The Fourth Plague; The Plague wild animals

14/03/2013 – ד׳ בניסן ה׳תשע״ג – ד׳ בניסן ה׳תשע״ג – 00:59

Rats in Iran, Passover Plagues in Progress,

From the International Business Times of 20 Feb 2013 – Tehran, the capital of Iran, is battling an invasion of “genetically mutated” giant rats.

By Umberto Bacchi February 20, 2013 13:08 GMT https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/iran-rats-tehran-snipers-mutated-437326

Iran has sent in sniper teams to clear Tehran’s streets from the massive rodents weighting up to five kilos plaguing 26 district of the Iranian capital, the city’s environmental agency said.

“They seem to have had a genetic mutation, probably as a result of radiations and the chemical used on them,” Ismail Kahram, Teheran city council environment adviser and university professor Ismail Kahram told Qudsonline.ir.

Passover Rat Plague

“They are now bigger and look different. These are changes that normally take millions of years of evolution. They have jumped from 60 grams to five kilos, and cats are now smaller than them.”
The “mutated rats” have been running rampant in the capital, as cats are scared off by their giant size and traditional poison appear to have no effect on them.To stop them storming of restaurants’ backyards and scavenging public waste containers, the council has deployed ten snipers teams armed with infra-red sighted rifles.”We use chemical poisons to kill the rats during the day and the snipers at night, so it has become a 24/7 war,” the head of the environment agency, Mohammad Hadi Heydarzadeh, said.Rats’ carcasses are burnt or buried in lime.So far 2,205 rats have been shot dead, but the war is far to be won and the council is planning to bring the snipers team up to 40.

Valses nobles et sentimentales_Maurice Ravel

By Staff | Posted in The Bird Cage Liner Gazette | Tagged Giant Rats in Iran | Comments Off

The 8th Plague; The Plague of Locusts

07/03/2013 – כ״ה באדר ה׳תשע״ג – כ״ה באדר ה׳תשע״ג – 02:17

The 8th Plague; The Plague of Locusts

locusts

Oye Como Va – Carlos Santana

Plague of locusts hits Egypt

Roi Kais 03March2013 https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4351644,00.html

Swarm comprised of some 30 million insects descends on Cairo and agricultural farms in Gaza; experts say authorities ignored UN warnings

A plague of locusts descended Saturday on agricultural farms in Giza and on Cairo. Egyptian Agricultural Minister Salah Abad Almoman said the swarm is comprised of an estimated 30 million insects and was causing great damage.

In Cairo, residents burned tires to create a black fog to keep the locusts from settling in the city. Swarms were also reported to have reached Egypt’s Red Sea city of Zafarana, some 200 kilometers (124 miles) from Cairo, and then the Upper Egyptian city of Qena where locusts appeared in at least three major villages.

The Al-Ahram daily reported that since January, swarms of the insects – originating from Sudan – have been spotted along the Red Sea coast in south-eastern Egypt, north-eastern Sudan, Eritrea and Saudi Arabia.

In 2004, Egypt witnessed one of the most serious locust infestations in recent history, when farmers in 15 out of the country’s 27 governorates suffered extensive crop damage. The Egyptian Ministry of Agriculture issued a statement saying it had set up task forces to deal with the locust plague.

A professor at Cairo University’s Faculty of Agriculture said the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations warned of the locust danger last November, but the Ministry of Agriculture dismissed the warnings as rumors and refused to examine the issue.

Professor Nader Nur al-Din claimed that over the past few months he had also warned the ministry of the locust threat.

By Staff | Posted in Life in Jerusalem | Tagged Pesach, The Plague of Locusts | Comments Off

Getting ready for Pesach

07/03/2013 – כ״ו באדר ה׳תשע״ג – כ״ו באדר ה׳תשע״ג – 00:54

Getting ready for Pesach

Cat dusting and Vacuuming

Pesach – Preparation for The Geula

We are all about to celebrate the holiday of Pesach, the holiday that commemorates our exodus from Egypt and our freedom from slavery.

One of the biggest preperations we are all busily involved in right now is the cleaning of our houses from Chametz. I don’t think there is any other holiday that has such an intense and involved preparation as Pesach does.

That being the case, let’s pause to take a look at what we are really doing. What exactly does this act of cleaning the Chametz have to do with the upcoming holiday celebrating our freedom?

The answer is as follows; it is precisely the chametz in our lives that is preventing us from being free and experiencing our geula (redemption) from slavery. Now we are not talking about the physical chametz here, rather it is the chametz which is represented by all the things we are enslaved to in our lives which are preventing us from being free to serve Hashem.

Let’s explain, you see in the story of our exodus which we read about in the Bible, we see that “Am Yisrael left chamushim.” This is generally translated as armed, but Rashi comments that there are midrashic interpretations that say that only 1 of 5 left, and there is another opinion that it was 1 of 50, and even another opinion that it was only 1 of 500 that made it out. The portion of Am Yisrael who did not want to leave died and were buried during the plague of darkness.

With that in mind, we can also understand what our preparation and getting rid of the chametz is all about. You see, just like many of Am Yisrael (80% according to the most lenient opinion) did not leave Egypt, there may also be many of us who are not truly able to let go and get rid of all our chametz and experience the geula now either.

So what exactly is this chametz we are talking about? Here are a few examples of some of the questions we must ask ourselves and the places we must search if we really want to find and eliminate all of our chametz.

Clothing:
Ask yourself; Is the way I am dressing truly for Hashem’s honor, or do I do it to steal attention and satisfy my own desires? Now why is this chametz, because Hashem want’s us to be His, and not sold out to all the fashion and filth in the streets! Do we really want the geula, or do we want to make sure we are getting as much attention as possible for our bodies before the worms and maggots have their go at us when we are under the dirt?
And men, this applies to you too. Since when did your pants and jackets get so tight and fitted? Whose attention exactly are you after?

Hair:
Do we wear our hair in a modest way for Hashem’s honor? Are we trying to get attention for that too?
And if you are married, is your hair covering modest?

Career:
If you are a young woman attending college or more advanced studies; what are you really doing it for? When do you think you will have time to get married and raise a family?

Holiness:
Are we really behaving as holy as we should be. What thoughts are really in our head when we walk in the street – would we be ashamed for someone else to hear what we are thinking? What will come in the end from all these lustful desires? Are we truly Happy with what Hashem has given us, or are we rebelling against His good by desiring what is not ours?

Why is all this stuff chametz? because it keeps us enslaved to this physical world! To our bodies and to all the vanities of the times. But if we want to truly be free, we have to start doing some real soul searching and realizing who we really want to be serving. This is the same trap that caused most of the Jews to perish in Egypt, they just couldn’t let go of the physical world that Egypt had to offer. In the end they just became another brick in the pyramid and never made it out! They were too scared to let go of it all and just follow Moshe out to the wilderness.

May Hashem give us all the strength to truly clean ourselves of all and any attachment to this physical world so that we can truly experience the Geula once and for all this upcoming holiday of Pesach.

All the best and Chag Kasher VeSameach,
Yehoshua