See Pages 3 & 5 SeeSee Page XX $1.00 WWW.5TJT.COM VOL. 11 NO. 2 9 TISHREI 5771 !vcuy vnh,j rnd SEPTEMBER 17, 2010 INSIDE FROM THE SOUTH SHORE AT THE SEA SHORE EDITOR The Sin Of Silence Dr. Rafael Medoff 21 BY LARRY GORDON Joseph’s Tomb Repaired Israel’s David Ha’ivri 41 New Year The Religious Clock Shmuel Katz 44 As the Jewish New Year Fitness Boot Camp arrives, Israel can use several Warren Levi 54 important gifts to help navigate the way through a host of crises Remembering 9/11 that lie ahead. The first difficulty Rabbi Sol Appleman 65 is the diplomatic quagmire that Israel finds herself wedged in as a result of maneuvers by mostly the United States to allow President Obama to declare vic- The Pre-1A and kindergarten children of YOSS listened to Rebbi Eli Herzberg talk to them about “throwing their tory in finally creating a long- aveiros (sins) away.” Rebbi Eli shared a story with them while they took a closer look at the incredible creations of Hashem all around them at Grant Park in Hewlett. See Page 82 Continued on Page 16 REMEMBERING THE HEARD IN THE BAGEL STORE YOM KIPPUR WAR Risky Business Met Council holiday food BY LARRY GORDON David is a longtime friend distribution. See Page 86 with an extraordinary mind that BY DAVID BEDEIN tance of the land that G-d has He’s easy to talk to and under- stretches in a multiplicity of given to every Jew. To arrive in stand, and only after schmoozing directions. He understands the Turning 60 two weeks ago, Israel in 1970 was to experience for about half an hour does one world markets with an ease and on the day that marked the 40th a nation which experienced come to grips with how David comfort that few enjoy. And at anniversary of my arrival in some kind of “post-miracle trau- Martin, a resident of Lawrence, the same time he has, through Israel, provided an appropriate matic stress syndrome.” has, over a long and illustrious years of work, built himself into pause for reflection. After all, In 1970, three years after the career in finance, overseen and a respected Torah scholar who there is the tradition that a Jew Six Day War, there was a post- successfully administered bil- awakes in the middle of the is reborn upon arrival in Israel, lions of dollars for the compa- when he assumes the inheri- Continued on Page 10 nies he’s worked for. Continued on Page 14 New Year’s With Rav Nachman Where Is DISPATCHING Assemblywoman Pheffer looks Greg Meeks? in on YDT. See Page 86 THE GOAT B Y RICHARD ALT ABE B Y RABBI AVI SHAFRAN Election Day is just six weeks away, and Democrats every- One of the most remarkable where are trying to shore up elements of Yom Kippur in support from their constituents ancient times, when the Beis P in advance of what seems to be HaMikdash stood in Yerusha- h o t o B y the biggest Republican landslide layim, was the ritual of “the B o r u c h in decades. two goats.” E z a g u Locally, our incumbents have Two indistinguishable mem- i F o r Y W been unusually quiet. On the bers of that species were N Some 30,000 people from around the world gathered for Rosh Hashanah in Far Rockaway side of Route 878, brought before the Kohein the city of Uman in the Ukraine at the kever of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov. Ohel’s Camp Kaylie. See Story, Page 52 Continued on Page 8 Continued on Page 5 See Page 64 CANDLE LIGHTING Sept. 17 – 6:42 PM Sept. 22 – 6:34 PM 2 September 17, 2010 5 TOWNS JEWISH TIMES 5 TOWNS JEWISH TIMES September 17, 2010 3 FEATURES Around The Five Towns 55 P.O. BOX 690 LAWRENCE, NY 11559 516-984-0079 Aliyah Chronicle [email protected] [email protected] Shmuel Katz 44 LARRY GORDON ESTA J. GORDON Publisher/Editor Managing Editor Ask The Sensei Warren Levi 54 YOSSI GORDON, YOCHANAN GORDON Sales Managers Classified Ads 78 CHANA ROCHEL ROSS Editorial Assistant The Dish SIDI BARON Elke Probkevitz 29 YAKOV SERLE Sales Representatives Five Towns Simcha SHMUEL GERBER MICHELE JUSTIC Only Weddings 87 Chief Copy Editor Copy Editor Submitted by Usher Frankel 75 CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Hannah Reich Berman, Anessa V. Cohen, Rabbi Aryeh Z. Ginzberg, Yoni Glatt, Insights On The Torah Toby Klein Greenwald, Rabbi Yair Hoffman, R’ Ben Tzion Shafier 35 Rabbi Mordechai Kamenetzky, Shmuel Katz, R’ Naftali Silberberg 41 Phyllis J. Lubin, Esther Mann, Rochelle Miller, Elke Probkevitz, Rabbi Avrohom Sebrow, Letters To The Editor 47 Rabbi Avi Shafran, Rabbi Ben Tzion Shafier, Rabbi Meir Orlian, Eli Shapiro, Ari Sher, Luach 15 Samuel Sokol DOV GORDON, ELISHEVA ELEFANT MindBiz Staff Graphic Artists Esther Mann, LCSW 34 IVAN NORMAN, IRA THOMAS Staff Photographers Mother’s Musings FRANKEL & CO. Phyllis J. Lubin 40 Design & Production TALIYE CORLEY Real Estate Art Director Anessa V. Cohen 32 The Five Towns Jewish Times is an independent weekly news- paper. Opinions expressed by writers and columnists are not That’s The Way It Is! necessarily those of the editor or publisher. We are not Hannah Reich Berman 30 responsible for the kashrus or hashgachah of any product or establishment advertised in the Five Towns Jewish Times. 