Editor's Note:
Dear Friend,
Next Tuesday is the 11th of Nissan, the anniversary of the birth of the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory.
Chassidim often talked of a “birthday gift” for the Rebbe. Of course they did not give the Rebbe ties or cakes.
Knowing that the Rebbe prized our efforts to make the world a more G‑dly place, the gifts Chassidim gave—and still give—are mitzvahs performed, Talmud tractates mastered, chassidic discourses learned and internalized, and kindness done for others.
Since the Rebbe’s birthday is just before Passover, this would often take the form of round, handmadeshmurah matzah distributed to Jews who would not otherwise not have this special food on their Seder tables, or Seder invites for people with no Seder tables.
Right now is the time to give a fellow Jew the gift of Passover. Send a matzah, extend an invite, or just reach out in friendship. And if you need a spot at the table, please don’t be shy. We’ll be glad to host you.
The Chabad.org Editorial Team
Greatness Unlimited
To some, G‑d is great because He makes the wind blow.
For others, because He projects space and time out of the void.
The enlightened laugh and say He is far beyond any of this,
for His Oneness remains unaltered even by the event of Creation.
We Jews, this is what we have always said:
G‑d is so great,
He stoops to listen to the prayer of a small child;
He paints the petals of each wildflower
and awaits us there to catch Him doing so;
He plays with the rules of the world He has made
to comfort the oppressed and support those who champion justice.
He transcends the bounds of higher and lower.
He transcends all bounds.
This Week's Features:
Printable Magazine
“Why Am I Different?” A Talk of the Rebbe
http://www.chabad.org/therebbe/livingtorah/player_cdo/aid/1804986/jewish/Why-Am-I-Different.htm
http://www.chabad.org/1804986
“Why Am I Different?” A Talk of the Rebbe
http://www.chabad.org/therebbe/livingtorah/player_cdo/aid/1804986/jewish/Why-Am-I-Different.htm
http://www.chabad.org/1804986
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YOUR QUESTIONS
Why the Egg on the Passover Seder Plate?
I know all about the reasons for the matzah and maror (bitter herbs), but why an egg? by Yehuda Shurpin
As I brush up on the details of the Seder, one thing keeps bothering me. We always have an egg on the Seder plate, and we eat it without any pomp and circumstance during the Seder. I know all about the reasons for the matzahand maror (bitter herbs), but why an egg?Why the Egg on the Passover Seder Plate?
I know all about the reasons for the matzah and maror (bitter herbs), but why an egg? by Yehuda Shurpin
Reply
You’re actually asking about two separate, albeit related, customs regarding the egg: a) having it on the Seder plate; and b) eating it.
Let’s start with the Seder plate.
In Memory of the Sacrifices
In addition to the Paschal lamb (korban Pesach) that was brought forPassover, there was an offering called a korban chagigah (festival sacrifice).
On each of the three festivals—Passover, Sukkot and Shavuot—there was amitzvah to go to Jerusalem and celebrate in G‑d’s House. Since it would be inappropriate for one to come empty-handed, there was a special mitzvah to bring a a festival offering to be enjoyed during the holiday.1
On Passover, the korban chagigah was (usually2) offered on the fourteenth ofNissan, along with the korban Pesach. In commemoration of these two offerings, the sages instituted that there be two cooked dishes at the Seder.3
Others explain that these two dishes are meant to correspond to the two messengers, Moses and Aaron, that G‑d sent to take the Jews out of Egypt.4
These two cooked foods are traditionally the shank or neck of a chicken, and an egg. Why the egg? Some say because it is very easy to cook.5 But there are deeper explanations as well.
Food as Prayer
The classic explanation given in the name of the Jerusalem Talmud is that it is customary that one dish be a zero'a (usually a shank bone), corresponding to the korban Pesach, because the word zero’a literally means “arm,” alluding to the verse which states, “And I will redeem you with an outstretched arm . . .”6The egg corresponds to the korban chagigah. In Aramaic, it is called beya, which also means "pray" or "please." Thus, the foods silently plead, "May itplease the Merciful G‑d to redeem us with an outstretched arm."7
Eggs in Mourning
Others explain that an egg—a traditional food of mourning, since its rounded shape symbolizes the cycle of life—expresses our mourning for the destruction of the Holy Temple and the lack of these sacrifices.8
Consolation in Egypt
Along with mourning comes with consolation. Thus, some say that the egg evokes the suffering and subsequent consolation from G‑d that the Israelitesexperienced. This is in line with what we say in the Haggadah, “Therefore, it is our duty to thank and praise . . . He who did all these miracles for our fathers and for us. He took us out from slavery to freedom . . . and from mourning to festivity . . .”9
Free from Paganism
Many of the ancient Egyptians held religious beliefs that prevented them from consuming meat, fish or eggs. On the night that we celebrate being taken out of Egyptian bondage, we make sure to have both meat and eggs on the Seder plate, showing that we are not bound by their pagan beliefs.10
The Mouths of Our Enemies
We use an egg, which has no opening, for on this day “the mouths of our enemies became sealed shut” like the smooth, closed egg.11 When witnessing the miracles of Exodus, it became clear to all that G‑d was protecting the Israelites, His favored people.
Eating the Egg at the Seder
The following reasons, although similar to the above reasons for the egg placement, were specifically given by various commentaries regarding theeating of the egg (with other reasons given for the egg placement), so I have therefore distinguished them:
More Mourning
Rabbi Moshe Isserlis explains that the custom of eating the egg at the Seder is an outgrowth of having an egg on the Seder plate and is eaten as a way of mourning the destruction of the Temple and the lack of the korban Pesach.12Others explain that while the egg is placed on the Seder plate in commemoration of the korban chagigah, it is eaten as a sign of mourning.13
Rabbi Isserlis points out that the night of the Seder has a unique connection to the destruction of the Temple, as the first day of Passover always falls out on the same day of the week as the Ninth of Av, the day of the destruction of the Temple.14
According to others, there is a tradition that Abraham passed away on the night of Passover, and the egg is eaten to mourn his passing.15
Egg With an Eye to the Future
While many of the explanations about the egg have to do with mourning our past, the egg also symbolizes our hope and prayer for the future. When a chicken lays an egg, the egg appears to be a completed object. Yet, in truth, it isn’t complete, and the egg is just a preparation for the live creature that will emerge from it later. So, too, the Exodus from Egypt, while at first appearing to be an end in itself, in truth is only a preparation for the Final Redemption, with the coming of Moshiach—may it be speedily in our days!16
FOOTNOTES
1.See Deuteronomy 16:14; Talmud, Chagiga 6b; Sefer Hamitzvot, positive commandment 54; Sefer Hachinuch, mitzvah 488.
2.If the fourteenth was Shabbat then, although they would still bring thekorban Pesach on that day, they would defer the korban chagigah.
3.Talmud, Pesachim 114b.
4.Maaseh Rokeach 59, citing a responsum from Rabbi Sherira Gaon.
5.Kol Bo 50, cited by Beit Yosef on Orach Chaim 473.
6.Exodus 6:6.
7.Orchot Chaim Lel Pesach 12, Kol Bo 50, and Beit Yosef on Orach Chaim 473, citing the Jerusalem Talmud. It appears to missing in the classic edition of the Jerusalem Talmud. See, however, the hashmatot of Jerusalem Talmud, Pesachim, ch. 10, and Ravia 525, p. 162, fn. 3.
8.Kol Bo 50 and Beit Yosef, Orach Chaim 473. The Lubavitcher Rebbe explains that according to this reason, it would seem that our ancestors had once used other types of foods, and it was only after the destruction that they started using eggs (Haggadah Shel Pesach Im Likutei Taamim uMinhagim, Seder Haggadah, Hazero’ah and Habeitzah).
9.Kol Bo 50.
10.Keter Shem Tov (Gagin), vol. 3, p. 94, based on the Ibn Ezra to Exodus 8:22.
11.Amarekel, cited in Haggadah Shleimah p. 66.
12.Darkei Moshe, Orach Chaim 473:10. See also Shulchan Aruch Harav Orach Chaim 476:6
13.See Haggadah Shel Pesach Im Likutei Taamim uMinhagim, Seder Haggadah,Hazero’ah, Habeitzah and Shulchan Orech.
14.Rama, Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 476:2.
15.Leket Yosher, p. 85.
16.Seder Haggadah, Sefer Hazamanim from Rabbi Yaakov of Ishbitz, Shulchan Orech.
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Heads or Fairy Tales?
Isn’t there a point in time when we realize that Moshiach isn’t coming? Haven’t we learned our lesson by now? by Aron Moss
Every year we end the Seder by saying, “Next year in Jerusalem!” Every year we open the door for Elijah the prophet to come and announce the arrival of Moshiach—the long-awaited Messiah. And after more than 3,000 years, it still hasn’t happened. Isn’t there a point in time when we realize that Moshiach isn’t coming? Haven’t we learned our lesson by now? How many years of disappointment do we need to endure before we give up on this messianic dream and wake up to reality?
Answer:
Imagine I take out a coin from my pocket and ask you, “Heads or tails?” You say heads. I flip it, and it lands on tails.
So I give you another chance and flip it again. Again it comes out tails. But you wanted heads, so I keep going. Ten more times, then another ten times, and another, and it never lands on heads, until I have flipped this same coin 99 times, and every single time it lands on tails.
You examine the coin. It is a legitimate coin, heads on one side, tails on the other, equally weighted and not tampered with. There is nothing dodgy here. And yet it landed on tails 99 times in a row.
Before flipping it again, I ask you, “Heads or tails?” And I offer you a million dollars if you get it right, or you lose a million if you get it wrong.
What are the chances that on the 100th flip, it will land on heads?
The answer is, exactly the same chances as the first flip and every flip: 50/50. The fact that it landed on tails every time until now has absolutely no statistical bearing on the next flip. It could be tails 999,999 times, and there would be no reason why the millionth time wouldn’t be heads.
Just because something didn’t happen yet, that doesn’t make it less likely to happen soon. Moshiach is going to come. The fact that he didn’t come last year or the year before in no way limits the likelihood of him coming this year.
In fact, the contrary is true. A coin may never fall on heads; it could theoretically fall on tails ad infinitum. But Moshiach has to come—G‑d has promised it. So each year he doesn’t show up makes the next year more likely to be the one when he will.
But it’s more than just a game of chance. A coin won’t land on heads because you want it to, but our faith—and our practical actions—actually helps make the messianic future a reality. When we open the doors for Elijah to come, when we pray to be in the rebuilt Jerusalem, we bring Moshiach a step closer.
It’s not just in our heads. We will live to tell the tale.
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PASSOVER READING
What Happens When You Transform Your Enemy
Your son begins to taunt his older sister. You’re about to rush in as referee to prevent the impending battle when you pleasantly discover that your daughter hasn’t taken the bait. by Chana Weisberg
Dear Readers,What Happens When You Transform Your Enemy
Your son begins to taunt his older sister. You’re about to rush in as referee to prevent the impending battle when you pleasantly discover that your daughter hasn’t taken the bait. by Chana Weisberg
As a parent, it’s your greatest moment of triumph.
You’ve momentarily left the playroom. Your son begins to taunt his older sister. You’re about to rush in as referee to prevent the impending battle, when you pleasantly discover that your daughter hasn’t taken the bait. Instead of fighting back, retorting angrily or using her fists, she chooses a different response. She calmly explains to her brother—mimicking the soothing voice you try so hard to use—that she loves him too much to fight, and then distracts him with another activity.
Weeks, months and years of effective parenting have paid off! Your child has internalized your values.
This Shabbat before Pesach is called Shabbat Hagadol, the “Great Shabbat.”
After eight decades of being victim to the Egyptians’ merciless cruelty, on the 10th of Nissan, on Shabbat, the Israelites prepare a paschal lamb. They explain to the Egyptians that G‑d instructed them to offer a sacrifice on the 14th of Nissan—the night of their redemption, and the night that G‑d would slay all the Egyptian firstborn.
Hearing this, the Egyptian firstborn plead with Pharaoh to liberate the Jews. When Pharaoh refuses, they rise up in an armed revolt. Many Egyptians died in battle.
