Some yeshiva students from Mexico have not returned to their yeshivas in Israel after the Sukkos break because of the war that broke out. Because the war and potential danger, they were unsure whether to return to Israel or not and sent the question to Rav Yitzchak Zilbershtein looking for guidance.

Rav Moshe Londinski, one of the three Roshei Yeshiva of the Chofetz Chaim’s Yeshiva in Radin, inquired of the Chofetz Chaim, “What will be the fate of our brethren in Germany and in Poland?” Rav Londinski pointed out that Hitler y”s had been talking about destroying the entirety of Klal Yisroel for years. 

 The Chofetz Chaim responded that it is impossible for someone to succeed in wiping out Klal Yisroel in all the lands of the exile and he cited the pasuk (Bereishis 32:4-9) “’If Esav comes to the one camp and attacks it, the other camp will escape.” 

At that point, Rav Moshe Londinski zt”l realized that the danger was quite grave. He asked further, “If Heaven forbid, he succeeds in wiping out European Jewry, who and where is the other camp that will survive?” 

 The Chofetz Chaim answered, “This too is a pasuk, it is in the beginning of the Navi Ovadiah (1:17), “And on Mount Zion there shall be a remnant, and it shall be holy..” Rav Londinski left the Chofetz Chaim’s presence with his hands shaking on the future destruction of European Jewry, but he was assured that the Holy Land will be spared and no sword of the Nazi menace would pass before it.   

With the yeshiva world's bein hazmanim upon us, an interesting question arose. 

As an aside, in my younger days I would kiss the ground upon arriving in Israel. Back then one got off the plane on the tarmac and took a bus to the terminal. I always felt funny kissing the cement or tar of the paved tarmac rather than kissing the soil of the Land of Israel. Sometimes I would remember and later kiss soil as well.. I dont know why I stopped but maybe just because I have been here so long and dont travel much...

Rav Yitzchak Zilbershtein, Rav of the Ramat Elchonon neighborhood of Bnei Braq, issued an interesting psak regarding selling unused land in Eretz Yisrael.

Someone inherited a piece of land but had nothing to do with it. The parcel of land is located in a rocky and mountainess area and he basically has nothing to do with it. He came to Rav Zilbershtein asking about the possibility of selling it.

Rav Zilbershtein responded that right now it seems worth little to him but in the future one day it will be extremely valuable.

This is not just astute real estate advice being handed out by Rav Zilbershtein, but something more esoteric.

Rav Zilbershtein explained that in the future the value will jump and increase tremendously. He quoted a "Chacham Laniado" who said (quoting a medrash) that all the stones of Eretz Yisrael will be very valuable as every single stone has a hidden "segulah" associated with it but at some future time all those segulahs will be revealed.

He gave some examples of stones that will be good for causing peace (Netanyahu and Abbas should get some of those now!), others that relieve tooth pain, stop bleeding, cut through other stone, remove kidney stones, etc.

Rav Zilbershtein concluded quoting his brother in law Rav Chaim Kanievsky that mashiach is going to be coming literally at any moment, so the land is surely worth holding on ot until it will be very valuable in the days of Mashiach.
source: Kooker

Here is an interesting idea I never heard before. Rav Reuven Fireman says that movies came into being at about the same time that Jews started moving to Eretz Yisrael. He explains that we needed to develop the power of our imagination in order to be able to imagine moving to Eretz Yisrael, and that's what the movie industry did...
interesting..

this video almost made me want to become a farmer... almost.

Ladaat has this great story from Rav Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld that I just have to share with you.

Someone told over this story, and it makes one wonder what Rav Sonnenfeld would have said to do in a situation similar to that of the Ulpana of Beit El (it's a "what if" discussion in regards to today, but it is a story that really happened back then).

The story goes:
An Arab Siekh living in Lifta in Jerusalem owned the land that has since become Mea Shearim. A group of Jews decided to join together and buy the land to build for themselves houses. 100 families got together to form the group and buy the land (ergo the name "Mea Shearim), purchasing 170 dunam of property upon which to build the 100 homes.

When planning the construction, they realized the land they had purchased was still not large enough for the number of homes they had planned to build. So, they came up with a plan. Every night a few people would go out and move the fence, sometimes to the west and sometimes to the south.

the Siekh did not realize, as he did not live there. he never bothered measuring, and he did not notice the fence being moved little by little.

One of the Jews in the group thought it might be wrong to do that and decided to ask Rav Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld, the rav of Yerushalayim at the time, if it was allowed to steal the land in that manner from the Arab.

