Avraham Fried in today's Daf

Everyone seems to be talking about the snow in Jerusalem (and Chevron) or the Winograd Committee (which I have very little faith in, if Olmert had an ounce of dignity, he would have resigned 2 years ago, if he doesn't, he'll find a way to weasel out of this one)

However, before tomorrow's Daf, I wanted to share these words of wisdom from נדרים מ"א ע"א
The words were turned into a popular song by Yossi Green, sung by Avraham Fied on his disk Chazak! You can listen to the beginning of the song here, note that he rearranged the words slightly. The words, as they appear in the Gemara are here:

במערבא אמרי

דדא ביה כולא ביה

דלא דא ביה מה ביה

דא קני מה חסר

דא לא קני מה קני

Hebrew free translation (from Rabbi Shteinzaltz):

בארץ ישראל היו אומרים:

שזו הדעת, בו – הכל בו

שאין זה בו – מה יש בו

את זו קנה, וזה לא קנה – מה קנה?

And in English (from Kollel Iyun Hadaf):

In Eretz Yisrael they said:

If one has knowledge, he has everything.

If one lacks knowledge, what does he have?

If he acquires knowledge, he has everything.

If he does not acquire knowledge, he does acquire anything.

Prayer in Schools

On of the recent news items that has really baffled me has been the Kerfuffle over prayer in State High schools in this beloved country of ours.

In case you're smarter than me and don't follow the local Israeli media, a few weeks ago a group of students at a non-religious high school in Ramat Gan complained that they were not allowed to daven Mincha on school property. This ban was supported not only by the school principal, but by the Mayor of Ramat Gan.

For the life of me, I cannot understand why anyone would be bothered by a group of students that want to pray in their own time. If they wanted to set up a different quiet activity during recess like a chess club, reading group, meditation circle, or whatever, do you really think that the mayor would take the time to make a fool of himself by opposing it.

Finally our great and noble (and militant anti-religious) Minister of Education, Yael Tamir, got involved, and today published a ruling. Her conclusion - that schools have to allow "any" type of prayer, however if there is no suitable location on the school campus, an alternative venue must be found within a 10 minute walk.

Well - how is it possible that there are schools that have no available space, no empty classrooms, or corner of a schoolyard where a small group of students can gather, in their own time to daven?

There were other times and places where Jewish Prayer was limited or banned, how tragic that this could happen here in the Jewish State - is this really what we waited 2000 years for?

And even more tragic - how can we sleep at night when someone like minister Yael Tamir is responsible for the education of hundreds of thousands of Jewish children?


Before I close for the evening - 2 happier notes -

• The much-awaited snow finally started falling in Jersalem, (see Aish's Window on the Wall), may the snow and rain continue to fall and be a Bracha to our beloved country.
  
• Radio Kol Chai reported this morning that in response to teh Kassamim in Sderot, a group of Sofrim have volunteered their services to check and replace Mezuzot in that city (which is by itself good news). The amazing part of the story is that 70% of the Mezuzot were found to be Kosher, or even "Kosher L'Mahadrin" - I wish that our holy city of Modi'in had such a pass rate with mezuzot.
  

The Survivors' Talmud

I haven't been very consistent at this blogging thing, but I just read an article that I had to share with my dedicated readers....

The Jerusalem Post just had an article on the thirst for Sifrei Kodesh in the DP camp that was set up in the Dachau Concentration camp after liberation. It's a very moving read (take a look for yourself).

One of the things that I found fascinating was the following:

The survivors prevailed upon the American authorities, with the assistance of the Joint Distribution Committee, to publish several Talmud tractates for use in the DP camps. The title page was illustrated by an image of a wagon loaded with bodies for the crematoria, along with a rising sun over Jerusalem, and the phrase: "They almost wiped me out, but I did not abandon your commandments."

I had to see this for myself, so with the help of the Internet, I managed to track down an image of the "US Army Talmud", the first edition of the Talmud ever printed by a government.

It makes a fascinating story, you should read the following accounts of this amazing edition of the Talmud:

• Jewish Virtual Library
  
• Wikipedia
• Zichron Mordechai Web Site
• Jews in Green
  

And here is the first page of Missechet Brachot from that edition of the Talmud, just as the Jerusalem Post described it:


The text is as follows:

משעבוג לגאולה מאפאלה לאור גדול מסכת ברכות מן תלמוד בבלי יצא לאור ע"י ועד אגדות הרבנים באזור האמריקאי באשקנז בסיוע שלטון הצבא דארצות הברית והדזונט בגרמני' מינכן-היידעלבערג שנת חמשת אלפים ושבע מאות ותשע לב"ע

Rough translation:

From Oppression to Redemption, from Darkness to a Great Light

Tractate Brachot from the Babylonian Talmud

Published by the Council of Rabbis

In the American district of Ashkenzaz [Germany]

With the assistance of the leadership of the United States Army and the Joint in Germany

Munich-Heidelberg

The year five thousand, seven hundred and nine since the Creation of the World [1949]

Hey Look

My son is learning how to build a website - if you want to check out his work, take a look at:
http://www.planetnana.co.il/yehoshua1997/

It's still very much a work in progress, but be sure to check back soon.

If you want to write to him, his email is: yehoshuasedley -at- hotmail.com

Neturei Karta in Iran

For those (including my brother) who were worried about Neturei Karta and their support of Iran were probably relieved to finish Messechet Ketuvot and find sources for Neturei karta, after all - doesn't דף ק"י-קי"א say:

דאמר רב יהודה כל העולה מבבל לארץ ישראל עובר בעשה שנאמר (ירמיהו כז) בבלה יובאו ושמה יהיו עד יום פקדי אותם נאם ה'

Rav Yehuda Says: Anyone who goes from Bavel to Eretz Yisrael transgresses an Aseh - "They will be brought to Bavel, and there they will be until I redeem them".

You see - by going to Iran instead of Eretz Yisrael, Neturei Karta were just showing that they posken by Rav Yehuda.

I fee MUCH happier now :)

Funding the Palestinians

Well, so far I haven't entered into the world of Politics - although I may do that more in the future, however I just saw this interesting article that I thought I should link to.

There is a common mis-conception that Poverty is directly related to terrorism - i.e., the poorer an individual or society is, the more likely that they will use terror or violence, after all - what have they got to loose?

This is possibly the motivation of the EU and the rest of the International community to pledge millions of dollars (Euros?) into the Palestinian Authority.

The reality is exactly the opposite; when an individual or society is very poor, they are worried about putting food on the table and a roof over their head. It is only once the have less financial worries that they start to worry about politics, or radical politics that leads to terrorism.

I just saw an interesting article that backed this up, look at the following tables (taken from www.camera.org )
The Red line shows aid given to the Palestinians, the Green Line shows the number of Palestinian Homicides.
Seems like there is a pretty strong relationship...


If you adjust the Green Line by a year, it seems to indicate that there as almost 1:1 relationship between money to the PA and terrorism within a year.

Makes you wonder why the Europeans are so keen to give Abbas money.

Any thoughts?

Memories

I still have a lot of memories and thoughts about the trip to Budapest to write up - I haven't forgotten, I just have been very busy at work lately.

In the mean time, I wanted to share this video that I just saw:



בלי נדר I'll write up about the amazing food ee ate and things we saw in Budapest in the next few days.