Our Rabbis taught: Since the death of the last prophets, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachai, the Holy Sanhedrin (11a) Spirit [of prophetic inspiration] departed from Israel; yet they were still able to avail themselves of the Bath-kol.13 Once when the Rabbis were met in the upper chamber of Gurya's14 house at Jericho, a Bath-kol was heard from Heaven, saying: ‘There is one amongst you who is worthy that the Shechinah15 should rest on him as it did on Moses, but his generation does not merit it.’ The Sages present set their eyes on Hillel the Elder. And when he died, they lamented and said: ‘Alas, the pious man, the humble man, the disciple of Ezra [is no more].’
Once again they were met in the upper chamber at Jabneh, and a Bath-kol was heard to say: ‘There is one amongst you who is worthy that the Shechinah should rest on him, but his generation does not merit it.’ The Sages present directed their gaze on Samuel the Little. And when he died, they lamented and said: ‘Alas! the pious man, alas! the humble man, the disciple of Hillel [is no more].’ Samuel the Little also said shortly before he passed away: ‘Simeon16 and Ishmael17 will meet their death by the sword, and his friends18 will be executed; the rest of the people will be plundered, and many troubles will come upon the world.’ The Rabbis wished to use the same words of lamentation for R. Judah b. Baba;19 the troublous conditions of the time, however, did not permit it, for no funeral orations were delivered over those who were martyred by the [Roman] Government.20
Our Rabbis taught: A year cannot be intercalated unless the Nasi sanctions it. It once happened that Rabban Gamaliel was away obtaining permission from the Governor in Syria21 , and, as his return was delayed, the year was intercalated subject to Rabban Gamaliel's later approval. When Rabban Gamaliel returned he gave his approval with the result that the intercalation held good.
Saturday, December 26, 2020
Prophesy ended?
Psak is different for post-Talmudic authorites who lack ruach hakodesh
Rep. Kinzinger swipes at Trump, fellow House GOP for denying election loss: 'It's sad'
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/rep-kinzinger-swipes-trump-fellow-house-gop-denying-election-loss
"My God. Trying to burn the place down on the way out because you can’t handle losing," Kinzinger tweeted. "No evidence, nothing but your temper tantrum and crazy conspiracies. Embarrassing. #RestoreOurGOP."
Kinzinger got backup from Michigan Rep. Paul Mitchell, who is "disaffiliating" with the GOP over Trump's ongoing election fraud claims.
"It is a scam of epic scale -- hundreds of millions raised," Mitchell tweeted of Trump's continued fundraising. "And if you look at the fine print -- little going to @realDonaldTrump legal fund the majority to his new PAC. And a non-profit has been formed to employ others of his minions. SCAMS!"
The Secret Is Out
https://mishpacha.com/the-secret-is-out/
A few months ago, Senator Ted Cruz said, “If it ends up that Biden wins in November… I guarantee you, the week after the election, suddenly all those Democratic governors, all those Democratic mayors, will say, ‘Everything’s magically better. Go back to work, go back to school.’ Suddenly, the problems are solved; you won’t even have to wait for Biden to be sworn in.” Cruz — who knows a thing or two about conspiracy theories, having been a victim of one in 2016 — was actually just parroting a theory advanced by his erstwhile victimizer.
But it hasn’t exactly worked out that way. We’re six weeks past the election and the pandemic is still very much with us and being treated as such. But that’s the great thing about conspiracy theories: They can just be trotted out to suit one’s political purposes, and when, with the passage of time, they turn out to be baseless, no one even remembers them, and it’s on to the next wild imagined conspiracy.
Remember this one? “Joe Biden is a mere puppet of the radical left to be used as a tool to burn down the suburbs and impose atheism on America.” During the campaign, his opponent referred to him regularly as a “Trojan Horse for socialism.” When asked by talk show host Laura Ingraham who Biden’s being controlled by, he helpfully clarified that it’s “people who you’ve never heard of, people who are in the dark shadows,” and “people who are in the streets, people who are controlling the streets.”
But being a conspiracy theorist means never having to say you’re sorry even when the theories turn out to be baseless. So if it turns out Joe Biden is no one’s marionette, no big deal. After all, didn’t you hear? He’s not actually the next president since he stole the election.
