• Today is: Yom Khah´mee´shee, 5th Day, 2 more days to Shabbat, Prepare!!
Iyar 1, 5771 • 5 5, 2011
• Happy Cinco De Mayo!
• Happy Rosh Chodesh Iyar • Omer: Day 16 - Gevurah sheb'Tifferet
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• Topics in the news
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• Claude Choules, the last surviving combatant of World War I, dies at the age of 110.
• The Conservative Party, led by Stephen Harper (pictured), wins a majority in the Canadian federal election.
• John Higgins defeats Judd Trump to win the World Snooker Championship.
• Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is killed by U.S. forces at his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
• The flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder from Air France Flight 447, which crashed into the Atlantic in 2009, are recovered from the ocean floor.
• Pope John Paul II is beatified at a ceremony in Vatican City.
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• Current events of 5 5 2011 (2011-05-05)
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• Armed conflicts and attacks
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• Countries involved in the military campaign in Libya hold talks in Rome, Italy. (Al Jazeera)
• Claude Choules, the last known combat veteran from World War I, dies in Perth, Western Australia. (AP via MSNBC), (BBC)
• 2011 Syrian protests:
• Dozens of tanks have been sent to the Syrian city of Homs as the Government continues to crack down on protestors. (Sky News)
• Syrian army tanks also raid suburbs of Damascus. (BBC)
• A car bomb explodes in the southern Iraqi city of Hilla killing at least 17 police officers and injuring 65. (Reuters via Yahoo News), (New York Times)
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• Disasters
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• Workers enter one of the buildings at Japan's Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant for the first time since an explosion in the days following the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. (AP via MSNBC)
• The body of Dorjee Khandu, the Chief Minister of the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh is found near the crash site of the helicopter that crashed in the Himalayan foothills on April 30. (AP via Yahoo News)
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• International relations
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• The South Korean National Assembly ratifies a free trade agreement with the European Union. (BBC)
• The United Kingdom expels two more Libyan diplomats, a week after expelling the ambassador, in order to increase diplomatic pressure on the regime of Muammar Gaddafi. (The Independent)
• Law and crime
• Sándor Képíró goes on trial in Hungary for alleged war crimes during World War II while serving with the Hungarian Army in Serbia in 1942. (BBC)
• Politics and elections
• British elections
• Voters in the United Kingdom go to the polls for a referendum on whether to use the alternative vote electoral system for the House of Commons. (The Guardian)
• Voters in Wales go to the polls for the election for the Welsh National Assembly. (BBC)
• Voters in Scotland go to the polls for the Scottish Parliament elections. (BBC)
• Voters in Northern Ireland go to the polls for the Northern Ireland Assembly election. (BBC)
• Voters throughout England go to the polls for local government elections. (BBC)
• Today in Judaism
• Today's Laws & Customs
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• Rosh Chodesh Observances
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• Today is the second of the two Rosh Chodesh ("Head of the Month") days for the month of "Iyar" (when a month has 30 days, both the last day of the month and the first day of the following month serve as the following month's Rosh Chodesh).
• Special portions are added to the daily prayers: Hallel (Psalms 113-118) is recited -- in its "partial" form -- following the Shacharit morning prayer, and the Yaaleh V'yavo prayer is added to the Amidah and to Grace After Meals; the additional Musaf prayer is said (when Rosh Chodesh is Shabbat, special additions are made to the Shabbat Musaf). Tachnun (confession of sins) and similar prayers are omitted.
• Many have the custom to mark Rosh Chodesh with a festive meal and reduced work activity. The latter custom is prevalent amongst women, who have a special affinity with Rosh Chodesh -- the month being the feminine aspect of the Jewish Calendar.
• Count "Seventeen Days to the Omer" Tonight
• Tomorrow is the seventeenth day of the Omer Count. Since, on the Jewish calendar, the day begins at nightfall of the previous evening, we count the omer for tomorrow's date tonight, after nightfall: "Today is seventeen days, which are two weeks and three days, to the Omer." (If you miss the count tonight, you can count the omer all day tomorrow, but without the preceding blessing).
• The 49-day "Counting of the Omer" retraces our ancestors' seven-week spiritual journey from the Exodus to Sinai. Each evening we recite a special blessing and count the days and weeks that have passed since the Omer; the 50th day is Shavuot, the festival celebrating the Giving of the Torah at Sinai.
