2 (2009), Choshen Mishpat siman 8, pgs. 83-94; Shaalos U’teshuvos Divrei Benayahu, vol. 22 (2015), siman 15, pgs. 105-112; and others.

6. Amudei Mishpat ibid.

the interesting question of whether there’s an issue of ‘onaah’ (unfairly overcharging)7 here; how is this different than any canny seller who dupes an unwitting customer into paying way beyond the ‘market rate’?

Intriguingly, however, there actually is a din that ‘onaah’ doesn’t apply to ‘hekdeshos,’8 so any entity deemed a ‘hekdesh’ has free rein to charge outlandishly inflated prices for its assets without compunction. The question, however, would be whether equivalent institutions today would have that halachic status, or which of their assets it would apply to. At any rate, we aren’t really dealing with the sale of an actual item of value, but rather the zechus of performing a mitzvah, so one could argue that onaah wouldn’t apply here for that reason anyway. Ultimately, this particular author concludes that while it is forbidden in his view to engage in this practice, the winning bidder cannot demand reimbursement, because these mitzvos do not have a set price and the bidding process is open-ended. Notably, some poskim queried today have even expressed some qualified support for this practice,9 at least on

7. Choshen Mishpat siman 227.

8. Rambam Hilchos Mechirah, perek 13 halacha 8.

9. Mechiras Hamitzvos Bahalacha ibid. in the

the part of the gabbai. To elaborate on their rationale, we must draw a distinction between some of the more extreme cases described above, and a gabbai who starts the bidding by default on a weekday at, say, $5 or on Yom Tov at $18. Just as bargaining involves a bit of a choreographed give-and-take between buyer and seller until arriving at a reasonable price, the gabbai may also have a sense of where the shul expects the minimum price of the kibbud to land, and doing his part to move that process along could therefore be seen as ‘fair’ and within the bounds of ‘playing by the rules’.

Even a third party may feel justified to engage on occasion in moderate and reasonable ‘assistance’ to the shul’s cause and help push the price of a kibbud to the finish line, or even enter into a friendly ‘bidding war’ in which both individuals are ‘in on it’ and no offense is taken. But it seems all would agree that practices that extend beyond that into collusion or what may practically amount to extortion cross the line into unethical and unhalachic behavior, and should be discouraged. name of Rav Elyashiv and others.

Will AI replace therapists?

By Daniel Schonbuch

I recently started hearing about a new phenomenon from my clients that some are having conversations with AI. In other words, they are talking back-and-forth with AI such as Chat GPT to find solutions for their emotional problems.

I was wondering about what some of my clients are experiencing online and I tried it myself. My question is: Can AI provide therapy as effectively as a human therapist? Here is what I discovered: While AI has the potential to offer certain benefits in therapy, it's essential to consider both its strengths and limitations in comparison to traditional human therapy.

Human therapists bring a unique set of skills and qualities to therapy sessions. They offer empathy, compassion, and a deep understanding of human emotions and behavior. Through active listening and personalized interventions, therapists can establish rapport with their clients and tailor treatment plans to address their specific needs. Additionally, therapists can adapt

their approach based on subtle cues and nonverbal communication from their clients, fostering a sense of trust and collaboration.

I actually found AI to have the same instincts as well-trained therapists. AI has learned how to validate and even how to encourage the writer (client) to express more feelings. My concern was not if AI could mimic human behavior. My bigger concern was to learn if AI had a certain bias. What clients don’t know is that every therapist has bias. It is only human to have various values and attitudes that therapists develop from their own backgrounds and lifestyles. As a marriage therapist, my attitude towards a couple will profoundly influence the outcome of our sessions. For example, if I value the needs of the individual over everything else, then it will be easier for me to suggest a couple get divorced if they feel that their individual needs are not being met. However, if I value the institution of marriage which provides many long-lasting benefits for individuals, yet may demand certain sacrifices,

I will work towards the couple maintaining their relationship. Therapy is clearly influenced by the attitudes of the therapist. The question is, what are the values of AI? To find out, I engaged my ChatGPT as if I were a client seeking advice about marriage. Here is my dialogue online:

Me: What’s better, being alone and independent or being married?

ChatGPT: The question of whether it's better to be alone and independent or to be married really depends on personal preferences, life goals, and what makes you happiest. Both lifestyles have their unique benefits and challenges. Here’s a brief look at each:

Being Alone and Independent

Pros:

• Freedom and Autonomy: You have the freedom to make decisions without needing to consider a partner’s preferences or compromises.

