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January 10, 2019 at 9:29 pm
Parshas Bo has four distinct sections. The beginning of the parsha is the description of the final makkos building up to makkas bechoros. The Rambam writes that the story of Moshe confronting Pharaoh is a historical fact and simultaneously, it illustrates the struggles all human beings have between their yetzer horo and yetzer tov.
Pharaoh sees everything in Egypt has crumbled. All ancient societies built their economy on agriculture and animal power to produce wealth. Makkas borod and arbeh destroyed all the crops. In borod, all the animals were killed (besides those who feared Hashem and hid their animals inside shelters). So the economy, the food supply, has totally collapsed.
Pharaoh says he is letting the Jews go, but be careful—there are evil p...
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January 10, 2019 at 9:26 pm
This week’s Parshah discusses the very first mitzvah given to the Jewish nation: Kiddush HaChodesh, the Sanctification of the New Month (12:2). This mitzvah entails the Jewish court identifying the new moon via witnesses and consequently declaring exactly when the new month will commence.
What lesson is Hashem conveying to us by making this the very first mitzvah given to us as a nation? It must be to convey a very powerful message! What is it? Additionally, why was it given now, while the Jews were still in Egypt, and not at Har Sinai with the rest of the 613 mitzvos?
Mike was a world famous mountain climber. He had climbed the tallest mountains in the world, including the world's tallest mountain - Mount Everest. Mike’s close friend once asked him “Mike, what is ...
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January 10, 2019 at 9:08 pm
Jews the world over are asked to say Tehillim for the Skulener Rebbe, who is suffering from immense weakness and bouts of pneumonia but has been released from the hospital after being admitted to Cornell Medical Center yesterday.
The Rebbe, Rav Yisroel Avrohom Portugal, is one of the oldest admorim in the world. He is a son of Rav Eliezer Zusia Portugal zt”l, who founded the Sklulener chassidus, and resides in Boro Park, Brooklyn, where he leads his bais medrash on 54th street, near 13th avenue.
As is well known, in 1959 the Communists arrested the previous Rebbe and his son, the present Rebbe, for teaching Torah and for supporting and educating orphans. An international effort to free the previous Rebbe and his son was undertaken, and eventu...
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January 10, 2019 at 8:57 pm
From the inception of Moshe’s mission to extract the Children of Israel from the clutches of Pharaoh the king of Egypt, it seems that all he ever requested was a three-day reprieve.
When Moshe and the Elders first confront Pharaoh they merely report how The G-d of the Hebrews happened upon us. Let us now go for a three day journey in the Wilderness and we shall bring offerings to Hashem...(שמות ה ג)
Never once does Moshe assert the desire to remove them completely from the land of Egypt.
Throughout the entire story of the plagues the negotiations between Pharaoh and Moshe revolve around the issue of their leaving merely to serve offerings to Hashem in the desert.
Although initially refusing outright any notion of their taking a ‘break’, after the plague of frogs...
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January 10, 2019 at 8:29 pm
Every word, every letter in the Torah is used for a specific reason and purpose. We are reminded of this concept often through the teachings of Chazal where they will derive significant meanings from a word missing a letter, which it would customarily have (chaser), or a word having an “extra” letter - one which it normally would not have (maleh). The Gemarah goes even further and teaches us that Hashem told Moshe Rabeinu that not only were nekudos important but that one day, a great man named Rebbi Akiva will learn halachos out of the “crowns” written on top of the letters in the Torah (Menachos 29b). This idea is driven home quite clearly in Parshas Bo.
In this Parsha, we are deep into the maccos brought upon Pharoh for his stubborn ...
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January 10, 2019 at 8:16 pm
The new tax law, and in particular a new deduction aimed at small business owners, is making this income tax filing season more complicated than usual.
The deduction aimed at giving tax breaks to sole proprietors, partners and owners of S corporations allows many of them to deduct 20 percent of what’s called qualified business income. But which business owners can claim the deduction, and how much they can claim, involves a lot of interpretation and complex calculations, tax professional say.
Some tips for making this filing season a little easier:
— Get on your CPA’s calendar soon. Tax pros always advise clients to see them early in tax season, but it’s even more important to do so this year. CPA Steven Wolpow advises business owners to have those meetings by ...
