Rabbi Abrams Blog

  I received a call that Morton Grabel passed away a few weeks ago.  He had retired to Texas a few years ago and was battling pancreatic cancer since shortly after he moved. Morton was a real character.  He grew up in a rough neighborhood in Philadelphia and that shaped him into the “rough on the outside, soft on the inside” guy that he was. I believe he came to California with the military, and like many, stayed here.  He was an attorney, and his picture may be the first one I associated with Chabad of Temecula from his law firm ads in Rabbi Yitzi’s calendar. As I dug more into the business elements of Chabad. I found that he was the legal agent to incorporate Chabad of Temecula in 1999.  He was literally one of the first people to meet and help Rabbi Yitzi. I could always count on Mort to give me his brutally honest opinion and I enjoyed teasing him. Even after he moved, we kept in touch, and we spoke about the emotions of fighting cancer. Towards the end, he ...

Expressing gratitude publicly is risky.   You can forget to recognize someone who deserved it.  People can read things into your words that you didn’t intend.  And some people don’t appreciate public recognition. But it’s important nonetheless. I want to share a little history of Chabad of Temecula in the form of gratitude, and please, if I should have mentioned you by name and didn’t, I ask for forgiveness in advance. The founder of Chabad of Temecula is G-d.  G-d created a world full of darkness so that us people could bring light into it. Things came to the next level when the Rebbe started sending out Shluchim to the four corners of the world in 1951, to “gather all the Jews, one by one” and bring Moshiach. Rabbi Yitzi and his wife, Dina, founded Chabad of Temecula in 1999.  They came out here with barely any connections or financial support, and dedicated their lives to building up the Jewish community in SW Riverside county. I don’t know all the found...

  For ten years I’ve been waiting for this to happen, and it’s finally happened. Kfir and Wendy just founded Chabad of Temecula. I’ve written about what “community” means before.  It’s when individuals add a dimension to their existence and become part of a larger whole called “the community.” Hopefully over the past ten years, Natanya and I have been loyal to our mission.  We’ve accomplished a thing or two. But community has always been a challenge. It felt like I had relationships with lots of people and we could make events big and small, but the “community” part just wasn’t taking off. I had set a mental note, kind of like a little sign to myself, that when someone from the community spearheads get-togethers of any kind, I will know that the community is going to start happening.   And this past week Kfir did it! About two years ago we started a monthly “BIG minyan” in honor of Hakhel (year of gathering).  It has really been wonderful.  Guys (and ladies...

  Everyone is talking about the hostage deal now.  Is it good?  Is it bad? I don’t really know the details so I can’t even really comment.  And what’s more important than the deal itself, is the follow up to it. But beyond the details of this deal, it’s unfortunately indicative that we’re not leaving the cycle.  And that makes me sad. For decades, it has been Israeli morals (as opposed to Torah morals) to make “painful sacrifices” on the alter of peace and redeeming hostages. Is this deal terrible?  Was it worse than the Gilad Shalit deal of 2011, which let over 1,000 terrorists out of prison, including Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of Oct 7? We will only know after the next Oct 7.   As long as we keep feeding the cycle, we can’t expect the cycle to stop. What is the cycle? The cycle works something like this:  Individual terrorists kill Jews and get sent to prison for life.  Then they take Jewish hostages.  We negotiate a deal to get our...