After the introduction of the new 2 shekel coin (nicknamed shtekel, or shnekel by others) last month, the Bank of Israel announced at the beginning of this month that they were going to cancel a different coin.

The BOI has now announced the demise of the 5 agora coin. If you have been stockpiling these coins somewhere, you can no longer use them to pay bills, go to the supermarket or anything else. I wonder if you can get away with giving them to the meshulachim who come to the door.... hmmmm....

But do not throw them away. Until 2011 they will still be honored at the Bank of Israel and you can exchange them for higher levels of currency.

If you go to a store and find prices still using increments that have no coins associated with them, such as .02 or .05, or the like, not to worry. The BOI has established that all prices below .05 will round down (17.02 will round down to 17.00 for example), and all prices above .05 (including .05) will round up (17.05 will round up to 17.10, for example).

The main reason for canceling the 5 agora coin, the BOI says, is the rising cot of production. It has been costing the government 16 agorot to produce each 5 agora coin!

In honor of US President George Bush landing today in Israel for his first visit here since taking office 7+ years ago, I waited until today to post the following...

There is a halacha that if one has the opportunity, he should expend his efforts to see a king. Even if the king is not a king of Israel but a non-Jewish king, one should take advantage of an opportunity to see the king. An additional halacha is that if one sees a king, there is a bracha to be said. If I am not mistaken, the bracha is one that says that God distributed his honor among the human kings.

Anyways, this raises a question in today's world as to what is considered a king and who deserves to have the blessing said over his/her countenance. I have heard it said that generally, we still will say the bracha upon seeing the kings of Europe, such as the Queen of England, even though their standing nowadays is mostly honorary and they cannot or do not have the same powers they used to have.

The question is really on democratically elected leaders. The President of the USA is arguably the most important, or maybe I should say the most powerful, person in the world. Does he have the status of a king?

A group of avreichim asked Rav Elyashiv what he thought about this. Rav Elyashiv paskened that George Bush does not have the status of king. The logic is that a king is differentiated from any plain old leader by the fact that he has the power to mete out capital punishment or other forms of punishment, on his own whim. The President of the US does not have this power. Therefore, the bracha should not be said, at least not in the full sense of the bracha using "shem and malchus".

Rav Elyashiv added though that one should try to see Bush if he has the opportunity. Obviously this was a theoretical discussion as nobody is expected to get even close to seeing Bush in person, considering the massive security measures in place, unless you are a member of the upper level of government. The reason one should take advantage if he has the opportunity is innovative. Rav Elyashiv said one should try to see Bush and gaze upon his countenance so that later when he sees the King Messiah, he should come speedily in our days, he will be able to recognize the difference between a powerful leader who is not a king, and between the Messiah who is a king.

Rav Nissim Karelitz was also asked the question. His response was slightly different. Rav Karelitz said that one should not make the bracha upon seeing Bush. Rav Karelitz said that democratically elected leaders do not have the status of king because they are elected to manage affairs for a set period of time. They are not landowners liek they used to be and they have no power to confiscate lands.

Therefore, Rav Karelitz also added, there is no need to go out of your way to try to see Bush, and if you do, you would not say a bracha.. He is not considered a king in any respect.

I was reviewing this weeks parsha - parshas Bo, and I found the source for an old Jewish tradition!

Have you ever packed for a trip, no matter how big or how small the trip might be? A guy will throw into the suitcase a pair of underwear, a t-shirt, a clean shirt and maybe a spare pair of pants (slacks) if the trip is going to be for more than 2 days.

Then the wife (or mother) packs. She throws in at least 3 changes of clothes for each day of the trip. She throws in all her creams and makeups. She throws in every possible thing she might need.

Then she packs for the kids. Every possible book or toy they might consider playing with and reading. Enough diapers to last the baby until it gets potty trained. Enough clothes to cover any situation including one where each child soils his garments three or four times a day.
She will even make everybody take a swimsuit, just in case. Even if there is not going to be water within 500 miles of your destination!

Then she packs the food. Every possible item that is ready to be eaten that is sitting in the fridge gets packed. Every single condiment that anybody in the family might prefer gets packed. Enough plastic-ware for a lifetime.

And then she will throw in a few more things "just in case".

In Parshas Bo, after the plague of darkness is lifted from the Egyptians, Pharoah calls in Moshe and tells him that he will allow them to go out to pray to their God. Pharoah says even the little kids can go with. The only limitation is that the flocks and herds should stay.

