Chasoif: A Song In Honor of the Mumbai Shloishim

Everyone helps out in the way that they can. Since I work with many talented people in the Jewish music industry, I wanted to do something musical that would express our feelings on the upcoming Shloishim of the Kedoshim who were murdered in the Chabad House in Mumbai, India.

Click Play to Listen to the Song
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Mumbai Survivor Lights Tennessee Capitol Menorah

By Esther Tiechtel

NASHVILLE, TN — Delivered the strong into the hands of the weak… The words of the Al Hanissim prayer danced in my head side by side with the images of Mumbai….Chanukah was here: a time of celebrating miracles. What was our answer to bring about a contemporary miracle in our times? Was it our mission to become a Jewish version of warriors and rise up like a band of raggedy armed Maccabees against the scourge of evil?

What Not to Wear – Some in Crown Heights Detect Modesty Crisis

Marissa Brostoff – Next Book

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An outsider visiting Crown Heights might be forgiven for thinking that the women in the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood represent the height of modesty. But some in the Brooklyn community, where the Chabad-Lubavitch movement is based, are concerned that modesty standards are slipping, and have launched a campaign to counter the trend.

Thus far, the effort—organized by a woman named Sheyna Goldin, with the approval of Chabad’s women’s organization, N’Shei Chabad—has involved putting up 500 posters encouraging adherence to modesty laws. But not everyone in the organization agrees with Goldin’s approach, and a frisson of disagreement has broken out over it—and whether the declining standards are even anything new.

“It’s Not Just a Good Idea, IT’S THE LAW!” proclaim the posters, which appeared recently on Kingston Avenue and other neighborhood thoroughfares. The fliers go on to list the laws of tznius, or modesty (modest dress must begin at age three; shirts must cover collarbones; skirts must cover knees) and their talmudic sources. Fine print at the bottom explains the spiritual rewards for modest dress and the consequences for disregarding it.

BP Markowitz Ushers in Chanukah with Chabad

Brooklyn Borough President Markowitz and Rabbi Aaron L. Raskin (to his left) hand out Chanukah treats to children at Brooklyn Borough Hall

BROOKLYN, NY [CHI] — On Monday, December 22, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz and Rabbi Aaron L. Raskin of Congregation B’nai Avraham hosted a celebration of Chanukah, the Jewish Festival of Lights, at Brooklyn Borough Hall. Marking the holiday again this year is Brooklyn’s official 29-foot menorah in front of the Supreme Court building in Borough Hall Plaza.

More pictures in the Extended Article! (by Stephen Lipuma)

Statement from Chabad of the Five Towns

Dear Friends,

Our hearts and prayers are with those who were injured in today’s accident at the Chanukah Wonderland.

We appreciate and are comforted by the tremendous outpouring of support, and are also overwhelmed with requests for additional information.

At this time, all information points to this being an unfortunate incident, wherein a car accidentally crashed through the building housing our community’s family Chanukah celebration.

A Tale of Two Dreams – The Importance of Human Effort

by Rabbi Yoseph Kahanov Shliach to Jacksonville, FL

“Nothing you have acquired is real unless you worked for it. If you were born a nice guy, the niceness isn’t yours. If you started off not so nice, and now you do a little, that’s Divine.”

– Tzvi Freeman, Be Within Stay Above

“Nothing of real substance comes without work. Our pioneer forebears could never plow a field by turning it over in their minds. They had to put their hands to the plow and walk forward. The work is, by and large, easier now than in earlier times, but the principle is the same. There must be work, and what a great and wonderful privilege it is. . . When pleasure or recreation becomes an end in itself, we are in danger. We are in trouble. We simply cannot expect to refine the substance of character from hunks of pleasures.”

– Gordon Hinckley, Standing For Something

Never having flown before, an old-timer was about to embark on his first such venture. Standing at the check-in counter he queried the ticketing agent: ”Nu, so tell me, how does the plane stay up in the air?”

PSA: Menorah Parade in NYC

This Motzoai Shabbos, the 7th night of Chanukah, a parade of 25 Mitzvah Tanks and 130 Menorah cars will leave to Manhattan from Crown Heights. All who have Menorahs on their car are requested to participate! Meeting point: on President between Kingston and Albany at 6:45pm

Cars without Menorahs will not be able to join.

The Weekly Sedra – Parshas Mikeitz

The Rebbe says:

1. Last week’s Torah portion told us about Yoseph Hatzadik’s (Joseph the righteous’) dreams and the dreams of the cupbearer and baker of Pharaoh, and this week’s Torah portion tells us about Pharaoh’s dreams.

2. The Rebbe now points out that all these dreams were the cause of the exile in Egypt for the Jewish people:

When we think about the story of how the Jewish people were enslaved in Egypt, we will realize that this all happened through dreams; through the dreams of Yoseph Hatzadik, the dreams of the cupbearer and baker of Pharaoh, and the dreams of Pharaoh: