The Maggid has a great story for this weeks parsha. Enjoy...

Rabbi Lazer Brody has an amazing Only in Israel story. Check it out!

You know the old saying, "Wherever there is Coca Cola there is Chabad"?

That now needs to be adjusted.

Lev Leviev, the owner and manager of Africa-Israel, has been spreading his wings around the globe. He is now entering the Central American markets. he has begun buying up real estate in Panama City, and he says he plans to expand further in Central and South America.

So, as the saying goes, "Wherever there is Coca Cola there is Chabad and Lev Leviev."

Way to go! Hatzlacha!

I was hesitant to put this in the Torah Thoughts blog, so here it is.

Parshat Ki Seitzei

In this weeks parsha we have the Torah allowing us in battle to take the "captive woman" as a wife. The Torah gives some of the technical details of how he has to make her spend a month looking decrepit, such as letting her nails grow, shaving her head, crying over her family in the entrance of the house, etc.

Rashi says She should look ugly with all this crying so that he will look at her and compare her to the Jewish girl and see how the Jewish women make themselves beautiful and "made up" and this man will then likely abandon the captive woman and marry a Jewish woman.

We see from this Rashi that Jewish women are supposed to beautify themselves so Jewish men will be attracted to them and not be swayed by foreign beauty.

In many frum communities, we have developed the style that girls/women should not dress attractively. They think that by doing so it is not tzniusdig and is therefore inappropriate. So they dress bland and frumpy and shlubby.

Yet the Torah here tells us that Jewish women are meant to be beautiful and to appear beautiful. By doing so, they keep the Jewish men attracted to them rather than to others.

Lipa singing the Diet song.

This week a man named Avraham Gershkowitz passed away in Ramat Gan. He died at the ripe old age of 105 years old.

You know how whenever they find a real old person they ask him/her what the secret of their longevity is? You know how these old people always give answers like a glass of milk a day, or no smoking, or eating broccoli or no alcohol or boring stuff like that that make you unsure of whether it is actually worth living that long if you have to give up all those bad things?

You know what I'm talking about, right?

Well, they asked (before he died) Gershkowitz what the secret to his longevity is.

He did not say going to shul every day (as the study that recently came out suggests). He did not say a glass of milk or veggies or brussel sprouts (but those are veggies). He did not say to stay away from shady tattoo parlors with unsterilized needles, nor did he say to avoid hard liquors.

Fatty red meat. A glass of beer. The secret to a long life. He said eating fatty red meat and drinking beer was the secret to his long life. Someone who lives well, will live long.

Who woulda thunk it?

At a hospital in Jeddah, they ran out of paper cups. They got a new package from the supply room. To their dismay, the cups had Hebrew lettering on it.

They did not know it, but those Hebrew letters spell "Aroma" which is a very popular coffee shop chain in Israel.

"“We were shocked and angry,” said an employee. “How can Israeli products be allowed and how did they enter this hospital?” he asked."

Do you live in Israel? Do you have any use for $3000?

Nefesh B'Nefesh is the organization that has promoted aliya to Jews in America. They have facilitated the aliya of thousands. They do great work and are always looking for new marketing projects to seel aliya.

Nefesh B'Nefesh is now running a contest. The prize to the winner is $3000. The contest is to make a one minute video showing what is unique about living in Israel. The best submission will be the winner of the $3000 booty.

See NBN for details.

I joined Facebook a little while back. A number of friends had urged me too and I finally acquiesced.

For a couple of weeks I had no idea what the point of it was or what I was supposed to do with it. Now, I pretty much find it to be just another method of sending friends messages and stuff.

Yesterday (August 21) was my birthday. The only people who found out, were those registered as my friends on Facebook. That is because Facebook has this nifty (yes, I just used the word nifty) feature that it tells all your friends when your birthday is coming. That way, you get flooded with messages wishing you a happy birthday. (thank you all for your kind wishes)

The thing is, yesterday was my English birthday. I celebrate my Hebrew birthday, which falls out this Shabbos. I do so despite the fact that I still think of the English one first.

The only thing is Facebook only has English dates, and no Hebrew dates, so I am registered there with my birthday being August 21 instead of 11 Elul.

That's all fine.

I do wonder though when the day will come when that will change.

