Weekly Newsletter Volume 5, Issue 29, Bamidbar

May 31, 2025; 4 Sivan, 5785 Sponsored anonymously for the Refuah Shleimah of Yair Nissan Ben Sara

One cold winter evening, Rav Yisroel Salanter ZT”L was staying at an inn in Vilna. The innkeeper, not recognizing the famous rabbi, had gone to sleep, leaving him alone in the common room. While studying Torah by candlelight late into the night, Rav Salanter noticed that he needed more light. There was a large candle belonging to the innkeeper nearby, and many other people would have had no qualms using it without the owner’s permission. Indeed, the Shulchan Aruch rules that regarding a Davar Mu'at (a small matter), one may assume that people would not care if their item was used without permission. However, Rav Salanter would not use the candle...

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Weekly Newsletter Volume 5, Issue 27, Emor

May 17, 2025; 19 Iyar, 5785 Sponsored anonymously for the Refuah Shleimah of Yair Nissan Ben Sara

Rav Yisroel Hager ZT”L, the third Rebbe of Vizhnitz, was the son of the saintly Rabbi Baruch of Vizhnitz. He was born on August 20, 1860 and was known as the “Ahavas Yisroel.” In 1893, he was appointed as Rebbe in Vyzhnytsia. He invigorated the Vizhnitzer dynasty and attracted many more followers from the surrounding provinces. He established many Talmud Torahs (small institutions for students with modest backgrounds), and he established a Yeshiva which became one of the largest dormitory Yeshivas in Europe...

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Weekly Newsletter Volume 5, Issue 26, Acharei Mos - Kedoshim

May 10, 2025; 12 Iyar, 5785 Sponsored anonymously for the Refuah Shleimah of Yair Nissan Ben Sara

The year was 1844. The notorious Nicholai the First was the Tsar of Russia. Count Sergei S. Uvarov (the “Count”) was Nicholai’s minister of education for the entire Russian Empire. The Count’s goal and mission? To implement a malevolent scheme aimed at converting Jews to Russian Orthodoxy – the first step of which was to order the teaching of the Russian language in all of the schools in Russia. Russian Jewry was in a quandary. Would they relent and begin to teach Russian in Yeshivas? What else could be done? Perhaps a trip to St. Petersburg, the Russian capital at the time, to directly appeal to the Count to rescind his order could work...

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