Today’s Jewish Experience merges with Ancient Traditions
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Rabbi (561) 499.2040 or in Costa Rica (506) 8725.2836.

1.   An Emissary of the Master of All
2.   Denial is NOT a river in Egypt.
3.   Summary: Torah Portion “KI TISA.”
4.   Moses’ Birth and Passing
5.   Interfaith Marriage Taboo
6.   Legacy of a Teetering Peace
7.   Oath Taken on the Torah; not Christian Bible
8.   Terrorist Threat to US Highest Since 9/11
9.   B’nai Or & Casa Shalom Yeshivot?
10. Prayers for Israeli and US S Defence Forces
11. Prayers for Health Are Being Said for:
12. Bar/Bat Mitzvah Classes.
13. Add Names of Loved-Ones Gone
14. Tzedakah (Charity)

9.  B’nai Or & Casa Shalom Yeshivot?

A Division of Temple B’Nai Or of South Florida &
Casa Shalom of Costa Rica
There’s nothing like getting in on the ground floor when Heaven is the destination.


Your Rabbi has gotten the call from above to open a “floating” Yeshiva.
No. We’re not going to be on a boat, but we will be traveling through time & space.

Haven’t you always wanted to learn Torah? Of course you have, but somehow the external demands on our lives have prevented you from doing so.

We have been looking for a convenient place where we can all sit at tables with a Hebrew-English translation of the Torah and discover the mysteries and wonders of
G-d’s master plan for humankind. We discovered that we don’t need tables and a place. We can and will do this by email, sharing with our friends and family.

Everyone who wants to, will be a participant by asking questions, examining different views to clearly see what G-d expects of us and more importantly how we can adapt our lives more to the explanation given by Rabbi Akiva;
“Love your neighbor as you love yourself.”

We will join with tens of thousands of Jewish institutions around the world as we devour each week the same portions of Torah that are being studied and examined everywhere.

We will be emailing the Torah portion of the week to those who wish to receive the teachings and be on our newsletter called “MISHPACHA FILES.”

Simply send the Rabbi your email address to rabbi@rabbinerenberg.com & you will receive the newsletter at NO charge.

All you need to purchase is a Chumash (English translation of Torah. If you already have one, that’s great. If you need one, I recommend Aryeh Kaplan’s “Living Torah” which you can purchase at almost any Judaica shop.

Join with your brothers and sisters now and send me your email, address to rabbi@rabbinerenberg.com
Peace and blessings.
Rabbi Yaakov Nerenberg

USA (561) 499.2040 or in
Costa Rica (506) 8725.2836 Central & South America

 1. An Emissary of the Master of All
It is imperative that every Jew know that he is an emissary of the Master of all, charged with the mission - wherever he may be of bringing into reality G-d's will and intention in creating the universe, namely, to illuminate the world with the light of Torah and Avoda (prayer).

This is done through performing practical mitzvot (commandments) and implanting in oneself fine character traits.
 2.  Denial is NOT a river in Egypt
Denial
By Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski, M.D.

. .. . Chief among "defense mechanisms"  is denial, whereby a person simply denies one or more aspects of reality. Denial is different than lying, because lying is conscious; i.e., the person knows the truth, but intentionally distorts it. Denial is unconscious; i.e., the person does not even realize that what he is thinking or saying is untrue. Denial occurs when a person intensely wishes to believe or not to believe something.

Denial can occur to anyone. The Torah relates that the matriarch Sarah laughed in disbelief when she heard the angel say that she would bear a child. When Abraham reprimanded her for her lack of faith, "Sarah denied, and said 'I did not laugh' because she feared" (Genesis 18:15). Rabbi Yitzchak Meir of Gur said that Sarah did not lie, but she was rather in denial, because she was so G-d fearing that she could not believe that she had questioned the angel's words.

It is not at all uncommon to observe people being in denial. Some people who have a symptom that may be of cancerous origin do not go to the doctor because they are terribly frightened that he might diagnose cancer, and this thought is so terrifying to them that the mind defends against it by blocking the awareness of the symptom. A person who has a severe alcohol problem may be in denial of his drinking, because awareness of it might be humiliating, and/or because such awareness would mean that he must stop partaking of alcoholic beverages, which he does not wish to do. Inasmuch as a person cannot make a proper adjustment to reality unless he has a correct perception of reality, the "defense mechanism" of denial is generally detrimental.

