You should have changed the clocks for this Morning--One hour ahead and Biden’s Israel ambassador tells BDS group he wants Jews out of Jerusalem and Chabad Rabbi Murdered in Terrorist Attack in Beersheva and How Can This Happen Again? 'A Ukrainian Shlucha's War Diary Part 1 By Chana Gopin and Shabbat on the Way Out of Ukraine A Ukrainian Shlucha's War Diary Part 2 By Chana Gopin and The Mathematics of Scribal Calligraphy-How Do the Scribes Preserve the Exact Tradition of Writing Sifrei Torah
Yehuda Lave is an author, journalist, psychologist, rabbi, spiritual teacher, and coach, with degrees in business, psychology, and Jewish Law. He works with people from all walks of life and helps them in their search for greater happiness, meaning, business advice on saving money, and spiritual engagement.
I indicated on the blog yesterday that you change the clocks on Friday night--Not really it's Friday morning --this morning at 2:00 AM. I am sending this blog out at 1:15 two hours early, I usually send it out at 3:15 AM but with the clock change at 2 Am it is really only one hour early. Not too confusing I hope. Anyway please change your clocks one hour ahead before Shabbat. This will be our first early Shabbat.
The Three Musketeers at the Kotel
The Three are Rabbi Yehuda Glick, famous temple mount activist, and former Israel Mk, and then Robert Weinger, the world's greatest shofar blower and seller of Shofars, and myself after we had gone to the 12 gates of the Temple Mount in 2020 to blow the shofar to ask G-d to heal the world from the Pandemic. It was a highlight to my experience in living in Israel and I put it on my blog each day to remember.
The articles that I include each day are those that I find interesting, so I feel you will find them interesting as well. I don't always agree with all the points of each article but found them interesting or important to share with you, my readers, and friends. It is cathartic for me to share my thoughts and frustrations with you about life in general and in Israel. As a Rabbi, I try to teach and share the Torah of the G-d of Israel as a modern Orthodox Rabbi. I never intend to offend anyone but sometimes people are offended and I apologize in advance for any mistakes. The most important psychological principle I have learned is that once someone's mind is made up, they don't want to be bothered with the facts, so, like Rabbi Akiva, I drip water (Torah is compared to water) on their made-up minds and hope that some of what I have share sinks in. Love Rabbi Yehuda Lave.
The Mathematics of Scribal Calligraphy
How Do the Scribes Preserve the Exact Tradition of Writing Sifrei Torah
Following Moses' dedication of the sacrificial service in the Mishkan (Tabernacle), he calls Aaron and Aaron's sons and the elders on the 8th day to offer a sin-offering and a burnt offering. Aaron and his sons offer their sacrifices and then bless the people. But then tragedy strikes. Nadav and Avihu, two of Aaron's sons, offer "strange fire" and, as a result, they are stricken dead.
Moses is angry at Elazar and Itamar, Aaron's two remaining sons: "And Moses diligently inquired for the goat of the sin offering and behold it was burnt and he was angry at Elazar and Itamar, Aaron's remaining sons…"(Leviticus 10;16)
This verse is extremely important to a scribe writing a Torah.
As is known, scribes, who are entrusted with preserving and maintaining the tradition, must be certain that there are no spelling mistakes or extra or missing words in the Sifrei Torah which they are writing. There are more than 300,000 letters in the Torah and any change in the number of letters or words represent a deviation from the original source.
In order to allow the scribes to check their work, our rabbis provided them with "tools" to enable them to check their spelling.
The Hebrew word for scribe is "sofer", meaning he who counts.
A sofer's job, in addition to writing, is to count the number of letters and words which he is writing.
And do it is written in the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Kidushin 30a: "And it is for this reason that they are called "sofrim"- for they count all the letters in the Torah, as they say: the letter "vav" in the word "gichon" (Leviticus 11;42) marks the middle of the Torah in terms of letters, while "darohs darash" (Leviticus 10;16) marks the middle of the Torah in terms of words and the word "vehitgalach" (Leviticus 13;33) marks the middle of the Torah in terms of verses.
