The Daily Crossword

It started with my son taking the Egged bus to and from Yerushalaim everyday in grade 7.   

A neighbour told me that she sees him solving a crossword puzzle with the bus driver on the way home.  

Then he started to bring the crossword puzzle home with im , to show me what they had solved, and maybe even see if I can fill in any gaps.

Sinec then, I am addicted.  I must have my fix of Yisrael haYom - Hebrew version - crossword puzzles every day.  When someone comes home with the paper,w e all grab pens and write on top of each other - a real family sport.  

I am learnign a bit of Hebrew vocabulary, but I also know a lot of the answers  because every puzzle, in this regular, ordinary, not-religious newspaper, has questions that are part of the lifeblood of Torah Jews.

And i don't mean the simple ones like  "gadol baTorah" is "rav."  Today there were two clues that were "one of the Trei Assar neviim"; "Yishamel's mother"; "one of the ten plagues"; "month in the Hebrew calendar". Yesterday there was "the Rmabam " (answer : "haNesher haGadol"), "parshan" of the Tanach (Rashi), son fof Avinoam ("Barak")  There are often clues such as "Talmudic scholar" or "Mishnaic scholar", "date in the Omer", "father of David Hamelech"

While Jews in golus have to specifically look for Jewish content games to show that Torah isn't just in the shul or school, BH here Torah is just a part of EVERYTHING, even the silly things like a free newspaper's crossword puzzle; and in way this shows that every citizen is  "expected" to know some basic Torah facts and personalities.

Hillel's partner, anyone?

In The Jewish Country...

...Tefilla is a legitimate reason to start your workday half an hour late.

And so, the new minister of economics, head of the National Religious Party - renamed the Jewish Home - has made this legally binding.  Workplaces will be compensated for allowing employees to shift their workday in order to daven after daybreak during the winter months (the recent extension of daylight savings time to some time in Heshvan makes sunrise later than ever before experienced in Israel).

How cool is that???

http://www.themarker.com/career/1.2116518

Photos From Our Army's Magazine

Coincidentally, both of these photos were printed in BaMahane Magazine on Sept 2, the English date on which I was born and on which , seventeen years later, I first arrived in Eretz Yisrael.  

Cuz there is no such thing as a coincidence.

The first picture is of the Rav of the Human Resources department of the army - every unit has a Rav (or two or ten).

The second picture is of the most recent graduates of the IDF Volunteers' Basic Training.  Our army is there not only to protect our Holy Land and protect Jews around the world.  Our Army is also our melting pot, integration into Israeli society and in many cases, an introduction to Jewish identity (eg. Nativ Course for Olim, more on that BEH another time).  It is also a very important part of an Israeli young adult's sense of self.   Many a high school drop out has discovered his good qualities in his army placement.  The "kids" in this volunteer training course include a girl in a wheelchair, several young adults with cochlear implants, and others with varying levels of hearing impairment, a bunch of kids with Celiac disease who became each other's support group, and some young folk with other physical differences, chronic illnesses or limitations.   

When a child is born in Israel, the parents always have this hope that by the time he or she turns 18, there will be peace, and the child won't have to pledge allegiance to the nation with a rifle under her Tanach.  But when a child cannot walk or talk, the parents can only dream what when he turns 18, he will get his chance to put on that olive-green outfit, hold his Tanach and rifle in one hand and salute his Commanding Officer with the other hand.   That he will learn to sign-sing haTikva.   That the army kitchens will be able to provide the food that he can eat (yum, gluten-free corn schnitzel!)   And when those 150 soldiers with interesting medical and developmental histories screamed and signed "אני נשבע אני נשבע אני נשבע" you know that they had the choice, that they have enough challenges, and yet they want to give to the nation as much or more than the rest of us do.  

So, here they are, posing for their group picture, with every right on earth to be proud of themselves for getting to where they are.

 

26 Years, Another Milestone

26 years ago today, I arrived in Eretz Yisrael for the first time, with the plan to stay for good.

HaShem has been kind to me, and although i have made many visits to my family in golus, Israel has been my home since that day.

26 is the gematria of HaShem's Shem Havaya - the recognition that HaShem is was and always will be.   Without complete acceptance of that aspect of HaShem, everything is meaningless.   Only when we know that the Torah and Eretz Yisrael are based on Eternal Omniscience do we know what is truly moral, good and right.

Today, 26 years later , my husband and I took our son to Giv'at HaTahmoshet in Yerushalaim, where he was officially signed in to our army.     

As he was going to the bus, he received his Sefer v'Saifa - a Sefer Tehillim and a lollipop.  They will receive a Tanach and a weapon at the end of their basic training.

May his, and all the other soldiers', service in the army be a Kiddush HaShem, with much Siyayta DiShemaya.  And may it be sweet for all of them.

