Limit to Testing

 I have heard these words many times " G-d never gives a person a test greater than what he can deal with"

What is the source for this claim? It is a widespread Christian belief

How vaccine skeptics use storytelling to create powerful and medically inaccurate messaging

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/ripple/2026/07/27/how-vaccine-skeptics-use-storytelling-effectively-to-create-powerful-but-medically-inaccurate-messaging/

Researchers generally refer to people who do not follow the standard advice of health professionals about vaccines, by either refusing or delaying some or all vaccines, as vaccine hesitant. Today, vaccine hesitancy is most famously associated with the Make America Healthy Again movement and its standard-bearer, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

But vaccine-hesitant groups are particularly adept at using narrative to craft compelling, nerve-wracking or highly emotion-driven stories of doctors ignoring patient concerns and children developing devastating health conditions after getting vaccinated.

What makes these stories the secret weapons of vaccine hesitancy is that they often are not actually about vaccines at all. When vaccines become detached from medicine, they can function like a symbol or a metaphor in a story, reflecting a worldview that encompasses much more than medicine and is fueled by nonmedical anxieties. These stories use narrative strategies, including some drawn from film and literature, to undermine vaccine confidence.

Measles Cases in the U.S. Are at a 35-Year High

 https://time.com/article/2026/07/27/measles-cases-us-35-year-high/

Measles is an old scourge that’s rapidly re-emerging as a new one. According to numbers released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on July 24, there have been 2,318 cases of measles reported nationwide so far in this year, already exceeding the 2,289 cases reported in all of 2025. The current figure is the highest incidence of measles in 35 years, a record set back in 1991 when there were 9,643 U.S. cases.

It wasn’t long ago that measles cases were extremely rare in the U.S. In 1963, the first measles vaccine was introduced in the U.S., and decades of steady administration of the shot eventually led to the country being declared measles-free in 2000. There were some scattered infections in the ensuing years—56 cases in 2003, 55 in 2012, 13 in 2020. But this year and last year, the numbers have exploded

The surge has come amid a backdrop of drastic changes to childhood vaccinations.  In January 2026, the CDC changed the childhood vaccine schedule—despite experts and organizations saying there had been no change in the science—after President Donald Trump directed the agency and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Secretary of Health and Human Services and a longtime vaccine skeptic, to review how other developed countries issue vaccine recommendations. The new guidelines reduced the number of recommended vaccines for children from 17 to 11. Though the measles vaccine is still on the “recommended” list, recent research published in Science showed that changes in the CDC's vaccine messaging under the Trump Administration reduced the public's trust in the agency and in vaccines, while increasing perceptions that vaccines are not safe.

Torah makes you appear Wise

 Devarim (04:06)  Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the is nations, who, when they shall hear all these statutes, shall say, Surely this great nation a wise and understanding people.

Rashi Devarim (04:06) FOR THIS IS YOUR WISDOM AND UNDERSTANDING IN THE EYES OF THE PEOPLES — i.e. through this ye will be accounted wise and understanding men in the eyes of the peoples.

Sforno (04:06) Observance of the laws of the Torah is your true wisdom and will enable you to resist the lures and challenges by the heretics.

 Rabbeinu Bachya (Devarim (04:06) Nations perceive as your wisdom and discernment.” The verse teaches first and foremost that all the commandments only come into their own when being performed. Their integrity has to be safeguarded and their substance has to be carried out or performed by not violating them. All the worthwhile activities in the world are automatically part of one or more of the Torah’s commandments. The discipline of healing is part of a commandment seeing the Torah tells us that if we listen carefully to its commandments and perform all its statutes and refrain from violating them we will not experience disease, etc., “seeing the Lord is your Healer.” The message is clear: Torah observance=preventive medicine. The same applies to all other scientific disciplines.

Trump holds off major Iran escalation after Pentagon warns of interceptor shortage

 https://www.ynetnews.com/article/r111brtghmg

The US president had weighed a multistage bombing campaign against Iranian military, energy and nuclear targets, but advisers warned that heavier fighting could drain Patriot stocks, expose Gulf bases to retaliation and deepen the region’s energy and refugee crises

U.S. President Donald Trump has put aside, at least for now, plans to sharply intensify the U.S. military campaign against Iran after senior advisers warned that a broader war could dangerously deplete American air defense stocks in the Middle East.

