Rabbi's Blog

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Dear Shaare Family,

On Parshat Shelach of 5776, just about a year after I arrived in Dallas, I delivered a sermon titled “The Miki Mark Club.” It was about the beloved executive director of Yeshivat Torat Shraga, Rabbi Michael (Miki) Mark of Otniel, who was gunned down by terrorists in Judea and Samaria in the presence of his family, while driving a car with them all in it. In that sermon, I made reference to a video (which I can no longer locate) of students from Torat Shraga following Rabbi Mark around the campus, singing a multi-stanzaed song to the tune of the “Mickey Mouse Club” theme, extolling Rabbi Mark’s bravery, physical strength and all around excellence. Tragically, that week, the “club” Rabbi Mark actually joined was the one comprised of those who were killed al kiddush Hashem.  In 2019, another member of the Mark family, their older son Shlomi, a member of Israel’s top security forces, was killed in an accident. 

Whenever a family loses a child or a parent in battle rachmana litzlan, subsequent children are exempt from IDF combat duty, unless their parent(s) sign a waiver permitting them to do so. Pedaya Mark was deeply affected by his father’s murder, of course, and carried the pain with him. But he felt responsible to defend the Jewish people and the Jewish State, and insisted that he wanted to join a combat unit. His mother reluctantly signed the papers that authorized him to joined the Givati patrol, and during the recent commencement of ground actions in Gaza, Pedaya was killed. At his father’s funeral, Shin Bet Chief Yossi Cohen put his arms around Pedaya; this week, he attended Pedaya’s funeral, too. Chava Mark buried her second son just days after her sister buried her son, Elhanan, who was also killed in battle. The Job-like level of misfortune suffered by this family is too much to contemplate. Our thoughts are with the Mark family, and the families of 16 other soldiers who have paid the ultimate price since the beginning of the ground incursion into Gaza - a number that is as of this writing and that we pray does not increase. 

This Week’s MSOTW

Last Week’s MSOTW

Last week’s clue was:
The people who daven in this shul are watching the events unfolding in the north of Israel extremely carefully, because they have a long-standing connection to that region.
The Shul is Har Halebanon, a Sephardic Congregation in Brooklyn started by Lebanese immigrants, from the once vibrant and cosmopolitan Jewish community of Beirut.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Ariel Rackovsky