Last month, Axios published "Off the rails," a series taking you inside the end of Donald Trump's presidency, from his election loss to the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection that triggered his second impeachment — and a Senate trial set to begin next week.
In this bonus edition, we take you back into those final weeks — to one long, unhinged night a week before Christmas, when an epic, profanity-soaked standoff played out with profound implications for the nation.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/297200
Family members of Osnat Ben Shitrit, the pregnant woman who died last night at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, opposed receiving the Covid-19 vaccine.
Ben Shitrit, 32, who was in her 30th week of pregnancy, died in the intensive care unit at Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital, and the efforts to revive the fetus also failed.
Ben Shitrit's brother-in-law told Kan News: "I founded one of the most successful groups on Facebook against the vaccines, after this case I disabled it. When it comes to you, you understand that you have to think differently."
We call on everyone to go get vaccinated now."
Using a pioneering machine, NHS medics have been able to reanimate hearts from donors whose hearts had stopped. The technique has saved the lives of six British children aged from 12 to 16, and the transplants have all taken place during the pandemic.
https://darchenoam.org/rabbi-karlinskys-article-can-chumros-be-bad-for-your-neshamah/
Rav Wolbe continues: Proper service of G-d has to be built on “da’at” – an accurate, deep intelligent understanding of what G-d wants from us, acquired through clear thinking and a deep analysis of Torah. The Talmud (T.B. Sotah 21b; Talmud Yerushalmi Sotah 3:4) illustrates the concept of “chasid shoteh” (a pious fool) with two examples. (It is truly ironic that one of them is an extreme example of what seems to be taking place in front of our eyes, no pun intended.) A woman is drowning, and a man with the ability to save her says to himself that it is not proper to look at women, and does not save her. A child is drowning and a person delays saving him until he removes his tefillin (since jumping into the water while wearing tefillin is disrespectful for them). By the time he has removed the tefillin, the baby has drowned. The common denominator of these examples, explains Rav Wolbe, is following a spiritual instinct without da’at, that clear and intelligent analysis and understanding of what is required of a person in every specific situation. The result of actions rooted in instinct rather than da’at can be the source of distancing one from G-d, rather than bringing one closer to Him. Becoming closer to G-d must be based on a deep understanding of the process of connection to Him, rather than imaginary notions of spiritual accomplishments. This requires clarity about what G-d demands of a person in every situation, having our feet planted firmly on the ground, operating in reality rather than in some self-generated fantasy world. A true relationship with G-d is rooted in proper actions in the real, physical world. The drive and excessive focus on “getting closer to G-d” (especially in our quick-fix, microwave society) emanates from “frumkeit,” that instinctual desire to reach spiritual heights, with the yetzer hara seducing us to find ways to get there without the requisite time and effort necessary.
https://mishpacha.com/were-only-addressing-half-the-problem/
The first assumption about abuse in the Jewish community was that the abuse ran in only one direction, and female perpetrators and male victims of domestic abuse were virtually nonexistent. Prominent Jewish writers, echoed by many others in the field, asserted that 95 percent of victims of physical abuse in a marriage are women and only 5 percent are men — a 16:1 ratio.
However, this belief turned out not to be substantiated, as study after study has shown that women are perpetrators of domestic abuse at rates comparable to men. Furthermore, the belief that patriarchal views explained most instances of domestic abuse turned out to be false. Many of the most rigorous studies suggest that other factors, such as individual personality characteristics, impulse control, and life stressors have much more to do with domestic violence than do patriarchal beliefs of men in society.
For too long the Jewish community has denied the painful reality of male domestic abuse victims and the catastrophic outcomes — for the men as well as their children — that the abuse inflicts. Unfortunately, some men turn to alcohol or substance abuse. Some struggle with suicidality. These maladaptive responses to their anguish tend to feed negative stigmas that our society has toward men, who instead deserve compassion as victims of domestic abuse.
The Jewish community can do better. It must do better. The effects of domestic abuse, whether the victim is a woman or a man, can be catastrophic, and ignoring this reality costs families and communities dearly. Over the past 30 years, the Jewish community has done an incredible job of addressing half of this problem. The time has come to stop ignoring the other half.
Israel is said to have agreed to purchase an unknown number of Russia’s Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine doses for use in Syria as part of the deal for the return of an Israeli woman who was held by the Syrian regime after crossing the border two weeks ago. The woman arrived in Israel on Friday via Moscow and was being debriefed this weekend by the Shin Bet security agency.
According to a report (Arabic) in the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat on Saturday, Israel is funding the purchase of Sputnik V doses for Damascus as part of the prisoner exchange deal with the Assad regime. The Ynet news site reported Saturday that Israel’s purchase of the vaccine doses was to the tune of over a million dollars.
