Parshas Vayeishev

Chof Bais Kislev 5766

 

Volume 2
Issue 9

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PARSHAS VAYEISHEV

"Hi, everyone. I'm home," announced Pini as he came through the door.

"Hello, Pini," his mother greeted him. "I hope you had a good day. You're a bit late - everything okay?"

"Yeah, Mommy," he replied. "As I was walking home I met Mrs. B"H. She was carrying a bunch of bags, so I helped her. She walks pretty slowly you know, so it took some time."

"Pini, I'm glad you did a mitzvah. But why do you call her Mrs. B"H? Every person has a name, and that's what he or she should be called."

"Oops, I'm sorry," said Pini sheepishly. "It's just that all the kids call our neighbor, Mrs. Green, Mrs. B"H, because she is always saying Baruch Hashem this, Baruch Hashem that."

"You know, that's nothing to make fun of," Pini's mother told him off gently. "It's just what a Jew should say, like Yosef HaTzaddik did in Mitzrayim."

"Yosef?" asked Pini.

"Yes. You see, in this week's parshah, we read about the difficult time Yosef had. He was sold as a slave and taken to Mitzrayim. There he worked for his master, Potiphar. Potiphar was very impressed with him. The passuk tells us: 'And his master saw that Hashem was with him. Hashem made him successful in everything he did.' Now Pini, check to see what Rashi says about this verse."

Pini opened the Chumash and read: " 'That Hashem was with him.' Rashi says, 'The name of Hashem was constantly on his lips.'"

"But Mommy, how does Rashi know this? And besides, why does Rashi even explain these words? It's not so hard to simply understand the passuk 'that Hashem was with him.' And, wait a minute! The previous passuk says, 'And Hashem was with Yosef and he was successful.' Why doesn't Rashi give an explanation there?"

"Read the beginning of the passuk once again, Pini," suggested his mother.

" 'And his master saw,'" read Pini.

"Now think: Potiphar was an idol-worshipping Egyptian. He had never heard of Hashem before. How could he know that Yosef's success came from Hashem? The answer is very simple: Yosef's conduct showed him. As we know from Rashi, 'The name of Hashem was constantly on his lips.' Yosef was always saying Baruch Hashem this... Please, Hashem that...

"And Pini," his mother continued. "We've just celebrated Yud-Tes Kislev. Chassidim tell that when the Alter Rebbe was imprisoned, the Russian government officials who questioned him were very impressed with his personality and wisdom. They saw him as a G-dly person. Now how could Russian officials, whose aim was to stamp out Yiddishkeit, know about anything G-dly?

"Because like Yosef, it was so clear to them from the Alter Rebbe's conduct that he was a G-dly person. You see, in part, Yosef's story repeated itself when the Alter Rebbe was imprisoned. The Alter Rebbe's entire conduct made it very clear to the Russian officials that he was a G-dly person. In fact, it was his speech and behavior that actually helped him to be miraculously freed from jail!"

 

‘Please Tell Me What the Rebbe Said’ (Adapted from Likkutei Sichos, Vol. XXV)

 
 

I gave him something salty and something strong, A very important part of him I took back.

Because of me, we eat Milchigs on Chanukah.

___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___

Please send your answers to connections@shluchim.org

Last weeks’ brain buster: My first is made Friday night and my second is King of the night. The Alter Rebbe stopped for me.

Answer: קידוש לבנה

Congratulations to Yoni Bechor, age 10 from Randolph, NJ
for solving the brain buster .


Dear kids,

Wow, what a busy month! Kislev is my favorite month of year because it is packed with special days. First came Rosh Chodesh Kislev, then Tes and Yud Kislev, then Yud Daled Kislev… learning about these Chassidishe Yomim Tovim made me feel very connected to the Rabbeim. Then came Yud Tes Kislev, when the Alter Rebbe was released from jail and Chassidus was able to spread openly. I felt so special and proud to be a Lubavitcher Chossid. When I look at all the mesiras nefesh that our Rabbeim had to spread chassidus, I know that they’re giving us the strength to do our shlichus now. I want to give a big yasher koach to all of you who joined in the Yud Tes Kislev farbrengen/ phone rally.