Until very recently (like, last week I think), I could not verify my Facebook account. I did not really care, but it was a slight inconvenience. Every time I wanted to send someone a message on Facebook, I had to type in some word verification code that was nearly impossible to read. I could not verify my account to get rid of those codes, because I live outside of the United States.

Lo and behold, last week I get a message from Facebook that they can now do international account verification.

The day will soon come, I am sure, where they will work with other calendars and dating systems as well.

tidbits

1. The holocaust survivors funding issue: I do not understand what this is all about. Why should they get special funding? Do they have special needs?
I do not mean to sound cruel, but this seems to be a wholly emotional issue. They want money and the government feels bad saying no to them because they survived the holocaust. The general public supports the survivors because we feel bad for them.

But on what basis do they deserve or require this money? Many get funding from other sources anyway. Why should they be different from any old person who has no source of income and needs funding? Maybe they should be talking about increasing the pensioners funding and old age stipends. Why do they deserve special funding? Do they have special needs? therapies or medicines that they still need that regular elderly people do not need?

I see no reason, unless someone can explain it to me, why these survivors deserve this extra special funding.

2. For the first time, a member of Olmert's coalition government went too visit the ruins of Homesh and visit with the "squatters" (for lack of a better word) who have settled themselves in the ruins with the intent of eventually rebuilding the village.

MK Amaslem, a member of the Shas party, went with MK Uri Ariel (from the National Union party), to visit Homesh. Amaslem said at the site that he says in these people dedication and persistence and that will lead to positive results [of rebuilding Homesh].

I can't wait to see how upset Olmert gets at Shas for this event.

3. Major General Yitzchak Gershon, head of Pikud Ha'Oref (Home Front Command) today said that there is no total solution for protection from Kassam rockets.

Hey, Gershon, how about at least a partial solution? So far no building have been fortified, despite the promises of the Prime Minister. It was just announced that schools will open despite their not having been fortified, contrary to the promises of Ehud Olmert. Hospitals have not yet been fortified. etc.

Today a day care center was hit by a Kassam (it was empty at the time).

How about a partial solution? After that we can worry about a total solution.

4. Still no word on any progress on the retrieval of Ehud Goldwasser, Eldad Regev and Gilad Shalit (or any of the older MIA's). Actually, now that I think of it, we have not heard anything about any of them for a while. Hopefully quiet contacts, and progress, are being made. But I doubt it.

5. The investigation into Olmert's corruption is going to break soon. It is back in the news, with various involved people making statements about how serious the case really is. They say there will be announcements in the near future as to how to proceed, regarding formally opening an investigation into Olmert or not. If they do it spells trouble for Olmert, because that means that they will have found out incriminating evidence against him. Once they open a formal investigation, there is no going back.

In this past weeks Torah Tidbits, they wrote,

"Been thinking of different ways to present the following or possibly not even presenting it. let's do it straight.

I was greatly upset to see the falafel stores on King George corner Agrippas open on Tisha b'Av. Including Leil Tisha b'Av! (One of the two; both were open during the day.) My challenge to them was met with "talk to the Baal HaBayit". I went a step higher - I called the hashgacha people who give them their mehadrin supervision. Thought they might not have known. They knew. They even gave their permission, with the following reason: People who eat on Tisha B'Av would probably eat in less kosher or non-kosher places if these places wouldn't be available.

My opinion: Restaurants should not be open on Tisha b'Av. Hashgachot should be removed from places that flaunt this rule. (And I think people who want falafel in that area of town should buy at MAOZ on King George, who stays closed on Tisha b'Av.) --Phil (personal)

What say you?"

I do not know if restaurants should be open or not on Tisha b'Av. I have a feeling they should not be, but there is no actual issur and at worst it is d'rabbanan to eat on tisha b'av.

What I do not understand is this - every year coime tisha b'av we hear complaints from the frum, be it the politicians or the askanim or the rabbonim or the frum media, about all the coffee shops open in Tel Aviv and the people who go out to eat and ignore the fact that it is Tisha b'Av.

And it is sad that people do not recognize the seriousness of the day, even if just on a cultural and historical level if not on a halachic level.

