On the morning of February 1, 2003, the Columbia Space Shuttle, returning from its STS-107 mission, was destroyed upon re-entry, 16 minutes before its scheduled landing. All its crew members perished, including Ilan Ramon, a combat pilot in the Israeli Air Force, who was the first Israeli astronaut. Prior to his departing to space on Space Shuttle Columbia, where his mission included the manning of a multispectral camera for recording desert aeroso, he arranged to take kosher food as well as a Kiddush cup, a Torah Scroll, and a dollar from the Lubavitcher Rebbe, of righteous memory.
Links: Pride, Pain and the Suddenness of Life; Remembering Ilan Ramon
This Shabbat is Shabbat Mevarchim (“the Shabbat that blesses" the new month): a special prayer is recited blessing the Rosh Chodesh ("Head of the Month") of the upcoming month of Adar I, which falls on Sunday and Monday of next week.
Prior to the blessing, we announce the precise time of the molad, the "birth" of the new moon. See molad times.
It is a Chabad custom to recite the entire book of Psalms before morning prayers, and to conduct farbrengens (chassidic gatherings) in the course of the Shabbat.
Links: Shabbat Mevarchim; Tehillim (the Book of Psalms); The Farbrengen
Creativity is an exercise in paradox.
On the one hand, creativity is the artist’s expression of self.
Yet, on the other hand, the artist must remove himself from his art, with discipline and with skill, so that his creation will appear real, as though it has a life of its own.
Creation of a universe from the void is the absolute paradoxical act.
It is the absolute expression of absolute existence, as existence emerges without bounds.
And it is the absolute of restraint, as the Creator conceals His presence so that this creation will perceive itself as its own being, and not simply a fantasy of its Creator.
In the very existence of this universe is manifest the ultimate oneness: That light and darkness, being and not-being converge at a point where all is one.
So that even when there is a heaven and an earth, there is nothing else but that elusive point we know as G‑d.