Guma Aguiar, a Florida businessman and philanthropist who went missing in June, left his tefillin on his abandoned boat.

All of the life jackets also were accounted for, the Coast Guard reported, according to the Sun-Sentinel, after getting the records through a Freedom of Information Act request. His wedding ring and watch were left at home.

Aguiar, the CEO of Leor Energy who lived in Fort Lauderdale, left his home on June 19. His empty 31-foot boat washed ashore in Fort Lauderdale the following morning.

Aguiar’s wife reportedly had asked for a divorce just before he left the house. Aguiar had a history of ill mental health, according to reports citing family members. The disappearance remains an open missing persons case.

In 2009, Aguiar gave $8 million to the pro-aliyah group Nefesh B’Nefesh and $500,000 to March of the Living, which takes high school-aged Jews to Poland to see Holocaust sites. He also became a fixture of Israeli sports pages when he became the main sponsor of the Israeli Premier League soccer team Beitar Jerusalem.

While Aguiar, who has a Jewish mother, did not grow up with much of a Jewish background, he later returned to Judaism and has made large gifts to Jewish and Israeli causes. He made his fortune when he discovered huge natural gas reserves in Texas.

A dilapidated old boat recently came ashore in South Florida. The rickety vessel was a small, old fishing boat. Eighteen passengers were crammed aboard. Its engine was recycled from an old Soviet automobile and had a fuel leak. A tree branch propped up the sail. The hull was cracked.

The “Esperanza” – the Spanish word for hope – arrived in Miami from Cuba last Wednesday. The journey was perilous.

The human condition has a strong component of self-preservation. What could possibly drive individuals to take such a dangerous voyage? What circumstances would justify the risk to human life?

Fidel Castro was the sweetheart of the Cuban people when he came to power 52 years ago. The population took to the streets chanting his name. They thought the country would undergo a change. They thought everyone would be equal and prosperous.

Fidel led the charge against the rich. He confiscated their mansions to convert them into apartments for the poor. He advocated a slew of government-centered programs in health care, education and jobs. He was the patriarch who would care for all needs. He also would tell his compatriots what to think and what to believe. His efforts were a dismal failure. The Communist system does not work. It has failed everywhere it has been tried.

Cuba today is a decimated country. Most of the population lives in a primitive state of abject poverty. There is no commerce, no hope. The job creators – manufacturers and businesses – fled to friendlier places. The desperation is palpable.

The Cuban balseros (rafters) have risked their lives on many occasions to escape Cuba. They have come in leaky boats, inner tubes tied together and rafts.

The Cuban exile community is a hard-working population that has enjoyed success in America. The American dream has always been the ideal of equality of opportunity, not equality of accommodations for all. Many Cubans have risked their lives to escape Castro’s tyranny. Obviously, to them, life in those circumstances was not worth living.

Elections in America are coming soon. We should take this opportunity to appreciate American democracy.

A drought in Israel in 1985 caused the water level in the Sea of Galilee to fall lower than usual. On January 24, 1986, the remains of an ancient boat were discovered. Archaeologists carefully extracted the remains and preserved them in a museum at Nof Ginosar, near Tiberias. A cooking pot and a lamp were also found with the boat.

The boat is just over 27 feet long by 8 feet wide. Radio carbon dating has put its age at 2000 years, which means that it was sailing on the Sea of Galilee at about the time of the Julius Caesar assassination.

This model from the museum at Nof Ginosar shows what the boat would have looked like in its heyday.

Rabi Moshe ben Nachman, widely known as the Ramban was born in the year 1194 in the town of Gurunda, Catalina. He became famous as a great scholar and sage and wrote interpreta­tions on the Torah and on many Gemaras, and authored many seforim, which are revered to this day. The Ramban was also a philosopher and a physician and his ser­vices were in great demand.

One day, while the Ramban was study­ing, an elderly man was ushered into his chambers. The man was a mystic and well versed in the Kabbalah, He introduced himself to the Ramban and proceeded to urge him to study the Kabbalah. The Ramban avoided this study, as he believed it was unnecessary in this world. When the man became persistent the Ramban ordered him to leave.

“You’ll see,” said the Kabbalist, “how necessary it is to study this mysticism. I am urging you to do this for your sake, because you are a great man and you never can tell when you may need it.”

The elderly man left the Ramban’s house and walking into a church began to smash the statues and do other mischief. He was caught, judged to be a heretic, and sentenced to be burned at the stake that Shabbat.

The Kabbalist Performs Miracles

When the Ramban heard he was aghast. He visited the condemned man and upbraided him for his bad behavior, which served as a reflection upon all Jewry. The elderly man seemed un­concerned and asked the Ramban to please prepare his three Shabbat meals. The Ramban thought he was men­tally unbalanced and left him.

Shabbat morning the man was led to a tremendous burning pyre. As the soldiers prepared to throw him into it, the Kabbalist uttered the Holy name and they were suddenly struck blind. Miraculously a goat appeared on the scene and the soldiers grabbed it and threw it into the fire, thinking it was the elderly man.

Walking home, the Kabbalist entered the Ramban’s home in time to answer Amen to the Ramban’s kiddush. The Ramban was amazed and after hearing the entire story he decided to learn the wisdom of the Kabbalah. He spent many months with this elderly man and then he went to study with the sage, Rabi Elazar of Worms, world-renown Kabbalist and author of the sefer HaRokeach. After a few years, the Ramban became proficient in the wisdom of the Kabbalah.

Ramban Launches A Ship

The following year all of Spain turned out to witness the launching of one of the largest warships of the time, in the city of Barcelona. The king and queen were there as well as the entire court. The leaders of all nations were also present. As the chief spokesman for his people, the Ramban was also invited to attend.

