For this week’s Hakarat HaTov Corner, I owe gratitude to Rabbi Sholey Klein of Dallas Kosher for organizing this past Sunday’s event at Triple Creek Red Angus farms in Rockwall, showing us a farm full of potential part adumot, or red heifers. In my sermon on Shabbat, I will share my impressions, and some important lessons I took away from the event.
I am also grateful to all those who shared feedback about last week’s sermon in honor of Yossele Rosenblatt’s 90th yahrzeit, especially after listening to some of the pieces I sent out on Motzei Shabbat. Your feedback is always appreciated, as is your patience and generosity of spirit considering that the AC was not working and you were likely a tad uncomfortable. As I said on Shabbat, it was likely sweltering in the summer heat in Jerusalem on Yossele’s last Shabbat, and the Churvah shul, where he led davening, was certainly not air conditioned…This week, a concert took place in New York’s Merkin Hall, in Yossele’s memory - you canwatch the entire thing here.
On Tuesday, I flew up to Cleveland for the day to serve as a chaperone for the 16 Dallas kids who are attending the first session at Camp Stone. The kids were all well-behaved, and are great representatives of our community. Randi Mashmoor, the executive director of the camp, told me that she LOVES Dallas - the parents, and the kids, are so nice and make no entitled demands on the camp (as opposed to those from other cities). She said we are so easy to work with and she was so excited when we arrived! I am grateful to Ben Kogutt and Mordechai Langer for being excellent co-chaperones and travel companions. Their good humor and easygoing nature were especially in evidence after we dropped off the kids and went to lunch. It took no fewer than three restaurants (and three Uber/Lyft rides) before we found one a) whose kitchen was open b) that would serve us and c) that was serving food we actually wanted to eat. In one case, we entered the largely empty restaurant at 2:10 PM and were told that the kitchen had closed from lunch service at 2, so they would not be seating us…thanks to Arova in Cleveland for feeding three hungry Texans.
I am also grateful to Jessica for encouraging me to travel to quite a few smachot over the last few weeks, even though the end of June and the beginning of July are always busy times for her at work. In particular, I am grateful to her for encouraging me to fly to Israel this coming week, where I will, with God’s help, officiate at the wedding of Liad Guttman and Ayelet Katz. Thanks of course to the Guttman family for making the trip possible. While I am gone, please direct your Rabbinic questions to Rabbi Yaakov Tannenbaum, to whom I am grateful for so many reasons.
Last week’s MSOTW Last week’s clue was: This synagogue is the headquarters of a Chassidic community that is outside the major Chassidic centers of the world, though it now has many branches in major chassidic communities as well. Thousands of students have passed through its doors and connected to its spiritual leaders, and many of them became observant as a result. Still others have connected with this community through the world class medical care available in the city where this synagogue is located, which runs a major Bikur Cholim and health guidance organization. Name the shul/Chassidic community, and provide a picture of the shul.
The MSOTW is the Beth Pinchas New England Chassidic Center, on Beacon Street in Brookline, Massachusetts. It is the American headquarters of the Bostoner Chassidim, though there are Bostoner shuls in different neighborhoods in Brooklyn, and throughout Israel (the main Israeli branch is in Har Nof in Jerusalem). For several generations, there have been multiple Bostoner Rebbes, as the Chassidus split into different communities led by different family members, without the bitter divisiveness that often accompanies succession issues in Chassidic communities. Perhaps the best known
Bostoner Rebbe was the legendary Rav Levi Yitzchak Horowitz zt”l the Bostoner Rebbe of Brookline (another, Rav Moshe Horowitz, was known for the niggunim he composed). Under his leadership and at his modest shul, thousands of college and graduate students in America’s largest college town returned to their Jewish roots and became observant. The Rebbe also founded ROFEH International, an organization that provides medical referrals and support services to the many Jewish families who come to Boston for medical treatment.
This Week’s MSOTW
This week’s shul was founded by immigrants from a particular European region, included in its official. A magnificent new facility was built several years ago. Name the shul, and the region from which the founders originated.
Rabbi’s Resources will be on hiatus for the next two weeks and will resume, with God’s help, on July 13.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Ariel Rackovsky
Congregation Shaare Tefilla 6131 Churchill Way Dallas, TX 75230
