Haiti prayers

A few years ago, I was in a small earthquake. Afterwards, the newspapers said it was a 4.5 earthquake.

During the 4.5 earthquake (or was it 4.6?), I was terrified. The earth and floor swayed almost 90 degrees -- three times.

I felt helpless during the small earthquake. It felt like the worst amusement park ride I'd ever been in (and this time, the earthquake wasn't man-made).

Our earth is very big and powerful. You don't feel how powerful the earth is until you are in an earthquake.

The Haitian earthquake was twice and one half stronger than the earthquake I experience. I can't imagine, and don't want to imagine the feeling of helplessness during the Haitian earthquake.

Then after the Haitian earthquake -- to see your house, your street, and your town destroyed. I don't want to imagine what the Haitian earthquake and its aftermath was like.

After I saw pictures of the destroyed Haitian parliament building, I could barely watch television or view Internet pictures of the devastation (I'm sorry to report). After I saw the picture of the bulldozer shoveling nameless bodies into an empty truck, I couldn't look at pictures of the Haitian earthquake for days (the pictures reminded me of the Holocaust during World War II).

Only when miraculous rescues were reported on the radio was I able to look at pictures from Haiti. I like to see firemen, and rescue crews saving someone.

I wish I were a doctor or a nurse and could volunteer to help Haitians, and see first hand the destruction by the earthquake. My hands want to do something for people but I'm not medically trained.

I pray for everyone killed, or displaced by the Haitian earthquake. I hope they will be strong enough to rebuild their lives.

Last weeks torah portion...

Last weeks torah portion or parasha was extremely important to me because of my aging mother. We had an argument over my direction. Why are we arguing now? It hurts that we argue, at all, nowadays. Why can't life always be sunny?

In this week’s parsha, we find the last of the three patriarchs, Jacob (who has already adopted the name of Israel), on his deathbed. As he readies himself for his passing, he calls upon his sons to ‘bless’ each of them in order to prepare them to carry on leading what is to become the holy nation of Israel.

Several of these ‘blessings’, however, can hardly be considered blessings at all. In fact, Jacob takes this opportunity to reproach some of his sons for their past wrongdoings (most notably, his rebuke of Shimon and Levi for their vengeful massacre of the city of Shechem (Gen. 49:7)). Others, that he does not rebuke directly, receive ‘blessings’ that merely state parts of their character – who they were or what they did. Are we to consider statements of character and criticism of past actions blessings at all? Furthermore, how do Jacob’s final words to his sons prepare them to lead and shape the nation?
Shprintza Herskovitz, through her use of the Ohr HaChaim commentary on this week’s parsha, gives insight to these questions:
“The commentary Ohr HaChaim (R. Chaim Atter) explains why Yaakov rebuked his sons for the negative things that they did. Ohr HaChaim says that by mentioning their deeds, Yaakov was telling his sons that had had to take responsibility for them. R. Attar goes even further to say that sometimes the rebuke itself is a blessing because it makes a person aware of his or her responsibility. Once a person is aware of his responsibility he can then correct or improve his actions, which can then result in increased blessing” (Rays of the Sun, p. 106).
This is to say that the blessing inherent in the criticism offered to each of his sons exists in that it gives each the ability to examine himself and choose to take responsibility for his actions. The ability to choose ‘good’ and to shape a better world that the awareness presents is held in such high regard that it is, in itself, considered the blessing and, therefore, divine.
Further, the blessing of the choice to create a more ideal world is in itself what helps to shape Israel as a holy nation. Through the classic literature, we do not find that our forefathers were inherently good people. Rather, we find that many of them were regular people with evil inclinations who were continuously presented with the choice to take responsibility for their actions and for the world around them.