Trump and his advisers were also weighing the possibility of a wider regional war, damage to relations with vulnerable Gulf allies, further pressure on the global economy and worsening energy and refugee crises.

Mind Blown

 https://mishpacha.com/mind-blown/

In the last few years, the world of mental health treatment has seen a quiet but powerful shift: psychedelic assisted therapy. For people who have struggled with deep-seated trauma or intractable emotional pain, psychedelic therapy with drugs such as psilocybin, MDMA, ketamine, and ayahuasca, can open the door to sudden, almost miraculous healing. For some, psychedelic-assisted therapy has accomplished in one or two sessions what would have taken conventional talk therapy months or years to achieve.

But along with its incredible capacity to bring healing results, psychedelic drugs hold the potential to wreak untold psychological, mental, and physical harm. They are the Jekyll and Hyde of therapy: credited with both facilitating stunning emotional breakthroughs unheard of in conventional therapy, and with triggering devastating outcomes like psychosis and suicide. This duality has generated a worldwide ban on the illicit use of these potent drugs.

What are these “miracle drugs” that have mesmerized so many in our community? What power do they hold to better people’s lives? What motivates an otherwise law-abiding person to ignore the ramifications of ingesting a powerful, illegal, and unregulated substance? And where is this cultural trend heading?

Rav Moshe Rotberg, a Toms River posek heavily involved in mental health issues and a licensed therapist, doesn’t deny the potential for psychedelic therapy to effect profound healing. He believes that in the future, psychedelics will figure significantly in trauma treatment.  He has seen firsthand how psychedelic therapy administered once or twice, and entrusted to qualified practitioners with vast experience, who maintain rigorous screening standards, has produced remarkable results.

However, at the same time, he’s observed a psychedelic community that has sprung up with practitioners, prescribers, and even rabbis involved — but shockingly devoid of real, responsible oversight.

Why Trump’s White House Dinner Speech Felt Different

Trump’s Nuclear Doctrine: Anything Is Possible For A Price

 https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/7309929059139673041/7580651519010879201

The United States’ new nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia, struck yesterday as American missiles continue to batter Iran, was met with cries of hypocrisy! and warnings it would spur on the race for a nuclear bomb in the Middle East.

This is neither surprising nor unfair, but the criticism fails to address a deeper, and perhaps more consequential, problem.

The agreement—which could purportedly grant Riyadh a path to build its own uranium enrichment facilities as part of its civilian nuclear program without undergoing stringent inspections by the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the IAEA—signals we are entering a new era of nuclear doctrine.

Tisha B’Av 2026: fast times, rules and who is exempt

 https://www.ynetnews.com/jewish-world/article/bjiheap4fe#google_vignette

The Tisha B’Av fast in 2026 will begin at sunset on Wednesday, July 22, and continue until nightfall on Thursday, July 23.

In Jewish tradition, Tisha B’Av marks the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem. The sages established the fast as an expression of national mourning and as a call for repentance, based on the belief that the causes of the destruction remain relevant to Jewish society.

According to tradition, five major tragedies occurred on the date.

The first was the sin of the spies in the desert, after which the Israelites’ entry into the Land of Israel was delayed for 40 years.

Evil Eye how it Damages

 Malbim (HaCarmel) The concept of the "evil eye," as explained by scientists is that when an envious person gazes at an object, then harmful sparks and poisonous vapors—derived from bodily excesses which are expelled naturally and which are rooted in the lowliness of his soul—emanate from his eye. These act like deadly darts upon the object of his gaze; their venom affects whatever is susceptible to such influence, instilling a curse and a blight, much as the gaze of a viper can kill those vulnerable to it. It has even been noted that if a person possessing the evil eye gazes steadily at a loaf of bread, that bread can become a source of death and destruction. It is regarding this that the Wise man warned: "Do not eat the bread of him who has an evil eye, nor desire his delicacies, for there is death in his offering." 

