Wednesday, March 18, 2026
Torah Law is like Nature
Kuzari (1 99) Our laws were written in the Torah by Moses, who had them direct from God, and handed them down to the masses assembled in the desert. There was no necessity to quote any older authority with regard to the single chapters and verses, nor with regard to the description of sacrifices, where and in what manner they were to be offered up, and what was to be done with the blood and the limbs, etc. Everything was clearly stated by God, as the smallest matter missing would interfere with the completeness of the whole thing. It is here, as in the formations of nature, which are composed of such minute elements that they defy perception, and if their mutual relation suffered the smallest change, the whole formation would be damaged, that plant or animal, or limb, would be imperfect and nonexisting.
Defense Minister: Attacks are escalating, surprising coming
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/424149
Confirming that Israel eliminated Iranian Intelligence Minister Esmaeil Khatib on Tuesday night, Katz added that Khatib "was responsible for the murder and internal repression network of the Iranian regime and for advancing external threats."
"Israel's policy is clear and unequivocal: No one in Iran has immunity, and everyone is in the crosshairs."
He further revealed that the security establishment, under his and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's direction, was authorized "to eliminate any senior Iranian official once the intelligence and operational circle is closed, without needing further approval. We will continue to eliminate and hunt them all."
"Today, too, significant surprises are expected across all fronts that will escalate the war we are conducting against Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon," Katz promised.
Israel Is Hunting Down Iranian Regime Members in Their Hideouts, One by One
https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/israel-iran-leadership-528c6114
Ali Larijani, Iran’s top security official, strolled confidently in dark sunglasses and a black coat Friday through a rally of regime loyalists in central Tehran. It was his first public appearance in a war in which he was a known target. “Brave people. Brave officials. Brave leaders. This combination cannot be defeated,” he wrote later on X.
Four days later, he was dead. Early Tuesday morning, Israel’s intelligence services found Larijani gathered with other officials at a hideout on the outskirts of Tehran and killed him with a missile strike.
That same night, Israel got a tip from ordinary Iranians that the leader of the feared Basij militia, Gholamreza Soleimani, was holing up with his deputies in a tent in a wooded area in Tehran. It was the sort of payoff Israel had been hoping for after blowing up Basij headquarters and command posts for more than two weeks, forcing its members to gather out in the open. Soleimani, too, was struck and killed.
Israeli and American leaders said at the outset that the war with Iran would create the conditions for Iranians to topple their regime. The killings early Tuesday——followed by the Israeli announcement a day later that Iranian Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib had also been killed—were milestones in that campaign made possible by the fast-accumulating damage from airstrikes and a growing harvest of intelligence about possible targets.
With thousands of regime members killed—from top leaders to street-level grunts—Iranians are reporting that a sense of disorder is starting to take hold. Security forces are under stress and on the run as they threaten protesters to stay off the streets and direct strikes at the U.S., Israel and Arab neighbors across the Persian Gulf.
Health Ministry urges vaccines after unvaccinated 17-year-old dies of measles
https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/article-890360
Following the death of a 17-year-old unvaccinated boy in Israel’s ongoing measles outbreak, the Health Ministry stressed the importance of vaccinations and seeking treatment in a statement on Tuesday.
The teenage boy, who had underlying health conditions, was hospitalized and diagnosed with measles two and a half weeks ago, dying in the night between Sunday and Monday, the Health Ministry said.
In total, 17 deaths from measles have been recorded since April 2025, with most of the fatalities occurring in unvaccinated but otherwise healthy children and infants.
The outbreak, largely concentrated within the country’s ultra-Orthodox communities, is almost completely preventable through vaccination, something that the Health Ministry emphasized in the statement.