Although grounded, reality-based people tend to downplay the gravity of conspiracy theories because they’re just so outlandish, when their prevalence reaches a critical mass in society, they become a deadly serious issue indeed. And they have reached that point, as Kevin D. Williamson writes in National Review:
When I first started writing about QAnon, some conservatives scoffed that it wasn’t a significant phenomenon, that it had no real influence on the Republican Party or conservative politics. That is obviously untrue. Rather than ask whether conspiracy kookery is relevant to Republican politics at this moment, it would be better to ask if there is anything else to Republican politics at at this moment. And maybe there is, but not much.
For the uninitiated, QAnon, which been identified by the FBI as a domestic terror threat, is a complex, mutating theory centered around the belief that the outgoing president is a heroic savior secretly battling to save the world from a Satanic cult of pedophiles and cannibals connected to prominent Democrats and Deep State denizens. The president has publicly welcomed its support and has retweeted scores of its supporters’ posts; dozens of its supporters have run for office and two were just elected to Congress, with Republican Party help; and opinion surveys show over half of Republican voters believe its central elements.
Read those lines again. Five years ago, a novel or movie script based on this would’ve been rejected as too implausible to attract an audience; today, we’ve acclimated to it emerging from the Oval Office, from the same fingers that are on the nuclear button.
The out-of-control spread of conspiracy theories is a grave enough danger to the health of the nation, but for Jews it is a mortal threat. It is perilous for us in physical terms, given the fact that conspiracy theories have been at the very heart of Jew hatred during the entire history of our people.
And it is equally ominous for us spiritually, because our very existence as the Am Hashem depends on holding fast to truth, rejecting falsehood, and insisting on the highest epistemological standards for discerning between the two. Every Jewish heresy has trafficked in part or in whole in wildly fantastical or conspiratorial theories, from false Messianic movements, to Bible critics’ fever dreams of a fabricated Torah, to contemporary Orthodox feminism’s baseless delusions about a women-subjugating rabbinic cabal. If you think entertaining outrageous political conspiracy theories at the Shabbos table is harmless fun that doesn’t risk corroding the exquisite sensitivity to emes and sheker that our young people need to subscribe to ikarei hadas — think again.
In recent weeks, however, things have risen to a dangerous new level. Yuval Levin, senior scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, writes at The Dispatch:
For our political culture, the Trump era is ending much as it began — in a hail of delusion and fantasy. Throughout his term, the president has invented stories of his own victimization and heroism, demanded the acceptance of lies as tests of loyalty to himself, and elevated baseless theories from the depths of various internet cesspools. His opponents have often responded in kind….
Our affinity for partisan conspiracy obviously did not begin with this presidency…. But the fever has clearly grown much hotter in the Trump era. We’ve seen not only the party out of power easing its pain with myths of victimization by shadowy forces but a sitting president actively blurring the line between fantasy and reality. It should be no surprise that he is now concluding his presidency by insisting the election was stolen and beckoning his supporters down a rabbit hole of unreality and grievance.
And anecdotal indications are that among those going down that rabbit hole are more than a negligible number of members of our own community. Our history is replete with a country’s Jews being the victims of blood libels, but now we face the prospect of something at least as chilling: Jews, a tiny, vulnerable minority in a country already riven by partisan hatred and fear, publicly identifying with those promoting a libel aimed at delegitimizing the country’s rulers.
We can hope that the conspiratorial fever that has seized millions of Americans these last six weeks will yet break. But if it doesn’t, the potential implications for Jews are frightening.
Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 841. Eytan Kobre may be contacted directly at kobre@mishpacha.com
Another Trump hater? NO EASY ROAD TO TRUTH
https://www.jewishmediaresources.com/2084/no-easy-road-to-truth
A recent column, "Get Thee Gone," critical of President Trump's post-election behavior, attracted a fair amount of criticism. I learned a good deal from that criticism, including something about myself — to wit, all things considered, I prefer praise to criticism (about which more later.)
As far as most — not all — of the critics were concerned, any column that mentions the president is either pro-Trump or anti-Trump. And anything that is not 100 percent pro-Trump is, by definition, anti-Trump. No further analysis of the points made is required.
