This morning there was a terrible accident in which a bus (kavim line 304) traveling from Modiin Ilit to Jerusalem overturned. There were many injuries and a couple of deaths deaths.

The freaky part of this is that today was the 5th of Adar 1, 2779, and 3 years ago to the Hebrew date, on the 5th of Adar 1, 5777, the horrific accident involving the 402 bus from Jerusalem to Bnei Braq happened.

I don't know what that means, if anything, but it is freaky that these two serious bus accidents, which in general are thankfully pretty rare, happened on the exact same date a few years apart.

In general, Adar is supposed to be a good and happy month. It is especially freaky that both of these accidents happened in Adar, let alone on the same exact date.

Feel free to suggest explanations..

Amazing Rosh Chodesh Halel led by Eli Beer for Rosh Chodesh Adar II on March 2, 2014 in Woodmere. Eliav Frei hosted as always and the chevra brought guitars, tambourines, a flute, and bongo drums. Enjoy!

in light of the fun and happy atmosphere of entering Adar.. he is the new shoe for stomping out Amalek..

cute idea for a new chumra, or hiddur, but I think the execution could have been done better...

with Adar upon us, here are some Purim preparations in jerusalem with Rav Machlis...

The following is a guest post by an anonymous reader. He asked me to post it and because the topic is important and it is well written, I am putting it up.
Any reader who wants to post here, is welcome to send me an email with an article for review. If I like it (not that I have to agree with it, just like it - important topic, well written, etc), I am open to posting it for you.. israeli.jew at gmail dot com

With all the excitement of two Adars and according to some marbin be'simchah already (so signed the Chatam Sofer in a teshuvah), unfortunately we seem to be headed for two months of marbin be'firecrackers.

The parents who are makfir their kids and let them go outside and set them off should know clearly that they endanger their own kids and others as well. Firecrackers cause a sudden loud noise and is a maaseh hezek like being tokea be'oznai chaveiro. They give people a fright and alarm kids making them sometime hysterical, and have been known to cause pregnant women to miscarry.

Who are these parents going to ask mechilah from when their child set off a firecracker and woke up a sleeping child who can not get back to sleep as he is so pertified from the noise, thus causing havoc for the family who may suffer the next day as a result. Or someone who is carrying an expensive breakable object and because of the shock drops it and it breaks. Or if one causes a fire like happened in Bnei Brak last year destroying a warehouse with invaluable irreplacable Chassidic manuscripts inside.

Parents who abandon their kids to the street with firecrackers will be chayav me'dina d'shamayim as being indirectly culpable for all the results of their children's actions - meaning that although beis din can not punish them (although it may force them to do something if it knows their identity), there is a teviah on them min ha'shamayim, and since the chait is bein odom le'chaveiro which can only be fully atoned for by asking mechilah from the affected party, and the latter's identity is unknown, they will live with their aveirah ad me'ah ve'esrim and afterwards ad olam.

Hoping that all parents will be masgiach on their kids and warn them of the extreme danger to themselves and others when setting off these cursed firecrackers

(Rafi: he does not even mention the danger of kids losing fingers or an eye, which we hear about pretty much every year by the end of Purim)