https://www.jpost.com/international/article-842090
It follows that President Donald Trump’s idea of hiking tariffs is neither novel nor scandalous. That doesn’t mean what he is up to is economically workable, or politically sane.
Saturday, February 15, 2025
President Elon Musk Issues Major Social Security Warning
https://www.newsweek.com/elon-musk-major-social-security-warning-fraud-billion-week-lost-2029244
Billionaire Elon Musk has said there is widespread fraud taking place in the payment of "federal entitlements" like Social Security.
Musk wrote on X on February 11: "At this point, I am 100% certain that the magnitude of the fraud in federal entitlements (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare, Disability, etc) exceeds the combined sum of every private scam you've ever heard by FAR. It's not even close."
For now, DOGE's ability to do much about the supposed fraud taking place is limited, after New York Judge Paul A. Engelmayer issued a preliminary injunction to stop Musk and DOGE from accessing the personal financial data of millions of Americans in Treasury Department records, something Musk described as "absolutely insane."
The conditions will remain in place until the next court hearing on February 14.
Friday, February 14, 2025
Netanyahu spokesman was reportedly paid by Qatar to plant puff pieces in Israeli media
Eli Feldstein, indicted for leaking stolen IDF intel, was reportedly hired by Doha-employed US strategist; prime minister’s critics demand probe of Qatari influence at his office
Netanyahu's top aides and Qatar: A strong stench of money
https://www.israelhayom.com/2025/02/14/netanyahus-top-aides-and-qatar-a-strong-stench-of-money/
The fact that Israel urged Qatar to increase aid to Gaza has been known for a long time, but the alleged involvement of Netanyahu's office officials in "laundering" the emirate's image must be thoroughly investigated. We must not accept a reality where senior officials in the prime minister's environment work for an entity that is not defined as an enemy state, but functions as such in every way. And despite the beating of war drums in the cabinet after Trump's "hell" declaration, no minister said what Israel would do differently compared to the last 16 months.
Ukraine: Russian drone blasts hole in radiation shield ‘protecting the world’ at Chernobyl nuclear plant
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday that a Russian drone struck the cover built to contain radiation at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
Zelensky said “radiation levels have not increased.”
Zelenskyy said the strike damaged the structure and started a fire, which has been put out. The Ukrainian Emergency Service provided a photograph it said showed a searchlight illuminating a ragged hole in the roof of the damaged sarcophagus.
Danielle Sassoon’s Courage and the Rule of Law - Drain the Swamp?!
https://www.thefp.com/p/danielle-sassoons-courage
The story Sassoon tells is straightforward. There appears to have been an agreement between Mayor Adams’ counsel and the Trump administration for the DOJ to drop the case against him in exchange for Adams’ cooperation with the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement priorities. Private benefit for public goods. There’s a word for that: corruption
U.S. plan to award $400M vehicle contract removes reference to Musk’s Tesla - Drain the Swamp?!
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/02/13/armored-tesla-state-musk-trump/
The State Department planned to spend $400 million over the next five years on a contract to build armored electric vehicles with Telsa, whose chief executive, Elon Musk, has been advising President Donald Trump on how to slim federal spending, according to government document
RFK Jr.’s MAGA Conversion is Finally Complete: ‘God Gave Me President Trump’
Before teaming up with Trump, Kennedy had been an outspoken critic of the now-president.
In addition to recent criticism, like calling Trump a “terrible president” in July, Kennedy in 2016 went as far as to compare Trump to Adolf Hitler—and other reviled autocratic figures.
Top U.S. Attorney Takes Trump’s DOJ Lackey to Task in Scorched-Earth Resignation Letter
New York’s top federal prosecutor quit her job on Thursday rather than heed a Justice Department order to drop the case against Mayor Eric Adams—and she made sure to torch the agency’s second-in-command on her way out.
The DOJ appears to be seeing a full-scale revolt after the move, as well as the resignation of two other top officials who oversaw the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, Kevin Driscoll and John Keller, The New York Times reported.
Sydney nurse who allegedly threatened Israeli patients taken to hospital as ‘unedited’ video released
Later in the video, Veifer asks the nurses what they would do if an Israeli were to come to their hospital. Abu Lebdeh responds: “I won’t treat them, I will kill them.” Nadir says: “You have no idea how many [Israelis] came to this hospital, and I sent them to Jahannam. I literally sent them to Jahannam.”
Putin Won
https://www.newsweek.com/putin-russia-trump-winning-2030475
On February 24, 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin told his people why he was launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in what he called a "special military operation."
"As NATO expands to the east, with every passing year, the situation for our country is getting worse and more dangerous," he said in a televised address, immediately before his forces launched their assault.
