Talmud Teasers: Moses, Miracles & Matzah

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Passover is packed with more traditions, customs, and historic significance than any other holiday on the Jewish calendar. The Talmud dedicates considerable discussion to these, and derives a great many lessons from the story and celebration of our Exodus.

A

The splitting of the Red Sea was not the only time a miracle of this nature occurred. The Talmud tells of another such instance when:

  1. Rabbi Akiva left his wife (at her urging) to study Torah late in life
  2. Rabbi Zeira made aliyah from Babylon to the Holy Land
  3. Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair went to redeem a Jew in captivity 
  4. Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai escaped Jerusalem during the revolt against the Romans

B

From the statement, “You shall keep watch over the matzahs” (Exodus 12:17), the Talmudic sage Rabbi Yoshia derives that:

  1. If someone encounters an opportunity to fulfill a mitzvah, they must stop to do so even if they are on their way to fulfill another mitzvah
  2. One must take care not to allow the matzah to rise
  3. One must keep watch over the water used to make the matzah so that it maintains a certain temperature
  4. At the Seder, one must never take their eyes off the matzah to prevent the afikoman from being stolen

C

According to Rabbi Yehoshua ben Korcha, G-d chose to reveal himself to Moses in a burning bush to reflect that:

  1. He feels the burning pain of the people suffering in exile
  2. He is present everywhere, even in a simple thorn bush
  3. Just as the burning bush was not consumed by the fire, so the Jewish people will not be consumed by exile
  4. He will reveal Himself at Mount Sinai, which was covered with bushes of this type

D

One who missed bringing the Passover sacrifice (for legitimate reasons) is given a second chance to do so on the day of Pesach Sheini (the 14th of Iyar). This is unusual, for rarely does one get a second chance to fulfill a mitzvah they missed. To make this point, the Talmud uses which of the following expressions:

  1. “Do not allow a mitzvah that comes your way to become leavened”
  2. “That which is crooked cannot be made straight”
  3. “Run like a deer to fulfill the Divine will”
  4. “Do not say, when I will have time, I will attend to it”

E

One of the major arguments between the Talmudic sages and those who did not accept the Oral Law revolved around which of these questions:

  1. Whether we are required to count the Omer even though the Temple has been destroyed and sacrifices are no longer made
  2. Whether the command to eat matzah applies to all the days of Passover or only the first night
  3. Whether we start counting the Omer on the day after the first day of Passover or the day after the first Shabbat of the seven days of Passover
  4. Whether the splitting of the sea happened on the seventh or eighth day of Passover

Answers:

A3 (Chulin 7a)

B1 (Mechilta Bo 12:17)

C1 (Shemot Rabba 2)

D2 (Berachot 26a – Kohelet 1:15)

E3 (Menachot 65ab)

Haggadah Marginalia

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The Haggadah is one of those oceanic Torah texts. It invites continual return and reengagement, as we come back each year at the seder, to explore its fathomless depths. 

A Pesach-pastiche of biblical passages, rabbinic exegesis, practical laws, and songs, the Haggadah’s roots, in a sense, go back to the Exodus. Its main texts and basic structure originate in Tannaic times, some 1800 years ago, but continued to be debated across the centuries. The oldest extant Haggadah text comes to us from prayer books compiled during the Geonic era, in the ninth and tenth centuries. Later generations have seen a proliferation of editions, translations, commentaries, and interpretations which assume a variety of perspectives, from the philological to the philosophical. 

The following are a few of those interpretations, relating to some of the Haggadah’s better-known passages and elements:

1.

While the basic elements of the seder have persisted since the time of Pharaoh, it was only during the High Middle Ages that someone in France — possibly the great Sage Rashi or a lesser-known Tosafist named Rabbi Shmuel of Falaise — delineated the fifteen “signs” or “Simanim” for the stages of the seder that we know today. Some eighteen alternative rubrics for ordering or summarizing the seder were put forth by various Sages, from Rabbi Meir of Rothenburg to the Avudraham.



The signs help keep the many moving parts of the evening in order, but the fact that they are arranged in rhyming couplets points to their other function: the Simanim are meant to be sung, and thus are a playful way to stimulate night-long engagement with the deeper themes of Pesach.


2. 

The well-known Bible scholar and educator Nechama Leibowitz would sometimes point to the Four Questions to illustrate the difference between two kinds of queries — the shaila and the kushya. 

Rather than simply asking the shaila, “Why do we do X?” the child points out, “On all other nights, we Z, but on this night, we X!” — a kushya.



