Daily Archives: April 6, 2006

Today: The Yud Alef Nissan Mitzvah Tank Parade!

Today 56 ‘Mitzvah Tanks’ will be joining together in a parade in honor of the Rebbes Birth Day. The tanks will form up in front of 770 and from there down Eastern Parkway past Grand Army Plaza then Flatbush Avenue on to the Manhattan Bridge through Manhattan on Fifth Avenue, from there the tanks will spread out across the city where they will distribute Pesach guides, lay Tefillin, and spread the word of Judaism.

For those of you who will not be able to partake in the parade, stay tuned for full pictorial coverage here on CrownHeights.info!

Police Defend Conduct During Borough Park Arrest and Protest

A day after a protest by hundreds of Hasidic Jews over a 75-year-old man’s arrest, in which, the authorities said, two officers were assaulted, two police cars were damaged and two dozen bonfires were set, the police commissioner said yesterday that his department’s conduct had been appropriate.

Unleavened Lessons – Chabad Matzah Factory

Eating Matzah during Passover takes on a whole new meaning when children have a chance to experience making it, starting with wheat stalks fresh from the fields. Camp Silver Gan Israel-Hebrew Academy brings this extraordinary experience to Jewish children and their families in Long Beach and Orange County through The Matzah Bakery, a portable workshop presented at approximately twenty different schools, synagogues, and youth groups during the months of March and April. Over two thousand students and their parents, ranging in age from preschool to college Hillel, have already experienced the joy and beauty of this Passover ritual this year, through their participation in this hands-on program.

This program, which is offered by Chabad Centers and Hebrew Academies in approximately twenty cities across the United States, has been a successful community outreach activity in our area for over seven years. Rabbi Sender Engel, director of Camp Silver Gan Israel in Huntington Beach and part-time teacher at the Hebrew Academy, also in Huntington Beach, has directed the Matzah Bakery and other holiday factories for the past two years. He personally conducts all of the presentations. “We provide a unique and exciting opportunity to enhance students’ appreciation of the meaning and traditions of these special holidays,” states Rabbi Sender. His enthusiasm for what they do is evident as he describes the Matzah Bakery.

Lessons In Emunah

In Spite Of Myself

The year was 1994, two weeks before Passover. Mariasha, who had just turned two, lay next to her mommy (my wife, Esther) on the couch, sucking her pacifier. Mushkie and Nechama, ages four and three, were lying on the rug, coloring in their Passover Haggadahs.

“I told the cheder that next Friday is my last day teaching nursery,” Esther said. “Do you think it’s proper to write the Rebbe at this time? You’re going to need to make a lot more money.”

A week earlier, on the 27th day of Adar, the Rebbe suffered a second stroke. Uncannily, the first stroke occurred exactly two years earlier, to the day. Ever since that first stroke, despite his terrible paralysis, there was one story that kept reassuring me that the Rebbe was somehow above these physical limitations.

A Seder in the Land of Midnight Sun

“Mieluinen!”

“Previet!”

“Bruchim Haba’im!”

Chabad representatives Rabbi Benyamin and Fruma Ita Wolff have been flexing their linguistic muscles for three years now, adapting programs to suit the multi-national Jewish community in Helsinki, Finland. Most the Seder with Chabad will be conducted in English, but the sixty or so guests of Finland’s polyglot Jewish community will all feel at home as they hear Finnish, Russian, Hebrew and English around the Seder table.