Jan. 6 Protest Organizers Say They Participated in ‘Dozens’ of Planning Meetings With Members of Congress and White House Staff

 https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/exclusive-jan-6-organizers-met-congress-white-house-1245289/

 As the House investigation into the Jan. 6 attack heats up, some of the planners of the pro-Trump rallies that took place in Washington, D.C., have begun communicating with congressional investigators and sharing new information about what happened when the former president’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol. Two of these people have spoken to Rolling Stone extensively in recent weeks and detailed explosive allegations that multiple members of Congress were intimately involved in planning both Trump’s efforts to overturn his election loss and the Jan. 6 events that turned violent. 

Rolling Stone separately confirmed a third person involved in the main Jan. 6 rally in D.C. has communicated with the committee. This is the first report that the committee is hearing major new allegations from potential cooperating witnesses. While there have been prior indications that members of Congress were involved, this is also the first account detailing their purported role and its scope. The two sources also claim they interacted with members of Trump’s team, including former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who they describe as having had an opportunity to prevent the violence.

Yeshiva deans ban students from donating blood until 'normal' version of forms is restored

 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/315741

In Har Hamor Yeshiva, Mitzpe Ramon Yeshiva and several other Zionist yeshivas, students have been told to refrain from donating blood via MDA until the original version of the documents which ask for "name of father" and "name of mother" is restored.

In recent months, several organizations have been altering official documents, replacing "father" with "parent 1" and "mother" with "parent 2."

Usually, a Magen David Adom (MDA) van arrives at Zionist yeshivas once every three months, in order to enable the students to donate blood on site.

Danger! Missionaries in your home!

 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/315747

These things need to become clear to all Jews regardless of their level of observance or non-observance. To have warm and fuzzy feelings for Christian Messianic Evangelical groups, colleges, individuals, preachers and their online programs just because they are "Zionist" or "Jewish" or can spout chapters of the Bible, is a mortal danger to the present and future of the Jewish people, no less than the rockets and terrorists of Hamas and Hezbollah.

Abracadabra: Israel Museum exhibit explores Jewish magic

 https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/abracadabra-israel-museum-exhibit-explores-jewish-magic-683100

What separates religion from magic? How is the Jewish world connected to magic and why did certain prayers become associated with protective rituals?

A new exhibition at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem attempts to answer these thorny questions.

Titled “Hear, O Israel: The Magic of the Shema,” the show hones in on the Shema, an important Jewish prayer that has been recited for millennia. The first verse of the Shema – “Hear, O Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord is one” – comes from Deuteronomy and expresses the centrality of monotheism to the Jewish faith.

 But as the exhibition at the Israel Museum demonstrates, the prayer was also incorporated into Jewish amulets since ancient times.

Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik’s Lectures on Genesis, through IX

  https://www.hakirah.org/vol27Triebitz.pdf

 https://www.hakirah.org/Vol29Triebitz.pdf

Based upon Rabbi Robert Blau’s notes taken at Bernard
Revel Graduate School in the late 1940s.

Edited and Annotated by: R. MEIR TRIEBITZ

The Human and Social Factor in Halacha by Rav Aharon Soloveitchik

  https://traditiononline.org/the-human-and-social-factor-in-halakha/

Illustrations apart, however, the cogency and legitimacy of a "human"approach to pesak, appears, to many, problematic. They would have us believe that the ideal posek is a faceless and heartless supercomputer into whom all of the relevant data is fed and who then produces the right answer. Should ths standard not be met, the shortfal is to be regarded as a failng, the lamentable result of human frailty-in Bacon's terms, a manifestation of the besetting "idols" which hamper and hinder the capacity for reasoned judgment. On this reading, the process of pesika,properly conçeived and executed, bears no semblance to an existential encounter between seeker and respondent. It entails, rather, the application of text to problem, the coupling of code and situation. This conception does not necessarily preclude reckoning with the specific circumstances of the question and questioner, as these may very well bepart of the relevant objective data. The prevailng tendency, however,would be to dwarf this factor; and as to the human aspect of the meshiv, that would be obviated entirely. He, for his part, is to be animated by the precept that "we do not have mercy in judgment," and hence, to pass on the merits of the issue with imperviously stony objectivity

Towards-a-sociology-of-psak

 https://traditiononline.org/towards-a-sociology-of-psak/

 Within the context of this paper, all of this has meant the growth of right-wing or "sectarian" Orthodoxy-the "yeshiva world" is, overwhelmingly, the world of right-wing Orthodoxy-and the growth of the perspective which is more punctilious and stringent, both in terms of psak and in terms of observance. To clarify and demonstrate this point, it is now necessary to distinguish between two types of Modern Orthodoxy. One may be called philosophical, while the other is more appropriately characterized as behavioraL. Within the category of philosophical Modern Orthodox (or "Centrist Orthodox") would be those who are meticulously observant of halakhah but are, nevertheless, philosophically modern. Within this context, being modern means, at minimum, having a positive perspective on general education and knowledge and being positively disposed to Israel and religious Zionism. 