Whereas the former is a straightforward request for information, the latter takes note of a contrast or contradiction with respect to previous knowledge or experience. The latter is, thus, a sharper question, and “the fundamental pedagogic instrument of both the Pesach seder and of Biblical exegesis.” More than a childish ritual, the Four Questions are a “sophisticated paradigm for Torah learning.”

3. 

On the seder night, we are to become teachers and storytellers. As Moses was told, long ago: “So that you may tell in the ear of your child and your grandchild what things I have done in Egypt… that you may know that I am the L-rd.”



In the Hebrew original, there is a curious shift midway through this verse: “You tell” is singular, “you know” is plural. Perhaps this is because one child who hears the story can go on to teach it to others, so that many others will know it. Still, “you know” remains in the second person, reflecting another point: in a true educational dialogue, the one who is apparently transmitting knowledge also learns and grows. By teaching, you come to know it yourself. 

4.

Just as we prepare to launch into our own discussion of the Exodus, the Haggadah showcases an anecdote about several illustrious Sages who once spent the entire night at a seder in the town of Bnei Brak.

Subsequent commentators have wondered what it was that kept Rabbi Akiva and his confreres so busy that night in Bnei Brak. What were the precise subjects of their discussion? Some have theorized that they were discussing ways that the Exodus story might inform their ongoing revolt against Roman rule in the Holy Land. Some suggest that they were seeking sources in the biblical text for various Exodus-related stories, while others, like Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak of Lubavitch, argue that they were delving into the mystical dimensions of the Redemption. 


5. 

The Haggadah’s survey of the Exodus story revolves around a series of verses in Deuteronomy that farmers would recite when bringing their First Fruits to the Temple each year. The passage thanks G-d for His providence throughout history, and for the land He gave to the Jewish people. 

Interestingly, points out Rabbi J.B. Soloveichik, the selection included here stops short of referencing the Land of Israel explicitly. Perhaps these references were excluded from the Haggadah after the destruction of the Temple. Or perhaps there was another reason: G-d did not launch the Exodus to grant political or economic freedom, but to create a sacred people. This mission was accomplished during the revelation at Sinai, when the Jewish people became a Torah nation. 

6. 

We praise G-d for redeeming “us and our ancestors from Egypt” — and in that order. Our ancestors can tell stories from the distant past, but we — we who would still be enslaved if not for the Exodus — can experience redemption ourselves. (Chatam Sofer)


7. 

Filling up an extra cup of wine towards the end of the evening and setting it aside for Elijah, the prophet and herald of redemption, only became common practice in recent generations. Here we see the hand of history shaping the Haggadah. As we move closer to the ultimate Redemption, our intensified longing for that moment has worked its way into the seder. (The Rebbe, Likutei Sichos v. 27, p. 54)



8. 

How can matzah, the “Bread of Poverty”, be a symbol of freedom? 

To be redeemed is to go out and stand alone, unattached from any other thing. The slave, by contrast, is attached to their master and cannot stand alone. Likewise, one who has wealth does not stand alone. They are attached to their possessions, and this is not a state of redemption.

 One who has poverty, who has no possessions, stands alone — and they can be redeemed. (Maharal of Prague, Gevuros Hashem, §51)


9. One is obligated to also speak of Bitter Herbs alongside the matzah, and the Passover sacrifice, because the bitterness the Israelites felt in Egypt was a part of their redemption. As long as a Jew was prepared to suffer the exile, there was an exile. The spark of redemption began when they were not prepared to suffer the Egyptians any longer. (Chiddushei HaRim)

This article appeared in the Spring 2022 issue of the Lubavitch International magazine. To download the full magazine and to gain access to previous issues please click here.

Guest Editorial: Why Is This Night’s Matzah Different?

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It’s 2022, and this year your matzah may likely taste radically different from all other Passover matzahs.

The simple Passover matzah, made of nothing but flour and water, has survived our turbulent history and continues to serve as a reminder of the past, a symbol of freedom and hope for the future. Even in the most challenging of times, Jewish people found a way to obtain this “bread of faith” and gained the fortitude to look forward to a better future.

This year, with the tzuris in Ukraine, the message of faith and hope for freedom is as relevant as ever. As millions of refugees flee and thousands more have lost their lives, every decent human being feels deep concern for the people of Ukraine. Yet we’ve also seen a courageous and bold response to tyranny, and nothing inspires us more than people standing up to fight oppression, even against one of the most powerful armies in the world.

What’s that got to do with matzah? Well, to start with, one of the largest shmurah matzah bakeries in the world is based in Ukraine. Over the years, the bakery has produced hundreds of tons of this hand-made matzah exported to Jewish communities locally and around the world. 