"Moreover, in recent days the leadership of NATO has been openly talking about the need to speed up, and force the advancement of the alliance's infrastructure to the borders of Russia. In other words, they are doubling down on their position. We can no longer just watch what is happening."
Aftr nearly three years of war—a war that has cost tens of thousands of lives on both sides—that aim now appears to have been fulfilled, and it is Ukraine that must stand and watch.
President Donald Trump said that he had agreed to talks with Putin, and he and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth effectively rejected Ukraine's chances of returning to pre-invasion borders or NATO membership.
As sidelined European leaders reeled in shock, the verdict from Carlo Masala, a professor at the Bundeswehr University of Munich, was clear. "Putin will have won this war from this point of view," he told Bild.
Pervasive Paganism?
Pervasive Paganism?
Contemporary Applications of the Prohibitions Against Idolatrous Ideology and Practice
Parshas Yisro, 15th of Shvat 5785/ Feb. 13, '25
Rabbi Noson Shmuel Leiter, Executive Director, Tomim Tihyeh
לא יהיה לך אלוהים אחרים על פני (שמות כ: ג)
This year, Shabbos Parshas Yisro - in which we read about the Aseres HaDibros (literally,"The Ten Divine Utterances"), including prohibitions against Avoda Zorah - falls out on the very same day lomdei Daf Yomi learn the Mishna in Sanhedrin 60b that commences the sugya categorizing the prohibited acts of Avoda Zorah (loosely translated as "idolatry," but perhaps more precisely described as "alien devotion").
Perhaps this year, after one of the most tumultuous periods we've seen in recent history, we'd benefit by devoting a bit more careful attention to some of the less understood contemporary applications of Avoda Zorah. Chazal exhort us that as long as Avoda Zorah persists, Divine Wrath does as well (Rashi D'varim 13:18). Granted, one could - and should - certainly attribute the recently escalated levels of Divine Wrath to several other communal iniquities (including, for prominent example, LGBTQ legislation and promotion, abortion-at-whim, educational indoctrination of heresy and promiscuity, the Israeli female draft and the intolerable persecution of girls seeking exemptions, and fraudulent conversion "Rabbis," among others). Nevertheless, ignoring this foundational class of idolatrous and heretical transgressions - against which the Torah exhorts us dozens of times - won't enhance our situation.
Perhaps we ought to consider a communal accounting of how responsible we may be for the tens of thousands of Jews stumbling in severe Avoda Zorah prohibitions simply due to lack of awareness. Furthermore, most of us lack the slightest conception of how much sheer misery, pain, illness, disfunction, familial disorder, Chinuch failure, alienation, and acrimony Yidden could be saved from if only the tzibbur would be effectively guided to liberate themselves from the costly and artificial dependency on scores of far-Eastern-oriented solve-all/cure-all businesses. These financial interests comprise a lucrative network, which could perhaps be labelled generally as an "Idolatry-Industrial-Complex," ("Big Buddha," for short). They tend to parasite off of some of our most despairing neighbors, by exploiting communal naivety - and the generosity of ba'alei tzedakah - who have no idea that their assistance is being exploited to fund ostensible "solutions" that are often even worse (and perhaps more self-perpetuating) than the emotional/health problems they purportedly alleviate.
A few facts could go far in saving ourselves and others. How many of us are aware of the following basic principles pertaining to Avoda Zorah, and their practical applications?
1) It is foundational to Judaism that Avoda Zorah itself has no power whatsoever, to help or harm on any independent "will." However, sometimes Avoda-Zorah-related acts or remedies may result in "miracle cures," due to other factors, ranging from placebo to a Divine test (e.g., cf. Rambam, M"T, Hil. Yesodei HaTorah 8:3).
2) To prevent Jews from falling into the heretical error that Avoda-Zorah has its own independent power, Chazal decreed that a mystical therapy or remedy that's simply attributed to a Shaim-Avoda-Zorah - [an Avoda-Zorah/ kefirah term/notion] is itself prohibited - even in cases of danger to life (Tos. Pesachim 25a, D'var Shmuel).
3) Examples of contemporary Shaimos-Avoda-Zorah include: Ch-i, universal-energy, subtle-energy, bio-energy, Vital-Force, Universal Intelligence, and many more. We explain this in our Kuntrus Mishmeres HaKodesh (5768), and summarize it below. (See also the Rabbinic statement published in the important sefer "Rav Belsky on Alternative Medicine" et.al., pg.128-30, Judaica Press.)
4) A Shaim-Avoda-Zorah (an idolatrous name/ identifier) remains prohibited even if it refers to an genuine entity. In fact (as evident from the Seforno in several places in D'varim) historically, most Shaimos-Avoda-Zorah indeed referred to real beings (angels, stars, etc.), albeit erroneously - attributing to them the independent ability to help or harm based on their own imagined "will."