Sin Degrades Nature
Ramban (Vayikra 26:06) AND I WILL CAUSE EVIL BEASTS TO CEASE OUT OF THE LAND. When Israel observes the commandments, the Land of Israel will be like the world was at its beginning, before the sin of the first man, when no wild beast or creeping thing would kill a man, just as the Rabbis have said: “It is not the wild ass that kills, but it is sin that kills.” It is because of this that Scripture says, and the suckling child shall play on the hole of the asp, and similarly, and the cow and the bear shall feed … and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. For dangerous beasts only prey on human beings on account of the sin of man, because of which it was decreed upon him that he be a prey to their teeth, and preying was made a part of their nature so that they also prey on each other, as is well-known for having once preyed on man, they add to this tendency that of preying on animals so that they become more harmful. And so Scripture states, And he learned to catch the prey, he devoured men. Now at the time of the creation of the world, it is said of the beasts that He gave them the herb for food, as it is written, And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth wherein there is a living soul, I have given every green herb for food, and Scripture states, and it was so, meaning that such was the nature with which they were endowed forever. It was only afterwards that they learned how to prey, on account of human sin which causes death,
Prohibited to Alter Nature
Ramban (Vayikra 19:19) YE SHALL KEEP ‘MY STATUTES. “And these are they: thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind, etc. Statutes are the decrees of the King for which there is no reason given.” This is Rashi’s language. But our Rabbis have not mentioned that the reasons for the commandments mentioned in this verse are hidden from us, and that the evil inclination and the idolaters raise objections against them, except in the case of the prohibition against wearing a garment made of wool and linen, but not in the case of mating of animals of diverse kinds for which there is a reason, as will be explained later on. And the intention of the Rabbis in defining “statutes” as the laws of the King for which there is no reason was not that these are decrees of the King of kings for which there are no reasons whatever, for every word of G-d is tried. They meant only that “statutes” are like the enactments which a king promulgates for his kingdom, without revealing their benefits to the people, and the people, not sensing these reasons, entertain questions about them in their hearts but they accept them nonetheless out of fear of the government. Similarly, “the statutes” of G-d are His secrets in the Torah, which the people by means of their thinking do not grasp as they do in the case of ordinances” — laws which conform to the human conception of justice], but yet they all have a proper reason and perfect benefit. Now the reason for the prohibitions against kilayim [mixed kinds], is that G-d has created in the world various species among all living things, both plants and moving creatures, and He gave them a power of reproduction enabling them to exist forever as long, as He will desire the existence of the world, and He further endowed them with a power to bring forth only after their kind, and that they should never be changed, as it is said with reference to all of them at the time of Creation, after its kind. This driving force in the normal mating of animals is for the sake of preserving the species, even as human beings engage in sexual activity for the sake of having children. Thus one who combines two different species, thereby changes and defies the work of Creation, as if he is thinking that G-d has not completely perfected the world and he desires to help along in the creation of the world by adding to it new kinds of creatures. Moreover, the mating of diverse species of animals does not produce offspring, and even in the case of those that are by nature close to each other, from which offspring are born, such as mules, their seed is cut off, for they themselves cannot produce offspring. Thus from the point of view of these two matters the act of combining different species is despicable and futile. Even when diverse species of vegetation are grafted together, their fruits do not reproduce afterwards, and they too are prohibited because of the two above-mentioned reasons. This is the meaning of the prohibition, thou shalt not sow thy field with two kinds of seed, which in the opinion of our Rabbis constitutes a prohibition against grafting But He has prohibited also the mere sowing together of diverse kinds of seed, because their nature and form change when they derive nutrition from each other, and thus each kernel of it is as if it were grafted together from two kinds. Similarly, He has forbidden to plow with an ox and an ass together, because it is customary among tillers of the soil to bring their working animals into one cattle-shed, and there they might come to mate with a diverse kind. And one of our colleagues adds to the reason for the prohibition against mixing seeds, that it is in order not to throw into disorder the primary forces which bring about the growth of the plants, when they derive nutrition from each other, as is indicated in the saying of our Rabbis in Bereshith Rabbah: “Said Rabbi Simon: There is not a single kind of herb that does not have a constellation in heaven which smites it and says to it, ‘Grow.’ Now he Thus he who mixes different kinds of seeds, denies and throws into disorder the work of Creation.