The columns I have written praising the president — for breaking with the conventional wisdom on Middle East peace-making, the plight of the working class, the Chinese threat, and campus due process, to name a few — availed me not. No criticism can be brooked.
That Manichean view of the universe, especially with respect to the president, strikes me as inimical to religion. It elevates the president to a stature that he cannot bear. A number of Christian conservatives have written about how pro-Trump boosterism has corrupted many evangelicals. And what they have written applies with equal force to elements of our own community; just substitute Orthodox Jews for evangelicals.
"Some evangelicals in the last four years have clearly made Trump their god and MAGA their religion," a recent Washington Times
editorial opined. "It is perfectly possible to vote for Trump, his
judges, for his tax cuts, without becoming an obeisant loyalist.... Yet
many signed their souls over."
Trump's mind is elsewhere as unemployment benefits run out for millions of Americans
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/12/26/politics/donald-trump-stimulus-unemployment-benefits/index.html
A day before unemployment benefits for millions of Americans were set to expire, President Donald Trump had a different insult in mind: his former-model wife has yet to appear on the cover of a fashion magazine as first lady.
Trump is destroying his own party on the way out the door
This holiday season, President Donald Trump has wreaked havoc on Congress, our democracy and our judicial system by pardoning political associates and convicted murderers. But Trump has saved a special kind of Grinch-like behavior for the two Republican Senate candidates in Georgia who are headed for runoff elections in January and for Senator Mitch McConnell, whose fate as majority leader depends on the GOP winning at least one of those races.
10th of Teves Alert: Making LGBT Exploitation Legal [Again] in NJ
Asara B'Teves, '81 / Dec. 25, '20
By Rabbi Noson Shmuel Leiter, Executive Director, Help Rescue Our Children
The Chassam Sofer (Toras Moshe, Drashos for 7th of Adar) explains that today, the Tenth of Teves, is the day on which a Heavenly Tribunal is convened every year, to determine if the Bais HaMikdash will be rebuilt that very year, or, alternatively, whether we will R"L suffer the opposite: it's virtual re-destruction. Chazal (Our Sages) teach us that any generation in which it's not rebuilt is as if it's [re-]destroyed. (Perhaps it's also decided today under what conditions it will be rebuilt, including how much prerequisite difficulty we'll need to endure.)
Therefore, it behooves us to think about what some of the pivotal issues are, to combat the types of rishus ("wickedness") that are perpetuating our bitter Exile. Undeniably, there are multiple problems to address. Here we focus on just one of many.
Chazal exhort us (Mishna Sotah 48a), that "z'nus" and "keshafim" (sexual immorality and sorcery) "eradicated everything." Sexual immorality bebases society and brings down Divine Wrath in the form of collective retribution, in which good people also die, as the Medrashim discuss in relation to the Great Flood (see Rashi Ber. 6:13; Beraishis Rabbah, beginning of Noach).*
*[Every iota of suffering is meted out with a deep calculation, and is truly just. However, in certain situations, G-d judges us with far less mercy than the usual generous measures thereof.]
Furthermore, the Maharal on Chullin 92b observes that the most severe of the forbidden sexual relationships, which are enumerated in VaYikra (Lev.), chapter 18, is the act of sodomy. Indeed, sodomy is branded an abomination even amongst all of the abominations listed there.
This all holds true when sodomy is committed as an individual aberration. However, when society legitimizes a sin - even a small sin - that's worse than even a grave transgression committed as an aberration (Akeidas Yitzchak, Parshas VaYaira, 20). How much worse is the societal legitimization of the worst of all sexual sins, sodomy.
Nowadays, throughout much of what's superficially known as the civilized world, we have exactly that - a toxic blend: societal sanction - even celebration - of the ultimate abomination - Sodomy. This collective mania even goes to the extreme of celebrating same-gender "marriage" - recognition of which triggered the annihilation of the world by the Great Flood, as our Sages teach us in VaYikra Rabbah 23, on VaYikra 18:3. This contemporary societal sanction is backed by all sorts of LGBT legislation, mandating government enforcement, with all the tyranny that that entails.
