Praying to Angels?

Sanhedrin (44b) Rabbi Yoḥanan says: The verse should be understood in a slightly different manner: A person should always pray for mercy that all heavenly beings should strengthen his power of prayer, and that he should have no enemies causing him trouble in Heaven above. 

Rashi (Sanhedrin 44b) לעולם יבקש אדם רחמים שיהו הכל מאמצים את כחו - שיסייעוהו מלאכי השרת לבקש רחמים ושלא יהו לו מסטינים מלמעלה והכי משמע היערוך שועך אם באתה לערוך שועך כזאת תערכהו לא בצר שלא יהו לך צרים ושהכל יהו במאמצי כחך:

Rashshash (Sanhedrin 44b) גמרא לעולם יבקש אדם רחמים שיהו הכל מאמצין א"כ כו'. ועי' פירש"י. ומזה יש ללמד זכות על פזמון דמלאכי רחמים וכו' חלו נא פני אל וכו' ונוסח מכניסי רחמים הכניסו כו' וכיוצא באלו אשר רבים גמגמו עליהם. אך י"ל דהכא דוקא ביחיד וכמו דמחלק הש"ס בסוטה (לג) ועי' באחרונים באו"ח ס"ס ק"א:

Yerushalmi (Brachos chapter 9:1) Rebbi Judan said in his own name. Flesh and blood has a protector. If someone is in trouble, he does not enter the protector’s place suddenly but rather stands at his door and calls his slave or familiar and that one will say: the man X is standing at the door of your courtyard. Maybe he will make him enter, maybe he will let him stand. But the Holy One, praise to Him, is not like this: If a human is in trouble, he should cry neither to Michael nor to Gabriel, rather he should cry to Me and I shall answer him immediately; that is what is written (Joel 3:5): “Every one who calls on. The sentence is slightly ambiguous; one could also translate “who invokes the Name”; that is the meaning given to the verse in the next paragraph. the name of the Eternal will escape.”

Russian Newspapers Condemn Ukraine War: 'This Madness Must be Stopped'

 https://www.newsweek.com/russia-ukraine-war-putin-madness-newspapers-urals-1683987

A newspaper group in Russia has risked the wrath of government authorities by publishing editions that carry a stern anti-war message.

The publishing group VK-media, which is not connected to social media giant Vkontakte, published editions of their papers in the Urals region with a cover dedicated to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Barr recalls yelling at Trump over Hunter Biden in last conversation before 2020 election

 https://www.foxnews.com/politics/barr-yelled-trump-hunter-biden-2020-election

Former Attorney General Bill Barr revealed that his last conversation with former President Trump before the 2020 election was a heated exchange that resulted in the two men not talking for weeks.

In his upcoming book, "One Damn Thing After Another," Barr recalled that in October 2020, Trump called soon after a Newsmax segment on Hunter Biden's laptop. Reports about the computer revolved around emails that appeared to connect Joe Biden to his son's business dealings when the elder Biden was vice president.

Erdan excluded from UN session on Ukraine

 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/323143

Foreign Minister Yair Lapid decided on Tuesday that Israel's Ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, would not speak at the emergency meeting of the UN General Assembly on the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Erdan’s deputy, Noa Furman, spoke in his place.

According to a report on Galei Tzahal (IDF Radio), due to the sensitive relations with the Russians, Lapid decided to downgrade the level of the Israeli speaker in the discussion so that the Israeli support for a condemnation of Russia would not be interpreted in Moscow as a far-reaching step that the Russians would have to respond to.

A political official claimed that alongside the diplomatic reasoning, Lapid - who has had several run ins with Erdan - wanted the speaker on behalf of Israel to stick to wording written by officials in the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem and Furman, who is a diplomat on behalf of the ministry, would do so.

According to the source, there was concern that Ambassador Erdan would add to the speech things that were not agreed upon with the professional echelon and would damage relations with Russia.

''If I'm killed, may those who remained silent be cursed'

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/323168

The Chief Rabbi of Ukraine called on Russian Jews and non-Jews to protest the ongoing invasion of Ukraine, and cursed Russians who remain silent and ‘complicit’ in the war.

