Sivan Rahav-Meir

When you feel that the world is going mad, it is important to return to our sources. Our Torah portion this week reminds us that what we are experiencing today has occurred before.

In America, where he arrived from Europe in 1941, mitzvah observance had become moribund, increasingly disconnected from the modern world. The Rebbe reversed this trend by demanding more Torah, more Jewish brotherhood, more Jewish education.

Who are the sources of our information regarding the war? After five get-togethers and lectures in the United States that included difficult questions on the situation in Israel, I understood how important it is to check our information sources.

When faced with uncertainty, confusion, or disillusionment due to current challenges, turning our thoughts positively towards the past and the future can empower us with perspective and inner strength.

.Shabbat Shalom

A Jewish student from MIT visiting Israel told me, after describing the hypocritical protests on behalf of Hamas that took place on her campus: What our world needs the most now is faith, vision, and a clear moral compass.

May you and all the wounded have a speedy and complete recovery, Michael. We can only imagine how many wonderful heroic acts like this are taking place each day in rehabilitation clinics throughout Israel.

The UN security council stood for a moment of silence in his memory. What exactly were they thinking about during that moment of silence, which was also observed by the U.S. Deputy Ambassador to the UN?

In a Tel Aviv train station, I stood looking at the stickers on the walls. A common theme emerging from these stickers? The importance of remembering to smile.

This past week in Israel we marked Holocaust Remembrance Day. Only three years following the extermination of one-third of our people, the Jewish nation rose from the ashes of the camps to declare an independent state. Such a revival needs to be our focus at the present time.

This is the skyline of Sderot today. We are building and winning and being renewed.

Esther wore royalty. When she acted with self-confidence, with true conviction and devotion to her people and to G-d – everything began to fall into place and to turn around for the good.

I saw in the eyes of the mourners how Jerusalem consoles. One of the grieving fathers left the Kotel tunnels in tears and said: I connected with all of our past and all of our future and to the historic task of our family within all of this.

The time has come for us to make aliyah. I’ve already purchased a home in Israel. I did not merit for my children to be born there, but I do hope that my grandchildren will.

Let us hope that children from Be’eri, Sderot, and Kfar Aza can gain strength from his story. This is not only a personal story of Yisrael, the orphaned child. This is the story of the nation of Israel.

.

The Mishkan’s construction is described at length, down to the finest detail. What, in fact, is the importance of these small details?

They are a reminder that everything can suddenly be turned upside down – and turn out for the best.

One example of the special evaluations that school children in Israel have received in recent days is a Certificate of Heroism.

He related that when he was called up for reserve duty, he tried to think of something that would be spiritually fulfilling, and decided that whenever he’d have some spare time, he’d study Tanach with the commentary of Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz.

This is not only about resiliency or a return to the routine of daily life and normal functioning. It is rather growth as a direct, beneficial consequence of the trauma itself.

.Shabbat Shalom

For six years I underwent dialysis until he arrived and saved me.

It seems that we are living in a dream world. Reality is more outlandish than anything imaginable.

It is therefore always a good idea to put a time limit on our negative emotions. Instead of just saying, 'It's very hard for me,' say 'It's very hard for me right now.'

It's the story of two girls in Auschwitz who wanted to fast on Yom Kippur (even though according to halacha or Jewish law they were not, of course, required to do so).

Moshe relates that people are now coming into the store to talk about the sign, but not to seek an apology.

This night proved that Judaism does not belong only to grandma, but also to her grandchildren.

The two friends have been studying together every day for 42 years and are completing the Talmud for the sixth time.

Just as there are grieving parents and siblings after someone is killed, in this case there are grieving children – those who will start the school year without their beloved preschool teacher.