CHILD MOLESTATION:
Although child molestation is a separate (albeit related) topic, beyond our ability to properly address within the limitations of this article, it must be noted that the apparent escalation of child molestation clearly cannot be disconnected from the moral free-fall of society. When society eradicates almost all taboos, there's almost nothing left for those who gravitate specifically towards that which is taboo.
Furthermore, unfortunately, we have in our midst so-called leaders who arrogantly enable confirmed, recidivist child molesters to roam the streets with impunity. (One prominent example is one "Moishe" Turner of Monsey NY, first arrested by Ramapo Police on Hoshana Rabbah over seven years ago.) No, those enablers don't explicitly vindicate child molestation. However, by their enabling actions they do in fact help establish child molestation as a perverted kind of communal "norm" (because now recidivist molesters know that, even if they get caught, they need only seek legal refuge on Highview, in the new "Ir Miklat"...). Sending that type of lethal message is tantamount to societal sanction for child molestation; actions often speak louder than words. See Yechezkel (Eze.), chapter 34, for a prediction of the types of self -serving leaders we will suffer from prior to the Final Redemption, which we strive to expedite on this Fast Day.
To the extent that Torah observant individuals lead the charge against these anti-Torah outrages, we can hope to reap immense reward, based on the principle "Midah Tovah Merubah." Divine Compassion manifests even more powerfully than Divine Judgement. ("If we can destroy, how much more so can we build.") If z'nus can help destroy all that we had - how much more so would combating the worst forms of sexual immorality help merit the restoration of what we lost.
In that positive sense, we present some valuable opportunities to help do our humble part in fighting contemporary evils - the likes of which perhaps have never been seen before, quite like this. Let's turn our attention to a very practical matter facing New Jersey residents right now. We also need bear in mind the assurance cited by the sage Rav Yeshaya HaKohain OB"M (published at the end of one old print of the venerable work "Tonoh Devei Eliyahu"). He writes (on the very last page there) that if an individual does all he is expected to do to ensure that he personally is not impeding the Final Redemption - i.e. he ensures that his "personal portion in the Bais HaMikdash" (Shel Ma'alah) is indeed "rebuilt" - then - even if the Jewish People aren't yet on the level to merit our national Redemption - that individual will merit his own personal, individual redemption. Practically speaking, he'll be granted the ability to serve HaShem (G-d) without the standard encumberments of the pre-Redemption epoch.
»» LGBT Legislation Stalled in NJ Until January:
Thank G-d, in the wake of vibrant profamily vigilance, including the work of some prominent Orthodox Jewish activists, NJ residents have been granted more time to stop two particular dangerous LGBTQ bills from becoming law, S2781 /A4454 (Education), and S2545 (Healthcare facilities). At this point, concerned citizens have at least two weeks to publicize the dangers of these bills, to ensure they are stopped before the Legislature returns from vacation.
______________________________
NJ Legislative Info For Senate & Assembly:
v: 609-847-3905 or (800) 792-8630
e: LegInfo@NJLeg.org
w: www.NJLeg.state.nj.us
______________________________
What's important now is (1) to alert the public about what these bills actually would do, if enacted, G-d forbid, and (2) to escalate pressure on all of the legislators to oppose these bills, and anything remotely similar. We must leverage the fact that the entire Legislature is up for election in less than a year. Specifically, Passaic Assemblyman Gary Schaer (D) needs to to told in no uncertain terms that he'd better kill both of these bills, especially after voting for one of them (see further), and previously supported similarly outrageous LGBT legislation two years ago. He's in a powerful position, which is an advantage to be used precisely for these types of monumental spiritual threats threatening our most precious resource.
°°°°°°°°°°
A.) A4454: Making Hellenism "Educational" Again
We've already posted repeatedly about the "Education" bill* (e.g., http://daattorah.
{* A4454 2R: https://www.njleg.state.
https://www.njleg.state.nj.
Some Dangers Of A4454:
This bill advances the inroads the LGBT lobby had previously made into NJ public education two years ago. For example, one dangerous proposed modification to existing Education law in this "Education" bill would be to require public schools, K-12, to indoctrinate children against "unconscious bias against" LGBT. This threatens to radically transform the entire worldview of every normal child in regards to sex, family, marriage and morality. This is truly a form of state-mandated psychological child-molestation.
