Updates
This page lists new material that has recently been added to the web site. My deepest gratitude to readers and contributors!
“Rebbe R' Pinchas spoke of the physical reality of millions of parallel worlds, long before it meant anything in physics or math. There is a word from him where he says that he believes with full faith that there are worlds that are now at every stage of creation, including some where the Maamad Har Sinai (Reception of the Torah) is happening right now.”
Contributed by: Yosher Dovor 5⁄20⁄2008
Added to: Part 2, On the Immanence of G-d
Updated: 5⁄21⁄2008
“Rebbe Pinchas of Koretz taught that a holy spark falls and burns inside a Ger. It compels him to complete his Geirus and actually does not give him any choice in this matter. Only after his Geirus is the Ger given free choice.”
Source: Imrei Pinchas, Shaar Toras Adam, 79
Cited at A Simple Jew
Added to: Part 2, On Faith
Updated: 5⁄21⁄2008
I am pleased to announce …
Although the original intention of this web site was simply to make the teachings of R' Pinchas and R' Raphael accessible to readers of English, the functionality of the site has now been expanded to serve readers of other languages as well. On each page, at the upper right corner, is a selection box for the Google Translate tool. If your primary language is not English, you can select another language, and the text will be translated automatically by a computer program. Although the translation may be inaccurate and incomplete, I hope it will nevertheless increase the usefulness of this site. Unfortunately, Google Translate does not yet offer translations into Hebrew or Yiddish, but I hope that these languages will be available sometime in the future. If you try this feature, I would be interested in receiving feedback about it (see Readers' Comments page for contact information).
Commenting on the verses “… the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath … for in six days Y-hweh made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested” (Shabbat Vayhinafash, Exodus 31:16 and 31:17), R' Pinchas said: “‘He ceased [finished His work], and He rested.’ He ceased, and sadly, a soul (Nefesh) was lost. I heard [this explanation], in the name of Rav Shlomo of Hessen (of blessed memory): the difficulty is that this verse ought to be recited at the end of Shabbat and not on the evening of Shabbat. Moreover, why recite it in a harmonious melody? He explains this by saying that a person who is totally sick no longer feels pain. But for a person in good health who has pain in one of his limbs, all the other limbs feel this particular pain. And a man, who, on all the weekdays, is sick in all the “limbs” of his soul, feels nothing—for the same reasons. But on Shabbat, as he begins to recover, he feels great pain in his sick soul, because during Shabbat he began to feel a sense of holiness (Kedusha), and he knows that a soul was lost and now feels the pain of his illness.”
Source: Imrei Pinchas HaShalem, vol. 1, Shabbat
Contributed by I.P. Weisz, translations by I.P. Weisz (French) and S.K.S. (English), 6⁄13⁄2008
Added to: Part 2, Shabbat⁄Holidays
Updated: 6⁄15⁄2008
A photographic account by Rabbi Judith Z. Abrams of her trip to the cemetery and the mass grave in Tarashcha in 2008 can be seen at http:⁄⁄www.maqom.com⁄aug6_
2008.html.
Added to: Part 3, Tarashcha
Updated: 8⁄17⁄2008
Bershader descendants: please see the recent additions to the Readers' Comments page, 5⁄22, 8⁄27, and 8⁄29⁄2008, for some sources of genealogical information.
I would love to hear from other descendants of families from Bershad or Tarashcha!
Added to: Readers' Comments
Updated: 8⁄29⁄2008