“I’m recording this appeal for the rabbis of Russia, for the Jews of Russia, and simply, to Russian people with one message: stop the war. Don’t believe what they tell you on television, they’re lying. There are war crimes being committed here,” said Rabbi Moshe Reuven Azman, the Chief Rabbi of Ukraine and a member of the Chabad movement.

In a video statement released Wednesday, Rabbi Azman lamented the plight of Ukrainian civilians, saying that many were suffering from shortages of food and medicine, along with the artillery and air attacks by the Russian military.

“The Russian army which beat the Nazis in 1941 is today bombing Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odessa – civilian populations!”

“Yesterday, Jews and non-Jews from all over Kyiv called me asking for humanitarian help. Every day I’m working to help innocent civilians and residents; old people, women and children – grandmothers are calling me saying they are going to die if they don’t get their medication, mothers call me telling me that their children are suffering because of the bombings and lack of food.”

“Our volunteers face life-threatening danger. But I haven’t left, I’m still here, because I care and I will not abandon my community. I am the Chief Rabbi of Ukraine.”

“I have been silent for a long time, but I cannot stay silent any longer. Dear Russians, dear Jews – all people who are not indifferent:

“Remember, that he who does not care and he who agrees silently, is an accomplice in this crime. A war crime! A crime against humanity! I’m not saying it based on the television, I’m telling you what I see here.”

Open Letter To Jacob Biderman : LAUDER CHABAD IS GUILTY

 info@lauderchabad.at

biderman@lauderchabad.at

Rabbi Biderman,

CHABAD DENY CULPABILITY

I am writing to you, Rabbi Jacob Biderman, because I believe you have a right to know that the linked document is being sent all over the Jewish world and beyond. We are posting it on all relevant social media platforms and websites. To be clear, this is not a hate campaign against you. Rather it is a justice campaign for Sammy and Benji Schlesinger – two young pupils in your school who have suffered a decade of unimaginable heartbreak as their mother has been erased from their lives.

How could you do this to innocent children? You call yourself a Rabbi yet your heart is rock hard. You lied to the courts about their mother. You have no understanding of a mother’s role in the lives of her children. Jewish Law excuses mothers from all the mitzvot that are time constrained. Our great Rabbis and Hashem Himself knows a mother needs to be constantly available to her children. That their mother’s love and guidance is crucial for their wellbeing.

Did you miss this lecture in Yeshiva, Rabbi Biderman? Did you also miss the lesson on the 10 Commandments where it says you shall not tell lies against your neighbour? Ten Yom HaKippurim have gone by since you decided to help Michael Schlesinger destroy his wife and inflict as yet unknowable damage on their children. What were you doing on these holiest of days when you should have been atoning for your sins? Did you give one thought to the evil you were perpetuating year after year?

Yes, we are telling everyone not to enroll in your school because until you even understand what you have done, it is too risky to allow children to be in your care. You had the audacity to reply that this was a private family matter and that the school did not involve itself. Really?!! Now you are SUDDENLY impartial?!! After you took it upon yourself to block Beth Alexander from all contact with her sons? After you give her no information about their welfare or their education?!! After you barred her from attending their birthday parties in school?!! After you ignored the confusion and depression of two little boys in your care and told the courts they were thriving?!! Or maybe you didn’t notice, which is even more alarming from someone in charge of a school.

Call yourself a “Rabbi” if it makes you feel important. You are no Rabbi to us. For now, all we can hope for is that you aim to be a mere mensch. Until you understand what you have done and try to repair some of the damage you have caused, we will continue to fight for justice for Sammy and Benji. Someone has to advocate for them. Sometimes teachers can intervene to help vulnerable children. In this case it was their teacher, Jacob Biderman, who ensured they remain vulnerable.

