Samsung, which operates R & D operations in Israel, is sending 10,000 baskets of Purim Mishloach Manot goodies to anyone whose relative or friends signed him up on the company’s Mobile Israel Facebook page.

The company also contributed to two charity organizations by paying the Variety Israel and Enosh Fund organizations to pack the snacks for the Purim tradition, Toronto’s Shalom Life reported.

The packages were sent via a Facebook page app on Samsung Mobile, and the user than downloads a form on which he can write a greeting and the address of the friend, who is to receive the basket by Monday.

While the rest of Israel celebrates Purim this Sunday (the 14th of Adar), Jerusalem celebrates on Monday (the 15th of Adar).

Why?

Well, the easy answer is “because Jerusalem is a walled city from the time of Joshua.”

Which is partially right.  Jerusalem was a walled city in the time of Joshua, but the walls we see today were built in the 1500s, in the Ottoman Era.  From the early 13th century and until the mid-16th century, Jerusalem was not a walled city at all.  And indeed, it was unclear to the Jews of that time when they should celebrate Purim.

Rabbi Eshtori Ha-Parchi of the 14th century tells us that when he came to Israel, he was told that in Jerusalem they celebrated on both the 14th and 15th of Adar, as they were uncertain which one they were obligated to keep.  Rabbi Eshtori brings an entire Halachic discussion about what should be done, and adds that he wrote his rabbi, Rabbi Matityah in Bet-Shean, to ask him what he should do.

Rabbi Matityah wrote him back: If I would be in Jerusalem on the 14th of Adar, and they would read the Megillah, I would leave the synagogue.  Otherwise they could say about me “The fool walketh in darkness” (Ecclesiastes 2, 14).  And the same is true for Tiberias.

Rabbi Eshtori finished by saying that Rabbi Matityah is right.

We don’t know what changed the minds of the Jews of Jerusalem, but today there is no doubt – and we celebrate Purim in Jerusalem on the 15th of Adar.

Visit the Muqata.

On February 8, Rabbi Dovid Bendory spoke at the New Jersey statehouse about the right to bear arms. The Rabbinic Director of Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, Rabbi Bendory stated with reference to chapter 22 of Sefer Shemot:

God has given us the right to self-defense. We have not only a God-given right to defend ourselves and to protect our families; but we have a God -commanded responsibility to do so.

Soon we will celebrate Purim. Last year I interviewed Rabbi Bendory about these themes in relation to the festival. He observed:

Purim is a story in gun control and its impact on a nation. It’s because of the gun control of Achashverosh’s reign that the Jews had no right to defend themselves, that they were so vulnerable to being wiped out by the decree of one lunatic. The government has taken away from the people the God-given right to self-defense. So Achashverosh magnanimously grants them that right back—you  can now defend yourselves against the people who attack you—and the result is of course the celebration of Purim.

Rabbi Bendory further noted regarding Shmuel I 13:19, that

The first historically recorded incident of gun control—and when I use the term gun control, of course in this context it means weapons control—the  first historic use of gun control was against the Jews. Today in Israel, these lessons are more urgent than ever.

Four Jews who will not celebrate Purim this year are Yitzhak Ames, Talia Ames, Kochava Even-Haim, and Avishai Schindler. On August 31, 2010, Hamas murdered them on Route 60 near Kiryat Arba. (May the Almighty avenge their blood).

The government had disarmed Yitzhak before the massacre because of he and his wife’s activism in defense of Gush Katif. A family friend stated, “There are four bodies today because the government, instead of fighting terrorism, is fighting citizens. They put settlers in situations where their hands are tied.”

As the civil rights organization Honenu noted in a report last November on the government’s broader disarmament of citizens, “If Ames’s weapon had been in his possession, perhaps the incident would have ended differently.”

The grandson of the owner of the Lahav gun store in Tel Aviv similarly remarked in December on Israel’s repressive gun policies:

The problem is that the law makes it very difficult for the good people to get guns. The number of legal guns in recent years has gone to around 170,000, but there are a half a million illegal guns floating around the Arab sector, no one knows how many.

On illegal guns in the Arab sector, Dr. Guy Bechor of the Interdisciplinary Studies Center in Herzliya wrote in November concerning the terror attack on a bus in Tel Aviv:

Arab villages in Israel are flooded with illegal aliens—and the weapons they bring along. The Israel Police are well aware of this problem and of its extent, but for some reason are doing almost nothing to stop it. This is understandable.

After all, police apparently have more urgent priorities like raiding a beit midrash and beating people therein.

The Israeli government and it seems much of the citizenry have learned neither from Tanach nor history. The American jurist St. George Tucker had more wisdom and sense of survival than many Jews today when he wrote in 1803: “Wherever…the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction.”

מְגִלָּה – literally, scroll, often referring to the scroll from which the Book of Esther is read publicly. Root is ג.ל.ל (g.l.l) meaning rolling.

