Preface to my new sefer on Parnossa and Luck

 Preface

About a year ago I was approached by a young kollel man. (In my neighborhood most of the men belong to a Kollel). He had a simple request. What does the Torah say about Parnossa (earning a living  or having a job – as opposed to learning full time) and had I written anything about it in my sefer Daas Torah?. This was similar to Hillel being asked by a prospective convert to teach him the entire Torah while he was standing on one leg (Shabbos 31a). As with my previous research. I found most issues are not resolved to a single cogent view, As I have noted before I asked Rav Eliashiv about publishing diverse views since this can cause confusion and upset that there is more than one answer. He answered there is no problem as long as I use widely accepted sources He said any confusion should be discussed with one’s rebbe I also asked Rav Moshe Shapiro and he added just quote the original language without adding interpretation

As I investigated the matter directly it soon became obvious that until relatively recently,. the original sources indicated that having a job was obligatory, And the Chasam Sofer adds that this is especially true in Israel.  In fact Rav Kook has stated that the existence of the Jews in the Desert for 40 years after leaving Egypt was one big Kollel devoted to Torah learning while they were sustained and fed by miracles. They didn’t want to leave this existence to be workers. farmers and shepherds in Israel. So their leaders spoke lashon harah about Israel as an excuse to not to settle the land   In fact the gemora in Berachos (35b)says it is a fundamental dispute between Rabbi Yishmael and Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai as to whether a person should combine work with Torah study. It concludes that only a minority can survive with exclusive Torah Study. This is also stated clearly in the Mishna Berurah, The Netziv adds from Chazal that only those with guaranteed parnossa can properly study Torah. Other views state that Parnossa will be provided to all that Trust in G-d (bitachon). That those engaged in  exclusive Torah Study will be provided with parnossa while other sources say one should be prepared to live in poverty to study Torah, In fact one should be cruel to the needs and cries of your family to learn Torah exclusively. Rav Dessler says that even if most are harmed by an exclusive focus on Torah, we must pay that price

Today it has become accepted that most need to be devoted to exclusive Torah study – even if this means your wife supports the family and the children are raised by babysitters  and even if most people are not suited for full time lifelong learning  At one time it was assumed that people would work– usually before the age of 13.  There was no childhood as we know it today.  This changed around 1877 when the Kovno Kollel was started and Rav Chaim Volshner founded a yeshiva system that was independent of the local community, There was great concern for the haskala and government pressures to assimilate. The members of the Kollel were expected to dessert their families for a number of years. In America Rav Aharon Kotler founded the Lakewood yeshiva devoted to exclusive pure Torah learning in 1943. Since then the Torah school system has raised generations of boys and girls to the reality of exclusive Torah. Something which was not the norm even in prewar Eastern Europe

Hogan calls Trump’s comments on Harris’s mental abilities ‘outrageous and unacceptable’

 https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4906401-larry-hogan-donald-trump-kamala-harris/

“Kamala is mentally impaired. If a Republican did what she did, that Republican would be impeached and removed from office, and rightfully so, for high crimes and misdemeanors,” Trump said at a rally in Wisconsin this weekend, according to multiple reports.

“Joe Biden became mentally impaired. Kamala was born that way. She was born that way. And if you think about it, only a mentally disabled person could have allowed this to happen to our country,” Trump added, according to the reports.

Jared Kushner Hails Israel Strikes on Hezbollah amid Donald Trump's Silence

 https://www.newsweek.com/jared-kushner-israel-hezbollah-hassan-nasrallah-trump-1960912

Kushner described September 27—the date Israel killed Nasrallah—as "the most important day in the Middle East since the Abraham Accords breakthrough."

Statement by Vice President Harris on the Death of Hassan Nasrallah

 https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/09/28/statement-by-vice-president-harris-on-the-death-of-hassan-nasrallah/

Hassan Nasrallah was a terrorist with American blood on his hands. Across decades, his leadership of Hezbollah destabilized the Middle East and led to the killing of countless innocent people in Lebanon, Israel, Syria, and around the world. Today, Hezbollah’s victims have a measure of justice....