• Tonight's Sefirah: Tifferet sheb'Tifferet -- "Harmony in Harmony"
• The teachings of Kabbalah explain that there are seven "Divine Attributes" -- Sefirot -- that G-d assumes through which to relate to our existence: Chessed, Gevurah, Tifferet, Netzach, Hod, Yesod and Malchut ("Love", "Strength", "Beauty", "Victory", "Splendor", "Foundation" and "Sovereignty"). In the human being, created in the "image of G-d," the seven sefirot are mirrored in the seven "emotional attributes" of the human soul: Kindness, Restraint, Harmony, Ambition, Humility, Connection and Receptiveness. Each of the seven attributes contain elements of all seven--i.e., "Kindness in Kindness", "Restraint in Kindness", "Harmony in Kindness", etc.--making for a total of forty-nine traits. The 49-day Omer Count is thus a 49-step process of self-refinement, with each day devoted to the "rectification" and perfection of one the forty-nine "sefirot."
• Today in Jewish History
• Construction of Second Temple Begins (370 BCE)
• Fifty three years following the destruction of the First Holy Temple (see Jewish History for the 9th of Av), Zerubabel and Joshua the High Priest began construction of the Second Temple, with permission from King Cyrus of Persia.
• The offering of sacrifices had actually commenced a few months earlier, on the vacant lot where the 1st Temple stood, however it was only after the construction started on the 1st of Iyar that the Levites began accompanying the service with song and music.
• The construction was later halted after the hostile Samaritans supplied false slanderous information to Cyrus about the Jews' intentions. The construction was resumed many years later, and completed 21 years later under the reign of King Darius (see Jewish History for the Third of Adar).
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• Passing of R. Menachem Mendel of Horodok (1788)
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• Chassidic master Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Horodok (1730?-1788), also known as Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk, was one of the leading disciples of the second leader of the Chassidic Movement, Rabbi DovBer of Mezeritch. Upon the latter's passing in 1772, R. Menachem Mendel was regarded by his colleagues as the leader of the Chassidic community in Russia, and Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi considered him his rebbe and mentor. In 1777, R. Menachem Mendel led a group of 300 Chassidim to the Holy Land and established Chassidic communities in Safed and Teberias. Rabbi Menachem Mendel passed away on the 1st of Iyar of 1788, and is buried in Tiberias.
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• Daily Quote
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• The chassidim of Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi used to say: Our Rebbe revives the dead. What is a corpse? Something cold and unfeeling. Life is movement, warmth, excitement. Is their anything as frozen in self-absorption, as cold and unfeeling as the mind? And when the cold mind understands, comprehends, and is excited by a G-dly idea - is this not a revival of the dead?
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• Daily Study
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• Chitas and Rambam for today:
• Chumash: Emor, 5th Portion Leviticus 23:23-23:32 with Rashi
• Tehillim: Chapters 1 - 9
• Tanya: Likutei Amarim, middle of Chapter 44
• Rambam:
• Sefer Hamitzvos:
• 1 Chapter: Mikvot Chap. 2
• English Text
Hebrew Text
Audio: Listen
Download
• 3 Chapters: Shabbos Chapter One, Shabbos Chapter Two, Order of Prayers
• Hayom Yom:
THE SACREDNESS OF EACH DAY IN TORAH
Genesis Chapter 1
בְּרֵאשִׁית
Yom Khah´mee´shee.. Fifth day
כ וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים--יִשְׁרְצוּ הַמַּיִם, שֶׁרֶץ נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה; וְעוֹף יְעוֹפֵף עַל-הָאָרֶץ, עַל-פְּנֵי רְקִיעַ הַשָּׁמָיִם. 20
And God said: 'Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let fowl fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.'
כא וַיִּבְרָא אֱלֹהִים, אֶת-הַתַּנִּינִם הַגְּדֹלִים; וְאֵת כָּל-נֶפֶשׁ הַחַיָּה הָרֹמֶשֶׂת אֲשֶׁר שָׁרְצוּ הַמַּיִם לְמִינֵהֶם, וְאֵת כָּל-עוֹף כָּנָף לְמִינֵהוּ, וַיַּרְא אֱלֹהִים, כִּי-טוֹב. 21
And God created the great sea-monsters, and every living creature that creepeth, wherewith the waters swarmed, after its kind, and every winged fowl after its kind; and God saw that it was good.
כב וַיְבָרֶךְ אֹתָם אֱלֹהִים, לֵאמֹר: פְּרוּ וּרְבוּ, וּמִלְאוּ אֶת-הַמַּיִם בַּיַּמִּים, וְהָעוֹף, יִרֶב בָּאָרֶץ. 22 And God blessed them, saying: 'Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.'
כג וַיְהִי-עֶרֶב וַיְהִי-בֹקֶר, יוֹם חֲמִישִׁי. {פ} 23 And there was evening and there was morning, a fifth day. {P}
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