Denial is often supported by rationalization. One recovering alcoholic said, "I never once took a drink unless I decided it was the right thing to do at the time." If a person has a strong desire for something which is wrong, he may concoct many reasons to justify it as being right. In Path of the Just, RaMCHaL warns against the dangers of rationalization, because it may not only result in a person doing wrong, but may also prevent him from subsequently realizing that what he did was wrong, and so he will not do teshuvah (repentance).
 3.  Summary: Torah Portion “KI TISA”ISA”
 
 4.  Moses’ Birth and Passing
Maimonides calls him "the most perfect human being", and the sages of the Talmud said that "the Divine Presence spoke from his throat." Yet the Torah also attests that the man who took the Children of Israel out of Egypt and received the Torah from G-d was "the most humble man on the face of the earth."

Moses was born in Egypt on the 7th of Adar of the year 2368 from creation (1393 BCE), at a time when the Israelites were slaves to the rulers of the land and subject to many harsh decrees. He was the third born of Jocheved and Amram's three children -- his brother Aaron was his senior by three years, and his sister Miriam by six.

When he was three months old, Moses was hidden in a basket set afloat in the Nile to escape Pharaoh's decree that all male Hebrew children be drowned; he was retrieved from the river by Pharaoh's daughter, Batyah, who raised him in the palace. At age 20, Moses fled Egypt after killing an Egyptian he saw beating a Jew and made his way to Midian, where he married Zipporah, the daughter of Jethro, and fathered two sons, Gershom and Eliezer.

When he was 80 years old, Moses was shepherding his father-in-law's sheep when G-d revealed himself to him in a burning bush at Mount Horeb (Sinai) and instructed him to liberate the Children of Israel. Moses took the Israelites out of Egypt, performed numerous miracles for them (the ten plagues in Egypt, the splitting of the sea, extracting water from a rock, bringing down the manna, and numerous others), received the Torah from G-d and taught it to the people, built the Mishkan (Divine dwelling) in the desert, and led the Children of Israel for 40 years as they journeyed through the wilderness; but G-d did not allow him to bring them into the Holy Land. Moses passed away on his 120th birthday on Mount Nebo, within sight of the land he yearned to enter.
 5.  Interfaith Marriage Taboot
Should Jewishly-committed single women be encouraged to marry supportive
non-Jewish men?
By Yosef I. Abramowitz

My wife and I have several Jewish female friends in their mid‑30s who are still single. Our Shabbat talk inevitably always turns to the people they are dating and how difficult it is to find a nice, Jewish guy with which to start a Jewish family and raise Jewish children. One unpartnered friend, a rabbi, flew to Israel for in vitro fertilization and is now pregnant. "I wish I was married by now. But since I’m getting older and haven’t found a soul‑mate yet, I’m going to start my own family," she says.

These Jewishly‑committed single women have other options, but these are not sanctioned by the Jewish community. It is time to remove the stigma prohibiting them from dating and marrying non‑Jewish men. The word "intermarriage" has been the convenient scapegoat for many of the ills in American Jewish life. Countless sermons have been wasted on this topic and its specter has launched numerous fundraising campaigns for institutions that usually have little clue about how to creatively adapt to a changing community. So many of our Jewish leaders and even major philanthropists are finding that their grandchildren are not necessarily being raised Jewishly.

But not every interfaith marriage is a threat to Jewish continuity. My wife, who is a rabbi, generally does not officiate at interfaith weddings. But when a widowed, elderly Holocaust survivor and close family friend wanted to marry another close friend, a non‑Jewish woman, she gladly agreed to participate in the ceremony. Which value is more Jewish? Holding the Jewish community’s line on not performing interfaith marriages or the happiness of this couple? If my wife were a member of the Conservative Rabbinical Assembly, even attending this wedding would be grounds for expulsion. The rabbinate, like life, is filled with gray areas. The Jewish community is very good at dealing with black and white issues like anti‑semitism, but in this case lacks the skills, courage or tradition of dialogue to deal with gray areas.

One way of adapting would be to sanction, even encourage, Jewish women in their 30s to date and marry non‑Jews. I am not suggesting that it is preferable for Jewish women to marry non‑Jewish men, although I have seen a fair share of religiously unenthusiastic Jewish men hold back their wives' spiritual quests. I do believe, however, that it is clearly preferable for single Jewish women in their mid‑30s to marry non‑Jewish men who are supportive of their spiritual journeys and who will raise halachically‑recognized Jewish children, instead of these women remaining single. Rejecting this idea suggests that the community is not concerned about the happiness and self‑fulfillment of many of its most committed members. To denounce this idea also fails to recognize an important yet largely unstudied area in Jewish life: that women, more so than men, bear the future of Jewish spiritual life.

