Resurrection is a Miracle that we must Believe

 Menoras HaMe’or (04:02:03:01) The matter of the resurrection of the dead is not like the reward of the world to come, which is a natural thing for the perfect soul, but it is a matter of miracle and a very wonderful one of the great miracles that G-d has done and will do, and since it is something outside of nature, like the pregnancy of a woman who is born to be barren, and also the rains that come as a reward for a mitzvah... And this is what they alluded to when they said, Rabbi Yochanan said, "Three keys were not delivered by the hand of a messenger, and these are the keys of life, of rains, and of the resurrection of the dead...". Therefore, we must believe that this is one of the great miracles written in the Torah, and that the souls of the righteous will return to their bodies and eat, drink, and beget children. This is a matter outside the nature of reality, and there is no proof for it from rational analysis, but is something miraculous. We must accept it by faith.

Menoras HaMeor (04:02:03:02) All those who deny the Resuerrection of Dead or anyone of the other miraculous matters which are written in the Torah is as if he  denies the entire Torah and he has no portion in the World to Come.

Resurrection is Not only for Torah Scholars

 Maharal (Be’er HaGolah 7:03) In Kesubos it says that the ignorant will not be resurrected. Some find this fact that only Torah scholars will be resurrected and the rest of mankind is lost forever to be very upsetting. They say it is too much that not only are Jews the only ones resurrected but only the elite are ultimately successful and thus the majority of mankind is no different than animals. In fact this gemora should not be understood this way.  The gemora itself clarifies that Rav Yochanon was upset with this declaration until it was explained that what was meant was not only Torah scholars but also those closely associated with Torah scholars will be resurrected. Thus the solution is very simple. It is clear that when G-d gave the Torah to the Jews it was mainly in order that it should be beneficial. Therefore any person who is not a Torah scholar and can not become one, can at least be of assistance to a Torah scholar. This is a great kindness for them from G-d. In fact a careful search reveals that the ignorant are not actually prevented from acquiring this high level nor are non-Jews since they also can obtain a portion of Olam HaBah as is stated in that Gemora which states that the pious of the nations can acquire Olam HaBah. In fact it is known from the gemora of Avoda Zara in the discussion of Antoninos and Rebbe that also the descents of Eisav who are enemies of the Jews can acquire Olam HaBah if they behave properly. Thus ultimate it depends entirely on a person’s deeds. 

Resurrection Purpose

 Sefer HaIkkarim (04:35) Hence Maimonides agrees that the main reward that God bestows upon man is conferred upon the soul and not upon the body. It seems, therefore, that the purpose of resurrection is not in order to reward the body, but either to give the individual an opportunity to acquire greater perfection than he acquired before, prevented as he was by external hindrances, exile, poverty and the like, and not through evil choice or any condition in the individual himself; or to make known in the world the great power of God and to publish the true faith. In this case resurrection may be confined to the righteous alone, as the Rabbis say, and will take place in the Messianic age.

How the New York Times Laundered Dubious Sexual Abuse Claims Against Israel

 https://honestreporting.com/how-the-new-york-times-laundered-dubious-sexual-abuse-claims-against-israel/

The New York Times opinion piece alleging sexual abuse against Palestinian prisoners relied on sources with documented pro-terror sympathies and failed to disclose crucial background information that would have helped readers assess their credibility.

Several of the article’s central allegations appear to have evolved significantly over time, with major inconsistencies left unexplained or unchallenged by the paper.

The timing of the story’s publication immediately before a major report on Hamas’ October 7 sexual violence raises serious questions about narrative framing and editorial priorities.

The issue is not whether Israel should face scrutiny. Democracies should be scrutinized, especially during wartime. The issue is whether that scrutiny is applied consistently, fairly, and proportionally.

When the New York Times repeatedly amplifies the weakest allegations against Israel while approaching Hamas atrocities with hesitation and skepticism, it stops looking like rigorous journalism and starts looking like narrative activism.

‘Gang rape, forced stripping and humiliation’: New report documents 10,000 findings on Oct. 7 sexual crimes

 https://www.ynetnews.com/article/hyf00rqljmx

Spanning roughly 250 pages, with hundreds of footnotes and references to more than 10,000 documented items, a new report lays out what it describes as a systematic pattern of sexual violence, humiliation and abuse committed by terrorists and civilians who infiltrated from Gaza during the Oct. 7 massacre and throughout the captivity of hostages held in Gaza.

The report, the product of more than two years of work, was compiled by members of the Civil Commission on Oct. 7 Crimes by Hamas Against Women, Children and Families. The civil society organization was established shortly after the outbreak of the war.

Researchers identified 13 patterns of sexual and gender-based assault, including rape and gang rape, assault before and during murder, forced stripping, threats of forced marriage and assaults committed in front of victims’ relatives. According to the report, these patterns recurred across multiple locations, indicating that the use of such practices was intentional, widespread and systematic, “carried out with particular cruelty in order to maximize the pain, humiliation and suffering of the victims.”

