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This letter is being sent to those of you who live in NY and those outside of NY. For those of you who live outside NY please forward this letter and Evelyn's press release to your friends that you think can perhaps attend. The date is Joseph's birthday. This is not simply any old cruise. It is one of major significance given the serious humanitarian and security crisis that we are experiencing today in the Land of Israel. It is possible to make a statement and stop the evil. It just takes individuals like yourselves that don't believe this is a lost cause. There will be political officials and press at the event.
This cruise is a statement about our Mother Rachel and her son Joseph. Many, many years ago Egypt became the wealthiest country due to Joseph. Egypt and the surrounding countries sold all they owned in return for food that only Joseph had in Egypt. Joseph sustained them.
Joseph left the Land of Israel at age 17 when he was sold by his brothers. He lived in Egypt till he died at the age of 110. He served Egypt from the age of 30 as viceroy, only second to Pharaoh. Yet on his deathbed what does he command his children? In Breishis Perek 50 Pasuck 24 Joseph says to his brothers. "I know that G-d will remember you and take you out of this land and bring you up to the Land that He promised to Avraham Yitzchok and Yaakov. (25) And Joseph made the Bnei Yisroel swear saying G-d will remember you and you should bring up my bones from this."
Joseph represents the Diaspora Jew. Yet all of Israel uses Joseph for their traditional blessings to their children. They bless their children to grow up like Joseph's children who were born and bred in the Diaspora in Egypt. (see Genesis Chapter 48 Pasuk 20) (And he (Yaakov) blessed them on that day saying whoever comes to bless his sons will bless them with their blessing. A man will tell his son "May G-d make you like Ephraim and Menasheh"..Rashi.) In spite of the surrounding culture of Egypt steeped in idolatry, Joseph made sure that his children knew who they were and who their roots are and Yaakov himself asserted that Joseph's children are no different then Yaakov's children that were raised in the Land of Israel in Yaakov's house insulated from an alien culture..
If your priority is stopping future expulsions, then Rachel's tomb is right up there. Joseph is extremely significant. Even without a large Jewish resident population in Bethlehem, it's significance to our Nation is beyond words. Attending this cruise is making a statement about the Diaspora Jew and that we too are linked permanently to the Land. The fight for Kever Rochel is the same as the Commemoration of Gush Katif. It's important to let the gov't know that people care and that we collectively will do whatever we can to stop this ongoing tragedy.
If you can't come personally, send, email to whomever you can. We need to present a united front. Gush Katif, Hebron, Rachel's Tomb, Joseph's tomb in Shechem and the communities in Samaria. It's all the same battle.
Please do what you can to make this cruise a momentous one.
for more information Shemittah Rediscovered
Thank you Batya for posting!
ReplyDeleteYou're Invited to a major display of affirmation of Ima Rachel, a role
ReplyDeletemodel for the whole world and Kever Rachel, the 3600 year ohel of Rachel
Imeinu visited by Jews across the world. Join RCRF on Monday evening June
26 for a evening cruise to the Statue of Liberty and celebrate the joy of
Rachel on Yosef's birth. Bring flashlights as we affirm our roots and to
spotlight the cause for Rachel's tears for her children exiled from Gush
Katif and those suffering barrages of rockets on their schools, businesses
and homes in Sderot, Alumim and Ashkelon today. Open mike for your Rachel
and immigrant stories. DVDs, Carlebach Songfest with Laible Ben Moshe,
Glatt Kosher Buffet, wine, your birthday, anniversary, graduation cakes.
Don't forget the cameras as we anchor under the brightly lit Statue of
Liberty which welcomed refugees to the New World. Remember, it is Rachel
Imeinu who welcomes us ancient Jewish people back
to our Old Biblical land which many of our brethren never left.
Rachel Imeinu, Mother of Israel
by Evelyn Haies, President Rachel's Children Reclamation Fdtn, RCRP
718-648-2610
60 West End Avenue, Brooklyn NY 11235
(c)2006
After conquerring the Temple Mount in 1967, HaRav Shlomo Goren marched with
his troops to Kever Rachel.
An Arab came towards him from the fields below and returned the giant key
to the door added in 1841 by Sir Moses Montefiore
with permission from the Ottoman empire. The Gorens have this key until
this day.
As the soldiers came upon isolated Kever Rachel, they fell down on
the ground and cried. Some said they saw Rachel Imeinu hovering over them.
When we first put the mezzuzahs on the walls of our new house adjoining
Kever Rachel, which my son David who is in Givati and HaRav Benny Elon
placed on the wall with HaRav Shmuel Rabinowitz standing by, a picture
shows a clear elegant bust of a woman glowing on the wall. This was the
first mezuzzah put on a Jewish home since the re-occupation of Kever Rachel.
After the passageway to our building where Nachum Segal was
pictured was destroyed following a visit by Mofaz and Ehud Olmert, we were
denied passage as it was claimed unsafe. Soldiers were no longer housed in
our very large basement because the ground floor windows were exposed. When
we came to examine our house Beit Bnei Rachel and took pictures with IDF
officials, in the picture there is a vague white feminine image floating in
the air above, much like the artwork of Baruch Nachum of Kiryat Arba, who
gave me a picture of Kever Rachel in a Torah scroll with the Moshiach
blowing a shofar overhead at our Torah ceremony in 1998.
From Kever Rachel, HaRav Goren and his troops went on to liberate
the Holy City of Hevron, a city also embraced
and supported by Sir Moses Montefiore during the Ottoman occupation. His
diaries record that there were three yeshivas and 489 Jews living in Hevron
in 1865 including the Slonims and Shneersons.
The Sefer Torahs of our foundation, Rachel's Children Reclamation
Foundation is in the Aron Kodesh built by HaRav Goren with stones from the
Mount of Olives which is in the room of the Kever. Rabbanite Goren was a
1998 awardee of RCRF
to honor her husband's attachment to Ima Rachel. It is her Kever in Beis
Lechem, the House of Bread, that is the spot of her burial from 12 stones
to four pillars to a single room to the two rooms and the expanded facility
of this day. This development of Kever Rachel is displayed on the wall of
Beit Bnei Rachel, the place that houses a yeshiva, weekly women's learning
groups and will develop a Museum of Jewish Aliyah with contributions of
Jews across the globe. We are collecting histories, stories, your aliyah story.
After the reclamation of Beis Lechem in 1967 occupied by Jordan
for a brief 19 years, Prime Minister Levi Eshkol ordered the annexation of
this area including Kever Rachel. This was never renegged but ignored as is
the Amendment to Oslo II , September 28, 1995 protecting 29 Jewish holy
sites with the complete Jewish control of Kever Rachel, Kever Yosef,
Shalom Synagogue and Hebron forever.
Join RCRF on Rosh Chodesh Tammuz and celebrate the birthday of
Yosef Hatzaddik and the eighth anniversary of our dedication of a Sefer
Torah for Rachel Imeinu in Beis Lechem as well as the anniversay of the one
year anniversary of the Sefer Torah dedicated for our house Beit Bnei
Rachel on Derech Chaya Rachel, Beis Lechem, now housed in the Aron Kodesh
built by HaRav Goren and soon to be permantly in our Beit Bnei Rachel.
Call Evelyn Haies for details and reservations 718-648-2610. Volunteers and
sponsors needed. The larger the group the lower the rate.