Moshe answers, in 10:25-26, that not only will we go and take our cattle, but you will give us of yours for us to sacrifice as well. he says everything is coming with. nothing is staying behind. We are taking everything with which we might serve God, and because we do not know what items we might need [and how much of them], and we will not know until we get there, we need to take everything along.

There you have it. Moshe was not a woman, but maybe he got his list for packing from his wife. That is why we pack so much even for short trips..

I just received the following email reviewing some highlights of the year for the activities of Lemaan Achai..

"Your support of Lema'an Achai during 2007 achieved miracles & wonders.

By the nature of what Lema'an Achai does, most of these achievements
cannot be publicly reported.
So here's some *highlights* that we CAN tell you about...
Yeshar koach to the amazing communities of Ramat Bet Shemesh and Bet Shemesh!

Services We Delivered to Local Families Suffering Poverty & Crisis...

* FIVE THOUSAND Four Hundred & Ninety Three Hours of support &
counseling by our in-house professional team of Social Workers
* Six Hundred & Sixteen Hours of Psychiatric/Psychological Therapy!
* EIGHT THOUSAND Free Dental Treatments - over Five Thousand for Kids!!
* Seven Hundred and Six Hours of Professional After-School Teaching
for Kids at Risk!
* Sixty Families received Advocacy Services (new service in 2007!) -
40 of these have had their cases successfully resolved, so far!
* Forty Families Received Intensive Financial Counseling - saving
thousands of shekels for each family.
* Over One Hundred and Sixty Families (over one THOUSAND people)
received Regular, Reliable Food Stamps - so no-one goes hungry.
* A further One THOUSAND nine hundred & twenty food supplementary
packages were delivered (including our unique Shmita-Friendly Aid Packages!!)
....and a Further FOURTEEN Projects, Programs & Services, running 24/6!!
....by OVER TWO HUNDRED talented devoted & industrious Volunteers!!

I am delighted to report that Forty-Six Families (29%) no longer
required Lema'an Achai's assistance, during 2007.
Of these, Twenty-Seven Families (17%) Achieved Independence in 2007
Directly Due to Lema'an Achai.

Other Amazing Achievements:-

* Lema'an Achai's joint Social Services Program with The Gush Katif
Settlers Council played a critical role in obtaining
FIVE HUNDRED MILLION (half a billion!) NIS of Additional Aid for Gush
Katif Evacuees, as a supplement to the Evacuation & Compensation Law,
in June 2007.

* Lema'an Achai received The Bet Shemesh Prize & Recognition during
2007, for its Leadership Role in hosting & aiding over one THOUSAND
refugees from the Second Lebanon War of 2006.

* Lema'an Achai was multiply cited, as part of a whole chapter
focusing on Bet Shemesh (the only city to merit this), by the Ben
Gurion University National Report on the Response of the Non-Profit
Sector during the Second Lebanon War (the non-Government equivalent
of the Winograd Report), published in 2007.

* Lema'an Achai established its First Branch Office, located in
Migdal Hamayim, servicing Bet Shemesh, Givat Sharet and Migdal
Hamayim (in memory of Emma and Simon Wang z"l).

* The Municipality of Bet Shemesh Granted Lema'an Achai a Two Dunam
(that's to say, big!) Building Site, on Prime Real Estate on Nachal Dolev, RBS.

Lema'an Achai has ambitious plans (and commitments!) to Help More
People Even Better during 2008 - which will require a whopping twenty
percent increase in funding.

ALL of this has been achieved, and will be achieved Be"H, solely due
to the financial support of private local donors - YOU.

Yeshar Koach to Everyone! We look forward to your continuing and
increasing support during this new financial year.

Best Regards,
David

For details how to donate to Lema'an Achai: http://lemaanachai.org/donate.asp
If you are interested to sponsor/support a specific program/activity,
or our building project, such as in-memory or in-honor, please contact me.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

David Morris, Chairman
Lema'an Achai - It's All About Caring

www.lemaanachai.org
david@lemaanachai.org

Direct Tel: 02 9997107
Office: 02 9991553
Fax: 02 9992398

40/7 Nahal Lachish
Ramat Beit Shemesh,
99093 Israel.
-----------------------------------------

So if you are looking for a charity to donate to, please consider Lemaan Achai as a worthy cause..

I do not know much about Republican Presidential Candidate Ron Paul. I do know he seems to be going nowhere with his candidacy even though he had a decent showing in Iowa, he is raising enough money to keep himself in the race for now, and he is being described as an isolationist.

He had a few minutes recently and spoke to Haaretz newspaper, mainly about his positions visa vi Israel.