This year, even after the war began, the bakery remained open and continued baking matzah while under siege. Under threat of shelling and bomb explosions, the Jewish community of Dnipro, Ukraine, continued baking matzah, so that Jews around the world would have this precious resource to celebrate Passover.

As we prayed for the relief and freedom of Ukraine’s people, and its Jewish population in particular, the people of Ukraine demonstrated their grit and gumption, proving that the courage to fight for freedom is a form of freedom itself.

Many of us will be celebrating the seders with shmurah matzah from this baker in Ukraine. But no matter which brand of matzah you will have, this year it will taste different as you reflect on the innocent refugees and thousands of shattered lives. Eating it at the seder may be the perfect act of solidarity with the people of Ukraine. May we do so mindful of their struggle, their suffering and the great courage of their convictions. Let us savor the taste of resilience and Jewish conviction as we fulfill the mitzvah of eating Passover matzah. 

May HaShem bless each and every one of us, and especially the people of Ukraine, with true freedom from all oppression and relief from both internal and external struggles, and may we finally be granted the ultimate blessings of peace and healing. 

Gedalia Potash is the Chabad rabbi serving the Jewish community of Noe Valley, California

Meeting Jews and Making Moves in Minnesota

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In 1986 a nuclear reactor in the Ukrainian city of Chernobyl exploded. Deadly clouds spewed across Belarus and Ukraine, leaving radioactive fallout that brought radiation sickness, cancer, and in the years to come, a sharp rise in birth defects. Growing up in the shadow of the disaster, Gennadiy Simanovich saw his friends grow sick with radiation-related illnesses. Acting at the urging of the Lubavitcher Rebbe to help children escape the toxic area, Chabad activists got Gennadiy on a flight to Israel. Once there, he was provided with housing, medical care, and an introductory Jewish education.

By 2022, Simanovich had settled in the United States and was surprised when a Chabad rabbi came knocking at his office in suburban Minnesota last month. Rabbi Nissi Naparstek moved to Maple Grove, Minnesota, last November, and together with his wife Mushka, he’s been reaching out to every Jew he can find. “It’s been years since I put on tefillin, but now that you’re here, I have to,” Gennadiy told Rabbi Naparstek with a grin.

Now Mr. Simanovich is one of the half dozen Minnesotin Jews that come knocking on the Naparstek’s door each Sunday to wrap tefillin, pray, and grab a bite of breakfast. The Naparsteks have only been in Minnesota for four months, but already their home is becoming a Jewish center of gravity. 

The son of a Rabbi and Rebbetzin, Rabbi Nissi grew up in Marina del Rey, outside Los Angeles, California, where he enjoyed hosting classes in his parents’ home. He always loved teaching and knew he’d enjoy sharing knowledge of Judaism, so moving out to set up a Chabad house seemed right.

Mushka Naparstek grew up in Minnesota, so the frigid winters and deep snow have come as less of a shock; but running the only Jewish organization in the neighborhood comes with its own challenges. “In an established community, there is always something happening,” Rabbi Naparstek says. But in the laid-back suburbs of Minnesota, they’ve had to begin building Jewish infrastructure from the ground up. “If we don’t make it happen, there simply won’t be any programming,” he says.

The neighboring suburban cities of Plymouth and Maple Grove are home to young families and professionals, but also many Jews who left the collapsing Soviet Union in the early nineties. Unlike Gennadiy, who had a formative experience with Chabad, Rabbi Naparstek says that “most people here have had very little exposure to Judaism and have a real thirst to know more.” 

Every encounter can be a chance to spark that thirst, as Rabbi Naparstek learned when he booked a Lyft to the airport and met Lev, a Russian Jew who turned out to be from Plymouth. They wrapped tefillin and stayed in touch, now he’s becoming an active member of the Chabad House. 

Even though they’ve only just arrived, the Naparsteks already see a community coming together. They teach Torah classes on Wednesday, host Shabbat meals on Friday nights, and Rabbi Naparstek promises more to come. “We want the community to know Chabad as a warm home for Jewish life,” he says.

Aleph Rescues Afghans from Taliban

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When the Taliban started sending him death threats, Fazel Malek* had to leave his wife and daughter behind in Kabul, Afghanistan. After a team of Chabad rabbis arranged his family’s rescue, he’s now living at a Chabad Jewish Center in Fremont, California, and eagerly awaiting his family’s arrival.

In the closing days of August 2021, Shirin Malek* and her young daughter pushed their way towards the Kabul airport. In her hands, she clutched the documents that identified them as employees of the United States. Malek’s husband Fazel had spent years working for the United States embassy, making the entire family a Taliban target, and qualifying them for visas to the United States. 

