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Chabad of Port Washington Email: rabbi@chabadpw.org Voice: 516-767-8672 www.ChabadPW.org
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Yesterday we celebrated Lag BaOmer, the 33rd day of the Omer counting, which is the yartzeit of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai - one of the greatest Sages of the Talmud and the author of the Zohar, the fundamental text of the Kabbalah - Jewish mysticism. Customarily, we commemorate Lag BaOmer by outings to parks, forests and fields, enjoying bonfires and picnics, celebrating nature and the outdoors.
Rabbi Shimon was described as one who made Torah study his occupation - his entire life revolved around these teachings. Why do we commemorate his life by leaving the "study hall" and venturing out to the outdoors?
The idea is to show how Rabbi Shimon's teachings give us the insight to extend the Torah BEYOND the confines of the synagogue and study hall. Forests and fields are not usually associated with the Jewish way of life, and yet, Rabbi Shimon provides us with the mind-set to extend the Torah's wisdom into such settings.
This is due on Rabbi Shimon's mystical teachings which give us the conceptual underpinnings to perceive G‑dliness in every environment, and to understand how EVERY element of existence and EVERY detail of our lives reflect Hashem's truth.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Shalom M. Paltiel
Learn more about Lag B'Omer - CLICK HERE>>
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Life Moving Forward: Cory Greenbaum
Dear Friends,
Cory, a local yeshiva high school student, became paralyzed a few years ago in a car accident. He has made amazing strides and, although a quadriplegic, is planning to go to Stanford University next year and is taking driving lessons this coming summer. As part of National Mobility Awareness Month, there is a contest where Cory could win a new accessible van that he could drive. The winner of the contest is selected based on votes, and the family is drawing on the power of the yeshiva network to help Cory win.
Please click here to enter a few fields, use Promo Code 777 (that gets him 5 votes for each vote person submitting with a promo code).
Thank you so much for caring.
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Hebrew School Family Shabbat
Shabbat, May 12 | 10:30 AM - 12:30 PM
Hebrew School students and families will join once a month for Hebrew School Family Shabbat, Junior congregation. An interactive service with singing, stories, lessons and participation, as well as meaningful and fun activities and discussions.
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Lesson 2: The Art of Marriage
Sunday, May 13 | 10-11:30 AM -OR-
Thursday, May 17 | 8 - 9:30 PM
Jewish Bedroom Secrets - Judaism has much to say about the physical side of marriage. This lesson draws upon the wisdom of the Kabbalah and shares practical tools to increase spousal intimacy of heart, mind, body, and soul.
Click here for more info and to RSVP.
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Monthly Parenting Class | At Chabad
Wednesday, May 16 | 10:45 AM
Monthly parenting class lead by Sara Paltiel of Chabad Port Washington. Topic: Setting boundaries and how to nourish ourselves so we can nourish others.
Click here for more info. Please RSVP by calling the office 516 767 8672.
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Shabbat Morning, June 9| 11 AM
Sermon Lecture by Howard Birnbach "The Founding Fathers & the Jews". Services 9:30am, Sermon at 11am followed by Kiddush luncheon. |
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Let Special Needs People Speak for Themselves
By: Rabbi Aron Moss | Sydney, Australia
Question: I saw you copped a beating from Shmuley Boteach in the Huffington Post this week. He totally trashed your article "Why Does G‑d Create Handicapped Babies?" where you say that they are special souls who remain pure from sin in this world. He says we can't explain suffering and we shouldn't try. What is your response to that?
Answer: Shmuley makes some very good points in his article. Whether or not the explanation I offered is helpful to those who have severe disabilities and their parents is a question neither I nor Shmuley Boteach can answer. Only they themselves know what it is like, and only they can comment. So below I present the feedback I received from those who have firsthand experience with disabilities. Let their words from the heart speak for themselves.
But I think Shmuley failed to understand an important principle.
There is a big difference between explaining why people suffer, and giving meaning to suffering. To explain why people suffer is to justify the existence of suffering. If we can explain it then we can tolerate it. That is wrong. We would rather a world without suffering, and we can never understand why G‑d in His omnipotence couldn't create the world in such a way. Surely whatever benefit suffering brings could be achieved without suffering. Why we have to suffer is an unanswerable question.
CONTINUE>>
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Board of Directors
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Adam Katz, Esq., President
Frank Arnold
Bert Brodsky
Martin H. Brownstein, M.D.
Howard Fensterman, Esq.
