Editor's Note:
Dear Friend,
This week’s Torah portion is titled “the life of Sarah,” after our matriarch, the wife of Abraham. Its first verse carefully enumerates the years of her life: “one hundred years, twenty years and seven years.”
Why this strange formulation?
The Zohar offers a fascinating insight. Too often we think that the purpose of our lives lies at some far-off point in the future. We may think that the present is transient, dispensable. Sometimes we worry that our moment will never come. In counting the years of Sarah’s life with such precision, the Torah is teaching us that each one of those years was a year of purposeful attainment and ascent.
“All of her life was ascent: one hundred years of ascent, twenty years of ascent, and seven years of ascent—all of them as fitting.” (Zohar 1:123a)
Later, quoting the verse “Abraham was old, coming in days,” the Zohar makes a similar remark: “Abraham did not become close to G‑d in one moment, or just one time. Rather, his good deeds brought him close every day.” (Ibid. 129a)
To live a good life is to live well every day.
Shabbat Shalom,
Eli Rubin,
on behalf of the Chabad.org Editorial Team
How do you fill your life with meaning? Share with us!
Daily Thought:
The River Up
When the Divine Light began its awesome descent—a journey of world to lower world for endless worlds, condensing its unbounded state again and again into finite packages until focused to a fine, crystallized resolution—it did so with purpose: to bring forth a world of continuous ascent.
Since that beginning, not a day has passed that does not transcend its yesterday.
Like a mighty river rushing to reach its ocean, no dam can hold it back, no creature can struggle against its current. If we appear to fall backward, to take a wrong turn, to lose a day in failure—it is only an illusion, for we have no map to know its way. We see from within, but the river knows its path from Above. And to that place Above all is drawn.
We are not masters of that river— not of our ultimate destiny, nor of the stops along the way, not even of the direction of our travel. We did not create the river—its flow creates us. It is the blood and soul of our world, its pulse and its warmth.
Yet of one thing we have been given mastery: Not of the journey, but of our role within it.
How soon will we arrive? How complete? How fulfilled? Will we be the spectators? Or simply the props?
Or will we be the heroes?(Iyar 19, 5712)
This Week's Features:Why Can’t I Be Vengeful Like G-d?
By Aron Moss
Question:
I have been seriously hurt by my ex. It has now been seven months of abuse, put-downs, bad-mouthing and humiliation, and I have remained silent. But now I have an overwhelming urge to take revenge. And I have the chance. With one phone call, I could ruin his career and shatter his entireI could ruin his career life. Should I do it?
Answer:
The desire for revenge is natural and understandable. We have an innate expectation that justice should be done, and when we see evil go unpunished, we want to intervene. But we can't. "Do not take revenge," the Torah warns. Revenge is wrong.
Of course, we need not be helpless victims of those who have malicious designs on us. We must protect ourselves from being hurt and do all we can to prevent acts of evil. But even if we have been hurt, we mustn't hurt back.
On the other hand, the very same Torah which warns us not to take revenge describes G‑d Himself as "a vengeful G‑d." How can this be? If we are told not to be vengeful, why is G‑d then allowed to be? If revenge is immoral, how can G‑d be vengeful?
But that is exactly the point. The very fact that G‑d is vengeful allows us humans not to be. No human justice system is foolproof, so ultimate justice is in His hands. He will right the wrongs and punish the wicked. In this world or in the next, in this lifetime or another, in ways we may never know, justice will be served.
It's funny, you often hear people disparaging "the vengeful G‑d of the Bible." They somehow think that a vengeful G‑d willJustice will be served produce vengeful followers. The opposite is true. It is precisely G‑d's vengefulness that enables humans to let go of the desire for revenge. We know there is a true Judge, and He will do justice. So we humans can leave the vengeance to Him, and get on with living.
Don't waste your energy on feelings of bitterness and hostility. The more hatred thrown at you, the more you should surround yourself with love. If there are evil people out there, make sure you associate with good people. Don't worry about getting even. Focus on getting on.
PARSHAHTorah: Love Isn't What You Think It Is
How is it that the Torah's depiction of love is so different than our common notion of it? Perhaps the answer is that love true doesn't come from where we think it does
By Yerachmiel Galinsky
Notions of love and romance are ingrained in practically every dimension of our society. Every good story has to have a romantic twist and probably ninety percent of all popular music is about some form of love.
It is also quite apparent that many times the way romance and love are represented in the mainstream are at best superficial and at worst sociologically detrimental. In the end, is love really so important to a happy healthy relationship? What does the Torah have to say on this subject?
In this week's portion, we read about the marriage of Isaac and Rebecca. This love story unfolds in the opposite manner than the way we are accustomed to. Usually in love stories, the man and woman fall desperately in love with each other and then get married and live happily ever after. But Isaac and Rebecca experience the opposite as the Torah says, "… and she became his wife and he loved her." First, there was marriage and then there was love.
How is it that the Torah's depiction of love is so different than our common notion of it? Perhaps the answer is that love true doesn't come from where we think it does.
We often seem to find love in how good a person looks to us, how they act, or on what a great time we have when with them. We also tend to believe love is proportionate to desire.
But according to the Torah, love comes from a seemingly foreign attribute: dedication. Dedication fuels love, not desire. When you're dedicated to someone, your concerns are secondary while theirs are first. You go beyond what you want and try to end up with what they want. It is there, in this place of self-transcendence, where love truly resides.
Therefore, it's not only that love is important to a serious relationship, rather it can only exist in the setting of a serious relationship. Enjoying a person for their great attributes is important and special, but not love. Love is something independent of our personal satisfaction, born from dedication to one another.
Obviously, the importance of dedication is radically different than our natural disposition of liking something because it makes us feel good. Nevertheless, this component can teach us a valuable lesson in our spiritual lives.
Many times within Jewish thought when discussing the relationship between G‑d and the nation of Israel, the analogy of husband and wife is employed. G‑d is the groom, as it were, and we are His bride. We are considered engaged to Him, but we are still waiting for the big day, our marriage: a time when we see the revelation of Him in our daily lives. But to get to our wedding day, we first have some relationship work to do.
This is where dedication comes in. By dedicating ourselves to G‑d by doing mitzvahs, good deeds, in a way that transcends our own desires, we will culminate both humanity's and our personal relationship with G‑d.
More in Parshah:
• The Strangest Shidduch (By Naftali Silberberg)Imagine the holy son of a saintly Rebbe marrying the daughter of a renowned atheist, straight off a socialist commune. Pretty far-fetched, no?
This week's Torah portion talks of a very similar shidduch (match). We read the story of the marriage of Isaac and Rebecca -- the first Jewish wedding. The shadchan (matchmaker) who conjured this shidduch certainly had a very active imagination. It is difficult to find two people who stemmed from more different environments.
On one side there was Isaac, the first Jew who was "holy from birth," born to righteous parents and entered into the covenant with G‑d when he was eight days old. He was raised in a home of holiness and purity, and was consecrated to G‑d when he was "sacrificed" by his father on Mount Moriah. He was so holy, in fact, that he was forbidden to leave the sacred confines of the Land of Israel.
Rebecca, on the other hand, was "a rose amongst thorns." She was the daughter of the pagan Betuel and sister of Laban, who was notorious for his dishonorable character and his deceptive habits. She was raised in Charan, which due to the corruption of its inhabitants, was dubbed "the place of G‑d's wrath." The culture clash must have been enormous.
Eliezer, Abraham's trusted servant, was charged with the mission of extracting Rebecca from her father's home and bringing her to her Isaac in the land of Canaan. Most of this week's portion is devoted to telling the story of Eliezer's mission in great detail.
We can bring together Mars and VenusThe first Jewish wedding – and its inherent strangeness – is so elaborately described in the Torah because it is a metaphor for our mission in life. We are all Eliezers. And our mission is to affect a shidduch even stranger than the one which Eliezer facilitated.
We are sent to this world to bring together in holy matrimony the eminent groom, G‑d A-mighty, and the reluctant bride, this mundane world. Seemingly, no two greater opposites exist: G‑d radiates selflessness and spirituality, while the world exudes egotism and the primacy of materialism. Yet, we are expected to unite the two in perfect harmony by living spiritual G‑dly lives in this hostile environment, thus revealing within the world its truest, but deeply buried, nature -- its G‑dly essence. We can infuse our every act, even the most mundane ones, with spirituality and meaning; we can bring together Mars and Venus.
The Jew is the perfect shadchan because he, too, is a juxtaposition of two opposites -- a corporeal body and its needs and desires, and a divine soul with a burning love for her Creator. The Jew who successfully synthesizes these two conflicting parts of his psyche by recognizing the body for what it really is – an aircraft which when conditioned properly can lift its pilot, the soul, to dazzling heights – is perfectly positioned to create the same fusion between the body of the world and its supernal soul.
