Millions of Goyim in Third-World Creep Closer to Judaism

Read one of the Ari&Ari travelogues on Mishpacha here…

An excerpt:

One of the goals of this last trip, aside from helping out the Nairobi community, was to visit a small, relatively new emerging Jewish-identified community in Kasuku, in the rural highlands. This “emerging” community is one of the many groups around the world who have left Christianity and have announced themselves as being Jewish. While they are certainly not halachically Jewish, their devotion to mitzvos and Torah learning is inspiring. There are pockets of such communities all over Africa, which is a fascinating topic in and of itself.

What’s driving these former Christians, who’ve decided to throw in their lot with the Jews? Without a doubt, the Internet and its wide access — even in rural locations — is responsible for the lion’s share of East Africa’s emerging communities — we call it “YouTube Judaism.” Today, many of these people listen to shiurim in English, and some even have an online chavrusa. Today, a rabbi in Brooklyn can learn with an Igbo tribesman in rural Nigeria and answer the questions that would never have been explained before.

While generally there is an understood prohibition about teaching Torah to non-Jews, in the last 200 years many poskim have been lenient — including Rav Ovadiah Yosef and Rav Moshe Feinstein — primarily regarding individuals who want to learn. (The Rambam ruled that one may teach Torah to Christians but not Muslims, as Christians accept the Divine authority of Tanach). What about today’s phenomenon, when entire communities — in Africa, South America, and other venues — want to take on Jewish practice and have been learning about Judaism for years, often on a hopeful, although not always realistic, path to conversion? We’ve discussed it with rabbanim who’ve given us specific direction in individual cases.

Read the rest here…

The Importance of Volunteering for Boring Work: Another Tidbit

We have written (twice) about learning this central lesson from the life of a commie secretary by the name of — hoping to spell this right — Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili (Em, כמה יוסף איכא בשוקא. OK, I mean Joseph Stalin, yemach shemo).

Here’s a related story I discovered from “War History Online”:

Joseph Stalin was a man of many names, but one of the stranger nicknames he acquired was “Comrade Index Card”. This nickname was awarded to Stalin by his former Communist Party rival Leon Trotsky. The story goes that when Stalin took his first major political position as General Secretary of the Communist Party, he was merely serving as little more than a secretary. His duties included sorting and organizing files. Thus, the name “Comrade Index Card”.

End.

“Trotsky”? Who is… Oh right, the Meshumad whose skull suffered a fatal collision with an ice axe. An ice axe wielded by a messenger of “Comrade Index Card“. (Perhaps this is the problem with “מכנה שם רע לחברו”.) So, one card could now be discarded!

What was our point again? Oh right, to be secretary if possible, see here.

Shevet Halevi Advocates Financial Planning

Financial Future

Is it incumbent for a family to plan financially for the future? R’ Shmuel Wosner[1] writes, “It is obvious that for something that is the nature of the world, such as old age or marrying off children… it is a mitzvah to prepare in advance so that he will not become dependent on others.”

We can compare this to Yosef who saved from the years of plenty for the years of famine.[2] Likewise, a person should save up money for the time that he will have a large expense such as making a wedding.

Being independent financially is undeniably a Torah value. In Birchas Hamazon, we request not to make us in need of the gifts of humans or their loans — v’na al tatzricheinu Hashem Elokainu lo lidei matnas basar v’dam v’lo lidei halvasam. We see this idea elsewhere in the gemara[3] that cautions against becoming financially dependent on people.

Lack of financial planning translates into decisions being made by default rather than proactively. Inevitably, this nearly always results in a constant struggle to make ends meet, the inability to save and tension in the house. The saying goes, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” We should merit to correctly plan financially.

 

[1] Shevet Halevi volume 4, 1:2.

[2] Breishis 41.

[3] Shabbos 118a.
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Rabbi Yehoshua Alt

Writer of the weekly Fascinating Insights Torah sheet in English, עברית ,אידיש and Français.

Author of Five Books including the recently released “Magnificent Marriage Insights: Captivating Torah Essays about Marriage”

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