Trump Remark About 1890s Rebuked Online: 'Such Ignorant Thinking'

 https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-mckinley-tariffs-1890s-ignorant-thinking-michael-steele-1960800

T.J. Stiles, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and historian, disputed Trump's claims on X, writing on Friday, "Trump is no better as a historian of the 1890s than he is of the Civil War. No, it wasn't America's wealthiest time. No, McKinley wasn't a businessman."

Stiles pointed out that McKinley's first major tariff bill, which he authored while in Congress, "in part cost Republicans the House & White House." The historian referenced the McKinley Tariff Act of 1890, which raised duties on imported goods by about 50 percent and contributed to significant political losses for the Republican Party in subsequent elections.

Biden: Nasrallah's death was 'measure of justice' for his many victims

 https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-822248

US President Joe Biden on Saturday called Israel's killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah "a measure of justice" for his many victims and said the United States fully supported Israel's right to defend itself against Iran-supported groups.

Biden said he had directed Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to enhance further the defense posture of US military forces in the Middle East to deter aggression and reduce the risk of a broader war.

IDF confirms: Ali Karki, commander of Hezbollah's Southern Front, is eliminated

 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/396858

Ali Karki has been the Commander of Hezbollah’s Southern Front since 2007, directing the terrorist organization’s activities in southern Lebanon. He oversaw the build-up of weapons stockpiles and stationed thousands of operatives along the border with Israel. Since the war began, Karki has led rocket launches, anti-tank missile attacks, and UAV strikes that have killed dozens of Israeli civilians and soldiers, inflicting heavy damage to communities in northern Israel.

Hezbollah Confirms Leader Hassan Nasrallah Killed in Israeli Strike

 https://www.newsweek.com/israel-lebanon-hassan-nasrallah-idf-killed-1960688

Israeli said it killed Hezbollah Leader Hassan Nasrallah in a Beirut air strike on Friday, dealing a stunning blow to Iran, the Middle Eastern nation's most implacable foe.

..The chief of the Iranian-backed militant group had reportedly been the target of Israel's attacks on the Lebanese capital on Friday, and there had been rumors that he had been hit.

Considered by many regional analysts and supporters as the most charismatic leader in a network of proxies that projected Iran power across the Middle East, Nasrallah rarely appeared in public but cultivated a cult like following with his televised speeches.

Good Old days?!

 I was taking with a young man who was expressing dissatisfaction with his son's yeshiva because they were not making the proper atmosphere for Elul like they did when he was a yeshiva bachur.

That reminded me of a conversation I had with the first Reb Freifeld  when I drove her to visit someone in the hospital. She was talking about the good old days. So I asked her bluntly, "When were the Old Days truly better? She thought a while and responded "In the time of Shlomo haMelech." 

This nostalgia for the old days is often destructive. When my sons learned Chumash in yeshiva they were taught in Yiddish, Which they didn't understand nor did the rest of their class. When I asked the teachers and the principal, they said that is the way they did it in Europe. Rabbi Freifeld told me that the reason hard gemoras are taught was parents thought that was the way it was taught in Europe. He said in fact Berachos was often the beginning gemora in Europe. Rabbi Dovid Cohen said these people would have to give an accounting for destroying the Torah learning by teaching in Yiddish. Likewise many young men learned to hate Torah learning which was based on an imagined era rather than contemporary needs. This was done because parents wanted the good old days they imagined and would change from any yeshiva that did not accept their dreams. Similarly we have a fantasy of the piety and scholarship of the previous times. Rav Hutner said there is greater hasmada in America than there was in Europe. In addition after WWI when the community structure was destroyed. perhaps the majority of Jews were heretics

Rabbi Freiefeld once lamented the fact that today's heretic are not heretics but simply ignorant He said to be a real heretic you first need to be a real talmid chuchum

Rav  Yosef founded a political movement based on the golden years when Sefardim dominated Ahkenasim.

