Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky: 'Vaccinate your children against COVID-19'

 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/317568

Following approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for use in children ages 5-11 and the Israeli Health Ministry's subsequent approval and rollout, a leading Lithuanian-haredi rabbi has called on parents to vaccinate their children against coronavirus.

The announcement follows Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky's meeting with three senior Israeli doctors who are continuously working to manage the coronavirus pandemic in Israel.

The meeting, held in Rabbi Kanievsky's home, was attended by Professor Ran Balicer, who heads the Israel Shield staff of experts and the Clalit Research Institute; coronavirus czar Professor Salman Zarka; and Rabbi Kanievsky's personal doctor, Dr. Meshulam Hart.

3 Men Found Guilty of Felony Murder Charges in Trial Over Killing of Ahmaud Arbery

 https://time.com/6123299/ahmaud-arbery-trial-guilty-verdict/

The defense teams for the McMichaels argued that their clients behaved in self-defense, alleging that Arbery tried to take Travis’ gun away from him during the ensuing confrontation and that Arbery was responsible for his own death. “You are allowed to defend yourself. You are allowed to use force that is likely to cause death or serious bodily injury if you believe it’s necessary,” Jason Sheffield, who represents Travis McMichael, said during closing arguments. “At that moment Travis believed it was necessary. This is a law that is for a person in Travis’s situation.”

The defendants claim to have believed they were acting under stand-your-ground and now-repealed citizens arrest laws in Georgia—but since they had no proof that Arbery was committing a crime, the law would likely not have applied.

Coronavirus commissioner: We may be on our way to 5th wave

 https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/coronavirus/covid-43-percent-of-new-cases-among-5-11-year-olds-as-first-8000-get-jabbed-686857

Concern in Israel is mounting that the country might soon experience a fifth wave of the coronavirus pandemic, coronavirus commissioner Prof. Salman Zarka warned during a cabinet meeting on Tuesday night.

As of Wednesday, Israel had 6,500 active cases. They had dropped as low as 5,000 in previous days.

Men Found Guilty of Killing Arbery Head to Federal Court in 10 Weeks on Hate Crime Charges

 https://www.newsweek.com/men-found-guilty-killing-arbery-head-federal-court-10-weeks-hate-crime-charges-1652463

After a Georgia jury found Travis and Greg McMichael and William "Roddie" Bryan guilty of murdering Ahmaud Arbery on Wednesday, the three men are set to head to federal court in less than three months to stand another trial on federal hate crime charges.

After roughly ten and a half hours of deliberation, jurors in Glynn County found all three men guilty of felony murder. Travis McMichael was convicted on nine charges, Greg McMichael was convicted on eight charges and Bryan was convicted on six charges.

Arbery was fatally shot by Travis McMichael on February 23, 2020 after McMichael, his father Greg McMichael and Bryan chased the 25-year-old Black jogger down with their pickup trucks while conducting what they claimed to be a citizen's arrest in the Satilla Shores neighborhood.

COVID in Israel: Cases highest in month, immunity declining, expert warns

https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/coronavirus/covid-daily-cases-at-the-highest-in-a-month-as-kids-start-getting-jabbed-685770 

Over 50% of new virus carriers are younger than 12. PM Bennett called on parents to get kids vaccinated and ordered antigen tests for students before they return to school after the Hanukkah break.

The immunity against the coronavirus among the Israeli population appears to be declining, an expert warned the coronavirus cabinet on Tuesday, as the country registered the highest number of cases in a month.

Talking to the ministers, Prof. Eran Segal, a computational biologist for the Weizmann Institute, said that since the beginning of November, numbers have been pointing to a fall in the immunity of the population, similar to what happened in May.

According to Segal, the decline is caused by the fact that more time has passed for people who were only vaccinated with the first two shots since they were inoculated and therefore their immunity is dropping – and a similar scenario is occurring for those who recovered but did not get vaccinated.

Jury finds Unite the Right organizers liable for millions in damages

 https://edition.cnn.com/2021/11/23/us/charlottesville-unite-the-right-trial-deliberations-tuesday/index.html

The jury in the civil case involving White nationalists who organized a two-day rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, asked for clarification Tuesday on a part of the verdict form that pertains to the lawsuit's conspiracy claims. 