Thousands of desperate Afghanis and foreigners crowded the airport while the Taliban tried to beat them back. Shirin did not make it to the airport that night; a Taliban fighter beat her with his gun. She returned home, desperately hoping for a miracle.

Waiting in line to board Aleph’s second flight from Mazar-i-Sharif Airport

Half a world away, Rabbi Tzvi Boyarsky was sitting in his office at the Los Angeles branch of the Chabad-affiliated Aleph Institute. He was in a Zoom meeting with the directorship of an international NGO focused on women’s issues. Justice Susan Glazebrook, president of the International Association of Women Judges (IAWJ) and a judge on the New Zealand Supreme Court, was present as well. As a Chabad rabbi sporting a brown beard, Boyarsky might have felt out of place on the call if not for the fact that he is quite used to making these sorts of connections. 

Rabbi Boyarsky is the director of Advocacy at the Aleph Institute, a Jewish non-profit organization founded in 1981 by Rabbi Sholom Ber Lipskar at the express direction of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson. Aleph serves the religious, educational, and spiritual needs of incarcerated people around the world and, under Rabbi Lipskar’s leadership, it has provided critical support to countless families, at the moment when support was hardest to find. In the course of advocating for the civil and religious rights of those detained around the world, Rabbi Boyarsky has come into contact with countless officials and humanitarian organizations. This Zoom call was par for the course.

“My father is dead, and the Taliban killed him,” someone read from an email. It was a cry for help she’d received from the nineteen-year-old son of a former Afghan employee. He said it was only a matter of time before the Taliban would return for him and his four orphaned siblings. Boyarsky had grown up hearing stories of the Holocaust, and images of uniformed soldiers rounding up innocent civilians hit a raw nerve. When he left the meeting, his team began working on an escape plan for the young orphans.

As a group of Chabad rabbis, Aleph brought a unique perspective to the effort. “Of course, you might not be able to save everyone,” says Rabbi Levi Landa, who worked on the rescue effort. “But we had to do whatever we could. The Rebbe taught us that when we encounter a situation it is not mere coincidence, rather G-d orchestrated it that way for a reason.”

These parents were beaten by the Taliban for seeking medical help from a Christian charity. Here they stand on the tarmac at Mazar-i-Sharif Airport, preparing to board their flight

Aleph started looking at overland routes through Pakistan, but before they could act, they needed funding. “Aleph is blessed with an amazing network of truly caring individuals,” Landa says, “after we shared the orphans’ story with Gordon Caplan, a friend of ours, we didn’t even conclude before he challenged us, ‘How many people can we save?'” 

Over the next few months, Mr. Caplan’s question would set an extraordinary series of events in motion. Rabbi Boyarsky was only too aware of how many people faced death at the hands of the Taliban. Through Aleph’s relationship with the IAWJ, he’d heard about the sad fate of Afghanistan’s female judges. IAWJ’s phone lines were ringing with countless phone calls, texts, and videos, begging for help. With funding secured, Boyarsky offered to help get as many female judges out as possible. Using Aleph’s experience dealing with tricky international negotiations, the two organizations began working hand in hand.

***

Meanwhile, in Vienna, Fazel Malek was getting desperate. Under the 2009 Afghan Allies Protection Act, he was legally entitled to a visa to the United States and had spent four years on the waiting list for approval. During his wait, he’d already earned several degrees in business management. He yearned to see his little daughter again, and since Kabul fell, he’d been phoning every humanitarian organization that might be able to get his family out. His family was in danger — his wife and daughter, his sister Hanifa and her husband, both former judges who had put Taliban fighters behind bars, and his parents.

He heard about Aleph’s burgeoning rescue effort through his sister but was skeptical. “Growing up as a Muslim, I heard a lot of things about Jews when I was growing up, and they weren’t nice things,” he says, “I never thought a Jewish organization would be willing to help me.” Still, he had crossed off the other names on his list, so he placed the call. 

The son of a judge holds a sign while on the plane to the UAE

It wasn’t long before he was excitedly making calls to Afghanistan with good news. “There’s a flight!” Aleph had chartered a passenger jet, and it was set to fly from Mazar-i-Sharif Airport, seven hours north of Kabul. 

In October, Shirin Malek and her daughter crammed onto Aleph’s first flight to Abu Dhabi with three hundred and eighty other refugees. Children sat on their parent’s laps, and the baggage section overflowed with families’ entire worldly possessions. In a true logistical miracle, they had all arrived safely under the Taliban’s nose. As they left the runway behind, they sat in silence, fully aware that their challenges had only begun.

