Timing

For those of you who may attention to small details -

The times on this blog are about 4 hours off. I did not post at 5 am - it was more like 9 am.

What Can I Say

I opened the blog this morning with the intention to write down some of my thoughts and feelings.
I, along with the rest of my community, as well as the Jewish community at large, spent almost three emotionally charged and emotionally stressful days giving extra tzedaka, saying tehillim around the clock, baking challah and keeping our eyes and ears glued to screens and to phones waiting for some sort of information upon which we could gather hope.

It was not meant to be.

Did I know Gavriel and Rivky Holtzberg? No I did not know them personally, but I knew them. I knew them as well as any other young Lubavitch woman who shares the same goal, the same dream, the same mission as I do and as Rivky Holtzberg did. He was a child of the neighborhood I live in. His parents live down the block from me. His niece was my student a few years ago. Another niece learns in the classroom next door to mine this year.

Rosh Chodesh Kislev is a special day on the Chabad calendar. It is usually a day of great joy, of festivity, of celebration. Now, this day of joy is marred by horrific tragedy. As I sang the "Rosh Chodesh Kislev Niggun," a joyful niggun attributed to that significant day on our "chassidishe calendar," with my class on Friday, I heard mourning instead of joy, I saw tragedy instead of celebration.

This is not how it is supposed to be.

Many have already written essays. Many have expressed their thoughts. As for me - there is nothing for me to say. This is sad time in my community. A sad time indeed.

Check this out if you're interested in more.

You can listen to the nigun I mentioned here.

Boruch Dayan HaEmes

Taken from cnn.com:

Chabad House
Friday, 2000 local time (0930 ET) -- The bodies of five hostages have been found in the Chabad House, an Israeli Foreign Ministry official said Friday. Spokesman Haim Hoshen told an Israel news station the bodies had been found. Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzberg, the city's envoy for the community, and his wife were among the dead in Chabad House, said Rabbi Zalman Shmotkin, a spokesman for Chabad-Lubavitch International in the United States. Earlier, Commissioner of Mumbai Police Hasan Gafoor said the standoff at the Chabad House was in its "final stages." Hours earlier, two dozen soldiers landed on the rooftop of the five-story building. Throngs of onlookers crowded into terraces of nearby buildings and heard sounds of gunfire and at least 10 explosions coming from inside. The Nariman House is the Mumbai headquarters of the Chabad, a Hasidic Jewish movement. Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzberg, the city's envoy for the Chabad community, and his wife were believed to be among those inside. Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that Sandra Samuel, a cook for the center who had barricaded herself in a room in the house, said she grabbed a toddler whom she identified as Holtzberg's son and fled the building with another person. "I took the child. I just grabbed the baby and ran out," Samuel told Haaretz.

In this time of tragedy may we find the strength and emunah to continue doing all we can to bring an aliya to these neshamos kedoshos.

PLEASE SAY TEHILLIM

I'm sure you are all aware of the terrible situation in India right now. Please say and continue to say Tehillim for Chabad shliach and his wife, Gavriel ben Fraida Bluma and Rivka bas Yehudis, as well as for the other Jews who are currently being held hostage by terrorist gunman.

May Hashem grant us a yeshua!!

New Template

I decided that I was getting quite tired of the template that has been on this blog since I started it, so I began surfing the web for a new one. Big problem. Can't decide. If any of you by any chance come across a template that you think might match teachurheartout please do me a favor - post the link as a comment to this post.

Thanks!

ETA - I chose one what do you think??

Response

To Deborah Shaya

** You can read Deborah Shaya's comment to my sheitel post here

I have no idea if you are a reader of my blog or if you are simply using internet search engines to spam every blog you can find with your unwanted and unsolicited advice. I will not argue with you about what is right or wrong, I will simply state the following:

I am Lubavitch and proud to be so. I know that there are (sadly) people out there who may view me and my path of Judaism in the negative, I am truly sorry to hear that.

Being the observant Jew that I am, I follow the piskei dinim of Rabbonim, as Jews have been doing for centuries. I do not invent my own versions of halacha, and I do not do things because I like it better that way. As far as covering hair, Lubavitch (and many many many others) paskens according to the Tzemach Tzedek who writes:

"Privately, in the presence of her husband, a woman is permitted to expose 'side hairs' (the hair growing in front of her upper ear) which extend beyond her kerchief. While other men are present, however, there is no heter to do so....

Fore hair protruding beyond the kerchief is halachically identical with erva - nakedness just as (or even more severe than) the exposure of the leg...

Exposure of the hair outside the kerchief is pritzuz - licentiousness...

To expose the least bit of hair is absolutely prohibited... any who thinks this is permitted has obviously forgotten the gemara that even school boys know..."

This is a direct (translated) quote from the tshuva of the Tzemach Tzedek on Even Hoezer and Yoreh De'ah, as well as his commentary on Shas (G' Brachos)

This is my halachic source for covering my all my hair all the time - I will not argue that point any further.

As far as your rant against sheitels. I am aware that rabbonim have instituted bans against sheitels - I am not only educated with one (narrow) way of thinking, nor is my knowledge limited to what those around me do. However, there are plenty of sources that refute your point by saying that once the hair is removed from the body it no longer has the status of the person it belonged to, meaning - hair that has been removed cannot carry the tuma of the person it grew on.

If you have never learned these sources go educate yourself before making outlandish, unintelligent comments on people's blogs.

Hi

I took a long, well needed break from this blog. I'm not really sure why I needed it, but I did.

It had nothing to do with being a newlywed and 'forgetting about my friends." (just for clarification's sake).

Welcome back to me.