M. Allan Hyman, Esq.
Sara E. Paltiel
Rabbi Shalom M. Paltiel
Alan Rosenzweig
Alan Salzbank
Michael Samuel
Felix Sater
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Shabbat Times
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| Shabbat Candle Lighting: |
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Friday, May 11
7:44 pm
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| Shabbat Ends: |
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Shabbat, May 12
8:49 pm
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Kiddush Calendar
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This week's kiddush is sponsored by Shelley & Andrew Hausspeigel in honor of Dayna and Nathan's 10th birthday.
Click here to let us know if you'd like to sponsor a kiddush.
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Daily Thought
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Signature
He inscribed His signature within each thing He made. On the outside each thing is finite, but on the inside you will find the signature of infinitude.
Open anything you like, examine it carefully and you will see. A puddle of water, a grain of sand, a splotch of mud on the wall. There is nothing that does not contain endless wonders. Nothing that could not involve a lifetime of study.
Because all of them He made with His infinite wisdom.
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| The Second Passover: Celebrating Second Chances |
 Pesach Sheni - The Second Passover Minisite
Thirty days ago we cleaned our homes and souls of leaven, and matzahed our way through the week-long festival of Passover. And now, Pesach Sheni-a Second Passover!
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| Lag BaOmer: Celebrating the Essence of the Torah |
 Lag BaOmer Minisite
The birthday of Jewish mysticism . . . The spiritual significance of the bow and arrow . . . Can love be true, and can truth be loving? . . . What is Kabbalah?
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| Emor: Focus on Education . . . |
 Parshah in a Nutshell
Ritual purity for the Jewish priest, compassion for newborn cattle and their mothers, a listing of Jewish holidays, details about the menorah and showbread, and a man is punished for blasphemy.
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| . . . And Other Major Issues |
 The Disqualified Kohen
Our souls, each a part of G‑d above, are born within the war room where G‑d's strategic plan was devised and is being monitored.
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| Israel |
 Israeli Victims of Terror Arrive in United States
Wounded veterans and victims of terror attacks landed at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport Sunday, arriving to an emotional reception coordinated by the Belev Echad program.
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| North America |
 Holocaust Survivor Tackles Question of Belief in G‑d After Tragedy
Rabbi Nissen Mangel, a renowned philosopher and author who was sent to Auschwitz as a 10-year-old boy and spent five years in the death camp before his liberation in 1945, addressing the concept of belief in G‑d after the Holocaust.
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| Book Bag |
 Previously Unknown Episodes Detailed in Memoirs of Rebbe's Mother
A team of Brooklyn, N.Y., translators and scholars is moving forward with the release of the memoirs of Rebbetzin Chana Schneerson, mother of the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory, digging in to the collection's storied second volume, a collection of episodic recollections penned in Yiddish, Russian and Hebrew.
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| Photo Gallery |
 Miami Community Inscribes Holy Letters in Memory of Departed Rabbi
The Highland Lakes Jewish Center-Chabad Chayil began writing a new Torah scroll last week in memory of Rabbi Dovid Bryn, a Chabad-Lubavitch emissary who passed away 10 years ago.
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Parshat Emor
The Torah section of Emor ("Speak") begins with the special laws pertaining to the kohanim ("priests"), the kohen gadol ("high priest"), and the Temple service: A kohen may not become ritually impure through contact with a dead body, save on the occasion of the death of a close relative. A kohen may not marry a divorcee or a woman with a promiscuous past; a kohen gadol can marry only a virgin. A kohen with a physical deformity cannot serve in the Holy Temple, nor can a deformed animal be brought as an offering.
A newborn calf, lamb or kid must be left with its mother for seven days before being eligible for an offering; one may not slaughter an animal and its offspring on the same day.
The second part of Emor lists the annual Callings of Holiness-the festivals of the Jewish calendar: the weekly Shabbat; the bringing of the Passover offering on 14 Nissan; the seven-day Passover festival beginning on 15 Nissan; the bringing of the Omer offering from the first barley harvest on the second day of Passover, and the commencement, on that day, of the 49-day Counting of the Omer, culminating in the festival of Shavuot on the fiftieth day; a "remembrance of shofar blowing" on 1 Tishrei; a solemn fast day on 10 Tishrei; the Sukkot festival-during which we are to dwell in huts for seven days and take the "Four Kinds"-beginning on 15 Tishrei; and the immediately following holiday of the "eighth day" of Sukkot ( Shemini Atzeret).
Next the Torah discusses the lighting of the menorah in the Temple, and the showbread (lechem hapanim) placed weekly on the table there.
Emor concludes with the incident of a man executed for blasphemy, and the penalties for murder (death) and for injuring one's fellow or destroying his property (monetary compensation).
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