I found his main idea interesting. It is one that was originally suggested by Benjamin Netanyahu and it entails Israel no longer taking financial support from the USA. Netanyahu was not able to implement it though he spoke about the goal of weaning Israel in a speech in the Congress, and I seem to remember the same position was adopted by subsequent prime ministers who also just spoke about it but never actually tried to implement it.

Ron Paul thinks the USA should not be giving financial aid to Israel. It sounds like the death knell for Israel. The truth is that the American economy is not doing well right now and Israel's is. I supported Netanyahu's goal back then of getting Israel to stop sucking from the American financial teat. It would give us more freedom in our diplomacy and would not leave us exposed so much to USA pressure.

Paul says he is not anti-Israel, and that is not what fuels his desire to cut off aid to Israel. He actually wants to cut off aid to all foreign countries. As he says, "It's a good deal, since when aid to Israel stops so would the aid to all the Arab states currently enjoying American patronage. It is true that Israel receives more than any of the Arab states, but, it receives less than they do put together. The enemies would also be denied the money,"

He supports trade with Israel, tourism from and to Israel, but he just does not want to send US dollars as aid to foreign countries.

Paul end off saying, "I believe in the sovereignty of Israel, If Israel stops receiving U.S. aid, then it could do whatever it wants. If it wants peace, then it will make peace. In any event, It will do quite well. Israel doesn't really "need us."

Too bad Paul is going nowhere in this campaign, but I happen to like that policy...

A friend of mine just told me this brief anecdote.

He was by a party of a Hassidic Admor the other day. The party was in honor of the Admor having completed renovations on his beis midrash (this is an admor of a small group of hassidim). I guess it was a "Chanukkas Ha'Bayis".

Anyways, this guy notices three men who seemed out of place. Their were some Hassidim there, there were some people from the neighborhood, and there were three kind of scruffy looking men. They were sefardi and looked like they might belong to the underworld (Israeli mafia) - this is his description, and neither I nor he mean anything derogatory toward anybody sefardi, but these three happened to look like they might belong to the mafia.

Anyways, he goes and sits next to them and chats. he asks them what they are doing there. They tell him where they are from and it turns out they had donated a lot of the money for the renovations. he asked what their connection is to the rebbe. their response was "Achla Admor!".

"Achla" is a slang word in Hebrew that means "Cool". So they were saying they sponsored the renovations for the rebbe because they thought he was "cool".

Achla Admor!

This is absolutely chilling.

The US Holocaust Museum received an album of photographs that have never before been seen, and nothing like them has ever before been seen. It was an old album found in a home in Frankfurt Germany. It depicts life from the angle of the Nazis. It puts them in a human light. It shows them taking vacations, celebrating holidays, being with family, etc. All while a short distance away they were slaughtering Jews.

I first saw the NY Times display, then went to the US Holocaust Museum site and saw another video, and then clicked on the link for the album itself.

I have nothing to add. Just watch the videos (just a couple of minutes). Look at the pictures. Chilling.

Another funny ramification of the great shmitta debate of allowing or not allowing the hetter mechira has arisen.

Whether it is possible to use the hetter mechira in order neuter your pet. That is the question.

Hmmm... Hard to find the connection, isn't it?

Well, Ynet is reporting on a story that involved this connection. This guy had a pet cat who, as he puts it, "started peeing all over the house". He realized that he had to get the cat spayed or it would be a serious problem and he would not be able to keep the cat.

The problem is it is generally prohibited to neuter animals in Jewish law.

This guy went and asked various Rabbis for solutions and they all answered that it is prohibited.

He explored the halacha on his own delving into the relevant bodies of text and came to the conclusion that it is allowed, as the prohibition was only against neutering farm animals, and not pets. (I do not know enough about the topic, so I cannot comment on whether I think his conclusion is right or wrong).

Yet, despite his arriving at that conclusion, he was reluctant to implement it on his own, considering he had asked and been answered in the negative. So he came up with an innovative solution. The hetter mechira.

He sold his cat to a Muslim friend. The Muslim friend took the cat to the vet and had it spayed and then sold it back to the original Jewish owner.

There you have it. The hetter mechira being used to spay a pet.

The article concludes that Rav Ariel, the Chief Rabbi of Ramat Gan, supports the above solution, albeit in a limited situation and definitely not to be decided upon by the individual without first consulting the Rabbi to see if it is acceptable. The irony in this is that Rav Ariel is very strongly against the hetter mechira solution being used in the agricultural sense as a way around the shmitta issues.