Yet, we hear all these complaints from the frum community. We hear from the politicians how they are going to enforce this law or that law about the restaurants being closed and we get shown pictures in the frum papers of people sitting in the coffee shops of Sheinkin Street or Dizengoff Square.

Phil's letter tells us that the frum community allows this to happen. How can we complain about what is going on when we are assisting them? I would be hesitant to call it mesayeia l'dvar aveira, but it can't be too far off from that.

How can we complain that the secular are so insensitive to Jewish history as they sit eating their steaks or drinking their espressos, while we then offer them mehadrin hechsherim for their restaurants?

Is it all just money - we complain about them but since they do it anyway we will be happy to take their money?

And what does that mean, "People who eat on Tisha B'Av would probably eat in less kosher or non-kosher places if these places wouldn't be available."? Does that really justify it? What about giving hechsherim to restaurants open on shabbos - they would be eating anyways, so maybe we should make sure they are at least eating kosher and even mehadrin!! (oh yeah, shabbos is assur d'oraisa, but we can get around that by having payment by credit and a goy cooking and all sorts of solutions to make it only d'rabbonon).

Should we really be concerned about them eating mehadrin when they are doing so on Tisha b'Av? What can possibly be mehadrin about food eaten on tisha b'av anyway?

If a restaurant wants to be open on tisha b'av, that is sad but that is part of life. Not everybody is religious and not everybody follows the rules of tisha b'av. But do we have to help them by giving them mehadrin hechsherim?

What say you?

Shirat HaYam was a beautiful seaside village in the Gish Katif area. It was a central part of the disengagement as anti-disengagement protesters gathered there by the hundreds to stage a standoff. Eventually Shirat HaYam was evacuated like the rest of the Gush.

The people of Shirat HaYam have been promised a permanent home. A community is supposed to be built for them in the Jordan Valley. Until that actually happens, they have moved around a number of times.

Where they are living now they have no synagogue. Innovative as they are, they have come up with an interesting fundraising program, called "Double Your Mitzva".

Basically the idea is that as you now renew your synagogue annual membership and/or purchase seats for the High Holidays/Yamim Noraim, you can have your synagogue double the donation and they will get the proceeds, which will help them build their synagogue, giving them a place to pray during the upcoming holidays.

Read up on it for more info...

Baseball. In Israel. The Championship game.

A guy from Chicago at a championship baseball game!!

I finally broke down and went to a game of the Israel Baseball League. And it was not just any game. It was the Championship game.

The championship game was between the top 2 teams - the Modiin Miracle and the Bet Shemesh Blue Sox. Not only were these the top two teams in the league, but they were also the most popular. The fans in these respective cities really adopted their teams and came to the games in droves to cheer them on. It must have helped because these are the two teams that came out on top, with the Blue Sox in first place the entire season.

It was a very exciting atmosphere. They estimated 4000 in attendance. The place was packed. It was noisy. It was a beautiful evening for baseball. The two teams were well matched, each with ace pitchers taking the mound.

I do not remember the names, and I do not feel like looking them up right now, but Modiin's pitcher was a Dominican fireballer who throws 97 mph.

The teams warmed up before the game to the cheers of their fans.
Here you can see the great Art Chomsky from the 1969 Mets, pre-game, preparing for the game as coach of the Modiin Miracle. I did not get a good picture of Ron Blomberg, former World Series NY Yankee coaching the Blue Sox, here is also one of the IBL Commissioner Dan Kurtzer.






Here is my friend Jeff Mor from the Blue Sox signing autographs before the game. He told me that 4 of the guys on his team have tryouts this summer with the NY Yankees, because of their great play this summer in the IBL.The game was fabulous. The pitchers were both great, the Blue Sox were able to scrape out three runs over 9 innings. Generally games are 7 innings but the Championship game was 9 innings. The pitcher for the Blue Sox threw a complete game shutout wining the game 3-0. There were some great plays in the game, a few nice hits, some diving catches, great pitching, exciting fans, and an electric atmosphere.

2 rows behind me was sitting the great Lenny Solomon, of Shlock Rock fame. He wanted to do the play by play, for himself, so he brought his own recorder, as you can see a Fisher Price model and spent much of the game recording his version of the Play by Play commentary.

Here is a great costume of a fan that was sitting next to me. It is a baseball mask with blue sox hanging from it.