Rav Sonnenfeld's answer was that "we are not stealing the land, but we are redeeming it. We paid the Arab, but that is because we are in exile and have no choice. But the land is not his!" He thereby justified the activity that led to the building of Mea Shearim.



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Personally I do not think it is such a big chiddush, as I remember learning that any activity or behavior that improves life and lifestyles in Eretz Yisrael is included in the mitzva of yishuv eretz yisrael. Though I never before heard it discussed by rabbonim and gedolim.

According to Ladaat.net, a sefer was recently written about the mitzva of yishuv eretz yisrael. In the book, the author comes to a conclusion that when a person turns on his air-conditioner on a hot day, or alternatively his heater on a cold day, if he has in mind that he is doing so in order that it should be good and pleasant in Eretz Yisrael, then he is fulfilling the mitzva of yishuv eretz yisrael.

The author went to Rav Chaim Kanievsky with his thoughts. Rav Chaim enjoyed the concept and, according to Ladaat, said it makes a lot of sense.

So, when you turn on the air or heat, it is that easy to turn it into a mitzva. That also shows how "easy" it is to find mitzvot in Eretz Yisrael!

My 5 year old son pulled out our world map and asked me to show him where Eretz Yisrael is.

I showed him where it is, and he asked, surprised, "KaZeh pitsky?" - meaning, "So Tiny?"

I said yes, Eretz Yisrael is very small.

He then asked, so how come we have such a big house that takes up so much space from the country?

It's all a matter of perspective...

Rav Eliyahu Zein, the rosh yeshiva of Yeshivat Hesder Ohr V'Yeshua in Haifa, was asked a question in light of the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, a family wants to move the body of a deceased relative buried in Algeria. is it halachically ok to do so, and being that the body is buried already for 70 years, is there a point - would there be anything left to move anyway?

Rav Zeini responded that if the person was not a great talmid chochom (who measures that and how?) then we already know Chazal have said in the gemara that bringing the bodies of such people defiles the land. Therefore, there is no mitzva to bring a regular Jew's body to eretz yisrael for burial, and for sure not since the expense is great in both the host country and in eretz yisrael.

Instead, the family should donate money to support torah and mitzvos in the memory of, and for the merit of, the deceased relative. This will provide the deceased with great merit of building the Land of Israel even posthumously. (source: Srugim)

It seems a bit strange as the haacha discussing the details of when reinterring a body is allowed grants the reinterrment of the body to Eretz Yisrael as the one time you can do it with no questions asked. To move a body anywhere else in chutz la'aretz, it requires a very good reason, a great need. To move the body to eretz yisrael is always allowed. if it was a defilement, why would the halacha give such carte blanche allowance?

There are also other benefits, such as kavod ha'meis to be buried in Eretz Yisrael. Also the concern of the seforim regarding having the pain of the body "rolling" to eretz Yisrael in the future, in the time of techiyas hameisim, also gives burial in Eretz Yisrael halachic preference. We don't find in halacha, that i am aware of, a limitation that this only applies to the great talmidei chachomim.

Regarding the expense, I am in agreement with Rav Zeini, that it might be considered excessive. I would suggest though that such a decision is in the hands of the family - only they can decide if it is something affordable or excessive, and how much priority this has. People do plenty of things, and waste plenty of money on trivial things when they could be using it to support torah. This seems better than many of the other things.

Agudat Chalamish, Haredim for Yehuda and Shomron, put out the above sticker as part of their latest campaign. This is their version of support for the letter signed by rabbis recently against renting/selling land to Arabs.

The sticker is a quote from Rav Yechaskel Levenstein, the revered mashgiach of the Mirrer Yeshiva, who said in a speech after the Six Day War that one must sense and feel the direct intervention by Hashem, and that eretz Yisrael is ours. Dis Land Iz Unzere - This Land is ours!

The past week has seen a heated discussion about whether one can or cannot rent/sell a house in Israel to non-Jews.

These rabbis signed against, the others signed/spoke against them, everyone else praised or criticized this group or the other.

The "Big 3" Haredi rabbonim - Rav Shteinman, Rav Kanievsky and Rav Elyashiv - were asked there opinion on the matter.

Rav Shteinman said that such a letter and statement with a nationalist bent is an unnecessary provocation, is not the Haredi way, and is forbidden. This despite the fact that Rav Shteinman himself signed a letter a number off years ago saying it is prohibited to sell property in Eretz Yisrael to non-Jews. That has some people up in arms, asking why he changed his opinion on the matter. In truth though, at least if the quote of his in Ynet is accurate, he is not going back on his previous opposition. he is not saying now that it is allowed. All he is saying is that getting together in such a manner and making such bold announcements is wrong. Things like this, according to the haredi way, have to be done differently, quietly, and therefore the methods used here were inappropriate.

