Chag Sameach, Happy Sukkos!

Transcription

1 ב"ה Tishrei 19, Sunday, Oct 21, 2016 CHOL HAMOED SUKKOT - SUKKOT INTERMEDIATE DAYS Candle Lighting: 5:39 pm Shabbat Ends: 6:41 pm EXPRESS Chag Sameach, Happy Sukkos! TEENS MAKING SUSHI IN THE SUKKA Montreal Torah Center Bais Menachem Chabad Lubavitch Joanne and Jonathan Gurman Community Center Lou Adler Shul Center Marcia Gillman and Michael Flinker Early Childhood Center 28 Cleve Road, Hampstead Quebec H3X 1A Fax mtc@themtc.com SODIA ICONS MOSAIC EXPRESS 1

2 ANNOUNCEMENTS SHABBAT & HOLIDAY PRAYER AND CANDLE LIGHTING SCHEDULE MTC GRACIOUSLY ACKNOWLEDGES THIS WEEK S SPONSORS OF THE DAY David & Laurie Puterman in honour of the yartzeit of Avraham Benarroch obm, Tishrei 19 Philip & Randi Cola in honour of the birthday of Michelle Lindsey Cola-Hasen, Oct 22 To become a sponsor of the day, please contact ext 223 Mincha & Maariv...5:40 pm Shacharit....9:30 am Children s Program :45 am Kiddush....12:30 pm Mincha/Shalosh Seudos...5:40 pm TORAH READING Chol Hamoed Sukkot...Siddur Page 478 Haftorah Siddur Page 480 CLASSES Chassidus :45 am EN FRANCAIS AVEC LE RAV M. PINTO: Minha et Arvit....17h 40 Chahrit...9h 00 Minha...17h 40 Suivi de Seouda Chelichit Arvit....18h 41 A special curbside garbage collection will take place on Friday Oct 21. Overnight parking tolerance will be until Oct 26 HOSHANA RABBA Motzei Shabbat, October 22 Tehillim...12:40 am Sunday October 23 Special Hoshana Rabba Service Shacharis...9:00 am SHMINI ATZERET Sunday evening, October 23 Candle lighting... 5:36 pm Mincha/Maariv :35 pm Monday, October 24 Shacharit :30 am Children s Program :45 am Yizkor :00 am Mincha :35 pm SIMCHAT TORAH Monday, October 24 Candle Lighting*...after 6:38 pm Children s Hakafa & Simchat Torah Hakafot followed by Grand Kiddush...6:30 pm Tuesday, October 6 Shacharit. 10:00 am Light Kiddush....10:45 am Hakafot....11:00 am Torah Reading..12:45 pm Musaf....1:45 pm Kiddush....2:15 pm Mincha & Maariv :35 pm Yom Tov ends :37 pm * Light from a pre-existing flame. 2 MOSAIC EXPRESS YASHER KOACH TO OUR KIDDUSH CO-SPONSORS! SUKKOS SPONSORS Debbie & Ronnie Cons Chava Krutelewski Miriam Landa Danielle & Eddy Rogozinsky Zeldie & Itchy Treitel THIS SHABBOS Roselee Sztern and Bernie Shuster with thanks to Rabbi New and Itchy for their Yom Tov inspiration and energy. And to Itchy & Zeldie for their lovely Sukkot invitation Mary and Nathan Blankrot in honour of the birthday of Chava Ross. We wish you health, happiness and nachas from your sons Yosef and Shlomo KIDDUSH CO-SPONSORSHIP IS $136 WEEKDAY PRAYER SCHEDULE SHACHARIT Wedn-Fri...Chassidus...6:15 am Shacharis.7:00 am Followed by breakfast Sunday......Chassidus....8:15 am Shacharis....9:00 am MINCHA Wednesday-Thursday.... 5:45 pm MAARIV Wednesday-Thursday.... 6:15 pm In cherished memory of R Yeshaya Aryeh ben Menashe Treitel obm

3 UPCOMING EVENTS MONDAY OCT 24 Simchat Torah Hakafot & Grand Kiddush 6:30 pm MONDAY NOV. 7 Mini Chefs Pizza & Painting Ages 4-6, 4:00-5:00 pm RSVP: themtc.com/minichefs THURSDAY NOV 10 Kids in Action Poutine & Paint Night! Grades 1-6, 5:00-6:30pm RSVP: themtc.com/kia DOSE OF INSPIRATION REALISTIC OPTIMISM by Tzvi Freeman People believe that only fools are optimists. But the opposite is true. Precisely because we understand how desperate the situation really is, how helpless we are and how impossible the challenge, that itself tells us how great a G d we have a G d who can lift us high beyond the natural order and transform the most ominous darkness to brilliant good. The greater a realist you are, the greater your joy. AND FINALLY... I've been working on my PHD for the past five years, but my kids don't necessarily see that as work. Yasher Koach to the Putermans for their Lulav Stand! As we were driving past Walmart one day, my son spotted a Now Hiring sign and suggested that I could get a job there. Hoping to make a point, I asked, "Do you think they're looking for an engineer?" "Oh, sure," he said. "They'll hire anybody." SIMCHAT TORAH MONDAY EVENING OCTOBER 24, 6:30 PM Children s Hakafa followed by Grand Kiddush and continuation of the Hakafot MOSAIC EXPRESS 3