Israel slams NYT opinion article on Palestinian abuse, ignoring Oct. 7 sexual violence

 https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-895908

The Foreign Ministry on Tuesday denounced the timing of an op-ed published in the New York Times, while the outlet decided not to publish the findings of Israel's Civil Commission into Hamas's systemic violence during, and since, the October 7 massacre.

The commission approached NYT "months ago" with the outlet saying it "was not interested" in reporting it, the ministry noted on X/Twitter.

The outlet posted the opinion piece on Monday, featuring it prominently on its homepage, along with an accompanying video, deciding to publish it the day before the Commission's findings were released.

"In an unfathomable inversion of reality, and through an endless stream of baseless lies, propagandist Nicholas Kristof turns the victim into the accused," the ministry wrote.

"Israel - whose citizens were the victims of the most horrific sexual crimes committed by Hamas on October 7, and whose hostages were later subjected to further sexual abuse - is portrayed as the guilty party," the ministry continued.

US intelligence showing Iran retains substantial missile capabilities

 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/426980

Classified US intelligence regarding Iran's current military strength from earlier this month suggests that Tehran has successfully restored operational access to the vast majority of its strategic missile infrastructure, The New York Times reported on Tuesday.

Among other things, according to the report, the intelligence reveals that Iran has regained access to 30 of its 33 primary missile sites situated along the vital Strait of Hormuz. These facilities, equipped with mobile launchers, pose a direct threat to the more than 20 American warships currently enforcing the blockade in the waterway.

The classified data stands in direct contrast to assurances provided by President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. In March, the President claimed that Iran's military had "nothing left," while Hegseth asserted in April that Operation Epic Fury had rendered the regime "combat-ineffective for years."

Donald Trump’s Golden Statue: Critics’ Biblical Comparisons Explained

 https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-golden-statue-biblical-comparisons-explained-11940790

A 22-foot golden statue of President Donald Trump is riling some observers who claim the "golden calf" clearly represents idol worship expressly forbidden in the Ten Commandments, religious scholars told Newsweek.

The bronze effigy covered in gold leaf, dubbed "Don Colossus," depicts Trump, 79, with a raised fist similar to the gesture he made following the July 2024 assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania. Pastor Mark Burns, an evangelical minister and spiritual adviser to the president, led last week's unveiling ceremony at Trump National Doral Miami and insisted the likeness represented "gratitude, honor and remembrance" rather than deification.

"Evangelical Christian leaders literally gathering around a gold statue of the president and celebrating it, all while raging against any accusation of idolatry," Cremer posted Friday on X. "This is what idol worship looks like."

Trump Says His Goal Is to Stop Iran Getting a Nuclear Bomb. But the Result Might Be Lots More Nukes Across the Globe

 https://time.com/article/2026/03/27/us-iran-war-nuclear-weapons-proliferation-deterrent-trump/

Of all the reasons proffered for the Iran war—and there’ve been a few—probably the easiest for Americans to get behind is that striking the regime was necessary to permanently derail its nuclear weapons program.

After all, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) last May revealed Iran had stockpiled 408.6 kg of 60%-enriched uranium, which with further refinement could potentially fuel nine warheads. The nation’s inventory of some 2,500 ballistic missiles—the largest in the Gulf—and support for terrorist proxies across the region added to the security migraine. Iran “can’t have nuclear weapons,” President Donald Trump said in February. “It’s very simple. You can’t have peace in the Middle East if they have a nuclear weapon.”

But while the strikes against Iran’s nuclear sites and scientists will no doubt slow Iran’s atomic ambitions in the near-term, analysts say the regime—providing it survives, which all signs suggest it will—will now be even more set on acquiring a nuclear weapon.

Indeed, given Iran’s ballistic missile infrastructure has been badly degraded by U.S. and Israeli attacks, a nuclear bomb may prove “a faster route to restore deterrence for a regime that is now more radical and has been attacked twice in the midst of negotiations,” says Jennifer Kavanagh, director of military analysis for the Washington-based think tank Defense Priorities.

But it’s not just Iranian nuclear weapons that the U.S. and world must worry about going forward. On Tuesday, North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un left little doubt he was referencing Iran when he said the “present situation clearly proves” his country was correct to hang onto its nuclear arsenal, which he termed “irreversible,” while accusing Washington of “state sponsored terrorism and aggression.”

Iran Nuclear Talks: Three Lessons From the War for Negotiators

 https://www.cfr.org/articles/better-than-nothing-deals-three-nuclear-security-lessons-from-the-iran-war

Lesson one: Military strikes are not decisive

The first lesson negotiators should draw is that air wars alone cannot counter proliferation or eliminate a nuclear program. It is possible to stall, delay, or obliterate enrichment facilities, but even a tactically effective, full-scale air war cannot destroy Iran’s vast nuclear program without ground troops.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors have not been able to access major nuclear sites since before the Twelve Day War in 2025, when the U.S. Air Force dropped the world’s largest conventional bomb on Iranian nuclear enrichment sites—creating a blackout the current conflict has only deepened and that world leaders know exposes gaps in enforcing nonproliferation.