The German-Jewish Sociologist Erich Fromm elaborated on this point in his own interpretation of the Old Testament:
“That the Bible does not refrain from acknowledging the evil in man becomes quite clear in its descriptions of even its most important personalities. Adam is a coward; Cain is irresponsible; Noah is a weakling; Abraham allows his wife to be violated because of his fear; Jacob participates in the fraud against his brother Esau; Joseph is an ambitious manipulator; and the greatest of Hebrew heroes, King David, commits unforgivable crimes.
Does all this not imply that the biblical view of man is that his essence is evil, that man is essentially corrupt? This interpretation cannot stand against the fact that, while the Bible acknowledges the fact of man’s ‘evil imaginings,’ it also believes in his inherent capacity for good… Man, in the biblical and post-biblical view, is given the choice between his ‘good and evil drives.’”

On his deathbed, Jacob attempts to give his sons the choice of responsibility towards good and thereby develop the foundation for Israel as a holy nation. The holiness is to stem from the ability to self-examine and self-criticize as a nation – and the subsequent choice to shape the world for the better.

Today, we must examine the extent to which the nation of Israel has lived up to its classification as a holy nation. Are we aware enough of the impact that our actions have on the world and people around us? We live in a world where the individualist mentality rules and only small minorities are brave and willing enough to pay attention to their affects on others – brave and willing enough to strive towards a better world. Is Israel a part of those few or are we merely another of the world’s nations acting in the interest of the elites without regard or even awareness of others? If we are, as a nation, to strive towards holiness and good, then we must examine these questions, self-criticize, and develop our ability to choose our responsibility in the world. Through this self-examination, we would be blessed.
Shabbat Shalom.


http://hechalutz.org/2.1/parashat-hashavua.html

Hannukah miracle

Do Hannukah miracles have to be spectacular? Or can Hannukah miracles be the simple things?

My Hannukah, this year, was a miracle of simple things -- a new Hannukiah (candelabra), family togetherness, continuity, and some simple new winter garments. Aren't those things miracles too?

Galilee Silks offers garments, and accessories that are not simple. Our garments are modern, fashionable, and stylish. An addition to anyones wardrobe.

From indoor winter scarves to indoor tableclothes to woolen talitot -- Galilee Silks offers Jewish silk fashion for your indoor winter life with your family and friends during the cold season. Each or our items in our catalog are indoor miracles!

As always, Galilee Silks continues to offer traditional Jewish -- wedding, bar mitvah, bat mitvah, shabbat, Pesach, and other holiday items used throughout the Jewish year. Please, browse our full catalog, here.

Miracles come in small packages. Galilee Silks is proud to present our miracle traditional and winter items for your family.

Woman wearing talit at Kotel detained

We do not think the woman in the picture is wearing a Galilee Silks Tallit, but still we thought this event of interest for our blog. If you are a woman who wants to wear a Tallit, we have a LARGE VARIETY of Womens Tallitot in our shop...
and now to the article

