Berit Milah Songs Sing of the Ge'ula

Great Berit Milah Songs:


1)

יהי שלום בחילינו

where the chorus is:

בסימן טוב בן בא לנו - בימיו יבא הגואל

2)

אערוך מהלל ניבי

where part of the song is:

זָכוּר לְטוֹב יָאִיר נֵרִי יְבַשֵּׂר צִיּוֹן עִירִי
וְיֹאמַר הִתְנַעֲרִי מֵעָפָר קוּמִי שְׁבִי

3)

יבוא הגואל

(I never heard of this one, but the whole song is about the Ge'ula)

4)

ברוכים אתם
וּבְיָמָיו נַעֲלֶה לְשָׁלֹש רְגָלִים
גְּדוֹלִים וּקְטַנִּים לְבֵית יְיָ
...
זְכֹר רַחֲמֶיךָ וְדַם הַבְּרִית וּפְקֹד אֶת צֹאנְךָ צֹאן הַשְּׁאֵרִית
עַל יַד מְשִׁיחֶךָ מָשִׁיחַ בֶּן דָּוִד וּשְׁלַח אֶת אֵלִיָּהוּ נְבִיא יְיָ

On this fourth one, see the comments there:

אומר המדרש: ואומר לך בדמיך חיי, ואומר לך בדמיך חיי. ר' אליעזר אומר, וכי מה ראה הכתוב שני פעמים בדמיך חיי, אלא אמר הקב"ה, בזכות דם ברית מילה ובזכות דם פסח נגאלו ממצרים, ובזכות דם ברית מילה ובזכות דם פסח אתם עתידים להגאל בסוף מלכות רביעי
(פרקי דרבי אליעזר, כ"ח)

There are many more songs I didn't mention.
Let me conclude with a Tefillah from the first song above:

בסימן טוב בן בא לנו - בימיו יבא הגואל

Funeral of Albert Bitton Today

Today is the funeral of a Jewish boy who served as a U.S. soldier in Iraq.
Read:
Yeshiva World's report
Chicago Tribune article
ABC7 article and news report video
Chana's touching tribute

הי"ד

New Baby Boy in the YY Family!

בע"ה
With total gratitude to Hashem Yitbarach, and of course, to my dear wife, my wife gave birth to a baby boy on Shushan Purim Katan. B"H, my wife and the 9 lb. 10 oz. (!) baby are doing fine.

The baby's 3 older brothers and 1 older sister are so proud.

Quake!

Har Habayit and Shechem got hit.

Shechem - city of Yosef. Yerushalayim - city of Yehuda.
I hope this symbolizes that Yosef and Yehuda are coming together.

Yishmael should know that its time in Israel is very limited.

See also Nava's blog about it.

Making Aliya Me'Ahava vs. Aliya Miyir'ah

Much has been written about the benefits of making Aliya in times of peace over fleeing to Israel as a refugee from unfriendly governments around the world.

Wise people have been warning that the latter scenario could happen in the United States one day, while there are always nay-sayers who say it could never happen.

What do the nay-sayers say after reading this story?

Report Advises Jews To Avoid UC Irvine

(IsraelNN.com) A local task force has advised Jewish students not to enroll at the University of California's Irvine campus "until tangible changes are made" to combat growing anti-Semitism. The Newport Beach and Costa Mesa Daily Pilot reported that a community task force stated, "The acts of anti-Semitism are real and well documented. Hate speech has been unrelenting. There is no indication that the university is at all concerned about the disconnect between campus values and the values of the greater society."

The State Department issued a report two months ago that the university does not discriminate against Jews, but the task force's report, based on interviews with faculty, students and local residents, asserts that "Jewish students have been harassed" and that faculty members cannot speak out against anti-Israel speakers because of the pressure to be "politically correct."

Here's the original article.

Can you even imagine in our day and age saying "Don't go to that school - they're anti-semitic."? Well, it's happening.
Is it limited to college campuses? So far, pretty much. Can this anti-Jewish sentiment be stopped in its tracks? We hope so, but we'll have to wait and see.
However, we cannot trust in America. As much as I have Hakarat Hatov to America, I cannot trust it. Even the US Dollar says "In G-d We Trust".

אין לנו על מי להשען אלא על אבינו שבשמים

Asking G-d to Hurry

In the Amida prayer, we use words with the root "מהר" (meaning quick) 6-10x (depending on the various versions of the text):

• 1 in גאולה (acc. to נוסח ספרד, there are 2 in גאולה¹):
  

  ומהר לגאלנו גאולה שלמה

• 1 in תקע בשופר²:
  

  וקבצנו מהרה יחד מארבע כנפות

• 1 in השיבה שופטינו³:
  

  ומלך עלינו מהרה אתה ה' לבדך

• 3 in ברכת המינים:
  

  וכל אויבך וכל שונאיך מהרה יכרתו ומלכות הרשעה מהרה תעקר ותשבר ותכלם ותכניעם במהרה בימינו

• 2 in בונה ירושלים⁴:
  

  וכסא דוד עבדך מהרה בתוכה תכין ובנה אותה בנין עולם במהרה בימינו

• 1 in את צמח:
  

  את צמח דוד עבדך מהרה תצמיח

• 1 in רצה³:
  

  ואשי ישראל ותפילתם מהרה באהבה תקבל ברצון

No matter what our Nusah is, let us pray that the redemption will come at least 10x as fast.

-----
Footnotes:
1. The נוסח ספרד text is ומהר לגאלנו גאולה שלמה מהרה למען שמך. The נוסח אשכנז text is וגאלנו מהרה למען שמך.
2. Some early Sephardic Siddurim had יחד מהרה מארבע כנפות, which many Kabbalistic rabbis did not favor for it broke up the holy name ח-ב-ו (made up of the second-to-last letters of the words יחד מארבע כנפות). Therefore, many Sephardic Siddurim (such as the Iraqi ones) omit the word מהרה altogether here, as does Nusah Ashkenaz and Nusah Sepharad. Others get around the problem by placing the word מהרה before the word יחד, as is displayed above.
3. Nusah Ashkenaz omits the word מהרה here.
4. Nusah Ashkenaz and Nusah Sepharad have a drastically different Nusah for this blessing. The order of the phrases is different, and the word במהרה is replaced by the word בקרוב.

Chronology

Ketz Meguleh has a wonderful series of posts on how chronology fits in with our current calendar system, and how it affects us today.

It's worth reading through them all:
Daniel 9
On The 163 Year Discrepancy
When was Adam HaRishon Born?
Rambam on the Year Count
Commentary on Rambam
Rambam - Why Don't We Count Yovel?
Yovel Count of Rebbi Yehudah (also see the first comment)
Galut Bavel in Tanach
Recent Yovels
If more posts are added in this series, I'll BL"N add links to them.