THE STATUS OF "CHILONIM" IN HALAKHA (PART 2)

 https://www.etzion.org.il/en/halakha/studies-halakha/laws-state-and-society/status-chilonim-halakha-2

 The most problematic ruling relating to an apikorus is the law that he is to be "cast into a pit and not rescued." The Chazon Ish has a well-known ruling on this matter which is based on the understanding that this law is meant to achieve certain social objectives:

 It seems that the law of casting [an apikorus] into a pit only applies at a time when the blessed One's providence is manifest, e.g. at a time when miracles were common, and heavenly voices were heard, and the righteous of the generation were under personal providence evident to all, and the heretics were particularly perverse in turning their passions to lust and wantonness. At that time destruction of the wicked served as a fence for the world, for all knew that leading the nation astray brought calamity into the world, and it brought plague, and warfare and famine into the world. But in a time of concealment, when faith is gone from the common people, the act of casting into a pit does not repair the breach, but rather it adds to it, in that it appears to them as an act of destruction and violence, God forbid. And since its entire purpose is to repair, the law does not apply when it does not lead to repair. It falls upon us to bring them back with chains of love, and to stand them in a ray of light as much as we can. (Chazon Ish, Hilkhot Shechita 2, 16)

 

            The law of "casting down and not rescuing" is meant to repair the generation, and therefore, at a time when it will not lead to repair, but rather make things worse, the law is not applied.[8]

Our Generation: The Tinok SheNishbah

 https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/2312348/jewish/Chapter-9-Our-Generation-The-Tinok-SheNishbah.htm

The Rambam, in a well-known comment regarding the children of the sectarian group the Karaites, elucidates an issue that can be relevant for us in this generation as well:

“However the children and the grandchildren of these errants, whose parents have misled them, those who have been born among the Karaites, who have reared them in their views; each is like a child who has been taken captive among them, who has been reared by them, and is not alacritous in seizing the paths of the commandments; his status is comparable to that of one who has been coerced. Even though he later learns that he is a Jew and becomes acquainted with Jews and [the Jewish] religion, he is nevertheless to be regarded as a person who is coerced, for he was reared in the erroneous ways [of his parents]. Thus it is of the children and grandchildren of the karaites who adhere to the practices of their Karaite parents who have erred. Therefore it is proper to cause them to return in repentance and to draw them near with words of peace until they return to the strength-giving Torah.”2

Tinok shenishba

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinok_shenishba

 Maimonides speaks out strongly against those who deny the validity of the Oral Torah, including the Mishnah and the Talmud, labeling them as heretics.^[4] This would include Karaite Jews. He claims they deserve neither witnesses, warning, nor judges to be punished according to Jewish law. Rather, anyone who removes them from existence merits great reward as one who removed an obstacle from the proper course of Jewish belief and practice.

However, Maimonides expresses concern for the offspring of such individuals, and excludes them from those who deserve such punishment because they participated unwittingly in their denial of the Oral Law. While they are indeed sinners, he declares them unintentional participants in their lack of adherence to Jewish law and belief, similar to the case of a tinok shenishba.^[5] Rather than be pushed away, such individuals are to be drawn into the Jewish community and taught the proper way so they can become observant, frum members of community.

The notion that unaffiliated and unobservant Jews are unwitting sinners who should be taught the Jewish laws and customs and welcomed into the Torah community is the basis for the many outreach organizations (Kiruv) that exist in the modern era, including Chabad, Aish Hatorah, Ohr Somayach and Gateways.

Leading Doctor: COVID infects the brain, vaccinate your children

 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/317445

Dr. Meir Preis, director of the Institute of Hematology at Carmel Medical Center and the husband of Health Minister Director of Public Health Dr. Sharon Alroy-Preis, called on parents to vaccinate their children against the coronavirus and said he would do so himself.

To all who are undecided about vaccinating their children, Preis wrote on Twitter: ''I will vaccinate my small children. The reason is mainly that this virus penetrates and infects the brain cells. Very few viruses do this so it is not the flu."

''All viruses that do penetrate the brain tissue can cause significant damage years after infection. There is no shortage of examples of this, '' he said. 