In what seems like a moment of inconsistency, while saying that one cannot publicize such a psak and therefore opposing the whole thing, Rav Shteinman did add that at least in haredi neighborhoods one cannot. It is inappropriate, he says, to do so in a haredi neighborhood, like what is happening in Bnei Braq with the Sudanese refugees, and for a haredi neighborhood one could issue such a blanket psak. It is ok for us to do, but the rest of the rabbis around the country who are concerned about the same thing are not allowed to.

Rav Elyashiv opposed the letter and refused to sign. he criticized them for using halacha for political purposes. Funny that that should be a complaint in todays world, as if this is the first time. And Rav Elyashiv too, even though he criticized them and the way they went about it, he did not say it is allowed. he did say that even though it is not allowed, that is not going to stop anybody from selling or buying. If they were going to, they still will, and anyone who is not sure what to do will ask his rav a question. This is not a situation in which it is appropriate to give a blanket psak halacha. And publicizing such a blanket psak will endanger Jews around the world, as people will retaliate in other countries and make it illegal to sell to Jews or other forms of racist discrimination.

Rav Kanievsky did not oppose it. In fact he said it is not even a question - it is prohibited to sell property to non-jews in Eretz Yisrael. But only selling is a problem. Renting would be allowed.

So while everyone thinks that the Haredi gedolim refused to sign and therefore disagree with the psak, it is inaccurate. if you look at their words (assuming their words were accurately relayed, which, as always, is not something one can be sure about), you will see they really agree that it is prohibited but they have other reasons they use to prefer to not publicize the psak.

I don't know if this is something the Rabbanut, under the leadership and psak of Chief Rabbi Yonah Metzger,  should be staying out of or if it is their responsibility to put forward an official psak.

A while back Rav Shmuel Eliyahu, and other rabbonim from around Israel, issued a psak that it is prohibited to sell homes to Arabs in Eretz Yisrael.

The psak, understandably, created a bit of an uproar, with calls coming to have the rabbis involved fired and removed from their positions and from the Rabbanut.

I didn't really get what the big deal was that they had to issue such a psak, as it says right in the Torah that you cannot sell land to non-Jews in the Land of Israel (Lo Techaneim). The psak to this effect is not a new invention, so I don't know what they were adding and why they had to say anything more than quoting the passuk.

Because of the uproar, the Rabbanut, Rabbi Metzger, has been approached to issue a formal ruling from the Rabbanut that will put the matter to rest one way or another.

According to a KikarShabbos report, Rav Metzger is going to be convening the Rabbanut rabbinic council to discuss the matter and to come up with a formal decision.

It seems to me like they should have stayed away from the issue. Just leave it open-ended with some statement quoting the passuk. If they issue a formal psak allowing it, using democracy as the factor, or explaining how it somehow does not apply today, there will be an uproar form the religious community rejecting the Rabbanut because they say the Torah does not apply today. if they issue a prohibition, backing the rabbonim who already said that, they will create an international uproar.

While rabbis have to issue psak and not be concerned about that stuff (unless it is a halachic factor in the issue being debated), this does not really seem to me to be an issue that actually needs their attention..

It is pretty unusual that this guy who was killed in Russia, Shabsai Kalmanovitch, who had been a double agent and had been jailed for spying against Israel requested that he be buried in Israel. He was a spy against Israel, and had sat in jail for spying against Israel, yet he still wanted to be buried here.

The opposite is also amazing, if he feels the attachment and holiness of Israel, why would he spy against us?

But despite the absurdity of it, it still shows the respect he has for the kedusha of Eretz Yisrael even if he did not hold the State in high regard.

In the ongoing saga of Mitch Pilcer's discovery of the [possible] grave of Rav Yehoshua ben Levi, the Tiberias court came to a decision to allow the Antiquities Authority access to the site to dig and examine the contents of the tomb..

The Jerusalem Post writes about the court decision, and fills in some background about the discovery...

Mitch Pilcer, who discovered the grave about six months ago, said rabbis from the haredi community in Jerusalem have instructed him to block the Antiquities Authority from excavating the grave.

While rabbis who had contacted Pilcer would not speak to the Post on the record, they acknowledged they had spoken to him and told the Post on condition of anonymity that they believe the grave, like all Jewish graves, should be left intact.