While his wife and daughter waited in Abu Dhabi, Fazel Malek began working with Aleph as a translator, helping rescue yet more people. On October 24th they arranged a second flight to the UAE, with Fazel’s sister’s family and his parents, the family of five young orphans, and another three hundred eighty people on board. Then, Fazel’s four-year limbo in Vienna suddenly ended when his United States visa was finally approved in January. With his fourteen-year-old son Hamid, he boarded a flight to New York and from there to California. 

He quickly landed a job near Fremont, California, across the bay from San Francisco. Initially, he stayed with his old friend Paul in Petaluma, who he knew from his embassy days. But with no money to rent a place of his own and no car to commute to work, he was looking at a seven-hour daily commute to work by bus.

A little girl on the plane to the UAE. Her mother had escaped earlier and she was accompanied by her father and brother on the flight

Malek mentioned his predicament to his Aleph Institute contact, Rabbi Yossi Charytan. “He was very anxious to get established in a place of his own before his wife and daughter joined him,” Charytan says. “I told him ‘hold on a minute, Chabad has somebody.'”

***

Rabbi Moshe Fuss and his wife Chaya moved to Fremont from Brooklyn ten years ago and opened up a small Chabad center in their home. “If you can create a Jewish community in Fremont, you can do it anywhere,” Moshe’s friends told him. In May 2021, the Fusses opened a permanent home for Chabad of Fremont, serving as the center of their vibrant community. 

When Rabbi Charytan called up in mid-February and shared Malek’s story, Rabbi Fuss realized he could help. “Behind our center, we have a housing unit that we’d been using for our Hebrew School,” he says, “it wasn’t furnished properly, but our location was perfect for his needs.” Paul from Petaluma drove the father and son duo to see the apartment. It certainly wasn’t luxurious, but it would do, they agreed.

“The place just didn’t feel like a home,” Rabbi Fuss recalls, “we weren’t going to let them move in like that.” He reached out to his community and asked for anything that would help make the unit livable. “We needed all the basics,” he says, “from a refrigerator and stove to plates and pens.” Sure enough, community members started showing up with everything a home might need. 

Rabbi and Rebbetzin Fuss pose for a picture with Fazel Malek

Even the electrician who volunteered to look at the lighting took one look at the industrial fluorescent lights and shook his head. “He ran to the store and came back with lamps and candles,” Rabbi Fuss chuckles. “Many of my friends here knew what Fazel was going through because they were in his position after they fled the Soviet Union,” Fuss says, “so they know how hard it is to get started from nothing.”

Fazel arrived on a Sunday night before his job began and was blown away. The bare unit had become a home. He and Hamid will make this their home for the next few months, though he is eager to get on his own two feet. 

Although he spends most of his days at work, the community’s kindness has already deeply touched Fazel. “The Rabbi helped me get my son into school, and I met some very nice people in the community who insisted on driving me across town and are even trying to get me a car,” he says. 

When Rabbi and Mrs. Fuss invited their guests to join them for a Shabbat meal, the Maleks were introduced to Jewish cuisine. “I told the Rabbi he tricked me,” Fazel laughs, “I thought the salad course was the entire meal.” Fazel even got to try gefilte fish for the first time, “it was like bread made out of fish,” he chuckles, “but it was very delicious.”

Most of all, Fazel says the kindness he’s received from the Jewish community has been a real eye-opener for him. “I’ll be honest, I never expected to find myself in a Jewish Center,” he says, “but the support these people have shown me is just incredible; these are very fine people.”

 *Names of refugees changed for security sensitivities.

California Rabbi & Ohio Trucker Rescue Paralyzed Grandmother in Ukraine

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A baffling plea for help reached Rabbi Mendy and Esther Harlig on March 7th. A member of their Chino Hills, California community asked if the Harligs could help rescue her cousins in Kharkiv, Ukraine. 

Rabbi Harlig said he had hosted this community member for Shabbat meals and he knew she had moved to California from Ukraine some years ago, but he had no idea why she thought he’d be able to help. “Her cousin’s mother is paralyzed,” Rabbi Harlig recalls, “unable to help her mother to safety, she and her daughter were stuck on the ninth floor of an old apartment building watching the bombs fall.”

“I thought it was impossible at first,” Rabbi Harlig says. “I don’t know anything about Ukraine, and I certainly don’t know the language.” Still, the desperation in this woman’s voice convinced him something needed to be done. Rabbi Harlig called philanthropists and got in touch with multiple organizations and relief workers, but none of his efforts seemed to go anywhere. Listening to his Ukrainian colleagues describe the situation on the ground, Rabbi Harlig got the sinking feeling that his mission had met a dead end.