Yid With Lid is hosting HH#148 and he calls it "The Impediment to Peace Edition". Check it out.

I write frequently about interesting halachik decisions I hear about. Sometimes they are purely interesting, sometimes unique, sometimes controversial, sometimes silly.

Yesterday I read in the newspaper an article that described a vote of the most unusual declarations of the year. It included what I will call an Interesting psak from an imam.

BTW, the article only gave a couple of examples of decisions that were included int he list.

Anyway, some Imam came out with a psak in May of 2007 that ended up being controversial in the muslim world.

The issue at hand is a male and a female co-worker. They have an uncomfortable situation that their religion forbids them to be alone together, and she would not be allowed to remove her hijab, which win his presence, which would make her workday very uncomfortable.

The only way around this is to find some way to make them be considered family. This would be simple if they were both single - they could get married and solve the problem. The problem is that most of the time that is not a viable solution.

So this Imam found a way. He declared a fatwa that in such a situation the woman should nurse the man (yes, you read that correctly). If the male would breastfeed form the woman, they would be considered family and then they could be alone, she could remove her hijab in his presence, etc.

An unfortunate result of this though is that their children would not be allowed to marry each other because they too would be considered family with each other.

I have no idea if this solution only works if the woman in question is lactating, or if it is purely symbolic and even if she is not lactating, just the symbolic act of breastfeeding" would create the relationship. From the various articles I read on the subject (I did a little research which is why I did not post on this topic yesterday), none of them explained this detail.

Anyways, for your information, the Imam was fired from his position at his university after this psak became public.

Another interesting psak was that if one were to drink the urine of Mohamed, he would be blessed.

I was not aware that the urine of Mohamed is still readily available for consumption. Do they store it somewhere? do they sell it in bottles at the Mosque or at the local kiosk?
Has it been saved in storage similar to the Jewish tradition of a flask of manna and anointing oil having been stored and hidden away? I could not find much on this fatwa, but it is pretty disgusting.

Then again, I know there are various hassidic rebbes who also give away or sell "blessed wine" that would effect blessing on the people who drink from it. This is generally a small bottle of wine that was procured from the cup of the rebbe after he blessed on it and drank from it. Often, this bottle is then mixed with other bottles of wine, so as to spread the affect.

I remember as kids, my mother would sometimes get bottles of such wine from some rebbes who would come to town on visits. We generally refused to drink from it, considering it disgusting to drink from what other people already drank (I think we would say "spit in") from (what can I say - we were good yekkes and did not believe in these things). In my older years, I am much less concerned about germs and cooties and am less reluctant to drink such things..

Maybe they stored a bottle of urine from Mohamed and then mix it with other people's urine to increase the amounts and pass it around for people to drink and be blessed.

There is an interesting rule in the Knesset. The Members of Knesset are not actually obligated to show up for discussions or votes. Many spend more time outside of the Knesset than in, and many miss the discussions and votes on a regular basis. Do not get me wrong, I am sure that most of the time most of those MKs staying away from the Knesset during important discussions are busy with other pressing matters (related tot he commitees they work on and the like) outside of the Knesset building.

The exception to the rule is when 40 MKs sign a petition, they can force the Prime Minister (who generally does not show up) to come and be present at a discussion, and explain his position.

40 MKs signed a petition forcing Olmert to show up to a discussion about the education crisis, including the recent strike by the teachers, and the current ongoing strike by Uiversity professors.

While discussing the crisis, Olmert lashed out saying that the crisis has been in existence for over 20 years and many governments have failed in the task and it cannot be solved in one agreement and with one strike. It is something that needs a lot fo work and a lot of perseverance.

He lashed out at various groups for their parts in the crisis and their unrealistic expectations.

One of the groups he lashed out at was the Haredim. He said to the Haredi MKs, and this qualifies for the Quote of the Day, "If God forbid we woudl let you control your education system, you would destroy it because you would each be harming the other. Only someone like me can deal directly and honestly with the Haredi educational system. The Haredi children of Jerusalem always thanked me "How fortunate that you are not Haredi". Only a secular Jew like me can deal honestly with the problems in the Haredi educational system."

While Olmert is probably right that giving control of Haredi education to a member of a Haredi party would probably destroy it and they would fight with each other even worse, I find it funny that he says only a secular Jew can deal with Haredi education.

If that is true, why have the problems not been solved? Until now it has always been dealt with by secular Jews, yet the problems were never solved (one could even say they were created within the system secular jews et up) so I do not understand how he has the gall to make such a statement.
And it is even funnier that he thinks Haredim saying "how fortunate you are not Haredi" is a compliment. Simply nobody wants to be associated with him!

