Words From Rabbi White

DEAR CHEVRA SHAAS/SPANISH

I hope that by now, the city old Montreal has begun to remove the snow, and life has returned to normal (Perhaps if Trump can get rid of the snow, Canada might agree to become the 51^st state.)

This Shabbat is Rosh Hodesh Adar, day #1 of the happiest month of the year: Adar, the month that is the counterweight to the tragic month of Av.  (Yesterday, Friday, was also Rosh Hodesh Adar, but technically it was the last day of the preceding month of Shevat. Go figure! I guess you need a "yiddisher kop" to figure out how the last can be the first!)

I am sure that, like me, when you heard the cantor singing last Shabbat the blessing for the New Month, you experienced great emotion at the concluding words "May the Holy One Blessed be He renew upon us and upon all of His nation the House of Israel, for life and for shalom, for happiness and for joy, for salvation and for comfort, and let us say amen!!"

For, on the one hand, we have all been ecstatic at the release of the captives, and yet we are very much distressed by the exorbitant price that Israel is being forced to pay: release of murderers. [In Iran, a woman can be executed for not wearing her hijab properly; in Israel, mass murderers of innocent Jews wait patiently in jail until a deal can be arranged for their release.]

And so, we were all shocked by the news of what happened to the Bibas mother and babies, "HaShem yiqqom damam." As I am writing these words, the funeral for the Bibas family is going on. Yet Avi Abelow, on the "Israel Video Network," wrote: "with all the focus on the Bibas family, don't forget the Fogel family." He claims that "they are dead because too many good people ignored the evil of our Islaminaz*i enemy".

Abelow continued: Have you forgotten? Back on Friday night, March 11, 2011, Udi (37,) Ruth (36), Yoav (10), Elad (4), and three-month old Hadas Fogel were brutally murdered in their home.  As PM Netanyahu said then "There has never been anything like this in which terrorists entered a home and cut children's throats."

According to Abelow, (whom I met when I was in Israel last year,) the first step is to teach our Jewish brethren and leadership to stop having compassion and tolerance for evil. And this did not start because of the 6-day war, or even the establishment of the State of Israel. Think of the Hebron massacre of August, '29, when 69 Jews were brutally killed, etc., etc.

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We thank Hashem for the great miracle that the terrorists could not distinguish between AM and PM.

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Torah reading this Shabbat is a bit complicated. We take out 3 torahs.  In Torah # 1, we read the entire parasha, divided into 6 aliyot:

Torah # 2: From parashat pinchas, the portion about Shabbat Rosh Hodesh

Torah # 3: from parashat ki tissa', we read as the maftir, the beginning of ki tissa'.

We read the special haftarah for parashat sheqalim. As I always suggested when we would read this haftarah from Sefer melachim: king Yehoash, under the guidance of the kohen Yehoyada, came up with the greatest invention for the Jewish people until Iron Dome:  the "pushke," the charity box, for the upkeep of the Temple. We are reminded from here of the importance of giving tsedaka, and maintaining our institutions.

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On Friday, 7 Adar, Charles Stein observes for his mother, Giza. May the neshama have aliya.

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I shall have to take a few weeks off from these "blogs," as after Shabbat, 'im Yirtseh HaShem, we shall be leaving for Jerusalem, to celebrate the wedding of my grandson Shmuel Novogroder to Sarah Kusnitz. As the Prophet Jeremiah said, "`od yishama` be`arei Yehudah u-vehutsot Yerushalayim, qol sason ve-qol simha, qol hatan ve-qol kallah."

Shabbat shalom; shalom `al Yisrael

Rabbi Menahem White, Chevra Shaas