Two of these "tools" are found in our portion- the "vav" of "gichon" and the words "darosh darash". In other words, if we count all the letters in the Torah we will see that the letter "vav" in the word "gichon" is the midpoint of the Torah in terms of letters, and if we count the words we will see that the words "darosh darash", which are written on two separate lines (see picture), is the midpoint in the Torah in terms of words.
However, the fact is that in our Sifrei Torah there is an appreciable difference between the words "darosh darash" which our rabbis determined to be the midpoint of the Torah (in words) and what is, in reality, the actual midpoint of the Torah! And not only that, but there is a difference of close to 5,000 letters between what our rabbis declared to be the midpoint of the Torah (in letters) and what an exact counting of the letters indicates!
The obvious question is, of course, what exactly did our rabbis mean?
The answer:
In the Torah we find 89 double, or repeated, words, such as "Avraham Avraham", "Noach Noach", etc. The words "darosh darash (in the Torah the words are spelled identically) is the midpoint of the "repeated" words- 44 before "darosh darash" and 44 after "darosh darash".
In the Torah we find a number of larger than usual letters and a number of smaller than usual letters- the letter "vav" in the word "gichon" (a larger-than-usual letter) is the midpoint of the Torah in terms of unusually-sized letters.
And what about the word "vehitgalach"? The answer to that awaits us in the portion of Tazria!!
And in this way we solve the mystery and preserve the written tradition
Chabad Rabbi Murdered in Terrorist Attack in Beersheva
Rabbi Moshe Krivitski ran a Colel Chabad soup kitchen for more than 10 years
Chabad.org StaffMarch 22, 2022 5:26 PM
Rabbi Moshe Krivitski, pictured here with his wife, Miriam, and two of their four children at the Colel Chabad soup kitchen he ran in Beersheva, was among the four victims of a stabbing and car-ramming attack in Israel on March 22.
Rabbi Moshe Krivitski, a Chabad-Lubavitch emissary in the Nachal Beka neighborhood of Beersheva who ran a local soup kitchen for more than 10 years, was among the four victims of a terrorist attack in Israel on Tuesday morning. He leaves behind his wife, Miriam, and four children.
In his youth, Belarus-born Krivitski was educated in the Nachlas Har Chabad suburb of Kiryat Malachi, in the branch of Yeshivas Tomchei Tmimim that Rabbi Mordechai Kozliner founded when he emigrated from the former Soviet Union, with the help of the lateRabbi Zalman Abelsky, director of Chabad of Moldova.
As a young rabbi, he devoted himself to caring for and learning with the renowned Chassid, Rabbi Zalman Leib Estulin, who stood on the front lines of preserving Torah study and practice in the former Soviet Union, and was known as a model of Torah scholarship, piety and humility there, and later in Bnei Brak, Israel.
In recent years, Krivitski served as the director of Colel Chabad—Israel's oldest continuously operating charity—in Beersheva and oversaw the day-to-day management of their soup kitchen, in addition to the decade he served as a Chabad emissary and rabbi in the Nachal Beka neighborhood in the city.
"He was the gentlest of souls whose entire life was about giving to others," said Rabbi Sholom Duchman, director of Colel Chabad. "Each and every day, he would manage Colel Chabad's local food-distribution service for the needy in Beersheva, distributing thousands of meals over the years, going above and beyond to serve the hardest-hit in his community during Covid."
"He was a modest, unassuming person," said Rabbi Zalman Gorelik, director of Chabad of Beersheva. "He was beloved by G‑d and by man, and was completely devoted to the community."
Duchman called Krivitski "one of the kindest and most compassionate souls," and prayed that his charitable work with Israel's most vulnerable would bring a measure of comfort to his family and his community.
Krivitski ran a Colel Chabad soup kitchen for more than 10 years.
Deadliest Attack Since 2016
According to eyewitnesses, the lone assailant intentionally rammed into Krivitsky, who was riding his bicycle, as the terrorist drove away from a gas station near a large shopping center, where he had stabbed three people. He then jumped from his vehicle and ran to two other areas, where he continued to slash at passersby. He was shot and killed by a bus driver and another Israeli civilian at the scene. Also among the victims was Doris Yahbas, a resident of Moshav Gilat and a mother of three; Laura Yitzhak, 43, also mother of three; and Menahem Yehezkel, a 67-year-old resident of Beersheva.
