By the Grace of G-d
Thank you all for your concern in response to the news stories and alerts regarding the Jewish/Israeli travelers and institutions in Thailand.
As always, we prioritize the safety of our community. We work closely with Thai police authorities to implement robust security measures, especially during heightened security concerns like this week. Security guards are stationed at all Jewish institutions, and we have significantly increased security protocols across all our branches in Thailand.
May God watch over and protect all of Am Yisrael in Eretz Yisrael and anywhere they may be in the word.
Rabbi Dovi Deutsch of Chabad Koh Phangan and Thai police issued a statement this week regarding security measures at Chabad Koh Phangan.
Dear Friend,
I was a witness to Jewish history at the beginning of this week.
In Oslo Norway a new Chabad House was opened in a stately, iconic and beautifully renovated building in the center of town.
Chabad of Norway's new home
I was privileged to participate in the opening ceremony and give a speech at the Shabbat services.
There is a saying in the Torah that ‘one should not deviate from local custom’. (Of course not if it clashes with Jewish Halacha law).
We see it in this week’s Parsha when the angels disguised as men come to visit Avraham and they partake of a sumptuous meal. Why do they eat if they are angels? The Talmud answers that this teaches us the rule of not deviating from common local practice. They adopted the local practice. Human beings eat. When the angels came in the guise of humans they too (feigned as if they) ate.
What did I do in Norway that was the custom of the place?
Let me tell you about my sauna/fjord dip.
There is a Scandinavian tradition to dip into the chilly waters of the fjord (a deep narrow ocean inlet) after warming up in the adjacent sauna. The temperature now is around 7 degrees Celsius.
I figured that the traditional custom engendering heightened spirituality of periodic mikva immersion for men blended well with the local Nordic culture of taking a cold plunge.
I had heard many a tale of heroic women keeping the foundational mitzvah of family purity even when conventional mikvahs were not available. My wife’s grandmother shared tales of life in Soviet Russia where immersion took place in frigid and freezing underground mikvahs, oceans or lakes.
Many Chassidic men took icy plunges in rivers in Russia to keep the tradition of tevilah immersion.
The weather in Oslo mid-November, was not nearly as cold as the Russian winter so the cold plunge in Oslo was not daunting.
A couple of us banded together to rent a private little floating sauna on the fjord. We warmed up the sauna, it got very hot, and then we took a quick plunge into the freezing waters.
Outside the fjord in Norway
We came out refreshed physically and spiritually.
Of course, we recognized that we were not at all brave or tough.
It was quite a simple thing, once feeling boiling hot in the sauna, to jump briefly into the cold waters.
Let me repeat that.
It is not difficult to jump into the frigid waters after warming up in a sauna and returning to a warm indoors. It is entirely different than the valiant dedication of the Jews who broke the ice to immerse and had to brave the freezing outdoors before and after their immersion.
This is a paradigm for life.
Before you go out into the cold make sure you warm up your insides so that the you can withstand the cold until you get back to a warm environment.
This is why in Jewish tradition one sends one’s children to Torah day and high schools, to be immersed in Torah study for the formative years of their life. After getting ‘hot’ and ‘inspired’ in the cocoon-like holy environment of the hall of Jewish study, prayer and practice one is buttressed with the faith and conviction needed to be able to go out into the ‘freezing’ ‘faith-challenging’ mundane world.
In our annual calendars we have Shabbat and Chagim that provide us with holy infusions and ‘protected space’ so that we can then emerge into material existence and impact them with holiness without being compromised.
Daily we also ‘warm ourselves up’ before going out into the ‘cold’. We pray, put on Tefilin, study Torah at the beginning of the day to inculcate our minds and hearts with connection to Hashem. Once fortified by this introduction to the day, we can then go out and ‘take on the day’ in the bustling marketplace of life.
This juxtaposition – warming up in a sauna before entering the cold fjord waters – was the heart of my experience over the weekend I spent in Oslo celebrating the opening of the new Chabad House in Oslo.
The building itself is a protected building as it was built in 1850 by a well-known architect.
Providentially, the year 1851 is the year that it became permissible for Jews to live in Norway since the ban prohibiting Jewish residence in Norway was instituted in 1687.
We attended the local Oslo Synagogue on Shabbat. Ate our Shabbat meals at Chabad House. A ribbon cutting ceremony by the donors at the Chabad House on Sunday early noon.
And as a grand finale, a festive dinner and Jewish Unity concert with Jewish superstar Benny Friedman at the Thon Hotel later in the evening.
Clip of energy of the Jewish Unity Concert
With all of this action, Norway is still not one of the major international hubs of Jewish life.
Yet, though the local Jewish community is quite sparse, their spirit is alive and vibrant. The Jewish pride and enthusiastic energy that I witnessed among the Jews of Norway at these inaugural events was uplifting and inspiring.
The singer said that the concert he put on in Oslo was more spirited than the ones he does in NY. In NY he has to work much harder to ‘wake up the crowd’, while in Oslo they were literally raring to go with gusto and amazing energy.
This celebration of Jewish life provides the internal warmth needed to be able to go out into the world as a minority in number but steadfastly Jewish in identity, spirit and most importantly in Jewish practice.
Think of it like a spiritual sauna. It is analogous to getting fired up and toasty hot in a spiritual sauna of Jewish communal celebration and pride.
This is a unique time we are living in. Never did we expect to face such rabid anti-semitism on college campuses, in major European and American cities and in social media.
Our enemies recognize us wherever we are. If we are going to get called out for being Jews, let us embrace the specialty of it.
It behooves us to embrace our identity as Jewish people, G-d’s ambassadors to the world.
Study Torah. Do more Mitzvahs.
Feel empathy and kinship with all of our brothers and sisters throughout the world, and especially in Israel.
And remember to get toasty hot and inspired by participating in as many happy, joyous, pride-filled Jewish events as you are able. In person, on zoom, via any medium that you live life.
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Yosef Kantor