This revolt was titled a “great miracle,” and it is commemorated every year on the Shabbat before Passover. These Egyptian firstborn finally understood the folly of their evil and sided with Moses, actively attacking their own government.
Chassidic thought explains that the greatest victory is not in fighting evil, but rather transforming it into good.
When the enemy becomes a friend and defender . . . When a negative inclination works energetically for good . . . When darkness is changed into light . . . When destruction becomes the impetus for building . . . And, when a powerful group of firstborn sons finally stands up against the ills of their society by defending those whom they had so wrongly mistreated.
Interestingly, the 10th of Nissan also marks the date of Miriam’s yahrtzeit, years later, after the Exodus. From a young age, Miriam fearlessly stood up against King Pharaoh when he instructed her to kill all the Jewish male newborns. Despite the hardships, despite the pain, one woman fanned the flame of faith of all the Jewish women of her generation, and succeeded in transforming their perspective with her courage and kindness.
This Shabbat is also called the “great” Shabbat because the haftorah speaks of the coming of Moshiach, referring to this day as the yom Hashem hagadol v’hanora, the “great” and awesome day of the L‑rd (Malachi 3:23).
This great and utopian era will not be a time of destruction, but of transformation; it will not be about commanding, but about communicating. It will not be about fighting, but about educating and changing the mindset of our foes, just as the perspective of the firstborns was positively altered.
May this week’s great Shabbat finally usher in this great and awesome time period!
Chana Weisberg,
Editor, TJW
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What Freedom Means to Me
I don’t know about you, but I’ve never been to Egypt. I’ve never been a slave. And I’ve never truly grasped the meaning of freedom. by Tovah Kinderlehrer
I don’t know about you, but I’ve never been to Egypt. I’ve never been a slave. And I’ve never truly grasped the meaning of freedom. There is an obvious paradox on Passover, which is that for eight days, we have more restrictions then the rest of the year. On the Seder night, we don’t talk about whatever we want. We follow a prescribed text. We don’t eat what we want. In fact, we don’t get to eat for a quite a while, and when we do, it’s parsley with saltwater, horseradish, and some really stale, flat, cardboard-like matzah.
When I hear the word freedom, I imagine a hippie-dippy world of free love and freedom from “The Man.” I imagine doing what I want, when I want. I’m pretty sure this isn’t the freedom that the Torah is describing. So let me ask you this:
When you put a blank piece of paper in front of you, what happens? Do you fill it with beautiful drawings and colorings from the deepest depths of your soul? Or do you look at it and wonder what should go there?
And what happens when you have a piece of paper with print on it—perhaps some junk mail lying around? What happens to me is that I start filling in the letters. I color the O’s and the eights. I draw triangles around groupings of letters. If there’s a picture on it, I may add my own shading or draw funny teeth coming out of the pretty model’s mouth.
Basically, I doodle.
Total freedom, a blank slate to fill with infinite potential, often leaves me intimidated and lost. But a little structure gives me the freedom to create more.
I am not going to write about how all the limitations of Passover create an atmosphere of freedom that we otherwise wouldn’t be able to access. I believe there is a lot written about that already. But what I do want to explain is that, perhaps, the meaning of freedom is something that actually needs to be defined. But not by me alone.
I don’t believe freedom is any one thing. I believe freedom means something different to everyone. I have spent a lot of time thinking about what freedom means to me. I find it has meant many things to me at different times of my life.
There were times when freedom meant being free from addiction. There was addiction to smoking. Addiction to TV and other media. Addiction to an escapist mentality.
Other times it has meant being free from low self-esteem. Free from self-obsession and self-pity. Free from wondering what other people were thinking about me. Free from always feeling like I have to say just the right thing or do just the right thing. Freedom from thoughts of myself, so I could think about others.
Right now, for me, freedom is gratitude. Freedom is being able to stop wanting and be content with the moment. Freedom is having my little ones asleep in my arms, and knowing that there is nothing in this world that could make this moment better. Freedom is knowing that my happiness comes from being in deep connection. With myself. With loved ones. With G‑d. Because I don’t need to want that, or seek it somehow. Connection is always there. Always here. Waiting for me to notice and enjoy. Whether in solitude, bad health, lack of sleep, in a messy house or with a screaming toddler.
In any moment I can stop. I can take a breath. I can connect to my soul, and know it is bigger than me. It is holding me in this moment. I can connect to a friend. Thank G‑d, we have these amazing little connectors in our pockets, sending out a signal at our beck and call that vibrates a friend’s pocket, and instantly, we are connected. Phones are amazing. I can connect to G‑d. I can reach out and know that there is no place I can go where He cannot follow. I think of a baby in the womb. It can feel scared, alone, in the dark. But it cannot go anywhere outside of its mother’s embrace. I am in my Creator’s womb. And it’s sometimes dark, and solitary, but I can’t leave it.
Stop. Breathe. Connect.
That is my freedom of today.
So I invite you to find your meaning of freedom. And experience it! This Passover is your time to leave your house of slavery, whatever it may be, and feel the gift of liberation.
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PARSHAH
Forbidden Fruit
The connection between the sin of the Tree of Knowledge and menstruation; the spiritual significance of the seven days of Niddah and the eleven days of Zivah Based on the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe
The woman saw that the tree was good to eat and desirable to the eyes . . . and she took of its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband, and he ate with her . . .Forbidden Fruit
The connection between the sin of the Tree of Knowledge and menstruation; the spiritual significance of the seven days of Niddah and the eleven days of Zivah Based on the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe
To the woman [G‑d] said: I will increase your grief and your pregnancy; in sorrow you shall bear children. Your desire will be to your husband, and he will [thus] rule over you.
And to the man He said: . . . By the sweat of your brow shall you eat bread, till you return to the earth from which you were taken; for dust you are, and unto dust you shall you return.
Genesis 3:6–19
We all know the story of Adam, Eve and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden. The facts are simple enough: among all His creations, G‑d created a single creature, man, with the freedom to choose between good and evil, between fulfillment of the Divine will and its defiance. Within hours of their creation, the first man and woman chose the latter. They had been commanded not to eat of the fruit of a certain tree, and they violated this commandment.
With this deed, they profoundly altered the nature of life on earth. The human being, the perfect handiwork of G‑d, was perfect no more. A new, alien element—death—entered into life. Man was banished from tranquil Eden to a world where anything of value is achieved only through toil, struggle and pain. The first sin also introduced a new feature of human biology, menstruation, and the resultant laws of niddah, which render a woman ritually impure from the onset of her menses until she purifies herself by immersing in a mikvah.
What is the connection between death, toil, menstruation and the first sin? First we must examine the significance of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and how our tasting of it affected our nature and the manner in which we realize our mission in life.
A Walled Garden
There are two ways in which a person might elevate his surroundings: from above or from within. A leader might be one who leads a life of saintly seclusion, aloof from the coarseness and mundanity of material life, and thereby causes others to aspire to his level; or he might be one who enters into their world, speaks to them in their language, grapples with the petty and the sinister in their lives, and influences them from within. A people might create a model society in a Holy Land, a light unto the nations that inspires admiration and emulation; or they might enter galut (exile), disperse to the four corners of the earth, assume to some degree the cultures and lifestyles of their hosts, and change the world from within.
The difference between these two approaches, explains chassidic teaching, is akin to the difference between the nature of life before and after the first sin of man.
Evil existed before the first sin, as a requisite part of the Divine purpose in creation; for man’s mission in life is to separate the gold from the dross, to extract the sparks of holiness imprisoned in the lowly and corporeal elements of creation. Initially, however, evil was something outside of the nature of man, outside of the sphere of his life (thus the evil inclination appears in the form of a distinct creature—the serpent—rather than as a voice in his own heart). The soul of man, his character, his drives and inclinations, his spiritual self and physical self, even his environment and his known universe, were devoid of anything negative or unholy. His refinement of creation was something he would achieve from a point of detached superiority—he would liberate the sparks of holiness from their corporeal imprisonment as a great fire draws sparks to itself from afar. He would annihilate evil (for the moment a spark of goodness is redeemed, its negative shell wilts away like a husk emptied of its fruit) not by engaging it and combating it, but by surmounting it and disdaining it.
Thus, man was instructed (Genesis 2:15) to work and keep the Garden of Eden, the Divinely planted oasis of perfection in the heart of the universe. He was to work the garden, cultivating its inherent goodness, fanning the great flame that would draw sparks from the farthest reaches of creation. He was to keep the garden, guarding its frontiers and preventing the slightest vestige of evil from seeping in or even coming in contact with his sacred world.
But man was not content with this tranquil work, with this disinvolved achievement. He was drawn by the lure of the unknown, by the spiritual antimatter that lay beyond the pale of his world. He was tempted by the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (Eitz ha-Daat Tov va-Ra) that stood in the center of the garden—the tree that offered insight into and affinity with all realms of G‑d’s creation (the Hebrew word daat implies an intimate knowledge of and relationship with the known object, as in the verse “Adam knew his wife Eve”). He wanted to wrestle with his enemy, rather than wage war by remote control from behind walls of unknowing bliss.
Man chose knowledge over integrity, involvement over perfection, struggle over tranquility. He ate of the forbidden fruit, and the knowledge of evil entered into him. It infiltrated his flesh, entwined itself in his soul, was grafted on to his most basic drives and desires. He was now a foreign body in the Garden of Eden, which promptly ejected him into a world of blurred boundaries, a world where every evil has a trace of good and every good has a trace of evil. Before man tasted of the Tree of Knowledge, evil was something unnatural—something outside of the human experience. But the moment he violated his ignorance of it, it became part and parcel of his nature, if only by awareness and association.
Man became mortal. Life, by definition, is attachment to G‑d, the ultimate and exclusive source of life. When this attachment was absolute and unequivocal, life too was without limitation or end. But from the moment man chose to know evil—to relate to that which is contrary to the Divine—his attachment to the eternal was compromised; death gained a hold on him, and begins to drain his life from the moment of his birth.
No longer the tranquil cultivation of good, human life was redefined as a war with evil: a wrestling match that is also an embrace, a duel in which the enemy claims an intimate corner of the warrior’s mind and heart. Life became an arena in which nothing could be achieved without deep personal cost: bread is wrested from the ground only by the sweat of one’s brow; children are brought into the world via the agony of love, the misery of pregnancy and the pain of childbirth; and to defeat evil, one also must battle oneself, painfully extracting the tentacles of sympathy that have gained inroads into one’s soul.
The Dynamics of Contact
Approximately once a month, at the conclusion of her ovulatory cycle, a woman’s body discharges blood. According to Torah law, this discharge renders her a niddah for a period of seven days. Niddah is a state of spiritual impurity, during which marital relations between husband and wife are forbidden. At the conclusion of the niddah period, a woman purifies herself by immersing in a special pool of water called a mikvah.
We usually associate impurity (tum’ah) with negative choices: when a person violates the order that G‑d instituted in His world, he disrupts the flow of Divine vitality to himself, and compromises the sanctity of his body and soul. But menstruation is a most natural phenomenon; why should the natural workings of a person’s body be a cause of spiritual impurity?
Blood is the stuff of life, the vital heat and passion that drives all endeavor and achievement. The impure blood of niddah represents the tainting of the passion of life that results from a person’s contact with the negative elements of creation. Before the first sin, there was no such contact and no impure blood (as will be the case in the world to come, when the annihilation of evil will be complete and the impurity of niddah will cease). But after we tasted of the knowledge of evil, changing our relationship with it from unknowing distance to intimate engagement, our contact with it cannot but affect us.
The human body, which retained its intrinsic holiness, naturally ejects this foreign intruder (as the Garden of Eden ejected Adam and Eve after they were tainted by sin). Nevertheless, the body’s contact with the impure blood leaves behind a residue of impurity, which is completely erased only upon the woman’s reaffirmation of her commitment to G‑d through immersion in amikvah. (Immersion in the mikvah represents a person’s abnegation of self and selfishness in total devotion to the Divine will; as chassidic teaching points out, the Hebrew word tevilah, immersion, shares the same letters asbittul, self-abnegation.) This cycle of contact, contamination and purification is fated to repeat itself over and over again for as long as we inhabit and interact with an imperfect world, even if our own behavior is beyond reproach, for, as Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi notes in his Tanya, one who wrestles with a filthy person is himself dirtied even if he is the victor. The Midrash expresses it thus: If one enters a tanner’s shop, even if one doesn’t sell him anything or buy anything from him, one departs with a stench on himself and his clothes.