We will be making a kiddush this shabbos in our home after davening. The kiddush is in honor of the birth of our baby 2 months ago (or whenever it was). If you will be within walking distance (in Ramat Bet Shemesh), consider yourself invited. email me for our address if you need it... israeli.jew at gmail dot com

In light of the recent tension between Israel via Tzippi Livni and Egypt via Hosni Mubarak, in which Tzippi Livni showed that once again she does not have the courage within her to stand by her statements and positions when confronted directly (the last time was when she called on Olmert to resign and then she backed down), Batya of Shiloh Musings is running a caption contest.

The situation of the noshrim has been in the media a lot recently. Noshrim is the term used for dropouts from the Haredi school system. These are teens at risk or if they are not yet in that category, they are approaching it.



The kids drop out of school, they hang out in "town", they hang out in bars, they get with a bad crowd, some end up doing drugs or whatnot and the like. It is a big problem with the numbers of such kids increasing all the time.



The noshrim phenomenon is not limited to kids from broken or dysfunctional families. The whole range of families is affected by it. The very best are on equal footing with the most broken.



A delegation of Haredi askanim, including people who support programs designed for these kids, Members of Knesset from the haredi parties, Haredi journalists, Haredi media and others recently went out on a Saturday night in search of the noshrim to see firsthand how serious the problem actually is.



They spoke with the kids, they held their meetings and have committed to working to find solutions to the problem.



Poeple have always blamed the families of these kids as the source of the problem. The parents do not pay enough attention to the kids. Parents are too busy. etc. The kid feels unloved and goes off to find people who give him/her the attention he desires and finds that love and attention on the streets.



R' Moshe Gafni, MK from the UTJ party, was in the delegation. Before he went out, he discussed it with Rav Shteinman. Rav Shteinman told him to bring his thoughts and ideas to him afterwards.



After they came back from their meetings and discussions about it, R' Gafni went back to Rav Shteinman to tell him what he saw and what he thought about it. He said the source of the problem seems to be the parents who do not give the kids enough attention but choose to rely on the teachers and rebbeim assuming they will give the kids the appropriate amount of attention.

Rav Shteinman, supposedly, replied that the parents are guilty to a certain extent of not giving the proper amount of attention. But, Rav Shteinman said, oftentimes the students have already begun to fail before the parents neglect them. Only later when they are looking for reasons and excuses they might blame the parents. The lack of attention by the parents is often a result of the child's slip into troubled waters. We have to find the source of the problem, and often the parent's not providing enough attention is not the source but a symptom.

Rav Shteinman continued by saying that a large part of the problem is sourced in the situation we have with our school system. The schools all set themselves up to be for the best students of this or that group. One takes the best children only of avreichim, while the other takes the best of bnei torah and the next takes the best of this or that. Everybody is declaring their schools to be only for the best.

The result of this, Rav Shteinman says, is that students who are not necessarily the best are stuck in systems not appropriate for them. When they fail to perform up to the standards and expectations of the school/system, they being to slide down the slope and end up as noshrim.

The schools I went to as a kid were pretty much happy to take in and educate anybody and everybody who was willing to go there. Sure there were a number of schools, each catering to a different worldview/level of religiosity (is that even a real word?) and general outlook, but they all had a range with overlap. One school was not for great kids, the other for mediocre kids, and the third for weak kids. Each school had the full range of kids.

In my neighborhood here in Bet Shemesh, there are something like 15 cheiders, each one declaring itself to be for excellent students. And each one is so full, if they smell even a hint of mediocrity on an applicant, or even a sniff of something not standard, they will not accept the child. There is no range. When you get your kid in, if he does not live up to the very high expectations of the school, he will be deemed a failure. Some of the better, more conscientious schools, will not give up on a child so easily just because he presents a little more of a challenge, but many will.

There is no range of students in the schools in this system. Sink or swim as they call it, and Rav Shteinman hit a very important nail on the head. But nobody wants to say they deal in mediocrity. A school will never want to say they educate children who are mediocre, and parents will not want to send their kids to a school that has the reputation of being mediocre. Everybody wants the best and everybody thinks their kids are the best.

The result will be a problem with kids failing in the system. The only solution is not to open schools for mediocre or weak children, but to open schools that cater to everybody and to stop with the system of everybody opening up his own school that caters to only the best. Just open big schools that are for everybody. The best will rise to the top, the mediocre will find their place within the system and succeed at their level, and the weak will get the help they need to succeed.