4 A SUKKOT INSIGHT -- By Yanki Tauber re you a homeowner? If you are, you A probably yearn for the open road. Imagine, a life without mortgage payments, plumbing, lawnmowers, snowblowers, meter readings or alarm systems! Who coined the term "homeowner" anyway"? "Homeowned" sounds more like it. If you're a tramp, you probably yearn for a home. For a spot of permanence on this spinning globe, for a cube of space that holds the capriciousness of the world at bay. The joys of the open road? Maybe in an adventure novel read in an easy chair by the fireside. So what are we? Nomad or couch potato? Are we transient beings for whom movement is life and "at rest" an inscription for the gravestone? Or are we rooted souls, for whom the "journeys" of life are just so many guises of the singular quest for home? ow [does one fulfill] the mitzvah of H dwelling in the sukkah? One should eat, drink, and live in the sukkah, both day and night, as one lives in one s house on the other days of the year: for seven days a person should make his home his temporary dwelling, and his sukkah his permanent dwelling (Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 639:1). Perhaps the most interesting model of the dweller/journeyer duality in our nature is the sukkah, the branch-covered hut that serves as the home of the Jew for the seven days of the Sukkot festival. The halachic (Torah law) definition of the sukkah is that it is a dirat ar'ai, a "temporary dwelling". If the words "temporary" and "dwelling" sound contradictory, they are; indeed, they give rise to contradictory laws regarding the construction and habitation of the sukkah. For example, if the branches of the sukkah's roof-covering are piled on so thick that the rain cannot penetrate, the sukkah is disqualified -- it's a house, not a sukkah. On the other hand, if it's raining in the sukkah, you're not obligated to eat in it -- the sukkah is your home, and if it were raining into your home, you'd move to another room. Also: If the walls are taller than 20 cubits (about 30 feet) it's not a sukkah -- not a "temporary" structure; but if they're too flimsy to withstand an average wind, it's also disqualified -- not a "dwelling". In other words, the Torah wants us to take an essentially transient structure and make it our permanent home. Or else it wants us to look at our permanent home and understand that it is, essentially, a transient structure. hassidim have an interesting habit. C When asked to explain something, they offer a story. And then they tell another story, making the opposite point. Two stories, then. The first story takes us back some 50 years. A young yeshivah student was about to embark on a trip and wrote to the Lubavitcher Rebbe for a blessing. In his reply, the Rebbe urged the young man to utilize the opportunity to accomplish something positive in every place he would stop during his trip. The Rebbe used the Mishkan, the portable sanctuary that accompanied the people of Israel in the travels through the desert, as an example. At their every encampment, the people were instructed to set up the formidable structure which consisted of hundreds of parts and required an army of more than 8,000 people to assemble -- even if they were staying just a single night. For a Jew, concluded the Rebbe, there's no such thing as merely "passing through" a place. Every moment in life has permanence, by virtue of the fact that Divine Providence has guided us to this particular point in time and space for a specific purpose. The second story is told of the visitor who, stopping by the home of the great Chassidic master Rabbi DovBer of Mezheritch (d. 1772), was outraged by the poverty he encountered there. Rabbi DovBer's home was bare of all furnishing, save for an assortment of rough wooden planks and blocks that served as benches for his students during the day and as beds for his family at night. "How can you live like this?" demanded the visitor. "I myself am far from wealthy, but at least in my home you will find, thank G d, the basic necessities: some chairs, a table, beds..." "Indeed?" said Rabbi DovBer. "But I don't see any of your furnishings. How do you manage without them?" "What do you mean? Do you think that I schlep all my possessions along with me wherever I go? When I travel, I make do with what's available. But at home -- a person's home is a different matter altogether!" "Ah, yes," said Rabbi DovBer. "At home, it is a different matter altogether..." 4 MOSAIC EXPRESS