This article is from the Jerusalem Post

Nov. 18, 2009Matthew Wagner , THE JERUSALEM POST
Police and Western Wall officials expelled a female prayer group from the Kotel area and arrested one of the women after they attempted Wednesday morning to read from a Torah scroll.
"We debated amongst ourselves whether or not to read from the Torah at the Kotel itself or to take the Torah to the Robinson's Arch," said Nofrat Frenkel, who was arrested and later released by police.
"In the end we decided that because nobody seemed to mind we would go ahead and read the Torah at the Kotel."
According to a compromise reached two decades ago under Supreme Court mediation, it was agreed that women who wished to wear talitot [prayer shawls] and kippot and read from the Torah would be allowed to do so at the Robinson's Arch adjacent to the Kotel and not directly in front of the Kotel so as not to offend Orthodox visitors.
On every Rosh Hodesh (beginning of the Jewish month) the Women of the Wall conduct prayers at the Kotel and at the Robinson's Arch. On Wednesday's visit there was a contingent of women from North America who are in Israel to take part in a rabbinical ordination ceremony to take place at the Reform Movement's Hebrew Union College.
Frenkel said that as the women unrolled the Torah scroll and began to prepare to read, officials from the Kotel Foundation arrived and demanded that they leave the premises.
Frenkel said that the women agreed to roll up the Torah scroll and take it to the Robinson's Arch. But on their way out Frenkel, who was wearing a talit and was carrying the Torah, was seized by police.
"I was pushed into a nearby police station and transferred to the main police station at Yaffo Gate," she said.
About 40 women who attended the prayer formed a procession and followed the police and Frenkel through the Old City to the Yaffo Gate where they congregated and sang songs until Frenkel was released.
Rabbi Felicia Sol of the post-denominational Bnei Jeshrun Synagogue on Manhattan's Upper West Side, said that the attempt to read from the Torah was an experiment with "pushing the boundaries".
"It is ridiculous that in a Jewish state that is supposedly democratic women cannot pray the way they want to and only one definition of Judaism is accepted," said Sol.
"It is sad that many secular Israelis are distanced from Judaism because in Israel religion is seen as a negative, divisive force instead of being compelling and meaningful."
Anat Hoffman, Chair of the Women of the Wall, said that the two-decade-old compromise that prevents women from reading from the Torah at the Kotel was outdated.
"Times have changed and women should be allowed to have a more central role in Jewish expression," said Hoffman.
Kotel Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitz said in response that the women's actions were "a desecration of the sacred."
"They brought dissent and infighting to a place that is supposed to symbolize unity," said Rabinovitz. "And that is a desecration. They behaved like [biblical] Korah and his assembly."
Rabinovitz added that the women were motivated by a political agenda and did not want to simply pray.
However, Frenkel, who belongs to a Conservative congregation in Israel, said that her sole intention was to pray to God.
"We were not trying to cause a provocation," said Frenkel.
"I am not a political person. I come to pray and perform what is written in the Torah 'Speak to the Israelites and tell them to make tzitzit on the corners of their garments'", said Frenkel referring the biblical verse that teaches the commandment to wear a talit.
Jerusalem Police said that they arrested a woman from after she donned a talit, while praying at the Western Wall.
According to a police spokesman, the woman was approached by officers after putting the prayer shawl on, which police said caused an outcry from other worshippers.
"Police calmed the situation down, and took the woman in for questioning," a statement from the spokesman said.
Abe Selig contributed to this story
This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1258489193200&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull[ Back to the Article ]

Unique Galilee Silks Judaica gifts and Tallitot ON SALE

Galilee Silks added to the online Judaica store beaufitul Voile Womens Tallitot with lovely silk apllications price: $130.

We continue our Mens & Womens Tallitot ON SALE... and offcourse we recommend to view all our products in our Judiaca online store.

Come browse around & order now your beautiful unique gifts from Eretz Israel, in time for the High Holy Days!

What better month to buy a Tallit....

The Month of KISlev According to The Book of Formation (Sefer Yetzirah)

Each month of the Jewish year has a corresponding color

The Color for Kislev is Blue-Violet

Kislev is the ninth of the twelve months of the Jewish calendar.

Kislev is the month of Chanukah--the only holiday in the Jewish calender which spans, and hence connects, two months: Chanukah begins on the 25th day of the month of Kislev and concludes in the month of Tevet (either on the 2nd or 3rd, depending on the number of days in Kislev).
The name Kislev derives from the Hebrew word for "security" and "trust." There are two states of trust, one active and one passive, both of which are manifest in the month of Kislev (see Bitachon, confidence). The miracle of Chanukah reflects the active trust of the Chashmonaim (Maacabim) to stand up and fight against the Hellenistic empire (and its culture). Kislev's sense of sleep reflects the passive trust that G-d's providence always guards over Israel.

Galilee Silks creates countless Tallitot with shades and hints of this beautiful spiritual Blue Violet color.

Come have a look in our online Judaica shop....welcome...and you might decide to buy one in the month of Kislev...!

Deals Deals!! Now Tallitot ON SALE!!

Galilee Silks offers now special Tallitot on sale!! Visit our online Judaica store by clicking the promo. Get your Tallit deal now, Limited amount of Tallitot available!

Celebrate the Days of Awe

Order now for the High Holy Days your Tallit from our new Galilee Silks Judaica Gift store with more than 150 Tallitot for Men and boys, women and girls!