“I stumbled across a newspaper article about a man from Ohio,” Rabbi Harlig says. “It was about Mr. Vlas Shurubko, who works as a truck driver out of Dayton, Ohio but had been visiting his grandmother in Kharkiv when the war broke out.” After a few days of hunkering down with his grandmother in a friend’s house, Vlas decided to take action and coordinated an army of volunteers delivering food around the city. Rabbi Harlig knew it was a long shot, but he sent Vlas an email asking if he could help his friend’s cousin, just in case.

Five days later, he got a response, and six days later, Vlas told him, “They are on the train. All good.” Vlas had arranged for two muscular friends to “help granny down.” Another volunteer escorted the family as they boarded a train for Poland. “So I wasn’t the one who completed the task,” Mr. Shurubko said, “I just helped a little to arrange it.”

“I felt it was my role to do everything I could, even if the odds seemed impossible,” Rabbi Harlig said. “Sometimes all it takes is one small step, and miracles can happen.”

Rabbi Mendy & Esther Harlig

Sivan Rahav Meir Interviews Rabbi Shlomo Peles

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It was almost midnight when I walked into the fully equipped Crisis Management Room. Magen David Adom has situated their mobile command center in the middle of Kfar Chabad, decked out with dozens of telephone lines, web cameras, and communication devices. Rabbi Shlomo Peles was sitting in the middle, speaking over Zoom to someone in Ukraine. Next to him sat Simcha Levenharts, who had just arrived from Ukraine after a thirty-hour train ride.

“There were three hundred people in a one-hundred-person train car; everyone just wanted to escape,” he told me, still shaken. “We sat on top of each other.” He continued, “We have a baby girl, but we could not take her carriage. We couldn’t even take a car seat. I took turns with my wife for thirty hours, holding her.”

But I’m not just here to listen to personal stories, even if they are painful. I’m here because the name Shlomo Peles has come up in every conversation I’ve had with officials about Ukraine. Officially, he is the “Director of Security for Chabad Emissaries.” In practice, he’s emerging as a key figure in this historic drama. The National Security Council, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (known as “the Joint”), and the Jewish Agency are all in constant contact with Peles. He has the hottest and most accurate information from the field.

“The war began on the 24th of February,” he told me, “but it began long before that from our point of view.” Peles’ team was able to make some preparations. “We told everyone involved two things,” he said, “first of all, they will try to bring down the means of communication. That’s why we purchased satellite radios for all the communities ahead of time.”

“I learned my lesson from the recent riots in Kazakhstan when we lost contact with the Rabbi there, so I wanted to make sure that didn’t happen again. So yesterday, for example, when the entire city of Kherson was without internet, Rabbi Yossi Wolff was the only one with communication to the outside. It’s our backup.”

The second thing, he says, is money. “I remember meeting with Jewish organizations from America, who promised they would send money if anything happened. But who’s to say the banks will keep working? And you never know if they’ll convert dollars into the local currency. So we did something that seemed primitive. We took out large amounts of money in cash, Ukrainian hryvnias, and kept it in safes. Throughout Ukraine, it proved extremely useful. It allowed us to pay a train driver in Kharkiv immediately and in cash, or pay an exorbitant price to charter a bus out of Kyiv.”

I ask him what’s next. “Only G-d knows what will happen next. This whole episode could end tomorrow, and everyone will return to Ukraine. Did you know that people left the keys to their homes with their community rabbis when they left? The rabbis are still there, holding the people’s keys for who knows how long.” 

“I think that if it ended tomorrow, the entire world would invest heavily into Ukraine and rebuild it into a real jewel. But it could also, G-d forbid, turn into a massive refugee camp. That becomes more likely the longer the war goes on. Already we’re in the third week, and most of the world gets up in the morning and goes to work or sits in a cafe, like normal.”

In the meantime, he says, we need to know how to seize an opportunity. “There are entire Jewish communities that need a new home. Why don’t we bring them here? People in Israel don’t seem to know, but communities worldwide are inviting them to come.”

Peles shows me videos, advertisements really, that even small communities in Europe and Australia are putting out. In Rottweil, Germany, one community promises: “Help arranging documents, travel costs and assistance finding housing and kosher food.” He shows me a community in Italy offering free food and housing for half a year and free education at local schools.

“Many small communities realize they can use this moment for growth,” Peles tells me. “But the Lubavitcher Rebbe said we should not replace one exile with another. There is an opportunity here to bring these communities together in Israel. Israel needs to incentivize communities to come here.”

