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The Mashgiach Says He Cannot Promise Yeshu'os, but the Mitzvah Can
A unique letter written and publicized recently by the Mashgiach, HaRav Don Segal shlita has elicited much attention and repercussion. It was written as a response to what appeared in an advertisement appearing in the U.S. involving the Mercaz HaTaharah which is under his auspices and supervision. It gives the impression that the Mashgiach himself is conferring blessing and miracles to the donors.
"The United States is no longer a young country," Michael Oren, former Israel ambassador to the U.S., Member of Knesset and Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister office, says to Yated Ne'eman.
"Upon its 250th anniversary, it is older than most countries in the United Nations. And yet, it is still in the form of an experiment, the first democratic experiment of modern times since the historic model of Athens in ancient times.
"Today, it is a challenging experiment on all fronts. Today we see a world power torn by internal and external views, between isolationism and involvement in the world. This is also the conflict between secular and Christian values, as J. D. Vance, Vice President, expressed his viewpoint this week, stating that the problem with America is that it is not sufficiently Christian.
"We see a total political polarization between Right and Left, and extremism on both sides. Even within the Democratic Party, the Progressive split is socialistic, and not only anti-Israel, but even anti-American.
The Abrahamic Metacritique: The Great Moral Accounting Fraud
This is an excerpt from the Substack of Hussein Mansour. It provides an analysis of the context of current antisemitism that may be of interest. It presents some of the deep issues involved.
No one can easily inherit the specific experience of the black American descended from chattel slavery, or the murdered Jew of Europe, or the colonized subject of a particular imperial administration. But one can inherit racialization, otherness, coloniality, displacement. The more abstract the category, the wider the class of eligible claimants, and the more distant those claimants may be from the historical event that underwrites their authority. The fraud does not require that the new claimants have suffered nothing but the inflation of partial, historically mixed, or analogical injury into total moral innocence.
The most audacious case of such fraud is the passage of moral credit from the West's negative canon of cosmic crime to the Arab Middle East, and occasionally more broadly to Islam taken as a whole, the moral foil to the West's triumphs and guilts in the twenty-five years since September 11.
Periodically, new levels of the great miracles which our people experienced within the terrible slaughter which took place on Simchas Torah two-and-a-half years ago, surface to our attention. This time, these involve documents testifying to the exchange of information between top men of Hamas and the former secretary-general of Hizbullah, Hassan Nasrallah.
According to these documents, a many branched massive invasion was planned for Pesach, half-a-year before the actual attack, to attack the North of Israel. The one who opposed this plan was Nasrallah. Hamas, however, persisted in its plan. A deep political and social crisis was identified by Hamas as a very opportune chance to strike, upon finding Israel plunged in "a weakness of the Israeli society," and he sought very forcefully that Hizbullah join the battle.
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Part I
This series was first published in 1992, or, 24 years ago.
Yerushalmi Lost...
The lot of the talmud Yerushalmi has not been as happy as that of its younger by-about-a-century sibling, the Bavli. Through the years, lomdim and poskim have given preference to the latter, in spite of the Yerushalmi's being the product of Eretz Yisroel, whose very air imparts wisdom.
In a teshuvoh, Rav Hai Gaon explains that the choice is not arbitrary and that due to the circumstances, the Bavli is more authoritative. Compilation of the Yerushalmi ended with the petiroh of Rebbi Yochonon (around the year 4050 or 290 CE), and it was never formally finished off as the Bavli was.
Intensification of the Roman oppression and persecutions in the seventy or so years from 4065 onwards finally destroyed the remaining Jewish life in Eretz Yisroel (almost three hundred years after the churban beis Hamikdosh). The last generation of amoroim of Eretz Yisroel either perished or fled to Bovel, where most of the nation lived in relative peace and security.
