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I Cried With Every Jew in the World

Thursday, February 27, 2025 - 1:44 PM

This week, Israel has been plunged into unimaginable grief. Family after family has had their loved ones returned from the hell of Gaza, their lives forever shattered.

I wept together with Yarden Bibas as he delivered a heart-wrenching eulogy for his beloved Shiri, Kfir, and Ariel, his words cutting deep into my soul.

I held my breath as we waited for the return of Ohad Yahalomi, who was murdered in captivity, returned in a coffin. Returned to his family—his 12-year-old son Eitan who was also taken but released after 52 agonizing days, and his wife and two daughters who were abducted on October 7th but miraculously escaped when their captor fell off his bike en route to Gaza.

I cried for Tzachi Idan, who witnessed the brutal murder of his 18-year-old daughter while Hamas terrorists held him and his wife hostage inside their home for hours, live-streaming the ordeal on his wife’s Facebook—a cruel and twisted act that defies comprehension. Alas, he was returned in a coffin.

Shlomo Mansour, who survived the Farhud pogrom in Iraq as a child, was brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists during his abduction on October 7th. Itzik Elgarat was captured alive, only to be murdered in captivity.

The anguish is suffocating, the grief unbearable.

Yet, it's precisely this pain that reveals our deepest strength. We feel the weight of each other's suffering because we care profoundly. We may never have met, but we are nevertheless family.

When one Jew is in pain, we all feel their pain. It's a unique quality that does not exist anywhere else. So a Jew in Miami, London, Paris, Cape Town or Sidney feels the pain of every single hostage and their families. Which other nation can say that all 16 million members cry so deeply for each other's pain?

We are like the hardy olive, which produces its best product—oil—when squeezed. Our love and connection comes to the forefront in times like these.

This is why we will emerge victorious in this war. Why we are invincible. Our capacity to feel, to empathize, and to support one another is the armor that shields us from forces of hate and destruction.

In the face of unimaginable tragedy, we find solace in our unity, our resilience, and our unwavering commitment to one another. We will continue to stand together, to mourn together, and to rebuild together. For we are a people who refuse to let the forces of evil extinguish our light.

And it's this boundless love that will hurry us through the end of this current dark exile and bring us to the light, to Redemption, to Moshiach.

How Can We Go On Today?

Thursday, February 20, 2025 - 8:11 AM

Our hearts are shattered today as we mourn the brutal slaying of Shiri Bibas and her toddlers, Ariel and Kfir, as well as Oded Lifshitz. For 500 days we held out hope. We thought about them, cried for them, begged and pleaded for their return, prayed for their safety, and hoped beyond hope they would be returned to us alive and whole. Now, that hope has been decimated. Today the world mourns.

Now we are broken. Broken and outraged. How are there monsters roaming this earth that would willingly murder a mother and her babies? How can they proudly parade their coffins through cheering crowds and the world watches silently? How can our hostages languish in the hellish Gaza tunnels for a year and a half and the world goes on?

The Bibas family became the symbol of Hamas terror. The faces we all knew and recognized. There is nothing more pure and innocent than a child. And those two red-headed little boys, and their terrified mother clinging to them desperately, are images that have haunted us for 500 days.

To kidnap, torture, and hold hostage such precious, innocent mothers and babies who never harmed anyone is the most evil thing in the universe.

The contrast between the barbarism of Hamas and the Gazans compared to Israel and Jews could not be more clear. On one side, you have evil monsters, on the other hand, you have the Bibas family who just wanted to live in peace.

Make no mistake, Hamas is the Amalek of our generation.

We are about to enter the Jewish month of Adar when we celebrate Purim and read the megillah, telling the story of the holiday and the miracle that saved our nation. The villain of the Purim story is Haman, who set out to completely wipe out the Jewish nation. In a single day, he wanted to kill every Jewish man, woman, and child—a plan even Hitler didn’t imagine possible. But Haman’s power was unrestrained. He had the ability to approve and sign any decree on behalf of the king, and so he put forth his murderous plot.

But Mordechai and Esther came up with a plan, and Mordechai encouraged the entire Jewish nation—especially the children—to come out in droves and pray to G-d. With Esther’s bravery and the nation’s prayers, G-d intervened and overturned the plot, leaving us with one of the most joyous holidays on the Jewish calendar—Purim.

Haman was an Amalekite. And Hamas, and anyone who supports them, is too.

I got a message today from someone in our community that reflects how we are all feeling: “How can I carry on with my life? I am watching the coffins of the Bibas family being transported into Israel and my heart is shattered. I am in tears. How could there be such cruelty in this world? I want to cancel all my plans for the next few weeks and just sit home and cry.”

Who among us is not feeling this way? So what do we do? How can we go on?

First, we mourn. We cry. We support one another. We take on a mitzvah in memory of Oded Lifshitz and Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir Bibas.

Then, we get up and continue our lives. We pledge to prioritize our children. To teach them Torah, tell them Jewish stories, bring them to shul. We hold them up to kiss the mezuzah and give them a coin to put into a tzedakah box. We sing Modeh Ani with them when they wake up and Shema before they go to sleep. We play with them, hold them, hug them, kiss them, and do it all with Kfir and Ariel in mind. We channel the love Shiri had for her boys, and her fierce determination to keep them safe and protect them until the very end.

And we wait for the day when we can have our own Purim, when we will celebrate the fall of Hamas and the safety of our people.