We are more than 6,000 people dedicated to Beth and her children. We are not duplicitous as you were when you forwarded Beth’s pleading and heartfelt emails to her ex-husband’s lawyers. We only deal with the truth, unlike you when you told UK Chief Rabbis Ephraim Mirvis and Jonathan Sacks, of blessed memory, that Beth was mentally ill. We will not go away. Until this is resolved satisfactorily, this truth will follow you for the rest of your life, from job to job, and from community to community.

Ask yourself how the name of Rabbi Jacob Biderman will be remembered. What will your legacy be in this world? I can tell you that it will either be the story of how you destroyed the lives of a Jewish family to further your career, or it will be how you repented and ended up on the side of goodness. Your choice. Either way, the Jewish world will know. We all eagerly await your decision for the final chapter of this tragedy that you helped to create. Remember that according to Jewish law, real atonement begins with asking forgiveness from those you have wronged. Although how you can apologise to children for keeping their mother from them for ten years, I cannot imagine.

For full disclosure, I am copying this email to Ronald Lauder, Chabad HQ, and Chabad Rabbis around the world. It is also their right to know what is happening in a school that bears their names. Please don’t waste everyone’s time by crying that this is all lies. Everything is officially documented and recorded. Your only honourable course of action is to look inwards, examine your past behaviour, choose a new path of honesty and righteousness, and pray that God will forgive you for what you have done to his children.

Rachel Selby

Jerusalem

Why Trump's bizarre airport claim may have been his gaffe correction strategy backfiring at the most embarrassing moment

 https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-airports-revolutionary-war-4th-of-july-speech-gaffe-a8990021.html

Donald Trump's surprising claim that George Washington's revolutionary troops "took over the airports" during the War of Independence could be explained by his method of correcting himself when he misreads his autocue - doubling down and trying to incorporate the mistake into his speech.

His bizarre ad lib, suggesting there were airports to seize more than 100 years before the first successful flight, came moments after he seemed to stumble over a phrase in his speech.

Describing how Washington's patriots defeated the British between 1775 and 1783, the president told crowds gathered to hear his Fourth of July address: "Our army manned the air." At that point he paused briefly, apparently realising he had misspoken, before continuing: "It rammed the ramparts, it took over the airports, it did everything it had to do …"

Seemingly thrown by the mistakes, he then alluded to Fort McHenry, a Maryland stronghold best known for its role in a completely different conflict - the 1812 war with Britain.

It's not clear exactly how the speech was meant to read.

20 Funniest Presidential Gaffes of All Time

 https://mastersinpublicadministration.com/20-funniest-presidential-gaffes-of-all-time

We’re all human and capable of making mistakes, but those who live their lives in the public eye are for more susceptible to feeling the pain long after the mistake has been made. Presidential gaffes are a dime a dozen, but here’s a collection of the funniest mistakes and moments of embarrassment ever encountered by a president or vice president while on the job.

Lindsey Graham criticizes Israel for refusing to sell weapons to Ukraine

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/lindsey-graham-criticizes-israel-for-refusing-to-sell-weapons-to-ukraine/

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham criticizes Israel for declining to sell Ukraine weapons to fend off the ongoing Russian invasion.

“They asked Israel — no bigger fan of Israel than Lindsey Graham — for stinger [missiles], and apparently Israel said no. So I’ll get on the phone to Israel. You know, we stand up for Israel with the Iron Dome,” Graham tells Fox News, suggesting that the US expects better from its longstanding ally.

“Putin is a thug. He’s a war criminal. He’s destroying a sovereign nation called Ukraine. And if we don’t get Ukraine and Russia right, the Chinese are going to move on Taiwan and the Iranians gonna break out toward a bomb. So it’s in everybody’s interest” for Ukraine to be able to defend itself, Graham argues.

Time running out for Israel on Ukraine

 https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-time-running-out-for-israel-on-ukraine-1001403629

Why the backtracking? Israel assigns decisive importance to Russia's control of Syria and the freedom of action that the Russians give it there. The Russian army maintains advanced air defense systems in Syria that could seriously disturb Israeli planes attacking Iranian targets and Hezbollah bases and arms dumps in the country.