5) Therefore, even if Q-i/Ch-i, subtle-energy, bioenergy, et.al. refer to some genuine, created force -- nevertheless, the terms Q-i/Ch-i et.al. themselves remain encumbered with the stigma of a Shaim-Avoda-Zorah - with all the Halachic import that entails. This one point undermines the entire edifice on which basis an entire "Q-i/Ch-i-energy"-based subculture has deceived the Orthodox public. Their unrelenting ululation over the ostensible existence of "the force" - to which they stubbornly refer as "Q-i/ Ch-i, subtle energy" etc. - serves to obscure the simple fact that their renegade insistence on mainstreaming the heretical/idolatrous New-Age names and descriptions of said "force" are as inexcusable as they are antithetical to Judaism.
6) Even a lachash, an incantation, which would normally be permitted as a segulah - in order to save a life - becomes prohibited - even at the risk of losing one's life - by virtue of mere association with an Avoda Zorah term, or when performed by a Min, a devotee to such heretical ideologies (Yoreh Daiyoh 155:1; cf. Teshuvas Minchas Yitzchak, 6:80 p. 112, col. 2).
7) If even a lachash can be transformed to be prohibited -- how much more so would the many New-Age techniques identified or described as working via Q-i/Ch-i, universal-energy et.al. - e.g. energy-healing/ energy-work, Applied-/Health-Kinesiology,™ or E.F.T. - be similarly prohibited. They are demonstrably NOT scientific, natural techniques (nor are they even known segulos). Thus, they constitute mystical techniques attributed to a Shaim-Avoda-Zorah, and are therefore prohibited.
8) Those who misrepresent Q-i, universal-energy et.al. as a natural force - a "bio-electric" energy - either don't know what electrical energy is - and is NOT - or don't care. Clearly, if energy-practitioners would be using an electrical energy - that could be detected by advanced modern technology. It has not been. And if the levels of electricity involved are so extremely low as to be undetectable, then these ostensibly electric currents clearly couldn't accomplish the spectrum of feats unrelenting touted by energy-healers/-workers.
9) Various writers, influencers, and practitioners targeting the Orthodox community attribute the effectiveness (real, exaggerated, or imagined) of a spectrum of bizarre, new-age methods to "Q-i," et.al. Why would those writers go out of their way to attribute mystical techniques to an Avoda Zorah/ kefira concept - when that attribution super-imposes a severe Avoda Zorah prohibition on the very practice itself (a prohibition, which, on it's face, is Yaihoraig Ve'al Ya'avor, as per Yoreh Daiyoh 155:1, as explained above)? It's apparent that some of them aim to promote the New-Age ideology, not just the practices. This agenda comports with the classic profile of a maisis - someone seeking to draw Jews away from Judaism - towards its antithesis, namely, idolatry/heresy.*
* An 2017CE ban leveled against one such New-Age syncretistic influencer, Rephoel Szmerla (of Lakewood NJ), author of "Alternative Medicine In Halacha" (sic), is available here: https://daattorah.blogspot.com/2025/02/ban-by-over-dozen-rabbonim-against-new.html .
10) According to the Chassam Sofer (Responsa YD 76, quoted in Pis'chei Teshuva Yoreh Daiyoh 155 (1)), even a refuah bedukah, ("confirmed remedy") - when employed with the intent to draw the client away from Judaism - has the status of Atzai-Asheirah (being healed via a remedy falsely-attributed to the mythical "power" (sic) of Avoda Zorah, see Tos. Pesachim 25a) - and is therefore forbidden even if requires sacrificing one's life ("Yaihoraig ve'al Ya'avor ").
11) As previously indicated (see last week's letter in MonseyMevaser.com, Parshas Beshalach, referring to the infamously anti-Torah New-Age leader Alice A. Bailey, y"s), numerous New-Age proponents do not well conceal their intention to draw Jewish clients away from Torah via their therapy/ treatment/ propaganda blends. (Years ago, one upstate NY Reik-i and Aromatherapy practitioner [a Ms. M. Thompson] even admitted it to me.)