Classic or modern Tallitot from the Land of Israel, a beautiful gift for family and loved ones.

New Judaica Gift Store

We are working very hard to get our new Galilee Silks Judaica Gift store online.
At the moment we are busy listing our more than 80 different woman's tallitot! Come have a sneak peek at our lovely Judaica textiles which are very popular as Bar Mitzvah and Bat Mitzvah gifts and make a beautiful present for Jewish weddings. In the coming days our new Judaica store will be linked from the home page, but if you like, you can buy right now!

Practical Silk Information, for Judaica too!

Who said you cannot get a stain on your Tallit? No one right?
And the same counts for a challah cover as one of our customers emails us, when your friend puts the Shabbat candles on them accidently. You end up with big oily stains, what then?

Well, the good news is is some practical stain removal info on this nice informative community website.
Its all about corn starch, who would guess..
We cannot use the content of this article but are allowed a link to it, so just click the following link:
http://www.ehow.com/how_2305908_remove-grease-stains-from-silk.html

Good luck!

Happy 60th Independance Day

Galilee Silks wishes all of Israel Happy Independance Day!
We hope to see you in one of our online stores for unique fashionable and religious authentic gifts from Galilee Israel.

Visit www.galileesilks.com for our Judaica Lines

Galilee Silks supplies to vendors at attractive prices and we are open for customized orders and ideas.

Superior Tallit from Wool with Magen David Motif

A beautiful Classic Tallit was added today on Galileesilks Judaica on Etsy. We have the same Tallit in our main Galilee Silks store as new Judaica item for April.

This white and dark blue pure wool tallit has a Magen David motif as you can see in the image. The Atarah is embroidered.

This Tallit is something very special. A beautiful gift on the occassion of a Bar Mitzvah.

Have a look!
Shabbat Shalom!

A Thread of Blue

This is a wonderful in depth teaching about the Tallit by Rabbi Fred Davidow

Blue has been a distinctive color of Judaism since Biblical times. In the Torah God commands the Israelites to wear a garment with fringes at each corner and to attach a blue thread to the fringes (Numbers 15:37-38). The blue dye used to color the wool came from the gland of a snail that lived in shallow waters off the coast of northern Israel.
It was the world’s most costly dye, since it took 12,000 snails to yield 1.4 grams of dye. The high cost of this dye is the reason why this bluish-purplish color became associated with royalty. Eventually the secret process of manufacturing the dye was lost or the snails were driven close to extinction by human rapacity.




The blue thread disappeared from the fringes but the color remained on the tallit as blue stripes. Hence we see on the flag of the State of Israel two broad blue stripes.
The tallit is worn only at Shacharit, the morning service, because the Torah states at Numbers 15:39 that, “it shall be to you a tassel to look upon and remember all the commandments of the Eternal.” The verbal phrase in the Hebrew text is u-r’item oto, which literally means, “you shall see it”. At dusk and during the night in the poorly lit homes and synagogues of ancient times it was virtually impossible to discern the color of the blue thread. Thus the commandment to see the blue thread could only be fulfilled in sunlight.


In traditional Judaism the observance of many rituals is determined by a specific time. The time to recite the Shema section of the liturgy in the morning is determined by the break of dawn, when the natural light of the sun returns. The Torah paragraph containing the commandment of the fringes with the blue thread is included within this Shema section of the siddur. The Talmud records a discussion among rabbis who were debating the question: How do we know when the night ends and the new day begins so that we can recite the Shema for the morning service? In the Mishnah Berakhot 1:2, Rabbi Eliezer says: "The night ends and the new day begins when you can tell the difference between a blue thread and a purple thread.” Rabbi Eliezer is saying that the proper time for the performance of the ritual of putting on the tallit is when there is sufficient light to distinguish between two colors next to each other on the spectrum. Thus halakhah (Jewish law) rules that we wear the tallit only at Shacharit, the morning service. Halakhah is developed by the “left brain” through the use of logic and analysis.
Aggadah (legend, lore), which taps into the “right brain” for feelings, presents ideas that speak to our hearts and motivate us to fulfill the moral values of Judaism. Here is an aggadic treatment of the question of when is the proper time to recite the morning Shema. In the Talmud, Berakhot 9b, a question is asked, “How do we know when the night ends and the new day begins? The answer supplied is: The night ends and the day begins at the time when one can see his friend from four feet away and recognize him.” This is the “right-brain” solution. This means more than being able to discern the color in the eyes of your friend. It points to the need to recognize in the face of your friend another soul created in the image of God and to treat that soul in a godlike way.