• Personal Growth: Being on

your own can provide ample opportunities to focus on personal development, career, and hobbies.

• Flexibility: You can choose how to spend your time, money, and energy without coordinating with someone else.

Cons:

• Loneliness: Some people might feel lonely without a partner, especially during challenging times when emotional support is needed.

• Lack of Shared Responsibility: Handling everything from finances to household chores can be more challenging alone.

Being Married

Pros:

• Companionship: Having a partner can provide emotional support, companionship, and shared joy in life’s milestones.

• Shared Responsibilities: You can share financial burdens, household duties, and decision-making processes.

• Family Life: If you desire a family, marriage can provide a stable foundation for raising children.

Cons:

• Compromises: Marriage often requires compromises, and you might need to sacrifice some personal preferences.

• Conflict: Differences in opinions, lifestyles, or goals can lead to conflicts that need to be managed carefully.

• Dependency: Some individuals might feel a loss of independence or identity in the partnership.

ChatGPT: Ultimately, the "better" option is the one that aligns most closely with your values, lifestyle, and what you envision for your future happiness. It's important to choose a path that feels authentic to you and supports your well-being and growth. What are some aspects

of your life that are most important to you? Knowing these can help in deciding which path might suit you better.

At first, I thought that ChatGPT seemed to not offer advice in a biased way. Rather, it offers various opinions and lets the user decide. However, from a deeper perspective, I question why it sees compromises and sacrificing “personal preferences” as a con.

According to John Gottman, the leading marriage researcher in the world, “Accepting Influence” and another person’s opinions is what makes marriage a rich experience. As the saying goes, “a whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” As well, the Torah teaches us that

both forces of zachar and nekeiva combine to create a deeper reality called Malchus.

It’s apparent that AI has some subtle, if not profound, biases that are now engaging many people’s minds. These ideas may have some significant repercussions that we need to be aware of. And as this type of technology becomes more utilized, especially by our children, I would try to engage them to find out what are the sources for some of the opinions they are forming, from podcasts they are following or perhaps from ChatGPT. This may be especially true for adolescents searching for values and deciding on their ethical principles from technology, as this now seems to be the latest trend.

the inside track

By Sruly Meyer

REVEALING YOUR INNER MIRACLES

Get to know Chayala Neuhaus

Chayala Neuhaus (nee Hartstein), a prolific composer, singer, and producer who has released a series of Jewish music albums, began writing music as a young teen. At 19, a song she composed was featured on singer Srully Williger's 2007 album, Chesed. "Selling that song was a big deal for me," relates Chayala, born and raised in Boro Park, Brooklyn. By the age of 30, she had composed hundreds of songs.

She had since gotten married, been blessed with children, and moved to Lakewood, New Jersey. Her musical career continued to be more behind the scenes, working with as many as 350 girls and women from camps, schools, and organizations through her C-Note Production Studio and C-Note Academy.

"I taught piano, voice, and guitar privately, and then moved on to working in Lakewood schools," she says. "As engineering became more accessible, I taught myself and then started teaching others.

There weren't many teaching tools to learn Jewish music; many teachers used non-Jewish music, so we created a Jewish music curriculum to teach and learn from."

As she considered crafting her own album, she handpicked her favorite tracks. When child soloist Dovid Pearlman frequented her studio for his projects, she saw an opportunity. Chayala produced an album titled “Miracles” in 2015 with the songs performed by Pearlman and soloist Dovid Lowy, so both men and women could enjoy it.

After her debut album was a huge success, she followed up with two more albums, ‘Miracles 2’ and ‘Miracles 3,’ sung by Yehuda Kirschner and Gavriel Pelcovitz, respectively. Both albums were produced by Doni Gross, which led to the next big milestone in her career. "Once my albums were released and gained popularity, singers from the Jewish music industry started to reach out to request my songs," she says. "Benny Friedman, who

was also working with Doni Gross, reached out, and the song ‘No Time Like Now’ was produced for Bikur Cholim, which he sang. I wrote a song for Mordechai Shapiro on his ‘Hakol Mishamayim’ album and went on to work on several more songs for popular singers in the industry."

One of her most popular songs is "A Yid Never Breaks," an anthem of hope and faith which she started writing in 2018 but finally released during the Covid pandemic. Sung by Benny Friedman, A Yid currently has almost a million streams on Spotify and has become a notable hit in the Jewish music world.

And then came the next step. “The women's Jewish music industry started to pick up even more, and I was being asked about singing my own songs and performing live,” Chayala says. “Initially, I was hesitant, however, after seeing the music's positive effects, I began to take a more personal approach, singing live at women's events.”