I am so excited about Chanukah. I can’t wait to go out into the streets and light up the darkness. Remember the magical flashlights that Yankel and I had on our flight to New York? Well, each one of you has your own flashlight, too! All Chassidim are lamplighters and our mission is to light up the world by teaching people about torah and mitzvos.

Rebbetzin Getzel just sent me to the supermarket to buy potatoes, olive oil, and Chanukah candles. There I was, walking around the store with my full shopping cart and everyone was staring at me. People came over to me and asked if I was stocking up for a famine! “No, no”, I told them, laughing, “the potatoes are for Rebbetzin Getzel’s famous Chanukah latkes, you have to come to our Chanukah party to taste them.” Luckily, I had brought along some brochures which Yankel and Mirel gave out to each person who stopped us. You know something, one of the best places to do mivtzoim is the supermarket! A little girl came over to us and asked if we were expecting a blackout. Now this question really shocked us. “What?” Yankel, Mirel and I blurted out at once. “Well, why would you need so many candles,” the puzzled girl asked. “To light the menorah, of course”, Mirel said. We invited the girl and her mother to our Chanukah party, too.

You’re not going to believe what happened next. The store manager saw so many people coming over to us that he asked us to make an announcement over the loud speaker. We were overjoyed. We marched to the front of the store and invited everyone to come to our Chanukah party!

The amazing thing about Chanukah is that we can go out into the streets and literally light up the darkness with our menorah lightings and Chanukah parties. I hope you all have a great Chanukah. Please write to me and tell me about the wonderful programs you did to “light up the night” of golus and bring Moshiach Now!

Dr. Getzel

Menachem Mendel Vogel, age 9
Rochester, NY

Hello, my name is Menachem Mendel Vogel. I am 9 years old and I live in Rochester, N.Y. They speak English here. It's snowing really hard and there’s very bad weather. My Chabad House is pretty big. It has 3 floors. In the upper floors there is a Recreation Room and the offices are there. The middle floor has a library, a lounge, a kitchen, and a Shul. It looks really nice. My father is the rabbi with another rabbi. My father does JLI. And he learns with people. We have a Sunday morning Tefillin Club with bagels and lox. The café is my best program. It is every other Motzei Shabbos. There is pizza, & french Fries, falafel, soda, & ....................... I help by being a waiter.

I go to Derech Hatorah. It's not a Lubavitch school. We are learning not to speak Lashon Harah. I like to play sports. I love soccer. I also love reading. I read 24/7. I am friends with Laivy Mochkin. He comes from Rochester, NY. He's in my class.

I'm proud to be a shliach because  I am chazzan in shul on Shabbos .  


This Shabbos is שבת מברכים חודש טבת

  • שבת morning I made sure to say תהילים . (Remember to say your quota for the World-Wide Tehillim club)  
  • I went to S hul and made the special ברכה for the new month of טבת . (The ברכה can be found in the סידור after שחרית for שבת )

 

Everything is connected to משיח , even playing dreidel. The בני יששכר explains: There are four letters written on the dreidel - נ ג ה ש . This is a ראשי תיבות for the words ‘ נס גדול היה שם ’ -’a great miracle happened there’. If you add up the גמטריא of the four letters on the dreidel you will end up with the total of 358. This is also the גמטריא of the word " משיח "!

Chanukah Tidbits

  1. We spin the dreidel from the top, not like the פורים gragger which is spun from the bottom, because the miracle of Chanukah was clearly from Above, in a way that was higher than nature.

  2. כ “ ה כסלו , the first day of חנוכה , is the same day that the אידן who left מצרים finished building the משכן in the מדבר .