And after the game there was a celebration for the team. The fans dfid not break out into the field. There was an on field ceremony after a lot of cheering. Awards were given out. After the ceremony the teams thanked the fans for their support during the season. Then a number of the players came to the fence and threw over various items for the fans to grab. they threw things ranging from balls to batting gloves to shoes to pants to shirts, etc.


Opening day for the 2008 is scheduled for June 29, 2008. be there.

Read the interesting story and emotions of parents (mine) of a volunteer IDF soldier (my brother), as printed in the Chicago Jewish News.

There are some minor inaccuracies in the article, but overall it is well-written. The inaccuracies do not really change anything in the story....

Kfar Maimon.

A little village south of Sderot very close to the Gaza border.

The location of the three day protest 2 years ago. The big one. The one with 50,000 people camping out in every available spot in Kfar Maimon waiting to make the move into Gaza to thwart the disengagement.

I went back to Kfar Maimon this past Friday. Not for anythign so dramatic as the protest that took place 2 years ago. A friend of mine was sitting shiva in Kfar Maimon. He grew up there and his parents still lived there. His father died and he was sitting shiva. I went Friday morning to pay a shiva call.

I was joking around with people, and I told my friend, that I would have to leave extra early to get there (it is about an hour and a quarter drive from where I live) because I only know the way cutting through the fields.

2 years ago, the Yesha Council called for a protest against the disengagement. They decided to make a big one and they made a three day protest that was meant to culminate in a mass move on the Gaza border.

The government tried to limit the numbers of people who could go and participate in the protest. So they declared the whole area a closed military zone. They only partially enforced it though. They did not let anybody openly go to Kfar Maimon or anywhere near the border with Gaza. However, they mostly turned a blind eye to people going when they went via alternative routes. By alternative routes I mean driving or hiking through the surrounding fields.

I went with a group of guys down for the third of the three day protest. We had a fearless driver with a "company car". After being turned away on a number of routes, we drove through a number of fields until we finally made it to Kfar Maimon.

What happened happened and what did not happen did not happen. That is history.

So my joke was that the only way I know to get to Kfar Maimon is via the fields and not via the roads, so I would need some extra time to get there...

Going there on Friday was a totally different experience.

2 years ago the place was a wreck. People were covering every inch of the little settlement. Local residents gave up everything of themselves and their lives for three days to spearhead the protest against the disengagement. The aesthetics of the yishuv had been destroyed by the masses of people sleeping everywhere and hanging out and eating, etc. The authorities had limited the entry of basic necessities, so there had been no garbage collection for a number of days. You can imagine the havoc an additional 50,000 people would cause to a sleepy town of 200 or so people.

Now it is just a sleepy, quiet village with working people. They work in the fields and as educators. It is a simple place with simple, salt of the earth people. The place is quiet and clean.

It must have taken them a long time to clean the place up when it was all over and get back to living their lives again normally.

Kfar Maimon placed a marker stone at the entrance to the settlement to commemorate the historic event. The marker tells, briefly, of the events of 2 years ago.

Before I begin let me start off with saying thanks to Mr. Bagel who is the founder and manager of the J pix carnival.

And now, after the brief word for our sponsor, on to the carnival.

me-ander stays home for her vacations. Take a look and see why she has no need to go anywhere...





David from Temunot also went to Machane Yehuda and shows us some trays of really delectable looking goodies!


David also took advantage of his being in Israel to visit the Beit Hamikdash. I must have missed some big new stories while I was on vacation!!!

Dave Bender gives us a pic of Jerusalem at night in time for Elul..

David is really seeing all the sights! He went to Chevron and saw the memorial for Shalhevet Pass, the baby who was murdered in her baby carriage by an Arab terrorist.




A Simple Jew presents his black and white picture of the week...of Dogwood in July.

me-ander went to New York!! I thought she only stays on Shiloh... hmmmmmm

Simply Jews caught this cool looking critter on his camera...

Batya went to the Museum of Jewish Heritage while she was in NY and she also went to Manhattan...

A Simple Jew has another b&w pic of the week...

Streets of Jerusalem brings us images of concerts in Sultan's Pools and then shows us a wonderland tucked in between some streets in Rechavia

and last but not least, muse went to a wedding dressed differently than everyon else....