Over the last year and a half, Chayala headlined women-only concerts in Israel, Belgium, London, and all over the US, including New Jersey, Cleveland, Los Angeles, South Florida, and S. Louis. “It’s been a treat to connect to people in person on stage,” she says. “For many years in Jewish music, songs by female composers would only be heard if performed by a male singer. I am so grateful to be able to connect to women and girls directly and represent myself and my songs.”

When asked who her inspirations are, Chayala says, "In a songwriting sense, composers like Moshe Yess and Abie Rotenberg really inspired me. I very much connect to the storyteller style of songs. I see my songs as a 3-and-a-half-minute message people will put in their pocket and take with them. It's important to me to capture and convey a strong feeling and message when I have their attention.

“I also very much admire Dina Storch, the only female songwriter I knew about back when I started, who wrote the smash hit ‘Someday’ for Mordechai Ben David at 17,” she adds.

Chayala has broken many barriers in her career, and she still aims high. "Whatever dreams or goals I had for myself, each thing I did seemed so big. If I managed even to compose a song, it was huge. If I could only sell one song, that was huge. Everything seemed like a dream, but I learned it's only a matter of recalibrating what you think you can accomplish. Hashem doesn't limit our talent; it's up to us to keep pushing that limit."

She continues, "I would say the same thing to young girls and women working on their creative talents: don't feel that there is no place for you in that space. You can find a positive and appropriate kosher way to expand and grow your talents. You can find a way to achieve your dreams and goals in the proper way. Even when there were things I couldn't do because they didn't align with my values, later opportunities came that far exceeded what I turned down."

Chayala is working on new songs and working with organizations on upcoming events. Find her summer tour schedule at www.cnotestudios.com

The Ka’Eileh Showdown

Within a single month, two songs were released about a single word in the Torah that many shul-goers have the custom of singing out loud. That word is “ka’eileh” from Parshas Pinchos in Chumash, which discusses the various sacrifices brought on Pesach and is read over Pesach.

Here’s the match-up between both songs:

COMPOSED, WRITTEN & PERFORMED Joey Newcomb Yonah Laster

PRODUCER Doni Gross Hillel Kapnick

PREMIERED April 9, 2024 April 18, 2024

SONG LENGTH 3:46 3:27

MUSIC VIDEO Yes No

OPENING DISCLAIMER

The Sefer Torah used in this video is not real

MEANING OF KA’EILEH

BEST RESPONSE

VIEWS ON YOUTUBE

Despite sharing a theme ... this song was fully written in 2020

Doing a Mitzvah again, but with excitement Completely unfounded minhag shtus

I really enjoyed this while not understanding anything of the song or the description @littlecatfeet9064

Did you ever think of raffling off ‘ka’eilah’? You’ll make more money than both maftir yonah and pesicha neilah combined @TheRanaro

56,712 4,817

TITLE Ka’eileh The Ka’Eileh Anthem

A Brief History of Jewish Acappella

Sefirah is here, and as is customary, we do not listen to live music. Over the last 25 years, dozens of new groups have emerged, and hundreds of Jewish acappella albums are available.

According to Mike Boxer, director of the New York-based vocal group Six13, the modern Jewish acappella scene goes back to 1987, when a group was formed at Barnard University in New York City. Next on the scene was Beat’achon, founded by Jordan B. Gorfinkel in 1991 and billed as “the first professional Jewish harmony

In the world of Jewish acappella, Ari Goldwag stands out. Living in Ramat Beit Shemesh, Israel, Goldwag has become synonymous with the genre, particularly through his "Soul" series. What sets Goldwag apart is not just his musical prowess but his innovative approach to funding his productions through crowdfunding.

Ari turned to crowdfunding for his album Am Echad. "I hoped to raise the full amount I needed for the album, which didn't happen," Ari shares. Despite falling short of his

group.” This led to the inspiration and formation of many future groups, including Kol Zimra (formed in 2000), Lev Tahor (formed in 2001), Six13 (formed in 2003), A.K.A. Pella (formed in 2005), and more.

Lev Tahor was created by Gadi Fuchs, Ari Cukier, and Eli Schwebel (son of Rivie Schwebel from the group D’veykus). They brought “sefirah” music into the more traditional Chassidic Jewish music scene. Many people would consider that era the first golden age of acappella, as albums were released not just as a stand-in for “Sefirah Music.”

