Menasche Scharf
Friday, February 20
Friday, January 30
Irish Blessing (I want this back).
Thursday, January 29
WHAT WE OWE THE JEWS!!!! GREAT MESSAGE
Sunday, January 25
Monday, January 12
Je suis Juif
For the past two hundred and fifty years they and their parents, grandparents and great-grandparents tried to assimilate, integrate or ingratiate themselves in, with or by the European public.
The backlash came in many and varying forms and degrees: Dreyfuss, The Protocols, Nazism, Communism and - yes: Zionism.
The more the non-affiliated Jew has been attempting a dash across the divide, from the Jewish side to the ill-perceived Arian side, the more and the harder he felt the push in the opposite direction.
It has now reached a point where people who don't even know their Jewish DNA, are reminded about it - when they least expect it - by their neighbours, business associates or spouse... or from the most unlikely quarters: their offspring.
So far, nothing has worked; vilification, excommunication, naturalisation, extermination by the Goy or even exhortation by their well-meaning religious leaders (Heaven forbid were you to call them Rabbis!).
Now, with the sad happenings unfolding across Europe, barely seventy years after Holocaust, these ignorami still don't get it. Instead of looking inside, the way they live, what they expect from themselves and the nearly non-existent spiritual existence - they use a scapegoat (=So'ir laAzozel) one or all of the following scourges: Anti-Semitism, Islam, extremism or Nationalism.
Isn't it time to wake up and heed the cry that emanates from Sinai, day in day out: Oy lohem laBeriyoys me'Elbonah shel Torah - woe is to the people who belittle the holy Torah.
This clarion call, in the form of a Bas-Kol, is being proclaimed every day, since the time our Creator heralded an era of Torah, by which every Jew is supposed to live and die, with the knowledge that without the Torah, the world cannot exist.
By ignoring the inner call for making a fresh start, the diaspora is suffering from a double-pronged problem: On the one hand, the nations of the world cannot wait to be rid of the Israelites, having felt their presence for thousands of years. The problem was exacerbated in the past two centuries, when emancipation brought the downtrodden Jewish masses out of the Ghetto's onto the mainstream scene.
To add fuel to this conundrum, these so-called enlightened Jews, have abandoned hope of ever welcoming Moshiach - the anointed redeemer - when their non-Jewish neighbours have been waiting to see them gone since the French, industrial and communist revolutions.
Meanwhile, the ultra-Orthodox community, who as a people in exile have been praying for the Geulah in the past millennia.
With the recent killings in Paris, the paradox has come to haunt them: whilst their religious brethren have been waiting for such an opportunity since the destruction of the second Temple, these intelligentsia - who have no plans to move eastwards any time soon - are now being 'invited' by their long-time partners in crime, the Zionists, to come live in 'Israel'.
To illustrate the anomaly of the way Jewish people have been living on the edge, let's do some statistics:
How many people made Aliyah since 1948
Monday, December 8
A Jew is always a Jew, no matter how much you denigrate him - he will not kill for the sake of killing!
My Holocaust Revenge
I made a vow: If I survived Buchenwald, I would return and kill the mayor’s wife.
Friday, November 21
מהשם מצעדי גבר כוננו ודרכו יחפץ HASHGOCHOH PROTIS
One of the Mispallelim in the Shul where the attack happened needs someone to drive him to Shul every morning, as he’s very old. On the morning of the horrible events, he called a Taxi but was told that they will only have one in half an hour. He tried another taxi company but the same answer was given. He decided to try and flag a taxi off the road and so took his Zimmerframe and hobbled down to the street. By the time he reached the road he realised that by now the Minyan would be up to Yishtabach and so there was no point going there as he won’t catch the Amidah anyway. Only after he heard the noise from the emergency vehicles and some news started flooding in, did he realise why no taxi company had a car available for him.
Tuesday, November 18
תורה חסה על ממונם של ישראל!
Questions with questionable answers...
If a deaf person has to go to court, is it still called a hearing?
Why do we press harder on a remote control when we know the batteries are flat?
Why do banks charge a fee on "insufficient funds" when they know there is not enough?
Why does someone believe you when you say there are four billion stars, but check when you say the paint is wet?
Why do they use sterilized needles for death by lethal injection?
Why doesn't Tarzan have a beard?
Why does Superman stop bullets with his chest, but ducks when you throw a revolver at him?
Why do Kamikaze pilots wear helmets?
Whose idea was it to put an "S" in the word "lisp"?