  3. The נס of חנוכה happened a long time after the תורה was given, but it is hinted in the 25th word of the תורה - ’ אור ’ which means 'Light.' חנוכה , the Festival of Lights, begins on the 25th day of כסלו . Also, the 25th stop that the אידן made in the מדבר was in a place called חשמונה .

  4. Many חסידים have the מנהג of making special פארברענגען s and giving out extra חנוכה געלט on the 5th night of חנוכה . The Rebbe explained that this is because the 5th night of חנוכה is the darkest, since it is the only night of the יום טוב that can never fall out on שבת , and we must do our job of lighting it up it, no matter where we are in the world.

  5. thirty-six candles are lit during חנוכה , not counting the שמש .

  6. The Menorah in the בית המקדש in ירושלים had only seven branches. Each one held exactly the same amount of oil, but the lamp closest to the קדש קדשים burned twice as long as the rest.


The Story of חנוכה

It was 2144 years ago. The Greeks ruled over ארץ ישראל and they tried to convince the אידן to live like them. Their ideal was that on the outside people should look strong, clever, beautiful and handsome. But אידישקייט teaches us the opposite, we have to make sure that our נשמות are beautiful by learning תורה , doing lots of מצוות and working on our מידות .

At first the Greeks were very friendly with the אידן but the they started getting nasty. King Antiochus made many new laws, forbidding the אידן to do certain מצוות like learning תורה , keeping שבת , ברית מילה and so on.

Antiochus’ soldiers went from village to village, making sure that the king’s laws were being kept and forcing people to serve idols. They even put an idol in the בית המקדש .

One day they came to the village of מודעין where מתתיהו lived. The soldiers built a מזבח to the idols and wanted מתתיהו to offer a sacrifice (a קרבן ) up to the idols. מתתיהו answered “I and my brothers and my sons are going to stay loyal to ה ‘ ”. One of the מתיוונים ( אידן who acted like the Greeks) came up and wanted to offer it up and מתתיהו pulled out his sword and killed him. מתתיהו and his sons killed many of the Greek soldiers and chased the rest away.

מתתיהו knew that when Antiochus heard about this, he would be very angry. So he and his five sons: יהודה , שמעון , יוחנן , יונתן and אלעזר , ran away to the hills together with all the אידן who were loyal to ה ‘ .

Every so often, they would fight against groups of Greek soldiers or go into villages and destroy the altars which the Greeks built to offer sacrifices to their idols.

ה ‘ made many ניסים for them and every time they fought the Greeks, they won. After מתתיהו passed away, יהודה became the leader and he was called ‘ מכבי ’ which stands for ‘ ה ‘ מי כמוך בא-לים ’ - ‘Who is like You, ה ‘ ’. And his army were called ‘The Maccabees’.

With ה ‘ ’s help, the Maccabees slowly won against all the Greek generals’ armies and went back into the בית המקדש . They found it a mess! They emptied all the idols, built a new מזבח and wanted to light the מנורה . They only found

one small jug of pure olive oil with the seal of the כהן גדול . Even though it would take them 8 days to

get new olive oil, and they only had enough in the little jug for one night, the אידן decided to light the מנורה anyway. And we all know the נס that happened! The small jug of pure olive oil, that should have lasted for only one day, lasted for 8 days!

And that’s why we celebrate חנוכה for 8 days!

(Adapted from ‘The complete story of Chanukah’ by Nissen Mindel)

 

פרסומי ניסא

Points from a שיחה that the Rebbe said at a חנוכה Satellite in תשנ “ ב

It is a mitzvah to light the חנוכה candles in a way that lets the whole world know about the נס of חנוכה . In recent years, a ‘custom’ has been established of adding a satellite hook-up to our מנורה lighting. The satellite has made it possible to bring the knowledge of the נס of חנוכה not only to a street or neighbourhood, but to the entire world!

The new inventions of recent years have one purpose: to add to ה ‘ ’s honor and glory by using them for תורה and מצוות .