5 By Menachem Posner e who has not seen the Water-Drawing H Celebration has never seen joy in his life (Talmud) Every Jewish festival is celebrated with joy. Often there are additional emotions added to the mix: awe on Rosh Hashanah, regret on Yom Kippur, freedom from oppression on Passover. But the holiday of Sukkot is pure joy. In our prayers, we call it simply the season of our rejoicing. One of Sukkot s most joyous observances was known as Simchat Beit Hashoeivah, the Celebration of the Water-Drawing. When the Holy Temple stood, every sacrifice included wine libations poured over the altar. On Sukkot, water was also poured over the altar in a special ceremony. This ritual engendered such joy that it was celebrated with music, dancing and singing all night long. Every morning of Sukkot at daybreak, a group of Levites and priests went down to the Shiloach stream, which ran south of the Temple Mount, and drew three log (a Talmudic liquid measurement) of fresh water to be poured on the altar after the daily morning sacrifice. Their arrival at the Temple with the water was accompanied by trumpet blasts. (For Shabbat, the water was collected before the onset of Shabbat and stored in a golden vessel in the Temple.) There were two holes in the altar into which liquid was poured. One hole was for the wine that accompanied every sacrifice, and a second, smaller one was reserved for the Sukkot water. The holes were different sizes to allow the wine and water, which have different consistencies, to drain at the same speed. The nights of Sukkot were spent celebrating this once-a-year offering. The Talmud describes the celebrations of Simchat Beit Hashoevah in detail: Priests kindled fires on great candelabra, lighting up Jerusalem as if it were the middle of the day. Throughout the night pious men danced holding torches, scholars juggled and Levites played music while the lay people watched with excitement. The Temple courtyard was specially furnished to accommodate this event, and a balcony was erected for women so they could observe the revelry. Though not explicitly mandated in the Torah, the water libation is part of the oral tradition passed down from Moses. For this reason, the Sadducees, who rejected the Oral Law, bitterly disputed the practice. Once the priest honored to do the libation was sympathetic to the Sadducees and, instead of pouring the water into the hole in the altar, he spilled it on his own feet. The onlookers were horrified and pelted him with their etrogim. From that time on, whoever poured the water libation lifted the jug of water high in the air, so that all could see him perform the mitzvah properly. Even today, when we no longer have a Temple, and the water libation ritual is discontinued, many communities still celebrate Simchat Beit Hashoeivah with music and dancing during the nights of Sukkot, in keeping with the Torah s directive, You shall rejoice on your holiday. Why was this event accompanied by such fanfare and celebration? Part of the answer is that Jews of old were happy to demonstrate their fealty to tradition, even those traditions not specified in the Torah. In addition, the water-drawing was said to be accompanied by a great awareness of G dliness, to the degree that it is said that, along with water, people would draw prophetic revelation. The chassidic masters explain that the water celebration signifies a joy caused by a connection to G d so deep and so true that, like water, it has no describable taste. And like water, it sustains all life. INTERESTING SUKKAHS FROM AROUND THE WORLD, 5777 A portable "Safari Sukkah" on Cape Town's Lion's Head Mountain. Rabbi Dovid Pinson, Shliach in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada shakes the Lulav in his igloo sukkah, bringing the warmth of Sukkos into the cold. The largest Sukkah in Europe with seating for 1,000 people has been erected in the courtyard of the Marina Roscha Shul in the center of Moscow. MOSAIC EXPRESS 5

