Rabbi Shmuel Lew tells us about his life - from Torah Vodaas to London

  Derher - Cheshvan 5776 S Lew Only

Box.com link

א שליח בן שליח איז מקדש ש"ש אין ווייטען אורוגוויי

Monday Links

ישיבת תות"ל ברינוא, תשמ"ח
הרב מאיר מאזוז חוגג את י"ט כסלו בישיבת כסא רחמים
My Father, Rabbi Edelman
$395 for an unopened can of Zupnik's peanut-oil from the 1940's
MCA: R' Pinchas Mendel Heilprin

My apologies to Reb Peretz Chein - some 7 years in the making...

I'm not sure Shliach Reb Peretz Chein even remembers; but I know other long-time readers do. I know because one several of you brought it to my attention. Then we criticized him for running a marathon in his shlichus town, something he did to ostensibly show his college students that he too cares about his personal well being. Then he realized that if running a marathon constitutes him breaking his own personal barriers - those that can and should be broken, not those that shouldn't - then imagine what finishing shas would do for him! So four years he set out to do just that, and finished it on the occasion of his son Mendel's Bar Mitzvah. And to top it all off, he made the siyum on an old (Slavitter?) Shas that his zeide brought with him from Russia some 40 years ago. So if we're "brave" enough to criticize him we can surely find the time to congratulate him on the momentous occasions of the siyum haShas and the son's Bar Mitzvah. Retroactively we can also say that his intentions back in '07 were pure and just.

 Mazel Tov!

"The Rav and the Rebbe" - Rabbis Zalman Posner and Aron Rakeffet at an OU convention back in '94

Rabbi Posner ע"ה (his introduction, rather) starts at about 29 minutes.

 

"בע"כ יענה אמן" - Bakehilla's Yaakov B. Friedman brings us the inspiring story of the Lubavitcher shliach in Grodno, Belarus

חס ושלום - I don't mean to say that he's a מלאך רע, it's a שם המושאל. He's a shtarke Litvak who has taken an interest in Grodno because of its history, and is especially interested in the Lubavitcher shliach there. He has written about Grodno before, and now, after the devastating fire there, writes about Grodno and the even greater difficulties faced by shliach Reb Yitzchok Kaufman. He cannot wrap his mind around the fact that a young man would come to Grodno to spend his days with old Jews who just use him out - and basically asks him that every chance he gets. Box.com link

עיתון 'בקהילה' בכתבה מרגשת על גרודנא לאחר השריפה - שטורעם

הונגריא, ארץ המהפכות

המהפכה החדשה בבודפשט

how giving an aliya to a leading Reform Rabbi changed his life and now may make him completely frum

Burt Siegel now puts on Tefillin while davening with a minyan every day and learns Torah with a young chavrusah

It was only 5 weeks ago that we discussed Rick Jacob's attending the Kinus HaShluchim. We discussed what good it would do, and whether or not it would empower Reform Jews now that they are given credibility by Chabad's leadership. Whether Reform was a dying breed and Chabad's overtures to its President would only bring them closer to authentic Yiddishkeit. While the jury is still out on the Jacobs case the jury may not have such a hard time when it comes to Siegel. Simcha Bunim Siegel, that is! They may see quite clearly that Rabbi Krasnjanski's kiruv has paid dividends. That המאור שבו מחזירו למוטב, no matter how many years he studied at HUC, or how long he's preached at some Liberal Temple. And that he may just be mekarev his whole congregation as a result of the learning and davening that he does at Rabbi K's Chabad House/Kolel!.

It's nice to see that the Charedi world is standing by shliach Rabbi Yehuda Teichtel of Berlin

There are letters from the בד"צ עדה החרדית ובראשם הגאב"ד הרב ר' טובי' ווייס, the frum newspapers wrote about it, albeit some censored Reb Tovia's letter, and in general, there's much applause from the proponents of דרך ישראל סבא. They have no qualms about supporting a Chabad shliach. Some frum people would rather it just go away, and that's to be understood, it's unsettling to talk about, especially when non-frum people do the talking. If you haven't heard about it, Rabbi Teichtel, a great grandson of the Baal mishnas sochir HY"D, and a long-time shliach in Berlin, is under investigation by German authorities for keeping mitzvas milah as it's been kept over the millenia. A certain Rov in Moscow, affiliated with the "Litvish" camp, didn't help Teichtel when he told a German newspaper that MbP is not required by Halochoh.