I am anti-religious, she says

And in the same sentence, the woman who claims to be "anti-religious" posts to the Hareidi Hayalim facebook page, "HaShem should watch over you."

 אני נגד החרדים באופן כללי ונגד הדת ...אך אני מעריכה ומוקירה אותכם ושאני שומעת על חרדים שמכים אותכם אני מזדעזעת ישר כוח . גם אני אמא לחייל שהשם ישמור אותכם .

https://www.facebook.com/GmnyHrdqGh?hc_location=stream

I love Israelis!!!

Tonight We Don't Learn Torah

Geula is a slow process.   They said it would be so,  in the Gemara.  Many Tannaim said they'd rather not live to see it - it would be too painful.

Slowly we are rebuilding our nation, taking millions of Jews from thousands of years of torture, pogroms, assimilation, distrust of authority (expressed by some as anti-government, some as anti-religion, etc), and trying to figure out howto bring it all together, in this challenging time in world history, and create a model nation.

Tish'a B'av is not during the school year.  Unlike all other significant days on the Jewish calendar, this date isn't on the non-religious school curriculum.

About 15 years ago, Rav Malchior, Major General (res.) Uzi Dayan and others decided that Tish'a B'av cannot be simply a day in which restaurants and theatres are closed.  It has to be made meaningful to everyone.  It is the day to try to correct what we as a nation do wrong; to connect  to our roots and to each other.  They created the הלילה לא לומדים תורה programme.  A late night discussion , after readign Megillat Eicha, in groups that are intentionally composed of Jews with very different perspectives.

Over these past 15 years, "הלילה אל לומדים תורה" programmes have been getting Jews from different backgrounds together in cities across the country.  The agenda is how to become a better nation.  How to be more moral, more equal, more fair.  How to educate the next generation to achieve a higher moral standard.

On TV tonight there was an "open studio"of  "Halayla lo lomdim Torah".  There were several hours of movies and discussions dedicated to correcting and connecting. The first hour  presented movies made by a group of Beit Shemesh women - Hareidi, Religious, traditional and "secular" - as a cooperative , get-to-know-the-other-side project.  

It's a slow process.  I daven each day  to see the "end" of the process - to see Israel as an international leader in justice and fairness, alongside our Gd-given world-leadership in technology and the Special Olympics.  That we should deserve the geula by correcting all the ills that led to the many hurbanot in our history - including the one we brought upon ourselves in Gush Katif and the Shomron 8 years ago) 

As Israeli society as a whole is learning to use Tish'a B'av to address the problems in society, in groups that are intentionally heterogeneous, it is obvious that we are headed in the right direction, and we are working with HaShem to fulfill the "good part" of last Shabbat's Haftara:

ואשיבה שופטייך כבראשונה ויועצייך כבתחילה, אחרי כן יקרא לך: עיר הצדק, קריה נאמנה

I think the next passuk describes a PRE-CONDITION for full redemption: JUSTICE

ציון במשפט תפדה, ושביה בצדקה

Living at a time that so much injustice and corruption among Jewish leaders worldwide is being exposed is hard on the nerves.  But with the exposure comes the willingness to fight against it, to end it, to create a nation that is based on Justice -  a Goy Kadosh in the full meaning of Parashat Kedoshim - including the mitzvot of social justice, which can only be implemented in a sovereign Jewish State.

Kim'a kim'a....

I am grateful that I am living through it (but please pass me the valium, well, after the fast...)

May we all have an easy and meaningful fast, and next year we should celebrate 9th Av in Yerushalaim Habenuya, because:

 כה אמר יהוה צבאות צום הרביעי וצום החמישי וצום השביעי וצום העשירי יהיה לבית יהודה לששון ולשמחה ולמעדים טובים והאמת והשלום אהבו

In Today's Newspaper - 17th Tammuz

My favourite newspaper is Yisrael Hayom.   Maybe because its political agenda is as vague as the PM that it supports.   In any  case, it doesn't scream politics.   It presents news from all over the country, and , the crossword puzzles are fun to do with my kids.  My Hebrew vocabulary has improved temendously since my son started bringing the paper hoem most days.

Today's paper has an article (by Elad Jana) for Shiva Asar bTammuz that reminds us that we are not mourning the stones as much as we are mourning the lack of justice in Jewish society that led to the destruction of Yerushalaim and the Mikdash.

The article ends with:

"In order to rebuild Yerushalaim from her ruins and end the terrible exile, we have to first restore the walls and protection that lead to love and unity.  To always remember that we can be silent instead ogettign all worked up; compromise instead of fighting,; fidn that which we have in common instead of building emotional walls between us and our brothers who might be slightly different than ourselves.  Thsoe walls are the barriers that must be torn down quickly to bring us to complete unity."

(any errors in the translation are mine)