Of course, the real breakthrough in Jewish acappella came when a couple of students at Yeshiva University

founded the all-male singing group The Maccabeats in 2007. They were unique in producing covers of nonJewish songs released with pop-art music videos sprinkled with light humor. Their 2010 song, Candlelight, has over 17 million views to date.

In the years following, new groups were formed and released acappella. These include the Chassidic group Meshorerim, Ari Goldwag’s “Soul” series, Kumzitz in the Rain, and most recently, Benny Friedman’s Whispers of the Heart series. Other artists have joined in to release their own acappella albums, including Miami Boys Choir, Nochi Krohn, Beri Weber, Simcha Leiner, 8th Day, and even a no-music album from Avraham Fried, “My Father’s Zemiros.”

Ari

Goldwag is the Crowdfunding King

of Jewish Acappella

target, the crowdfunding experience did provide initial financial backing.

"The crowdfunding offers more money upfront for albums, which has helped me add new songs at the last minute, including my hit track Am Echad, which was only possible because of the crowdfunding,” Goldwag explains.

“The first vocal-only album, ‘Acapella Soul Volume One,’ a project I had the pleasure to conceptualize and name, was released in 2012. It has since grown to include over 12 albums, in addition to four ‘Darkness to Redemption’ albums that cater to different moods, from upbeat

melodies suitable for the Sefirah period to slower, introspective tunes reflecting themes of redemption and mourning.”

He has crowdfunded each of these albums and offered fans a chance to pre-order an album, sponsor a song, get merchandise, shoutouts, and more perks.

“I’m looking forward to making many more albums, including a possible English series and a best-of album,” Goldwag says.

Support his coming album at Arigoldwag.com/newalbum

10 MOST STREAMED ACAPPELLA ALBUMS

Here are the most popular Jewish Acappella albums according to online streaming data:

1

One Day MoreThe Maccabeats (2014)

7.2 million streams

3

Whispers of the Heart 2 - Benny Friedman (2021)

4.2 million streams

Whispers of the Heart 1 - Benny Friedman (2020)

2

Voices from the Heights - The Maccabeats (2010)

5.7 million streams

4

Out of the BoxThe Maccabeats (2012)

3.8 million streams

5

3.7 million streams (Including the song V’zakeini with 1 million streams)

7

A Cappella Soul 2 - Ari Goldwag (2014)

2.1 million streams

6

Vol. 4: Zmanim - Six13 (2011)

Lev Tahor 3: An Acapella Experience (2004)

2.8 million streams

8

Whispers of the Heart 3 - Benny Friedman (2022)

1.6 million streams

9 10

1.5 million streams

A Kumzitz in the Rain 5Soulful Acappella (2017)

1.3 million streams (the song Lecho Dodi has 1.5 million streams)

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Kosher Spread

The Barbecue is Back!

Four great recipes to spice up your summer barbecue.

When Pesach ends, we wish each other with the traditional greeting, a Gutten Zummer! And what better way to prepare for summer than a grand barbecue! Lag Ba’Omer is the perfect time to dust off those grills and get in barbecue mode. This month we are excited to bring you some unique and fresh recipes for the perfect barbecue gathering! From the tender flavors of boneless short ribs to delicious grilled chicken and perfectly balanced sides, these recipes will instantly transform your next backyard barbecue!

Korean Boneless Short Ribs with Baby Bok Choy

I love making these grilled Boneless Miami Short Ribs with a Korean marinade. Follow this recipe and use a gas grill to recreate this delicious dish, perfect for your Sunday BBQ with family and friends!

Chef Erica Wides for the Prairie Street Culinary Kitchen @thechefsmartypants

Marinade

Pat dry the meat. In a bowl, add soy sauce, a teaspoon of sesame oil, minced garlic, sugar, grated ginger and ¼ teaspoon of chili paste. Mix ingredients and pour over and coat the ribs. Marinate the ribs for at least 20 minutes. They can marinate overnight in the refrigerator too.

Grilling

Next, heat up the grill. This is a quick cook as we are using high direct heat. We cook the boneless ribs like steak and grill it for 4-5 minutes on each side. Add the lightly oiled bok choy to the grill. Rotate the ribs on the grill after 2 minutes to form diamond grill marks. Cook the boneless ribs to a medium rare 125°F/ 52°C and the bok choy until it is soft and bright green. Remove the ribs and let it rest for 10 minutes before cutting.