Natural and Not
Torah law actually defines two types of contaminating blood: the blood ofniddah and the blood of zivah. A discharge of blood occurring in the normal course of a woman’s period renders her a niddah. An abnormal discharge occurring during those days of her cycle on which she would normally not see blood is called the blood of zivah, and is governed by a different set of laws. As a rule, the laws of zivah are more confining, in the stringency and the duration of the impurity, and the complexity of the purification process.
On the conceptual level, this means that there are two types of spiritual impurity: natural impurity, which as explained is implicit in human life from the time that man tasted of the Tree of Knowledge; and unnatural impurity, which is man’s descent into evil by his own initiative, beyond what is inevitable in a world admixed of good and evil (as Adam and Eve did when all evil was unnatural).
One example of this is alluded to by the time periods set by Torah law for these two types of impurity. The impurity of niddah applies to seven days of a woman’s monthly cycle, while there are eleven days of zivah. Chassidic teaching explains that the human soul possesses ten basic attributes: three intellectual faculties—chochmah (perception), binah (comprehension) anddaat (application)—and seven emotive traits—chessed (love), gevurah(constraint), tiferet (synthesis), netzach (competitiveness), hod (devotion),yesod (communicativity) and malchut (receptiveness). These ten are the internal attributes of the soul; in addition, the soul also possesses an encompassing or transcendent element, which is the seat of its supra-rational faculties (will, faith, etc.).
The emotions are the most vulnerable to corruption. In the state of affairs that resulted from the first sin of man, the very nature of life dictates that the emotional element in man will be somewhat tainted upon contact with the material world. Feelings are inherently subjective, and it is all but inevitable that they will be influenced by a person’s environment and his experiences.
The intellect, however, is more immune to these influences. G‑d has equipped the human mind with the capacity to transcend the personal and the temporal, to rise above its own interests and inclinations in its quest for the absolute and the true. Thus, corruption of the mind cannot be attributed to the natural evil in the human condition, which affects only the seven emotions, represented by the seven days of niddah.
But man has been granted the freedom to choose between good and evil. He can choose to resist the negative influences of his environment, or he can choose to welcome them and submit to them. He can also choose to corrupt himself beyond what is inevitable, or even natural, in his contact with a world of good and evil. He can extend the subjectivity of emotion to the naturally objective mind, reducing his intellect to a lackey of his sentiments and a justifier of his desires. He can even pervert his supra-rational self (whose natural expression is faith in G‑d and altruistic service of Him) by pursuing an evil path contrary to all reason—contrary, even, to his own self-interest.
`Thus there are eleven days of zivah, corresponding to the unnatural evil that man can introduce to all ten of his internal faculties and even to the eleventh faculty of his transcendent self.
Refining Torah
The intimacy with evil that resulted from the first sin of man became the natural state of affairs on all levels of existence. For man is the epicenter of G‑d’s creation, and his deeds affect all strata of reality. When man chose to deal with evil by intimate engagement rather than superior distance, he imposed this modus operandi upon every entity, terrestrial or celestial, that has a role in the refinement of creation.
Even the Torah, the Divine wisdom and will and G‑d’s blueprint for creation, was affected when man tasted of the Tree of Knowledge. The Torah, too, was compelled to relate to the world in the manner dictated by man’s knowledge of evil, and its intrinsic clarity was blurred by its contact with the worldly and the mundane.
Thus we open a page of Talmud and encounter contradictory opinions, refuted arguments, obscure passages and unresolved questions. We know that it is all the words of the living G‑d. But where is the decisiveness, the unequivocality, the luminous self-evidence that is the hallmark of truth, especially the Divine truth? Obscured by the opacity of its subject matter, which is the brute, pedestrian, material world. In the Talmud’s own words: “‘He has set me in darkness’ (Lamentations 3:6)—this is the Babylonian Talmud.”
But there is one area of Torah where the darkness and obscurity fall away:halachah. Halachah is the discipline by which concise Divine law is distilled from the tortuous byways of pilpul and debate, proof and refutation, question and answer and question upon answer that characterize much of Torah. In other words, halachah is to Torah what Torah is to the world—the tool of its refinement, the sieve that winnows the chaff from the wheat.
The Talmud’s concluding tractate is the tractate of Niddah, whose seventy-three folios discuss the laws of niddah and zivah impurity. But niddah is also a metaphor for the state of reality that has held sway ever since the first man and woman tasted of the Tree of Knowledge. Thus, tractate Niddah concludes with the following teaching by Elijah the prophet, herald of the redemption: “Whoever studies halachot every day is guaranteed to be a citizen of the world to come”—the world to come being the restoration of the pristine Eden from which man was expelled on the first day of history.1
FOOTNOTES
1.Sources: Reshimot, no. 12; Likkutei Sichot, vol. 3, pp. 983–984; ibid., vol. 14, pp. 26–28. See also Torah Ohr, Bereishit 5c–d, and Torat Chaim, Bereishit 30b.
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The Treasure Behind the Wall
When we experience an actual struggle in life, pain hurts. It does not build. by Menachem Feldman
The first portion, Tazria, describes the laws of impurity caused by tzaraat, a form of leprosy that afflicts human flesh and garments. Tzaraat is a malady that came upon a person as a consequence of slandering or gossiping about another person, as well as other sins.
The next portion, Metzora, describes the process of purification from this leprosy. Only after discussing the purification of the body and garments does the Torah introduce a third type of leprosy, one that afflicts the walls of a home. This is immediately followed by the laws of purification for the home.
Why, when talking about the leprosy that afflicts the person and the garments, are the affliction and its purification taught in two separate portions? This is not the case when discussing the topic of leprosy of the home—the purification process is taught immediately after, and in the same portion as, the affliction.
Anyone looking at life objectively can appreciate that a setback can be an opportunity for growth. Challenge has the potential to bring out the best in the human soul.
But that is theoretical.
When we experience an actual struggle in life, our perspective may be very different. We do not feel anything positive or constructive in our moment of despair and pain. Pain hurts. It does not build.
Eventually, when we find the courage and strength to pick ourselves up and overcome the challenge, we feel as though we have reached a new state of being. Only after we are removed from the painful situation are we capable of looking back and realizing that the person we have become is very much a result of the previous challenge that we tried so hard to escape.
This is the reason that the affliction of tzaraat and its purification are written in two separate portions. From the human perspective, the purification is a new beginning; it is an escape from the impurity, not its culmination.
Things are very different from G‑d’s perspective. The purpose of the challenge is to lead a person to greater heights. But we humans are not always capable of seeing it that way.
In describing the tzaraat that afflicted the home, the Torah says: “When you come to the land of Canaan, which I am giving you as a possession, and I place an affliction of tzaraat upon a house in the land of your possession.” TheMidrash teaches that from the words of the verse we learn that G‑d Himself placed the affliction of tzaraat on the house, so it was in fact a blessing. For when the Israelites removed the afflicted stones from their homes, they discovered treasures that the native Canaanites had hidden within the walls.
The tzaraat of the home was taught to us from G‑d’s perspective. Every affliction is just a facade, begging to be pulled away so we can discover a great treasure. By telling us the laws of the home’s purification immediately after the affliction, the Torah asks us to keep G‑d’s perspective in mind. This will give us the strength to transform challenge to treasure.1
FOOTNOTES
1.Based on Likkutei Sichot, vol. 27, Metzora II.
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Metzora In Depth
A condensation of the weekly Torah portion alongside select commentaries culled from the Midrash, Talmud, Chassidic masters, and the broad corpus of Jewish scholarship.
Parshat Metzora In-Depth
Leviticus 14:1-15:33
Parshah Summary
Having described, in the previous Parshah of Tazria, the manner in which the affliction of tzaraat is identified and the laws pertaining to a person thus afflicted, the Torah now proceeds to outline the process of themetzora's purification and rehabilitation:
The priest shall go out of the camp; and the priest shall look, and see if the plague of tzaraat has been healed in the leper.
Then shall the priest command to take for him that is to be cleansed two live and kosher birds, and cedar wood, and scarlet, and hyssop. And the priest shall command that one of the birds be slaughtered over an earthen vessel with fresh spring water.
The live bird, the piece of cedar, the scarlet thread and the bundle of hyssop are then dipped into the blood of the slaughtered bird and the spring water in the earthen vessel. The blood and water mixture is also sprinkled seven times on the metzora, and the live bird is "let loose into the open field."
On the seventh day, the metzora-in-purification once again washes his clothes, shaves his hair, and immerses in a mikvah.
On the eighth day he bring a series of offerings: two male sheep--one as a guilt offering and the other as an ascending offering--and a female sheep as a sin offering; all three are accompanied with "meal offerings" consisting of fine flour, olive oil and wine. A pauper who cannot afford three sheep substitutes two birds for the sin and ascending offerings.
Blood from the guilt offering is sprinkled on the cleansed metzora's earlobe, and on the thumbs of his right hand and foot. Oil from the meal offering is placed on these parts of his body ands on his head, after being sprinkled seven times in the direction of the Holy of Holies in the Sanctuary. Thus, "the priest shall make atonement for him, and he shall be purified."
He that owns the house shall come and tell the priest, saying: "It seems to me there is as it were a plague in the house."
And the priest shall command that they empty the house, before the priest go into it to see the plague, so that all that is in the house be not made impure; and afterward the priest shall go in to see the house.
On the seventh day, the Kohen again examines the marking. If it has faded or disappeared, then that area is scraped clean and the house is pure. If it remains unchanged, he locks up the house for another week. However,
The removed stones are replaced with new stones, the house is re-plastered, and closed for a second seven-day period. And the end of these seven days,
Concluding the series of laws on ritual purity of the sections of Shemini, Tazria and Metzora are the laws of the zav, the niddah and the zavah.
The zav is a man who has a white, non-seminal discharge from his reproductive organ. The zavremains in a state of ritual impurity throughout the time that the discharge continues and for seven days after it has stopped. During this time, anything he touches, moves, sits and lies upon, or is touched by any of his bodily fluids, is rendered tameh, ritually impure.
On the seventh evening he immerses in a mikvah and becomes pure. On the eighth day he bring two birds as offerings.
A seminal discharge (whether in coitus or otherwise) renders the person ritually impure for one day--until the next sunset and immersion in a mikvah.
A menstruant woman is a niddah; a woman who has a discharge of blood at a time other than her regular period is a zavah. Both are rendered ritually impure: the niddah for seven days (provided she has stopped bleeding); the zavah until the end of seven "clean days" which she begins counting after her flow has ceased completely. A man having relations with aniddah or zavah, in addition to transgressing a severe biblical prohibition (cf. Leviticus 18:19), is also rendered ritually impure. Both the niddah and zavahare purified through immersion in a mikvah.
(In practice, Torah law rules that since it is very difficult to determine whether a discharge occurred precisely "in its time," every woman seeing blood should countseven "clean days" before immersing).
And G‑d spoke to Moses, saying:
This shall be the law of the metzora on the day of his cleansing; he shall be brought to the priest.The priest shall go out of the camp; and the priest shall look, and see if the plague of tzaraat has been healed in the leper.
Then shall the priest command to take for him that is to be cleansed two live and kosher birds, and cedar wood, and scarlet, and hyssop. And the priest shall command that one of the birds be slaughtered over an earthen vessel with fresh spring water.
And he that is to be cleansed shall wash his clothes, and shave off all his hair, and bathe himself in water, and be clean, and after that he shall come into the camp; but he shall remain outside his tent seven days.
On the eighth day he bring a series of offerings: two male sheep--one as a guilt offering and the other as an ascending offering--and a female sheep as a sin offering; all three are accompanied with "meal offerings" consisting of fine flour, olive oil and wine. A pauper who cannot afford three sheep substitutes two birds for the sin and ascending offerings.