According to Sylvia Barack Fishman of Brandeis University, the percentage of bar to bat mitzvahs has recently tipped, for the first time, to more girls affirming their commitment to the Jewish people than boys. This is a remarkable development given that the bat mitzvah is a 20th century innovation. Check out nearly every Jewish teen program and there is a gender mismatch: 60 percent girls to 40 percent boys, sometimes even higher, like in Brandeis University’s Genesis Program [for teens], which attracted 40 girls and 20 boys this past summer. The imbalance applies to Israel programs, camps, youth movements and non‑Orthodox day schools, and has tremendous implications for the future of Jewish life. Even the Maccabia sports games attract more girls than boys.

The implications of the gender gap in Judaism are great and extend far beyond the teen years. Synagogue membership and attendance are higher for women. Interfaith marriage is about 20 percent lower for Jewish women than Jewish men. Personal religiosity, home rituals, participation in adult education, and other indicators of commitment to Jewish life tend to be higher for women than men. A comprehensive 1997 survey by the American Jewish Committee found that the feeling of being Jewish is "very important" in the lives of more women (60 percent) than men (41 percent).

Empowering and embracing Jewish women as spiritual ambassadors of the Jewish people to potential non‑Jewish mates is a mitzvah on many levels. First, they will be better able to participate in the commandment to "be fruitful and multiply," either by childbirth or adoption. Second, it allows our community to grow in strength and numbers, thus creating a critical mass of people to sustain our institutions, traditions and values. Third, the impact of this kind of sanctioned intermarriage on the Jewish gene pool is positive, thus lowering the chances for couples to face impossibly painful decisions about abortion of fetuses that would be born with Tay-Sachs or other debilitating genetic diseases. Fourth, it sends an inclusive message about Jewish living to unaffiliated Jews who once wrote off the community as being out‑of‑touch, parochial or racist. I would rather dance at the interfaith wedding of my Jewish female friends who will raise Jewish children than continue to cling to an outdated communal expectation that perpetuates loneliness, lacks compassion and is bad Jewish public policy.

For more information of interfaith dating, visit our partner Interfaithfamily.com .
 6.  Legacy of a Teetering Peace
Jewish World Review Feb. 15, 2011 / 11 Adar I, 5771
The legacy of a teetering peace

By Caroline B. Glick

As Israel moves into the uncharted territory of managing its relations with the post-Mubarak Egypt, it is imperative that the lessons of the past be understood.

One of the first casualties of the Egyptian revolution may very well be Egypt's peace treaty with Israel. The Egyptian public's overwhelming animus towards Jews renders it politically impossible for any Egyptian leader to come out in support of the treaty.

Over the weekend, the junta now ruling Egypt refused to explicitly commit themselves to maintaining the treaty. Instead, under intense American pressure they sufficed with stating that they would maintain all of Egypt's international obligations.

According to news reports, the generals themselves are split in their positions on Israel. One group supports maintaining the treaty. The other supports its abrogation.

Ayman Nour, the head of the oppositionist Ghad Party and the man heralded as the liberal democratic alternative to Mubarak by Washington neo-conservatives has called for the peace treaty to be abrogated. In an interview with an Egyptian radio station he said, "The Camp David Accords are finished. Egypt has to at least conduct negotiations over conditions of the agreement."

For its part, the Muslim Brotherhood has been outspoken in its call to end the treaty since it was signed 32 years ago.

Whatever ends up happening, it is clear that Israel is entering a new era in its relations with Egypt. And before we can begin contending with its challenges, we must first consider the legacy of the peace treaty that then prime minister Menachem Begin signed with then Egyptian president Anwar Sadat on March 26, 1979.

What was the nature of Israel's agreement with Egypt? What was its impact on Israel's strategic vision? What were the strategic assumptions that formed the basis of its component parts? How did all of these issues impact Israel's perception of the long-term prospects for its relations with Egypt?

WHEN BEGIN and Sadat signed the peace treaty, their act was the culmination of 15 months of negotiations catalyzed by Sadat's visit to Jerusalem and his speech before the Knesset on November 20, 1977.

Sadat's visit to Israel's capital was an extraordinary gesture. Here was the man who just four years earlier had waged an unprovoked, brutal war of aggression against Israel that placed the country in mortal danger and killed some 2,600 of its finest sons.

Here was the leader of the country that had fought five unprovoked wars of aggression against Israel in 29 years.