The attacker was a resident of the Bedouin town of Houra. He was released from an Israeli prison in 2019 and was known to have been a sympathizer of the Islamic State, and had unsuccessfully tried to join them in Syria.
Rabbi Moshe Krivitski is survived by his wife, Miriam, and their four children. He is also survived by his father. The funeral is scheduled to take place at the Beersheva Jewish community cemetery at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, March 23.
"He was the gentlest of souls whose entire life was about giving to others," said Rabbi Sholom Duchman, director of Colel Chabad. "He was a modest, unassuming person," said Rabbi Zalman Gorelik, director of Chabad of Beersheva. "He was beloved by G-d and man, and was completely devoted to the community."
Biden's Israel ambassador tells BDS group he wants Jews out of Jerusalem
צילום: JNS photo
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03/23/2022
By Daniel Greenfield) FrontPage Magazine) Biden's ambassador to Israel recently told participants in a pro-BDS group's webinar that the real problem with the Palestinian Authority funding terrorism is that "it gives the 'haters' an excuse not to support the P.A. based on the argument that it is 'paying for people who killed Jews.'"
He also told the anti-Israel group, whose CEO has described Israel as an "oppressive regime" and which cheered the Ben & Jerry's boycott, that "your agenda is where my heart is."
At this rate, Thomas Nides will be hugging and kissing Hamas leaders by the end of the year.
Expectations for Nides were already pretty low when the Biden administration announced that it had picked Obama's former deputy secretary of state as its ambassador to Israel.
Hillary Clinton was going to make Nides her chief of staff, but once Hillary in the White House became as likely as peace with Hamas and the PLO, Nides had to settle for being Biden's bully in Jerusalem while his wife, who is a VP at CNN, stays on in Washington D.C.
Nides's main qualification for the job had been yelling "You don't want to f***ing defund UNESCO" at a former Israeli ambassador. He had also vocally opposed efforts to defund UNRWA and stop subsidizing the terror refugee industry. He has also served on the board of the International Rescue Committee, which has repeatedly attacked Israel.
J Street, the anti-Israel pressure group, welcomed Nides's nomination and announced that it "looked forward to working" with him. Other anti-Israel groups, including the Israel Policy Forum and Americans for Peace Now (APN), echoed the sentiment.
It didn't take long for Nides to justify their faith in his hostility to the Jewish state.
Early on, Nides announced that he wanted to open an occupation consulate to the terrorists in Jerusalem, over the opposition of the Israeli government, and that he would not visit those parts of Israel wrongly described as "settlements" because they're claimed by Islamic terrorists.
"I absolutely will not," he replied.
That was an even more extreme position than the one adopted by Obama's ambassador, Dan Shapiro, who had privately visited homes in those areas, where many Americans live.
Nides did, however, meet with Mansour Abbas, the head of the Muslim Brotherhood's United Arab List, which played a key role in removing Benjamin Netanyahu from office and replacing him with a leftist coalition government.
"When it comes to Israel, I have no ideology," Nides had initially claimed. Then, during a webinar by the anti-Israel Americans for Peace Now group, he let his freak flag fly and admitted what everyone already knew.
"I'm center-left," he joked. "I'm left generally, but I put in the 'center' just to make myself feel better."
It got worse from there.
"You have a clear agenda. I think your agenda is where my heart is," Nides told APN.
What is APN's agenda? The group opposes Jews living in Jerusalem, opposes anti-BDS legislation and opposes Jews defending themselves against Islamic terrorism.
APN CEO Hadar Susskind praised Ben & Jerry's decision to boycott Israel as a "principled moral stance which we fully support."
He claimed that the Jewish outrage over Amnesty International libeling Israel an apartheid state was "manufactured" and that the real issue was that Israel maintains an "endemic, oppressive regime, in which the … human rights of millions of Palestinians are ruthlessly violated."
That "clear agenda" is where the rotten heart of Biden's ambassador to Israel lies.
The APN webinar was co-hosted by Susskind and teachers' union boss Randi Weingarten. Weingarten, an APN board member, had previously ranted that "American Jews are now part of the ownership class … who now want to take that ladder of opportunity away from those who do not have it" when asked by a Jewish journalist if unions like hers had too much power.
