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This Google Custom Search looks only in this website. HaRav Chaim Walkin shlita recalls HaRav Chaim Shmuelevitz zt"l During Elul We are already in the second week of Elul, the month of Heavenly assistance in which Hashem calls out to us in love: Return to Me and I will return to you. To our chagrin, there are so many in whose hearts this call does not penetrate. They are plunged in hopelessness, sometimes not even realizing it, and think to themselves, "Haven't we tried already to change? Didn't I make good resolutions last year, only to fail, and despair? How can we succeed if we failed so miserably in the past?" But they are mistaken, maintains the Mashgiach, HaRav Chaim Walkin. They fail to appreciate the power of man, of their own selves. If a person were to assess his own strength and recognize his own greatness, he would value every second, every single deed, and would realize the power of teshuva. Even he were to fall and stumble as he did in the past, he should nevertheless value the importance of each hour of teshuva and good deeds. HaRav Chaim Walking tells us:
A collection of ivory fragments dating back to Bayis Rishon, one of only a very few ever discovered anywhere in the world and the first unearthed in Jerusalem, was found in excavations by the Antiquity Authority and the Tel Aviv University in the Givati parking lot of the City of David, in the national park surrounding the Jerusalem walls. These digs were funded by the City of David organization and are located just outside the Dung Gate. These remnants of ivory, considered in the ancient world as one of the most expensive raw materials, even dearer than gold, were found in the ruins of a very large building that is thought to have been the residence of prominent people. The ivory fragments are thought by the experts to have adorned wood furniture of the residents as inlays. The director of the excavation says, "Up till today, we have known of ivory inlays only from capital cities of the large kingdoms in the times of Bayis Rishon, such as Nimrod, capital of Assyria, or Samaria which was the capital of the kingdom of Yisroel. Now, for the first time, Jerusalem can also be added to those capitals."
Professor Udi Lebel, head of the International Communications Center at Bar Ilan, exposes an amazing discovery in a book by Dr. Ronny Kampinsky, "Zevulun Hammer - a Political Biography." For the sake of the younger generation which doesn't remember Hammer, he was the leader of Mafdal, the National Religious Party which was at the peak of success and influence in his time. He writes, "Towards the end of his tenure as Secretary General of the Mafdal, Hammer had reservations regarding the polarization of religious Zionism. The entry of Meir Kahane to the Knesset as head of the Kach party was, in his eyes, an educational failure. He led the amendment of the law on racism in April 1986, saying, `It is possibly preferable for the religious parties to raise the banner of this law. We also need to do a rethinking of our own, at least in the religious Zionist camp which is duty-bound to lead the battle for the adjustment of the Israeli society in the spirit of the Torah! We have been offered the opportunity to present to the Knesset parties a text which will add a vital contribution in the fight against Kahanism and its ilk. Whoever really seeks the benefit of this opportunity should unhesitatingly support it.' "
From Baranovitch To Mir: HaRav Leib Baron Recalls His Youth In Eastern Europe Part V (Final Part) Part V For Part IV of this series click here.
HaRav Aryeh Leib Baron zt"l, was born in Horodok, which is near Volozhin. In his youth, he learned in the yeshivos of Baranovitch and Mir. Later he was the rosh yeshiva of Mercaz Hatalmud in Montreal, Canada and was known for his shiurim in both halacha and aggada, some of which have been published in his seforim: Bircas Reuven, Bircas Yehuda, Yishrei Lev, Nesivos Lev, Mesamchei Lev and Yismach Chaim, to give just a partial listing. We have published several of his essays on machshovo and hashkofo in these pages. In these essays, based on an extended interview with HaRav Baron, he discusses the prewar European yeshiva world, upon whose approach to learning and to character development, today's yeshivos are patterned. Thanks to the magnificent memory with which he is gifted, HaRav Baron was able to describe his experiences in perfect detail, thus evoking living images of the life inside the great yeshivos of Baranovitch and Mir and of their roshei yeshiva and mashgichim. In the last part, we read about the Mir Yeshiva, and how the students and rabbonim received documentation to travel across Russia, and actually went with the Trans-Siberian railroad.
A Yeshiva in Wartime Japan
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These links were fixed, Tammuz 5781
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