יום שישי י"ט באדר ב תשפ"ד 29/03/2024
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  • The Mission Continues

    As in the past so it remains today - we were and still are under the selfsame commitment to adhere to the directions of the Gedolei Yisrael, who stand guard against breaches of purity threatening our camp. When we were required to ask – we asked. When we were instructed to depart – we left. The moment we are summoned back to raise the flag, every other consideration is pushed to the side and we answer: We are ready!

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בראי היום

  • Harav Yisrael Friedman zy”a, the Rebbe of Husyatin

    מוטי, ויקיפדיה העברית

    The ancestral chain of Harav Yisrael Friedman, the founder of the Husyatin chassidic court, originates with the holy Baal Shem Tov. The Husyatin chassidus has its roots in Galicia and eventually came to Tel Aviv, during the turbulent years between the two World Wars.

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Place

  • Maccabi'im Gravesite

    In honour of Chanukah, we will discuss a fascinating, ongoing investigation attempting to establish the place of burial of Mattisyahu Kohen Gadol and his family.

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In I got It!

And They Will Return

The Jewish People Will Always find their way back to Hashem

24/08/2009 12:00
Twice during Jewish history we have witnessed the majority of the Jewish People repent and ascend from the bottomless pit of impurity to the peak of holiness.

The first time was during the Exodus from Egypt. The Jewish people had been living in Egypt for 210 years and were greatly influenced by the immorality of the Egyptians, who were considered the world's immoral people and referred to by the Sages as 'full of lust and sin'. The Jews, who were living in their midst and still had not received the Torah, began to copy their behavior and lead sinful lives as is described in the Haggadah: "And I observed you…and I saw that you were nude" – which the commentators explain as meaning that the Jewish People were completely devoid of Mitzvahs and had sunk to the 49th gate of impurity, fast approaching the 50th and lowest gate. If the Jews were to enter the 50th gate of impurity – they would be beyond salvation and would not be able to be redeemed. But from the depth of impurity, G-d redeemed them and lifted them up to the highest level of holiness as the Jewish People totally repented; every day G-d lifted them up from one gate of impurity into one gate of holiness until they reached the 50th gate of holiness on the day of Shavuoth, when they received the Holy Torah and reach ultimate purity as they called out: "We will do and we will hear!"

The other time the whole Jewish People repented and rose from the lowest spiritual level to the highest one was during the days of King Hezekiah. Hezekiah, the 13th king of Judea, ascended the throne after the death of his father and ruled over the Jewish People for 29 years, during which he cleansed them from the idolatry that his own father had introduced to the Jewish nation. The land of Israel was at that time full of worship centers and the people totally neglected the Holy Temple and did not offer any sacrifices to G-d; in fact, the Temple had been converted into an idolatry worship center.
When King Hezekiah ascended the throne he immediately began purifying the Temple and the Jewish nation; the priests were again sanctified, the idols were shattered and the Copper Snake which Moses had raised to bring an end to the epidemic which plagued the Jews and was later converted into in idol by the sinful people – was crushed.

אנה קפלן
Repentance and Tefila Anna Kaplan

The period of King Hezekiah's rule was a time of repentance during which the Jewish People came closer to G-d. The people of that generation ascended such unbelievable spiritual heights that the Gemara testified: "They checked from Dan till Be'er Sheva and did not find any boy or girl, man or women who were not proficient in the laws of purity".

In the merit of this collective repentance, during the Babylonian Exile when the tribes of Israel were expelled from their land by Nebuchadnezzar, the Jews in the Judean Kingdom were spared extinction by Sanheriv and witnessed the miraculous death of the soldiers who had come to kill them on Passover eve.