The remnant of the Torah scholars of Eretz Yisroel were thus present in Bovel during the final arrangement of the Bavli which took place during Rav Ashi's lifetime (he was niftar in 4186 — 426 CE) and all of the teachings they had brought with them were taken into account in arriving at the rulings of the Bavli. This is the reason that the poskim take the opinion of the Bavli as authoritative when the two gemoras arrive at different conclusions.
Extent of the Yerushalmi
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Outstanding Articles From Our Archives
IN-DEPTH FEATURES
Torah's Grace Personified -- HaRav Shimon Moshe Diskin Zt'l Of Yeshivas Kol Torah -- 15th Tammuz 5760, His First Yahrtzeit
By Rabbi A. Gefen
Part Two
Introduction: Manifold Burdens
In this continuation of our look at HaRav Diskin zt'l's life, we examine his years in Yerushalayim, where he lived and taught for the last quarter century of his life.
Perhaps the most striking feature of the picture which emerges is how one person could be so completely devoted to so many different roles and activities. HaRav Diskin's commitment to the yeshiva, to his shiurim and to his talmidim was total, yet it did not preclude his maintaining long-term relationships with past talmidim and with involvement in a range of major communal undertakings outside the yeshiva.
We have already seen that when it came to spreading and strengthening Torah, he was utterly selfless and was willing to do anything and everything in his power, without a thought for his own prestige, or even for recognition. This negation, or more correctly sublimation, of self is the key to understanding his ability to fill so many diverse roles at once and yet to make them all expressions of his basic drive: to support and further Torah in every possible way.
We continue our presentation of the recollections of his family, friends and disciples, interspersing them as before with extracts from a hesped delivered by ylct'a HaRav Boruch Shmuel Deutsch.
And Raise Many Talmidim
Despite the extent to which he disseminated Torah, we were always astonished anew -- with no exaggeration -- at the speed of his comprehension and his tremendous abilities. The person he was speaking to would just open his mouth and Rav Shimon Moshe would already grasp what he wanted to ask and would answer him in a flash. It happened all the time that we would be sitting and discussing a particular topic, while he would complete his reflections and arrive at his conclusions, with amazing speed.
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Opinion & Comment
Klal Yisroel -- Only When They Are Unified
By HaRav Shimon Moshe Diskin zt'l
This essay was written by HaRav Diskin in response to some questions which Yated Ne'eman's Rav Moshe Karp put to a panel of talmidei chachomim. This and the other replies were published in the Shabbos supplement for parshas Eikev, 5756. These insights are particularly appropriate and applicable during this Three Week period of mourning.
"In every generation in whose time the Beis Hamikdosh is not rebuilt, it is as though it was destroyed." This is some kind of pointer to our situation today. We posed the following questions: One: Did Chazal truly mean to say that if it is not rebuilt in our times, it is as though it was destroyed in our times, and that we have a problem of baseless hatred? Two: If this is the case, how does this manifest itself in our generation? And three: How can these negative phenomena be corrected, for we all want the Beis Hamikdosh to be rebuilt?
The point you are raising is a difficult one because Chazal's statements of halocho are unlike their statements of aggodoh. In the case of halocho, we have a chain of tradition as to how to explain and elucidate them, starting with the Rishonim, and ending with "our teachers in the diaspora," the roshei hayeshivos, z'l.
The statements of Chazal [such as these] for which the explanatory tradition is small in quantity and what there is of it is abridged, are wide open to anyone's interpretation. Various thinkers and poets offer explanations that are more representative of the feelings of their own hearts than they are of firm, well grounded elucidations of what Chazal meant. The exceptions are the greatest among our holy sages z'l, with their great powers of comprehension of Chazal's meaning. All that they say is like Torah shebe'al peh for us and our lives are built upon their utterances.
It is however also true that we ought not to scorn the inner prompting of the hearts of great men of broad spirit, whose explanations may not be exactly what Chazal intended but which still are deep and fundamental in and of themselves. However, it is hard to say with any certainty that this is what Chazal meant though it may just happen that this was their intention. In my replies, I will try to explain these words of Chazal, though to set this down as their meaning can only be incidental.
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