Maimonides Reinterpretation of the Thirteenth Article of Faith: Another Look at the Essay on Resurrection

 Jewish Studies Quarterly, Volume 10 (2003) pp. 244—257  Albert D. Friedberg

In this paper I argue (1) that Maimonides
Essay actually reinterpreted, somewhat coyly, his earlier statements; and (2) that his Essay outlined a novel doctrine of the resurrection 

 Among scholars, he continues, there are five opinions on
the reward for the righteous who keep the biblical commandments (and the converse for the unrighteous).
(1) a carefree, sensually luxurious life in the Garden of Eden
(2) eternal prosperity and health in the messianic era
(3) resurrection of the dead to material yet immortal bliss
(4) health and wealth in this world under a powerful native sovereign
(5) all of the above
In this light Maimonides complains that few are interested in the extraordinary phenomenon of the olam haba or world-to-come. He raises the urgent question of what constitutes takhlit (the “goal”, or true reward), and differentiates between true reward and the causes leading thereto.
He is exasperated by those who worry whether they will rise clothed or naked, bejewelled or not – as if this had anything to do with ultimate reward.
It becomes clear, from the tone of what he says, and goes on to say, that Maimonides categorically dismisses all five opinions in terms of takhlit or ultimate goal. Rather, only the immortality of the soul/intellect could be the proper takhlit of the virtuous.

In summary, then, the body does indeed decompose after death, but the righteous need not be resurrected since they are already “alive”. While resurrection is one of the articles of the faith, Maimonides seems to be foreclosing on a literal interpretation thereof. The suggestion in the Guide for the Perplexed is that the resurrection of the dead must be allegorized: another way of expressing the immortality of the righteous soul. As the passage in his Mishneh Torah makes clear, the ultimate reward of the righteous is blissful eternity in an immaterial world.

The silent plague of spousal abuse - inflicted by women

 

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/317413 

With the media’s focus currently on the phenomenon of domestic violence against women, the head of Shovrot Shivyon (Breaking the Equality), Naama Zarbiv, presented some very surprising facts regarding violence directed not against the wife but rather the husband.

In conversation with Israel National News, Zarbiv related the background story to the facts she provided.

“Many of the men in our organization think that the figures regarding spousal abuse are symmetrical and present statistics from abroad,” Zarbiv says. “When I tried to talk about the phenomenon at a Knesset panel discussion, and requested statistics from the police so that budgets could be allocated accordingly, Tamar Zandberg (Meretz) – who was then standing in as chair of the committee – cut me off and muted my microphone, ‘explaining’ that violent women do not exist.”

“That really infuriated me,” she continues, “and I decided, in the name of freedom of information, to get hold of official police figures, because in the judicial system there’s a certain bias and we wanted to have a working figure to use.”

Zarbiv describes how “we requested statistics for grievous bodily harm (GBH), inflicted on men by women and the reverse. We especially wanted statistics for GBH because it’s something that can be proven with physical evidence, and also because a lot of people claim that while the phenomenon of spousal abuse against the husband exists, it refers to emotional abuse rather than physical.”

“The figures simply stunned us,” she says. Police statistics for 2020 showed that while 177 cases had been opened relating to the male spouse inflicting violence on the female, a whopping 2,068 cases had been opened relating to violence inflicted by the female spouse on the male.

Kyle Rittenhouse Refuses to Become Poster Boy for Conservatives

 https://www.newsweek.com/kyle-rittenhouse-refuses-become-poster-boy-conservatives-1651885

 Richards also issued a rebuke to Donald Trump Jr. for encouraging people to support a gun rights organization that said it would "award" Rittenhouse an AR-15 for his "defense of gun rights."

In a tweet that has since been deleted, Trump Jr. wrote: "Gun Owners of America is sending Kyle Rittenhouse an AR-15. Sign the card in support of Kyle. Americans have a fundamental right to defend themselves, and to keep and bear arms. The verdict in the Kyle Rittenhouse trial is a recognition of those rights."

"He's an idiot," Richards told Insider. "I don't have to expand on that because it speaks for itself."

Rav Shlomo Fisher - Halachic authority of public acceptance by the masses

The following is a very fascinating and provocative essay by Rav Shomo Fisher explaining the authority of something accepted by the masses - even just as behavior without explicit acceptance. [It is 8 pages long  - this is just the first page.] It is  in his Beis Yishai (chapter 15). In brief he is explaining that halachic authority and creativity can arise from the actions of the masses and not just from the Torah or rabbis. The consequences of this thesis are very significant

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   Authority Derived From Acceptance of Masses by Rav Fisher