The Midrash says that G‑d betrothed us at Mount Sinai, and the date of the wedding is rapidly approaching; scheduled for when Moshiach comes. The collective efforts of all the shadchans throughout the generations will finally pay off -- when we will all rejoice at the greatest wedding of all time, to be celebrated with much pomp in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem.1
FOOTNOTES
1. Adapted from a 1991 talk by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, said in honor of the International Shluchim Convention. The Shluchim, the Rebbe's emissaries throughout the world, are the ultimate shadchans -- working day and night to reunite Jews with their Father in Heaven.
• Don't (Only) Rely on G-d (By Yossy Goldman)"G-d helps those who help themselves"
Is this statement heresy? Does it deny the hand of G-d in our successes? I recall a conversation with a self-proclaimed atheist who used the expression very cynically, suggesting that his considerable achievements were entirely his own and that G-d had nothing to do with it.
I beg to differ. To my mind, "G-d helps those who help themselves" is a perfectly religious statement. What it means is absolutely consistent with traditional Jewish thinking. G-d does indeed help us to accomplish things, but He requires us to help ourselves first. If we just sit back and wait for miracles to happen, we may be disappointed.
"G-d will bless you in all that you do," (Deuteronomy 15:18) makes it very clear. Our blessings come from G-d, but we must do. Of course, we believe in miracles--but we mustn't rely on them. The combination of our own hard work and efforts coupled with G-d's blessing is the ideal road to success.
The classic analogy is the farmer. He can plough and plant, sow and shvitz from today until tomorrow but if the rains don't come nothing will grow. Conversely, all the rains in the world will not cause anything to grow if the farmer hasn't planted first. After the farmer has done his work and the rains come from above, there will be a plentiful crop. And it's the same story whether we are farmers or shopkeepers, professionals or artisans, employers or employees.
There are religious ideologies that frown upon medical intervention when someone is ill. They see it as a lack of faith in the great Healer of all Flesh. In fact, right now in my own community, there is a court case going on because a hospital gave a blood transfusion to a child who was critically ill, but it was against the wishes of the parents who objected on the grounds of their religious beliefs. Judaism maintains that while G-d is indeed the Supreme Healer, He chooses to work through the efforts of trustworthy medical practitioners.
This week's Parshah tells of Isaac taking Rebecca as his wife. "And Isaac brought her to the tent of Sarah his mother." Rashi, quoting the Midrash, explains this to mean more than the obvious. When she entered the tent, it was as if she was Sarah, Isaac's mother. Because Sarah was of such saintly character, she was granted three special miracles. Her Shabbat candles burned the entire week, her dough was particularly blessed, and a heavenly cloud attached itself to her tent. When Sarah died, these blessings disappeared. When Rebecca arrived on the scene, they resumed immediately. In fact, this was a clear sign to Isaac that Rebecca was indeed his soul mate and that the shidduch was made in Heaven.
Each of those three miracles, however, required some form of human input first. A candle and fire had to be found, the dough had to be prepared and a tent had to be pitched before G-d would intervene and make those miracles happen. In other words, He does help us but we must help ourselves first.
It's a little like the fellow who would make a fervent prayer to G-d every week that he win the lottery. After many months and no jackpot in sight, he lost his faith and patience. In anguished disappointment, he vented his frustration with the Almighty. "Oh, G-d! For months I've been praying to you. Why haven't you helped me win the lottery all this time?" Whereupon a heavenly voice was heard saying, "Because you haven't bought a ticket, dummy!"
I wish it were that simple to win lotteries. But the fact is that it is the same in all our endeavors. G-d helps those who help themselves. May we all do our part. Please G-d, He will do His.
• Chayei Sarah in a NutshellSarah dies at age 127 and is buried in the Machpelah Cave in Hebron, which Abraham purchases from Ephron the Hittite for four hundred shekels of silver.
Abraham’s servant Eliezer is sent, laden with gifts, to Charan, to find a wife for Isaac. At the village well, Eliezer asks G‑d for a sign: when the maidens come to the well, he will ask for some water to drink; the woman who will offer to give his camels to drink as well shall be the one destined for his master’s son.
Rebecca, the daughter of Abraham’s nephew Bethuel, appears at the well and passes the “test.” Eliezer is invited to their home, where he repeats the story of the day’s events. Rebecca returns with Eliezer to the land of Canaan, where they encounter Isaac praying in the field. Isaac marries Rebecca, loves her, and is comforted over the loss of his mother.
Abraham takes a new wife, Keturah (Hagar), and fathers six additional sons, but Isaac is designated as his only heir. Abraham dies at age 175 and is buried beside Sarah by his two eldest sons, Isaac and Ishmael.
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YOUR QUESTIONSWater Leaked into My Apartment. Who Pays for Paint?
Our upstairs neighbor had a major leak in her bathroom and, since we live in an apartment building, as a consequence two walls in our apartment got damaged.
By Yehuda Shurpin
Question:
Our upstairs neighbor had a major leak in her bathroom and, since we live in an apartment building, as a consequence two walls in our apartment got damaged. The walls need to be repaired and painted. Since painting only two walls will make the room look ugly, we will need to repaint the whole room.
Our neighbor is not insured
Our neighbor is not insured for this kind of event (her choice).
My question is this: I had planned on painting the room even before the flood happened. So does my neighbor pay for the damage and we pay for the painting (or split the cost of painting), or does she pay the full cost of both the damages and painting of all four walls?
Reply:
Before discussing whether your neighbor is obligated to pay for painting all the walls or just two, we first need to find out exactly what happened and ascertain whether or not she in fact has to pay for any of the damages.
The key questions are: a) Did the leak occur because the neighbor was negligent, or did she do all in her power to maintain her plumbing system and the leak happened due to no fault of her own? b) Once the neighbor learned of the leak, did she try to take care of it promptly?
A person is required to ensure that his belongings and property don’t cause damage to others. However, if one fulfilled his obligation of properly maintaining and guarding his property, but nevertheless, an unforeseeable accident occurred, and his property caused damage to someone else’s property, he is not obligated to pay.1
In your case, this means that if your neighbor used a qualified plumber to properly install the piping, using quality materials, then in most instances, she has sufficiently ensured that her property does not cause damages, and she has fulfilled her obligation to guard her property.
However, once the leak has sprung, your neighbor is required to take care of it as soon as possible. If she was negligent after finding out about the leak and this resulted in damages, she is obligated to pay. If she found out about it at night, and was therefore unable to get a plumber to come, she is not held liable for damages.2
Evaluating Damages
Assuming your neighbor was negligent and she is required to pay for damages, we still need to figure out how much she needs to pay.
The general rule is that we evaluate how much an item was worth before the damages occurred and how much it is worth now, and the damager pays the difference.
However, this only holds true for items that cannot be repaired. For items that can beDid the leak occur because the neighbor was negligent repaired, most halachic authorities are of the opinion that you don't evaluate the depreciation; rather, you need to pay for the full repairs.3
Who pays for the paint?
Although we have established that in this case, your neighbor would have to pay for the full repairs, she may not be required to repaint all four walls.4
Since the leak only directly damaged two of the walls, the “damage” done to the two other walls is indirect, due to the fact that if you only paint the two damaged walls, the other two walls will not be aesthetically pleasing. If a person’s property indirectly damages another’s property (“gerama”), then the rabbinic court cannot technically obligate your neighbor to pay.
However, on her part, your neighbor should still pay for all four walls in order to fully rectify the wrong that was done. After all, one is prohibited from even indirectly damaging someone else’s property.5
So if it is ascertained that your neighbor was negligent and is obligated to pay, she is only obligated to pay for the actual damages. However, on her own, she should still pay to paint the other walls.
FOOTNOTES
1. Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah, 396:2.
2. Ibid.
3. Shach, Shulchan Aruch, Choshen Mishpat, 95:18 and 387:1.
4. See Mordechai on Bava Kama, siman 213; Shulchan Aruch, Choshen Mishpat 386:1,3. See, however, Shach ad loc., according to which, depending on the details, your neighbor may very well be obligated to pay for the paint of the other walls as well.
5. Shulchan Aruch, Choshen Mishpat 386:3; Shulchan Aruch Harav, Choshen Mishpat, hilchot nezikei mamon 1. See also Talmud Bava Kama 56a and Tosfot s.v. Kisui, Teshuvot Vehanhogot 5:385.
VIDEOWhat Is Reincarnation?
What is reincarnation? What part of the human being comes back in another lifetime? Is the soul conscious of its past lives? An in-depth treatment of this mysterious subject.