4 September 17, 2010 5 TOWNS JEWISH TIMES Dispatching The Goat imperative; it is, in the end, artificial. are beholden to something greater. And And so the sending off of the Azazel- Continued from Front Cover Only if there is a Creator in the larger the counter-goat, which finds its fate in goat could be seen as an acknowledge- picture, can there be ultimate import to a desolate, unholy place, would then ment of the idea that sin’s roots lie in Gadol, who placed a randomly-pulled lot human life, placing it on a plane mean- allude to the perspective of life as the madness born of our self-doubt. And on the head of each animal. One lot read ingfully above that of mosquitoes. pointless, lacking higher purpose or those who witnessed its dispatch might “to G-d” and the other “to Azazel”—the The Torah, of course, is based on the meaning. well have been spurred by that thought name of a steep cliff in a barren desert. foundation of—and in fact begins with It’s not an unthinkable speculation, to then turn and consider the other As the Torah prescribes, the first goat an account of—a Divinely directed cre- especially in light of how the Azazel-goat goat, the one sacrificed in dedication to was solemnly sacrificed in the Temple, ation; and its most basic message is the seems to be described by the Torah—so G-d. So stirred on the holiest day of the attention given to every detail of the meaningfulness of human life. Most of us strangely—as carrying away the sins of Jewish year, they might then have been offering; the second was taken to the cliff harbor a similar, innate conviction. the people. able to better commit themselves to re- and thrown off, dying unceremoniously Yet some resist that innate feeling, The traditional Jewish commentaries embracing the grand meaningfulness before even reaching the bottom. and adopt the perspective that what we all wonder at that concept. Some, includ- that is a human life. Some moderns might find the fates of can perceive with our physical senses ing Rambam, interpret it to mean that the We may lack the two goats ritual both goats troubling, but there are depths is all that there is in the end. The appar- people will be spurred by the dispatching today, but we can certainly try all the to Jewish rituals of which they don’t same to absorb that eternally timely dream. thought. O I lay no claim to conversance with those truly deep meanings. But ponder- © 2010 Am Echad Resources. Rabbi Shafran is Our existence is either a result of director of public affairs for Agudath Israel of ing the “two goats” ritual before Yom America. Kippur (and anticipating its recollection during the day’s prayer-service), a thought intent, or of accident. Either our occurs, and it may bear particular import for our times. There are two ways to view human lives are meaningful, or they are not. Submit your photo to the life, as mutually exclusive as they are fun- damental. Our existence is either a result 5 Towns Jewish Times! of intent, or of accident. And a corollary follows directly: Either our lives are ent randomness of nature, in that of the Azazel-goat to repent. meaningful, or they are not. approach, leaves no place for Divinity. If, indeed, the Azazel-goat alludes to You can upload your If the roots of our existence ultimate- It is not a difficult position to main- the mindset of meaninglessness, we ly lie in pure randomness, there can be tain; the Creator may be well evident to might approach an understanding of digital photos and see them no more meaning to good and bad those of us primed to perceive Him, the inspiration born of its dispatching. printed in the weekly edition actions than to good or bad movies; no but He has not left clear fingerprints on The animal’s being “laden with the more import to right and wrong than to His Creation. sins” of the people might refer to the of the 5 Towns Jewish Times right and left.