Another change this bill would make is as follows: even school districts that until now had been able to avoid incorporating LGBT - where deemed "not appropriate" -would no longer enjoy the same latitude, under this new legislation. This bill omits "where appropriate" as a criteria for teaching LGBT.
Realize that generally legal challenges to schools will wind up before left-leaning judges. The U.S. Supreme Court is no solace. Even seemingly conservative Trump Supreme Court nominees have demonstrated serious weaknesses, in varying degrees, specifically on LGBT issues (e.g. as in the devastating "Bostock" decision this past Summer).
We need to identify the source of the problem here. (Before doing so, we refer the reader to Sefer Chofetz Chayim, I:8:5-8, for starters, and the Gemara in Avoda Zorah 17a, regarding Minnus (heresy) as indicated by pronounced laxity towards prohibited sexual relationships.) In part, our problems are within.
For just one example, on Oct. 29th, Passaic Assemblyman Gary Schaer voted for the earlier version of this LGBT propaganda bill, A4454, on the Assembly floor. This is after he was publicly criticized about two years ago for supporting a similarly outrageous LGBT propaganda bill. Why would someone who is ostensibly Orthodox, and who ostensibly represents a heavily Orthodox district, vote to indoctrinate youth (high schoolers, in that early version) into LGBT dogma? Furthermore, the fact that he could get away with that absurdity demonstrates how utterly unreliable the purportedly Orthodox Jewish Establishment is, including Aguda. If it wouldn't be for their dereliction, the Orthodox community would be alerted to act decisively to stop this lunacy once and for all. And they would do so.
Moreover, N.Y. State Jewry is in the midst of an unprecedented existential struggle against Schaer's fellow travelers in the N.Y. State leftist Establishment, who seek to force us to teach LGBT propaganda to our own children*. Nevertheless, Schaer voted to advance said LGBT propaganda in NJ. He did so knowing that every gain for the LGBT movement not only victimizes public school children and families immediately, but also invariably enables the LGBT movement to lurch ever closer to its goal of controlling religious schools.
* (See https://
Additionally, not only is Aguda silent, but they import their own domestically-grown LGBT advocate, Yechiel Mark Kalish, to moderate an Aguda Convention forum on political matters. Kalish, operating as a legislative appointee to the Illinois legislature (who filled the seat of a fellow leftist), voted for the LGBT indoctrination bill HB 246, among other gems (including a drug legalization bill). HB 246 requires Illinois public schools teach LGBT propaganda to children. It also afflicts religious schools, limiting government funding for textbooks to those books that their pro-LGBT overseers deem "non-discriminatory."
By showcasing Kalish, who exposed the tens of thousands of Aguda Convention listeners to a bizarre dose of LGBT propaganda, Aguda signaled the LGBT Mafia that the ostensibly Orthodox Jewish Establishment remains open for business (undoubtedly for the right price, of course). Simultaneously, Aguda is purportedly standing up against the threat to Jewish Education in N.Y. State. That threat is primarily from the pro-LGBT leftist Establishment. So they can't be truly fighting those to whom they so flagrantly cave. If we are to win the war against those intent on indoctrination of our children into LGBT dogma, it won't be by relying on Aguda or associated groups. And when it comes to a war for our very survival, we have no room for errors as grave as dependence on the unreliable.
Passaic Assemblyman Gary Schaer - and his enablers in Passaic and Aguda - bear heavy responsibility for the monster they've created, by impeding Gedolei Yisroel and Bnei Torah from properly identifying, publicizing, and countering the threats posed by the LGBT movement, and the role that pro-LGBT turncoat Jews like Gary Schaer and Yechiel Mark Kalish play in advancing the goals of the radical homosexualist Jew-Haters.
Friday, December 25, 2020
Jews should never allow someone to be singled out for wrong doing? !
Similarly it once happened that while Rabbi was delivering a lecture, he noticed a smell of garlic. Thereupon he said: ‘Let him who has eaten garlic go out.’ R. Hiyya arose and left; then all the other disciples rose in turn and went out. In the morning R. Simeon, Rabbi's son, met and asked him: ‘Was it you who caused annoyance to my father yesterday?’ ‘Heaven forfend that such a thing should happen in Israel,’ he answered.