1 Beef Korean/Miami Cut boneless short ribs

2 Cups of soy sauce

1 Tablespoon sesame oil

1 Cup of sugar

1 Tablespoon rice vinegar

In a bowl, mix both thinly sliced radishes, 1 scallion cut on bias into ½ inch sticks, 1 tablespoon of rice vinegar, 1 teaspoon of sugar, a dash of chili paste, a pinch of salt and a drizzle of sesame oil. Let everything pickle for about 10 minutes. Ingredients

1 Bunch of scallions

1 Radish sliced thin

1 Watermelon radish cut like a watermelon slice

1 Clove of garlic minced

1 ¼ Cup of grated ginger

¼ lb of baby bok choy

¼ Cup of chili paste

Sesame oil

1 Teaspoon of sesame seeds

Kosher salt

Black pepper

Avocado /grape oil

Water Kimchi

Grilled Steak and Nectarine Salad

You probably have these ingredients on hand if you’re thinking of grilling today - onions, avocado, corn, nectarines, peas (those are optional and not grilled) so I’m just gonna leave this here and suggestbecause demanding is so unbecoming - that you make this salad today. Or this weekend. Or when you’re grilling. Because it’s fresh and bursting with flavor. You need it! Serve it on a platter with the dressing on the side and let everyone build their own. Oh, and by the way, be sure to oil the grill or your veg/nectarines so they don’t stick, and salt them lightly when they come off.

Vannesa Haberman

@PlatesandPetals

Ingredients

For the Salad:

Strip steak or your steak of choice

Avocado halved and cut into wedges

Corn, grilled and shaved off the cob

Onions, quartered and grilled

Nectarines, quartered and grilled

Handful of peas, shelled

For the Dressing:

2 handfuls parsley

1 handful basil

2-3 mint leaves

2 cloves peeled garlic

1/4 cup olive oil

2 tbsp water to thin

1/2 a jalapeño (leave out if you don’t like spicy)

Salt and pepper to taste

Blend with a fork and spoon over your salad

Lemon Dill Grilled Chicken

I’ve made this dish so many times for clients, and without fail they requested it again and again. It’s really easy and the flavors are so bright. You can use any chicken you’d like, but I recommend extra thin chicken cutlets.

Jacqueline Tawil Elbaz @Stuffffed

Ingredients

1 and a half pounds extra thin chicken cutlets

Juice of 2 lemons

1 lemon for zest

1/3 cup avocado oil

3 tablespoons chopped fresh dill (plus some for garnish)

5 cloves garlic, minced salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Marinate chicken in a large ziploc for at least 1 hour.

For extra flavor marinate for up to 8 hours in the fridge.

Make sure the grill is at a high heat.

Grill each cutlet for 3-4 min on each side.

Let them rest for 5-10 minutes.

Garnish with some fresh dill

Sweet Heat Grilled Pineapple

Wanna spruce up your barbecue game? This goes perfectly with your steaks or burgers! It’s the perfect combo of sweet and spicy, with the acid from the pineapple breaking through to balance it out.

Sruly Meyer @SrulyCooks

Ingredients

1 cup brown sugar

1 tsp red pepper chili flakes 1/2 tsp salt

1 pineapple - peeled, cored, and cut into 6 wedges.

Directions

Preheat an outdoor grill to medium-high heat and lightly oil the grate.

Whisk brown sugar, salt, and pepper flakes in a bowl.

Transfer into a large resealable plastic bag. Add pineapple wedges to the bag; shake well to coat each wedge.

Grill pineapple wedges on the preheated grill until heated through, 3 to 5 minutes per side.

Bonfire of Knowledge Painting PARSHA

Begin by sponging yellow paint over most of the canvas.

Cut out the printed template of a black open book.

Using a medium paintbrush, paint the Aleph-Bais Stampers with black paint. Randomly stamp the Aleph-Bais around the canvas.

Add some orange paint dots around the canvas with a sponge. Blend the two shades by dabbing until yellow and orange mesh together.

Repeat step 2 with red paint. Make sure your whole canvas is fully painted and blended with yellow, orange, and red paint to create the look of a bonfire.

Glue your book to the bottom of your canvas. Take 3 Aleph-Bais cookie cutters and dip them into black paint. Then, stamp them around the canvas.

