In an op-ed published in the New York Daily News, Crown Heights resident Eli Federman responds to the criticisms of ‘animal rights activists’ regarding the ancient Jewish tradition of Kaporos, laying out in clear and concise terms why they should leave the pre-Yom Kippur practice alone.
The following op-ed was sent by an anonymous member of the Lubavitch community in Miami to CrownHeights.info, describing the hardship borne by a large family with copious Yomtov expenses when shelling out $23 for each Kapparos chicken, a phenomenon he describes as “price gouging.”
There’s a story told about a great pious Rabbi who was becoming deaf in his old age. His students could not understand “why is this happening to you, a man who has spent his whole life studying and teaching the Holy Torah”. They felt that Zechus should protect him from ailment. “What can I say… I sinned in my youth and now Hashem is helping me atone for those mistakes”. He explained that as a young prodigy he was very well versed in Choshen Mishpat and would sit in on many Din Torahs, “but I lacked maturity and succumbed to the temptation of bribery.”
We’re in one of the rooms in the Pediatrics Department at Downstate Medical Center. My brother, 16, was suffering from severe stomach pains, and our doctor sent him for some tests and rest until they’ll have it all figured out. I’m sitting beside his bed scribbling on the margins of a Sudoku book; he’s watching a video on my phone. While contemplating my future summer plans, an official looking guy – dressed casually, but definitely working for the Hospital – with a big smile walks in, and explaining that his job is to ensure that the Hospitals patients don’t fall behind in their studying for the upcoming high school Regents, asks if my brother will be needing any help.
I am the proud mother of a happy teenager who goes to Bnos Chomesh High School in Crown Heights. I am writing this op-ed anonymously because, after all, my daughter is a teenager, and needs her privacy. But remembering how I agonized at this time last year, I felt that I just had to share my story in the hopes that maybe it will help someone else.
Lately there’s been a social media craze that looks so good, so special – on the surface. It’s so encouraging to see so many people who are willing to take the challenge and get themselves drenched in freezing water just to bring awareness to a disease which debilitates fellow human beings. Although they are perhaps not personally affected by this horrible disease, yet they are ready to do this selfless act to help total strangers in need.
As a close observer of, and someone who is concerned with, the recent Israel-Hamas war, and with the knowledge that such a war is as much about winning the world’s support and sympathy as it is defensive and offensive, I find Israel’s PR strategy disheartening and insufficient.
The current war in Gaza did not have to happen. It is a result of the actions of the Israeli government and its supporters, including American backers, and complacent Jews in Eretz Yisroel and abroad. This war is one of the grave consequences of The Disengagement Plan, i.e., the expulsion of Jews, both soldiers and residents, from the Gaza Strip, and the resultant predictable empowerment of Hamas.
Before I go to sleep I check the news, and the first thing I do upon waking is check to see what happened in Israel while I slept. I see I am not the only one because peoples Facebook/ twitter statuses have changed- as Jews we are worried. I am hyperaware of everything. As I am shopping I notice every ‘off’ glance and I hear a toy ambulance from the toy store…The siren. I’m sweating… This is no comparison…
I can get you to look my way. I can cause you to feel uncomfortable. I can compel you to feel you want to stare but you know it is rude to stare. It makes you feel awkward. I dress this way because I am a woman and women should not be oppressed – we are free to express ourselves through our way of dressing and you are committing a faux pas if you object. I can impress you with my clothes. Once you are impressed by me, I have power over you. I am a power dresser. I make my own choices. No one tells me how to dress.
A mutual acquaintance of mine who was once employed at the Pentagon cafeteria, overheard very high ranking military men conversing over lunch and mockingly refer to the active troops as “fodder”. They were high and mighty luxury-office-suite- commanders and the little poor men who were under their command were merely their fodder.
Areivim is a non-profit “life insurance” organization that has been steadily growing in popularity within the Orthodox-Jewish community these past few years. Though it is the source of much controversy, I believe that much of its opposition stems from a lack of understanding about how it works and why, which I will endeavor to explain in this op-ed.
Paris, the city of light: the city of love. The city of quaint, the city of chic. The city of Kristallnacht. Only no German this time: Arabic, and Arabic-infused French. And technically it’s not nacht, it’s in broad daylight. And no black-and-white reel-to-reel; it’s as full-colored as the thingamajig you’re reading this on.
Many have tried to understand why the Lubavitcher Rebbe was so influential in his lifetime, and why his memory continues to be potent and inspiring now twenty years after his passing. Having studied the Rebbe’s life in detail for many years, I think I have arrived at at least one possible answer.
Israel doesn’t have a partner in peace. It doesn’t take 41 years to negotiate an understanding that we have a right not to be slaughtered. If we would have a peace partner, it should take no longer than 41 minutes to negotiate an eternal ceasefire.
Rabbi Shimon Posner, Shliach to Nashville, TN, wrote the following op-ed on what it means for a Chossid to be Mekushar to his Rebbe, taking an example from his recently deceased father, Rabbi Zalman Posner, OBM.
Presently, Israel is in the throes of yet another unimaginable heinous terrorist crime. Specifically, the cold-blooded kidnapping of three innocent high school students, one of whom also holds American citizenship.
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