| Today is: Wednesday, Adar II 24, 5771 · March 30, 2011
• Blood Libel Declared False (1817)
On Adar 24, Czar Alexander I of Russia declared the Blood Libel -- the infamous accusation that Jews murdered Christian children to use their blood in the baking of matzah for Passover, for which thousands of Jews were massacred through the centuries -- to be false. Nevertheless, nearly a hundred years later the accusation was officially leveled against Mendel Beilis in Kiev. Link: a brief history of the blood libel; the Beilis affair
"I am a stranger and a resident amongst you" (Abraham to Ephron the Hittite, Genesis 23:4). The Jew is a "resident" in the world, for the Torah instructs us not escape the physical reality but to inhabit it and elevate it. At the same time, the Jew feels himself a "stranger" in the material world -- his true home is the world of spirituality, holiness and G-dliness from which his soul has been exiled and to which it yearns to return. Indeed, it is only because we remain stranger" that we can maintain the spiritual vision and integrity required to reside in the world and sanctify it as a "dwelling for G-d."
- The Lubavitcher Rebbe
Chitas and Rambam for today: | 
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