 The behaviorally Modern Orthodox, on the other hand, are not deeply concerned with philosophical ideas about either modernity or religious Zionism. By and large, they define themselves as Modern Orthodox in the sense that they are not meticulously observant. In many ways, their definition of themselves as Modern Orthodox has the same basis as did those whom Marshall Sklare found to define themselves as Conservative. That is, when asked, "What do you mean when you say you are Conservative?," the responses were, typically: "Now-I'd guess you'd call it middle of the road, as far as (not) being as strict as the Orthodox, yet not quite as Reformed as the Reformed," or ." . . I don't like the old-fashioned type, or the Reform. I'm between the two of them. "28 Similarly, most of those who define themselves as Modern Orthodox do so in reference to right-wing or "sectarian" Orthodoxy, and they define themselves as modern in the sense that they are not as observant. As Heilman and Cohen put it,

Horowitz donates blood after Israel repeals ban on gay blood donation

 https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/horowitz-donates-blood-after-israel-repeals-ban-on-gay-blood-donation-683016

 Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz donated blood on Monday following Israel's repealing of the ban on gay blood donation.

"There is no difference between blood and blood," Horowitz, who is gay, said during his blood donation at the Magen David Adom compound in Jerusalem. "The ban on gays donating blood was the remnant of a stereotype that should be left in history."

Horowitz had pushed to remove part of the blood donation questionnaire that barred gay men from donating blood.

Israel okays $9 billion plan to fight gaps between Jewish and Arab citizens

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/israel-okays-9-million-plan-to-fight-gaps-between-jewish-and-arab-citizens/

 The government approves a far-reaching plan that allocates NIS 30 billion ($9.4 billion) over five years to fight persistent gaps between Arab and Jewish Israelis.

Now passed by the cabinet, the proposal will head to the Knesset, where it is set to be passed alongside the state budget next month.

The plan includes NIS 9.6 billion (nearly $3 billion) to improve education in Arab cities and towns; NIS 5.2 billion ($1.6 billion) for Bedouin Arabs in the southern Negev desert; NIS 650 million ($202.7 million) to bridge health gaps between Arabs and Jews; NIS 2 billion (some $624 million) to improve Arab communities’ crumbling infrastructure, and more.

Facebook Yanks Jair Bolsonaro Video Claiming COVID-19 Vaccines Cause AIDS

 https://time.com/6110398/facebook-bolsonaro-covid-vaccines-aids/

 RIO DE JANEIRO — Facebook and Instagram have removed from their platforms a live broadcast that Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro delivered in which he said people in the U.K. who have received two coronavirus vaccine doses are developing AIDS faster than expected.

Facebook’s press office confirmed in an emailed statement to The Associated Press that the content was removed Sunday night because it violated Facebook policy regarding COVID-19 vaccines.

“Our policies don’t allow claims that COVID-19 vaccines kill or seriously harm people,” the statement said. The company didn’t respond to AP questions regarding why three days elapsed before the much-criticized content was removed nor whether language barriers played a role, as Bolsonaro was speaking in Portuguese.

Objectivity and choosing an unbiased rabbi and hashkafa

 https://www.yeshiva.co/ask/7083

Question

It seems every Halachic authority I consult is biased towards his particular sect’s hashkafa. How can I find objective advice?

Answer

Kudos- for your fantastic question (as usual!). Without a doubt, there is an overlapping between a rabbi’s hashkafa (world outlook or philosophy) and his halachic decisions. This isn’t “bias” but it is the very definition and part of the beauty of the Oral-traditional process, where we view the “70 different faces of the Torah” which complete and “harmonize” each other, as something positive. In other words, machloket (argument) is not only inevitable when people (especially Jews, and even more so, rabbis!) are involved, but it’s actually found on every single page in the Talmud, and is exactly the Oral process which God formulated in His eternally relevant Torah!

Just Say No’ And Its Effects

 https://landmarkrecovery.com/just-say-no-and-its-effects/

 Years after the start of Just Say No, numerous studies in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s looked at the effects of anti-drug marketing efforts and found that they weren’t as effective as they sought out to be.

'Kissing disease' among teens could trigger MS - study

 https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/kissing-disease-among-teens-could-trigger-ms-study-682655

 Results show children and teens contracting mono between the ages of 11 and 19 have a significantly higher risk of developing multiple sclerosis as an adult.

Six-year-old Survivor Kidnapped From Italy to Israel Must Be Returned, Court Rules

 https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-six-year-old-survivor-of-cable-car-accident-to-return-to-italy-israeli-court-rules-1.10323350

 Six-year-old Eitan Biran, who survived a cable car accident near Lake Maggiore this summer that killed both his parents, will be returned to his aunt in Italy, an Israeli court ruled on Monday.

The boy's paternal aunt, Aya Biran Nirko, filed a civil custody suit following the abduction by his maternal grandfather, 58-year-old Shmuel Peleg, in September, seeking his return to Italy. 

The judge who made the ruling on Monday rejected the grandfather's claim that Eitan's usual home was in Israel, as well as the claim that he generally lived in both Israel and Italy. The judge noted that Eitan had moved to Italy with his family when he was only a month old. She also rejected Peleg's argument that special consideration should be given to the boy's parents plans before they died to move to Israel.