When people get stuck in bad attitudes, they are figuratively living in darkness. When the bad attitude gets broken, only then can a person see clearly and move toward recognizing and affirming his/her friends. We all need to see the faces of our friends and treat them with respect.

Tallit

The Tallit - Jewish prayer shawl - is a commemoration of a kind of wrap that was worn by our forefathers. After the Exile, they adopted the custom of the neighboring Bedouins of wearing it as protection from the sun, and the Tallit became an everyday garment.

In the Book of Numbers (15:37-38) it is said:

And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying: speak unto the children of Israel, and bid them that they make them fringes on the borders of their garments throughout their generations and that they put with the fringe the borders a ribband of blue.

The fringes serve as a reminder of God’s commandments.

The Tallith is made of wool, cotton or silk, in which worshipers enwrap during prayer or when observing the Commandment of Tzitzith (fringes). Men wear a Tallith Katan (“small Tallith), which is also called Arba Kanfoth (four corners), during the day, but enwrap in a Tallith during Morning and Musaf Prayers. On Yom Kippur they enwrap in a Tallith during the entire day.

The custom of wearing a Talit varies from one ethnic community to another: Ashkenazi bar mitzvah boys wear a Talit when they are called up to read from the Torah in the synagogue, whereas in the Sephardi community only married men wear a Talit. In some communities the bridegroom wears a Talit during the chuppah marriage ceremony, and it is also customary to enshroud the deceased with a Tallit.

A Talis is made of white wool and strict observers ensure their Talis is made of the white wool of sheep from Eretz Israel. The atara (decoration) made of silver thread has been added for adornment to the upper part of the Talis. The stripes are possibly a symbol of royalty in ancient Egypt, and perhaps even a commemoration of Joseph’s coat of many colors.

When a man enwraps in a Tallis he recites the blessing:

…who has sanctified us by thy commandments, and hast commanded us to enwrap ourselves in the fringed garment.

Tallitot and the Tefillin (phylacteries) have unquestionably become the most important of Jewish symbols.

Nowadays, bat mitzvah girls who wish to be called up to read from the Torah in the synagogue, and learn the portion of the week from the Bible and the Haftarah portion of the Prophets, enwrap in a Tallit and cover their heads when they are called up to read from the Torah. Adult women returning to their roots, too, celebrate bat mitzvah and enwrap in a Tallit when they are called up to read from the Torah. Bat mitzvah girls choose a kosher bat mitzvah Tallit that has fringes in accordance with Jewish religious laws, and an atarah, and has some fashionable features as well. Adult women choose a Tallit that has been specially designed for women and are called Tallit Nashim or women’s Tallitot.

Galilee Silks Tallitot are very renowned and of high quality, com check out our online main store

Whole Sale Judaica

Galilee Silks is actively expanding the markets. We seek vendors in the USA and Europe who will establish business relations with us and will obtain our Jewish Prayer Shawls - Tallitot [Tallis] at attractive whole sale pricing.

Our Judaica line includes:
Mens tallitot, classic and modern
Womens tallitot, stunning in beauty and fabrics
All Tallis come with a matching Kippah and Tallis bag
Jewish wedding canopies [ Chuppah]
Beautiful shofar bags

As for Passover:

Lovely table linens in beautiful arrangments which will give class and festivity to your Passover Seder table
Matzah covers and Afikomen Bags

Come see for yourself at www.galileesilks.com