[Avodah] we live in good times

[Eli Turkel]

> A generation later the Jews of Poland were decimated and after the
> rabbis introduced several
> decrees including a fast on the 20th of Sivan. This did not extend to
> Lithuania. Nevertheless the Schach
> from Vilna writes that he personally undertook to fast.

The Shach was not personally affected?  I realise that the story about
his daughter is fictional, but I assumed that at least the background
facts, that he survived the massacres but was made homeless and lost
family members, was true.  Wasn't it?  >>>>>

The author only states that the Shach undertook to fast on 20 Sivan
even that was
not the custom in Vilna/Lithuania but only in Poland.
Perhaps the reason he personally fasted is as Zev says because of his
personal tragedies

On a separate note I dont understand the Brisk objections to have any
day besides Tisha Baav
and not to add kinot. As noted above The Vaad Arba Arazot institued a
fast on 20 Sivan to mark the
Chemilnisky massacres.
I think there were also kinnot written though they do not seem to be
preserved in our kinnot

Just a thought - I suspect without any surveys to back me - that very
few Jews of any stripe
today know anything about the Chelminitzky massacres which wiped out much of
Polish Jewry in horribly vicious fashion. These happened some 360 years ago.
I wonder how many Jews in 100-200 years will remember the Shoah. The
only difference
is the existence of Yom Hashoah and various Holocaust museums

-- 
Eli Turkel