Your “Bonfire of Knowledge” Painting is complete. Have a Happy Lag Ba’omer

SUPPLIES

Paint: Yellow, Orange, Red & Black

Printed Template - Open Book

Aleph-Beis Cookie Cutters

Medium Paintbrush

Aleph-Beis Stamps

Paper Towel

Small Plate

Liquid Glue

Scissors

Sponge

Canvas

*We would love to see how your Parsha Studio Project came out! Send us pictures to, info@jcm.museum

LAG BA’OMER

On Lag Ba’omer we have the custom to light bonfires. This is because the Torah, and especially the secrets within it, are compared to fire. Just as Rashbi revealed the secrets of Torah to all of us, we too can share with someone a part of Torah that they don’t know yet.

BRING IT HOME DID YOU KNOW? IMAGINE

You know how to play piano. You’ve learned how to read the notes and after practicing for many hours, days, weeks, and months, you have mastered three of your favorite songs. There is nothing like the feeling of your fingers running across the keyboard, creating the harmonious sounds of music. Your good friend Yossi wishes he could play too. You think to yourself, “There’s a reason Hashem gave me this skill. Aside from using my talent to play music, maybe I can also teach it to Yossi.” One day after school, Yossi comes over for his first lesson, given by you. You can’t teach him everything in one day, but you start by showing him the right way to hold his fingers on the keyboard. One piece of information at a time, he can start to learn how to play.

DELVING DEEPER

How can you be like Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, who revealed the secrets of Torah?

Rashbi wrote the Zohar, a book that contains the secrets of the Torah, and revealed it to the world. Because of him, all Jews can now access the deepest parts of the Torah, strengthening their connection with Hashem. We honor this by lighting bonfires on Lag Ba’omer, his Hilula, the day he passed away ,since the secrets of Torah are represented by fire. Although we are not on the level of Rashbi, we can nevertheless take a lesson from his life. Just as Rashbi revealed and taught the deepest layers of Torah, you too can teach a part of Torah you know to someone who may not yet know. There is a well-known teaching, “If you know Alef, teach Alef.” Even if you only know one Alef Bais letter, one Parsha, or one explanation within Torah, you can share it with someone else who doesn’t yet know it.

The Challah Craze

Everyone is crazy about chametz after Pesach, so here are some things to laugh about while you go about preparing your long awaited challahs.

By Mordechai Schmutter

I imagine a lot of you are probably excited to make challah again. You’re off somewhere looking up new recipes or sterilizing your house key. At least you think it’s your house key. It could be the key your neighbors gave you in case they get locked out of their house. It’s someone’s house key. But it’s very exciting.

Everyone’s jazzed about challah, because we just went 8 whole days without having any. Eight whole days! Whereas on most weeks, we go six whole days without having any. Before Pesach, we don’t eat matzah for thirty whole days, but no one puts a key in their matzah.

Maybe we like challah so much because it’s shrouded in mystery. Matzah has no mystery. It has two ingredients. As a man, I’m not even sure what goes into challah. I hear names of ingredients thrown around, but I’m pretty sure I don’t know all of them. What on earth is a yeast? And why is it so temperamental?

Men all go to bake matzos, but there’s no challah-baking chaburah. And there are no challah bakery tours either. There are a ton of mitzvos involving challah; how about a tour? And a matzah bakery tour is only like 18 minutes. A

challah bakery tour can be six hours! Most of them spent watching dough rise.

You have a flour guy and a water guy and a yeast guy and an egg guy and a key guy and a poppy seed guy. Like the mixer knocks on a window, and a hand comes out and sprinkles on some poppy seeds.

I think the girls’ schools might go, though. Why is it the woman’s job to make challah? Not that I’m complaining.

Then, after passing a bunch of bowls of dough in various stages of rising, you’d see a table of people furiously rolling and pounding and braiding the challah, and then someone throws it over a stick, and everyone yells, “No! You’re gonna break it!” And they give it to the guy who eggs it, and they run it over to the oven, and it has to wait near the oven for an hour so it can rise some more with a towel on it. And then the baker slides it into a 350-degree oven and goes to find something else to do for a half hour.

“One half hour in the oven!” the tour guide would say. “If it’s there even a half hour longer, it’s a little bit dryish!”

At least that’s how I imagine it. I have no idea. Fifty-one weeks a year we eat challah, yet no rebbi has ever taken my class to a challah bakery. It would be nice to be able to compare.

Sure, you’re going to say that it’s because challah is primarily a woman’s mitzvah, but I’m pretty sure that it’s hafrashas challah that’s a woman’s mitzvah. Making challah isn’t necessary. People sometimes misunderstand what halacha means by the word “challah”.

This reminds me of the time when I was about 12 or 13, and my posek, zt”l, was giving out mesechtos of mishnayos to all the kids in shul to learn before the next Simchas Torah, and my neighbor, who was about my age, picked Challah. And then the next year, on Shemini Atzeres, he said, “Hey, Mordechai, can you help me finish this mesechta? I thought it would be about eating challah.”

