Libi BaMizrach

This past Shabbos we encountered the very difficult topic of עיר הנדחת   (Ir Hanidachas), a wayward city of idolaters.  The entire city and its inhabitants and wealth are to be destroyed and burnt – a terrible result.  Some of our sages say that “there never was, nor will there ever be, an  עיר הנדחת , and it appears in the Torah only for some lessons that we can learn” (Sanhedrin 71a).  I have heard Rabbi Yissochor Frand שליט"א say on several occasions that when he was growing up in Seattle, they considered the Jewish community in Portland, Oregon to be a virtual  עיר הנדחת .  The community seemed so irredeemably lost to Torah-true Judaism that there was no hope that anything positive would come from it.  Surely that was meant hyperbolically; it has been proven quite wrong, as a wonderful community has developed since the days when we had the privilege of planting some seeds.  But living now as the only Shomer Shabbos family in Lavon...

People seek fame and recognition by many means -- some make positive contributions while others seek to tear others down.   Seth Farber belongs in the latter category.  His goal is to be the “enlightened” voice of Orthodoxy, and his modus operandi is to tear down the legitimacy of existing Orthodox institutions, particularly the Chief Rabbinate of Israel.  In a particularly egregious example, Farber last week caused a huge Chilul Hashem by slandering the Chief Rabbinate in the New York Times, with his essay  Fighting for Judaism in the Jewish State .  He succeeded in giving its large readership of non-Orthodox Jews and non-Jews a maliciously false and negative impression of that institution, in order to further his personal agenda. After stating “valiantly” that “I am an Orthodox Rabbi dedicating my life to breaking the Ultra-Orthodox monopoly over Jewish life in Israel”, Farber set out a laundry list of complaints and talking points that actual...

     The thousands of regular readers of this blog   might be interested to know that fortune smiled on Lonni and I twice last week, and we received some attention in the media.  I assume that it is because the Lord wills that we be a vehicle to publicize the wonderful work that Ayelet HaShachar is doing.        The part that we have been privileged to play will hopefully serve as an inspiration for many others to follow in our footsteps and come home to Eretz Yisrael, and hopefully do so in a way that will make an impact for others. Below the following letter that I wrote to Rabbinical colleagues, appear the two media pieces that were written about us: one in the Queens Jewish Link (with pictures of Lonni) and one in Mishpacha (without). You can read more about our experiences in Lavon on this blog here ,  here  and there . If anyone is interested in hearing more about this or joining Ayelet HaShachar, plea...