By DovBer Pinson
Watch Watch (1:09:23)
<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript" src="http://embed.chabad.org/multimedia/mediaplayer/embedded/embed.js.asp?aid=1798738&width=auto&height=auto"></script><div style="clear:both;">Visit <a href="http://www.chabad.org/multimedia/default_cdo/aid/591213/jewish/Video.htm">Jewish.TV</a> for more <a href="http://www.chabad.org/multimedia/default_cdo/aid/591213/jewish/Video.htm">Jewish videos</a>.</div>
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• The Rebbe’s Prescription for a Paralyzed Arm
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http://www.chabad.org/2741439
• Sarah Redux (Dovid Taub & Jonathan Goorvich)
<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript" src="http://embed.chabad.org/multimedia/mediaplayer/embedded/embed.js.asp?aid=328039&width=auto&height=auto"></script><div style="clear:both;">Visit <a href="http://www.chabad.org/multimedia/default_cdo/aid/591213/jewish/Video.htm">Jewish.TV</a> for more <a href="http://www.chabad.org/multimedia/default_cdo/aid/591213/jewish/Video.htm">Jewish videos</a>.</div>
WOMENThe Unexpected Shabbat Guest from the Gown Boutique
The saleswoman halted and looked at us, somewhat startled. "What did you say?" she questioned me as she turned to Sharone; the cross around her neck swung back and forth on its thin gold chain.
By Chana Sharfstein
Everything seemed unreal, sort of make believe.
Was I really here, in the middle of winter, wearing a light summer outfit, surrounded by palm trees and beautiful flowers? Friday afternoon I am generally busy as a bee with last minute chores, yet here I was leisurely strolling through the exclusive shopping center of Bal Harbor seemingly without a care in the world. This winter vacation was really different.
"How do you like this outfit?" asked Sharone, my hostess, showing me an elegant designer's gown for her son's Bar Mitzvah, 13th birthday party. A casual glance at my watch showed that it was time for us to return home, for it was after all the eve of Shabbat. "It's beautiful but it's getting late. Can't you come back another day to try it on?
I noticed Carol, the haughty-looking sales-lady, approaching and knew she would try to convince Sharone to try the dress on, so I again reminded her, "Remember Shabbat."
The saleswoman halted and looked at us, somewhat startled. "What did you say?" she questioned me as she turned to Sharone; the cross around her neck swung back and forth on its thin gold chain.
In a very surprised voice she said to Sharone, "You aren't Jewish, are you?"
Her question and attitude were really not out of place. With her blond hair, her bluish-green eyes, and her tanned face with the slightly upturned nose, Sharone doesn't look typically Jewish. Hours of tennis and swimming, golfing and horse-back riding give her the added look of the all-American outdoor type.
"Of course I am Jewish," Sharone replied firmly, "not only am I Jewish, I am an observant Jew."
"I never would have believed it," the sales-woman muttered, "I guess you never thought I was Jewish either."
We were totally shocked, both of us. If she was Jewish, why was she wearing that cross around her neck?
"My Jewish name is Sara," said Sharone, "what is yours?"
"I haven't thought of it for years, not since I was a young girl, but my name is Shira," she said.
Well, now we knew she really was Jewish, but I felt her situation was too far gone and really no concern of mine. But Sharone, now that was another story.
"Tell me," she asked gently, "why are you wearing this necklace? It is a symbol of a religion that isn't yours. It might make people think you are not Jewish."
"That's the idea," responded the woman. "Jews have always been persecuted, second-class citizens." Almost defiantly, she added that she loved all people and had friends of different religions and nationalities. This necklace had been a gift from a very dear friend, and that was why she cherished it. Her experience with Jews had always been negative, and she gave us a lengthy lecture of how much better and finer all the others were and how Jews always had disappointed her.
As she began an animated discussion, it looked like Sharone had forgotten all about the rapid approach of the Shabbat, but then I knew she would never quit. She loves competitive sports and always believed in fair play and never quitting. And since she was introduced to Lubavitch, she has the feeling that each and every Jew is her very own responsibility.
"Sharone," I whispered after a few minutes, "Your arguments are really great and very convincing, but it will soon be Shabbat!"
"The core of the issue," Sharone was saying, "is that you can't deny your identity. I too have contacts with people of diversified backgrounds, but my own roots and heritage always take precedence. Your negative feelings about Judaism are based on the misrepresentations. If you encountered Judaism, I bet you wouldn't cast it aside so easily."
And then without seeming to have given it any thought, Sharone issued an invitation for that very Friday night dinner. I thought she was being foolish, but the saleswoman graciously said she would consider it. I suppose my face mirrored my doubts, for they both became rather uncomfortable and hesitant.
The saleswoman regained her composure first, "Maybe not tonight, but some other time. I do appreciate your kindness though," she added gently. And then suddenly, her hands reached up around her neck, unfastened the chain and put it in her pocket. "I feel naked without it," she added shyly, "but somehow I don't feel like wearing it anymore."
If Sharone had been able to influence her to do that, then surely there was hope. "Please do come," I said. "You'll have a very interesting experience."
Their surprised looks soon turned into cheerful smiles and within moments we were on the way to Sharone's home.
In the house, the members of the household were quietly told not to make any fuss about the unexpected guest.
"Come, let's prepare the candles," Sharone was very rushed for we had returned much later than we had planned. "Candles," said Carol. "I know about that. I remember that from my childhood. You light them for the dead."
I shivered in the warm summery air. How sad. Carol had confused "yahrtzeit candles," candles lit on the anniversary of the passing of a loved one, with our Shabbat candles, the lights of joy and warmth, of family unity and peace of rest.
I tried to explain the meaning of these candles and the concept of Shabbat, and she listened quite attentively. When it was time, she lit her own candle and repeated the blessing with us word by word.
From that time on, until we sat down at the table, she was rather subdued and deep in thought. Sharone's children wanted our attention and help with their prayers, besides a few odds and ends that still needed to be done, which may have contributed to her silence and aloofness, or maybe she had changed her mind about the whole thing.
During the meal she grew more animated, and seemed quite interested in the discussion about Joseph and his brethren, the theme of that week's Torah reading. She nodded in agreement when she heard how Joseph remained steadfast in his beliefs in the splendor of the royal court.
"I can't begin to tell you what this evening has meant to me," Carol said as she prepared to leave. Outwardly she looked exactly the same as when we had first met, minus that necklace of course. "Something happened to me tonight," she said. "I don't know what it is and I don't know where it will continue or how or if. All I can say is that I will never forget it."
The self-assured competent sales-woman looked kind of lost when she left. Had she found the way, perhaps, I wondered. I do know she left a business card with Sharone, and knowing competitive Sharone the way I do, I expect her to put up an honorable fight. She made me aware that our work is never done, and that we never know in what unlikely places and under what unbelievable situations we may encounter a fellow-Jew whom it is our responsibility to help
More in Women:
• Paint My World (By Chana Scop)I watched you paint the other day. I savored the moment of watching you swirl your paintbrush into the color of your choice, wondering if that may be your favorite color.
I feel that you are getting so big, becoming a real little boy,You are getting so big, becoming a real little boy more mature and grown up, kind of like what happens at age seven.
Yet I look at you, and there’s a deep longing within me. Maybe because I see in your eyes that you have so much more to say than ever.
I can just see.
I look at you countless times a day, wondering what indeed you would say, if you could say something at that very moment. I imagine that you would say things with much wisdom and deep understanding, like I see in your eyes. I imagine that you would make a joke and laugh, indulging in humor, which I see exists in your heart. I imagine that with every word you would say, a new shade of expression would paint my world, filling my heart with hues I only dream of.
I think about how frustrating it must be to still hold the power of speech somewhere inside you. I know it’s there, but it’s hidden and I don’t know where it is.
You see, I love hearing what all my children have to say. It’s like a palette of endless color combinations, and when blending different tones, I feel their imagination, stories, fears, aspirations and thoughts.
It is colorful oxygen for a mother’s soul.
I simply would love to know what’s on your mind. To understand,I want to hear your voice hear, feel . . . really know. I’m listening, though. And I always will.
But, oh, it hurts inside. I want to hear your voice. Your very own voice.
I am holding on to my blank canvas. And I will, for as long as I need to. I await the day when you will paint my world with the most magnificent colors ever imagined. You will swirl your brush in a new palette of sound, stroking the depths of my heart, and you will color my soul radiantly.
JUDAISM 101Bat Mitzvah: What It Is and How to Celebrate
An overview: Everything you need to know about becoming a bat mitzvah.
Mazal Tov!
Are you preparing for your Bat Mitzvah? Planning your daughter’s Bat Mitzvah? Feeling curious, overwhelmed, excited, nervous or unsure? Then this site is for you!
This article will help you understand the significance of this milestone and guide you through the preparatory period.
Welcome, and mazal tov on your upcoming celebration!
What Is a Bat Mitzvah?
You’re probably most familiar with the term “Bat Mitzvah” when it’s used to refer to the celebration, but it actually refers to you, the Bat Mitzvah girl. Although in the secular world you are not yet even a teenager, according to Jewish law, a girl is considered an adult from the age of twelve. On your twelfth birthday, you officially become a “Bat Mitzvah,” a “daughter of the mitzvahs,” one who is obligated in mitzvah observance. All the mitzvahs you’ve done until now were just preparation; this is the real deal.
How Is a Bat Mitzvah Celebrated?