Rav Shlomo Wolbe(Alei Shur 2:4): On the narrow path to Truth in serving G‑d there is a major impediment which is called “frumkeit” (religiosity) – a term which has no clear and exact translation. “Frumkeit” is the natural urge and instinct to become attached to the Creator. This instinct is also found amongst animals. King Dovid said, “The lion cubs roar for their prey and ask G‑d for their food” (Tehilim 104:21). “He gives to the beast his food and to the young crows who call to Him” (Tehilim 247:9). There is no necessity that these verses should be viewed as mere metaphors. Animals have an instinctive feeling that there is someone who is concerned that they have food and this is the same instinct that works in man – but obviously at a higher level. This natural frumkeit helps us in serving G‑d. Without this natural assistance, serving G‑d would be extremely difficult. However this frumkeit, as in all instinctive urges that occur in man, is inherently self-centered. Therefore frumkeit pushes man to do only that which is good for himself. Activities between people and altruistic actions are not produced by frumkeit. One who bases his service of G‑d entirely on frumkeit remains self‑centered.[...] With this we come here to the essence of the issue of frumkeit. The opposite of frumkeit is self-abnegation and humility. Frumkeit is an egoistic drive like all other instinctive drives. Therefore there is not the slightest aspect of humility and subservience and consequently there is also not true closeness to G‑d. That is because it is obvious that the Divine Presence does not rest with the self-centered ego. In fact the opposite is true. Only by self-abnegation does a person get progressively farther from egoism and in that manner he becomes a pure vessel for G‑d to cause His Divine Presence to be with him….
Not all prophets have doubled down on their Trump prophecies since the election, however. And as some have backed away from Trump, a schism has emerged. At least six recognized prophets who initially predicted a Trump reelection have acknowledged those prophecies were wrong. They now say they are deeply troubled by their peers’ refusal to acknowledge the same—and worry that allegiance to Trump could threaten the prophetic tradition itself.
https://www.fox4news.com/news/no-frozen-wind-turbines-arent-the-main-culprit-for-texas-power-outages
Frozen wind turbines in Texas caused some conservative state politicians to declare Tuesday that the state was relying too much on renewable energy. But in reality, the lost wind power makes up only a fraction of the reduction in power-generating capacity that has brought outages to millions of Texans across the state during a major winter storm.
While Webber said all of Texas’ energy sources share blame for the power crisis, the natural gas industry is most notably producing significantly less power than normal.
"Gas is failing in the most spectacular fashion right now," Webber said.
"It appears that a lot of the generation that has gone offline today has been primarily due to issues on the natural gas system," he said during a Tuesday call with reporters.
Still, some have focused their blame on wind power.
BS"D
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-56085733
So when critics pointed to a loss of nearly half of Texas's wind-energy capacity as a result of frozen turbines, they failed to point out double that amount was being lost from gas and other non-renewable supplies such as coal and nuclear.
As nearly 3 million Texans languished without electricity Wednesday afternoon amid the ongoing fallout from Winter Storm Uri, Republicans and Fox News have teamed up to turn the disaster into a culture-war wedge issue.
Fox News’ treatment of Uri illustrates how, for a large segment of the Republican Party, everything is now a culture war. On Fox, the coronavirus pandemic is recast around the struggle of aggrieved business owners and parents to overcome purportedly unnecessary public health regulations imposed by Democratic public officials; the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol becomes about Nancy Pelosi’s alleged failures; President Joe Biden’s efforts to prevent conflicts of interest in and around the White House is covered, while the egregious conflicts of interest in the Trump White House were defended.
https://ohr.edu/this_week/insights_into_halacha/5717
The Gadol Hador, Rav Moshe Feinstein zt”l, in a brief, albeit pivotal teshuva dated several months after the Surgeon General’s initial report,[14] wrote that although it is certainly appropriate to abstain from smoking, nevertheless, one cannot say that smoking is outright assur, as there are many people that smoke. Therefore, smokers fit into the category of “Shomer Pesaim Hashem, Hashem watches over fools.”[15] Rav Moshe adds that especially since many Gedolim smoked, it is impossible to say that such an act is truly forbidden.[16] This responsum seems to be the primary justification for many a smoker.
In fact, even Rav Moshe himself, in subsequent teshuvos dated 1981,[24] took a much stronger stance against smoking due to the health risks involved. Although he still would not call smoking outright assur, he nonetheless rules that due to the dangers of second-hand smoke, it is forbidden to smoke where it will bother others (a psak later echoed by many other authorities)[25] including Batei Midrash and shuls, and concludes with an exhortation that everyone, especially Bnei Torah, should not begin to smoke due to the chashash sakana, adding that it is assur to ‘get addicted’.
Several years ago, his son, Rav Dovid Feinstein shlit”a, was quoted as saying that with the current knowledge of the harm smoking causes, it is pashut that had his father, Rav Moshe, still been alive today, he would have prohibited smoking outright, as his dispensation was only based on the ‘fact’ that smoking endangered only a small percentage of smokers.[26] Indeed, in a newly discovered and recently published teshuva of Rav Moshe’s, dated Elul 5732, he himself wrote that his famous lenient psak was based on the facts as they were known at the time.[27] He added that if the metzius would change and the percentages of those proven harmed by smoking would increase, then certainly it would be prohibited to smoke, at least the amount the doctors considered harmful to one’s health.