Weingarten's partner, Sharon Kleinbaum, had faced a member revolt over her extreme anti-Israel views which included reading the names of dead Hamas terrorists alongside Israeli casualties from the pulpit, and providing space to Queers Against Israeli Apartheid.
Biden has since appointed Kleinbaum to the Commission on International Religious Freedom, despite her support for Cuomo's discrimination against Orthodox Jews during the pandemic.
So this gathering of anti-Semites was old home week for a member of the Biden administration.
Nides told Susskind and Weingarten that he and Biden wanted to divide Jerusalem and that "my job is to knock down things that make that possibility impossible."
The leading thing to knock down would be the Jewish state.
Nides ranted that his priority was fighting to prevent Jews from living in those parts of Jerusalem that had been captured by invading Muslim armies in 1948 and liberated from their occupiers in 1967 during the Six-Day War.
"We can't have the Israelis doing settlement growth, both in East Jerusalem or the West Bank," Nides whined. He failed to explain how Jews living in the city of King David and King Solomon, of Jewish kings and prophets, could be occupying "settlements."
"I can't stop everything, just so we're clear, I have to pick my battles," Nides told his anti-Israel audience at the APN webinar. "E-1 was a disaster, I went full bore on E-1."
E-1, an area of Judea and Samaria to the east of Jerusalem, begins at the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. Perhaps Nides would also like to evict the Jews who have been buried there for thousands of years for also being "settlers."
Nides apologized to his Americans for Peace Now audience for not being able to stop every Jew from living in Jerusalem. "I'd be lying to you if every single house … in east Jerusalem or the West Bank I could stop … I can't stop everything, just so we are clear."
"I'm a bit of a nag on this, including the idea of settlement growth—which infuriates me," Nides fumed, as if he were the proconsul of an occupying regime tasked with policing the natives rather than a diplomatic envoy dispatched by an ally to cooperate on regional security.
A few years ago, Congress passed the Taylor Force Act. The law was named after Taylor Force: an American military veteran murdered in Tel Aviv by an Islamic terrorist. The Palestinian Authority, the PLO government in Ramallah, treated Force's killer as one of its fighters and put his family on a generous pension. This "Pay to Slay" program pays out millions to imprisoned Islamic terrorists or their families as a reward for killing Jews. The Taylor Force Act cut off a lot of American subsidies to the PLO until such a time as it stopped funding terrorism.
Nides used the PLO term for "Pay to Slay," describing them as "martyr payments."
Islamic terrorists describe their crimes as "martyrdom"; an American ambassador should use the term "terrorism" instead of talking like a jihadist.
Biden's ambassador further claimed that the issue with "these martyr payments" is that they "have caused an enormous amount of problems because it gives the 'haters' an excuse not to support the P.A. based on the argument that it is 'paying for people who killed Jews.'"
Rather than vocally condemn the PLO for subsidizing the murder of Americans and Jews, Nides only appeared to be concerned that the terror payments were an "excuse" for Jewish "haters" to cut off funding to the terrorists.
It's no wonder that he recently tweeted, "Pleased to see lots for Palestinians in the budget just signed by @POTUS Biden: $144 million increase [now $219 million] for Economic Support Funds, $40 million for security forces training in the WBank, and $50 million for 2nd year of the Nita Lowey MEPPA Fund."
The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has condemned Nides's webinar with APN, stating that a "U.S. official should not be legitimizing the pro-BDS group Peace Now."
ZOA President Morton A. Klein declared that he "strongly condemns U.S. Ambassador to Israel Thomas Nides's immoral, anti-Jewish, discriminatory anti-Israel statements."
Unfortunately Nides is characteristic of the anti-Israel Biden administration.
The APN webinar was co-hosted by Randi Weingarten, a close ally of the Biden administration. Beyond Weingarten, the APN board includes top lefty digital campaigner Mik Moore, top leftist donor Danny Goldberg, Human Rights Watch's Kathleen Peratis, Christine Blasey Ford lawyer Debra Katz and other Democrat political establishment figures.
Nides knew exactly who he was talking to and who his real audience at this event was.