As soon as you turn twelve, you become a Bat Mitzvah, a Jewish adult. Many choose to celebrate the occasion with family and friends, but even if a girl does nothing at all to mark the day, she still becomes a Bat Mitzvah.
Preparation and Study
You may have been to friends’ or siblings’ Bat Mitzvah celebrations and seen anything from at-home get-togethers to lavish, wedding-style events. It has become more and more common in the last few decades to throw big parties, but it’s important to remember that a Bat Mitzvah is much more than just a party.
The Bat Mitzvah is an important link in a continuous chain of religious and spiritual experiences, and the most crucial aspect of this milestone is the impact and long term effect the experience will have on the young woman’s Jewish identity. Your preparations should reflect this focus and not be dominated by less important matters.
The pre-Bat Mitzvah months are a good time to spend learning more about the mitzvahs, and the how’s and why’s of doing them. It’s a time to develop your own personal relationship with Judaism and G‑d.
Of course, it’s impossible to cover everything in a few months. The best preparation for a meaningful and fulfilling Jewish life is an education at a Jewish school, or an after-school program or Sunday Hebrew school.
But regardless of your previous knowledge, you can find a Chabad center near you that will offer pre-Bat Mitzvah classes. There is also a Bat Mitzvah Club with chapters in more than 200 cities across the United States, which offers exciting events, activities and trips, all centered around the theme of becoming a Bat Mitzvah. Joining a class or a club will help you prepare for the big day while connecting with other girls who are doing the same thing.
Mitzvah Project
A Bat Mitzvah marks the time when a girl becomes responsible for the fulfillment of hundreds of mitzvahs. The thought can be quite overwhelming! Many young women find it meaningful to choose one mitzvah to focus on. Of course, this doesn’t preclude doing the rest of the mitzvahs. But choosing one for a “mitzvah project,” researching it in depth and developing a personal connection with it can be a wonderful way to prepare for a Bat Mitzvah.
The mitzvah project can be something to help others, such as a charity drive, which will encourage the Jewish tradition of chessed, (kindness), or it can be a more individual mitzvah, such as daily prayer. You could also combine two mitzvahs – such as charity and kosher cooking – and prepare and deliver meals for the less fortunate. Whatever mitzvah a young woman chooses, she will certainly gain tremendous satisfaction from her work.
Women’s Mitzvahs
As you are learning about the mitzvahs, make sure to spend some extra time on the mitzvahs that are given specifically to women.
Two that you can do are lighting Shabbat candles and separating a piece of dough – called “challah” – when baking bread.
Girls can light Shabbat candles as young as three, but some wait until their Bat Mitzvah to start. If you have not been lighting Shabbat candles – or if you’ve chosen to wait – the Shabbat closest to your Bat Mitzvah is a good time to start. Visit our Shabbat Candle Lighting Wizard for all the how-tos, or check out the Do-It-Yourself Shabbat Candles video.
Even if you already light Shabbat candles, this is a great time to learn more about the significance of this beautiful mitzvah.
Some girls include challah baking as part of their Bat Mitzvah celebration so they can do the mitzvah of separating dough for the first time as a woman. Learn more about the mitzvah of challah here.
Finally, although prayer is not specifically a woman’s mitzvah, it does have a special connection to women. In fact, it was a woman who first taught us how to pray. As you prepare for your Bat Mitzvah, take some time to learn about the mitzvah of prayer, think about what prayer means to you, and make some time in your busy schedule to talk to G‑d.
Make It Meaningful
It’s important to make sure the actual day of the Bat Mitzvah is meaningful to the Bat Mitzvah girl. Some make sure to dedicate an hour or two (or more) to helping others. This can involve a trip to a nearby nursing home to visit the residents or helping out in a soup kitchen or any other volunteer organization. The Bat Mitzvah girl can invite some friends along, and it will help set the tone and remind her of the significance of the day.
The Party
Bat Mitzvah celebrations vary, and there are no hard-and-fast rules. Some prefer a small intimate gathering, others plan a large affair. But whatever your budget, make sure the guests know that this isn’t just a glorified birthday bash. Make the party more meaningful by emphasizing the importance of the Bat Mitzvah speech, telling the guests about the “mitzvah project” and inviting them to do a mitzvah, such as giving tzedakah (charity), themselves.
The Bat Mitzvah Speech
When a young woman celebrates her Bat Mitzvah with a party, it is customary for her to prepare a speech.
The speech can be a thought from the weekly Torah portion, or any Torah idea that resonates particularly with her. Many girls choose to research an important woman from Jewish history and share some of the lessons from her life. The speech encourages the Bat Mitzvah girl in the Jewish tradition of sharing the Torah one has learned with others.
The speech is also the perfect opportunity to announce her “mitzvah project” and thank parents, family and friends.
Bat Mitzvah Gifts
Traditional gifts for the Bat Mitzvah girl include books with religious or educational value, religious items, gift certificates, or money. Monetary gifts in multiples of 18 are considered to be particularly auspicious and have become very common for Bat Mitzvahs.
If a young woman is to begin lighting Shabbat candles after her Bat Mitzvah, her parents or grandparents will often buy her a pretty candlestick.
Post Bat Mitzvah
While the Bat Mitzvah itself is a tremendous milestone in the life of a Jewish girl, and obviously requires study and preparation, it should never be viewed as a “graduation” from Judaism, but rather as the bright beginning of a vibrant and fulfilling Jewish life. She hasn’t finished observing the mitzvahs, she is just starting!
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STORYThe Miracle Chassid
At a wayside inn, a dozen chassidic merchants were warming themselves at the fire. The conversation soon turned to the greatness of their rebbes, as each extoled the virtues of his miracle-working master...
By Yanki Tauber
At a wayside inn, a dozen chassidic merchants were warming themselves at the fire. The group included men from towns and villages across Russia and Poland, all traveling to the great annual fair at Leipzig. The conversation soon turned to the greatness of their rebbes, as each extoled the virtues of his master.
One by one, the chassidim told stories about the miraculous powers of their rebbes. One told how for fifteen years he and his wife had yearned for a child, until they received a blessing from their rebbe: within a year, they were cradling their newborn son in their arms. A second told of how his rebbe had neutralized the Jew-hating, pogrom-inciting priest in their village, while a third related how his rebbe's blessing and special instructions had brought home his wayward son. And so they passed the hours, recounting the wonders performed by their holy mentors.
Finally, they all turned to the one chassid who had listened in silence to their stories. "Nu, whose chassid are you?" they asked. "Let's hear something about your rebbe."
The chassid said: "I am a Chabad chassid, a disciple of Rabbi Sholom DovBer of Lubavitch. I deal in lumber, and several years ago I was offered a forest for sale. The price was high, but the opportunities were even greater -- there was talk of a railroad to be constructed, raising the demand for and profitability of the local lumber. As I do with all major decisions in my life, I consulted with the Rebbe. He advised me to buy the forest.
"The purchase ruined me. The railroad project fell through and I was left with a basically worthless forest. I lost my entire fortune and was cast heavily into debt."
After a lengthy pause, one of the listeners asked, "And then? What happened?"
"Nothing," said the chassid. "I am still struggling to feed my family and repay my debts."
"So what's the miracle?" they all asked.
"That my relationship with the Rebbe has nothing to do with his wonder-working powers. That I continue to follow his directives in every area of my life. The miracle is that I am his chassid."
More in Story:• The Traveler (By Yanki Tauber)
A stranger-resident am I amongst you (23:4))
Among the followers of Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov, founder of the chassidic movement, was a Jew who worked the land in a small farming village near Mezeritch. The founder of chassidism had a special empathy for these simple rural Jews, whom he held in high regard for their wholesomeness, integrity, and unequivocal faith in G-d. So whenever the above-mentioned villager would come to spend a Shabbos with his Rebbe, he would be accorded a most gracious and affectionate welcome.
At the conclusion of one such visit, the Baal Shem Tov requested of him: "Please, on your way home, stop by Mezeritch. I want you to give my regards to one of my closest and most illustrious followers, the scholarly and pious Rabbi DovBer."
The villager was overjoyed to be of service to his beloved Rebbe. As soon as he arrived in Mezeritch he began to inquire after the great Rabbi DovBer, but no one seemed to know of a "great Rabbi DovBer" among the town's scholars and mystics. Finally, someone suggested that he try a certain "Reb Ber", an impoverished schoolteacher who lived on the edge of town.
The villager was directed to an alley in the poorest section of town. Along both sides of the mud- and stench- filled lane stood row upon row of dilapidated hovels, leaning upon one another for support. There he found the schoolteacher's 'house', an ancient, rickety hut with broken panes occupying the better half of its tiny windows. Inside, a scene of heart-rending poverty met his eye: A middle-aged man sat on a block of wood, at a 'table' consisting of a rough plank set upon other wooden blocks. Before him sat rows of chederchildren on 'schoolbenches' - also ingenious contraptions of planks and blocks. But the teacher's majestic face left no doubt in the villager's mind that he had indeed found his man.
