Tzipiyah.com

A person I respect and trust tremendously is leading a cause in Israel through which he provides interest-free loans to needy people. He is organizing a special fundraiser for Yom Kippur through Pidyon Kapparot.

The website for the Pidyon Kapparot effort is here: http://www.gemachloans.com/kaparot.html .

For more information on the cause, you can visit http://www.gemachloans.com .

Teshuvah, Tzedakkah and Tefilah is what this time of the year is all about. Please be generous with this cause and all our other causes!

Hello,

We now have 3 spots for new bloggers. If you are interested in applying for a spot, please email dillouz@gmail.com with a bit of information on yourself and a sample of writing.

Tzipiyah.com has torah-inspired commentary on life and world event, divrei torahs, and personal stories. The varied forms of writing leave a lot of space for creativity. Please visit the blog before applying to familiarize yourself with the type of content we have.

We get around 100-150 daily unique visitors (and are growing every day) which means that every time you write a post, you reach all those readers with your message, something most of us hardly ever get a chance to do.

Please send me applications by this Sunday. Since there are limited spots, we will be very selective with our decision.

Rabbi Gil Student is Founder and Author of Hirhurim and founder of Yashar Books.

1. Describe in around 100 words the way in which you are involved in Jewish Work?
My involvement in the Jewish community is extremely limited. Essentially, I am a regular ballebos (layman) with a normal job in the corporate world. On the side, I run a small publishing company called Yashar Books that specializes in contemporary Orthodox scholarship in English that combines the best in Torah and secular knowledge. Additionally, I write the Hirhurim blog, which is my way of discussing Torah and related concerns with people who share these interests.

2. You were one of the first Jewish Bloggers around. Did you ever think Blogging would become so big?
When I started blogging, it seemed like a new medium that was only for the most intense web surfers. It has now become much more mainstream and seems to be one of the preferred methods of online interaction. However, many of my readers are uncomfortable with the informal nature of blogs and the amount of time someone can spend daily reading blogs. A surprising number of readers tell me that they have given up on most blogs and read only Hirhurim and maybe one or two others. In that sense, I think that Hirhurim’s being early in the game has helped with whatever success it has achieved. Latecomers to the blog world will probably be unable to gain the readers who have decided not to look at any but their favorite blogs. So the new blogs don’t have a chance with these readers. But that doesn’t mean that people shouldn’t post their thoughts and insights to a blog with the goal of sharing them. They just have to have realistic expectations.

3. What motivated you to become active in the Jewish World in first place?
The prophet Yirmiyahu speaks about how when he received a prophecy it would shake his body until he would tell others about it. It would practically burst out of him. That is how I sometimes feel about Torah ideas that I want to share. The blog is my way of sharing and teaching those ideas.

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This article has been written by Rav Ari Shvat (Chwat), Rosh Midreshet Tal Orot in Michlelet Orot, Elkana. He has graciously offered to share his wisdom with the readers of Tzipiyah.com, and given me a few, very powerful and all very relevant, articles to share with you. This is the fifth part of the second article. Enjoy!

6. Sovereignty in the Land of Israel is a Mitzva

Up to this point, we have seen that the State of Israel, even if secular, is important as a means to guarantee both our physical and spiritual existence. On a completely different plane, we learn that there is an obligation from the Torah that the Land of Israel be under Jewish rule. In other words, the State of Israel is an ideal in of itself, not just a necessary median to alleviate the difficulties of anti-Semitism and assimilation. As the Ramban says:

“We are commanded to inherit the Land that Hashem gave to our forefathers, to Avraham, Yitzchak and Ya’acov, and not to abandon it in the hands of the other nations or to desolation. And He said to them: ‘and you should inherit the Land and settle in it, because I have given you the Land to inherit.’[1]… This is what our rabbis call milchemet… chova (an obligatory war) as the war of Yehoshua to conquer (Israel)… understand, that this mitzvah is to conquer …this is a positive mitzva for every generation”.[2] (more…)