Your donation will be tax deductible in the US to the extent allowed by the IRS.
To make a tax-deductible donation by wire transfer in the US, please contact:
Avrum Lapin, North American Representative
Toll-free: 1-866-830-3321
Email: schechter@thelapingroup.com
To make a tax-deductible donation in Israel, please contact:
Dina Gudai, Israeli Representative
Phone: 074-7800643
Email: dina@schechter.ac.il
Please mail your check to:
The Schechter Institutes, Inc. (a 501(c) 3 tax exempt organization)
Box #3566
PO Box 8500
Philadelphia, PA 19178-3566
Attn: Mr. Avrum Lapin, North American Representative
Toll-free: 1-866-830-3321
Email: schechter@thelapingroup.com
Please indicate the donation is "for your joint Schechter Institutes program."
Checks should be made payable to the Jewish Theological Society of Canada and mailed to:
Jewish Theological Society of Canada
c/o Camp Ramah in Canada
3845 Bathhurst St., Suite 310
Toronto, ON, M3H 3N2
Phone: 416-789-2193, ext. 2139
E-mail: accounting@campramah.com
Please mail a check to:
The Schechter Institutes
Attn: Dina Gudai, Finance Department
PO Box 16080,
Jerusalem, 9116002
Israel
For assistance, please call Dina Gudai at 074-780-0643 (8:00 AM – 3:00 Israel time Sunday through Thursday).
Your donation will be tax deductible in the US to the extent allowed by the IRS.
To make a tax-deductible donation by wire transfer in the US, please contact:
Avrum Lapin, North American Representative
Toll-free: 1-866-830-3321
Email: schechter@thelapingroup.com
To make a tax-deductible donation in Israel, please contact:
Dina Gudai, Israeli Representative
Phone: 074-7800643
Email: dina@schechter.ac.il
Please mail your check to:
The Schechter Institutes, Inc. (a 501(c) 3 tax exempt organization)
Box #3566
PO Box 8500
Philadelphia, PA 19178-3566
Attn: Mr. Avrum Lapin, North American Representative
Toll-free: 1-866-830-3321
Email: schechter@thelapingroup.com
Please indicate the donation is "for your joint Schechter Institutes program."
Checks should be made payable to the Jewish Theological Society of Canada and mailed to:
Jewish Theological Society of Canada
c/o Camp Ramah in Canada
3845 Bathhurst St., Suite 310
Toronto, ON, M3H 3N2
Phone: 416-789-2193, ext. 2139
E-mail: accounting@campramah.com
Please mail a check to:
The Schechter Institutes
Attn: Dina Gudai, Finance Department
PO Box 16080,
Jerusalem, 9116002
Israel
For assistance, please call Dina Gudai at 074-780-0643 (8:00 AM – 3:00 Israel time Sunday through Thursday).
It is hard work to count. Yet, we Jews are commanded to count – the Omer and now the Days & Nights of the Hostages
As we record, we have counted 584 days which is one year, seven months and five days of the captivity, of what at this moment is 59 hostages. God-willing by the time you see this video, 58 hostages.
God-willing, very soon, there will be zero hostages and each and every single one will be brought back for rehabilitation or to a proper burial.
This week in our Torah reading we read about counting and how important counting is.
It is a mitzvah to count the Omer. To count from after the shabbat which we understand as after the first chag of Pesach until Shavuot to count seven total weeks.
The Torah tells us twice in this week’s portion, “You must count” (Leviticus 23: 15 & 16) We say in Hebrew at the beginning וּסְפַרְתֶּ֤ם לָכֶם֙
“You must count.”
In the midrash, in the Talmud and all the commentators all say, every single person amongst Israel must count.
And we have to ask further, why is this?
The Maharal of Prague (Rabbi Loew) says that this is a reminder that human beings were created to work. We might have thought that we have been released from slavery at the beginning of Passover, that we are free and that we no longer have to work, and therefore we count the days of our hard work, of agriculture, until we bring the wheat offering.
We count day by day so that when we show up, we know exactly how hard we have worked, and how many days it has been.
We are counting the Omer. As we speak, last night as I record, we counted 29 days. But we are also counting that awful number of 584. We are counting a number day-by-day, so that we know that we have to work hard.
We know that we cannot be free until every single one of these 59 hostages are free.
As we count the Omer, we know that it will come to a beautiful end. It comes to end as we receive the Torah.
We are counting day-by-day the hostages not knowing when will it end, but we are praying every day that it will end. That that number of hostages will go to zero. That we will stop counting and we will continue to work so that we can all be free.
SHAVUA TOV FROM SCHECHTER
Rabbi Arie Hasit, Associate Dean, Schechter Rabbinical Seminary, was ordained by the Schechter Rabbinical Seminary in 2016 and was in the second cohort of the Mishlei program. Prior, he served six years as the founding rabbi and CEO of 70 Faces — Mazkeret Batya, a unique community that promotes the values of Masorti Judaism and religious pluralism in the public sphere.
Rabbi Hasit volunteers as co-chair of the Masorti Movement’s Youth Committee and as a member of the Law Committee for the Israeli Rabbinical Assembly.
He lives in Mazkeret Batya with his wife, Sara Tova Brody and their two children.