6 IT S AN ESROG! By Dvora Lakein uring the fall festival Sukkot, the esrog is D united with palm, myrtle, and willow branches to form the Four Species. The three latter plants are combined into a heady bouquet and then shaken alongside the esrog. It takes a lot before that little esrog is ready for prime time. Incredibly susceptible to the elements, the tree s viability depends largely on each season s conditions. A freezing winter will stunt its flowering, too much sun or rain will cause the fruit to wither, and then there are the bugs. We are in a continuous war with the bugs, sighs Nachum Luria, from his farm in Kfar Chabad, Israel. We need to have the proper balance of pesticides, enough to kill the bugs but not too strong to make marks on the esrogs. No one cares on an orange or another fruit, but any little blemish devalues an esrog. Luria has been babying his citrons for decades. Unlike other produce, which can be left largely untended until harvest time, the esrog needs special care. The whole year, all day, we take care of our esrogs, he shares. We protect them from the branches, from the leaves themselves, from the weather. When harvest finally rolls around, one fruit is chosen at a time, then carefully held as the picker climbs down the tree to deposit it in its own cushioned box. Talk about individual attention. The trees Luria lovingly tends have been growing in this Israeli village since His father-in-law Rabbi Eliyahu Rivkin, who founded Etrogei Lubavitch, was given an Italian esrog from the Lubavitcher Rebbe. He returned to his Israeli village, pulled out his nascent crop, and replanted an entire orchard from that one fruit. The Lurias like to say they grow Calabrian esrogs in Israel. The distinction is significant. According to Chassidic lore, when G-d commanded Moshe to acquire an esrog, the faithful servant questioned where he could procure one in the desert. A cloud whisked away to Calabria and returned with the finest of the species. Since then, many Chabad and other Chassidic sects prefer these esrogs from Italy s lowest region, the toe of the boot. For the last 42 years, Rabbi Moshe Lazar has supervised the Italian operation. He travels 1,100 kilometers from his home in Milan to the fields of Calabria several times annually. If we wouldn t have to worry about grafting, he explains fieldside, we could make two phone calls and have an entire shipment ready instantly. The esrog tree s delicate nature and shallow roots give it a significantly shorter, less stable life expectancy. Farmers, therefore, are tempted to graft the tree to one of its hardier cousins, say a lime or mandarin orange tree. But grafting makes the fruit unkosher for use in this mitzvah. Rabbinic inspectors check each tree s roots to ensure that the fruit is genetically pure. Calabria is one of the least developed regions of Italy and farmers depend on the reliability of the Jewish esrog market. When he first visited in the 1960s, Lazar recalls farms of tomatoes, grains, and citrons. Today, those little family farms have joined to produce one single, lucrative product, the esrog. Farmers who spend much of the agricultural season tending these plants, covering, spraying, and inspecting, are grateful for the income they represent come fall. They are also interested in another aspect of the Jewish culture, their own. In recent years, many locals have begun digging into their roots, discovering Jewish blood. Entire towns and villages can trace their heritage to conversos who were forced to convert to Christianity 500 years ago. Some kept their Judaism secretly, others knew nothing of their past. Throughout the year, Lazar is invited to speak to locals across the region eager to learn more of their heritage. The Italians here hosted a candlelight march to mark The Day of Remembrance. Hundreds gathered last month to celebrate the esrog and its religious importance in the fields. We are here to pick the fruit, Lazar says. But G-d has different intentions. These Italians want to connect with the Jews and perhaps this is the real reason we are here. YAM (GRADES 7-8) HAD AN AWESOME TIME MAKING SUSHI IN THE SUKKAH AND OTHER ACTIVITIES!! 6 MOSAIC EXPRESS