What is the speed of darkness?
Are there specially reserved parking spaces for "normal" people at the Special Olympics?
If the temperature is zero outside today and it's going to be twice as cold tomorrow, how cold will it be?
If it's true that we are here to help others, what are the others doing here?
Do married people live longer than single ones or does it only seem longer?
Do you cry under water?
How is it that we put man on the moon before we figured out it would be a good idea to put wheels on luggage?
Why do people pay to go up tall buildings and then put money in binoculars to look at things on the ground?
Did you ever stop and wonder......
Why do toasters always have a setting so high that could burn the toast to a horrible crisp, which no decent human being would eat?
Why is there a light in the fridge and not in the freezer?
Why does Goofy stand erect while Pluto remains on all fours? They're both dogs!
Can blind people see their dreams? Do they dream??
If corn oil is made from corn, and vegetable oil is made from vegetables, then what is baby oil made from?
If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons? - (not Zuma, that's for sure)
Why do the Alphabet song and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star have the same tune?
Stop singing and read on . . . . . . . . . .
Did you ever notice that when you blow in a dog's face, he gets mad at you, but when you take him on a car ride, he sticks his head out the window?
Does pushing the elevator button more than once make it arrive faster?
Do you ever wonder why you gave me your e-mail address in the first place?
Friday, November 14
Hashgochoh Protis V
Bournemouth, חשון תשע"ה
They were nine Yidden and the time to start שחרית arrived. It didn't look like there will be a מנין any time soon as it was Thursday, when most of the Shabbos visitors were still out of town.
But I am getting ahead of myself; let's start from last year:
London, אלול תשע"ד
But I am getting ahead of myself - again; let's start from the beginning:
Meir and Malka were privileged to live in Eretz Yisroel and to top it off the Rebbe lived in the same apartment block. With time they became like close family, with Meir milling with the Gaboim and Malka becoming part of the extended family. When they decided to leave the holy land they kept up the קשר for some time but soon this was also a distant memory.
On the morning that this story happened – a good twenty years later - Meir was looking for a מניןand when he was told at the Normandie hotel that there isn't one on the premises, but he should be able to find one down the road, a walk of about five minutes. He followed the instructions and soon noticed an open door.
Whilst he was approaching the house where the Rebbe - by now a son of his old neighbour - the Gaboim started to despair as the clock stroke eight and this meant they will be late. Suddenly they saw a man in his seventies with a Tallis bag tucked under his arm walking in and nonchalantly enquiring about a מנין. Short of jumping through the roof they welcomed him with such joy peppering him with an array of questions in fast-fire fashion: "Meir! How on earth did you drop in here?!", “how did you find us?!” and the like.
The Master Planner arranged it so that old Meir and Malka should come to town Punkt when they were needed
Thursday, October 23
ShabbatUK Parshas Noach
Tuesday, October 7
ShabbatUK
ShabbatUK is just around the corner, (or just the other side of Sukkos, to be precise).
Two question you need to answer:
b) You will be able to give them a non-restricted experience of how it feels to be with Frummers, without too many strings attached...
Hashgochoh Protis IV - השגחה פרטית
Monday, September 29
Trouble for London
Siyum on Seder Mo'ed
From: menasche scharf <menasche.scharf@gmail.com>
Date: 18 September 2014 09:57
Subject: Siyum on Seder Mo'ed
To: JT <mar@jewishtribune.com>
Daf Yomi participants are eagerly looking forward to completing Seder Mo'ed, which is nearly a third of the Daf Yomi cycle.
Thursday, September 11
Trouble for London
11/09/2014 9:16 Finsbury Park shows a delayed 9:14 train due to arrive. I don't rush as whatever the case I will be late. When I reach the platform I skip all the steps up to catch the train that I hear pulling into the station. I ignore the ticketing barriers and opt for the open gate, risking the raised eyebrows from staff and travellers alike. I find a seat in the full train at the far end of the carriage, puffing and panting from the short sprint up the flight of stairs. The lady sitting diagonally opposite me eyes me with obvious concern and from the corner of my eye I am already visualising her grabbing her mobile phone to be on the ready if there is a need for an ambulance. . .
Finally I can breathe normally and I start noticing that the train hasn't departed the station yet. There is an announcement over the PA system to the effect that the delay was caused as they are looking for a driver bla bla...
The saving of five minutes that I was hoping to get by taking the Welwyn Garden City train to New Southgate has just been shaved...