And yet suddenly, here was this man, Israel's greatest foe, standing before the Knesset and declaring that he was not seeking a ceasefire, but peace.

As he put it, "I have not come to you to seek a partial peace, namely to terminate the state of belligerency at this stage…I have come to you so that together we might build a durable peace based on justice, to avoid the shedding of one single drop of blood from an Arab or an Israeli."

The effect of Sadat's visit on the Israeli psyche generally and on Begin's mindset in particular was profound. A new book of the two leaders' correspondence, Peace in the Making: The Menachem Begin-Anwar Sadat Personal Correspondence edited by Harry Hurwitz and Yisrael Medad of the Begin Heritage Center presents readers with a portrait of the Israeli leader enthralled with the belief that he and Sadat were embarking their nations on the road to a peaceful future.

But it was not to be. Whether Sadat was purposely deceptive or whether he was simply blocked from implementing his vision of peace by an assassin's bullet in 1981is unclear. True, he committed Egypt committed to peace. The peace treaty contains an entire annex devoted to specific commitments to cultivate every sort of cultural, social and economic tie imaginable. But both Sadat and his successor Mubarak breached every one of them.

As the intervening 32 years since the treaty was signed have shown, in essence, the deal was nothing more than a ceasefire. Israel surrendered the entire Sinai Peninsula to Egypt and in exchange, Egypt has not staged a military attack against Israel from its territory.

The peace treaty's critics maintain that the price Israel paid was too high and so the treaty was unjustified. They also argue that Israel set a horrible precedent for future negotiations with its neighbors by ceding the entire Sinai in exchange for the treaty. Moreover, they note that Palestinian autonomy agreement in the treaty was a terrible deal. And it set the framework for the disastrous Oslo peace process with the PLO 15 years later.

For their part, supporters of the treaty claim that the precedent it set was terrific for Israel. The treaty cites the borders of the Palestine Mandate as Israel's legal borders. And since the Mandate envisioned a Jewish state on both banks of the Jordan River, at a minimum the peace treaty sets a precedent for a future annexation of the west bank of the Jordan.

Whatever their relative merits may be, in the end, both sides of the argument are largely irrelevant. Precedents don't matter in politics. Interests, not precedents determine how states and non-state actors operate. As for whether or not the deal was justified given the exorbitant price, it is unclear what choice Begin had.

In 1977 Jimmy Carter was the president of the United States. And Carter was the most hostile president Israel had faced. His negative attitude towards Israel made it all but impossible for Begin to walk away from the table. When Carter's antagonism is coupled with Sadat's romantic pledges of everlasting peace and brotherhood, it is easy to understand why Begin agreed to overpay for a ceasefire.
 7.  Oath Taken on the Torah; not Christian Biblee
In the 1660's the Jewish community of Barbados became established and of considerable importance. The Jewish community, however, had a decided disadvantage in that their testimony was not admissible in court cases due to their refusal to take an oath on a Christian Bible. In October 1669 the Jewish community presented the king a petition requesting permission to take be able to take oaths on the Five Books of Moses, the Jewish Bible.

Several years later, on Wednesday, February 14, 1674, Barbados passed a law granting the Jewish community the permission they requested.
 8.  Terrorist Threat to US Highest Since 9/11
WASHINGTON — (MCT) Senior Homeland Security officials warned Wednesday that the threat to the United States is the highest it has been since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, citing the emergence of more foreign terrorist groups, a sharp increase in extremists in this country and the "lone wolf" operator who authorities worry is out there but they may not be able to stop.

"The terrorist threat facing our country has evolved significantly," said Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. "In some ways, the threat facing us is at its most heightened state since those attacks."

Michael E. Leiter, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, said his concerns include someone operating unbeknownst to authorities and with the means and determination of a Faisal Shahzad, who last summer parked a car bomb in New York's Times Square. The bomb failed to detonate, and Shahzad was captured just as he was boarding a flight out of the United States.

"Perfection is no more possible in counterterrorism than it is in any other endeavor," Leiter acknowledged. While officials "work tirelessly," he said, " ... we cannot guarantee safety."

They testified before the House Homeland Security Committee in its first hearing since Republicans took control last month. Rep. Peter T. King, R-N.Y., the new chairman, is planning more hearings next month into the domestic radicalization of homegrown terrorists. Despite growing complains that the hearings will unfairly target Muslim Americans, King again vowed Wednesday to press forward.