There is also the economic question. Israel's trade with Russia is extensive and growing. About half of Israel's imported wheat comes from Russia (another 30% comes from Ukraine). Russia is a very big export destination for Israeli agricultural produce, while Israeli technology companies are cooperating more and more with Russian companies and investors. All this will be put in danger when Israel has to join Western sanctions against Russia, and it will not be able to avoid that.

Ties with Russia Compromise Israel’s Stance on Ukraine

 https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/ties-with-russia-compromise-israels-stance-on-ukraine

What Lapid may have been alluding to, but did not say, is that without understandings with Putin the Israeli Air Force would not be able to bomb Iranian convoys crossing Syria to deliver arms to Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. Correspondingly, Putin has refused to allow the Syrian military to use highly accurate S-300 anti-aircraft missiles against Israel. Iran, like Russia, has forces in Syria that are helping to prop up the regime of Bashar al-Assad. Russia has been allowing Israel to contain the expansion of the Iranian force, which could become a potential rival in influencing Assad, and this arrangement is Russia’s ticket to accessing a Mediterranean port in Tartus.

In addition, Ukraine is home to about two hundred thousand people who qualify for Israeli citizenship and could emigrate under the law of return. Zelensky himself is a Jew, but Israeli leaders seem to think that a great many other Ukrainian Jews would choose to emigrate to Israel rather than resist a continued Russian assault or occupation. “We’ll be happy to receive any Jew that wants to immigrate from Ukraine,” an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesperson told Newsweek. Yet, presumably, a mass evacuation wouldn’t be possible if Israel incited Putin’s anger, or poked at residual Russian anti-Semitism. There are some hundred and seventy-five thousand Jews left in Russia, too—among them billionaire oligarchs who’ve been close to Putin, and who maintain homes and investments in Israel. (The most prominent of these, perhaps, is oil-magnate Roman Abramovich, who recently made a ten-million-dollar contribution to the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum, in Jerusalem; the museum’s chairman is lobbying the Biden Administration to exempt Abramovich from sanctions.)

Shaked: Ukrainians seeking shelter allowed entry to Israel

 https://www.ynetnews.com/article/hjhu7z3gq

Nonetheless, population and immigration authority data show that since the beginning of the war up until Tuesday morning, 253 passengers with Ukrainian passports arrived in Israel and 50 were turned away. 

The ambassador's word were echoed in a protests in Haifa on Tuesday evening. "In such a critical point we have to unite and help as many Ukrainian refugees as possible", said city council man, Kirill Karetnik.

Shaked Refutes Ukrainian Claim Israel Denying Refugees Entry

 https://hamodia.com/2022/03/02/shaked-refutes-ukrainian-claim-israel-denying-refugees-entry/

Ambassador Korniychuk’s comments were not well received by Ayelet Shaked.

“You should stick to the facts,” she wrote in an online post. “As of this morning, 97 passengers from different countries around the world have arrived in Israel with a Ukrainian passport, of which only 2 have been refused.”

Shaked explained that the few cases in which someone had a problem being admitted to Israel included one passenger who came from Georgia with what she described as a “borrowed identity” and apparently not his own passport. She said that the second case was of a person who came to Israel from Poland wanting to immigrate. So neither of the people who were refused entry into the country came directly from Ukraine and were not forced to return there. Both were sent to the countries that they had come from in accordance with international aviation laws.

Children Punished for Sins of Parents

 https://aish.com/children-punished-for-sins-of-parents/

The Talmud (Sanhedrin 27b; see also Targum to Exodus 20:5) answers by noting a contradiction in the verses of the Torah itself. On the one hand, Exodus 34:7 states: “He visits the sins of the fathers on the sons…” On the other, Deuteronomy 24:16 states, “A man shall be put to death for his own sin.” The Talmud answers that when is a person punished for his forebears’ sins – when he follows in their footsteps. If the child learns better but willingly and consciously decides to continue in his parents’ wicked path, then he becomes obligated to rectify not only his own sins but the past family sins he took responsibility for by adopting as his own.