by Rav Avi Heller, JLIC Boston U.
Topic: Nadav and Avihu Redux,
This week's Weekly Dose of Torah was generously sponsored by Ron and Jennie Offer and family.
There's an old (and unflattering) joke that a Rabbi a priest and a minister were arguing about how to distribute a certain sum of charitable donations. The minister suggested that they draw a circle on the ground and throw the money up in the air. Whatever landed outside the circle would go to the poor and whatever landed inside the circle would be divided into the accounts of the church and synagogue. . .
The New York Times, on April 8, 1 897 reported that park policeman Foley arrested a Rabbi Wechsler - though Rabbi Klein escaped - who had illegally convened a crowd of several hundred Jews in Tompkins Square to say the blessing on the sun. Reported the Times: "Rabbi Klein's knowledge of English is slight, while Foley's faculties of comprehension of matters...are not acute. The attempt of a foreign citizen to explain to an American Irishman an astronomical situation and a tradition of the Talmud was a dismal failure." The paper concludes by saying that "the new sun" service had been conducted in this country for 180 years, or since 1717. In 1897, it would have been the 203rd cycle of the sun. Now, we are entering the 207th.
Read more. . . .