by LastTrumpet · Wednesday, February 20th, 2008
Today was Shushan Purim Katan here in Jerusalem. That is, in a year with two months of Adar, the first month we don’t celebrate the full holiday, but we maybe drink a little bit, and a day later than non-walled cities.
I wanted to tell y’all about the new Yeshivat Simchat Shlomo Podcast - you can subscribe here, or click here to add the podcast to itunes.
So far, we have a special talk on R’ Shlomo Carlebach’s music with Ben Zion Solomon, probably the world’s most knowledgeable person on that topic, as well as Reb Chaim Kramer of the Breslov Research Institute giving over a teaching of Rebbe Nachman on Purim.
Soon to come, Kabbalistic and Chassidic Insights into Purim with Rabbi Avraham Aryeh Trugman.
I had no idea the depths of Purim until recently - and these talks should help you reach the heights of the highest day of the year.
Last week, one of my teachers remarked to me before class that he’d almost had a heart attack when he looked at my facebook page, due to one of my friends wearing a bikini in her profile picture. He then picked up the theme and taught this Torah from the Mei Hashiloach (at the end of the PDF) all about Purim and nudity. Gevaldt.
Purim sameach to everyone!
(also, there’s a shiur here from Aish Kodesh in New York on Purim Katan that’s probably worthwhile)
by Ben Baruch · Friday, September 21st, 2007
by BZ · Thursday, September 20th, 2007
As usual:
Two important reminders for those who are fasting on Yom Kippur:
1. Hydrate! Drinking a lot of water right before the fast is a good idea, but not sufficient. It’s best to start hydrating a day or two earlier. In fact, it’s not a bad idea to drink a liter of water RIGHT NOW. This can make a big difference in being able to have a meaningful day me-erev ad arev (from evening to evening), and having the strength at the end of the day to appreciate Ne’ilah rather than count the minutes until dusk.
2. Fasting isn’t always a choice. MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger encourages everyone to take the amount they would have spent on food and donate it to feed those whose fast is involuntary.
by Kol Ra'ash Gadol · Tuesday, September 18th, 2007
Is that allowed?
One of the main characters on “The Young and the Restless” for a Yom Kippur episode on September 21st is going to do tshuvah.
The character, Brad Carlton,who entered the Y&R scene about two decades ago as the gardener to the wealthy Abbott family in the fictional Genoa City, is not what you’d call a saint. He’s a womanizer who worked his way into the social elite in part by marrying a succession of rich women, the first of whom was the insecure Abbott daughter Traci.
But last year the soap dropped a bombshell: The upwardly mobile stud was actually a Hebrew hunk. It turns out that Brad had been hiding his Jewish identity to protect himself and his mother, who had drawn the ire of Nazis because of her work as a Holocaust art restitution investigator.
“For 20 years there was a complete mystery as to Brad’s background,” said Don Diamont, the actor who plays Brad, during a phone interview with JTA. “He knew that he was Jewish, but he lived as someone else a long time.”
Diamont says that in his mind the character had celebrated some Jewish holidays in secret, but this year Brad will have his first opportunity to celebrate one openly — and he will do so on the show’s Sept. 21 episode.
According to Y&R sources, Brad not only will attend services for Yom Kippur, which falls the day after the show airs on CBS, but will openly ask forgiveness from two characters he has wronged during the past year: his daughter Colleen, played by Tammin Sursok, and Genoa City’s wealthiest man, Victor Newman, played by Eric Braeden.
Full story (if it won’t spoil it for you)