This world-wide פרסומי ניסא has a lesson for every one of us:

From the world-wide חנוכה lighting we can see that even a little child, who does not have the strength of an adult, can light up the whole world by just one action. A child lights a חנוכה candle in one place on the globe, and at that very moment, the light of his candle is seen throughout the world.

This world-wide פרסומי ניסא will bring even more quickly the גאולה האמיתית והשלימה . Then we will see the אידן coming together from all corners of the world, and going on the clouds of שמים to ארץ הקודש , to ירושלים , the Holy City. There we will once again light the חנוכה candles where they were lit the very first time, in the third בית המקדש , right now, ממש .

(Adapted from ‘The Rebbe Speaks to Children)



One of the soldiers in the Rebbe's army of חסידים who kept אידישקייט alive in the darkest years of Communist Russia was ר ‘ אשר Sossonkin, who spent many years in Soviet work camps for his "counter-revolutionary" (against the law) activities. In one of these camps he met a איד by the name of נחמן Rozman. When נחמן was young he left אידישקייט , which was how he was raised and joined the communist party; he served in the Russian Army, where he became a very important soldier; but then he was arrested for dealing in some illegal business and sentenced to a long term of hard labor in Siberia.

נחמן liked the חסיד who reminded him of his home and life he had left. With ר ‘ אשר 's help and encouragement, he began to return to אידישקייט in a place where keeping כשר , not working on שבת , or grabbing a few moments to daven meant that you might not get even your tiny portion of food, you would get many punishments and even sometimes worse!

One winter, as חנוכה came near, ר ‘ אשר called over his new friend. “I have a plan for how we can light the מנורה . I can get a hold of a small, empty food can - the smaller the better, so it'll be easy to hide and no one will notice. We'll save half of our daily ration of margarine over the next two weeks, for oil. We can make wicks from the loose threads at the edges of our coats. When everyone's asleep, we'll light our ' מנורה ' under my bed...."

"Certainly not!" cried נחמן Rozman. "It's חנוכה , ר ‘ אשר , the יום טוב of ניסים . We'll do the מצוה the way it should be done. Not in some rusty can fished out from the garbage, but with a proper מנורה , real oil, at the proper time and place. I have a few rubles hidden away that I can pay Igor with at the metal-working shed; I also have a few favors that are owed to me at the kitchen...."

A few days before חנוכה , נחמן triumphantly showed ר ‘ אשר the מנורה he had gotten hold of somehow - simple but definitely a "real" מנורה , with eight oil-cups in a row and a raised cup for the שמש . On the first evening of חנוכה , he set the מנורה on a stool in the doorway between the main room of their barracks and the small storage area at the back, and filled the right-hand cup; together, the two אידן said the ברכות and lit the first light, as millions of their fellow אידן did that night in their homes around the world.

On that first night the lighting went off without any problems, as it did on the second, third and fourth nights of the יום טוב . As a rule, the prisoners in the camp did not tell on each other, and their barrack-mates had already gotten used to the way these two אידן behaved.

On the fifth night of חנוכה , just as ר ‘ אשר and נחמן had lit five flames in their מנורה , a sudden quiet spread through the barracks. The prisoners all froze in their places and turned their eyes to the doorway, where an officer stood, one of the camp’s high officials.

Even though surprise inspections were quite normal, they always made the prisoners terrified. The officer would walk through the barracks giving out severe punishments for ’crimes’ like a hidden cigarette or crust of bread.

"Quick, throw it out into the snow," whispered the prisoners, but the officer was already walking quickly toward the back doorway, where the two אידן stood huddled over the still-burning flames of their מנורה .

For a very long minute the officer gazed at the מנורה . Then he turned to ר ‘ אשר . "P'yat? (Five?)" he asked.

"P'yat," replied the חסיד .

The officer turned and left without a word.


See the printable version of Connections for incredible fun pages!


Last Week’s Winners:

Level 1:
Ephraim Andrusier, age 7 from Columbus, Ohio

Level 2:
Mindy Mochkin, age 11 from Rochester, NY

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