Blood from the guilt offering is sprinkled on the cleansed metzora's earlobe, and on the thumbs of his right hand and foot. Oil from the meal offering is placed on these parts of his body ands on his head, after being sprinkled seven times in the direction of the Holy of Holies in the Sanctuary. Thus, "the priest shall make atonement for him, and he shall be purified."
Tzaraat of the Home
Not only persons can be afflicted with tzaraat. In Tazria we read how garments, too, may be deemed "leprous"; now the Torah sets down the law of the contaminated house:
And G‑d spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying:
When you come into the land of Canaan, which I give to you for a possession, and I will put theplague of tzaraat in a house of the land of your possession;He that owns the house shall come and tell the priest, saying: "It seems to me there is as it were a plague in the house."
And the priest shall command that they empty the house, before the priest go into it to see the plague, so that all that is in the house be not made impure; and afterward the priest shall go in to see the house.
And he shall look at the plague, and, behold: if the plague be in the walls of the house in greenish or reddish depressions, which in sight are lower than the wall, then the priest shall go out of the house to the door of the house, and shut up the house seven days.
If the priest shall come back on the seventh day, and shall look, and, behold, if the plague be spread in the walls of the house;
Then the priest shall command that they remove the stones in which the plague is, and they shall cast them into an unclean place outside the city. And he shall have the house scraped within round about, and they shall pour out the dust that they scraped off outside the city in an unclean place.
And they shall take other stones, and put them in the place of those stones; and he shall take other mortar, and shall plaster the house.
If the plague come back, and break out in the house... it is a malignant tzaraat in the house: it is unclean.
If the tzaraat does not return, the "healed" house undergoes a purification process similar to that of the healed metzora:
And he shall demolish the house, the stones of it, and its timber, and all the mortar of the house; and he shall carry them out of the city into an unclean place.
...and [the Kohen] shall take the cedar wood, and the hyssop, and the scarlet, and the living bird, and dip them in the blood of the slaughtered bird, and in the spring water, and sprinkle the house seven times... and he shall let go the living bird out of the city into the open fields. And he shall make atonement for the house, and it shall be clean.
The Zav
The zav is a man who has a white, non-seminal discharge from his reproductive organ. The zavremains in a state of ritual impurity throughout the time that the discharge continues and for seven days after it has stopped. During this time, anything he touches, moves, sits and lies upon, or is touched by any of his bodily fluids, is rendered tameh, ritually impure.
On the seventh evening he immerses in a mikvah and becomes pure. On the eighth day he bring two birds as offerings.
A seminal discharge (whether in coitus or otherwise) renders the person ritually impure for one day--until the next sunset and immersion in a mikvah.
Niddah and Zavah
And if a woman have an issue, and her issue in her flesh be blood, she shall be seven days in her menstrual separation...(In practice, Torah law rules that since it is very difficult to determine whether a discharge occurred precisely "in its time," every woman seeing blood should countseven "clean days" before immersing).
And shall you separate the children of Israel from their uncleanness; that they die not in their uncleanness, when they defile my Sanctuary that is among them.
This is the law of him that has an issue, and of him whose semen goes from him, and he is rendered impure with it.
And of her that is ailing in her menstrual flow; and of one who has an issue, of the man, and of the woman; and of him that lies with her that is ritually impure.
From Our Sages
This shall be the law of the metzora (Leviticus 14:2)
Said Rabbi Yochanan say in the name of Rabbi Joseph ben Zimra: One who bears evil tales will be visited with the plague of tzaraat... Resh Lakish said: What is the meaning of the verse, "This shall be the law of the metzora"? It means: This shall be the law for him who is motzi shem ra ('gives a bad name' through slander)." (more)
Because of seven things the plague of tzaraat is incurred: slander, bloodshed, false oath, incest, arrogance, robbery and envy.
This shall be the law of the metzora... he shall be brought to the Kohen (14:2)
Both the onset and the termination of the state oftzaraat are effected only by the proclamation of a Kohen. If suspect markings appear on a person, they are examined by an expert on the complex laws of tzaraat--usually, but not necessarily, a Kohen; but even after a diagnosis of tzaraat had been made, the state of ritual impurity does not take effect, and the metzora's banishment is not carried out, until a Kohen pronounces him "impure." This is why even after all physical signs of tzaraathave departed, the removal of the state of impurity and the metzora's re-admission into the community is achieved only by the Kohen's declaration.
The Kohen's function as a condemner and ostracizer runs contrary to his most basic nature and role. The Kohen is commanded by G‑d to "bless His people Israel with love"; our sages describe a "disciple of Aaron" as one who "loves peace, pursues peace, loves G‑ds creatures and brings them close to Torah." But this is precisely the reason that the Torah entrusts to the Kohen the task of condemning the metzora.
There is nothing more hateful to G‑d than division between His children. The metzora must be ostracized because, through his slander and tale-bearing, he is himself a source of divisiveness; nevertheless, the Torah is loath to separate him from the community. So it is not enough that the technical experts say that he marked by tzaraat. It is only when the Kohen--whose very being shudders at the thought of banishing a member of the community--is convinced that there is no escaping a verdict of tzaraat, that the metzora is separated from his people. And it is only when the one doing the banishing is suffused with loving concern for the banished person, that the penalty will yield a positive result--the repentance and rehabilitation of the metzora.
There is another lesson here as well: it is not the fact of the tzaraat that renders the metzora impure, but the Kohen's declaration of his impurity. In other words, no matter how terrible a persons state may be, to speak ill of him is more terrible still. The Kohen's saying that he is impure affects his spiritual state far more profoundly than the actual fact of histzaraat!
Because the plague of tzaraat comes in punishment for evil talk, which is an act of chatter, therefore birds are needed for his purification, because these chatter continuously with a twittering sound.
Because he has exalted himself like a cedar... he should humble himself like a grass.
When you come into the land of Canaan.. I will put the plague of tzaraat in a house of the land of your possession (14:34)
It is good news for them that these plagues would come upon them. Because the Amorite [residents of Canaan] concealed treasures of gold in the walls of their houses during the 40 years the Israelites were in the wilderness, in order that these might not possess them when they conquered land, and in consequence of the plague they would pull down the house and discover them.
I will put the plague of tzaraat in a house (14:34)
So is it when leprous plagues come upon man: First they come upon his house. If he repents, it requires only the removal [of affected stones]; if not, it requires tearing down the entire house. Then the plagues come upon one's clothes. If he repents, they require washing; if not, they require burning. Then the plagues come upon his body. If he repents, he undergoes purification; if not, "He shall dwell alone."
Even if he be a learned man and knows for sure that it is a plague, he shall not decide the matter as a certainty saying, "there is a plague in the house," but, "It seems to me there is as it were a plague in the house."
The Torah is frugal with the property of the Jew.
Over what is the Torah has regard in ordering these precautions to be taken? If it had in mind wooden or metal vessels that need only be immersed in water in order to restore them to cleanness, he can immerse them and they will become clean. If it has in mind food and liquids, he can eat them during the time of his uncleanness. Consequently it follows that the Torah is concerned only about earthen vessels, for which there is no means of purification in a mikvah! (earthen vessels being the least valuable items in a household).
Woe to the wicked, and woe to his neighbor! [For if the afflicted wall is shared between two homes,] both must take out the stones, both must scrape the walls, and both must bring the new stones....
You have proof that this is so, since the sections relating to a man who has an issue and a woman who has an issue are not stated as one, but each by itself, namely, "When any man has an issue..." (Leviticus 15:1-18) and in a separate chapter (15:19-30) section, "And if a woman have an issue... "
Said Rabbi Yochanan say in the name of Rabbi Joseph ben Zimra: One who bears evil tales will be visited with the plague of tzaraat... Resh Lakish said: What is the meaning of the verse, "This shall be the law of the metzora"? It means: This shall be the law for him who is motzi shem ra ('gives a bad name' through slander)." (more)
Because of seven things the plague of tzaraat is incurred: slander, bloodshed, false oath, incest, arrogance, robbery and envy.
(Talmud, Erachin 15b-16a)
This shall be the law of the metzora... he shall be brought to the Kohen (14:2)
Both the onset and the termination of the state oftzaraat are effected only by the proclamation of a Kohen. If suspect markings appear on a person, they are examined by an expert on the complex laws of tzaraat--usually, but not necessarily, a Kohen; but even after a diagnosis of tzaraat had been made, the state of ritual impurity does not take effect, and the metzora's banishment is not carried out, until a Kohen pronounces him "impure." This is why even after all physical signs of tzaraathave departed, the removal of the state of impurity and the metzora's re-admission into the community is achieved only by the Kohen's declaration.
The Kohen's function as a condemner and ostracizer runs contrary to his most basic nature and role. The Kohen is commanded by G‑d to "bless His people Israel with love"; our sages describe a "disciple of Aaron" as one who "loves peace, pursues peace, loves G‑ds creatures and brings them close to Torah." But this is precisely the reason that the Torah entrusts to the Kohen the task of condemning the metzora.
There is nothing more hateful to G‑d than division between His children. The metzora must be ostracized because, through his slander and tale-bearing, he is himself a source of divisiveness; nevertheless, the Torah is loath to separate him from the community. So it is not enough that the technical experts say that he marked by tzaraat. It is only when the Kohen--whose very being shudders at the thought of banishing a member of the community--is convinced that there is no escaping a verdict of tzaraat, that the metzora is separated from his people. And it is only when the one doing the banishing is suffused with loving concern for the banished person, that the penalty will yield a positive result--the repentance and rehabilitation of the metzora.
There is another lesson here as well: it is not the fact of the tzaraat that renders the metzora impure, but the Kohen's declaration of his impurity. In other words, no matter how terrible a persons state may be, to speak ill of him is more terrible still. The Kohen's saying that he is impure affects his spiritual state far more profoundly than the actual fact of histzaraat!
(The Lubavitcher Rebbe)
Because the plague of tzaraat comes in punishment for evil talk, which is an act of chatter, therefore birds are needed for his purification, because these chatter continuously with a twittering sound.
(Rashi; Talmud)
Because he has exalted himself like a cedar... he should humble himself like a grass.
(Midrash Tanchuma)
If the point is that he should show humility, why does he bring both a cedar and hyssop? But thetrue meaning of humility is not to broken and bowed, but to be humble even as one stands straight and tall.
(The Chassidic Masters)
A person should have two pockets in his coat. One should contain the Talmudic saying (Sanhedrin 37a), "A person is commanded to maintain: For my sake was the world created." In the second pocket he should keep the verse (Genesis 18:17), "I am but dust and ashes."
(Rabbi Bunim of Peshischa)
When you come into the land of Canaan.. I will put the plague of tzaraat in a house of the land of your possession (14:34)
It is good news for them that these plagues would come upon them. Because the Amorite [residents of Canaan] concealed treasures of gold in the walls of their houses during the 40 years the Israelites were in the wilderness, in order that these might not possess them when they conquered land, and in consequence of the plague they would pull down the house and discover them.
(Rashi; Midrash)
I will put the plague of tzaraat in a house (14:34)
So is it when leprous plagues come upon man: First they come upon his house. If he repents, it requires only the removal [of affected stones]; if not, it requires tearing down the entire house. Then the plagues come upon one's clothes. If he repents, they require washing; if not, they require burning. Then the plagues come upon his body. If he repents, he undergoes purification; if not, "He shall dwell alone."
(Midrash Rabbah)
Even if he be a learned man and knows for sure that it is a plague, he shall not decide the matter as a certainty saying, "there is a plague in the house," but, "It seems to me there is as it were a plague in the house."
(Talmud, Negaim 12:5)
The Torah is frugal with the property of the Jew.
(Talmud, Rosh Hashanah 27a)
This is why the Torah commands to remove everything from the afflicted house before the Kohen arrives. Otherwise, if the house requires shutting up, all that is inside immediately becomes impure.Over what is the Torah has regard in ordering these precautions to be taken? If it had in mind wooden or metal vessels that need only be immersed in water in order to restore them to cleanness, he can immerse them and they will become clean. If it has in mind food and liquids, he can eat them during the time of his uncleanness. Consequently it follows that the Torah is concerned only about earthen vessels, for which there is no means of purification in a mikvah! (earthen vessels being the least valuable items in a household).