While the trumpets blared, the workingmen released the wedges to permit the ship to slide down into the water. But something went wrong and the boat would not move. The workingmen frantically began to push the boat and used every method but it wouldn’t budge. The pop­ulace began to groan.

The Ramban, seeing this predicament, remarked to one of his pupils that with the use of the Holy Name he could move the boat and if need be, even mountains. A neighbor hearing this rushed to the king and repeated the conversation. The king commanded the Ramban to be brought before him and he ordered him to fulfill his boast.

Realizing his predicament, the Ramban requested a dinghy with a pilot to accompany him in the harbor. This was granted. The Ramban then uttered the awesome Holy Name and commanded the ship to slide down into the waters. Wonders of wonders! The boat began to move slowly and soon with a rush it splashed into the harbor water. The crowd cheered. However, before the king could sum­mon the Ramban to reward him, the Bishop approached the king and accused the Ramban of witchcraft.

Ramban Escapes

Hearing this the Ramban wrote out the Holy Name and the symbol of travel, on a piece of paper and placed it in a corner of the little boat. Immediately, the boat jumped forward as if guided by a tremen­dous power. The pilot had been asleep so he didn’t notice the boat racing through the waters. In a matter of minutes the boat covered half the coast of Spain and he entered a port near his home.

The attorney for Guma Aguiar’s wife is saying that the Brazilian born billionaire could have staged his own disappearance to flee his marital and financial problems.

“It’s a family tragedy involving a young man who’s intelligent and very talented, but has a severe mental illness and those two things have interacted in his life for the last four years and has impacted his wife and four children dramatically,” attorney Bill Scherer told ABC News on Thursday, after a court hearing in Miami in which the missing man wife and mother clashed over his estate.

“He either committed suicide, fell off the boat and drowned, or staged it,” Scherer stated. “It’s hard to tell at this point…My client does hope and pray that he didn’t die.”

On June 19, Aguiar, 35, whose marriage was very unhappy, according to people in his circle, and who was in the midst of a court battle with his uncle, took his 31-foot fishing boat out to sea from Port Everglades in choppy seas and inclement weather. That same day, the boat ran aground on Fort Lauderdale beach, engine was running, lights on, and no one aboard.

Police spokesman Travis Mandell, told reporters the next day that Aguiar got into the boat alone, “but that’s not to say he didn’t meet up with anyone.”

The Miami Herald noted that Aguiar struggled for most of his life with a severe bipolar disorder, was arrested several times after “bizarre tirades,” was institutionalized at least twice, and even detained involuntarily for psychiatric evaluation.

But crazy or not, many causes found their savior in Aguiar. He donated more than $8 million to Nefesh B’Nefesh, and was a major supporter of the March of the Living, to name but two causes.

In 2009, the Aguiars served as the co-chairs of the “Facing Tomorrow” Conference in Jerusalem, and During the Conference, and Guma was on a panel with President Peres, offering his vision on Israeli society and culture from the perspective of one of the country’s entrepreneurs.

Aguiar founded the “Defender of Jerusalem Award” which recognizes public figures who have taken uniquely strong stances in support of Jerusalem: Shimon Peres, Mike Huckabee, Rick Perry, Congresswoman Ileana Ros- Lehtinen and Texas State Senator Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa.

In court last Thursday, Guma’s mother Ellen Aguiar filed a petition for Northern Trust, a wealth management company, to become the guarantor of his assets.

His wife, Jamie Aguiar, filed for complete control of her husband’s assets which included a $50 million investment portfolio and $15 million in cash, as well as $40 million in Israeli real-estate – the latter sum being outside the Florida court’s jurisdiction.

According to ABC News, before Thursday’s hearing, a committee of three fellow Jews, two of them rabbis, which had been formed by Aguiar as his group of advisers, activated a legal mechanism that gave Northern Trust control of the assets. The court agreed and ruled in favor of Ellen Aguiar’s petition.

In court, attorney Scherer accused Aguiar’s mother Ellen Aguiar of being “an enabler of Guma’s irrationality,” and said she rode on her son’s “gravy train.”

When asked if Jamie Aguiar believes that her mother-in-law knows Guma Aguiar may be alive and staged his own disappearance to protect his assets, Scherer said, “She hopes that that’s so, that her children’s father will come back to them, that the good Guma will come back, not that he jumped out of that boat when it was three miles out.”

The Israeli Navy captured a Palestinian fishing vessel engaged in illegal smuggling travelling towards the Gaza Strip on Wednesday. No weapons were discovered on board the ship, only spare vehicle parts, and it was taken to shore by an Israeli Navy Dvora class fast patrol boat.

After the investigation was complete, the smugglers were released to the Gaza Strip via the Erez crossing.

The Navy Patrol Squadron, responsible for securing Israel’s southern marine front, carries out short-range operations off the shore to prevent additional weapon smuggling. “There was a lot of equipment on board the vessel, which could have easily included weapons,” said commander of the Dvora class patrol boat reconnaissance squadron, Cpt. M. to the IDF Website.

Once a fishing vessel crosses the border and enters Israel’s jurisdiction, it is immediately captured by Israeli Navy forces. “Smuggling takes place regularly,” said Cpt. M. The detained smugglers go through a thorough security inspection of the cargo. If no affiliation with terrorist organizations is recognized, the smugglers are returned to the Gaza Strip in an orderly fashion along with the capture vessels.

Young Orthodox women ride a bicycle cart through the Yarkon Park in Tel Aviv.

The Yarkon Park is Tel Aviv’s green sanctuary. It’s quite large and very pleasant, with a wide variety of activities, including boat rides, walks, ball games, and all manner of bike rentals.

The girls are optional.