Much as when Stuart Eizenstat contacted Jake Sullivan, currently Biden's National Security Advisor but then Hillary's foreign policy adviser, using Nides as his referral. He told the Clinton campaign, "I am respected by the J Street group" and vouched that he had convinced the Israeli ambassador "to end the Israeli Embassy boycott of J Street."
The anti-Israel establishment controls the Democrats. Any ambassador to Israel is going to be vetted by them. Nides wasn't picked by Biden, he was picked by J Street, APN and other anti-Israel hate groups. His job isn't to build relations with Israel, but with its haters.
Tom Nides is not the ambassador to Israel. He's the ambassador to the anti-Israel lobby.
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical left and Islamic terrorism.
Editor's note: Chana and her husband Rabbi Shalom Gopin were Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries inLugansk, far-eastern Ukraine, until the war began in 2014 and their city was occupied by rebels. In the aftermath they relocated to the Obolon neighborhood of Kyiv, where they began building a new Jewish community, which included many of their fellow refugees from the occupied east. Forced to leave their home all over again, the Gopins and their children are currently staying in Iasi, Romania, where they are assisting refugees.
B"H
Saturday night, February 26, 2022
It's 2 a.m. and I can't fall asleep, I'm not sure why. It's currently quiet. Nowadays, the word quiet has a different connotation. We pray that it will be truly quiet…It is quiet in our room, and in the second room in our temporary quarters here in Iasi, Romania. Everyone has gone to sleep. The children are worn out from the events of the last few days, they are certainly feeling it.
We don't hide our feelings. Shalom occasionally sheds a tear, and I start crying too.
The people of Ukraine are in bomb shelters. Millions of people are going through a tremendous amount of stress during this period. I never knew much about politics, but I do know that this war has caused an entire nation—men, women and children—to live in fear.
We are constantly in touch with our community. Families with young children, senior citizens over 80 years old who are unable to go down to the safe rooms and are looking for some form of protection in their homes. Leah wrote to me "I have aged several years during these few days," and once again, tears fall.
I think of the numerous people who have been on the road for long hours. I think of Eitan, a very dear friend and community member of ours. He left the city Friday morning with his wife and nine-month-old son David; They headed towards…wherever they could go, somewhere in the direction of Poland. Eitan knew that the trip would be difficult, but he did not imagine how challenging it would actually be. We spoke with him after Shabbat and he was still on the road, he had crossed the border into Poland and was on his way to Krakow. We spoke to the shliach there, he is waiting for Eitan and his family and has hot food and a place to rest waiting for them. I don't know how baby David behaved—which part of the experience has etched itself into his soul? I hope he will not remember it at all, but it shakes me to the core again and again: how can this happen??
We are OK, thank G‑d. Almost OK. I don't know how we got through the agonizing trip. How Shalom drove and kept his cool during extremely stressful hours. Over the last two weeks he barely felt anything. He says he lost weight and he's probably right. That's how it is when the uncertainty weighs over your head, for a prolonged amount of time. That's how it feels when you went through it once already, and your stomach clenches at the thought that it will happen again. That's what one feels when only a few months ago we brought our furniture from Lugansk to Kyiv and finally, after seven years, we started to feel that we had a proper home.
I actually was able to keep myself together. I don't know why. Yet perhaps I do. I think that something happened to me ever since we left Lugansk. There are defense mechanisms in place, not just to offset missiles but also to face challenging life events. I think that several years ago my soul made the decision not to attach itself too much emotionally to a place. It is probably afraid that it will have to face another blow. And our souls apparently know…and feel….
Yes, it's hard for me. I also cry. But thank G‑d I feel in control. G‑d Almighty knows what's good for us, far better than we do. Leaving Lugansk was very difficult for our family. But thank G‑d we wholeheartedly rebuilt our lives and grew in all aspects. I can't say that we miss Lugansk anymore. We no longer dream of returning there. We are satisfied with what we were able to accomplish there and feel that we did our utmost to fulfill our mission. What happened, happened.
Now thank G‑d, we are happy in Kyiv. Or rather, we were happy…until Thursday morning…but G‑d never leaves us. So what am I worried about? That I'll have to roll with the punches for a certain amount of time? That I will not be able to go back to my home? That we will once again have to come up with a new path? I am inclined to believe that we will be able to return to Kyiv, to continue to work with the community that we love so much and was brought together with so much love. When will that be? Only G‑d knows. I hope that the West will act decisively and the war will end sooner….