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January 10, 2019 at 8:14 pm
Mayor Bill de Blasio proposed legislation on Wednesday that would require employers to provide paid vacation, making New York the first city in the nation to mandate this type of leave.
The bill would help the more than 500,000 full- and part-time workers who don’t get paid time off, and would guarantee such leave for 3.4 million employees citywide, the mayor’s office said.
“New Yorkers need a break,” Mr. de Blasio said at a news conference announcing the bill at City Hall. “If you work hard and you don’t get a break, that’s not fair. That’s not fair for the people who do the work, and that’s not fair for the families who never get to see them,” the mayor said.
Under the proposed legislation, companies and businesses with more ...
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January 10, 2019 at 8:11 pm
New York - One day after announcing a new initiative intended to provide city residents with additional paid days off so that they can spend more time with their loved ones, Mayor Bill de Blasio’s State of the City address opened with a narrative delivered by a Chasidic man from Borough Park and footage of him learning Talmud with his 12 year old son.
The nearly six minute long video was shown at the start of the annual speech, delivered this morning at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater at Symphony Space on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Highlighting the city’s diversity, the video showed several New York City families, including that of Alexander Rapaport, executive director of the Masbia soup kitchen.
Rapaport appears several times in the video, first with his son Nochum...
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January 10, 2019 at 8:11 pm
Washington - Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is looking at basing a potential 2020 presidential campaign in Troy, New York, a small upstate city on the banks of the Hudson River, according to multiple people familiar with the discussions.
The search for a headquarters is the strongest signal yet that the New York senator will soon enter a presidential race that could ultimately draw dozens of candidates. The selection of Troy, 150 miles (240 kilometers) north of Manhattan, could allow Gillibrand to highlight her roots in upstate New York, where she was born and later represented in Congress before being appointed to the Senate.
The sources spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. They cautioned that a ...
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January 10, 2019 at 8:10 pm
Las Vegas - Robots that walk, talk, pour beer and play pingpong have taken over the CES gadget show in Las Vegas again. Just don’t expect to find one in your home any time soon.
Most home robot ventures have failed, in part because they’re so difficult and expensive to design to a level of intelligence that consumers will find useful, says Bilal Zuberi, a robotics-oriented venture capitalist at Lux Capital. But that doesn’t keep companies from trying.
“Roboticists, I guess, will never give up their dream to build Rosie,” says Zuberi, referring to the humanoid maid from “The Jetsons.”
But there’s some hope for others. Frank Gillett, a tech analyst at Forrester, says robots with more focused missions such as mowing the lawn or delivering che...
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January 10, 2019 at 8:05 pm
Seattle - Amazon.com Inc shares see-sawed on Thursday as investors questioned how the impending divorce of company founder Jeff Bezos would affect his control of the most valuable company on Wall Street and its ambitious expansion plans.
Bezos, whom Forbes lists at the world’s richest person with an estimated $136.2 billion, said via Twitter on Wednesday that he and his wife of 25 years, Mackenzie, will divorce. Amazon shares were flat in midday trading on Thursday after spending most of the morning down slightly.
The split throws into question how the couple will split their fortune, which includes an approximately 16 percent ownership stake in Amazon’s roughly $811.4 billion market capitalization. Divorce laws in Washington state, where they live, hold that property acquire...
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January 10, 2019 at 8:02 pm
Mcallen, TX - Taking the shutdown fight to the Mexican border, President Donald Trump edged closer Thursday to declaring a national emergency in an extraordinary end run around Congress to fund his long-promised border wall. Pressure was mounting to find an escape hatch from the three-week impasse that has closed parts of the government, cutting scattered services and leaving hundreds of thousands of workers without pay.
Trump, visiting McAllen, Texas, and the Rio Grande to highlight what he says is a crisis of drugs and crime, said that “if for any reason we don’t get this going”—an agreement with House Democrats who have refused to approve the $5.7 billion he demands for the wall — “I will declare a national emergency.”
Some 800,000 workers, mo...
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January 10, 2019 at 8:00 pm
Washington - Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said Thursday that the central bank has the ability to be “patient” in determining when to hike interest rates.
Speaking to an audience in Washington, Powell delivered the same reassuring message of restraint and flexibility that bolstered markets last Friday.
Before those comments, investors had been sending stocks lower out of fears that the Fed would make a mistake and tighten credit too much, possibly sending the economy into a recession.
