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In last week’s parsha, Shemot, we read how Pharaoh ordered for all the Jewish males to be killed upon their birth. Later, he demanded that all males born, including Egyptian males, were to be killed. According to Rashi, this was because he knew Israel’s saviour was going to be born (Moshe, who would later bring them out of slavery) but he didn’t know if he’d be born to the Israelites or the Egyptians. Pharaoh was willing to kill the children of his own nation just so he could continue the enslavement of the Jews. This just doesn’t make sense; surely you put your own people first, and surely all the kids that were killed would have grown up to be excellent workers anyway. Therefore it is obvious to me that the fact that the Jews are working and building storage houses etc isn’t his main priority. The enslavement keeps them out of the Land of Israel and keeps them under his control, with the hope that they’ll perish. Thankfully, as always, Hashem made Israel even more numerous instead.

This story sent alarm bells ringing in my head. What’s happening today in Eretz Yisrael is no different. (more…)

I think that the Mumbai tragedy has really brought Chabad to the spotlight. Everyone knows of Chabad and how they’re everywhere, but not everyone always knew the extent to which they operate. The story of the Holtzberg’s showed us what sacrifice they make and what good they can bring. The Holtzberg’s were the source of all kosher food – Gabriel slaughtered meat himself, they led services, bar mitzvahs, weddings, classes, guests every week; single handed. They brought so many people closer to Judaism. Their whole lives were totally absorbed in this purpose, yet they were filled to the brim with humility.

I look around and I see so many organisations along with Chabad, Breslev, etc trying to reach out to people. Yet they all have different ways of doing so. And I think; which is the right one, which is the truth. But really, they’re all right and they’re all true. Judaism from the outside would appear to look segregated and all the different sects appear to be in disagreement. In actuality, every single sect is the correct sect and every single Chassidic sect has the correct rebbe. All Jews stem from one, all Chassidut stems from one. And they’re each simply on their own path with their own tafkid (role) going towards the same goal. And you know what, Hashem helps every single one of them.

Why am I telling you this? Too often, we’re so involved in our own outlook and our own way of doing things that we not only ignore the other methods but we disrespect them. If we just take a moment to explore another community or sect we will see such harmony within Judaism. Ok, X has this minhag, Y says this benching but Z doesn’t, etc – but X, Y and Z are colleagues and brothers. Everyone personally identifies more with one over the other, but we can all get something out of each one. It’s about taking the good from everything and respecting the rest.

I got speaking to a mother who had reluctantly just sent her daughter to seminary. She wasn’t religious herself but was angry that her daughter had become religious and couldn’t understand what she saw in Judaism.

I got to the root of the problem - she then told me that Judaism was forced down her throat, “Do this! Why? Because that’s how it must be done!” She said she rebelled the opposite way, she wasn’t going to listen to that. She couldn’t understand why anyone would want to be religious, “it’s like being in prison, you can’t do anything you want, your whole life is controlled – “you can’t do this, this and this!”

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I wasn’t either.  Until I read a post here from Rabbi Lazer Brody.  Isn’t it funny how the media chose not inform the us about this?

” On August 21st, 2008, the MV Iran Deyanat (photo, left), an Iranian civilian merchant ship carrying 44,458 dead weight was heading towards the Suez Canal. As it was passing the Horn of Africa, about 80 miles southeast of al-Makalla in Yemen, the ship was surrounded by speedboats filled with members of a gang of Somalian pirates who grab suitable commercial ships and hold them and their cargos and crews for ransom. The captain was defenseless against the 40 pirates armed with AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades blocking his passage. He had little choice other than to turn his ship over to them. What the pirates were not banking on, however, was that this was no ordinary ship.

Within a period of three days, those pirates who had boarded the ship and opened the cargo container with its gritty sand-like contents, all developed strange health complications, to include serious skin burns and loss of hair. And within two weeks, sixteen of the pirates subsequently died, either on the ship or on shore.

At this writing, the MV Iran Deyanat is at anchor, watched closely by American, French and Russian naval units.

Although American intelligence and government sources are maintaining a strictly observed silence, the same does not apply to the Russians and so it is that we learn the real story of the MV Iran Deyanat. She was an enormous floating dirty bomb, intended to detonate after exiting the Suez Canal at the eastern end of the Mediterranean and in proximity to the coastal cities of Israel. The entire cargo of radioactive sand, obtained by Iran from China (the latter buys desperately needed oil from the former) and sealed in containers which, when the charges on the ship are set off after the crew took to the boats, will be blasted high into the air where prevailing winds will push the highly dangerous and radioactive cloud ashore.

Given the large number of deaths from the questing Somali pirates, it should be obvious that when the contents of the ship’s locked cargo containers finally descended onto the land, the death toll would be enormous. This ship was nothing more nor less than the long-anticipated Iranian attack on Israel. Not the expected rocket attacks (which could be intercepted by the Israelis) but an even more deadly and unexpected attack by sea. It is very interesting to note that the Israeli government has in the past few weeks, been loudly demanding that the United States establish a naval blockade of Iran.

The reason for this blockade would be to prevent any more Iranian ships with deadly cargos from attacking either Israel or other targets from the sea. “

I just wanted to pass this on for more to see Hashem’s amazing intervention and protection over our Land.