(Sifra)
A man says to his friend, "Lend me a kav of wheat," and the other says, "I have none"; or one asks for the loan of a kav of barley... or a kav of dates, and the other says, "I have none." Or a woman says to her friend, "Lend me a sieve," and the other says, "I have none" ... What does G‑d do? He causes leprosy to light on his house, and as he takes out his household effects, people see, and say: "Did he not say, 'I have none'? See how much wheat is here, how much barley, how many dates! Cursed be the house with such cursed inhabitants!
(Midrash Rabbah)
Woe to the wicked, and woe to his neighbor! [For if the afflicted wall is shared between two homes,] both must take out the stones, both must scrape the walls, and both must bring the new stones....
(Talmud, Negaim 12:6)
And G‑d spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying... "When any man has a running issue out of his flesh..." (15:1-2)
One verse says, "Black like a raven" (Song of Songs 5:11), while other verses say, "His aspect is like Lebanon [from laban, white], excellent as the cedars" (ibid. 15) and "The appearance of them is like torches, they run to and fro like the lightnings" (Nachum 2:5)... This refers to those sections of the Torah which, though they appear as if repulsive and black to be spoken of in public, such as the laws relating to issues, leprosy, and childbirth, G‑d says: They are pleasing to Me.You have proof that this is so, since the sections relating to a man who has an issue and a woman who has an issue are not stated as one, but each by itself, namely, "When any man has an issue..." (Leviticus 15:1-18) and in a separate chapter (15:19-30) section, "And if a woman have an issue... "
(Midrash Rabbah)
"A prayer of David . . . Keep my soul, for I am pious" (Psalms 86:1-2). Thus spoke King David before G‑d: Master of the world, am I not pious? All the kings of the East and the West sit with all their pomp among their company, whereas my hands are soiled with the blood of menstruation, with the fetus and the placenta, in order to declare a woman clean for her husband. And what is more, in all that I do I consult my teacher, Mephibosheth, and I say to him: My teacher Mephibosheth, is my decision right? Did I correctly convict, correctly acquit, correctly declare clean, correctly declare unclean? And I am not ashamed.
(Talmud, Berachot 4a)
And if a woman have an issue, and her issue in her flesh be blood, she shall be seven days in her menstrual separation (15:19)
Why did the Torah ordain that the uncleanness of menstruation should continue for seven days? Because being in constant contact with his wife, a man might develop an apathy towards her. The Torah, therefore, ordained: Let her be unclean for seven days, in order that she shall be beloved by her husband as at the time that she first entered into the bridal chamber.
(Talmud, Niddah 31a)
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WOMEN
Seeing Your Treasures
I was the first Jew that she ever met. She was the first German that I ever met. by Elana Mizrahi
There once was a poor Jewish man living in Krakow. He dreamt one night about a treasure hidden under a bridge in Vienna. Night after night he dreamed the same dream, and finally one day he decided that he must travel to Vienna to claim his fortune.Seeing Your Treasures
I was the first Jew that she ever met. She was the first German that I ever met. by Elana Mizrahi
He left his family and embarked on a journey to Vienna. He traveled and found the bridge, but it was heavily guarded by the king’s soldiers. For two full weeks the man paced back and forth, back and forth, trying to figure out how to dig under the bridge without the guards noticing.
One soldier, who saw him pacing every day, came up to him at She was the first German I ever metthe end of the two weeks, grabbed him by the collar and shouted, “What are you doing here? Every day I see you pacing by this bridge! Explain right now what you are plotting!”
The startled man blurted out his story about the recurring dream and his trip from Krakow. The soldier burst out laughing, “You silly, foolish Jew! Only an idiot would let his life be guided by dreams. If I was as foolish as you, I would be well on my way to the city of Krakow. For just last night I dreamt that a poor Jew in that city has, buried in his cellar, a treasure which awaits discovery."
The poor Jew returned home to Krakow, dug under his cellar and found his treasure. “I had the treasure in my possession the entire time, but I had to travel to faraway Vienna to realize it!”
When I was 18, I spent a summer working in Geneva, Switzerland. I lived in a youth hostel, and I met women from all over Europe. I was a bit lonely, and another girl, who was also a bit lonely, tried to be my friend. I hesitated. She was a very pretty, tall blonde German teenager. I, a granddaughter of survivors of the Holocaust, had no desire to be friends with a German. She persisted. We spoke. She asked a lot of questions. I was the first Jew that she ever met. She was the first German that I ever met. We would walk together and sit in the park and have discussions, She asked a lot of questionsback in the days when people actually talked instead of texted. One day she asked me, “Can I come with you to synagogue?”
I thought, “Why not?”
I stopped a man wearing chassidic garb in the street and asked him where the synagogue was located. He told me where there was one, and the following Saturday morning Anna and I walked there. After all, if Anna wanted to go, shouldn’t I, Jewish Elana, want to go too?
We stepped inside. Some women came up to us, invited us to sit down and handed us prayerbooks. The Hebrew words, the tunes and the prayers were all familiar to me. I felt at home. Afterwards, women again came up to us and invited us to eat. Anna observed all this and looked at me in wonderment. “You have all this?”
What did I have? A treasure in my hand that someone had to point out to me before I could see it. I had the holy Shabbat. I had a community, a tradition, a way of life, a people. When I returned to the States after that summer, I started keeping Shabbat. My German friend Anna unlocked a treasure chest within my heart—my soul—that made me realize, Yes, I have all this . . .
I go through my day. There are endless piles of laundry that need washing or putting away. I sweep the floor for the 20th time; I cook and cut and chop. This child has a test tomorrow, and so we sit down to review together. Another child needs me to read him a story, and another one wants to jump and dance. The baby needs to be changed, nursed and put to sleep. It seems like every day is like the day before.
But when you have a baby, almost every day also consists of “firsts.” Today I gave my baby his first “finger food.” I put a piece of cereal into his mouth to see if he would like it. He did. Excited by the new adventure of eating something harder than mush, he squealed and smiled. I took my cue and put a few pieces of cereal in front of him on his tray. His little hand grabbed at them, and he managed to pick them up. He held on to them tightly, and then he succeeded in putting one in his mouth. The rest stayed tightly in his hand.
Suddenly he got distracted and looked up at me. I smiled. He smiled. I laughed. He laughed. He looked back down at his tray, and then, as though a bit confused, he started looking for the cereal pieces. He had already forgotten that they were in his pudgy hand! I opened his hand for him to show him the treasure that was already his, and once again he smiled and squealed with A few hours before Shabbat, I get a calldelight. What a blessing—to recognize, to see the treasure you already have . . .
Back to my routine. Wednesday, shopping for Shabbat. Thursday, cooking. Friday, baking and cleaning, and getting the kids bathed and ready for Shabbat. A few hours before Shabbat, I get a call. “Elana?” I hear an accent and try to place the voice. Who is this? A client?
“Yes?”
“Elana, it’s Anna. I’m in Israel.”
My mind travels back to nearly two decades ago, and I see my tall, beautiful friend Anna. After we first met that summer in Switzerland, we wrote letters and kept in touch. We had a rendezvous in Amsterdam two years later. A few months after my wedding, Anna showed up in Mexico, where we were living. She stayed with us for a week. That was 15 years ago, and as time went by, the letters became less frequent, our lives became so drastically different, and we lost touch.
“Anna?”
“I know that it’s almost Shabbat, but I’m here on a trip with a delegation, and I want to see you. I can come to Jerusalem on Sunday afternoon. Does that work for you?”
In Israel, Sunday is like a Monday. It’s a regular day of the week. The children go to school. I work in the morning. They come home, we eat lunch, and the sweeping and cooking and chopping begins again. The phone rings. It’s Anna; she is on her way. I go to the street with my little ones to meet her. This one is on a bicycle, this one on a scooter, the baby is in my arms. There’s my tall, beautiful Anna. She looks the same.
“Anna, you look beautiful.”
“Elana, so do you!”
I take Anna up to my home, to my piles of dishes and laundry. We take Anna to the market, because I’m out of eggs and cucumbers. I make eggs and whole wheat couscous for my kids for dinner. Anna tells me that she works for a German embassy. She’s always traveling around the world. She takes it all in as I bathe my little ones. My daughter helps me with my I know she’s right. I have a treasure.4-year-old, and my oldest son helps me with the baby. Anna watches and she listens. Like always, she observes, and then, what does my beautiful German diplomat friend tell me as she departs with a hug and kiss? “Elana, you have all this? Elana, I’m so happy for you! I feel the peace in your home. I see you happy. Your husband and children are wonderful. Elana, you have it all . . .”
I look at my home, and I know that she’s right. I have a treasure. I have holiness and peace and noise. I have a messy floor, and I have singing and laughter. I have Shabbat, Torah, a nation and a tradition. I have it all.
On Shabbat, something very special happens. We have no guests for dinner, and I look at my children and lovingly drink them up. We all sing together. We eat. We talk. I tell my husband, “Wasn’t it such a beautiful dinner?”
It was a gift, this visit from Anna, because once again she pointed out the treasure that I get too distracted to see, but that I have held within my own hands all along.
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From One Mom to Another, a Newfound Empathy
Have you ever met a paranoid mother? I mean really paranoid, certifiably paranoid, meshuge paranoid? by Sarah Lowenthal
Well, I did. Growing up in my community in Ottawa, I was acquainted with “Karen.” She told everyone that her son had “life-threatening” allergies to a mile-long list of foods. Karen followed her son everywhere, like an overanxious and overeager puppy.
I can still see her smearing Benadryl lotion on her son’s arms at a birthday party because he was exposed to eggs from the birthday cake. Although the child did not actually eat the cake, she was Have you ever met a paranoid mother?worried that the contaminants from the eggs were airborne and might give him hives. At the time, I tried picturing airborne egg contaminants flying around and killing people. I never took her seriously.
Karen would not allow her son into any facility that did not take his allergies seriously. By seriously, I mean “top of the list, de-sanitize everything serious” so that her child would be “safe.” Watching the school or camp bend over backwards to accommodate this little boy and his allergies, I would think unkindly to myself: “Why does Karen insist on imposing her son’s needs on everyone, everywhere? Is our world really so unsafe?”
Karen also told everyone that she had a child with disabilities, and I would think: “What? Allergies are disabilities?”
I was both judge and jury to Karen. I figured that because she was an older first-time mother, she needed to ease up a bit. I was even slightly concerned for the mental health of her child.
Well, that was then! I was already a mother of two children myself, but then my precious third child was born. From the moment he entered this world, he began scratching himself.
At three months he figured out how to use one leg to rub behind the other leg, and by 12 months we had to sew socks onto the sleeves of his pajamas because he would scratch himself until he bled.
Our poor baby was suffering from terrible eczema, and we knew it was time to see an allergist. Imagine my utter shock when our son tested positive for food allergies. He was not only anaphylactic (extremely sensitive allergic reaction) to a host of foods, but he needed to be in a fish-free environment, as his body would not be able to deal with airborne smells (yes, airborne!) or touch and cross-contamination.
I now had one EpiPen and a bottle of liquid Benadryl banging around in my purse at all times, and a whole lot of “practice” EpiPens that I used for training everyone that could conceivably come in contact with my baby.
I probably should have called Karen to apologize profusely to her, but I was too embarrassed. I definitely had a different opinion about the “paranoid mom” that I remembered. In fact, I was now her!
When my son was a baby, it was relatively easy for me to have complete control over him. I knew where he was at all times and what he was eating. I felt secure knowing that my house was free of all his allergens and that his medications were always nearby.
However, as he got older and started having playdates, birthday parties and outings to preschool and synagogue, I would lie in bed at night, conjuring up the most nightmarish visions, entire scenarios where everything that could go wrong does. I felt helplessly out of control. I would wake up sweating, anxious to push my morbid thoughts away. I would look over at my husband and know that while he also has his anxieties about our son’s I felt helplessly out of controlallergies, he can still sleep at night.
