12-18 Shevat, 5778 - - 28 January - 3 February, 2018

12 Shevat

• In some Sefardic communities collections would be made to provide the poor with fruit for Tu B'Shevat

13 Shevat

• Yahrzeit of Rav Boruch Sorotzkin (d. 1979) Rosh Yeshiva of Telshe Cleveland. He was the second generation leader of the Yeshiva in its American incarnation, and descended on both dsides from earlier leadership of the Yeshiva. He took a very active role in advocating for Orthodox Jewry on the national and international stage. His death at age 62 was a great loss.

14 Shevat

• Yahrzeit of the P'nei Yehoshua (d. 1757) one of the primary Achronim on the Talmud.

15 Shevat

• Beginning of the Fiscal Year for the tithing of fruit, as well as the new year for eating fruit from four-year-old trees. This is NOT a Day of Judgement for trees.
• Many have the custom to eat fruit on this day; some seek out specifically fruits from Israel.
• Wood for the altar in the Temple would begin to be cut down on this date.
• There will be a total lunar eclipse (which can only occur when there is a full-moon, the 15th of a Hebrew month) visible in parts of North America and Asia.

16 Shevat

• Yahrzeit of Rav Shalom Mordechai HaKohen, Maharsham (d. 1911). Author of Daas Torah an important commentary on Shulchan Aruch and other Halachic works.

17 Shevat

• Purim Sargosa. The Purim of Saragossa was established in the year 1440, fifty- two years before the Jews were exiled from Spain. In the city of Saragossa, Spain, the Jews were ordered to appear at a public reception honoring the king with all of the Torah scrolls of the community.
  The rabbis of the community decided that it would be safer to remove the Torahs from their cases, and were sure that the king would never know the difference. Unfortunately, there was a Jew in the community named Marcos who was a rebel and a troublemaker. He went to the authorities and betrayed the rabbis' plan, citing the Jews' disrespect for the king as the reason for not bringing the actual scrolls. The king was furious at this slight and ordered the Jews to open the cases at once. A terror fell upon all the Jews, for the punishment for disobeying the king was the most severe, but they had no choice but to open the cases. They were completely amazed and dumbfounded when they saw that all of the cases contained Torah scrolls.
  What they could not have known was that the previous night, the caretaker of the synagogue had a dream in which the prophet Elijah appeared to him and ordered him to replace the scrolls in their cases. The dream was so vivid that the caretaker did as he was instructed, but he had no time to inform the rabbis of his action. The king saw that the Jews were innocent; the accusation was baseless. He ordered the informer put to death for his false accusation. To commemorate their redemption, the rabbis established a special Purim to be celebrated throughout the generations on the 17th and 18th of Shevat.

18 Shevat

• Yahrzeit of Rav Beinish Finkel, Rosh Yeshiva Mir, Yerushalaim (d. 1990). I had the honor of meeting him on a couple of occasions, you could not find a friendlier, more down to earth, person.

27 Teves - 4 Shevat, 5778 -- 14-20 January, 2018

27 Teves

• Yahrzeit of Rav Shamshon Refael Hirsch (d. 1889) champion of German Orthodox Judaism, and author of classic commentary on Chumash as well as important works on Jewish thought.
• Megillas Taanis says that after King Yannai killed out almost the entire rabbinate his brother-in-law, Shimon ben Shatach debated the Sadducees in the presence of the king. On this day, they capitulated to his wisdom.

28 Teves

• Yahrzeit of Rav Shmuel Barenbaum (d. 2007), Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivas Mir in New York. I was privileged to meet him and speak to him on a number of occasions. He was a throwback to an earlier generation and truly dedicated his life to Torah, never allowing himself to get pulled into politics. An extremely friendly man he always had a smile on his face.

29 Teves

• Purim Burghul, observed on the 29th of Teves by the Jews of Tripoli, celebrated the city’s release from the reign of terror of Ali el-Jezairli, who was also known as Ali Burghul.

1 Shevat

• Some have the custom to eat fruit on this day as it is the New Year for the trees according to the opinion of Bais Shammai
• Yahrzeit of Rav Moshe Yechiel Halevi Epstein (d. 1971), Chassidic rabbi who lived much of his life in New York. Author of B'Er Moshe an important Chassidic commentary on Chumash, as well as Aish Dos which unfortunately has been out of print for many decades.

2 Shevat

• Yahrzeit of Rav Ephraim Greenblatt of Memphis (d. 2014) best known as the author of numerous volumes of response entitled Rivivos Ephraim.