In his remarks before the Economic Club of Washington, Powell described the economy as strong at the end of last year, with the lowest unemployment levels in a half-century and solid gains in wages.
At the same time, Powell said there are concerns in financial markets about slowing gl...
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January 10, 2019 at 8:00 pm
Baltimore, MD - Jan. 7, 2019 - In the first aliyah (section) of Parshas Bo, Hashem tells Moshe that He hardened Pharaoh's heart. The Seforno explains that Hashem took away Pharaoh's ability to succumb to the physical pressures of the makkos, but left him with the possibility of recognizing Hashem's greatness and doing real teshuva (repentance). This significant feature is indicative of the way that we must relate to Hashem-learning from experiences and really transforming, rather than simply responding to pressure.
Click here to listen
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January 10, 2019 at 7:59 pm
Washington - Hundreds of furloughed federal employees chanting “We want our pay!” marched on the White House on Thursday, the 20th day of a partial government shutdown over U.S. President Donald Trump’s demand for border wall funding.
“Stop the shutdown!” protesters shouted in the bitter cold at the union-organized demonstration that started at the AFL-CIO headquarters and ended in front of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, where they hoisted signs reading “Trump: End the Shutdown” and “Not a strike - we want to work.”
Some 800,000 federal government employees have been ordered to stay home or work without pay during the shutdown brought on by a standoff between Trump and Democrats in Congress over Trump’s demand for $5.7 billion to bui...
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January 10, 2019 at 7:56 pm
A Borough Park couple is accusing Spirit Airlines of turning a trip to Florida into an anti-Semitic “nightmare” from start to finish — calling them “retarded” as the plane took off, harassing them throughout the flight, and having cops escort them off the plane after landing.
Chana and Yisroel Beck arrived at Newark Airport on Tuesday along with their 6-week-old, 2-year-old and 3-year-old daughters, eager to embark on their weeklong trip to Fort Lauderdale.
“It was our first family trip, a nice, beautiful vacation that turned into a traumatic experience — a nightmare from the way we were treated and how we were escorted off without being told what we did wrong,” Chana, 25, told The Post on Thursday.
She said a gate agent allowed them to ta...
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January 10, 2019 at 5:53 pm
Swedish furniture giant IKEA will open a new limited-stock store in Tel Aviv, the Globes business publication reported Thursday.
The report cited unnamed sources as saying that the store, which will be located at the Port of Tel Aviv in the city’s north, will sell kitchens and accessories but not the full range of the company’s famous self-assemble furnishings.
The Tel Aviv store will be the sixth IKEA in Israel, with branches in Netanya, Rishon LeZion, Kiryat Ata, and Beersheba, and another near the city of Bet Shemesh outside of Jerusalem currently under construction.
Read more at i24NEWS.
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January 10, 2019 at 5:53 pm
The House minority leader Kevin McCarthy calls out Democratic leadership for mischaracterizing the president’s behavior in the White house meeting.
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January 10, 2019 at 5:53 pm
Transcript of a hesped for Rabbi Chaim Yoel Feldman, Z'L, written by his daughter, Mrs. Aviva Orlian - read by her son, Shalom Orlian, at Rabbi Feldman’s levayah on 4 Teves, 5779.
During these past 2½ years since my father’s tragic fall and resultant brain injury I did a lot of gazing at the tall, strong and handsome man who gave me life. I gazed at the tall and strong father who enveloped me with love, guidance and Torah values for as long as I can recall… eich naflu giborim?!
I tried to see beyond the tubes, beneath the lack of cognitive skills, beyond the blank stares and instead focus on the man whose entire essence embodied kol haboreach min hakavod, hakavod rodeif acharav. Despite his tall physical stature, his stately and rega...
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January 10, 2019 at 5:43 pm
New York City Council approved a measure Wednesday to install GPS systems on school buses that will allow parents to use an app for tracking their children.
This comes after the sudden snowstorm in November left buses stranded in traffic for hours, and parents couldn’t reach their kids.
The legislation was named STOP, which stands for the Student Transportation Oversight Package. Along with the installation of two-way radio devices and GPS systems on school buses, the city will now be mandated to report bus times, delays and complaints.
All 10,000 city school buses are now required to install these systems by September. As of now, 6,000 are already equipped with this technology.
Read more at ABC News.