"Homegrown radicalization is a growing threat, and one we cannot ignore," he said. "This shift, as far as I'm concerned, is a game changer that presents a serious challenge to law enforcement and the intelligence community."

King also wants to study the danger from biological and chemical weapons.

"It's very likely that the next attack against a major city in this country will be launched from the suburbs, similar to what happened in Madrid and London," he said. "The nightmare scenario would be to have that attack involve a dirty bomb, which would put that metropolitan area off limits, besides the massive loss of human life."

Napolitano said "there still is much work to be done" in combating biological or chemical weaponry, but added, "We are more prepared than we were two years ago."

She and Leiter said that while al-Qaida has been damaged by U.S. retaliation, other terror groups in Yemen, the Arabian Peninsula and Pakistan are gaining in strength and numbers, and have been linked to recent attempts to strike in the United States. They mentioned the Times Square incident and the Christmas Day 2009 attempt to bomb an airplane landing in Detroit.

Leiter said that al-Qaida losing some of its effectiveness "reduces the likelihood of a large-scale organized attack." But, he said, "the negative aspects of it is it allows the franchises to innovate on their own."

On another matter, Rep. Loretta Sanchez, D-Calif., said the FBI often infiltrates mosques in her district. "What are the safeguards that we now have in place that we aren't sending people into mosques and trying to elicit proactively somebody to create some sort of terrorist attack?" she asked.

Leiter said FBI and Department of Justice guidelines prohibit targeting religious groups, and added: "Many of our tips to uncover active terrorist plots here in the United States have come from the Muslim community. So we have to make quite clear that the communities are part of the solution and not part of the problem."
10.   Prayers for Israeli and US Defence Forces
May He who blessed our fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, bless the soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces who keep guard over our country and cities of our Lord from the border with Lebanon to the Egyptian desert and from the Mediterranean Sea to the approach to the Yarden (the Jordon River), be they on land, air or sea.

May the Almighty deliver us our enemies who arise against us, may the Holy One, blessed be He, preserve us and save us from all sorrow and peril, from danger and ill. May He send blessing and success in all our endeavors, may He deliver to us those who hate us and crown our soldiers with salvation and victory, so that the saying may be fulfilled through them, "For the Lord, your God, walks with you to fight your enemies for you and to save you", and let us say, Amen.
 11.  Prayers for Health Are Being Said for:for:

(The Hebrew term for a complete recovery is “Refuah Sheleima.”)

Baruch ben Zudi
Beila bat Gittle (Barbara Leven)
Beryl Dov ben Sarah) (Bernie Gilik)
Bradley Stone
Bryna bat Sara
Chana bas Bleema (Anita Glasser)
Cydney and Rebecca Meltzer
Seymour Blaustein (Schmuel ben Freida)
Esther bat Gittel (Elaine Shapiro)
Eyal Chayim Ben Chaya Devorah Reyzal
Fagela bat Sara (Ella Chazan)
Ha-Rav R’uvein ben Sarai (Rabbi Richard Allen)
Ha-Rav Schmuel ben Freidel (Rabbi Sam Blacker)
Jetta and Manny Harderod
Leibel ben Feigel (Larry Ulstein)
Meir Ben Zudi
Moishe ben Rifka (Michael Eisenrod)
Nickolas Libertella
Rachel bat Sarah
Rebbe Zalman Schachter Shalomi
Rifka Ruchel bas Sora Ita
Robert Krumholtz
Sharon Wolfe
Sheva bat Blimah (Shirley Cohen)
Shoshana Chaya bas Golda,
Sonja Geltner
Steve Corwin (Shlomo Chaim ben Pesha)
Thomas Murphy (a righteous gentile)

For those in the area, we can coordinate sick visits (bikur cholim) to hospitals. Please remember to remove a name when misheberach prayers are no longer required. Names will be automatically removed after time. If the person is still in need of prayers on their behalf, please resubmit their names to us.

Thank you.
 12.  Bar/Bat Mitzvah Classes


Dates are available for boys, girls and adults whose time is approaching for Bar/Bat Mitzvah.
To check an available date, call 561-499-2040.
 13.  Add Names of Loved-Ones Gone

Evelyn Nerenberg
William Nerenberg
Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg (November 2008)
Rivka Holtzberg (November 2008)
Jay Rabunski (Yitzchok ben Shoshana)
Phyliss Foster (Pinima bat Avrum),
Albert Freeman (aryeh ben Tzvi Eleazer)
Harry Freeman (Tzvi Eleazar hatzadek)
Annabel Wolfe
 14.  Tzedakah (Charity)