So what am I worried about? I am worried about the numerous families who are sitting in shelters right now. I am worried about my fellow Shluchim who remained in Kyiv and have not been able to leave and now are afraid to do so. I am afraid of the additional shells the oppressor is likely to send over the city…my head is churning with many thoughts and there is no quiet to be had….
This is the first installment of Chana Gopin's diary of the current war.
Click here for a prayeryou can say and a list of good deeds you can do in the merit of the protection of all those in harm's way.
By Chana Gopin Chana Gopin is a Chabad-Lubavitch emissary in the Obolon neighborhood of Kiev, Ukraine. She and her husband directed Chabad of Lugansk until war in eastern Ukraine broke out in 2014 and the city was occupied by rebels. She is publisher of a popular Russian-language magazine "The World of the Jewish Woman." More from Gopin, Chana | RSS
Editor's note: Chana and her husband Rabbi Shalom Gopin were Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries inLugansk, far-eastern Ukraine, until the war began in 2014 and their city was occupied by rebels. In the aftermath they relocated to the Obolon neighborhood of Kyiv, where they began building a new Jewish community, which included many of their fellow refugees from the occupied east. Forced to leave their home all over again, the Gopins and their children are currently staying in Iasi, Romania, where they are assisting refugees.
While we were on the road, I had no time to think nor to ask questions. We were on high alert throughout the entire trip. There was heavy traffic and at times we drove at a speed of 5 km per hour. I told Shalom that if I was in the driver's seat I would not be able to handle it. It was an exhausting and stressful trip. Once in a while Shalom tried to overtake another car, or to drive on dirt roads and even in the opposite lanes with the hazard lights on, and I held my breath.
Several times when we were stuck in bumper to bumper traffic Shalom asked me if we were driving or idling. He wasn't joking. At some point after traveling for so long you are not even sure if you are seeing right. The lights, particularly those of the massive trucks on the road as well as those of the cars around us, were blinding. It was all a blur. All we wanted to do was close our eyes for five consecutive minutes, to be able to rest and refresh them. To open our eyes and realize that this is all only a nightmare … .
We arrived in Khmelnytskyi very late at night and fell asleep as we were, in our clothes, planning to leave early in the morning. The trip from Khmelnytskyi to Chernivtsi is not long, however, it was Friday and given our experience during the first long leg of our trip, we were not going to take chances. At 6 a.m. we were up and organized. Some time after seven, we left with the children, hoping for a calm trip. I thought it would be best to arrive at our destination early so that we would have time to prepare and hopefully avoid getting stuck on the roads G‑d forbid on Shabbat. The trip went well. We had to stop at various checkpoints of course, but there was no traffic. For several hours we traveled smoothly, we even found a gas station with a short line so we stopped to replenish our reserve tanks, to have a backup. Who knows what to expect in the future … .
Today we were debating what to do. Should we travel to Israel? Should we continue driving to Romania? Who would have believed that we would end up in this situation. G‑d Almighty can still perform a miracle for all of us.
We continued to talk about our plans once we'd arrive in Chernivtsi. We did not plan on resting. We did not leave the inferno to go touring. We are here for a purpose and have to utilize the opportunity to assist those in need from the other side of the border.
We spoke with our sweet daughter, Fradi, who within minutes had prepared an online questionnaire for our Kiev community. This would help us distribute funds to assist those in need, even before Shabbat. My daughter Chaya and her husband, Mendy Chavkin, are Chabad shluchim in Yaffo, outside Tel Aviv, and Fradi would be spending Shabbat with them. It was the first time that Fradi was there. I was so happy, for me it was very reassuring to know that she was safe and in a home—how important a home is to one who has one and how difficult it is when it's gone. So Chaya and Mendy, with our sweet grandson Levik, have already organized everything in Yaffo. They found a mattress for Fradi. I was very relieved that we'd be together with all of the other children for Shabbat. It was comforting to know that we'd be able to talk things through and share our feelings and thoughts with each other.
