יום שלישי ט' באדר ב תשפ"ד 19/03/2024
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  • The Mission Continues

    As in the past so it remains today - we were and still are under the selfsame commitment to adhere to the directions of the Gedolei Yisrael, who stand guard against breaches of purity threatening our camp. When we were required to ask – we asked. When we were instructed to depart – we left. The moment we are summoned back to raise the flag, every other consideration is pushed to the side and we answer: We are ready!

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בראי היום

  • Harav Yisrael Friedman zy”a, the Rebbe of Husyatin

    מוטי, ויקיפדיה העברית

    The ancestral chain of Harav Yisrael Friedman, the founder of the Husyatin chassidic court, originates with the holy Baal Shem Tov. The Husyatin chassidus has its roots in Galicia and eventually came to Tel Aviv, during the turbulent years between the two World Wars.

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  • Maccabi'im Gravesite

    In honour of Chanukah, we will discuss a fascinating, ongoing investigation attempting to establish the place of burial of Mattisyahu Kohen Gadol and his family.

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In News

The Mission Continues

As in the past so it remains today - we were and still are under the selfsame commitment to adhere to the directions of the Gedolei Yisrael, who stand guard against breaches of purity threatening our camp. When we were required to ask – we asked. When we were instructed to depart – we left. The moment we are summoned back to raise the flag, every other consideration is pushed to the side and we answer: We are ready!

Etrog 11/02/2010 11:34

Dear friends and site visitors

Three years ago we took upon ourselves a mission. We - the owners of the website, the investors, the management, editorial staff, journalists and writers - decided to shoulder a mission that was both challenging and far from simple. To stand at your service – you, the Chareidi website visitors, and provide a website rich in content, varied in its news coverage and Jewish postings, and mainly – clean, filtered and refined. 

Above and beyond all, our constant guideline was an unquestioning submission towards the opinions of the Gedolei Yisrael, who bear the yoke of guiding our people in these turbulent times. Albeit with no written criteria, we made every effort to direct our operations according to their hallowed judgment. We committed ourselves to abide by the spirit in which religious newspapers have been written since times gone by, and to provide today’s rapidly changing technological world with a precious corner of untainted news - in the pure spirit of our Mesora, with no distortion or perversion.

Two years of hard work behind the scenes, and a year of submitting content to you, were cut off in an instant. Cut off in the sense that work in the office and on the screens of the writers and editors ground to a halt – but not from the point of view of the mission that we undertook at the outset. That remained with us even then: a mission which we bore with strength and pride, especially then.

Especially then, when we were presented with a test that would reveal our true loyalty to that very mission. It was not an easy test, this we won’t hide from you. But despite the enormous sums of money that had been invested, despite the tireless work and the sense of accomplishment that resounded in each of us as we worked – despite all this, the decisive words of the Gedolei Yisrael shlita tipped the balance.

Our mission continued with the very act of closing the website, just as it existed when the site was up and running. It continued silently, but with might and strength. We are inseparably bound to the voice of ‘Daas Torah’, and that is what defines our activities at any given moment.

And right now, my friends, the mission continues. A glorious chain joins one link of our mission to the next. With the opening of ‘Tog’, our new website which will soon become one of your favourites, the mission we originally undertook is not being renewed nor is it starting afresh – because it has been with us all along, guiding us forward.

Any subject related to the internet, by its very nature involves understandable reluctance of all Jews everywhere. In truth, the area of journalism itself is also subject to its own lack of clarity with regards to its place in Jewish Chareidi society. Those who are truly ‘Chareidi l’dvar Hashem’ (armed with a religious zeal) have always averted their eyes from public billboards and news announcements. Not just because of the indecent content that characterizes most of them, but because of the very notion of involving themselves in the vanities of the world – matters that are so far from their own elevated lives.

But the Gedolei Yisrael of recent generations, whose penetrating eyes gazed far into the distant future, saw and understood that it was imperative to ‘take the spear from the hands of the Egyptian’, so to speak, and use it for the elevation of our people. They were the ones who encouraged the concept of Jewish news reporting, so that the unwary should not stray into foreign pastures...

Amongst these were the Admor Rebbe Yehoshua of Belz in Galicia; Rabbenu Yitzchak Elchanan of Kovno in Lithuania; Rabbi Yaakov Etlinger, Rav of Altona and author of the ‘Aruch LaNer’ in Germany; the holy Imrei Emes of Gur, and the Chafetz Chaim on behalf of Agudas Yisrael. In our times too we were blessed with the foresight of personalities such as the Beis Yisrael and the Avi Ezri (HaRav Shach), who understood with their great Torah wisdom that the time has come to ‘do for Hashem’.

Throughout history our nation has found itself in many diverse situations – both individually and as a nation on the whole. In fact the Baal HaTurim points out that in four different circumstances the Jewish nation was called by the collective term ‘Atem’ – all of you: ‘Take for yourselves straw’; ‘You saw what I did to Egypt’; ‘You are all standing here today’, and ‘You are My witnesses, says Hashem..’

In each of these four situations the nation found itself in markedly different circumstances. On the one hand – as lowly slaves in Egypt, and on the other – as free men witness to the most wondrous miracles. Then we stood together as one nation including Judges, scholars, wood-choppers and water drawers alike; and it is especially this collectiveness that brings to a point where we are called ‘My witnesses’.

Today more than ever we find ourselves divided into many diverse classes. There is the ‘upper echelon’ of society, those who toil arduously in the tents of Torah with hearts full of devotion to their Creator – for them, neither a newsflash nor a headline will pull them away from their Gemara for a moment. Then there are those who struggle daily for their livelihoods, and require information that can only be obtained from secular sources such as newspapers - or the Internet. There are a third cast who have no particular care in mind, but they are from holy stock and even whilst they’re casually pursuing vanity, they prefer to do so in a permissible way as opposed to treading through prohibited minefields.

This is precisely where we stand – where our vital role plays its crucial function. We chose to stand at the forefront of the battle for the heart and soul of Jewry, to hearken to the call and provide all who seek it a pure source of information whether in news, finance, Jewish concepts and general subjects. ‘So that all will know that even here’ – on the Internet, a place loaded with filth just as Egypt was – ‘Hashem is G-d, and there is none besides Him’.

The only but most existential change in our present role, is the fact that from here on there will be no area whatsoever in which we will rely on our opinions alone; we will confer with the Gedolim and Rabbanim on every matter. They are the ones who determined the script until now and instructed us to continue, and they are the ones who stand at our side constantly and will bear the responsibility for the standards of the website. And we will try, G-d willing, to be the pillar of fire that lights up the night.

Together and with pride, we join forces and continue our vital mission. ‘In their light and following their path...’

(We intend to have our English website up and running towards the end of next week , be'h, and look forward to being of service to our loyal readership once again.)