He cites the example of the community of Zhytomyr. Rabbi Shlomo Wilhelm left the city with his community of one hundred fifty people, including an orphanage. The Prime Minister welcomed them at Ben Gurion Airport. Now they are staying at a hostel together as a community. It’s a model that has a much better chance of succeeding. Every community should be presented with the chance to move somewhere together, as a community. “I don’t care if they go to the Maalot neighborhood in Jerusalem or to a small moshav in the Lachish area; we need to build solutions. We can’t be throwing everyone out to deal with these problems alone.”

But of course, many are not going to leave Ukraine. I ask Peles about the people who stayed behind. He says there’s another danger, in addition to the concern that people will be harmed in the fighting. There is a very real fear that people will simply starve to death. “As we look to the future, we’re dealing in food supplies. The main priority is to be able to transport food to even remote villages. In my opinion, starvation will soon become the greatest danger facing the people of Ukraine, outweighing the danger created by the bombing.”

I left the Crisis Management Room at one in the morning, just as the first pictures were finally coming in from the hotel in Warsaw that Chabad had rented for Dnipro’s Jewish community. Rabbi Peles smiles and shows me the images. They all arrived safely. At the same time, he receives an advertisement directed towards all the refugees from Ukraine now in Israel. It invites them to a grand Purim party in Kfar Chabad. “There’s nothing like Purim to revive spirits,” Peles says. “They need that now. We’re fighting a war to keep up their spirits, faith, and optimism for the future.”

To donate towards the Chabad Ukraine Relief and Rescue Efforts in Ukraine, click here.

110 Schoolchildren Show Off Jewish Knowledge at Championship Game Show

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On March 13th, one hundred and ten Jewish schoolchildren marched into a Princeton, New Jersey ballroom for CKids’ annual JewQ International Torah Championship 5782 and took their places on the dais. They had spent months accumulating a considerable body of Jewish knowledge at their local Chabad Hebrew Schools, and now they were ready to show it off. 

The children studied hard and passed multiple tests over the school year to qualify for the event. Their devotion was rewarded with a trip to New York, accompanied by their parents, for JewQ’s Shabbaton in Brooklyn. By the time they walked on stage, they had finished a weekend of exciting trips, meaningful meals, and special programming.

Rabbi Zalmy Loewenthal, director of CKids, says it was wonderful to behold. “Each child put an incredible amount of effort into this moment,” he says. “It’s so gratifying to see it all pay off for them.”

Rabbi Mendel Raskin, who runs JewQ International, had put hard work of his own into the event and was delighted to see it succeed. “I’m frankly inspired,” he says. “The children’s mastery of so much Jewish knowledge is incredible.” 

Reflecting on bringing her three children to the event from Scottsdale, Arizona, one parent said her “JewQ Champions” are proud to claim this title. “They put a lot into this moment, and they had the most incredible time,” she said. “They’re very proud of their medals.”

Israeli Chabad Rabbi Fatally Stabbed in Be’er Sheva

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We are saddened and shocked by the brutal murder of Rabbi Moshe Kravitzky in a senseless terror attack near his home in Be’er Sheva, Israel on Tuesday morning. The attack claimed the lives of four innocent people – Doris Yahbas, Laura Yitzhak and Menachem Yehezkel.

Rabbi Kravitzky moved to Be’er Sheva with his family fifteen years ago, and assumed directorship of Chabad’s center in the suburban neighborhood of Nachal Beka. As the Rabbi of the neighborhood’s synagogue for ten years he became known for his humility, his kind heart, and his tireless devotion to the community. 

He ran a Colel Chabad soup kitchen out of his synagogue, and provided food to the elderly and the needy. His concern for his community did not stop when he moved away for personal reasons, and he took every step possible to ensure that his work was continued.

“The Chabad community of Be’er Sheva is in shock,” said Rabbi Zalman Gorelik, Chabad of Be’er Sheva’s director, “he invested himself completely into his work with the community, and people loved him.”

He is survived by his wife Miriam and their four children.

Chabad-Lubavitch extends their condolences to the Kravitzky, Yahbas, Yehezkel and Yitzhak families.

Yeka Counselors Drop Everything to Be With Ukrainian Campers

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When shells began exploding in Dnipro, Ukraine, Chabad’s local Mironova Boys’ School for Orphans decided it was time to leave. 

