HAHA!

A group of foreigners in India, including some Israelis, were ignoring the lockdown rules of the country. Caught by police, they were punished severely.

According to news reports, the group of foreigners were out walking around near a river. When police apprehended them they were meted out the sever punishment of writing 500 times "I did not follow lockdown. I am sorry".

I don't know what is with the punishment of 500. In Israel they might have been fined 500nis, and in India they had to write something 500 times. Maybe it is a symbolic gematria of something.

We used to get these punishments in 5th grade, but if it works, you can't argue with results!

Somewhat familiar with the mindset of at least the Israelis, they will probably hire someone on Fiverr to write it for them.

One thing about Neturei Karta is that they have the ability to look at everything and anything in a completely different way than every other Jew in the world.

Chabad has become a fairly controversial organization. Mostly because of the "Meshichist" stream within it, and because of them even "non-Meshichists" are often suspect, and thereby fairly tainted.

One thing universally agreed upon by everyone, practically, is that despite the meshichists withion Chabad, and despite the issues that make people not like them for various reasons, they do amazing work around the world.

They send shlichim to every far flung country and city where they know a jew might go to travel or live. They open up their homes to strangers, no matter how religious or non-religious they might be, and give them a taste of home, provide kosher food, shabbos, a religious experience, whatever.

No matter how much criticism you throw at Chabad for other things, you will generally praise them on that.

Neturei Karta has found the reason for the Mumbai tragedy in the Chabad House. And they have blamed it on Chabad opening their homes and allowing "mechalelai shabbes" and "ochlei treifos" to sit and eat with "shomrei shabbos" and "ochleo kosher".

That along with the fact that Chabad works together with the Zionist entity.

Together, that is the recipe for a major terrorist attack killing everyone inside the Chabad House.

The one thing that the whole world praises Chabad for, no matter what they think of Chabad on any other issue, and Neturei Karta says in Gods name that that is the cause of terror and death.

It takes a special talent...

Yesterday, we had an interesting, and touching, ceremony in the office.

One of our peers spends a lot of time in India. He practically lives in the hotel there, and was there during the terrorist attack. He survived, thank God, and this week he returned to Israel. He was interviewed on Israel TV from India, and came back and shared his story with us in the office.

The owners of the company decided to make a "Seudas Hodaya" - thanksgiving meal - in his honor, for his survival and safe return.

He was in the hotel when he heard explosions and shooting. He hid out for some hours in a smoky stairwell with others, while they made their way down 19 flights of stairs barefoot to escape from the terrorists, who shot on sight anybody they came across.

Rav Yitzchak Dovid Grossman, the rav of Migdal Ha'Emek and uncle of Mrs. Rivka Holzberg hy"d, came to participate. After lunch, there were some speeches.

One of the owners spoke about how we are all together in this and we all thank Hashem for his safe return. Eli shared some thoughts with us after having survived (he already had told the story dozens of times, and did not repeat it at this occasion) about how appreciative he is of everyone's good wishes, and how he realizes he has so many people who love him and were concerned for him.
Rav Grossman spoke about the appreciation we need to have, and the thanks we must say to Hashem for his survival. Rav Grossman said that he is known as "The Disco Rabbi", so he has to sing. He composed a song in thanks to Hashem for the survival of little Moishie Holzberg and the other survivors, and then he sang it for us.


If you want to hear Rav Grossman's whole speech, just a few minutes, here it is:


Survivor Eli Averbouch's thoughts and HaGomel can be seen:


After the ceremony, we all went to shake hands and try to get brachos from Rav grossman. Rav Grossman was chatting with some people and he pulled out the following note from his pocket and explained it to us.

The note is the text of something the Klausenberger Rebbe said 27 years ago. In the middle of a speech, he suddenly said something that was supposedly unrelated to what he had been talking about. he said, "Publicizing Gods presence in the world, is not just for Jews, but also for gentiles, that they should see that Jews pray and serve Hashem. There will be one Jew who will go to India, and in this place where there are millions of gentiles who worship idols, he will reveal Gods presence, and he will be killed, the whole nation will talk about him, and he will have sanctified Hashem's name as via him Hashem's presence will have been revealed to millions of gentiles."

That is enough to send chills down your spine...

Israel made a bad decision. One of the victims of the terrorism in the Chabad House of Mumbai was Reb Leibish Teitelbaum. A Satmar Hassid and son in law of the Toldos Avraham Yitzchak rebbe. An avowed anti-zionist. He, like most others in his group, had renounced his Israeli citizenship a long time ago.

He died in India as a result of terror. It had nothing to do with Israel. Israel was not involved in any way, other than flying the bodies back.

There was a big debate raging - The Israel envoy insisted on all the coffins being draped in the Israeli flag, and being part of the ceremony. After all, "we declared them victims of terror". On the other hand, the family did not want Teitelbaum's coffin to be draped in the flag.

From the picture above you can see that they insisted on it, and did not listen to the wishes of the family.

I think that was a bad decision. Teitelbaum's worldview rejected the State of Israel. Just because Israel gave his body a free flight, should not give them the right to hijack a person's wishes. He clearly would have rejected such a ceremony, and his family clearly said so. Israel had no right to do what was done.

The Chabad shliach of Mumbai and his family are still missing, and their fate is unknown.

This would be a perfect time to add their names to the cholimlist.org website and have thousands of people say tehillim for them.

If you want to say tehillim and want to know their names, anonymous in the comments of the previous post has posted them: Gavriel Noach ben Freida Bluma• Rivkah bas Yehudis• Moshe Tzvi Ben Rivkah at the CHABAD house in Mumbai, India.