Rabbi DovBer greeted his visitor warmly and begged his forgiveness - perhaps his guest could return later in the day, when he had finished teaching his students?
When the villager returned that evening, the hut's classroom 'furniture' had disappeared: the planks and blocks had now been rearranged as 'beds' for the teacher's children. Rabbi DovBer sat upon the lone remaining block, immersed in a book which he held in his hands.
Rabbi DovBer thanked his guest for bringing word from their Rebbe and invited him to sit, pointing to a table-turned-bed nearby. At this point, the villager could no longer contain himself; outraged at the crushing poverty about him, he burst out: "Rabbi DovBer, what can I say? How can you live like this?! I myself am far from wealthy, but at least in my home you will find, thank G-d, the basic necessities: some chairs, a table, beds for the children…"
"Indeed?" said Rabbi DovBer. "But why don't I see yourfurniture? How do you manage without it?"
"What do you mean? Do you think that I schleppmy furniture along wherever I go? Listen, when I travel, I make do with what's available. But at home - a person's home is a different matter altogether!"
"But aren't we all travellers in this world?" said Rabbi DovBer gently. "At home? Oh yes… At home, it is a different matter altogether…"
LIFESTYLEA Hearty Kosher Dinner for a Chilly Night: Shepherd's Pie
If your family members are meat-and-potatoes eaters, this one’s for you!
By Miriam Szokovski
Shepherd’s pie, also known as cottage pie, makes for a delicious and filling weeknight supper. Serve it with salad or steamed green beans and you’ve got a complete meal. If your family members are meat-and-potatoes eaters, this one’s for you!
Some may argue that this can only be called cottage pie because I used beef and not lamb, but since colloquially shepherd’s pie is used to refer to both, I am taking the liberty of calling it that. You may, of course, call it cottage pie if you prefer.
First you'll need to fry up some onions. I find that adding fried onion to both layers really enhances the flavors.
Next, peel and boil the potatoes until soft. If you want them to cook more quickly, cut the potatoes into slices before cooking. Drain the potatoes and mash while still hot. Pour in half the fried onion, along with the oil in which they were fried, and mix. Add salt and 1 egg, mixing well so there are no lumps. Set aside.
Mix the ground beef with the other half of the fried onion, an egg and the rest of the seasoning. Press the ground meat into the bottom of a pan, spread the mashed potato over it and cover tightly with foil. Bake covered for 30 minutes, remove the foil and bake for another 20-30 minutes.
Let sit for 10-15 minutes before serving. Stays good in the fridge for several days, and freezes decently too. Reheat either in the oven or in a frying pan.
Ingredients
2 large Spanish onions, diced
1/4 cup oil
3 tsp. kosher salt, divided
2 very large (or 4 medium) potatoes, boiled
2 eggs
1.5 lbs. ground beef
1 tsp. basil
1 tsp. oregano
2 tbsp. ketchup
2 tbsp. mustard
1/4 c. matzah meal
Directions
Fry the onions in the oil and 1 tsp. of salt, until nicely caramelized.
Boil the potatoes until soft. Drain and mash while still hot. Mix in half the fried onions along with the oil in which they were fried, 1 tsp. salt and 1 egg. Set aside. (Taste and add more salt if desired.)
Mix the ground beef with the rest of the fried onion, 1 egg, matzah meal, ketchup, mustard, basil, oregano and 1 tsp. salt. Press down into the bottom of a 9' x 13' baking dish.
Spread mashed potatoes over the meat mixture and cover pan with foil. Bake covered on 350°F for 30 minutes, then remove foil and bake another 20-30 minutes uncovered. Let the pie sit for 10-15 minutes before serving.
Yields: 1 9'x13' pan - approximately 12 pieces.
It's not the prettiest dish, but it's hearty and filling and great for cold nights. What do you put in your shepherd's pie? Any special ingredients?
More in Lifestyle:
• A Painting of the Destruction of Sodom and Gomorra (By Natalia Kadish)
Artist’s Statement: Evil will be torn apart by G-d and be replaced by healing... The Dead Sea is where Sodom and Gomorra used to stand. They were destoryed because of their evilness, but in His kindness G-d left healing waters in their place - the Dead Sea.
JEWISH NEWSIf ‘Torah Is a Journey,’ Then This California Rabbi Is an Ultimate Tour Guide
Soon to complete teaching the entire Mishneh Torah online, Rabbi Yehoshua B. Gordon shares some thoughts on the daily, three-year experience.
By Menachem Posner
A core group of 20 to 25 students have been coming daily to Chabad of the Valley in Encino, Calif., to study the Mishneh Torah with Rabbi Yehoshua B. Gordon. Regular attendee Daniel Aharonoff, seated at left, persuaded the rabbi to allow a camera into the room.
In the summer of 2009, Rabbi Yehoshua B. Gordon sat down to give a class in the tastefully appointed Chabad center—Chabad of the Valley in Encino, Calif.—that he had founded with his wife, Deborah, in 1973. It was a class like any other, except that there was a camera in the room, allowing hundreds of people around the world to listen in as he taught Tanya, the foundational work of Chabad philosophy, along with the daily portion of Chumash and Rashi.
Rabbi Gordon had been teaching the class for many years, but he had always resisted recording. Due to the persistence of Daniel Aharonoff, a regular attendee, the rabbi finally agreed to allow the camera into the room.
Following the daily study cycle, the rabbi taught his quickly growing audience all of Tanya, Chumash and Rashi, until every portion had been recorded. The recordings remain on Jewish.tv, where thousands continue to study them on a daily basis.
The group then began studying Mishneh Torah, Maimonides’ codification of Jewish law, following the three-year track established by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory.
With a month to go until Dec. 14, when the final chapter of Mishneh Torah will be studied this year and the entire 1,017-chapter series will have been recorded, Rabbi Gordon took time to share his thoughts and ruminations.
Q: Can you perhaps give us a little feel of what it’s like for those learning with you?
A: It has been exhilarating and exciting for us—both for those of us in the room and for those listening in from all around the world. Here in California, we have a core group of 20 to 25 devoted students who come every day to study—professionals, business people and others from all walks of life. Since we cannot record on Shabbat, we record an extra session on Fridays. We have breakfast, and everyone settles down to the subject at hand.
Q: How have you seen your students change with time?
A: They’ve experienced learning in a way they’ve never had before. Some of them have minimal formal Jewish education, so this is a real eye-opener for them. There is no similar experience to learning Mishneh Torah, which systematically goes through every single facet of Jewish law. They walk away with a radically different level of knowledge. It’s what the Rebbe hand in mind when he started the campaign, that people should learn the whole Torah.
The class records an extra session on Fridays, in lieu of Shabbat.Q: Now that you’ve completed the cycle, will the class continue?
A: It’s all online, so now we are going on to the next project: learning a page of Talmud every day. We will not be following any particular cycle, but we do plan on studying around one page a day. We’ll begin with the first tractate, Berachot, and then we’ll see from there.
Q: It’s been so many years that you have been teaching online. What keeps you motivated to do this every single day?
A: I guess you can say it’s in my DNA. My father, Rabbi Sholom B. Gordon, of blessed memory, taught in his synagogue in New Jersey every day for nearly 60 years, and it’s something he taught his children to do as well. Parenthetically, in his early-morning daily class, my father taught Mishnah over many years, completing all six orders many times. Sometimes, he would study with two or three people, and sometimes with 10 or 15; it made no difference. Imagine if the Internet would have been accessible then as it is now; the world would have been able to study with him. There are many scholars more learned than myself, but I’ve been given the gift of clarity, the ability to make things simple and understandable. One of my greatest joys comes from hearing from people who tell me that they learn with me regularly, and that they now understand better than they did before.
Q: Do you get a lot of feedback?
A: Oh, yes. I hear from someone just about every day. I travel widely, and I often meet strangers who tell me that they “know” me because they learn from my classes on Chabad.org. It’s incomparable to anything else—an aspect of life that I never imagined—and it’s wonderful.
There are just a few more weeks to go until the entire 1,017-chapter series, led by Rabbi Gordon, has been recorded.
Q: Can anyone learn?
A: I believe so. Here is a delightful anecdote: When my mother, of blessed memory, was nearing the end of her life, she was living for extended periods of time with my sister, Bluma Rivkin, in New Orleans. At that time, she was watching my class on a daily basis. Before the holiday of Sukkot, my sister said to my mother that she hoped she would be well enough to come down to the sukkah. Suddenly, the non-Jewish aide popped up, saying, “but we learned with Rabbi Gordon that a person who’s not well is exempt from dwelling in the sukkah.”
Q: You are the rabbi of a bustling congregation and oversee a string of Chabad centers all over California’s San Fernando Valley. How do you find time to prepare and deliver these classes on a daily basis?
