Words From Rabbi White

Mazal tov to Raya Sukonik, who has become a great grandmother due to the birth of a grandson to her daughter Maya of Scranton, (who used to daven with us when we were on Bourret and Lavoie) and husband Volvi Polatchek. The mother is Etel Perel, who spent the summer with her grandmother in Montreal a few years ago and came to us at Chevra Shaas.

Julie Bacrie Cohen & Marc Zilbert, on the Bat Mitzvah of their twins, Liya & Yael.

Stanley Goldstein on the anniversary of his Bar Mitzvah.

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Mr. Erdstein observes yahrzeit for his mother Yachet bat Shlomo Tzvi HaKohen on 3 Sivan.  May her memory be for a blessing.

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Friday is 28 Iyyar. 28 in Hebrew gematria is “koach,” strength.” On this day back in ‘67, with the help of HaShem,, the Israeli army unified Jerusalem. By the end of the brief war, they had pushed back the advances of 3 Arab armies, who had been determined to push Israel into the sea.

Note that the expression “Yom Yerushalayim,” “Jerusalem Day,” has a very negative context in the Bible. In Psalm 137, it is used to describe the desire of the Edomites and Babylonians to raze Jerusalem to its very foundations. I don’t know who thought of the name Yom Yerushalayim for 28 Iyyar, but it clearly is an expression of gratitude to HaShem for turning history around!

Yom Yerushalayim: as the poet Hayyim Hefer wrote in his beautiful Hebrew poem, this kotel had seen many things: it saw R. Yehudah HaLevi being trampled alive, etc., etc., but it never before had seen parachutists crying. [i.e., tears of happiness, having taken over the kotel.]

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This Sunday is Rosh Hodesh Sivan, meaning that we are preparing for “matan Torah,” the time that we were, as Rashi explains, when we received the Torah, as “one nation with one heart.” May the people of Israel come together, so that we can face our common enemy with unity.

Shabbat shalom, Rabbi Menahem White