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30 Shvat 5778 - February 15, 2018 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
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NEWS
Letter from HaRav Yitzchok Zilberstein about Fireworks

The original letter
LettFirewrks

To the Honored Residents of our City:

HaGaon R' Chaim Falagi, one of the great figures of the Jewish people of two centuries ago, wrote in his work, "Moed Lechol Chai" that the use of fireworks comes from the goyim and it is not fitting for our people in any place and at any time to do so, and whoever does is guilty of, "You shall not do like their actions."

Even if it is not powerful enough to kill, even if it is something that only makes noise, if employed very suddenly, it brings fear and trembling upon a person. Surely it is not proper for the Jewish people to behave thus in any place or at any time, even on Purim, in any form, large or small. We should have no part of it.

It should be known that the use of firecrackers of any kind not only harms the environment but does even more damage to the user himself. We are familiar with the incident of a very gifted student who, after Purim, suddenly lost his power of concentration. He was taken to all kinds of specialists but no one was able to pinpoint the problem until one time, the student himself said that shortly before, he used a large firecracker on Purim and a woman lost her unborn child through fear and shock, and since then he suffered from lack of focus in his study.

We told him that this was the cause of his problem, as the Midrash Bereishis Rabba comments on the posuk, "And Hashem put a sign upon Cain": Rav says that he made him a mark for murderers, in other words, Cain became restless of spirit and wandered from place to place. And so it happened across the coming generations that whoever performs an act like that of Cain and murders a person will end up wandering from place to place and find no solace for his soul. It is therefore necessary for him to repent completely in the hope that Hashem will see and have mercy upon him.

We told him that the primary manner of teshuva is for him to go and teach and tell [his story] over to other children so that they see and understand, until this scourge be uprooted from our midst.

*

Dear parents: have pity on the souls of your children and do not let them use any form of fireworks or explosives which is a practice of the goyim, so that the mark of Cain not be engraved upon their foreheads. Endow them with the tools of Am Yisroel, which is mishloach manos, gifts for the poor and Purim feasting, so that they rejoice with the happiness of a mitzvah.

With wishes for a Purim somayach with true simcha,

Yitzchok Zilberstein

 

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