תַּעֲנִית – a fast, synonymous with צוֹם, related to the word עוֹנִי meaning poverty and strife.

מִשְׁלוֹחַ מָנוֹת – literally, deliveries of portions, referring to the gifts of food Jews give one another on Purim. Term appears in the Book of Esther.

מַתָּנוֹת לָאֶבְיוֹנִים – gifts for the poor, which Jews give on Purim. אֶבְיוֹן is one of the many Biblical-Hebrew words for a poor person. Term appears in the Book of Esther.

סְעוּדָה – a meal, synonymous with the more widespread word in Modern Hebrew, אֲרוּחָה. Root is ס.ע.ד (s.a.d) meaning satiation.

מִשְׁתֶּה – a feast, a banquet, deriving from the root שׁ.ת.ה meaning drinking. In the Book of Esther, משתה figures prominently in the plotline.

פּוּרִים – plural of פּוּר meaning lottery, possibly from the ancient Semitic language, Akkadian.

שִׁכּוֹר, לְהִשְׁתַּכֵּר- drunk, to get drunk, from the Biblical and Modern Hebrew word for liquor, שֵׁכָר.

לְהִתְפַּכֵּחַ – to sober up. See last year’s YDDH entry on this.

אָזְנֵי הָמָן – these triangular cookies resemble the ears of (the Purim villain) Haman, which is what the Hebrew term means literally

תַּחְפּוֹשֶׂת, לְהִתְחַפֵּשׂ – think of the children… all dressed up. Literally, a costume and to get dressed up.

לִתְלוֹת – to hang. Can be done with laundry or with naughty people such as Haman.

אִגֶּרֶת – a letter, as appearing in the Book of Esther. In Modern Hebrew, מִכְתָב refers to your garden-variety piece of post, while אגרת refers to letters written for more official occasions.

וְנַהֲפוֹךְ הוּא – and it was turned upside down, the classic term from the Book of Esther, embodying the spirit of Purim.

Visit Ktzat Ivrit.

The first vote on new legislation in the 19th Knesset was initiated as a joint effort between Yesh Atid’s Rabbi Dov Lipman, Jewish Home’s Naftali Bennett, and surprisingly, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Easily passing the vote, the Knesset decided that Sundays would now be an official day off from work.

MK Rabbi Lipman said, “I missed having a day off like in America, so I’m proud to have introduced this legislation. Now I’ll be able to go to baseball games like I used to.”

Lipman was surprised to learn that MKs don’t actually work on Thursdays, Fridays and of course, Shabbat, thus with Sundays off, his work week dropped down to a mere three days. Also, he discovered that baseball isn’t as popular in Israel as it is in America, so he won’t be going to as many Sunday games as he planned.

In order to make up for the lost Sunday hours, two additional hours of work have been added on to the regular Monday through Thursday workday schedule, which means Israelis will now be at work for at least 10 hours a day, 4 days a week, plus at least half a day on Friday.

Economists, looking a little deeper into the effects of the legislation are now concerned that the law of diminishing returns was overlooked, and that the average Israeli who is not a programmer, will be unable to maintain his or her efforts, concentration and productivity for the 10 hours needed, and that actual productivity time will still continue to hover at the 6 hour mark each day.

Furthermore, the new 10 hour day will now also require the addition of a dinner break, extending the actual work day to 11 hours, and psychologists expect that it may also place a psychological toll on other family members.

In homes where both spouses work, those households are expected to incur addtional overhead with the need to hire babysitters or place their children in eveningcare centers. Furthermore, studies have shown that children who are raised by strangers, might end up like Kibbutz children who were forcibly raised away from their parents during the early years of the State.

Until this legislation passed, working on Sundays had been giving Israelis a competitive edge over other global economies, by giving Israelis a day’s head start in the work week.

The loss of the head start, the non-increase in daily productivity, and the deterioration of the family unit are expected to negatively impact the economy and the country.

But, as proponants of the Sunday-Off plan repeatedly told us, it will make us just like all other nations.

Presumably they were referring to Greece.

A Freilichen Purim.

It’s not often you get to be the first (I hope) to catch an error on Google. So when I found a Google error this morning, I though it was so cool.

I wanted to learn more about the Fast of Esther, so I Googled, “Fast of Esther”.

I was quite (pleasantly) surprised to see the big box on top of the results with the date information on the fast. I guess that’s a new Google feature.

But what surprised me more, was that it said that the fast began yesterday evening, particularly, when right below it, in Wikipedia, it says the fast began at sunrise this morning.