7 An inspiring story for your Shabbos table HERE S my STORY Generously sponsored by the A TIME FOR WAR RABBI LAIBL WOLF ב ה ערב שבת חול המועד סוכות, י ט תשרי, תשע ו Erev Shabbos Chol Hamoed Sukkos, October 21, 2016 Igrew up in a Torah-observant, chasidic home in Melbourne, Australia, where I attended Chabad s Yeshivah Gedolah. Later, I studied law at Melbourne University, while continuing with my Torah studies on a part-time basis. Following graduation, I wanted to return to yeshivah, and I wrote to the Rebbe to ask his advice on the matter. In response I received a very strongly-worded letter which opened as follows: G-d forbid that you should now go and study in yeshivah; this is a time of war, and during a time of war a good soldier doesn t leave the front line. By war, the Rebbe meant the battleground against Jewish assimilation and, towards that end, he urged me to enter the field of Jewish outreach in order to work with academic youth. He said that in this way I would be learning Torah with the conscious purpose of sharing whatever I studied with my own students. Quoting a statement of our sages, he said: You will learn a thousand times more than if you were learning just for yourself. And then he added, This is literally not an exaggeration! His advice hit the mark. From then on I always strived to study Torah with a consciousness that I would be imparting to others whatever I learned, and I found my learning process accelerating tremendously as a result. Because of the Rebbe, in 1970, I applied for a position with Hillel, the organization for Jewish students on college campuses. And that s how I, together with my wife and three-month-old baby, ended up as the Hillel rabbi at the University of Wisconsin in snowy Madison. A few weeks after our arrival, a group of radicals called the Weathermen bombed the physics building on campus, and I got a taste of what American university life was like at the height of anti-vietnam protests. I set up a first-aid station at the Hillel House where students could run to wash the tear gas out of their eyes after confrontations with police and, in this way, I made some very good friends among the students, a few of whom later went on to became quite famous. However, the Rebbe urged me to focus on my mission of Jewish outreach rather than becoming overly involved with the Vietnam War issue. He told me, Yes, you have responsibility toward all people who have been created in this world, and therefore, you should help anyone who is in pain. At the same time, you have to consider where your priorities lie. He gave the example of two people drowning, one of whom is your brother while the other is a stranger, and you can save only one. Nobody will blame you if you choose to save your brother first, he said. Your brother is your priority. Of course, once you have met your obligation to your brother, you should help the stranger but, until then, your focus has to be clear. And then the Rebbe looked at me and asked: And have you completed all your obligations to your brothers and sisters?? In terms of my obligations to the Jewish students, I sought his advice how to reach out to so many. At the time, close to fifty thousand students were enrolled at the University of Wisconsin, seven thousand of them Jewish. How am I, a lone individual, supposed to interact with a very diverse community of seven thousand? I asked the Rebbe. He answered me very pointedly: Your job is not to work with seven thousand; your job is to work with seven. Those seven will find their seven and those seven will find another seven, but your work is to concentrate on seven at a time. I took his advice to heart, and ever since then, I have sought to work with individuals rather than with groups. Of course, it s not as if I abdicated my responsibilities to the others; I was the Jewish chaplain on campus and, as such, I organized services and programs for the Jewish holidays and the like. continued on reverse An oral history project dedicated to documenting the life of the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory. The story is one of thousands recorded in over 1400 videotaped interviews conducted to date. These stories are based on the recollection of the individuals recounting them. Please share any corrections, comments and suggestions. mystory@jemedia.org