For further reading:
On the occasion of the Yahrtzeit of the Steipler Gaon ZT"L we posted "Theological Detoxification:" http://daattorah.blogspot.com/2020/08/bsd-insights-from-parshas-shoftim-on-of.html
(Aug 20, 2020)
Regarding the Shitah of Chi being a foundational "god" concept of Eastern religion (cf. Book of Ch-i, Paul Wildish, p.91;191,2) see:
https://daattorah.blogspot.com/2020/07/is-energy-healing-form-of-avodah-zarah.html
http://daattorah.blogspot.com/2020/07/the-shitah-of-chi-is-foundational-god.html (Jul. 22, 2020)
~~~
¶¶¶ IDEOLOGY of Q-i/ universal-energy, subtle-energy et.al.:
The very concept of "Q-i/ Chi-, K-i, universal-energy, subtle-energy, bioenergy" et.al. is foundational to far-Eastern Metaphysics and "New-Age" religion.
Moreover, K-i, et.al., as popularized in the West by the "New Age" movement, is actually a kefira (heretical) concept:
"K-i" refers to a force that, on one hand, is imagined to animate all that exists, and, on the other hand, is subject to physical qualities, e.g. Ki is thought to flow and stagnate, and is even considered manipulatable by Man.
We, of course, know that it is HaShem Alone Who animates the entire Creation. To attribute any physical qualities/ physicality to him is heretical; e.g. see Mishneh Torah, Yesodei HaTorah 1:11.
Thus, even those universal-energy/Ki-proponents who ostensibly believe in HaShem (many explicitly deny the Supreme Divinity of HaShem, e.g. New Age leader Alice Bailey y"s, in her book "Esoteric Healing," p.393) clearly deny the foundational Emunah principle that HaShem is not subject to any physical qualities.
Thus, "Q-i, K-i, universal-energy" et.al. is, by definition, kefirah - heretical.
Additionally, this New-Age notion of Qi/Ki, universal-energy, et.al. is also specifically idolatrous. We present here three reasons for this claim:
A) K-i et.al. is heretical, in part, because the New-Age concept of K-i/Ch-i deifies (i.e., attributes divinity to) whatever force or forces they purport to tap into and manipulate via their multitude of energy-work techniques - by describing that "force" as the force that animates the entire universe. Again, animating the entire universe is the exclusive role of HaShem - shared with no other. In other words, they are describing a (purportedly) created being (forces or forces) as fulfilling a premier role of G-d - thereby portraying it as G-d. (See the first mitzvah in the Sefer HaMitzvos of the Rambam, also topical to Parshas Yisro.)
B) In addition, many energy-healing proponents explicitly describe this "energy," that they purportedly utilize, as "god" (Otto & Knight, Dimensions in Wholistic Healing, p.48).
C) Furthermore, some (e.g. many practitioners of the New-Age system called Health Kinesiology™) attribute to the purported Ch-i energy the ability to independently, *willingly* help diagnose clients (documentation references were published years ago in "Rav Belsky on Alternative Medicine" et.al.).
This very attribution - to any such force (real or imagined) - of the ability to help or harm on independent will is an Avoda Zorah belief; e.g. see Rambam, Principle 5 (Sanhedrin, Peirush haMishna, preface to Perek Chelek), and Chazon Ish Yoreh Daiyoh, 62:19.
Thus, the very notion of Ch-i, Ki, et.al. is antithetical to Judaism. This was accentuated at the end of the Rabbinic statement prohibiting all forms of energy-work - and universal-energy-ideology - published on page 130 of "Rav Belsky on Alternative Medicine" et.al. (Judaica Press). There, the undersigned Rabbis state that the ideology (Shitah) of universal energy is heretical. The aforementioned information simply elucidates that statement.
¶¶¶ In addition, not only is it prohibited to believe in such erroneous notions, it's prohibited to expose oneself or others to them, or to any ideas that could lead to rejection of any of the Ikkarei Emunah, ("Fundamental Principles of Jewish Conviction;" e.g. see Rambam, M.T., Hilchos A.Z., 2:2-3, quoted in part 3 of the previously cited Psak published in Rav Belsky on Alternative Medicine, et.al., p.130).
May we be saved from the tribulations of the Messianic Era in the merit of saving others from the types of transgressions that impede the Final Redemption. May HaShem open up the eyes of all those who truly wish to see, with the Geulah Shelaimah bekarov.
¶¶¶
To help support our ongoing work, please contact us today. Thank you, and have an uplifting 15th of Shvat, and a good Shabbos,
Rabbi Noson Shmuel Leiter,
Executive Director,
Help Rescue Our Children
845.642.1679
Direct: 771.215.8892
Israeli Helpline: 03.721.3337
torahjewsfordecency@gmail.com
Tomim Tih'yeh [countering "New-Age" infiltration]:
Tomim1679@gmail.com
Presentations on New-Age dangers: 605-313-6831 ext. 2
Heard weekly on New Jersey's WSNR Radio 620AM, co-hosting the renowned Levin At Eleven program, every Thursday evening, 11pm to midnight (ET).
Subscribe to:
Posts
(
Atom
)