The leather-bound book was compiled by Ghislaine Maxwell. The president says the letter ‘is a fake thing.’
It was Jeffrey Epstein’s 50th birthday, and Ghislaine Maxwell was preparing a special gift to mark the occasion. She turned to Epstein’s family and friends. One of them was Donald Trump.
Maxwell collected letters from Trump and dozens of Epstein’s other associates for a 2003 birthday album, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
President Donald Trump said Wednesday that Coca-Cola in the United States will begin to be made with cane sugar, but the company did not explicitly say that was the case when it was asked later about Trump’s claim.
Kinzinger said there are two things that Americans should keep in mind regarding the Epstein files story. First, Epstein was arrested in 2019 under the first Trump administration. Epstein's accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, is also in jail. The combination of these two points suggests that there is a client list despite Trump's repeated assertions that it is a hoax.
Second, Trump "built a political movement" on the back of the Epstein case, Kinzinger said. He used the case to create a story about Democratic elites operating a child sex trafficking ring, and then positioned himself as someone fighting back against that cabal.
"Either they lied about this conspiracy over and over to win an election, or they're covering something up," Kinzinger said on CNN's "The Arena with Kasie Hunt."
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/411791
In response, Danon said, “UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres continues to expose his moral bankruptcy. While members of the Druze community are being brutally slaughtered in Syria, he once again chooses silence.”
“Instead of calling for swift action in Syria, he chooses to vilify Israel—the only country actively fighting the forces of evil in the region,” added the Israeli envoy.
20 Tammuz, 5785/ Parshas Pinchos
We beg indulgence of the esteemed tzibbur to encapsulate a clarification BE"H of a very relevant but poorly grasped sugya - pertaining to Minnim and Minnus - found in two of those very selections of Daf Yomi of this week - Avoda Zorah 27b and 28a. (See our kuntrus Mishmeres HaKodesh and/or our online posts on Da'at Torah blogspot for more details.)
The Gemara on 27b addresses the very commonly applicable prohibition of Avoda-Zorah-by-Attribution, "Ain Misrapin min HaMinnim." That is a Rabbinic edict prohibiting merely benefiting (even in absence of any worship) from mystical therapies/ techniques whose effectiveness (real or imagined) is attributed to idolatrous or heretical notions. [Numerous additional prohibitions may apply to such mystical therapies when performed isolated from any idolatrous or heretical attributions. However, that's beyond our scope here, and is addressed extensively elsewhere, including online (e.g. Da'at Torah blogspot. Furthermore, there are those Rishonim who extend this prohibition to non-mystical therapies. However that more stringent view is not quoted in Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Daiyah 155:1; therefore we won't address it here.]
The rationale behind this prohibition is as follows: In case the mystical techniques would work, then the absence of an evident natural mechanism - combined with the fact that the practitioner attributed it to Avoda Zorah - may lead someone to succumb to the heretical myth that Avoda Zorah has some inherent power. That error would constitute high heresy, inasmuch as it is a foundational Jewish conviction (often translated as "belief") that no entity other than G-d has the ability to harm or help us based on its own independent "will" (see Chazon Ish, Yoreh Daiyoh 62:19, for example).
Therefore, to safeguard Jews against the hazard of succumbing to such a heretical misconception, Our Sages require us to sacrifice our lives rather than benefit from such "healing" - precisely because of how it's identified/ labelled, or "branded." They required one to sacrifice his or her life out of a concern for a possible (spiritual) threat to Emunah - in the face of a certain danger to their physical life (see Teshuvas Maharam Shik, O.C. 304). Thus, the "mere" idolatrous "branding" of a mystical therapy, such as a lachash, an incantation, transforms that lachash to be prohibited to the extent of sacrificing one's life to avoid it, a status termed "Yaihoraig ve'al Ya'avor."
Unfortunately, that sugya in A.Z. 27b (continued on 28a) is widely misunderstood. Additionally, one popular English language aide does not at all well serve the public in that regard. The unaware or misinformed reader could easily come away with the misimpression that the prohibition is applicable only in cases when the therapy is performed by an overt pagan missionary, a Min (in other words, that it's only an "issur gavrah"). However, if the practitioner doesn't fall under that Min/ devotee profile, this prohibition, they imagine, doesn't apply.
This misunderstanding is perhaps even more dangerous than it is wrong.
In fact, that issur (prohibition) is more fundamentally an issur "cheftzah" - prohibited by virtue of the actual attribution to idolatrous/ heretical notions - regardless of who attributes it to Avoda Zorah. That means that the issur would similarly apply to a frum Yid unaware of the nature of the terms he's using (e.g. Qi, Ch-i, K-i, Vital-Force, Y-in/ Y-ang, universal-energy, subtle-energy, etc.*) to describe the mechanism or nature of the technique.