My husband is convinced that our son is more sensitive and compassionate as a result of his food allergies. I’m not so sure. I see a regular, rambunctious (and sometimes difficult) 3-year-old boy, and I want it to stay that way.
Very often my little boy wakes me in middle of the night, asking for a drink of water. As I watch him gulp it down, I send up a prayer to heaven. “PleaseG‑d, watch over my little one. Let all the people who care for him appreciate the severity of his allergies, and let him grow to be as carefree as any other child his age.
“Please help our community to understand the life-and-death stakes of being a child with anaphylactic food allergies. Help them to understand that a severely allergic child can die without his meds.
“Please G‑d, bless all the people who care for my son, and bless their efforts to help him grow up feeling loved, protected and safe.”
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VIDEO
We Don’t See Things the Way They Are
We don’t always see things the way they are, we see them the way we are. The illustration of a big tree and a little shrub offers three essentials for loving relationships. by David Aaron
Watch (2:23)
We Don’t See Things the Way They Are
We don’t always see things the way they are, we see them the way we are. The illustration of a big tree and a little shrub offers three essentials for loving relationships. by David Aaron
Watch (2:23)
<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript" src="http://embed.chabad.org/multimedia/mediaplayer/embedded/embed.js.asp?aid=3283425&width=auto&height=auto"></script><span style="clear:both;" class="lb" id="lbdiv">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>.</span>
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A Chassidic Melody Sung on Shabbat
Feel the rhythm of the soul, get inspired by Benny Friedman
Watch (7:12)
<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript" src="http://embed.chabad.org/multimedia/mediaplayer/embedded/embed.js.asp?aid=3230078&width=auto&height=auto"></script><span style="clear:both;" class="lb" id="lbdiv">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>.</span>
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LIFESTYLE
Rich & Silky Chocolate Mousse DessertKosher for Passover by Miriam Szokovski
This Passover dessert excites me! It is a far cry from your typical Passover dry sponge cakes and icy sorbets. The idea began percolating in my mind a couple of months ago, and after quite a bit of rethinking, testing, fixing, refining and retesting, I can confidently say it was well worth the effort.Rich & Silky Chocolate Mousse DessertKosher for Passover by Miriam Szokovski
Passover desserts have a bad reputation, but here’s an opportunity to change that. The mousse is non-dairy, and while everyone has their own Passover customs, I think this is doable for most.
There are a number of different elements here, but don’t let that overwhelm you. For one thing, each element uses only 2–3 ingredients. And for another, you can choose to leave out some parts.
I’ve done my best to walk you through the steps with notes about all the potential pressure points, and as always, feel free to leave your questions in the comments and I’ll help you out.
So, what is it exactly?
It’s a silky chocolate mousse, served with a chewy almond crumb, crispy meringues and fresh fruit. Oh, and it’s delicious!
The fresh fruit is just that—plain fruit. And the mint leaf garnish is optional. Which leaves you with three things to focus on: the crumb, the mousse and the meringue.
The crumb is the easiest of the three. You’re basically just mixing the ingredients like a cookie dough, but you’re looking for a slightly more crumbly texture.
Pour that out onto a baking sheet, bake for 10–12 minutes, and after it cools, crumble it gently with your hands and you’re done.
(Note: Both these pictures are of the crumb raw. It will spread and look more cookie-like after it’s baked.)
The meringue is not difficult or time-consuming, if you have mixer. A stand mixer is best, but a hand mixer will also work. You can whisk it by hand, but it will take significantly longer and a lot of elbow grease. I also have a shortcut for you with this. Instead of piping out individual mini-meringues, you can spread the mixture out and bake it as a flat sheet. Then break it into shards to use on the plate. It will taste the same and still be visually appealing.
The mousse is the most interesting element, and the hero of the dish. You probably know that water is generally chocolate’s nemesis. Get even a tiny droplet of water into your melted chocolate and it will instantly seize, becoming grainy and unsalvageable, which is what makes this recipe so surprising.
Created by Hervé This, a French chemist, the vigorous whisking in this recipe counteracts that, and you get a beautiful, creamy mousse, with pure chocolate flavor. If you’re having trouble understanding this part of the recipe, Google “Herve This chocolate mousse.” There are several videos online of people making it, and you can see how simple it actually is.
Keep in mind, the mousse is very rich, so a little goes a long way.
Last week I made this dessert for 60 people at a pre-Passover event, and it was a huge success. I hope you’ll give it a try too!
You will need:
4 oranges, segmented
1 pomegranate, seeded
Almond crumb (recipe below)
Mini Swiss meringues (recipe below)
Chocolate mousse (recipe below)
Mint leaves for garnish (optional)
Flaked sea salt (optional)
Note: You can prepare all the elements in advance. Just keep each part separate until serving.
Chewy Almond Crumb:
1 cup natural almond butter, or 2 cups raw almonds
½ cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp. kosher salt
Directions:
Use 1 cup bought almond butter, or make your own. To make 1 cup of almond butter, spread 2 cups raw almonds on a baking sheet, and bake at 350° F (180° C) for 10–15 minutes. Pour the almonds into the bowl of a food processor and run for 5–10 minutes, stopping to scrape down the sides every few minutes. (Amount of time will vary, depending on the strength of your food processor.) When the almonds have formed a smooth paste, it is ready, and you can continue with the rest of the recipe.
Pour the almond butter and sugar into a bowl and mix. Add the egg and the salt, and mix until the dough resembles soft crumbs. Spread the crumbs out over a cookie sheet and bake at 350° F (180° C) for 12 minutes.
NOTE: If you end up with a ball of smooth dough, that’s okay too. Press chunks of dough down onto the pan and bake for 12–15 minutes.
Mixture will spread while baking. Remove from oven and let fully cool. Then crumble and store in an airtight container until ready to use. If you want to make it more than a day or two in advance, store in an airtight container in the freezer.
Mini Swiss Meringues:
2 egg whites
10 tablespoons (112 grams) sugar
Directions:
Your best bet for this is to use a stand mixer. You can use a hand mixer, which will take a bit longer. You could even whip by hand with a whisk, but that will take much, much longer.
Place the egg whites and sugar in the mixer bowl.
Fill a small pot with about an inch of water. Bring the water to a simmer, then place the mixer bowl over the pot (the bottom of the bowl should not touch the water). Gently whisk the egg whites and sugar for about 10 minutes, until the sugar has dissolved. (To check if it’s ready, rub a bit of the egg white between your fingers. If the sugar hasn’t fully dissolved, it will feel grainy.)
As soon as it’s ready, take the bowl off the pot and transfer to your mixer. Beat, using the whisk attachment, until the mixture has cooled and forms stiff peaks.
I piped individual mini-meringues using a piping bag and a star tip, but I have two alternatives for you, if you don’t have the equipment or aren’t comfortable with piping. A) You can spoon the mixture into a zip-top bag, seal, cut one corner off, and pipe them like that. B) You can bake the meringue as a thin sheet, then break it into rough pieces, different shapes, like shards.
Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. Either pipe the meringues on, or spread the mixture across thinly, using a spatula.
Place the baking sheet into an oven and bake at 200° F (100° C) for 90 minutes. Turn the oven off and leave the meringue in the oven for another hour or so, to finish drying out. When the meringues feel hard and dry, they are ready. Store in an airtight container for up to two weeks.
Chocolate Mousse:
20 oz. (570 grams) good quality bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, roughly chopped
2 cups cold water
Ice
Directions:
Fill a large bowl about a third of the way with ice and a small amount of water. Set a second, smaller bowl aside. This bowl should fit comfortably in the larger bowl.
Place the chocolate and the water in a saucepan. Cook over low heat, whisking occasionally, for about 5 minutes, until chocolate is fully melted and mixture is smooth.
Take the pot off the stove and pour the chocolate mixture into the small bowl. Place the small bowl in the ice bath and immediately begin to whisk vigorously. Whisk for approximately 10–15 minutes, until chocolate thickens to mousse consistency. Refrigerate until serving.
Note 1: When you feel the mixture start to thicken, be careful. If you over-beat it, it will turn grainy. If that happens, don’t panic. You don’t have to throw it out, but you do have to start again. Melt the mixture back down to a liquid and go through the steps again.
Note 2: It’s a lot of whisking, and your arm might well get tired. You can share the job around the kitchen with whoever else is around. If they want mousse, they gotta work for it! If you can’t manage to get it to the right consistency, you can still use it. Refrigerate, and it will thicken in the fridge. It will just be more of a ganache than a mousse. You can also try using a hand mixer for the first few minutes, and then switch to the whisk when it starts to thicken.
Note 3: Use good quality chocolate or chocolate chips for this recipe, since it is the primary flavor. You don’t want to use baking chocolate, but the kind of chocolate you would eat. I’ve done it with 72%, 55% and 45% chocolate. The 72% is probably too bittersweet for most people’s tastes, so I suggest going with a slightly lower option. I recently made this for an event and I used the 45%, which went over very well.
Note 4: You can halve this recipe, but do not go less than that.
To assemble:
Place about 2–3 tbsp. almond crumb on each plate.
Use an ice cream scoop to shape the mousse. Dip the scoop into warm water between each scoop.
Place the mousse on top of the almond crumb, and now add the fresh fruit, meringues and mint leaf garnish. Sprinkle a few flakes of sea salt over the mousse, and enjoy!
Note: You could also serve this in a cup. Crumb on the bottom, then mousse, then fresh fruit and meringue.
Yields: Approximately 20 servings.
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Make a Toy Seder Plate by Chana Scop
You will need:
Fimo clay in white, brown, red, cream, and dark and light green (found at Michaels and other craft stores)
1 heavy-duty plastic plate
6 round stickers
Optional: a second heavy-duty plastic plate and a sheet of clear plastic paper
Directions:
Stick the stickers on the plate to indicate where each item belongs. (Alternatively, you can draw your own circles.)
Mold the clay into the shapes of the Seder plate items. Bake the clay, following the instructions on the packet, and let it cool.
Optional: To add a cover, cut a large circle in the center of a second paper plate and cover with a clear plastic sheet. Paint the outer rim of the lid and plate silver.
Your kids will enjoy playing with this long-lasting Seder plate in the weeks leading up to Pesach, as well as at the Seder itself.
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JEWISH NEWS
A Rabbinic Family’s Calling: Lend an Ear to the Incarcerated
A Chicago rabbi and his sons have been working with prisoners in the Midwest for more than 35 years. by Menachem Posner
Rabbi Binyomin Scheiman outside his Illinois Chabad House, which serves the Jewish communities of Niles and Des Plaines.
Growing up in a modest townhouse northwest of Chicago, the eight Scheiman children never asked the stories behind the haggard men and women who would join their family for the Passover seder and Shabbat meals throughout the year.
“We never even thought about the fact that most of them had recently come out of jail,” says Rabbi Mendel Scheiman, who now co-directs Chabad of Southern Illinois University (SIU) in Carbondale, Ill., with his wife, Yochi. “That’s just the way it was. Our parents invited them in, and we never thought twice.”
Now, the rabbi and two of his brothers have all caught their father’s “prison bug,” serving the spiritual needs of Jewish people behind bars all over the state of Illinois.
“I began visiting prisoners back in 1980,” says Rabbi Binyomin Scheiman, a man of small stature with a legendary big heart. “These were people who needed to be helped, and I was the right person at the right time.”
The rabbi says that his inspiration comes from the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory.
“The Rebbe charged us to reach out to all Jews—including those on the periphery, those who are often overlooked,” says Scheiman, who began his work in Illinois after receiving the Rebbe’s blessing and would regularly report to the Rebbe on his activities. “The Rebbe spoke about the great spiritual stature of the souls that are tasked to go into the deepest, darkest places, and there are fewer places darker than prison.”
And so he began criss-crossing the Midwestern state, stopping to visit every Jewish person behind bars at least once a month.
Scheiman has spent decades working with Jewish inmates.
Former inmate Neil Katov attests that “when I went to prison for 30 months, the rabbi came every month to see me. I was the only Jew there, and I have no family. He made me feel that no matter where I went, I had a Jewish family.”