A: I’ve been asked that by many of my peers as well. My answer is that for me, this is the greatest therapeutic gift there can be. At all other times, my mind is always wandering as I think about the pressing issues of the day. When I’m preparing—and especially, when I am teaching—a class and I know that it will be recorded and I need to get it right, I’m able to push myself to focus 100 percent. If anything, this is my most relaxing moment of the day.
Students meet over breakfast, and walk away with a "radically different level of knowledge."
Q: You are about to end one area of Torah and begin another. How does that feel?
A: Learning Torah is a journey. We’re always going somewhere, progressing to another plane. You never know what you can achieve. It’s been an exhilarating experience so far, and I expect the Talmud class to be even more so.
Gordon notes that "it has been exhilarating and exciting—both for those of us in the room and those listening in from all around the world."
Now that the cycle has been completed, the class is going on to the next project: learning a page of Talmud every day.
More in Jewish News:
• A Glimpse Inside Kharkov’s Labor Colony No. 18, Ukraine (By Dovid Margolin)
An outside courtyard of Kharkov's Corrective Labor Colony No. 18. Chabad Rabbi Levi Raices has been visiting this prison and others in Ukraine for the past 20 years. (Photo: Dovid Margolin)A late September sun glints off of our rusty green Soviet Zhiguli car as we pull up to the Holodnaya Gora Penal Colony No. 18 on the outskirts of Kharkov, Ukraine. The first images we see are high walls of dusty white brick, looming guard towers, and long coils of barbed wires stretched along every possible flat surface. Chabad Rabbi Levi Raices makes a call, and a minute later we are handing our U.S. passports over to a prison official, who, looking more like a kid than a correctional officer, had shuffled out towards us from behind the prison’s wooden doors.
We are there to pay a pre-Rosh Hashanah visit to the medium security camp’s Jewish prisoners. No matter that it has been prearranged; we expect that we will be forced to wait. We wait because that’s what bureaucrats make you do, especially ones anywhere in the former Soviet Union. We also wait because the previous cooperative head of extracurricular activities has just been transferred to a better position in Kiev, and his acting replacement might have something to prove. So for now, we wait, leaning against our car.
Originally from New York, Raices has been visiting Kharkov’s Jewish prisoners since he arrived in Ukraine two decades ago, and by now is all too familiar with the ins and outs of the Ukrainian prison system. Forty-five minutes tick away, followed by another few phone calls to find out what’s going on. Then the youthful official shuffles back out, and hands us each a stamped registration paper before showing us in.
Inside, a woman behind a barred reception window takes the registration papers and our passports. After scrutinizing them, especially mine, which does not include Raices’ local residency papers, we’re finally waved in.
“Make sure you have the registration paper when you come out,” the woman warns me.
“She’s serious,” Raices, a usually jovial fellow, says to me in all seriousness. “You lose it and they might not let you out of here.”
A Direct Line of Contact
Rabbi Levi Raices first arrived as a rabbinical student in the Soviet Union in the early 1990s as the great monolith gasped for its last breaths of air. During the nearly 70 years of Communist rule in the Soviet Union, Chabad-Lubavitch had always kept a direct line of contact with Jews trapped behind the Iron Curtain, providing both material and spiritual support through various clandestine channels.
The Lubavitcher Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory, himself born in Nikolayev, Ukraine, and whose father perished in Soviet-imposed internal exile in Kazakhstan—took a personal interest in the reports he received of Jewish activity in his former homeland.
Prison doors are often brightly painted to hide their more dismal aspects.Lishkas Ezras Achim was founded in the late 1960s to assist Soviet Jews and under its aegis, rabbinical students such as Raices, as well as young couples, were dispatched with Jewish books and supplies hidden in their luggage to be delivered into the USSR. With the onset of Perestroika in the mid-1980s, such trips became more commonplace as the burgeoning Jewish revival taking hold in the heart of the dying empire came out of the shadows.
Many of the rabbinical students who made those initial trips ended up becoming permanent Chabad emissaries in the newly independent countries of the former Soviet Union, with Raices joining their ranks shortly after he married his wife, Esther. “The first night of Chanukah 1993 we lit the menorah in New York, and the second night we lit it in Kharkov,” he recalls.
In Kharkov, they began working alongside Rabbi Moshe and Miriam Moskovitz, who had moved to Ukraine three years earlier.
Invigorated by the historical sense of mission that animated the world of post-Soviet Jewry in those days, Raices recalled the words of the Rebbe encouraging his emissaries to bring Judaism to Jews stuck in hospitals and behind bars, and so could not access it on their own. On his first Purim in Kharkov, Raices—along with Moskovitz and the head of the Jewish community Alexander Kaganovsky—traveled to Colony No. 18 (the very same place I visited with him) and read the Megillah for 10 Jewish prisoners.
Shortly thereafter, an official agreement was signed between the synagogue and the prison ministry in Kharkov region, giving the rabbis the right to visit Jewish prisoners. In the 20 years since then, Raices has visited the vast majority of Kharkov region’s prisons—ranging from pre-trial detention centers to a prison designated for inmates with contagious diseases, such as tuberculosis—some 15 in all.
Raices sits in a prison office with a guard on a prior visit, as he waits to see Jewish inmates.
Inmates—known as zeks in Russian slang (derived from the word zakliuchyonnyi, or incarcerated)—are officially identified by religion in their prison files. Because anti-Semitism, among other abuses, is rampant in the Ukrainian prison system (as it is in much of the former Soviet Union), few Jews volunteer that information for their files, often making it difficult to seek out the Jewish prisoners. Sometimes, however, requests for visits do come in to Kharkov’s synagogue office.
“I once got a request from a Jewish prisoner from Vinnitsya [western Ukraine], who had tuberculosis, to visit him,” recalls Raices. “He was in a special prison about an hour outside of the city, and he was in quarantine; I could only talk to him only through glass.”
The prisoner had among his belongings a Tanya, a central Chassidic text penned by Chabad’s founder, Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi. The Tanya, a small but complex work, was gifted to the man by the Chabad emissary in Vinnitsya. “When I visited him, he told me he likes the book very much and asked that I get him the second volume. He ended up getting transferred back to Vinnitsya and now has a very strong relationship with the shliach (Chabad-Lubavitch emissary) there.”
Another time, Raices congratulated a prisoner on his bar mitzvah after helping him put on tefillin for what Raices thought was the first time. “This is my second time,” the prisoner replied to Raices in English. “The first time was on a mitzvah tank in Manhattan.”
A prisoner named Kuperman is assisted in wrapping tefillin.“That happened on the 11th of Nissan, the Rebbe’s birthday,” remembers Raices. “It struck me then that the Rebbe will find a way to reach someone, even when he is locked up on the other side of the world.”
A Look From Inside
The day we visit the Jewish prisoners have not yet been gathered for us, so we are forced to wait again. In a smoke-filled office staffed by inmates, one of them searches through a computer system, guessing who is Jewish by last name. “How about him?” he asks, reading a suspicious last name. “He has to be Jewish; there’s no way he’s not Jewish.”
The difference between a camp and a prison is that in a camp, the inmates are forced to work, producing various products, while in a prison they are locked up and given nothing to do. Colony No. 18 produces heavy boots and shoes; samples are prominently displayed behind a glass case inside of the prison building.
The camp does not actually look as bad as I had expected, and the giant assembly hall where we eventually met the prisoners is a large, relatively well-maintained Soviet-era hall with wooden seats, and walls brightly painted with Ukrainian scenes of fields and Cossacks, some on horseback. In the front of the giant room, members of the prison orchestra are cleaning and polishing a trombone and a set of drums. Although I was somewhat impressed, I was later assured that the cells and food leave much to be desired.
There’s a roll call going on in the courtyard below the assembly room window, with lines of shaved men standing in ill-fitting black uniforms. The clothes a prisoner receives is standard issue, and if a prisoner wants even a basic level of comfort, he must rely on packages brought from home.
On the walls of a giant Soviet-era assembly hall filled with wooden seats are Ukrainian scenes of fields and Cossacks, some on horseback.
“A lot of times the people I visit don’t have any family at all, for whatever reason,” offers Raices, “so I have to bring them literally the basics: underwear, shoes, pants.”
Helping Those Who’ve Been Released
Over the years, Kharkov’s Jewish community has affected thousands of Jews, and whether it is a former student in the Ohr Avner Jewish Day School, a child in Gan Israel summer camp or a parent, it’s not unusual for Raices to recognize some of the Jews he ends up visiting.
Raices tells me the recent story of Shlomo (a pseudonym), a 25-year-old man who attended Kharkov’s Gan Israel summer camp years ago. Born in a broken home—not uncommon among Ukraine’s Jewish community—his father was never around, and his mother got sick and passed away when he was in his teens.
“He was a very nice boy, but he messed up at some point after his mother passed away,” explains Raices. “He got involved with the wrong people, drugs, theft, and he ended up here in No. 18.”
Raices began visiting Shlomo regularly, bringing him food and clothes, and encouraging his Jewish observance. On his end, Shlomo was a popular inmate, and was soon finding fellow Jews throughout his prison and gathering them together for Raices’ regular visits.
