The new[ish] road in Bet Shemesh from RBS to Bet Shemesh, avoiding RBS B and shortening the trip by several good minutes is Nehar Dan. It is a nice big wide road with great views and good driving.

with the onset of a nice cold spell (including the beginning of a serious storm right now) an anonymous donor put new coats that in a park in Ashdod for poor people to take 

I went to the Kotel today with [part of] the family.

thousands of dollars worth of food was sent by people in Montreal to Chabad of Halifax so Shabbos could be made for a group of Orthodox passengers on an El Al flight that experienced trouble and had to stop in Halifax, with not enough time to arrive in Israel before Shabbos. A similar airlift of food on a private plane was sent from New York but turned away by customs at the international border.

There is a story going around from Ramat Hasharon. it is on the Hidabroot website but was also discussed on the radio.

The story is that on Friday afternoon there was a power outage in the area. in the Yochananof supermarket the owner decided to let the customers go home with their goods, despite not having paid for them, as the computer system was down. The owner decided he could not leave his customers without food for Shabbos and going to other supermarkets in the area would also not be an option as they too did not have electricity or there just would not be enough time to go somewhere with electricity and fill another shopping cart at that point int he day and get home for Shabbos.

So he let them all go and said to come back on Sunday and pay. The honor system regarding what they took, though everyone wrote down their names and phone numbers.

Kahn News on Twitter took a poll to see if people think most went back and paid or if most did not. 44% of respondents thought more than 80% will go back to pay. As of this morning the owners said that between 50-60% have already paid, and they expect the number to reach 100%.

Personally I think most people, if not everyone, will go pay. Decent people will generally not betray a kindness that was done to them and will want to make it good with the owner.

I do wonder how people will know how much to pay - some items are sold by weight, such as meat and chicken and vegetables. Other items are on sale or have club member discounts, and sometimes you just don't remember the exact price of some of the items in your cart.

I do have faith in people that almost everyone. if not everyone, will pay, and will probably pay more just to be sure, because of the uncertainty with items sold by weight. I do think the owner, taking such a big risk, did a tremendous chessed for his customers and will hopefully be showered with blessings, and perhaps more importantly will see his faith in his customers justified when they all pay their bills.

as they say, a fair day's wage for a fair day's work...


for those that do not understand the ad, a large family blessed with children is looking for a volunteer to come once a week and help with light housework, and in the merit of the mitzva done, the volunteer will merit having a large family with many children of her own...

This is shocking.

I will start off by saying, I never before heard of this, but it seems there are some gemach apartments available in some Haredi areas for newlyweds to live temporarily. I do not know details, such as how many such apartments are available, how one qualifies to be able to make use of them, for how long can the newly married couple live in these apartments, and the like. I am trying to find out more about this, but it is irrelevant to the issue.

And now to the report.

It turns out that hidden cameras were discovered in two such gemach apartments in Bnei Braq that were used by newlyweds.

Somehow, the morning after the wedding one of the fathers came to the apartment and while there he somehow discovered the hidden cameras in the wall. He took apart the cameras and says he is filing a report with the police.

After that another gemach apartment was checked and cameras were discovered there as well, by an IT technician.
source: Haredim10

Kindness, gemilus chessed, righteousness, being used to cover up crimes and depravity. The owners of these apartments might have found a new and unique way, but we find the phenomenon often of righteousness and zealousness and over-kindness as a way of taking advantage of people.

Do people really do anything (at least, anything major) just to be nice with no personal benefit? There are definitely some people that do, but nto everybody. Be careful when using a gemach that you are not being taken advantage of.

7 years ago I had to spend a Shabbos in Hadassa Hospital (Ein Kerem) in Jerusalem with a child. I then discovered an amazing chessed being performed, week in and week out, of a childless couple coming every Shabbos with a team and preparing food and serving to people who might be stuck in the hospital for Shabbos.

I remember at the time that I had asked how I could make a donation and they refused to give me any details and said this their chessed and what they do to help people who find themselves spending Shabbos in the hospital.

Rav Yitzchak and Sima Peretz, the people behind the weekly chessed at Hadassa Hospital, both 49 years old,finally, after 30 childless years of marriage, gave birth to a baby girl, their first child. The baby was born in Hadassa Hospital.
sources: Kikar, Behadrei

Mazal tov!

We have seen a number of times already the "beautiful Israeli" (in opposition to what has become known as the ugly Israeli), where someone announces on social media, Facebook, Twitter and others, about a wedding taking place that has very few guests and not an overly joyous party, or even a funeral, lo aleinu, with few attendees, and hundreds or even thousands of people, total strangers, come to dance or pay respects.

The "beautiful Israeli" is now going hi-tech and will, hopefully, be more efficient in getting the word out about such events!

Kipa is reporting that an organization called "Tzevet Mesamchim", under the auspices of Merpa lChaim, has created an app for smartphones by which they will be able to get the word out to people about a wedding that volunteers might want to go to to help make more joyous with their dancing and celebrating.