Throughout the years, the rabbi has worked closely with the staff at the Florida-based Aleph Institute, which was founded at the direction of the Rebbe in 1981 to provide for the spiritual and physical needs of Jewish soldiers and prisoners and their families throughout the United States.
Scheiman would often be gone from home for most of the week as he drove around Illinois visiting his scattered flock. All the while, he continued to serve as a Chabad emissary to Niles, a middle-class suburb not far from Chicago’s O’Hare Airport.
‘Embrace Their Future’
Much of the burden of caring for their large family fell on the shoulders of his wife, Hinda, who opened her home to the many former inmates her husband would keep in touch with once they were free.
“Not everyone would be comfortable with that,” Rabbi Daniel Moscowitz, the late regional director of Lubavitch Chabad of Illinois, once remarked. “But Mrs. Scheiman took that as a matter of fact—welcoming them and helping them embrace their future.”
“I was honored to come to his house, meet his family and share the Sabbath,” says a woman who had been visited by the rabbi throughout her 13-year prison stay. “It had been a long time since I had a sit-down meal. The family was so welcoming, warm, heartfelt and so genuine. To see the rabbi in a different setting and not just on the other side of a bare table . . . I am honored and blessed and thankful.”
Recognizing that there was more work than what he and his wife were doing, the rabbi approached his sons Chaim and Mendel, both newly married ordained rabbis living in Brooklyn, N.Y., to see if they would consider moving to Illinois to join him in his work.
As they made plans for the expansion of what was then called JPAF (the Jewish Prisoners Assistance Foundation), Mrs. Scheiman lay in a hospital bed battling for her life. She passed away in the spring of 2013.
Months later, the two young rabbis and their budding families moved back to their home state, joining their father at the newly formed HINDA (Helping INDividuals Ascend) Institute, a tribute to the woman whose good cheer and faith had been the backbone of her husband’s work.
Mendel and Yochi Scheiman moved to Carbondale, a small city in the south of the state. In addition to serving an estimated 300 Jewish students at Southern Illinois University, they have taken responsibility for the inmates in the 12 federal and state prisons that dot the area.
Cook County Jail, where the Scheimans visit prisoners. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
Their two constituencies—those on the inside and those on the outside—have interacted in interesting ways. The students often write letters and prepare holiday packages to be mailed to prisoners.
Many have even struck up pen-pal correspondences. “My pen pal never had a family, and has been thankful for the connection to the world and someone to correspond with,” says Herb Lukes, a native of Highland Park, Ill., who is studying finance at SIU. “We make sure to write at least once a month.”
‘The Humanity of the Individual’
At the same time, Rabbi Chaim Scheiman and his wife, Chaya Mushka, began working with people incarcerated in Cook County Jail (by way of which most Chicago-area offenders enter the penal system) and with those outside the prison.
Today, the couple is busy keeping in touch with ex-offenders as they find their way back into society, as well as serving the needs of the families of those behind bars. The rabbi learns Torah with more than three-dozen individual ex-offenders every week.
The rabbi with two young incarcerated men
“Our main work is re-entry,” says Chaya Mushka Scheiman. “More than anything else, someone re-entering society needs to know that there is someone who cares for them and will be there for them no matter what.”
She points out the rate of recidivism among ex-offenders who remain in touch with them is at an astonishingly low 10 percent. “Through constant contact, were able to help them stay focused on living a clean, crime free life,” she says, “Just that regular phone call from an understanding human being makes all the difference.”
She notes that some of their success can be attributed to the considerable work they do with the parents, siblings, and children of incarcerated people, holding conference calls where people can share struggles, tips, and support among people going through similar challenges.
A native of Montreal, Canada, who had no prior association with the world of prison, she says it was difficult for her to acclimate to working with people who had done wrong. “My father-in-law taught me a lot,” she says, “including how to separate the person from the crime, and view them as an individual in need of help and rehabilitation.”
At the same time, she says that the job requires more than just love and understanding. Citing the example of a the negative experience she had with a troubled young woman who actually lived in her apartment during a brief break between prison sentences, she says she has learned to say “no” and to be firm with the guidance she gives.
Since the parents of incarcerated people tend to be elderly, she says her work has also grown to include guiding people through the confusing choices and emotions that come with the end of life, which are compounded by the fact that their children are not there to support them.
Rabbi Chaim Scheiman assists an ex-offender in hanging a mezuzah.
Meanwhile, the eldest Scheiman son, Rabbi Schneur Scheiman, remained devoted to his work directing Camp Gan Israel and other programs for children in the Chicago area.
Recently, however, his father asked him to begin visiting 11 prisons in the state, which takes approximately three days a month. “I wasn’t sure how I would do it,” says his son. “Initially, when going with my father for training, I was overwhelmed by all the paperwork, the visits in a maximum-security prison and everything else that comes along with spending time with people who have done something wrong. After getting into it, though, I have to admit that I enjoy it and feel good doing it. I feel like it complements my other work. Putting tefillin on that Jew who everyone else tries to ignore helps you to appreciate the neshamah—the soul that each person has.
Their work has extended beyond inmates. “I consider Rabbi Binyomin Scheiman my friend, my rabbi and my mentor,” says Stephen C. Keim, chief of chaplains for the Illinois Department of Corrections. “I’ve been to his home for many celebrations, and now I often go to his children, Mendel and Yochi in Carbondale.”
According to Keim, the rabbi is unique among chaplains in that he “makes time for everyone.”
“He is so very accessible and willing to speak to everyone, whether they are Jewish or not,” says Keim. “He takes the time to explain the Noahide Laws, and provides them with literature and resources. He is very much willing to go out of his way to be helpful to anyone looking for direction and spiritual guidance. He’ll acknowledge the humanity of the individual and their questioning, and that’s very special in the prison environment.”
Even with the additional manpower, the elder Rabbi Scheiman, who recently celebrated his 60th birthday, has no plans to slow down.
“It used to be that I would struggle to care for everyone and everything. With all that going on, it was inevitable that things would fall through the cracks,” he acknowledges. “Now we are able to do so much more—and do it all so much better.”
A family photo: The Scheiman home was always open, especially for those the rabbi was helping reintegrate back into society.
Justice Michael Hyman, left, and attorney James Goldberg present Scheiman with the Gerald Bender Humanitarian Award.
Scheiman with fellow chaplains at a conference organized by the Aleph Institute, which is based in Florida.
Students at Chabad at SIU in Carbondale, Ill., write letters to Jewish inmates …
… while others craft holiday cards for them.
A Rabbinic Family’s Calling: Lend an Ear to the Incarcerated
A Chicago rabbi and his sons have been working with prisoners in the Midwest for more than 35 years. by Menachem Posner
Rabbi Binyomin Scheiman outside his Illinois Chabad House, which serves the Jewish communities of Niles and Des Plaines.
Growing up in a modest townhouse northwest of Chicago, the eight Scheiman children never asked the stories behind the haggard men and women who would join their family for the Passover seder and Shabbat meals throughout the year.
“We never even thought about the fact that most of them had recently come out of jail,” says Rabbi Mendel Scheiman, who now co-directs Chabad of Southern Illinois University (SIU) in Carbondale, Ill., with his wife, Yochi. “That’s just the way it was. Our parents invited them in, and we never thought twice.”
Now, the rabbi and two of his brothers have all caught their father’s “prison bug,” serving the spiritual needs of Jewish people behind bars all over the state of Illinois.
“I began visiting prisoners back in 1980,” says Rabbi Binyomin Scheiman, a man of small stature with a legendary big heart. “These were people who needed to be helped, and I was the right person at the right time.”
The rabbi says that his inspiration comes from the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory.
“The Rebbe charged us to reach out to all Jews—including those on the periphery, those who are often overlooked,” says Scheiman, who began his work in Illinois after receiving the Rebbe’s blessing and would regularly report to the Rebbe on his activities. “The Rebbe spoke about the great spiritual stature of the souls that are tasked to go into the deepest, darkest places, and there are fewer places darker than prison.”
And so he began criss-crossing the Midwestern state, stopping to visit every Jewish person behind bars at least once a month.
Scheiman has spent decades working with Jewish inmates.
Former inmate Neil Katov attests that “when I went to prison for 30 months, the rabbi came every month to see me. I was the only Jew there, and I have no family. He made me feel that no matter where I went, I had a Jewish family.”
Throughout the years, the rabbi has worked closely with the staff at the Florida-based Aleph Institute, which was founded at the direction of the Rebbe in 1981 to provide for the spiritual and physical needs of Jewish soldiers and prisoners and their families throughout the United States.
Scheiman would often be gone from home for most of the week as he drove around Illinois visiting his scattered flock. All the while, he continued to serve as a Chabad emissary to Niles, a middle-class suburb not far from Chicago’s O’Hare Airport.
‘Embrace Their Future’
Much of the burden of caring for their large family fell on the shoulders of his wife, Hinda, who opened her home to the many former inmates her husband would keep in touch with once they were free.
“Not everyone would be comfortable with that,” Rabbi Daniel Moscowitz, the late regional director of Lubavitch Chabad of Illinois, once remarked. “But Mrs. Scheiman took that as a matter of fact—welcoming them and helping them embrace their future.”
“I was honored to come to his house, meet his family and share the Sabbath,” says a woman who had been visited by the rabbi throughout her 13-year prison stay. “It had been a long time since I had a sit-down meal. The family was so welcoming, warm, heartfelt and so genuine. To see the rabbi in a different setting and not just on the other side of a bare table . . . I am honored and blessed and thankful.”
Recognizing that there was more work than what he and his wife were doing, the rabbi approached his sons Chaim and Mendel, both newly married ordained rabbis living in Brooklyn, N.Y., to see if they would consider moving to Illinois to join him in his work.
As they made plans for the expansion of what was then called JPAF (the Jewish Prisoners Assistance Foundation), Mrs. Scheiman lay in a hospital bed battling for her life. She passed away in the spring of 2013.
Months later, the two young rabbis and their budding families moved back to their home state, joining their father at the newly formed HINDA (Helping INDividuals Ascend) Institute, a tribute to the woman whose good cheer and faith had been the backbone of her husband’s work.
Mendel and Yochi Scheiman moved to Carbondale, a small city in the south of the state. In addition to serving an estimated 300 Jewish students at Southern Illinois University, they have taken responsibility for the inmates in the 12 federal and state prisons that dot the area.
Cook County Jail, where the Scheimans visit prisoners. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
Their two constituencies—those on the inside and those on the outside—have interacted in interesting ways. The students often write letters and prepare holiday packages to be mailed to prisoners.
Many have even struck up pen-pal correspondences. “My pen pal never had a family, and has been thankful for the connection to the world and someone to correspond with,” says Herb Lukes, a native of Highland Park, Ill., who is studying finance at SIU. “We make sure to write at least once a month.”
‘The Humanity of the Individual’
At the same time, Rabbi Chaim Scheiman and his wife, Chaya Mushka, began working with people incarcerated in Cook County Jail (by way of which most Chicago-area offenders enter the penal system) and with those outside the prison.
Today, the couple is busy keeping in touch with ex-offenders as they find their way back into society, as well as serving the needs of the families of those behind bars. The rabbi learns Torah with more than three-dozen individual ex-offenders every week.
The rabbi with two young incarcerated men
“Our main work is re-entry,” says Chaya Mushka Scheiman. “More than anything else, someone re-entering society needs to know that there is someone who cares for them and will be there for them no matter what.”
She points out the rate of recidivism among ex-offenders who remain in touch with them is at an astonishingly low 10 percent. “Through constant contact, were able to help them stay focused on living a clean, crime free life,” she says, “Just that regular phone call from an understanding human being makes all the difference.”
She notes that some of their success can be attributed to the considerable work they do with the parents, siblings, and children of incarcerated people, holding conference calls where people can share struggles, tips, and support among people going through similar challenges.
A native of Montreal, Canada, who had no prior association with the world of prison, she says it was difficult for her to acclimate to working with people who had done wrong. “My father-in-law taught me a lot,” she says, “including how to separate the person from the crime, and view them as an individual in need of help and rehabilitation.”
