Words From Rabbi White

Dear all,

THANK YOU, MS. REINES

We are now in the month of CHeshvan, more formally known as MarCHeshvan I have told you about Mr. Russo, my 9^th grade English teacher, who insisted that a sentence cannot begin with a conjunction.

 

But (oops, that’s a conjunction) now I’d like to say a long overdue thanks to Miss Reines, my grade 1 Hebrew teacher, who taught us the names of the months. She told us children in grade 1 that CHeshvan felt bad, because Tishrei had all those holidays, but CHeshvan had nothing. So, to make CHeshvan feel better, we show him respect and call him MAR CHeshvan, that is MR. CHeshvan.

Now, I know very well that really, the word Marheshvan is from the ancient Akkadian language, which, like Hebrew, is a Semitic language, and means « eighth month, ».

However, the lesson of respect I learned back in grade 1 always stayed with me. So, somewhat belatedly, I thank Ms. Reines.***************

SHOULD WE 0BSERVE the holiday of TRUMPIKKA?

Since we are now in MarCheshvan, before long we shall be in Kislev. As everyone knows, we celebrate the victory over the Seleucid Greeks, symbolized by the miracle of oil. The talmud in tractate Shabbat tells us that the following year, the 8-day holiday of Hanukkah was instituted.

Why did they wait a year? Why didn’t everyone immediately light candles for 8 days? Perhaps because they wanted to wait a year to see if it really was a victory. Relating this to contemporary issues: we were all overjoyed and gave thanks to HaShem at the return of the hostages. But was this the miracle for which we were all praying? Did we want to see Turkey put in charge of Gaza? Have the dangers facing Israelis been eliminated? What about the terrorists who were freed from Israeli jails? Let us pray and see. ***************

I apologize for a mistake in last week’s article. The heroic soldier/rabbi who was killed defending Israel, Rav Avi Goldberg, was indeed the nephew of Shulamit Foxman. His memory will surely be a blessing.

*******

This past Sunday, the first day of parashat Noah, I traveled with my daughter, son in law, my son, and daughter in law to Rhode Island for a family dinner to honour my great nephew Noah, who had read from the Torah the previous day for his bar mitsvah. Noah was named after his late grandmother, who was my sister, whose Hebrew name was «Menucha, » the same etymology as Noach. And our dinner was held on the first day of the week of parashat Noach!! We pray that, like the original Noah, as Rashi explained, he will bring blessing to the world.

Shabbat shalom, Rabbi Menahem White, Chevra Shaas