Mironova’s “parents”, David and Liora Vaskovsky, drove to the Polish border with fifteen teenage boys and their own young children. Upon reaching the border, David learned he was not allowed to leave the country, and his wife was forced to continue to Warsaw with the children on her own. Thankfully, the Vaskovskys had already reached out to two old friends, Yitzchok Achter and Boruch Okunov. The pair had been counselors at Camp Yeka, a grassroots summer camp for Jewish Ukrainian kids. And having received this call for help, they were already on their way from New York.

When Yitzchok and Boruch arrived in Warsaw, they booked a taxi to the Beit Chabad of Warsaw, where Rabbi Shalom and Dina Stambler were looking after the new arrivals. It was a sweet reunion, with the Mironova boys thrilled to see their counselors. 

Camp Yeka began in 2001 when a group of rabbinical students in Ukraine realized that summer break was a bitter, lonely time for many kids. Widespread alcoholism, social dysfunction, and rampant poverty meant that many children did not have a happy home life waiting for them. With a bit of fundraising from family and friends back in the United States, the guys organized a summer camp and put their hearts and souls into giving the kids the summer of their lives. They called it Camp Yeka, which is short for Yekaterinoslav, as Dnipro was once called.

Every year since then, a devoted group of counselors comes together and generates the camp seemingly out of thin air. The workload is enormous, as each counselor must fundraise their travel costs and a portion of the camp’s operating expenses. “It’s exhausting, but it’s probably the most rewarding work imaginable for us,” says Rabbi Levi Berger, who has worked at the camp for several years. “The connection we get to build with the kids is unlike anything I’ve ever seen anywhere else.” 

Given this connection, Camp Yeka counselors are uniquely positioned to provide support to their Ukrainian campers who were displaced by the conflict, and Yitzchok and Boruch were not alone in being willing to drop everything to do so. 

Although Yeka staff members work other jobs or study in yeshivah, their network came buzzing to life when war came to Ukraine. Some have flown out to Europe to be with the kids, excusing themselves from work or got permission to take time off from yeshivah. One such counselor changed his plans to join the IDF in order to go be with his campers. Other staff have reached out to the kids and their parents, offering to help. “We set up a channel to send money directly to families in need,” says Menucha Matusof, director of Yeka Girls, “so they can buy food, clothing, and other essentials.”

When one hundred children of Odessa’s Mishpacha Orphanage arrived in Berlin, Esther Golomb and Raizy Leitner, two of Yeka Girl’s Camp counselors, were waiting for them. Mendel Goodman and Shneur Lerner soon showed up with seven suitcases packed with prizes, kosher candy, and games. And the two groups now run programs to keep up the children’s spirits. Rebbetzin Chaya Wolff, the Chabad emissary to Odessa who now operates the orphanage in Berlin, reports that the counselors are doing invaluable work. “The kids think it’s winter camp,” she says.

Another call for help came from Vienna, Austria. Fifty Yeka kids were among the dozens of Dnipro families who relocated to Vienna to escape the war. “Three counselors flew there and are now running a full-on school for the kids,” Rabbi Berger says. More counselors traveled to Israel to be with the children of Zhytomyr’s orphanage and support other Yeka campers who are refugees there.

Before the boys of Dnipro’s Mironova Orphanage left Poland for Israel, the Yeka counselors took them on a shopping spree. In the week they had spent together, they’d played the ukulele, enjoyed bumper cars, and traveled to pray for peace at the resting place of Rabbi Elimelech of Lizhensk. “Thanks for the support, Boruch and Yitzchok,” Mironova posted to Facebook, “our guys in Poland were in good hands!”

You can follow the counselors of Camp Yeka as they reunite with their campers across Europe and Israel on Instagram

@campyekagirls 

@campyekaboys

To support the united efforts of Yeka Boys and Yeka Girls and their counselors visit:

https://yekagirls.com/donations/emergency-relief-fund/

Hero’s Welcome for Chernigov’s Shluchim

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The Russian siege trapped Rabbi Yisroel Silberstein, his wife Alizah, and their nine children in Chernigov, Ukraine. When the bombs began to fall, they miraculously found an open road out of the city. Rushing to escape, they left everything behind and made it out with only a single suitcase.

After a marathon fifty-hour drive to the Moldovan border, they boarded a flight to Miami, where Rabbi Silberstein has family. When they arrived Tuesday night, family, friends, and colleagues gave the Silbersteins a hero’s welcome at the airport. 

Before leaving Chernigov, the family sheltered dozens of people in their Chabad Center; now, they are continuing their work from Miami. “I’m exhausted,” Alizah Silberstein said. “It’s scary right now, but my friends are back there. I hope we can get them out.”

If you would like to donate to Chabad’s relief efforts in Ukraine please click here.