8 continued from reverse I recall one particular instance when I placed an advertisement in the student newspaper just before Passover. I was very proud of the clever design of this ad which urged the Jewish students to adopt the ways of the Jewish radicals of old who stood up to the Egyptian Empire. I felt this revolutionary language would really speak to the mindset of the time. However, when I sent a copy of the ad to the Rebbe, I got a response I did not expect. The Rebbe wanted to know why my ad didn t mention any of the Passover mitzvot. From that, I learned a very important lesson. You can be as radical and contemporary with your speech as you want, but at the end of the day, if you leave out the crux of the matter, then your clever language is meaningless. After that, I made sure that the Torah message was front and center in my ads and in my lectures. Another important lesson that I learned from the Rebbe is not to dumb-down my lectures in order to reach the lowest common denominator among my audience. He told me, When you speak, make sure you speak one notch above their understanding. And, secondly, make sure you provide as much information as possible so your audience will understand that there is more that they have to learn. Today, I am primarily involved in public speaking; I visit about sixty-five cities a year and I always keep that advice in mind. Sometimes the Chabad emissaries who invite me to speak complain, Not everybody understood what you said. And then I share with them the Rebbe s take on the matter and they understand. But, in terms of the real effect, I know from the letters I receive that this approach opens many pathways to members of my audience. I cannot always find something that touches every person s soul, but I can provide an opening so that they can go forward on their own. This was the Rebbe s advice to me and, obviously, he knew best. I stayed at the University of Wisconsin for two years, moving on for the sake of my family to Hofstra University in New York, where I stayed another two years. But my wife was very homesick for Australia and there came a time when she poured out her heart to the Rebbe. And although the Rebbe had previously directed me to continue working in the United States, when he heard how unhappy she was, he reversed his position. He said, Your wife s unhappiness will make it difficult for both of you to have the degree of success which you otherwise would have. Therefore, I withdraw my previous directive and leave it up to you to decide what would be best for your family. I was amazed that the Rebbe cared so much for the feelings of one individual, but then I realized that the Rebbe saw his emissaries as a couple and understood that the happiness of one impacted the effectiveness of the other. Later, when we sought his advice as to which job to take upon returning to Melbourne, my wife questioned whether I had the necessary qualifications for one of the positions offered to me. The Rebbe smiled, and said to her, The position makes the person. And I have found that to be very true often Chabad emissaries don t even know the strengths they have until they begin working in the field. This is something the Rebbe understood and anticipated, as he understood and anticipated so many things. Rabbi Laibl Wolf is presently the dean of Spiritgrow Josef Kryss Wholistic Centre in Melbourne, Australia, where he resides with his wife Leah. He was interviewed in Brooklyn, in November of לע נ ר ישראל יעקב וזוגתו מרת קריינא ע ה לאקשין ע י בניהם ר נחמן ור אברהם ומשפחתם שיחיו This week in. > , before leaving the Soviet Union for the final time, the Rebbe spent Simchat Torah with his parents. Rebbetzin Chana described the momentous event in her memoirs: My son was extraordinarily joyful, as if his intention was to erase from everyone s heart the fact that this may be his final Simchas Torah dance at home, under the same roof as his family. No one besides my husband and I was aware that he was about to set out on his long journey. Each time he danced past the place where I was standing, he looked at me with eyes that told me how painful it was for him that he had to leave us But they were also saying to me, Mother, don t worry 1 23 Tishrei 1. Rebbetzin Chana as quoted in Di Yiddishe Heim no. 22 (Kislev, 5725), p. 21 A project of: In honor of the Rebbe, whose bracha will always keep our father safe You can help us record more testimonies by dedicating future editions of Here s My Story JEWISH EDUCATIONAL MEDIA interviews@jemedia.org myencounterblog.com Eastern Parkway Suite 403 Brooklyn, NY Copyright, Jewish Educational Media, 2016 Generously printed by