Rabbi Shaanan Gelman

  On Yom Kippur of 1981, Rabbi Morton Yolkut z”l, Rabbi of Congregation Bnai David in Detroit, wistfully related his wish or fantasy- that shul should be as full on a regular Shabbos morning as it was that day. A woman named   Tilly Brandwine was listening, and decided to act. Reaching out to the entire membership, and unbeknownst to the Rabbi, she picked a Shabbos when no simcha was happening and encouraged everyone to attend.   “This must be kept a secret from only one person - Rabbi Yolkut,”   she declared.   The article in the Jewish Post and Opinion acknowledged this small yet significant event, reporting that on Saturday, December 19th, 800 people packed the sanctuary.   Those 800 people understood something that is alluded to in this week’s Torah reading.   The Talmud tells us that our forefather Yaakov established the prayer of Maariv. As darkness fell over the road on which Yaakov was traveling, he felt an overpowering sense of holiness, and a deep need to pray. ויפגע

  Having traveled through hundreds of miles of desert, and having buried loved ones along the way, enduring impossible heat and ravaging disease almost 15,000 Ethiopian Jews arrived in Sudan to await a transport to Israel in Operation Solomon, the third and final rescue operation to transport Ethiopian Jews to the Holy Land. Over the course of 36 hours, non-stop flights of Israeli aircrafts, both military and civilian vessels, whisked them to safety to join their brethren in the Eternal Jewish homeland. In order to accommodate all the passengers, the seats in all these aircraft were removed; one flight, an El Al 747, transported 1,088 people, a figure that made it into the Guinness Book of World Records. On the same flight, two babies were born. Consider for a moment that many of these Jews lived previously in rural districts, and had never laid eyes on an airplane before. Daniel Gordis cites an interview with one of these passengers, who was asked how he had the courage to step on