<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div>1) Purim Saragossa (1421) <br><br>A noxious plot was brewing against the Jewish community of Saragossa, but they were completely unaware of the looming danger. They were spared, however, thanks to a handful of synagogues beadles who acted on a dream they all had. The resulting salvation on the 17th of Shevat was celebrated by Saragossan Jews, and dubbed "Purim Saragossa."<br><br>A Hebrew Megillah (scroll) was penned, describing the details of the miraculous story. To this day, this scroll is read in certain communities on Purim Saragossa.<br><br>Link: Purim Saragossa [ <a href="http://www.chabad.org/1481">http://www.chabad.org/1481</a> ]</div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>2) Hope you had your Buckwheat last Shabbos:</div>There is a custom of eating black buckwheat (kasha) on Shabbos Shira. (<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px; ">Buckwheat is not a cereal like wheat or barley. It belongs to the same family as rhubarb and is known to botanists as Fagopyrum esculentum). </span><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>3) THE NUMBER THREE IN JUDAISM (as opposed to Xianity)</div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>The Torah stresses that the Jewish people’s encampment “with one heart” took place during “the third month after the Exodus.” Evidently the people’s unity resulted not only from their location “opposite the mount,” but also from the fact that this took place during the <b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="text-decoration: underline; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; ">third</span></b> month.<br><br>What is so special about three, and how does it foster unity; if anything, unity seems more directly related to the number one.<br><br>The difference between the numbers one, two and three are as follows: “One” stresses that from the very outset there exists but one thing; “two” is indicative of divisiveness — the antitheses of unity. “Three,” however, sees a uniting of disparate entities — making “one” out of “two.”<br><br>This aspect of “three” is similar to the statement of our Sages that “When two Biblical passages contradict each other, the meaning can be determined by a third Biblical text, which reconciles them.”<br><br>We see here the remarkable quality of the “third.” Without the third verse the two verses indeed contradict each other. Then the third reconciles the seemingly irreconcilable. Moreover, it does so not by “taking sides,” i.e., agreeing with one verse and disagreeing with the other, but by showing that the first two verses are actually in consonance.<br><br>Since Torah is inextricably bound up with the concept of “three,” as our Sages state: “Blessed is G-d who gave the three-part Torah to the three-part Nation... in the third month,” it is understandable that Torah as a whole has characteristics similar to those of the number three.<br><br>This results in the fact that even when Torah law is seemingly arrived at not through a reconciling view, but by agreeing with one opinion and disagreeing with another, those initially opposed agree not only with the adjudication but also with the logic that resulted in the verdict — all are peacefully united “with one heart.”<br><br>(Based on Likkutei Sichos Vol. XXI, pp. 108-112.)</div></body></html>