A Magical Weekend With My Siblings!

Thursday, February 13, 2025 - 1:46 PM

I flew to Johannesburg this past week—a 16-hour flight that tested my endurance in every way. I absolutely detest flying. I find being confined to a finite space for such a long period of time truly challenging. Plus the flight was delayed two hours in both directions this time!

But I was highly motivated by my destination—my niece’s wedding and a reunion with my parents and all nine of my siblings. A rarity indeed! In the last decade, we’ve only managed to come together like this twice.

Every step I took, every corner I turned, brought back a flood of memories. The streets, the shul, the houses—so much nostalgia at every turn. Being back, all together, in the city of our childhood, surrounded by the familiar sights and sounds of our upbringing … it made that 16-hour flight all worth it!

Johannesburg, with its vibrant energy and warm community, holds a special place in my heart. It’s the only place in the world other than Israel that has a special blessing from the Lubavitcher Rebbe that things will be good there until Moshiach arrives! The Chabad community, in particular, is thriving—a testament to the power of faith and resilience.

The whole trip was an opportunity for my siblings and me to reconnect on a deep level. We went out to eat, had Shabbat dinner together, danced the night away at the wedding, spent time with our parents, and visited childhood landmarks. We stayed up late into the night, sharing stories, laughing, crying, fighting, and reminiscing about old times …

We’re all grown up now, with separate lives, families, challenges, joys, and struggles. We all have our unique talents and skills, and we try to utilize them to the best of our abilities.

My oldest brother is a hand surgeon in Israel, highly devoted to his patients. My youngest brother is a Chabad rabbi in Houston, Texas. My sisters all live in South Africa and my other brothers live in Palm Beach, Florida and in Flatbush.

But despite our divergent paths, our individual struggles, and our unique experiences, when we’re together, we find common ground. After all, we all come from the same parents, we were all raised in the same house, and as kids we all played, fought, and we grew up together. And when we gather around like this for a family reunion, we realize that we all share the same blood. So we bond over our shared heritage, our Jewish roots, and our family ties.

This experience parallels the story of our People. We are a diverse and complex nation, comprising 16 million individuals with varying opinions, backgrounds, and practices. We span the spectrum from right-wing to left-wing, Reform to Orthodox, and everything in between. Some attend synagogue regularly and others do not. Some observe Shabbat, others do not. Yet, despite our differences, we are all part of the same family.

As recorded in this week's parshah, we are all descendants of a common ancestor, united by our shared experience at Mount Sinai. We received the Torah together, as one people, and we are still bound by that sacred covenant. We read how G-d descended upon the mountain, where we stood, united, like brothers and sisters, willing and eager to accept Him as our ruler.

That unity remains our strongest weapon. So let us pray and make every effort to remain united, because only then will we merit the Final Redemption and the ultimate reunion with our people, with Moshiach, and with our Holy Temple.

A Wake-Up Call: Under Cyber Attack

Thursday, February 6, 2025 - 1:45 PM

Monday morning started like any other, but at 5am my peaceful morning routine was disrupted by a shocking discovery. I opened my email inbox to find hundreds of thousands of emails pouring in—and I mean pouring! The notifications kept coming, overwhelming my phone, like a never-ending tidal wave.

It quickly became clear that our organization was under cyber attack. Our website (www.belevechad.nyc) had been targeted, and the attackers were exploiting our email subscription feature. Every time someone subscribes to our email list, we receive a notification, but in this case, the subscriptions were coming in by the thousands–per minute!

I was stuck. I couldn’t work, because I needed to access my emails which were buried under a constant flood of subscription notifications, and our IT department was sound asleep at 5am, so there was nobody to talk to on our end.

All I could do was watch as my inbox grew fuller and fuller and fuller.

At 7am, our IT team sprang into action, but it took time to pinpoint the source of the attack. When the flow was finally stemmed, it took me an hour just to delete all the hundreds of thousands of emails.

Eventually, we traced the IP address to Libya. It was a coordinated effort, and the attackers were relentless. The reason behind the attack? Our organization's support for the brave men and women of the IDF.

We are proud to fully support the most moral and just army in the world—the ones who protect our freedom and our country. Apparently, this makes us a “bad organization” in the eyes of the attackers.

The experience was daunting, but we refused to back down. Our IT team worked tirelessly to block the attackers and restore our website to normal. It took a full day, but we emerged stronger and more determined than ever, and we fortified our system with stricter measures to prevent a repeat attack.

The Baal Shem Tov taught that everything we encounter or experience contains a lesson for our service of G-d. But what could possibly be the lesson from waking up at 5am to a flood of nonsense messages in a coordinated attack by people wanting to slow down our good work?!

The hackers were trying to slow us down, so our response needs to be an acceleration. More positivity, more beauty, more encouragement, joy, peace, and gratitude. And, of course, more mitzvot.

So go out today and invite someone to your Shabbat dinner. Message your favorite rabbi and let him know you’ll be in shul on Shabbat morning. Email a wounded soldier letting them know how much we love and appreciate them. Put on tefillin, take a selfie, and post it to your family or friend chat—you might inspire others to join you!

These are the kinds of messages we should be sending to counter all the nonsense and hatred in the world. You’ll not only be counteracting the spam, but creating a ripple effect of positivity that can inspire and uplift others, helping us reach the ultimate and final redemption and the coming of Moshiach.