BIRTHDAY: July 4 is my birthDATE. As a child I would joyously sing, "I'm a firecracker!" However, 19 Tammuz is my birthDAY. That is when we celebrate and commemorate. As is customary among Chabad Chasidim, I will be making a birthday " farbrengen" (FOR MEN) in honor of my birthday on Thursday evening, 19 Tammuz, at the Chai Lounge at 4311 Bettis beginning at about 9 p.m. I fully understand if your schedule does not allow you to attend. Please let me know if you can make it. (For more about celebrating birthdays read: What is a Jewish Birthday? and related articles there).- SHABBAT: Looking forward to a great crowd tonight at the All-American First Fridays Shabbat Dinner for Young Professionals. It is not too late to join! Reply to this email or click here.
- HOLIDAY: Today's date, the 13th of Tammuz, in 1927, the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, received the documents authorizing his release from a sentence of exile to Kastroma in the interior of Russia. Twenty-seven days earlier, the Rebbe had been arrested by agents of the GPU and the Yevsektzia ("Jewish Section" of the Communist Party) for his activities to preserve Judaism throughout the Soviet empire and sentenced to death, G-d forbid. International pressure forced the Soviets to commute the sentence to exile and, subsequently, to release him completely. The Rebbe was actually notified of his release on Tammuz 12, but since that day was a legal holiday, the Certificate of Release freeing him to travel home was issued only the next day. Thus both the 12th and 13th of Tammuz are celebrated as a "festival of liberation" by the Chabad-Lubavitch community.
JEWISH NEWS: After Meeting Indian PM, Mumbai Terror Survivor to Accompany Netanyahu to India
Eleven-year-old Moshe Holtzberg, who survived a November 2008 terrorist massacre in Mumbai that took the lives of his parents, Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg,accepted an invitation today to travel to India with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel after the boy’s emotion-filled meeting with Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi of India, now on a historic three-day trip to Israel. more...
Balaam and Balak: The Full Story
The fascinating story of Balak and Balaam’s failed attempts to curse the Jewish people, in which a talking donkey and a sword-wielding angel also take starring roles. more...
Shabbos Parshas Balak
Friday, July 7
Services at 7:30 pm
Candle Lighting at 8:08 pm | RSVP for All American First Fridays
Shabbos, July 8
Chassidus at 9 am
Services at 10 am
Followed by Shabbos Kiddush
Mincha at 8:05 pm
Ethics of our Fathers, Ch. 6
Maariv, Havdalla & Shabbos Ends at 9:06 pm
Living Torah
Sunday, July 9
Shacharis at 8:30 am
Followed by the real BLT = Bagels, Lox & Tefillin
Tuesday, July 11, Fast of Tammuz 17
Fast Begins at 5:01 am
Parsha Revealed Class at 12:00 pm
Fast Ends at 8:52 pm
Wednesday, July 12
YJP Dinner, Class & Social at 8 pm
A time to renew: Why we celebrate Rosh Chodesh
Thursday, July 13
Chassidus - Maamar B'yom Ashtei Asar at 12:00 pm lunch hour
Chassidus - Basi Legani 5711 at 8 pm
Rabbi Chaim's Birthday Farbengen for Men at 9 pm
Have a good Shabbos!
Rabbi Chaim & Chanie