Karl Hermann Frank, the German Nazi official in Czechoslovakia during World War II, was hanged on this date in 1946.
Frank surrendered to the American army on May 9, 1945 and was extradited and tried in a court in Prague. Following his conviction for war crimes, Frank was sentenced to death and hanged in the courtyard of the Pankrac prison in Prague as 5,000 onlookers witnessed his death.
The Chabad-Lubavitch village in Israel, Kfar Chabad, was founded by the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, on Iyar 21 of 1949. The first settlers were mostly recent immigrants from the Soviet Union, survivors of the terrors of World War II and Stalinist oppression. Kfar Chabad, which is located about five miles south of Tel Aviv and includes agricultural lands as well as numerous educational institutions, serves as the headquarters of the Chabad-Lubavitch Chassidic movement in the Holy Land.
Tomorrow is the thirty-seventh day of the Omer Count. Since, on the Jewish calendar, the day begins at nightfall of the previous evening, we count the omer for tomorrow's date tonight, after nightfall: "Today is thirty-seven days, which are five weeks and two days, to the Omer." (If you miss the count tonight, you can count the omer all day tomorrow, but without the preceding blessing).
The 49-day "Counting of the Omer" retraces our ancestors' seven-week spiritual journey from the Exodus to Sinai. Each evening we recite a special blessing and count the days and weeks that have passed since the Omer; the 50th day is Shavuot, the festival celebrating the Giving of the Torah at Sinai.
Tonight's Sefirah: Gevurah sheb'Yesod -- "Restraint in Connection"
The teachings of Kabbalah explain that there are seven "Divine Attributes" -- Sefirot -- that G-d assumes through which to relate to our existence: Chessed, Gevurah, Tifferet, Netzach, Hod, Yesod and Malchut ("Love", "Strength", "Beauty", "Victory", "Splendor", "Foundation" and "Sovereignty"). In the human being, created in the "image of G-d," the seven sefirot are mirrored in the seven "emotional attributes" of the human soul: Kindness, Restraint, Harmony, Ambition, Humility, Connection and Receptiveness. Each of the seven attributes contain elements of all seven--i.e., "Kindness in Kindness", "Restraint in Kindness", "Harmony in Kindness", etc.--making for a total of forty-nine traits. The 49-day Omer Count is thus a 49-step process of self-refinement, with each day devoted to the "rectification" and perfection of one the forty-nine "sefirot."
Links:
How to count the Omer
The deeper significance of the Omer Count
You murmured in your tents, saying, '"Because G‑d hates us, He took us out of the land of Egypt to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to exterminate us." (Deuteronomy 1:27)
Really, He loves you, but you despised Him. As the common saying goes, “Whatever is in your heart towards your friend, you imagine he feels towards you.” (Rashi)
Often we justify our own feelings by projecting them on others, twisting the entire relationship backward and upside-down.
We can’t get our way, so we say, “I’m doing everything to accommodate them, and they’re being so stubborn.”
And they say, “But it’s just the opposite! You won't give an inch!”
We don’t want to be around people, so we feel, “I’m trying to be nice to them, but they don’t want me around.”
And they say, “We would love to have you around, but you don’t seem to want to be here with us.”
In just the same way, we project our own feelings on the One who made us, attempting to twist truth inside-out.
We become absorbed with our own little world and can’t find room for G‑d within it, so we feel, “All I am to G-d is just an ugly little cockroach messing up His universe.”
How does G‑d feel?
There, with G‑d, is the true reality.
That He gives you life and all things He knows are good for you and awaits the time you will recognize how good it all is.
That He showers you with love, and awaits the time that you will return that love to Him.
That He eagerly awaits every word of your prayers, treasures every mitzvah you might do, kisses every word of Torah that comes from your lips—but you have no idea how precious you are to Him.
You may push back. You may run away. But just one small turn, and He’s there waiting.
Run from your delusions. Embrace reality. Reality is love.