Astrology is Real but a Jew can over come Influence of Heavenly Bodies
Ibn Ezra (Shemos 23:25) That what befalls human beings depends on the alignment of the planets and what their arrangement indicates at the time of a person’s birth. The aforementioned is extremely difficult to understand. If a woman is born under an arrangement that decrees she will not be able to carry her children to term, then it will be the nature of her womb to abort the children in it. The same is true if the woman is born under an arrangement that decrees that she be barren and not have children. Now if a person who is born under an arrangement of the planets that determines that he will have a physical makeup that is unable to beget children cleaves to God, then if he truly cleaves to God, the revered God will strengthen the power of this man’s kidneys and see to it that his sperm functions properly so that he will be able to have children. God therefore told Abraham, I am God Almighty; walk before Me, and be thou whole-hearted . This is what the rabbis meant by “Cease thy planet gazing.” God told Abraham, “If you make a treaty to serve Me, I will greatly multiply you, as I will overcome what nature has decreed for you.” This is not a victory over the arrangements of the stars, for they were not created to do good or ill to the lowest world. On the contrary, they always go and do the service of God, as that is what they need to do. The inhabitants of the lowest world receive a thing and its opposite from them in accordance with their desire. Thus if we observe the Torah we will not receive evil from the heavenly bodies.
Nature is not to be Changed except by G-d to promote Fear of G-d
Rashi (Koheles (03:14) The Creation is fit to be eternal, and it cannot be changed, either by adding or by subtracting, and when it is changed, it is because God commanded and caused it to be changed, in order that they should fear Him. The ocean broke through its boundary in the generation of Enosh and inundated a third of the world, and God did this so that they would fear Him. Seven days, the course of the sun was changed in the generation of the flood, to rise in the west and set in the east, in order that they fear Him. Also, the sun went back ten degrees in the days of Chizkiyahu; and in the days of Achaz his father, the day was shortened and the night was lengthened on the day of his death, so that he should not be eulogized. All this was so that they would fear Him. Therefore, there is nothing better for a man to occupy himself with than with fulfilling His commandments and to fear Him.
Knowledge of Nature was Concealed to ensure Faith and Trust in G-d
Zohar (Shemos 80b) If men but knew the wisdom of all that G-d, has planted in the earth, and the power of all that is to be found in the world, they would proclaim the power of their Lord in His great wisdom. But the Holy One has purposely hidden this wisdom from men, in order that they should not turn from His way by trusting in that wisdom alone, forgetting Him.”
Iran called Trump's bluff — and now he's spiraling and 'out of ideas': expert
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-iran-war/
None of President Donald Trump's usual bailouts are coming after he launched a war on Iran, and the situation has quickly spiraled out of his control.
The 79-year-old president has long relied on lies, bluster and escalation to stay one step ahead of consequences in his business, political, and personal life, but those tactics are proving woefully ineffective against the global energy market that's been choked off by Iran in response to the military operation he impulsively authorized, wrote political scientist Nicholas Grossman for MS NOW.
"In response to the U.S.-Israeli attack, Iran played its biggest card, closing the Strait of Hormuz," wrote Grossman, a political science professor at the University of Illinois. "It’s a narrow choke point at the end of the Persian Gulf, and a kink in the waterway leaves it exposed to a lot of Iran’s coastline. About 20 percent of the world’s oil passes through Hormuz, and it isn’t hard for Iran to stop the traffic."
US government is FAR better off without conspiracy theorist Joe Kent
Feverish Iran-war critics Tuesday seized on Joe Kent’s resignation as national counterterrorism director as somehow proving President Donald Trump was foolish to launch Operation Epic Fury, when in fact Kent’s “I quit” letter proves he never belonged in that high post.
It’s not just that he contradicted his own past positions (e.g., saying Trump should’ve attacked Iran’s weapons programs in 2020) in a letter that now says Iran posed no “imminent threat” and insists Trump went to war two weeks ago “due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.”
It’s that he bizarrely blamed Israel for the Gulf War (which Ariel Sharon quietly advised against) and even for his own wife’s tragic death in Syria at the hands of ISIS in a campaign begun by Israel-hating President Barack Obama (to clean up the mess created by Obama’s own policies).