Rabbi Levin's Blog

  I start with a wish for a “Gut Moed,” a good and joyous holiday.  This is a greeting that many write at the top of any correspondence during Chol Hamoed, the intermediate days of a holiday, to acknowledge that we limit our work during this time, and even limit what we write, as laid out in the Code of Jewish Law.  I am writing these lines on Wednesday, under the influence of the news of the miraculous salvation of many Jews on the Flydubai flight.  I imagine that by the time you read this we will know many more details of the whys and hows, but one thing seems to be sure:  We have witnessed an open miracle.  Miracles don;t have to be splitting the sea.  There are many examples of Hashem tweaking nature in a way that seems natural.  But as we say in the story of Purim, when Mordechai and Esther each “happened to be” in the right place at the right time, and so many other great miracles, everything just “happened to fit” and people and things happ...