At the same time, she says that the job requires more than just love and understanding. Citing the example of a the negative experience she had with a troubled young woman who actually lived in her apartment during a brief break between prison sentences, she says she has learned to say “no” and to be firm with the guidance she gives.
Since the parents of incarcerated people tend to be elderly, she says her work has also grown to include guiding people through the confusing choices and emotions that come with the end of life, which are compounded by the fact that their children are not there to support them.
Rabbi Chaim Scheiman assists an ex-offender in hanging a mezuzah.
Meanwhile, the eldest Scheiman son, Rabbi Schneur Scheiman, remained devoted to his work directing Camp Gan Israel and other programs for children in the Chicago area.
Recently, however, his father asked him to begin visiting 11 prisons in the state, which takes approximately three days a month. “I wasn’t sure how I would do it,” says his son. “Initially, when going with my father for training, I was overwhelmed by all the paperwork, the visits in a maximum-security prison and everything else that comes along with spending time with people who have done something wrong. After getting into it, though, I have to admit that I enjoy it and feel good doing it. I feel like it complements my other work. Putting tefillin on that Jew who everyone else tries to ignore helps you to appreciate the neshamah—the soul that each person has.
Their work has extended beyond inmates. “I consider Rabbi Binyomin Scheiman my friend, my rabbi and my mentor,” says Stephen C. Keim, chief of chaplains for the Illinois Department of Corrections. “I’ve been to his home for many celebrations, and now I often go to his children, Mendel and Yochi in Carbondale.”
According to Keim, the rabbi is unique among chaplains in that he “makes time for everyone.”
“He is so very accessible and willing to speak to everyone, whether they are Jewish or not,” says Keim. “He takes the time to explain the Noahide Laws, and provides them with literature and resources. He is very much willing to go out of his way to be helpful to anyone looking for direction and spiritual guidance. He’ll acknowledge the humanity of the individual and their questioning, and that’s very special in the prison environment.”
Even with the additional manpower, the elder Rabbi Scheiman, who recently celebrated his 60th birthday, has no plans to slow down.
“It used to be that I would struggle to care for everyone and everything. With all that going on, it was inevitable that things would fall through the cracks,” he acknowledges. “Now we are able to do so much more—and do it all so much better.”
A family photo: The Scheiman home was always open, especially for those the rabbi was helping reintegrate back into society.
Justice Michael Hyman, left, and attorney James Goldberg present Scheiman with the Gerald Bender Humanitarian Award.
Scheiman with fellow chaplains at a conference organized by the Aleph Institute, which is based in Florida.
Students at Chabad at SIU in Carbondale, Ill., write letters to Jewish inmates …
… while others craft holiday cards for them.
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Missing High School Girls Found Alive in Orlando Swamp
Family thanks police, volunteers and those who prayed for the girls’ safety by Chabad.org Staff
Rabbi Yosef Konikov, director of Chabad of South Orlando, thanks one of the police officers who waded through a Florida swamp to rescue two high school girls.
Two high school girls from Miami who went missing Saturday afternoon during a weekend trip to Orlando, Fla., with their school were found by search teams on Sunday and were on the way to a local hospital, where they will be reunited with their families.
A police helicopter spotted Brocha Katz and Rivkah Moshe, both 16 years old, who were last seen taking a walk together at the Caribe Resort. A rescue team was sent to an isolated spot in a densely forested swampland near the hotel where they were staying.
While they were only several thousand feet away from the hotel, it took the rescue team more than two hours to reach them.
Rivkah Moshe, left, and Brocha Katz were found on Sunday in a heavily forested swampland after going missing on Saturday afternoon.
“Thank G‑d, the girls are back and have been reunited with their parents,” said Rabbi Yosef Konikov, director of Chabad of South Orlando. “They are generally OK, and they’re in an ambulance now on the way to the hospital. Obviously, everyone here is elated.”
The girls’ families, who came up from Miami to Orlando when their children were reported missing, expressed their gratitude for everyone who was involved in the rescue.
Devorah Shor, sister of Brocha Katz, thanked “every single police officer, Hatzala member, volunteer, every person who said tehillim, organized rallies,tehillim events and Hakhel gatherings on their behalf, as well as the outpouring of love and support.”
Police initially searched the forested areas around the resort with infrared-equipped helicopters and K-9 teams, but came me up empty. Meanwhile, hundreds of volunteers gathered from Orlando and came up from Miami, where the girls are from, to assist in the search.
At daybreak, volunteer search teams gathered and began fanning out to the neighborhoods surrounding the resort, going door to door, looking for information about the girls and distributing missing persons’ flyers. After daybreak, the police began a visual search of the forested area by helicopter.
Police and volunteers confer about the search.
The thickly forested swampland was difficult for search-and-rescue workers.
Some of the hundreds of volunteers who came from throughout the state to help.
After learning that the girls were safe, the hotel's manager, Keith Odza, put on tefillin for the first time. He was helped by Rabbi Zvi Konikov, right, of Chabad of the Space & Treasure Coasts. At left is Rabbi Yosef Konikov of Chabad of South Orlando. “Today is your bar mitzvah,” Rabbi Zvi Konikov told Odza. “We should always remember that when things seem like they can't go right, like this day, darkness can turn into light.”
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Birthday Greetings From One Young Emissary to Another
A new platform makes the world smaller and warmer for a group of children. by Chaya Mushkah Slonim
Young boys and girls living in remote cities worldwide are now linked by a personalized database system through which they can send and receive birthday messages.
Social media has revolutionized the idea of a birthday greeting; instead of a card in the mail, users receive a remarkable number of online well-wishes. It can be called a “global celebration,” but how truly meaningful is it?
What if you tweaked the technology to shrink the world just a bit, so that a niche group could benefit from this on a much smaller scale?
A Facebook-like platform for doing exactly that—celebrating birthdays with friends across the globe—was recently unveiled by the Chinuch Yaldei Hashluchim (CYH) division of The Shluchim Office, Chabad-LubavitchResource Center.
Young boys and girls living in remote cities worldwide are now linked by a personalized database system through which they can send and receive birthday messages. Once logged on to the website, each child receives exclusive access to a list of all of the youngChabad emissaries whose birthdays are being celebrated that day, as well as a secure method of sending and receiving birthday messages to friends old and new.
More than 1,000 young emissaries living in places like Moscow, Shanghai, Sydney, Barcelona and Honolulu are enjoying this new way to connect with their friends, celebrating birthdays in a whole new way.
For some, the birthday wishes they send become an opportunity to begin new bonds, as seen in this message: “Hi, my name is Yudi, and I’m a shaliachhere in Liverpool. I wanted to wish you a happy birthday! If you want, here is my email, and we can be pen pals. Hope to hear from you soon! Happy birthday! Yudi”
And for others, it represents the opportunity to reinvigorate existing ones: “Hi, I am Hirshel, and I would like to say Happy Birthday to you! Do you remember me from Camp Gan Israel in Parksville [N.Y.]?”
Chaya Rosenblum, a young Chabad emissary in Brussels, checks out her online birthday messages.
The initiative is the brainchild of Rabbi Avraham Green, director of operations, who was inspired by the Birthday Campaign established 28 years ago by the Lubavitcher Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory—to honor his wife, Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka, of righteous memory.
‘Joy to These Children’
On the day that would have been the 87th birthday of the Rebbetzin, some five weeks after she passed away in 5748 (1988), the Rebbe launched a Birthday Campaign encouraging people of all ages to celebrate their Jewish birthday (on the Hebrew calendar) through additional Torah learning, prayer and the giving of charity.
The Rebbe urged each person to set aside time to reflect on the past year and commit to strengthening his or her Torah observance in the coming year. One’s birthday, the Rebbe explained, is a most propitious time. On one’s birthday, a person’s mazel (“fortune”) radiates with extra strength.
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Hosting a birthday gathering that includes spiritual components like giving charity and learning words of Torah with family and friends is particularly important, taught the Rebbe, as the positive energy and inspiration gleaned will leave participants in high spirits, and cause them to increase in Torah observance and strengthen their connection with G‑d.
This is especially true for children since a birthday is always an exciting time for them. When a child understands the deeper significance of the day—that his or her soul shines with extra strength—not only does he or she have a deeper appreciation for the celebration, but will influence friends to celebrate in this way as well.
“Connecting young shluchim who may feel lonely living in far-off places around the world gives the children a sense of community and instills pride in their mission as they spread the light of Torah and mitzvot in their respective cities,” explained Rabbi Green. “We are constantly seeking innovative ways to service the shluchim and their children through the utilization of modern technology. A birthday wishing platform seemed like another great way to bring joy to these children, so we developed it, and here we are.”
The new platform has already impacted hundreds birthdays of young boys and girls worldwide.
Rabbi Yisroel Weisz, co-director of the Village Shul-Chabad of Hampstead, England, with his wife, Devorah Leah, exclaimed in a message to the CYH division at the Shluchim Office: “It made such a difference to my daughter’s day to know that other young shluchos were thinking about her. What an unexpected surprise!”
The treats for Chaya's birthday at home.
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The Seders in Nepal: A Look Back
Every year, a new challenge and a new triumph. by Chabad.org Staff
Despite different struggles seemingly every year, Chabad of Nepal hosts both the world's most well-attended Passover seder in Kathmandu and the seder at the highest elevation, in the Himalayan town of Menang. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
Nestled in the soaring mountains between India and China, Nepal has long held an allure for Israeli travelers. It has also had the distinction of being host to both the most well-attended and the highest Passover seders in the world, in Kathmandu and Menang, respectively.
Throughout the years, by dint of sheer faith, Rabbi Chezki and Chani Lifshitz—co-directors of Chabad of Nepal and the plucky organizers of the seders—have overcome some formidable challenges, including coups, border delays, strikes and even crashes. Nevertheless, the Passover seder has gone on year after year.
This year, as the country struggles to recover from the debilitating earthquakeand ensuing severe tremors that rocked the nation just one year ago, the suspense remains as strong as ever.
Rabbi Chezki and Chani Lifshitz, co-directors of Chabad of Nepal
With many roads reduced to unstable rubble, organizers are considering horseback as the best way to transport matzah and kosher wine (hand-produced in Nepal) to the remote mountain village of Menang.
How will they get there? No one is exactly sure, though one thing is certain: The seder will go on!
Below are some reports from the past 20 years that demonstrate the magic and mystery that keep the Nepal seders going strong.
Note the nail-biting challenges in both 2008 and 2014, and the last-minute triumphs that pulled it all together.
1996 Nights That Were Different From All Other Nights
Following legions of “wandering Jews,” Lubavitch emissaries have gone to the so-called rooftop of the world, Katmandu, Nepal
1997 A Legend in a Land of Legends
Flying into Katmandu is a little like arriving in heaven with a window seat.
1999 Largest Seder in the World
Following legions of "wandering Jews," Lubavitch emissaries will again be dispatched to the "rooftop of the world."
2008 Last-Minute Hassles For The World’s Largest Seders
Although Nepal presents its own special difficulties in coordinating the world’s largest Passover Seders – like a closed border that stalls a shipment of wine and matzah – Chabad-Lubavitch Rabbi Chezky Lifshitz says such headaches are well worth it.
2008 Passover Supplies Reach Nepal Destinations in the Nick of Time
Two shipments totaling 2,000 bottles of wine, 2,000 pounds of matzah and 3,000 units of gefilte fish arrived at Chabad-Lubavitch centers in Kathmandu and Pokhara, Nepal, in the middle of Shabbat and in the middle of the Saturday night Seder, respectively. They had been stuck at the Indian border.
2011 Thousands Share Stories of Transformation at Historic Passover Meal
A local joke notes that every year, something happens just before the famous Passover Seder in Kathmandu.
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2014 In Nepal, Piecing Together a Seder, Suitcase by Suitcase
Although the Israeli ministry strike is over, Chabad of Nepal still doesn’t have their container of Passover supplies
2014 Food Container Arrives in Nepal, Just in Time for Passover
Volunteers help unload the holiday goods just hours before the start of the first seder---------------------
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