While we drove in the car and I was talking to Shalom, my son Yisroelik shouted from the back seat with pure innocence, that he has his own money with him (apparently the children decided to take all their treasures with them, in the same vein as the adults who took their documents and jewelry), and he wants to donate his own money to help the community. We teared up. We are so sensitive now, we feel injured. Although thank G‑d, only lightly so.
While we were traveling, another son, Yossi, messaged me a picture of a building full of smoke and asked me if that was Avalon, a place In Kiev. I could not look at the picture. I started to cry. No, it's not Avalon. But what's the difference? It is a picture from Kiev. Only half a day ago the city was at its most beautiful, and now it's filled with clouds of smoke and bombs.
I asked Yossi where he found that photo, he told me that he is following Russian news sites to keep abreast of events. That's how it is when you are here and some of your children are in Israel. Of course I would not want them to be with us through this madness. They have already gone through something similar recently; yet when we are all together we all feel calmer, and when we are far from each other it is so scary. That's certainly the case when your father and mother, sisters and brothers, your home, when they're all in danger.
This year there are two months of Adar, sixty days of joy. We have already lost the first 30 but we are not giving up hope and are praying that the situation will be reversed this very week, and the aggressor stopped.
When we arrived in Chernivtsi we went to the kosher restaurant where we ate a light and filling breakfast, we then went to a hotel downtown to settle and refresh ourselves. The Glitzenshtein family, the Chabad emissaries in the city, invited us for Shabbat, but we were so exhausted, both physically and emotionally that we could not even imagine having a regular Friday night meal when all around us there is so much sadness. So we stayed in the hotel. We laid out a Shabbat table in one of our two rooms and Shalom bought some food and necessities. I am lucky to have a practical husband who takes responsibility even when his spirits are low, otherwise that Shabbat would have been a Shabbat only in name. The dear shluchim also sent us food and we had everything we needed.
Initially Shalom thought he'd pray in the hotel as opposed to going to the synagogue. He was exhausted and spent. I told him that we have to find it within ourselves to regroup and get back to our routine not only for us, but also for the children. And so Shalom and the boys went. They breathed fresh air, had a change of scenery, met fellow Jews and came back. At the time Chernivtsi was relatively calm, and it felt as if we had arrived in a different country.
Human nature is interesting, until the danger does not actually come to your backyard, you don't worry and go about life as usual.
Shalom started singing Shalom Aleichem, and my son Yeshayahu signaled that he wanted to speak to him privately. Not in the room, but in the hall. Shalom followed him out and Yeshayahu started to cry. "Abba, I am so sad that we are having such a sad Shabbat meal in the hotel, alone. Last Shabbat we were at home, we had lots of guests and it was so nice." Shalom gave him a big hug and told him that we will try to be happy here, too. And so it was. We tried not to speak about the war. Although it was not completely possible to do so as it's obviously a burning topic now. Young Zev is angry that the aggressor is sending missiles on Victoria, our housekeeper (whom he loves), yet we did our best and sang happy songs and made an effort to speak about positive topics.
Shabbat morning the children woke up early to say Tehillim and went to synagogue. Miriam and I stayed behind. We ate Shabbat lunch at the shluchim's home. They welcome us so nicely.
It feels very strange to me. I love hosting people and do not like being hosted. All the more so since this unwelcome reality was foisted upon me and I am not comfortable with it at all. I am trying to go with the flow and even to smile and not to wallow in self-pity. But it is hard for me. We had a very nice meal. More refugees from Kiev and surrounding towns were there and while we were eating someone knocked at the door and another four people joined us. A family from Dnipro had gotten this address from someone and simply showed up.
The shluchim are well aware that they have a lot of hard work ahead of them, assisting the many refugees that are making their way to the city, and they are ready for it.
After Shabbat, Shalom met with Rabbi Glitzenstein to brainstorm for ideas on how best to assist the Jewish refugees in the city. Already this evening fifteen people arrived from Kiev and Shalom helped arrange for a place to sleep and eat for them.
It is known that when you are going through a hard time helping others eases the pain and so we decided to join the effort ….
That's it for now. Writing all of this has tired me, perhaps I'll finally be able to sleep. I hope there will be good news tomorrow, that we will awake in the morning and hear that the situation has been reversed for the good.
This is the second installment of Chana Gopin's diary of the current war.
