We interrupt this thoughtful column to share with you the above image, which I just received by email from my wife (and which you, I’m sure, have first seen back in 2006, because the media are always behind with these things). “For the first time, women are now being allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia.” [...]

The person who posted this item on You Tube made sure to belittle the event’s stats – 25,000 guests. They wrote: As huge as this wedding was, it is dwarfed by the nuptials of V.N. Sudhakaran and N. Sathyalakshmi, who hosted 150,000 guests on their Big Day in India in 1995. To which I can [...]

Some 25,000 Belz chassidim packed the wedding ceremony of Rabbi Shalom Rokeach, Grandson of the Belzer Rebbe, and Chana Batya Pener, May 22, 2013, in Jerusalem. Pretty amazing images. It says something about these people’s comfort with one another in close quarters. I find it very difficult to be standing or sitting so close to [...]

Let everyone know of the shelter at Chabad

parently an affront to J Street’s worldview, the focus of which appears to be the creation of a Palestinian State, whether or not that will bring peace.

The US considers a Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria an international issue, so much so that a US official attending a hearing on an anti-outpost Peace Now petition.

Miriam spoke disparagingly about Moshe Rabbeinu. Because of this, she contracted tzaras, and for seven days she was sent outside the camp of Israel.

Samuel Scherr was a very successful businessman. He also was generous and would share of his wealth with others. In this way, he became the uncle of favor to his nieces and nephews, whom he would frequently shower with gifts.

Detached Or Unrelated
‘He Made An Asheirah Tree Into a Ladder…’
(Eruvin 78b)

The importance of the caucus on organ harvesting in China, sponsored recently by the Liberal Lobby in the Knesset, cannot be exaggerated. On the surface, the caucus’s topic seems odd. Knesset members and other VIPs were called together to discuss horrors being perpetrated by the Communist regime in China against what the government there calls “regime opponents.”

In this week’s parshah we read about the individuals who were tamei and thus could not bring the korban Pesach. They approached Moshe Rabbeinu and asked him whether there was anything they could do to bring the korban. Ultimately, Hashem told Moshe that they should bring a korban a month after Pesach, on the 14th of Iyar.

Question: As Shavuot is fast approaching – a holiday on which we dwell on the story of Ruth and the origins of the royal house of David – I was wondering if you could help me resolve something. Some people say that Rabbi Yehudah HaNassi, the redactor of the six orders of the Mishnah and a scion of King David, purposely kept any mention of Chanukah and the Hasmonean kings out of the Mishnah because the Hasmoneans improperly crowned themselves and ignored the rule that all Jewish kings are supposed to come from the tribe of Yehudah. Is this true?

Menachem
(Via E-Mail)