“You’re telling me!” I said. “I picked Shevuos.”

Just kidding. I picked Peyah. It was not about hair-dos.

But yes, I knew that going in. Like this is one of the things that got the Tannaim to finally decide to write things down after thousands of years – because they wanted to talk about eating challah. And braiding techniques, and how to

flip the cutting board while holding a challah in each hand, and how to make one of those huge loaves that they have at bar mitzvahs.

But my wife makes our challah (I wear the peyos in the family) and I have no idea what goes into it. For a while there, I was helping braid it. My wife would sometimes have to leave the house just before the challah was ready to be braided, and she’d ask me to roll it out. So I’ve done that. But I have no idea how to gauge how long my strand is going to be. I start rolling a ball of dough between my hands, trying to go for a uniform width all the way down, and before I know it, my strand is six feet long. I’m standing up on a stepstool to avoid having the bottom hit the floor.

So sometimes I’d just roll with it, and make all three strands that long. Usually, though, I make the second strand slightly thicker, and then when I’m done, I look down and realize that this strand is only three feet long. So for the third strand, I try to make it slightly thinner, and it ends up four feet long. So now I have to braid an even challah out of a sixfoot strand, a three-foot strand, and a four-foot strand. I kind of feel like I’m doing that magic trick with the three ropes that have to all end up the same size before the magician’s wife comes home.

“What’s going on here? Why are you on a stepstool?”

So sometimes, I tried stretching out the shorter strands, and then attempting to braid them really fast before they shrunk back down. That doesn’t really work.

Usually, though, I’d cut a foot off the six-foot strand and stick it to the bottom of the three-foot-strand, but then I’d still have two fours and a five. What do I do with that extra foot?

This is how rolls were invented.

Then my wife would come home, and I’d say, “Look how much longer my challahs are than yours!”

“It’s not a contest.”

“It’s not a contest you’re winning.” “Great. How are you planning on getting this into the oven?”

“Um… I can curve it?”

So she doesn’t let me braid anymore. She tries to work out the timing of her day so that she’s home when it needs to be braided, and then she puts the loaves on the stove to rise again, and the job she gives me is more like, “Keep an eye on the challahs. They’re rising.”

To this day, I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do with that.

“Do you want me to yell at them to rise?”

“No, I think they need quiet. Make sure they don’t rise too much.”

Like she doesn’t want to come home to find dough bulging out all the windows, with me pressed against the wall.

“I forgot to watch the challahs.”

Most weeks, though, my entire job, as far as the challah, is cutting it and dipping it in salt. And even still, my wife puts out pink salt, because the challah board is white, and after a few years of her putting white salt at the corner of the challah board and silently watching me dip the slices into an entirely different corner, she decided that pink salt was the way to go. Or she could let me put the salt on the cutting board, but I have no more jobs when it comes to challah.

I don’t mean to sound gender-biased here. There are plenty of things that men can make, such as meat. But as far as bread, a man’s understanding of baking bread is that he will sometimes also grill the hamburger buns. Because apparently hamburgers are better on toast.

But my point is that I think the reason women are better at handling challah is that challah has moods, like a woman. Meat always acts the same: You do the following things to a piece of meat and this is how it ends up. This is why men can handle meat and why we like making it. And why when we stay away from it for the Nine Days, we come back to it the way people come back to pizza or challah after Pesach, in that we’re so excited to finally be grilling meat again, we will sometimes lose our keys in it.

But challah can end up in a mood. You add a single ingredient out of order, and now the challah won’t talk to you or work with you. And it’s like, “You can’t braid it yet, can’t braid it yet… NOW braid it NOW you missed it.” Only a woman can figure this out. If a man would make challah once, he’d end up apologizing to it. And buying it flours.

(Sorry. Have some flours.)

Even when my wife makes it, it tastes different every time. And if the challah doesn’t come out awesome one week, we spend Friday night trying to figure it out. What did we do to make the challah mad?

I don’t know; it won’t tell us.

My wife says something like, “Oh, I think I put in the water first and THEN the flour.” Or, “I think it was the weather.”

“Did you make it outside? Because I actually did make the meat outside, and it tastes fine.”

Or she’ll say, “I think I forgot the salt this week.” There’s a lot of pressure with challah, because it’s watching you as you make it, and sometimes you get nervous and forget stuff.