And from whom did R. Hiyya learn such conduct? — From R. Meir, for it is taught: A story is related of a woman who appeared at the Beth Hammidrash of R. Meir and said to him, ‘Rabbi, one of you has taken me to wife by cohabitation.’ Thereupon he rose up and gave her a bill of divorce, after which every one of his disciples stood up in turn and did likewise. And from whom did R. Meir learn this? — From Samuel the Little. And Samuel the Little? — From Shecaniah son of Jehiel, for it is written, And Shecaniah son of Jehiel, one of the sons of Elam answered and said unto Ezra: We have broken faith with our God and have married foreign women of the peoples of the land: yet now there is hope in Israel concerning this thing.And Shecaniah learnt it from [the story told of] Joshua. As it is written, The Lord said unto Joshua, Get thee up, wherefore, now, art thou fallen upon they face? Israel hath sinned . . . ‘Master of the Universe,’ asked Joshua, ‘who are the sinners?’ ‘Am I an informer?’ replied God. ‘Go and cast lots [to find out].’ Or, if you like, I might say that he learnt it from [the incident with] Moses, as we read, And the Lord said unto Moses, How long refuse ye to keep My commandments and My laws?
Trump Warns Republicans Who Didn't Back Election Fraud ... I will NEVER FORGET!"
I saved at least 8 Republican Senators, including Mitch, from losing in the last Rigged (for President) Election. Now they (almost all) sit back and watch me fight against a crooked and vicious foe, the Radical Left Democrats. I will NEVER FORGET!.
President Trump Golfs as COVID-19 Relief and Government Shutdown Hang in the Balance
https://time.com/5924792/trump-golfs-covid-19-relief-deal/
After tossing a grenade that threatens to blow up a massive COVID relief and government funding bill and force a government shutdown in the midst of a pandemic, President Donald Trump spent his Christmas Eve golfing in Florida.
Failure to agree on the bill could deny checks to millions of Americans on the brink.
Trump had no events on his public schedule on the first day of his winter vacation Thursday, but traveled to his Palm Beach golf club, where he was spotted by CNN cameras on the links. Reporters were given no details of his schedule for the day, but told that, “As the Holiday season approaches, President Trump will continue to work tirelessly for the American People. His schedule includes many meetings and calls.”
The bipartisan compromise had been considered a done deal and had won sweeping approval in the House and Senate this week after the White House assured GOP leaders that Trump supported it. If Trump refuses to sign the deal, which is attached to a $1.4 trillion government funding bill, it will force a federal government shutdown, in addition to delaying aid checks and halting unemployment benefits and eviction protections in the midst of the most dire stretch of the pandemic.
Controversy erupts around Health Ministry plan to vaccinate on Shabbat
Health Minister Yuli Edelstein announced on Thursday that he had ordered an expansion of the coronavirus vaccine operation to 24 hours a day, including on weekends.
גדולי ישראל על התחלואה: "מי שלא נזהר - חב לאחרינא
https://www.kikar.co.il/381751.html
בשל העלייה בתחלואה בקורונה במגזר החרדי, קוראים גדולי ישראל להתחזק בשקידת התורה ולשמור על כללי הבריאות ומתריעים כי מי שלא עושה זאת "חב לאחריני"; ויש פניה לבעליה שמחות
Rambam - Women and evil
Moreh Nevuchim (2:30): It is important to know the following Medrash our Sages say that the Serpent had a rider Samael (Satan), who was as big as a camel and he was the one who seduced Eve. We find in a number of places that Satan wanted to cause Abraham to sin. And prevent him from sacrificing his son. As well as persuading Yitzchok to disobey his father. We see from these remarks about the Akeida that Samael is Satan. .Our Sages also say that when the Serpent came to seduce Eve that Samael was riding on it and G-d laughed at the camel and its rider. It is important to note that the Serpent did not approach or speak with Adam but all his efforts were directed at Eve. It was only through Eve that the Serpent was able to harm Adam and cause death. Therefore the greatest hatred exists between the Serpent and Eve as well as his descendants and hers which are also Adam’s. When the Serpent had intercourse with Eve he injected her with filth which was removed when the Jews received the Torah at Sinai. However the idolater who were not at Sinai did not have it removed