This is what Wikipedia has to say about the fast:

 The Fast of Esther (Ta’anit Ester, Hebrew: תַּעֲנִית אֶסְתֵּר‎) is a Jewish fast from dawn until dusk on Purim eve, commemorating the three-day fast observed by the Jewish people in the story of Purim. It is a common misconception that this fast was accepted by the Jews for all future generations during the time of Esther, as it is stated in the Book of Esther: They had established for themselves and their descendants the matters of the fasts and their cry (Esther 9:31). This verse actually refers to the four fasts which relate to mourning for the Temple. Rather, the first mention of this fast is a Minhag that is referenced in the Gaonic period.^[1] Recently, Mitchell First has written a detailed study of the origin of the fast and provided an explanation for its arisal in the Gaonic period.^[2]

The Fast is observed on the 13th day of the Hebrew month of Adar. If the date of the Fast of Esther falls on Shabbat (Saturday), the fast is instead observed on the preceding Thursday, as is the case in 2010, 2011, 2013 and 2014.^{[citation needed]}

As the Fast of Esther is not one of the four public fasts ordained by the Prophets, the laws concerning its observance are more lenient; pregnant women, nursing mothers, and those who are weak are not required to observe it.^[3] (Note: in certain situations a weak, sick, or pregnant person is not required or even permitted to observe any Jewish fast day; a rabbi should be consulted to determine the law for one’s specific situation.^{[citation needed]})

Misconceptions

It is generally accepted in the rabbinic tradition that the original three-day “Fast of Esther” mentioned in chapter 4 of Book of Esther occurred on the 14th, 15th, and 16th days of Nisan, these being the eve and first two days ofPassover.^[4] They fasted on Passover because Esther reasoned it would be better to fast on one Pesach lest they all be destroyed and thus never be able to observe the holiday in the future. The 13th of Adar was a fast day for the warriors while going out to battle, as it is believed to have been customary to fast during the battle in order to gain divine favor. Because fasting during Passover would be inappropriate in almost all circumstances, the “Fast of Esther” became attached to the eve of Purim, the 13th of Adar.^[4]

Dates observer

The Gregorian date for the Fast of Esther in 2013 is Thursday, February 21st, from sunrise until nightfall.

How do you contact Google to let them know they’ve made a mistake?

[Editor's note: This is a blog post that we cross-posted into News]

Police have agreed to allow the niece of American comedian Sarah Silverman will be allowed to attend a women’s Megillah reading at the Western Wall despite being banned from the site.

Hallel Abramowitz Silverman, 17, was one of 10 female worshipers arrested for wearing prayer shawls during a women’s Rosh Chodesh prayer service at the Western Wall earlier this month. Her mother, Rabbi Susan Abramowitz Silverman, also was arrested.

The women were released on condition that they not visit the site for 15 days and were required by police to sign a document agreeing to the condition.

After realizing she would not be able to attend the Women of the Wall organization’s women’s Megillah reading at the Kotel because of the restriction, the younger Silverman went to the Old City of Jerusalem police station and presented a letter to request an exception to the ban. She arrived with her lawyer and her father.

Police agreed to allow her to visit the Western Wall on Shushan Purim in Jerusalem  Sunday night and Monday, one day after the Purim holiday is celebrated in most other places.

“I wasn’t going to sign, but my mom had a flight leaving in a few hours, and we were afraid there would be complications and she would miss her flight,” she told Haaretz. “Plus, I was nervous. After all, I am 17 years old and I was being held in a police station.

“I was feeling so pressured, I didn’t realize it would mean missing the Megillah,” she told the newspaper. “If I had really understood this, I don’t know if I would have signed.”

As is my longtime custom, I went to שילה הקדומה Shiloh HaKeduma, Tel Shiloh to pray on Rosh Chodesh Adar.  Considering the problems Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is having constructing/negotiating his latest coalition, maybe he should go to Tel Shiloh, site of the Mishkan, Tabernacle to pray, too. 

Biblical Chana prayed in Shiloh for a son who would be the national and spiritual leader of the Jewish People to establish monarchy.  So, considering the state of our nation today, Shiloh is the perfect location for prayers.

The Jewish Month of Adar is known as a time of change, reversals, bad to good, winter to spring.

Yes, I was amazed at how richly the trees were in bloom and how beautifully the wildflowers had begun to cover the ground.  Last month, Rosh Chodesh Shvat, we saw green and brown, but now we also see red, pink and white.

Shiloh has been the location for prayer since Joshua made it the capital of the Jewish Nation after the Exodus from Egypt.  The Mishkan, Tabernacle, which had been a mobile synagogue during the forty years we wandered the desert, was set up in Shiloh and stayed there for 369 years.

That location, a large flat area to the north is now being excavated by archaeologists.

Wherever you look you can see signs of ancient building and construction.  Stones don’t naturally look like these.

Next Rosh Chodesh is Nissan.  Women are invited to join us for Women’s Rosh Chodesh Prayers.

New and old observation towers, plus ancient ruins at Tel Shiloh

Visit Shiloh Musings.