Parshas Acharei-Kedoshim

 

Hi there my favorite Junior Shluchim,
Pesach is over, but Shavuos isn't here yet, which must mean that we are in the middle of Sefiras Haomer. Yup, it’s that special time of year when we get a new mitzvah every day.
But with no new Yomim Tovim or Yomei Depagra coming up too soon, it meant that it was time to get back to work, doing what people think I do best. No, not losing my house keys - making new lenses! I’d actually not been to work in my laboratory for quite some time, what with Pesach, and Pesach cleaning, and Purim, and all the simcha of Adar, I’d been way too busy, so I was a bit worried what I would find when I went to work. Maybe the university would have gotten bored waiting around for me and just closed my lab down. Or maybe all my assistants had gotten fed up having nothing to do and gone and gotten new jobs. Or maybe they had even forgotten I’d  existed.
I soon found out that there was no need to worry. Everyone just thought that either I had lost the keys to my office again like I did last year, or maybe I had forgotten where my lab was like a few months ago. So everyone just sat around and waited, and waited, and waited...  I guess it is good that things run so slowly out here in the (now once again) yellow cornfields of Iowa.
So, not wanting to waste any more time, I got straight down to work. I hadn't made any new lenses for quite some time, so I thought that would be the best thing to start with. The question was, what lens should I make? I only make lenses that I think are going to be useful for at least one other person than myself. After all, we know that every Yid is like a whole world, so even if only one other Yid would use one of my lenses, it would be as if the whole world used them!
After a bit of pondering and wondering, and a little bit of pacing and walking, and a drop of talking and singing, I finally decided what to do. I’d do what I always do when I can’t decide what lens to make - I consulted my calendar to see what special days are coming up soon.
It didn’t take much looking at my calendar to remember why I had come to the lab at all that morning - there weren't any special dates coming up on the calendar at all! So with nothing better to do, I just sat there staring at the calendar, and thought and pondered and wondered.
Then it hit me. Of course. Why didn’t I think of it before? I was going to make a SOL lens. Can you figure out what sort of lens the SOL lens is? Well let me give you a hint. In Russian, SOL means salt. And in Portuguese, Catalan, Spanish, Icelandic, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish and Latin, (I bet you never knew that I knew all those languages!), SOL means sun. And SOL is also the name of the old money that they used to use in Peru. But - here comes the hint - none of that has anything to do with the SOL lens that I decided to make.
Well, I’ll be leaving you now, but tune in next week to find out more about the new SOL lens.

Dr Getzel

 

י“ג אייר

י“ג אייר is the יאהרצייט of ר‘ ישראל ארי‘ לייב . He was the Rebbe's youngest brother. He was born in the month of Sivan in the year תרס“ט (1909) in the city of Nikolayev, Russia. His parents, ר‘ לוי יצחק and רביצין חנה had two children at the time - the Rebbe who was then seven and דובער .

Already as a child it was seen that he was a very talented boy.

Not long before the start of the Second-World-War, ר‘ ישראל ארי‘ לייב moved to Tel-Aviv, in ארץ ישראל . In Tel-Aviv he lived near the Chassidishe neighborhood and often participated in the חסידים ’s simchas and farbrengens. He loved to learn חסידישע מאמרים . Often he would spend entire nights learning with his friends, helping them understand deep ideas in חסידות .

In the year תש“א (1941), when the Rebbe came to New York, the Rebbe and his brother continued their relationship through sending letters to each other. Many times ר‘ ישראל was the first person in ארץ ישראל to receive the ספרים published by the Rebbe and he would show them to the חסידים there.

In the year תש“ח (1948), due to business and study, ר‘ ישראל moved to Liverpool, England.

Four years later, י“ג אייר תשי“ב (1952) he passed away at the young age of 42. The Rebbe requested that he should be brought from England to ארץ ישראל where he was accompanied by many חסידים and buried in צפת .

 

In פרשת אחרי מות we are told about the goat that was set aside for עזאזל and taken to the desert by a special messenger. In the גמרא we are told that רבי אליעזר was asked: “If the goat becomes ill, can the messenger carry it on his shoulder?” רבי אליעזר answered: “He is capable of carrying me and you.”

Who is ‘He’ referring to and how does this answer the question?