“The lack of salt shouldn’t be a factor,” I’ll say. “I dipped it into salt just now, when I cut it.”

“No, you didn’t.”

Then Now AND

by Zev Gotkin

The Jewish Children’s Museum

Located on the corner of Kingston Avenue and Eastern Parkway, the Jewish Children’s Museum (known as the ‘JCM’ for short) stands tall and proud, dominating the Crown Heights skyline. This metal and glass six-story, 50,000-square-foot facility occupies the corner adjacent to 770 and looms over Eastern Parkway, making it distinctly noticeable to motorists and pedestrians alike.

The museum, with its space-age, futuristic architecture and large windows was built from the ground up and stands on the former site of a neighborhood kosher grocery store called Aufrichtig and the original Ess & Bentch Glatt Kosher deli. Aufrichtig was owned by a Jewish immigrant from Glasgow, Poland named Jack Aufrichtig who moved his grocery store from Dekalb Avenue in the heart of Williamsburg to the iconic corner of Eastern Parkway and Kingston Avenue sometime after 1937 (most likely the 1950s).

“We decided to look into the store

on Kingston Avenue,” Aufrichtig recounted in his autobiography. “I found out the address of the owner of the building. He had an office in downtown Brooklyn, and I went to see him. His name was Mr Wolf - a high-class gentleman. He interviewed me and said, ‘I have many applicants for this place. It seems to me that you are just the right party.’ Two days later I went downtown and signed a fiveyear lease. Here starts the most wonderful 17 years for us together in business…

“The corner where we had our store was the most interesting corner in the world. Why? Because it was opposite the center of the worldrenowned Chassidic movement –Lubavitch, 770 Eastern Parkway.”

Tzivos Hashem originally purchased the land for the building with plans to make something new and interesting for children beyond the temporary exhibitions they had been putting on at the Jacob Javitz Center in Manhattan and other areas. The plans were still not fully

developed when a tragic incident on an ordinary Tuesday in 1994 made its mission abundantly clear.

On March 1st of that year, a yeshiva student named Ari Halberstam was shot and killed on the Brooklyn Bridge by Lebanese-born cab driver, Rashid Baz, who opened fire on a van carrying Ari and several of his friends. “On that day, at that moment, my life was forever changed,” said Devorah Halberstam, Ari’s mother. “We became victims of terrorism."

After Ari’s murder, Halberstam and Tzivos Hashem embarked on a project together to create a museum dedicated to implanting tolerance, understanding, and Jewish pride in the hearts of Jewish and nonJewish youth alike. “We dedicated the museum to Ari’s memory and [the values] he lived and died for,” explained Devorah Halberstam. “We all worked toward that [common] goal.” Ten years after the attack, in 2004, the $35 million facility opened its doors to the public and it has since welcomed thousands

792 EASTERN PARKWAY

of visitors to enjoy its wide array of ever-changing exhibits.

Even on an ordinary day, of which there are few in such an active center, one entering the museum will find it teeming with activity with each floor of the building serving a unique purpose. As described on the JCM website: “Visitors enter the lobby and information area on the ground floor which also houses a cafeteria and museum shop. The lower level is devoted to hands-on learning and is where visitors enjoy creative workshops and an arts and crafts center where children bake challah or matzos, carve shofars, make

menorahs, and braid Havdalah candles.”

“On the second level, a flexible 5,000-square-foot area serves as a gallery, concert hall, [and space for weddings, engagement parties, banquets, fundraisers], and other scheduled events.”

“The heart of the museum is in the galleries which occupy the third and fourth of the building’s six floors. There, visitors encounter an array of exhibits and displays covering Jewish history and heroes, holidays and customs, the Holocaust, and contemporary Jewish life. Some 100 lifelike dioramas add a concrete visual dimension to the exhibits

in conjunction with multi-media presentations designed to capture the attention of the museum’s young visitors. The top two floors of the Museum hold administrative offices, a conference room, and support services.”

“The kids who visit have a great experience and leave happy and inspired to change the world,” said Halberstam. “Now, more than ever in a post-10/7 world where antisemitism is rampant, let’s hope the positive message of the Jewish Children’s Museum stays with its visitors and continues to make the world a better place for generations to come.”

Celebrating 5 years as United Refuah Members

Meet the Rubin* Family

Membership Type: Couple

Members Since: May 2019

Over five years of membership, United Refuah shared in 300+ medical services for the Rubin family addressing over 30 medical diagnoses.

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How much did the Rubin family pay?

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*Name changed for confidentiality

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