The previous shabbat to Chag Purim, is called Shabbat Zachor. During the morning service Moroccan Jewish Communities use to say “SHIR KAMOCHA”, composed by YEHUDA HALEVI ZTL (1075-1141).
Born in Tudela, Rab Yehuda Halevi ZTL lived in many different parts of Al Andalus and was a disciple of Rab Isaac Alfasi ZTL, the RIF (1013-1103), who lived in Eli Hossana (Lucena).
Rabbi Yehu Halevi lived in Toledo, where he composed several poems, one of them is the SHIR KAMOCHA. The Poem follows an alphabetic structure, where each verse begins with a letter of the Hebrew Alphabet, beginning in “Aleph” and ending in “Taf”. However we see that the letter “Reish” is repeated. Listened this morning from Rab Chayim Maman about this curious fact.
It seems that during the writing of this Poem, Rab Yehuda Halevi was seeking Shidduch for his daughter, and he propose to his wife that the next single to approach them was going to be their future son-on-law. A person came home, but he was extremely poor, but his looking did not say he could be a Torah person, but Rab Yehuda Halevi told to his wife he was going to instruct this young men to deserve their daughter and Talmid Chacham. They could never figure that the person under that looking was Rab Abraham Ibn Ezra ZTL.
How did Rab Yehuda Helevi detect that hi future son-in-law was a so big person? During the writing of the Poem Shir Mi Kamocha, Rab Yehuda HaLevi stops just before writing the verse starting on “Reish” letter. When Ran Abraham Ibn Ezra wrote the next verse, and Rab Levi kept it but add his verse too.
The Poems ending with verse starting with the Acronym of “ANI YEHUDA” (I am Yehuda).
What is Marzipan? For those of you who still dont know marzipan, let me tell you that you are loosing a great opportunity of tasting an incredible dessert. Marzipan consists of a pastry made up of Almonds (60%) and sugar (40%) and some honey. It is sold in small pieces drawing figures, and there are some other varieties of it depending of what do they fill inside. It could be natural (no filling), with egg yolk pastry, sweet potatoes jam, pumpkim jam and some others.
Dudi Sela dropped last Friday in the quarterfinals of the tournament in Shenzhen against Alexandr Dolgopolov. The Israeli was down 6-3 in the first set before winning the second set 6-4. At the start of the last set, Sela gave up after realizing that he would not finish his match before the start of Yom Kippur. The 77th world player had asked to play the game earlier in the day to be able to respect the fast, but his request was not respected. Sela preferred the Torah to tennis but as a result, he will be deprived of points in the ATP ranking and the amount that was to be attributed to him for his course ($ 34,000).
The Spanish music uses to come with a guitar, but this guitar is extremely enhanced when the hands of Master were playing it.
The First Mitzvaton took place in Madrid, in 2009, ten years ago, when the Jewish Community of Madrid (CJM) decided to organize a day to involve anyone belonging to this beautiful Congregation to participate on any of several proposals in order to accomplish mitzvot, meaning performing actions dedicated to help your community, environment or any other area of our day to day life.
The Alcala Gate (La Puerta del Alcalá) is one of the most visited and iconic monuments in Madrid. Located in Plaza de la Independencia and just in front of the main entrance to Parque del Retiro (Retiro Park), this monument is the remaining of the Walls around city during the Kingdom of Felipe IV (Phillip IV) from 1625 to 1868. These were not defensive walls, but essentially served for fiscal and surveillance purposes: to control the access of goods to the city, ensure the collection of taxes, and to monitor who went in and out of Madrid. The materials used for construction were brick, mortar and compacted earth. From the arquitechtonical point of view it has a very singular construction as both sides are different.
Those people visiting Madrid las weekend had opportunity to visit the Chocolate Fair (CHOCOMAD), a place for Chocolate lovers.