Pilcer, who agrees that the grave should not be opened, said that he kept quiet on the discovery in part because he feared that his bed and breakfast located on a peaceful hill in Tzipori would be overrun by demonstrators from Jerusalem. He also built a security barrier around the site before contacting the Antiquities Authority.

[...]

But both Pilcer and Mordechai Aviam, the director of the Institute for Galilean Archeology at Kinneret College, maintain that the site was not damaged by either the barrier Pilcer built or the nearly complete building nearby.

"The grave is in fact safer than it was," said Aviam. "He approached it in a correct way and I don't know why they are going after him."

Pilcer, who is also the head of the Tzipori security committee, said he discovered the grave while pulling rocks, which he was using for construction, out of a hillside adjacent to the bed and breakfast's swimming pool.

While digging through the mud he discovered a wall and stone door bearing inscriptions in hard rock with the name of the famous rabbi and the name of the town, Tzipori.

Pilcer said the door to the structure was ajar, and after looking inside he immediately re-covered the site with dirt and built an iron fence around the structure to protect it.

A terra cotta sarcophagus was clearly visible lying in mud inside the grave, said Pilcer.

If the grave does belong to Levi, the presence of a sarcophagus could complicate the issue for some haredim who believe Levi never died because of his attentiveness to the Torah.

"According to Talmudic tradition he rose to heaven with the righteous," Aviam wrote in a press release concerning the discovery.

Aviam, however, said he is not convinced the grave belonged to the rabbi.

The Antiquities Authority filed suit against Pilcer to force him to allow them to excavate the grave. The court ordered Pilcer and the authority to reach an agreement, and advised Pilcer to allow the authority to excavate.

Dahari, meanwhile, said that as a result of the agreement, excavation may begin in September and will be conducted in accordance with Halacha and in conjunction with the appropriate religious authorities.

You learn some Jewish history, you learn some Jewish texts - Tana"ch, Mishnayos, Gemara, etc. and then you just trip over pieces of our history. Wherever you walk - you are walking where king David walked, fought and ruled, where Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov walked, where the kings of Israel lead and rebelled. Where the tannoim and amoraim (those who made it to Eretz Yisrael at least, along with those of the Yerushalmi) sat and learned.

Israel is where our history is completely around us at all times.

Here is the latest example of this. Mitch Pilcer has a set of "zimmerim" - or summer bungalows -near his home in Tzipori. We stayed there a number of years ago when we went up north. It is a beatiful place, and Tzipori is a beautiful village in a beautiful location, along with the history of Tzipori being the center of the Mishnaic era.

Well, Mitch Pilcer was digging behind his house in order to begin building some more bungalows. Sure enough, he stumbles upon a grave. After digging some more, it turns out he has found the 1800 year old grave of Rav Yehoshua Ben Levi, of the Talmudic era.

OK, there is a debate which one exactly it might be, and the antiquities authority is fighting about it and all that, but just the fact that he stumbled upon this - in his backyard - is absolutely amazing. Israel is the place where we live with our history.

I was thinking, and pointed it out at the Shabbos table this week, how appropriate our recent tiyul was.

Just in this past weeks parsha we read about the beauty of the Land of Israel; Israel being a land with springs and streams, valleys and mountains, etc. Last week, in the week leading up to this portion of reading, we visited all of the various descriptions of Eretz Yisrael. We hiked through the streams and springs and drank from their sweet waters. We hiked and drove through the mountains and valleys.

Eretz Yisrael - the land where the Torah comes to life!

Every year, we consider going camping and chicken out at the last minute and join some group. It seems daunting to take a bunch of kids up somewhere and sleep in tents and roughing it for a few days. This year we finally did it. We got up the nerve and actually joined in in Israel's national past time and went camping.

We got our equipment ready and expected to spend 2-3 days really roughing it, sleeping in tents, hiking and enjoying the beauty of Eretz Yisrael.

Little did we know, but what we did is hardly called "roughing it", though nothing we planned did we do, and nothing we did did we plan (is that the same thing twice or do they mean two different things?)...

We went up north planning to pitch tent in a campsite of Park HaYarden or further north in either Churshat Tal or Park Yehudiyah (yes, the one with the hike with the 40-foot jump that you can no longer do - they also have a campsite). At the last minute someone recommended we go to Hof Amnun, so we did..


Notice the sign for windsurfing on the beach by Amnun.. I wonder if this is where the guy Tzuberi who won the bronze medal in the Olympics the other day trained....

Hof Amnun is a beach at the very tip of the Kinneret, at practically the northern-most point possible. The campsite of Hof Amnon is a grassy area (and reasonably priced) just off the shore of the Kinneret. It is actually a bit set back from the beach, simply because the water level is so low!