This organization has 1000 "members" already sharing information about such events via Whatsapp, and now with the newly developed app they will be able to expand even further.

I downloaded the app. After registering with basic personal information, including a question about what area of the country are you interested in getting notifications about, there is not much else to do. Since I registered there have not yet been any announcements, but I guess when the announcements come it will be via the app, though perhaps via email (as per the email account you registered with). The only other thing to do with the app, that I can tell, is to announce an event for Tzevet mesamchim to publicize.

(update: in the one day since I installed this app.. today I have received four notifications about weddings I might want to go dance at, as per the areas I requested notifications for)

There is a menu item in the app to "order" mesamchim. It takes you too a form to fill out with questions about the affair. From the questions it is clear that they can be invited by a friend, a stranger who found out, or even by the family itself!

This is a great example of how technology can be used to help, to do good, to increase chessed and happiness and joy.

The children of Bet Shemesh, Ramat Bet Shemesh and the surrounding areas are invited to a FREE carnival hosted by Camp Sdei Chemed International. Games, prizes, food and drinks, music, bounce house, climbing wall and more.

The carnival will be at Yeshivat Reishit, 21 Rashi st. in Bet Shemesh, between 16:00 and 18:00 (4-6pm)

Boys and Girls 12 and under are welcome to join us.

Questions? Call Pesach Sommer at 052-604-9578

We in Bet Shemesh (and Ramat Bet Shemesh) were not hit too badly by the recent storm. Torrential rains but not much more than that.. We were not shut down for days like some other places, roofs were not collapsing - mostly just rain and occasionally some electricity outages. Despite that, some people still found opportunities for great chessed..

The following email was sent to the local email list:

This is the kind of community that, at a local Thursday night Sheva Brachot,
the attendees realized that the kallah's Jerusalem-based family might not
make it home and started offering sleeping accomodations - for days, if
necessary.
And this is the kind of community that, when I got the call that indeed the
family wouldn't make it to J'lem and they were turning back because of the
snow - within 10 minutes we had sleeping accomodations for all 10 of those
people.
And this is the kind of community that on Friday morning, recognizing that
suddenly we'd be making Shabbat Sheva Brachot for our son, his kallah, much
of her now-stranded family, and our family (since we had all expected to be
THERE for Shabbat) OVERWHELMED us with so many offers (one of which we took
- which meant that they forfeited a quiet Friday night family Shabbat meal
to host 24 more people on a moment's notice) and so much food that by 11amFriday morning, my wife and I looked at each other and said we have no need
to prepare any more food.
This is the kind of community that is best reflected by the following story
involving one of my neighbors.  She was visibly saddened when we declined
her offer to do more for us, meaning that she had *only* hosted 2 of our
stranded 10 and cooked us a tray of rice.  Shortly thereafter I discovered
that she was simultaneously making Shabbat for ANOTHER neighbor who had
totally lost power.
Our little city is going to be in the news sooner or later, election-related
or otherwise, invariably painting our community with a very negative brush.
To those who are on this list but aren't familiar with our communities in
Beit Shemesh and Ramat Beit Shemesh, and to those who might discover
negative posts about our community while googling - I hope you see this
post.  You should know that the preceding 96 hours, as experienced by me, my
family, my newly married son, daughter-in-law and her family - demonstrate
(not for the first time) what a WONDERFUL community we live in.  Does this
sort of thing happen everywhere?  It probably should, but my mechutan said
point-blank that it would NEVER happen where he lives; that he doesn't even
know his neighbors (with whom he's lived for years); and that 3 of his
children, despite desperately and understandably wishing to be home, asked
if they could consider moving here to make THIS place their home.
And for the many, many of us here in R/BS reading this - take pride in the
communities that we - which means you - have built.  I know I wouldn't want
to call any other place home.
A very, very proud and thankful R/BS resident

The Seagate community has been pretty good and efficient about putting out information about the damage they suffered from Hurricane Sandy, and thereby generating waves of assistance and chessed to help them recover.

Many other communities were also hurt badly, and not all of them have gotten as much press as Seagate, so they might have flown by under our radar. A friend sent to me these pictures of the community in Oceanside. The picture are of the damage suffered by the Young Israel of Oceanside and by the HALB school...

There has been a tremendous outpouring of chessed to help the victims of Hurricane Sandy.. here is a tremendous video of some of that chessed...



A Visit to Seagate from Aryeh Gelbard on Vimeo.

The Injured Baby: RAMBAM Switchboard Collapsed From the Number Of requests For Adoption

  -- Walla news


The surviving baby from a car crash up north the other day has been in RAMBAM hospital, and has basically been all alone. No visitors, no family, nothing. the immediate family were all killed in the car crash, and it seems that they have not been able to locate more extended family members.. After publicizing in the news that the baby was all alone without even any visitors, suddenly they received so many calls with offers for adoption that the entire switchboard collapsed...

Mee K'Amcha Yisrael! On the even of the New Year, this should be a merit for our nation, with all the danger ahead of us. The outpouring of chessed to help a little baby should stand in our good stead..

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