[* See the end of the Psak published in the Sefer Rav Belsky on Alternative Medicine et.al., Judaica Press, page 130. The concept of "universal energy"/ Ki, Q-i/Ch-i, et.al. is a heretical concept; its' worldview is a heretical worldview; and all associated notions must be totally avoided.]
Now, on top of that basic prohibition, there is an additional stringency introduced by the gavrah - in the case of a Minn practitioner - a devotee of A.Z./ heresy.
This Halachic nuance is clarified by the Ran on Avoda Zorah (s.v. "Ve'ikka," quoted by the Maharsha), and the Rosh (2:9), and cited leHalacha in Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Daiyoh 155:1, end. Any attribution to idolatry/ heresy prohibits a mystical therapy/ practice/ technique -- even if the attributor is not a devotee, a Min. A devotee, however, does introduce an additional stringency - inasmuch as his involvement in performing such therapies prohibits them even in the absence of any overt attribution to idolatry/ heresy - because we assume that he is indeed attributing his mystical therapy to idolatrous/ heretical notions.
••• More information on a range of related concerns is found in the Sefer Rav Belsky on Alternative Medicine et.al., Judaica Press; in particular see the Psak on page 128-130.
••• For shailos and questions, please email Tomim1679@gmail.com, or text/call 845-642-1679, or, from Eretz Yisroel, call 03-721-3337.
May we start off these Three Weeks by expediting the Final Redemption in the merit of helping save all who wish to be saved from falling into the types of iniquities that perpetuate this bitter Galus. Furthermore, may the efforts to blunt the influence of Minnim and eliminate brazen detractors of authentic Emunah provide much needed merits in reducing our communal susceptibility to Middas HaDin, as Chazal exhort us:
כשיש עבודה זרה בעולם - יש חרון אף בעולם...
Good Shabbos,
נתן שמואל לייטער
Rabbi Noson Shmuel Leiter,
Executive Director,
Tomim Tih'yeh
Monsey, NY
845.642.1679
Direct: 771.215.8892
Israeli Helpline: 03.721.3337 עזרה בארץ ישראל
Presentations on New-Age dangers: 605-313-6831 ext. 2 לשיעורים
Tomim Tih'yeh: tomim1679@gmail.com
Heard weekly on New Jersey's WSNR Radio 620AM, on the renowned LevinAt11 program, every Thursday evening, 11pm to midnight (Eastern Time).
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/trump-maga-only-bad-people-buy-epstein-files-hoax.html
Donald Trump is in quite the predicament. Whenever there’s a story he doesn’t like, he just dismisses it as a “hoax” and attacks anyone who keeps talking about it as “bad people,” “scum,” “the enemy of the people,” or perhaps some combination of these insults.
But right now, the story the president would like to go away is his administration’s failure to release the Jeffrey Epstein “client list” or any truly revelatory information about the late sex offender. And the people most incensed about this story aren’t Democrats or the mainstream media but MAGA influencers and other elements of the GOP base, who believed Team Trump when they promoted the Epstein story as a “deep state” conspiracy that would be exposed as soon as he returned to the White House.
Later on Wednesday morning, Trump chided “stupid” Republicans for playing into Democrats’ hands by demanding the answers they were promised on Epstein.
“It’s all been a big hoax; it’s perpetrated by the Democrats,” he said. “And some stupid Republicans and foolish Republicans fall into the net and so they do the Democrats’ work.”
So from one perspective, Trump is escalating the conflict with his own supporters like never before. But from another perspective, you’re not truly MAGA if you believe what Trump told you to think a few months ago, rather than what he’s telling you to believe today. So he’s actually only lashing out at Democrats and their “stupid” ex-MAGA allies. Problem solved!
Addressing the conservative conference, Carlson said that the real question that needed to be asked about Epstein was not “was Jeffrey Epstein a weirdo who was abusing girls?” but rather, “why was he doing this, on whose behalf, and where was the money coming from?”
“And I think the real answer is Jeffrey Epstein was working on behalf of intel services, probably not American,” he said. “And we have every right to ask, ‘On whose behalf was he working?'”
He answered his own question a moment later, declaring it “extremely obvious to anyone who watches” that Epstein “had direct connections to a foreign government.”
“Now, no one’s allowed to say that foreign government is Israel, because we’ve been somehow cowed into thinking that that’s naughty,” he said, raising his voice as the crowd erupted into applause and cheers of support.
“There is nothing wrong with saying that, there’s nothing hateful about saying that, there’s nothing antisemitic about saying that — there’s nothing even anti-Israel about saying that!”