'Provable LIE': MS NOW instantly reacts to Trump’s speech of lies | COMPILATION

Mazel and Free Will

 Derashos HaRan (08) For it would seem that a man, according to his mazal rebels through transgressions or pursues mitzvoth, it being stated there: "One who is born under Jupiter  will be righteous. R. Nachman b. Yitzchak said: 'He will be especially exemplary in the mitzvah of charity.' One who is born under Mars will be a spiller of blood." Now this is certainly to be wondered at. For if mitzvoth or transgressions proceed from mazal, there is no room for reward or punishment. There are two answers here. Mazal, in respect to mitzvoth and transgressions, merely predisposes; it does not compel. One who is born under Tzedek is not compelled to be a tzaddik but is only predisposed in that direction. Similarly, one who is born under Mars is not compelled to be a spiller of blood, but is predisposed to it. The reason for this is that mazal acts upon bodies until it leaves an impression in them. In spite of this, however, it does not act upon the soul, which is above it. It follows from this that everything relating to nature will be affected by mazal, but acts of mitzvah or transgression, which are above the realm of nature, will be dictated by the activity of the soul. And this is in two respects. The first: the soul, having dominion over the body, can change the evil disposition invested in it by the mazal. So that, for example, if one is born under Mars, though it is dictated by his mazal that his blood be hot and boiling, predisposed to murder, still, the soul, in its power of dominion over the body, can quiet that boiling. This is the first respect. The second: though the boiling not be quieted, the soul can turn it to good and not employ it for evil. For mazal does not dictate specific acts but only characteristics, and it is within the province of the soul to employ a single characteristic for good or for evil. This is the intent of "R. Ashi said: 'Either a thief or a blood-letter; either a slaughterer or a mohel.'" Now a slaughterer and a mohel are both possessed of the same characteristic, one manifestation of that characteristic being commendable, the other, reprehensible. It is seen, then, that a mazal cannot compel the doing of mitzvoth or transgressions but can only create a predisposition — and the soul has power over that predisposition, as we have indicated.

As a British Jew, I Already Feel More Afraid

 https://www.newsweek.com/andy-burnham-jews-antisemitism-britain-hamas-gaza-12217673

Andy Burnham, who was appointed Britain’s seventh prime minister in a decade by King Charles III, is the symptom, not the cause, of a political system in turmoil.

For more than a decade, the Labour Party’s internal battles have been most glaring on how much they are willing to overlook antisemitism. Starmer’s predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn, presided over a culture that brought anti-Zionist Jew-hatred into the mainstream, a kind of blueprint for some of the more radical Democrats in the U.S. The British Equality and Human Rights Commission concluded that the Labour party was liable for unlawful harassment of Jewish members, including the use of antisemitic tropes and minimizing or dismissing complaints as "smears". One of the now ousted Starmer’s rare achievements was to fight back against this.

Burnham insists he is against antisemitism. But the symbolism of his first political moves have caused Britain's Jews considerable alarm. There is a perception that he wants to make an effort to win back the support of areas with large Muslim populations, whose voters have been abandoning Labour for several years, as well as “progressives” who appear preoccupied about Israel above all else. Labour has haemorrhaged votes to a group known as the Gaza Independents (who make up four MPs in Parliament backed the Muslim Vote lobby group) and the Green Party, whose election campaigns repeatedly focus on Gaza at the expense of other issues.

We’re Conservative Republicans. The SAVE Act Is a Mistake

 https://time.com/article/2026/07/08/we-re-conservative-republicans-the-save-act-is-a-mistake/

As Republicans—one of us represented Wisconsin in Congress, the other served as governor and attorney general of Pennsylvania—we come from different states with different election systems, but we share the same conviction: only eligible American citizens should vote in American elections, and the public must have confidence that our elections are secure.

The bill’s central premise is popular: noncitizens should not vote. We agree. However, federal law already prohibits noncitizens from voting in federal elections. Pennsylvania and Wisconsin laws, like those of other states, already require voters to be U.S. citizens. Election officials in both states already use multiple safeguards to verify eligibility, maintain voter rolls, and investigate potential violations.

The real question is not whether noncitizens should vote. The question is whether this federal bill solves a real election-administration problem in a careful, workable way—or whether it creates new problems for millions of eligible citizens and the local officials who run our elections.