Raices blows shofar for Jewish inmates at High Holiday time.
Often, the Jewish inmates Raices visits are released into the care of the Jewish community, which attempts to help them acclimate to life outside bars. Shlomo had been sentenced to three-and-a-half years but was released before the summer, having served for a bit more than two years. Raices helped him find a job and a place to eat, and today, Shlomo is studying in a Ukrainian yeshivah.
“Not everyone ends up like that, of course,” Raices says, “and we try to help everyone clean up their life and get a fresh start. But Shlomo’s is a special story.”
Over the phone, Shlomo tells me that when he was first imprisoned—he was jailed for a year in detention, even prior to his trial and sentencing—he felt that Raices would somehow find him. “When he first came, it was so wonderful to see him, you can’t imagine,” he relates.
Shlomo continues, telling me of his former life as a prisoner, and the drastic changes that have occurred since. “In prison, it’s the same people as outside of prison, but there everyone is trying to figure out how to be smarter than everyone else, how to gain the upper hand over you in some way. Most people are anti-Semites, too, so to survive you have to on the one hand be at their level, and on the other hand be bigger than them. You need character.”
Prisoners mill about the large courtyard, getting ready for a general lineup. (Photo: Dovid Margolin)
This separate lineup of inmates is for the "freshman," who just arrived and will take part in an orientation of sorts. (Photo: Dovid Margolin)
Shlomo quickly climbed the inmate hierarchy, getting himself a position as a worker, and then being elected by his fellow inmates to be their brigade foreman. Few suspected that this young leader of theirs was Jewish. “Reb Levi brought me tefillin for the first time, and my cell mates could not believe I was Jewish; they thought I was joking.”
They soon got used to it. Shlomo mentions that one day he didn’t feel like putting on tefillin, yet as sunset approached, one of his decidedly non-Jewish cellmates came over to him and whispered: “I think you need to go upstairs and put on tefillin.”
After Shlomo requested a Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, a summary of the entire Code of Jewish Law, he began to ritually wash his hands when he woke up in the morning. “It’s seemingly a small thing, but it had a large effect on me,” he says. “The guys around me were shocked. They were shocked that someone who was, I guess you could call it ‘with it,’ cared about his religion at all. These are people with no morals at all, but then some of them started calling their relatives and asking them to bring books on their religion.”
Now in yeshivah, Shlomo says he is starting his life anew, and hopes to one day marry and raise a Jewish family. “I know I’ve lost a lot of time, and I know that G‑d placed me in that position for a reason. If I want to have a Jewish wife and children, which is very important to me, I need to learn first how to lead a Jewish life.”
Two guards seen walking the courtyard, as taken from a window high inside the prison. (Photo: Dovid Margolin)
Shofar, Apples and Honey
With lineup over outside, two tired-looking inmates are finally led into the assembly hall. Raices knows them both from before, and he speaks to them about the month of upcoming Jewish holidays as I help put tefillin on one of the prisoners, a man named Kuperman. We hand them small packages of apples and honey, honey cake and some literature before Raices blows the shofar, its simple sound resounding through the great hall.
“I hope to visit you in a few weeks for Sukkot,” Raices tells them, “or, better yet, you come to synagogue if you’re released by then.”
Kuperman smirks, a sort of resigned smile appearing on his weary face. “I’m pretty sure I won’t be out by then,” he quips.
As we walk together down the stairs and towards the exit, Raices tells the men that he has just spoken to Shlomo, whom they know as Sasha, and that he is doing well. “That’s great to hear,” says a second prisoner, Ponamarov. “Send Sasha our regards next time you speak to him.”
We hand out some of the remaining holiday packets to the prison officials, who seem especially happy with the cake and the large Jewish calendar they find inside. At the front counter, I produce my registration paper and receive my passport back. Soon, we’re outside.
A few days later, Raices forwards me an email he received from the youthful, shuffling prison official who had guided us around the whole time:
Thank you for the packet. I apologize, but I couldn’t wait until the holiday and ate the honey cake already; it was delicious. Can you please send me the recipe?
Colony No. 18 produces heavy boots and shoes; samples are prominently displayed in a glass case inside the building. (Photo: Dovid Margolin)
Raices is shown on his way out, headed towards the parking area. (Photo: Dovid Margolin)
The exterior of another Ukrainian prison, this one downright colorful. (Photo: Dovid Margolin)
• The Path to a Family’s Observance and a Grown Man’s ‘Redemption’ (By Menachem Posner)
![Marc Shudnow, 45, center, recently participated in his own ''pidyon haben''—or “redemption of the [firstborn] son”—ceremony since it had not been done for him as a baby. With him are the Kohen, Dovid Grinker, left, who presided over the ceremony, and, far right, Rabbi Yosef Posner, director of Lubavitch Chabad of Skokie, Ill.](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_tiJ4BsHJLtAamb5uP-TEsTJMau87uCUKwZHuc9_UzsoqgwMfrHGVl1tFkqJF2ksHF_YMQOcGCAdJKTgkQbckBtt1gZxbDKi6xVYgJQ7dhTFfRp3Vd-UrA=s0-d)
Marc Shudnow, 45, center, recently participated in his own "pidyon haben"—or “redemption of the [firstborn] son”—ceremony since it had not been done for him as a baby. With him are the Kohen, Dovid Grinker, left, who presided over the ceremony, and, far right, Rabbi Yosef Posner, director of Lubavitch Chabad of Skokie, Ill.
On a recent Sunday morning, a group of congregants sat talking over lox, bagels and orange juice in an alcove off the sanctuary in Lubavitch Chabad of Skokie, a middle-class suburb of Chicago. The occasion was a pidyon haben—or “redemption of the [firstborn] son”—a ceremony where the father of a firstborn male redeems his son by giving a Kohen (priestly descendent of Aaron) five silver coins 30 days after the baby’s birth.
But there was no baby in sight. Instead, 45-year-old Marc (Michoel) Shudnow, sporting a neat brown beard and a Chassidic robe, was redeeming himself, as his wife and children looked on. While it is a father’s obligation to redeem his baby son, if the father neglects to do his duty, the mitzvah devolves upon the son. In this case, the son decided to redeem himself in style.
Speaking Aramaic, the ancient Jewish vernacular preserved in the Talmud and other texts, Marc and the Kohen (Dovid Grinker) had the following exchange:
Marc: “I am a firstborn, and I am rightfully yours.”
Dovid: “Would you prefer to be mine, or would you like to give me the five selahs that you are obligated to give as your redemption?”
Marc: “I want to redeem myself, and here [are the coins].”
Following the celebratory meal, Marc shared the path that brought him to this milestone, as well as his family’s journey to Torah Judaism. Here is his story:
I grew up in Elk Grove Village, a suburb of Chicago as far from anything Jewish that you could ever imagine. To the best of my knowledge, we were one of just four Jewish families in the area. Our Catholic neighbors would scrawl swastikas on our properties, call our homes and play German music into the phone, and egg our houses. Once, they even tried blowing up one family’s home by turning on their gas grill.
That was my introduction to my Jewish identity. It was a pretty negative association.
By the time Shudnow was 17, he was enrolled in the U.S. Army.I was third-generation-born American, and our family retained very few Jewish practices. While my grandparents were alive, we had a seder in a Jewish (but decidedly non-kosher) bagel restaurant, and we would sometimes go to McDonalds on Yom Kippur afternoon when we got bored of services. I was sent to Hebrew school—the only one in the area that did not require synagogue membership—and even had my bar mitzvah in an old Conservative synagogue in Chicago.
Like most of my Hebrew-school classmates, by the time I became a bar mitzvah, I was done with Judaism.
When I was 16, we moved. In my new school, I was eligible to graduate high school early. By the time I turned 17, I was out of school and enrolled in the U.S. Armed Forces. I started out in the reserves, then went full-time and was stationed in Fort McClellan in Alabama.
In those days, just about everyone in the Army went to church. Even though I did nothing Jewish, I still didn’t attend with them. One day, I was tooling around base and saw a door with a Star of David on it. Recognizing something Jewish, I decided to check it out.
'A Benefit in Being Jewish'
I met the chaplain, who informed me that since I was Jewish, I got to celebrate the Sabbath by spending time in the officers’ mess every Saturday, taking a shower and enjoying the other luxuries that it had to offer.
There were only six other Jews on base, and they were all officers, so it was a pretty good deal for me. It was the first time I saw a benefit in being Jewish.
After leaving the Army, I was called back to serve in Iraq in Operation Desert Storm. I went to college and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in accounting and a master’s in finance.
I had gotten married right before I was called to Iraq. By the time I was discharged, the marriage was dead.
In time, I remarried and had two daughters. Living in a Chicago neighborhood, our family considered ourselves Reform Jews. We attended temple every once in a while and even decorated a Chanukah bush with our girls. As the girls grew, we began to attend temple more often, drawn in by the playgroups and other activities.