The עזאזל goat is a משל for the אידן . For many many years we have been in גלות , spread out among all the nations of the world. Whenever something goes wrong, it’s always the אידן ’s fault. Like the עזאזל goat that was sent out of the camp into the desert, the אידן have also been expelled from many countries.

But ב“ה we have managed to stay strong and keep תורה and מצוות even through all the many attempts to harm us בגשמיות and ברוחניות .

What רבי אליעזר was really asked was: what if the goat - the אידן - becomes ill, what if their suffering weakens them so much that they no longer have the strength to keep תורה and מצוות ? Should they just give in and act the way the nations want them to? Should they just forget about תורה and מצוות ?

רבי אליעזר ’s answer was “no”. He told the אידן : “Don’t ח“ו give up one drop of תורה and מצוות . Don’t worry. ה‘ is capable of carrying me and you. גלות might be very difficult to bear but ה‘ is able to take us out and He will do so very speedily.”

 

י“ד אייר - פסח שני

י“ד אייר is פסח שני , the "Second Pesach." In the times of the בית המקדש , there were often some אידן who couldn’t bring the קרבן פסח on the "first" פסח , so they were given a "second chance" on פסח שני . This would happen if they were טמא or too far from the בית המקדש to be there in time for the first קרבן פסח .

The Rebbe writes in היום יום : The theme of פסח שני is that

“עס איז ניטא קיין פארפאלאן ” – it is never too late. 

It is always possible to put things right. Even if you were טמא , or you were far away, and even if you became טמא on purpose – nevertheless you always have the chance to fix things up.

On פסח שני we:

Don’t say תחנון .

Do eat some שמורה מצה .

 

One of the early שלוחים that the Rebbe sent to France was a שליח called ר‘ שמואל . Although ר‘ שמואל did not know a word of French, the Rebbe called him into his office and assigned him and his wife to a certain French city, blessing them and adding several times encouragingly. "It is important that you always be happy (בשמחה ) because the French people hate an angry face."

From the minute they arrived they met with a lot of success. One of the first things they did was to start a Jewish school. At first it was slow work and they had many difficulties, but after two years there were almost a hundred children, all of them from non-frum backgrounds, learning in the large building ר‘ שמואל had rented and converted into a school.

It didn’t take long however, before ר‘ שמואל ran into more problems. One day a government official arrived and said that he had come to inspect the building.
For three days the official looked around until finally he handed ר‘ שמואל a long list of ‘hazards’, and announced that if every fault on the list wasn't fixed, the school would be closed down. He estimated that the repairs would cost over twenty thousand dollars, and he gave him three months to complete the job.

ר‘ שמואל did not know what to do! He had trouble even coming up with the monthly rent and teacher's salaries, how could he possibly come up with such a huge sum in such a short time? But he remembered the Rebbe's words about being בשמחה and hoped for the best.

For the next two months he tried various solutions. He made a dinner, sent out letters and even asked a few rich people for donations, but nothing worked. In fact every time he thought about it, he became depressed. But then, just as he was giving up hope, he remembered something that had happened a few months ago.

ר‘ שמואל had been travelling on the express train to Paris and he’d accidentally got on the wrong coach. While he was searching for his seat, another passenger stopped him and said in a friendly way, "You must have made the same mistake as I did. See your ticket? It says coach 18 and this is 17. No problem! See there are a lot of empty places. You can sit next to me."

The man turned out to be Jewish and a chief assistant for a French Parliament member. They talked for the entire two hours of the trip, and ר‘ שמואל remembered that as they approached Paris the man gave him his business card and warmly invited him to call him if he ever needed anything.

Funny he had never thought about it before but now he was desperate. He searched his office and finally found the card! He called the number and when there was no answer, he decided to go to the office himself. But when he entered the building, the secretary at the entrance had bad news. The man he was looking for was abroad on business and she wasn’t sure when he would return.

ר‘ שמואל did not know what to do but then, suddenly, behind him he heard people at the door saying, "Oh hello Mr. Blan, How are you Mr. Blan?" He turned and saw a young well-dressed man shaking hands with people and remembered that he had read in a newspaper somewhere that ‘Blan’ was the name of the building official for his city!

He whispered thanks to ה‘ , excitedly walked over, shook the young man's hand and asked him if he was in fact the official.

"Ahh, no no," he replied politely. "You must mean my father. If you would like to meet him you can call and make an appointment. Here is his number," he said as he took a card out of his wallet.

(To be continued next week)

 

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