That is why the Trump administration’s counter-proliferation-through-force approach could backfire: it encourages those who want to develop nuclear programs to hide their activities rather than adhere to the successful nonproliferation approach of diplomacy and transparency that the P5 representatives of the UN Security Council have used since the signing of the NPT fifty-eight years ago. The Iran war could have a chilling effect on inspections and international engagement among states hedging with some nuclear materials—maintaining the materials and capacity to weaponize but staying below the weaponization threshold. Iran’s nuclear program is symptomatic of inherent disparity embedded into the NPT, which does not permit countries that did not test nuclear weapons before 1967 to ever have them. But will the other states be content to live without their own nuclear weapons now?

Iran’s next steps will likely be unclear during a ceasefire or even after the war concludes. The Islamic Republic could decide to shift to a North Korean model of proliferation, hiding some activities until it decides to unveil its capabilities in the form of nuclear tests and ballistic missile firings. If NPT member states can no longer gain as much transparency into Iranian nuclear program developments because negotiations do not establish invasive inspections, Iran’s path will be less predictable. And with a new leader at the helm of the Iranian regime, its nuclear strategy could be distinct from that of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was recently killed in the U.S.-Israeli attacks.

Iran retains enough nuclear material, enriched to 60 percent capacity, for roughly twelve nuclear weapons if the regime decides to use its remaining nuclear facilities and know-how to sprint to weaponization. As IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi has said, the negotiators will “have to address all of this if they want to have a comprehensive agreement” to stymie the Iranian nuclear program.

The Art of the Ceasefire

 https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/the-art-of-the-ceasefire

Historically, negotiating a ceasefire to end an international conflict of this magnitude would have involved months, even years, of talks led by skilled negotiators with large teams of experts, the help of credible mediators such as the United Nations, and armies of diplomats shuttling between the different sides to build trust. Peace proposals are usually negotiated behind closed doors; threats are seldom made publicly. With the Trump Administration, none of this appears to be happening. Ceasefires are not treated as avenues to solve political contradictions and pave the way to a lasting settlement, Bhamidipati said. Instead, they have been reduced to tools of conflict meant to speedily manage escalation, contain risk, limit spillover, and restore short-term stability—a version of kicking the can down the road. Ceasefires don’t end wars; they only interrupt them. And, the longer they continue without a real political resolution, the higher the risks of even greater violence in the future. This is especially true in the Iran war. “The situation is very unstable, and every escalation can lead to a massive deterioration,” Danny Citrinowicz, a former Israeli military-intelligence officer and Middle East expert at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, told me. “Instead of the ceasefire becoming some sort of platform for a new negotiation and agreement, because of the mistrust of the sides and the fact that they cannot reach an agreement, the ceasefire is actually some sort of situation before renewed escalation.”

Trump FAMILY spirals over missing $50M! Ari on MAGA revolt & 'brand' crisis

Cost of Trump’s reflecting pool repairs balloon by $11.3 million, to $13.1M

 https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5872939-reflecting-pool-renovation-cost-increase/?tbref=hp

“The Failing New York Times, which is one of the worst newspapers anywhere in the World, and is losing subscribers on an hourly basis, is now at it again,” Trump wrote in a lengthy, early-morning Truth Social post.

“Just like they covered my Landslide 2024 Presidential Election Victory inaccurately, and without shame, constantly making major mistakes and incorrect predictions at every path along the way, they are now trying to justify Obama and Biden’s expensively botched attempt at fixing the long broken, unsightly, and unsanitary Reflecting Pool that NOW sits majestically between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial,” he continued.

It was originally announced with an estimated cost of $1.8 million, but the Times cited federal records showing the actual cost has jumped by more than $11 million to an anticipated $13.1 million.

The Interior Department reportedly added $6.2 million to the previous cost of the no-bid contract on Friday, which was awarded to a Virginia firm called Atlantic Industrial Coatings

Checkmate in Iran

 https://www.theatlantic.com/international/2026/05/iran-war-trump-losing/687094/

It’s hard to think of a time when the United States suffered a total defeat in a conflict, a setback so decisive that the strategic loss could be neither repaired nor ignored. The calamitous losses suffered at Pearl Harbor, the Philippines, and throughout the Western Pacific in the first months of World War II were eventually reversed. The defeats in Vietnam and Afghanistan were costly but did not do lasting damage to America’s overall position in the world, because they were far from the main theaters of global competition. The initial failure in Iraq was mitigated by a shift in strategy that ultimately left Iraq relatively stable and unthreatening to its neighbors and kept the United States dominant in the region.

Defeat in the present confrontation with Iran will be of an entirely different character. It can neither be repaired nor ignored. There will be no return to the status quo ante, no ultimate American triumph that will undo or overcome the harm done. The Strait of Hormuz will not be “open,” as it once was. With control of the strait, Iran emerges as the key player in the region and one of the key players in the world. The roles of China and Russia, as Iran’s allies, are strengthened; the role of the United States, substantially diminished. Far from demonstrating American prowess, as supporters of the war have repeatedly claimed, the conflict has revealed an America that is unreliable and incapable of finishing what it started. That is going to set off a chain reaction around the world as friends and foes adjust to America’s failure.