3 Shevat

• There is a tradition that teaches that: ו' יהיה ג' שבט שלג גדול יהיה וקר (the first letters of each word spell out ויגשforward and backward). That when the third of Shevat is on a Friday there will be a lot of snow and cold that year.
• Yahrzeit of Rav Yaakov Yeshaya Blau (d. 2013). He was a banker who was a great Halachic authority. He wrote many books on Halacha and was letter a member of the Bais Din of the Eida HaCharedis. My favorite amongst his works is Bris Yehudah on the halachos of interest which deals with many modern day issues.

4 Shevat

• Yahrzeit of Rav Yechiel Yaakov Weinberg (d. 1966), best known as the author of Seridei Aish and as principal of Hildessiemer's Seminary in pre-war Berlin. A very original thinker whose personal life was marred by tragedy.
• Yahrzeit of Rav Yisroel Abuchazeira, known as the Baba Sali (d. 1984) a Moroccan kabbalist.

20-26 Teves, 5778 -- January 7-13, 2017

20 Teves

• Yahrzeit of the Rambam, Rabbi Moshe ben Maaimon.. Arguably the most important scholar since the redaction of the Talmud 1500 years ago. He is most famous for his codification of Jewish Law in his Yad HaChazakah as well as for authoring Moreh Nevuchim, The Guide for the Perplexed, his exploration of Jewish belief.

21 Teves

• Yahrzeit of Rabbi Matzliach Mazous. Orginally from Djerba, he studied in Tunis where he was later appointed to be a religious judge and subsequently founded a Yeshiva. In 1971 he was assassinated by Arabs as he was walking to shul.

22 Teves

• Purim Fürhang (Curtain Purim):
  Festival enjoined on his family by Ḥanok b. Moses Altschul of Prague, to be observed by it annually on the 22d of Ṭebet in remembrance of his deliverance from the hands of a tyrant. In 1623 damask curtains were stolen from the palace of the governor, Prince Lichtenstein, during his absence from Prague. In compliance with an order from the custodian of the palace an announcement was made in all the synagogues of Prague that any one having the stolen goods in his possession should turn them over to the sexton. Thereupon a Jew, Joseph b. Jekuthiel Thein, delivered the curtains to Altschul, at that time sexton of the Meisel Synagogue, Prague, stating that he had bought them from two soldiers. Vice-Governor Count Rudolph Waldstein, who was in charge of the affairs of the provincial government, demanded that the buyer be named and delivered to him for punishment; but as the congregational statutes forbade the naming of receivers of stolen goods who voluntarily had given them up, the sexton refused, and, in consequence, was thrown into prison, an order being issued to hang him on the following day. To save his life Altschul, with the permission of the president of the congregation, revealed the name of the buyer, whereupon Altschul was set free and Joseph Thein was sentenced to the gallows in his stead. All the efforts of influential Jews to effect his release proved futile, but finally through the efforts of a prominent Christian and upon the intercession of the city councilors Count Waldstein released the prisoner on the condition that the congregation pay a fine of 10,000 florins. In order to humiliate the Jews he further ordered that this money, divided into ten equal parts, be paid in silver coin and carried in linen bags by ten prominent Jews escorted by soldiers through the streets of Prague to the city hall. of the Purim of the Curtains"), and made it obligatory upon all his descendants to read the scroll annually on the 22d of Ṭebet, on which day he was liberated, and to observe the day by "feasting and giving thanks to God for his salvation. Altschul recorded the event in a scroll entitled "Megillat Pure ha-Ḳela'im" 

23 Teves

• In 1705 the governor of Tunis laid siege to Tripoli in Africa, devastated the environs, and threatened to destroy all the population if he should enter the town. Fortunately, the plague broke out suddenly among his followers, and the siege was raised. Hence the rabbis instituted the Purim Sherif on the 23rd of Ṭebet. The populace call it "Purim Kidebuni" (= "the false") to distinguish it from the Purim of Esther 

24 Teves

• Yahrzeit of Rav Naftali Katz (d. 1719) Rabbi of Posen and then of Frankfurt on Main. Author of Smichas Chachomim.
• Yahrzeit of Rav Shneur Zalman founder of Chabad Chassidus. (d. 1813)
• In 1837 an earthquake devastated the Galil killing thousands. 
• Yahrzeit of Rav Shmuel Bornstein, Rebbe of Shochotshov, author of Shem MiShmuel a Chassidic work on Chumash which is very profound and written in a style which makes it relatively accessible to those unfamiliar with Chassidic works.
• Yahrzeit of Rav Eliyahu Dessler (d. 1954), mashgiach of Gateshead Yeshiva and later Ponovez. Grandson of Rav Yisroel Salanter and author of Michtav M'Eliyahu and important work of mussar.

25 Teves

• Yahrzeit of Rav Yissachar Meir (d. 2011), Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivat HaNegev (Azata).

26 Teves

• Fifth Yahrzeit of Rav Shlomo Brevda. Influential speaker and Mashgiach and elucidator of a number of works of the Gaon of Vilna.
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