A few years later, I found myself a single father with full custody of two girls. We relocated to Lincolnwood, north of Chicago, and I enrolled the girls in the local Reform Sunday school.
Shudnow gradually made his way towards being fully observant, supported by family, friends and Chabad.
Not long after my move, I met Iva, who had a son not much younger than my girls. She wasn’t Jewish, but that didn’t bother me at the time.
We got married and agreed that she would convert at my temple, but that her son Nick would remain Christian. He was 4 years old at the time.
As soon as he realized that his new sisters went to Hebrew school every week, he wanted to go as well. We tried to dissuade him, but he was determined. He even stopped speaking to Iva until she relented. We spoke to the school, and they let him attend “for a few weeks.”
The “few weeks” kept on dragging on, as he insisted that he wanted to go. For Chanukah that year, we went to the temple gift shop and got some paraphernalia, Nick insisted on getting a mezuzah necklace.
By the time he was 7, he insisted on converting, like his mother did. Knowing full well that he didn’t need to do it, he underwent circumcision and never complained about the pain.
As time passed, we became more involved in the temple. Eventually, I was teaching the junior-high-school-aged students. My challenge was to keep them involved even after their bar and bat mitzvahs. As a teacher, I encouraged the boys to wearkipahs in the sanctuary.
The synagogue leadership weren’t happy with what they viewed as religious coercion, and we ended up leaving that temple for a Conservative congregation, which was consistent with our family’s slow but steady march toward greater Jewish involvement.
Our stay there ended during the 2008 presidential campaign, when the rabbi used the pulpit to promote his candidate of choice. From there, we went to a more traditional Conservative congregation where the rabbi promised he would not mix politics with Judaism.
A major step for our family was when I and my daughter Ana decided to only eat kosher products at home. Around the same time, our synagogue had announced that it would be “downsizing,” and that they would be relocating to a church. We started searching for another place to worship yet again.
That summer, we needed to be in northern Michigan over the July Fourth weekend. I called around looking for a kosher restaurant; of course, there was nothing.
After lots of calls and Google searches, we ended up with a Shabbat-meal invitation from Rabbi Yisroel and Shaina Chana Weingarten, co-directors of Chabad House Lubavitch of Eastern Michigan in Flint, Mich.
Congregants observe the Sunday-morning proceedings.Iva and I ended up attending alone, since Nick preferred to stay in the hotel room. The first thing that struck us was how many children the Weingartens have—11. The second thing that made a deep impression is the love that is palpable in their home. By just observing them, we saw that each and every member of the family cared for every other one in a way that we had never seen before. The two of us were just so amazed.
When we came home, we told the girls about what we had seen at Chabad. Two weeks later, we made arrangements to attend Shabbat services at Lubavitch Chabad of Skokie, three miles from our home.
Knowing that Orthodox Jews don’t drive to synagogue, we parked the car around the corner and walked into the Chabad House, not knowing what to expect. I’ll have to admit that I was quite lost during services. After Kiddush, we were all invited to the home of Rabbi Yochanan and Yona Posner for the Shabbat meal.
That week, we had a family vote. We had visited some Conservative synagogues and needed to decide if we would join one of them or go with Chabad. To my surprise, my wife and three kids all voted for Chabad, and that was where we began to go every week.
Eventually, we began to park farther and farther away from the synagogue, walking another block each week. By late fall, we were walking all the way—three miles each direction. We were becoming more observant all the time, and knew that Iva and Nick would need to convert with a recognized rabbinic organization. In 2010, we began the process under the auspices of the cRc (Chicago Rabbinical Council).
By the next year, the girls—Dara and Ana (now known as Dorona and Channah Leah)—were enrolled in the Lubavitch Girls High School in Chicago. The administration was originally very wary of accepting them since they were coming directly from public school. But they were determined to succeed—and they did!
By the end of 2011, the conversions were finalized. My wife (now Chava) and I remarried according to halachah, Jewish law, and Rabbi Posner koshered our kitchen. By then, we were a fully observant family.
All the while, Noach Dov (as Nick is now known) was still in public school since we could not find a boy’s yeshivah that would accept him. He was not very happy about it. Despite Muslim bullies, he wore his kipah to class every day and made the best of the circumstances. At the same time, he was keeping up with his Judaic studies at home and with Rabbi Chaim Telsner of Skokie Chabad.
Just when things were getting really desperate, I learned of an option. I was talking with Rabbi Binyamin Walters, who had just begun teaching at Yeshivah Netzach Eliyahu, a new high school program for boys with unique educational needs. Although they did not enroll boys transferring from public school at that time, we managed to work things out, and Noach was finally in a healthy Torah environment.
Thank G‑d, he has been thriving ever since.
This year, Dorona is in seminary in Israel; Channah and Noach are in Jewish high schools in Chicago; Chava is taking regular Torah classes; and I am studying for semichah (rabbinical ordination) under the rubric of Yeshiva Pirchei Shoshanim, an online program.
The Shudnow family: Marc, his wife Chava (Iva), and children, from left, Noach Dov (Nick), Dorona (Dara) and Channah Leah (Ana)
I had known for some time about the mitzvah of pidyon haben and had no doubt that it had not been done for me, so I decided to go for it in honor of the new year, 5775.
The lox and bagels have long been finished, and everyone has gone home, but the joyous event will be long remembered by the Shudnow family and the Skokie Jewish Center.
• ‘Power of Jewish Children’ Contest Focuses on Improving the World (By Faygie Levy)
The “Power of Jewish Children” contest is open to children “who have worked hard to make a difference, and want to be part of something special internationally."
Do you know a child who is single-handedly working to make the world a better place? A child who has recognized a need in their school, neighborhood or city, and is trying to improve the situation? Or maybe a child who is using his or her natural talents to help other people?
If that child is a Jewish youngster under the age of 14, then you can nominate them for this year’s “Power of Jewish Children” contest being run by JewishKids.org, and co-sponsored by Tzivos Hashem: Jewish Children’s International and Chabad.org.
The contest is open to children “who have worked hard to make a difference and want to be part of something special internationally,” says Chaya Kaltmann, who is coordinating this year’s contest.
Previously known as the “Jewish Kids Got Talent” competition, this year’s contest is focusing more on the positive effect children can have on the world around them than on a particular skill.
“After four very inspiring years of children sharing their wide array of talents, we are now attempting to channel the focus and energy towards their impact on their local communities,” explains Rabbi Yerachmiel Benjaminson, executive director of Tzivos Hashem. “Now, it’s about our youth utilizing their talents and passion to help others, and displaying their unique commitment towards traditional Jewish values.”
“This year’s program wants to recognize youth who have devoted themselves to a larger cause,” adds Kaltmann. “Through utilizing their natural skills and talents, as well as their passion and commitment, our kids are able to help others in their respective communities, and thereby express their Jewish identity. This is the ultimate power of Jewish children.”
Estee Ackerman, last year's first-place winnerLast year’s winner, Estee Ackerman, 13, of Long Island, N.Y., has certainly been a catalyst for spreading goodwill and empowerment. The teen was recently recognized by a blog as one of “Jew in the City’s 2014 Orthodox Jewish All-Stars” and has been quite vocal about her level of Jewish observance, even while pursuing her dreams of being an Olympic athlete in 2016 in the sport of table tennis. For example, she does not compete on Shabbat, even if that means forfeiting games.
“The pride Estee displayed in her Jewish heritage was so motivating and inspiring to all of us. These are the values and commitments we want to build upon in this year’s competition,” says Kaltmann.
In addition to a website at PowerofJewishChildren.com, the contest also has its own promotional video that’s a blend of cartoon art and live action in the form of Jewish singer Benny Friedman, who appears in the video.
“I am so privileged to help honor you for your imagination and your initiative in making the world such a much better place, and I wish you good luck with your entry,” Friedman says in the video. “This is you chance to inspire others by sharing what you’ve been accomplishing through your kindness and commitment.
“Clearly,” the singer continues, “you’re already a winner.”
The contest’s actual winners—there will be two—will enjoy a semi-private concert with Friedman and a few hundred other people when they are flown to New York City for the annual Tzivos Hashem dinner, to be held on Monday, Dec. 8, at the Grand Prospect Hall in New York City.
Also performing at this year’s dinner will be Joel Chasnoff, an American stand-up comedian and writer. The event will be broadcast live on JewishKids.org.
To learn more, check out the video and contest rules on JewishKids.org org here.
Nomination forms can be found here.
Submissions must be received by Tuesday, Nov. 18.
<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript" src="http://embed.chabad.org/multimedia/mediaplayer/embedded/embed.js.asp?aid=2746753&width=auto&height=auto"></script><div style="clear:both;">Visit <a href="http://www.chabad.org/multimedia/default_cdo/aid/591213/jewish/Video.htm">Jewish.TV</a> for more <a href="http://www.chabad.org/multimedia/default_cdo/aid/591213/jewish/Video.htm">Jewish videos</a>.</div>
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