The MAGA movement is based on the idea of the old days being better. Which days the Depression? WWII the 1950's when we were told we would die in nuclear War and everyone was suspected of being a Communist or the 60's and 70's when the country was torn over the Vietnam War or the social and economic disaster of the end of the 20th Century> I remember the Ph.D's who were driving cabs because there were no jobs available

Interesting there is a gemora lamenting the good old days when miracles were more common because they were so frum. The gemora asks for an example and describes a fanatic who ripped a red cloak from a woman because it was immodest only to discover the woman wasn't Jewish and he was severely fined fined for  embarrassing her

Berachos (20a) Rav Pappa said to Abaye: What is different about the earlier generations, for whom miracles occurred and what is different about us, for whom miracles do not occur? If it is because of Torah study; in the years of Rav Yehuda all of their learning was confined to the order of Nezikin, while we learn all six orders! Moreover, when Rav Yehuda would reach in tractate Okatzin, which discusses the extent to which the stems of various fruits and vegetables are considered an integral part of the produce in terms of becoming ritually impure, the halakha that a woman who pickles a vegetable in a pot, and some say when he would reach the halakha that olives pickled with their leaves are pure, because after pickling, it is no longer possible to lift the fruit by its leaves, they are no longer considered part of the fruit; he would find it difficult to understand. He would say: Those are the disputes between Rav and Shmuel that we see here. And we, in contrast, learn thirteen versions of Okatzin. While, with regard to miracles, after declaring a fast to pray for a drought to end, when Rav Yehuda would remove one of his shoes the rain would immediately fall, whereas we torment ourselves and cry out and no one notices us. Abaye said to Rav Pappa: The previous generations were wholly dedicated to the sanctification of God’s name, while we are not as dedicated to the sanctification of God’s name. Typical of the earlier generations’ commitment, the Gemara relates: Like this incident involving Rav Adda bar Ahava who saw a non-Jewish woman who was wearing a garment made of a forbidden mixture of wool and linen [karbalta] in the marketplace. Since he thought that she was Jewish, he stood and ripped it from her. It was then divulged that she was a non-Jew and he was taken to court due to the shame that he caused her, and they assessed the payment for the shame that he caused her at four hundred zuz. Ultimately, Rav Adda said to her: What is your name? She replied: Matun. In a play on words, he said to her: Matun, her name, plus matun, the Aramaic word for two hundred, is worth four hundred zuz.

Bottom line is we only have our times and we need to make the best of them

BBC told director of Nova massacre film to not describe Hamas as terrorists

 https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/article-821666

Yariv Mozer, the director of We Will Dance Again, a documentary film about the Nova festival, said that he had to agree with the BBC to not describe Hamas as a terrorist organization if he wanted it to air, according to an interview with The Hollywood Reporter on Tuesday.

A Deere in Trump’s Political Headlights

 https://www.wsj.com/opinion/donald-trump-tariffs-john-deere-mexico-79daf213

The former President’s biggest selling point is the first-term economy his supply-side policies helped promote. But these days he’s making tariffs his highest priority, and that won’t help the economy if he wins.

Donald Trump's John Deere Threat Has a Problem: the USMCA Act He Signed

 https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-john-deere-tariffs-usmca-act-problem-1958336

Republican nominee Trump made his feelings known about the plan during a policy roundtable in Smithton, Pennsylvania, hosted by the Protecting America Initiative.

"They've announced a few days ago that they're going to move a lot of their manufacturing business to Mexico," Trump said. "I'm just notifying John Deere right now: If you do that, we're putting a 200 percent tariff on everything that you want to sell into the United States." Newsweek has contacted John Deere for comment via email outside of standard working hours.

However, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) signed by Trump in January 2020, a replacement for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), prohibits the leverage of tariffs on a range of goods, allowing companies to manufacture in Mexico and Canada and export back to the U.S. without high costs.

Soul and Money

 Lekutei Moharan (01:68) The soul originates from the same supernal source from which money issues, devolves and comes into being. Money’s origin, from which it extends downward, is undoubtedly an aspect of holiness and a source of holy influx. But afterwards, in the process of devolving, this influx acquires corporeality and becomes money. Thus the reason the soul desires money is that the soul and money share the same source. 

Why did hundreds of Orthodox Jerusalem girls suddenly go barefoot

https://www.jpost.com/omg/article-821298

Hundreds of students at the Old Seminary, an ultra-Orthodox school in Jerusalem, removed their shoes and walked barefoot after discovering their TOMS footwear contained Shaatnez, a forbidden mixture of wool and linen, BeHadrei Haredim and Mynet reported.