CategoryBlog

Time to Give Thanks

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The festival of Chanukah was established as time to give thanks to the Almighty for miraculously saving His People from our enemies. This year we have especially much to be thankful for. It is little more than fourteen months since Israel was plunged into a multi-fronted war following the Hamas terror invasion from Gaza backed up by attacks from Hezbollah in Lebanon and from other Iranian proxies...

Reflections on the situation

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Shalom, dear friend! Thanks to HaShem, my wife and I have returned safely home to Safed after spending six weeks in Jerusalem for the festivals and some personal business. Back here in the north of Israel we found our children and their families all safe and well despite the stress they have endured in face of continuing daily rocket, missile and drone attacks from the terrorists in Lebanon...

Back from the brink?

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A week ago we were led to believe that a severe attack on Israel by Iran and her proxies was imminent with the risk of a swift spiral into a full-scale Middle East war. Since then here in Israel it has certainly been a very tense time of waiting, not knowing how to prepare for the totally unpredictable, trying nonetheless to carry on normally. Yet through G-d’s mercy, to date there has been no...

Are we winning or winning? Part 1

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As a believing and practicing Jew, I am duty bound to await Mashiach daily, even if he delays. Yet I cannot help wondering, at this time when Jews in Israel and throughout the world are beleaguered by war, hatred and conflict, whether the present moment is really opportune for him to be revealed. Or does the intensity of our pain and suffering, coupled with our age-old yearning for Mashiach, make...

Are we winning or winning? Part 2

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As I wrote in Part 1 of this message, Jews everywhere instinctively support “Israel” whenever we are under attack, and rightly so. But at the same time, to understand how and where to direct our support, I believe that we must also consider what we need to learn from the seemingly intractable situation in which we find ourselves. Culture clash The specter of medieval Islamic fundamentalism –...

Beautiful captive vs sex slave

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In my recent message, ”I am peace ”, I mentioned the graphic example given by Rambam (R’ Moses Maimonides) in his Iggeret Teiman to illustrate the difference between the Torah and false religions. He compares the latter to man-made stuffed dolls (clones) crafted to resemble a real human from the outside, but without any of the bones, flesh, blood, nerves and vitality of a living person. In terms...

I am peace, but they…

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Too long have I dwelt with those who hate peace. I am peace, but when I speak, they are for war. (Psalms 120:6-7) We did not want it. We did not expect it. But now we see all the world hurtling deeper and deeper into wars all over. Here in Israel, we today face active warfare on no less than seven fronts, with the ongoing conflict in Gaza, daily attacks from Lebanon and Syria in the north, terror...

From LFJ to Northern Breeze

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I am writing to you from the celestial city of Tz’fat (Safed), set amidst the green hills of Israel’s beautiful Galilee, where I moved from Jerusalem with my dear wife just over a month ago, finally fulfilling a dream of many years to live in this holy place. It is close on 5 years since I fell ill and had an operation to remove a life-threatening cancerous growth. After four years of treatments...

Plea for the captive souls

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Rabbi Professor Hillel Weiss of the Renewed Sanhedrin writes: I received a desperate distress call from Kabul from our friend there. The position of the organization of seventy nations. The Pashtun tribes that stretch across Pakistan, Afghanistan and India are estimated at tens of millions. Data are in demographic and scientific articles. Some of them have a tradition of belonging to the Ten...

Avraham Ben Yaakov

Avraham ben Yaakov Greenbaum is a Torah teacher in Tz’fat (Safed) in Israel’s Galilee, and author of translations and commentaries on Bible, Hassidut, Kabbalah, Spiritual Growth, Health, Healing and the Environment.

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