Messages From the War – Tuesday
Tuesday It’s been a quiet day in Yerushalayim, at least insofar as the sirens going off. In the skies above, it’s been non-stop bombing runs. Government schools will again be closed tomorrow. Busses are...
Category: General
Messages From the War – Monday
Monday. Haazinu ha-shomayim/Heavens, give ear! (Devarim 32:1) The heavens over Yerushalayim complied, with a pall that hung over the city, reflecting back the mood of shock, disbelief, and foreboding of the people. Roads were...
Messages From The War: Israel is our Motherland and not our Playground
[Editor’s Note: It seems appropriate to gather some of the observations of English speakers here. BE”H, I will publish them as I come across them. If I don’t come up with enough, I’ll write...
Senate Bipartisan Resolution Supports Rambam Over John Fetterman
Conversation in shul, while they were rolling the (single) sefer Torah from one Chumash to another: Me: I understand you had a rough week. Former Senator Joe Lieberman: How’s that? Me: Well, I know...
The State Triumphs, and a Patient Dies
Once again, life imitates art. The result is not pretty. Doc Daneeka, a fictional character in Joseph Heller’s modern classic, explains its eponymous Catch-22. A flyer can escape combat duty if he is insane....
The Embrace of Generations
by Reuven Ungar I The Remnant of the Sages- Pleitat Sofreihem In his monumental eulogy for Rav Chaim Heller, Rav Soloveitchik relates to the phrase “Pleitat Sofreihem” in the Shemoneh Esreh. Why doesn’t “Sofreihem” suffice;...
Vo’eschanan – Little Sins Fuel Bigger Ones
The Kotzker Rebbe likely meant it as a poignant joke when he reportedly remarked that the reason the Ten Commandments had to be both seen and heard (Chazal describe the revelation at Har Sinai...
Devarim – The Rock’s Lost Lesson
In Moshe Rabbeinu’s parting rebuke of Klal Yisrael for “not believing in Hashem” (Devarim 1:32), for all its complaining in the wake of the report of the meraglim and beyond, he refers to Hashem’s...
Were We Wrong About Chabad?
For decades, Chabad’s want-to-wrap-tefillin legions made us feel uncomfortable. More bluntly, we mocked them. To be sure, that was only half of the picture. We openly admired Chabad’s mesiras nefesh, and their very real...
Judicial Reform Gets a Plug from a High Court Justice
Not intentionally, of course. And not from a justice of the Israeli Supreme Court. Consider the following [with very minor edits in brackets]: At the behest of a party that has suffered no injury,...
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