The campsite had pretty much every amenity imaginable, for a campsite. I cannot compare it with other sites, as I do not know what they are like. Other sites might be exactly the same or maybe some offer more, though I do know that some offer considerably less.

Amnun had indoor bathrooms on site with showers. He had electricity and gave out extension cords and light bulbs. He had a fridge so people could put stuff in overnight, like bottles of water and containers of milk or yogurts. He had a kiosk on site, which came in handy despite the prices being through the roof. I called it "The Hilton of the Outdoors".

Some people were there in very large groups (multiple families together, etc.) that set up camp in very sophisticated manners, as if they do it every year (they probably do), with everything they could even consider missing from home. People had electric stovetops for cooking, some had fans, I saw someone with a computer, and there was one tent there that even had an air conditioner inside it!

So it would be hard pressed to really call this roughing it, but we did not expect all that, so we were pretty much roughing it. We brought along nothing that required electricity. We brought minimal clothes, and enough food for how long we expected to stay, with an ice chest.



It was great. I davened while the sun was rising, and then went every morning for a swim in the Kinneret while everyone else was sleeping. I am not a big fan of swimming. After about 15 minutes I get tired and bored of it, so my early morning swims were perfect. Refreshing, and it felt like I was the only person in the Kinneret at the time - I had the whole Kinneret to myself! Probably not true, but it felt like it.

So, while we made plans to do all sorts of great hikes, we have kids who had preferences. My daughter wanted us to go to The Hula Nature Reserve. It does not make sense to me - she wanted us to go because she had been there with her class on a trip. If it was me, I would not want to go to the same place, but she did. She insisted, so we went, planning on spending a couple hours there and then doing a hike afterwards....



On the Reserve, they have tried to recreate, in part, what used to be there. So they have brought in some herd of Buffalo, also known as "Jamusim" or "Tao". They look kind of skinny, so maybe they bought these guys on eBay or something...


As we were walking through the trail, I noticed some raspberries/blackberries growing along the trail. Some looked ripe, so I, and my two year old who was on my back, ate from them. I have no idea if it is healthy or if they are considered contaminated or not, but so far I am not sick from it...
The Hula Reserve is the first Nature Reserve in all of Israel. It was a big swamp land in the early days of the state that was causing the nearby residents of the villages to come down with malaria, so they went on a project of draining the swamp. They did so successfully, but the JNF agreed to leave a certain amount (I think 800 acres) for a nature reserve.

Anyways, after hiking through Hula in the scorching heat, and then eating lunch, we were all so drained (pun intended), that we had no energy for the hike. So that was that. We went back to our campsite a bit early and went swimming in the Kinneret, then bbq'ed for dinner and went to sleep. I even slept outside, on the ground in a sleeping bag, and not in the tent because I enjoyed the fresh air over the stuffiness of the tent even with an air mattress...

The next day, Tuesday, we also planned some hikes, but they too would not work out. One son was not feeling well, and we did not think it a good idea to go hiking with a kid who might get sick and need to be carried out.

So we changed our plans and went to Park HaYarden which is a large park off the Jordan River. The park has a campsite, but also has a few trails that have water hikes (at least in part), along with kayaking in the Jordan.

Kayaking down the Jordan was great. We got out at points to swim and fool around. We had two kayaks, so we raced each other, I splashed them with my oars, etc. The river is very low because of the lack of rains, but it was large enough for us to have a great time. I told my kids t imagine the Jews crossing the Jordan to enter Israel - and why would God need to split the Jordan considering how small it was. So we tried to imagine how large it must have been back then and what rain, and the lack thereof, can do...

After kayaking we ate lunch, and then did the trail with the most amount of water. We did not even do the whole trail - just the water part of it. And when we got to the best part of the water, we just stopped there and sat and played n the water. It was so hot, this was a big relief. We all had a great time, even the little kids who are normally scared of water, at least this amount of water and flowing at this strength.


After Park Hayarden, we went to Eyn Ayub which is a waterfall that dumps into the Kinneret. It is right next to Kfar Nachum, aka Cappernaum.



After which the kids went down to the Kinneret to swim a little bit before we headed back to the campsite for dinner and sleep...

What could be a better vacation??? Sleeping on the ground, connecting literally to the Land of Israel, swimming in the Kinneret, davening seaside at sunrise, hiking the trails of Eretz Yisrael, swimming and kayaking in the Jordan River. Of yeah, and the family time of course!!!