Thousands march through Bnei Brak against Haredi ‘pillaging of the public coffers’
Thousands of anti-government demonstrators marched through the ultra-Orthodox city of Bnei Brak on Wednesday night to protest against the government’s plans to allocate large sums of money to the ultra-Orthodox community — a move that has drawn criticism from within the Finance Ministry for being unsustainable in the long term.
“It’s hard when you see an older person making poor choices and decisions. But if that person is cognitively intact, you can’t force them to do what you think they should do,” said Anne Sansevero, president of the board of directors of the Aging Life Care Association, a national organization of care managers who work with older adults and their families. “They have a right to make choices for themselves.”
Republicans say they’re simply following “due process.” Democrats say they’re trying to do right by voters and Congress. And all the while, as the two sides bicker, indicted Rep. George Santos (R-NY) will remain in Congress.
After Republicans turned a long-shot motion to kick Santos out of Congress into a vote to refer the matter to the Ethics Committee, Democrats were quick to cry foul, complaining that Republicans were just using “due process” as an excuse to keep Santos in Congress indefinitely.
Rambam (Avoda Zara 11:12) A person who whispers an incantation over a wound and then recites a verse from the Torah, who recites a verse over a child so that he will not become scared, or who places a Torah scroll or tefillin over a baby so that it will sleep, is considered to be a soothsayer or one who cast spells. Furthermore, such people are included among those who deny the Torah, because they relate to the words of Torah as if they are cures for the body, when, in fact, they are cures for the soul, "It is, however, permitted for a healthy person to read verses from the Bible or chapters from Psalms so that the merit of reading them will protect him and save him from difficulties and injury.
Chovas HaLevavos (04:04) Regarding health and sickness. A man is placed under a duty to trust in the Creator in this, while working on maintaining his health according to the means whose nature promotes this, and to fight sickness according to the customary ways, as the Creator commanded "and he shall surely heal him". All of this, without trusting in the means of health or illness that they could help or hurt without the permission of the Creator. And when one puts his trust in the Creator, He will heal him with or without a means, as written "He sends His word and heals them It is even possible that He will heal him through something that is normally very harmful, as you know from the story of Elisha and the bad water, that he healed their damaging properties with salt
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/11/08/politics/josh-hawley-masculinity-video-games-porn/index.html
Hawley goes on to say that because men have been so badly treated – he calls it “the deconstruction of American men” – they’ve started to misbehave and suffer. “Can we be surprised,” he asked in that same speech, “that after years of being told … that their manhood is the problem, more and more men are withdrawing into the enclave of idleness and pornography and video games?”
So what’s the connection to porn, as Mike Allen asked him on “Axios on HBO” on Sunday?
Answer: “You’ve got 16 million men … who are idle, who don’t have anything to do. Now, partly that’s their own responsibility, but also partly it’s because jobs have dried up.”
Another leftist plot, like Covid.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/may/13/manhood-review-josh-hawley-book-tucker-carlson
Josh Hawley is a neo-Confederate at war with modernity. A Republican senator from Missouri, he opposed renaming military bases honoring rebel generals and was the sole vote against a bill to crack down on anti-Asian hate crime. After the supreme court ruled that federal law protects employees against discrimination based on sexual orientation, Hawley bemoaned “the end of the conservative legal movement”. That the decision was written by Neil Gorsuch, an arch-conservative, was irrelevant.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/josh-hawley-needs-to-learn-a-thing-or-two-about-manhood
Real family values are about providing a healthy alternative to the toxic masculinity Hawley is offering. The disconnect between men and the economy or society isn’t happening because men are failing to achieve some weird idea of what it means to be a man. The core of this crisis is the fact that men without a college degree have seen their relative earnings fall by 30 percent since 1980.
My English index to Mishna Berura has been unavailable for a long time
I will be publishing it again through Amazon in a few days
Trump is by far the leading candidate for the Republican nomination. Any time he’s asked about Russia in a debate or other forum – or even if he’s not asked – he’ll say the investigation was utterly discredited by John Durham. For him and his supporters, that’s case closed.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/even-steve-bannon-blasts-clown-show-john-durhams-epic-failure
Former Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon tore into Special Counsel John Durham on Tuesday over his failure to secure any major criminal convictions during his four-year probe of the FBI’s Russia investigation, describing Durham’s final report as an “epic failure.”
https://www.newsweek.com/world-leaders-trump-fool-bolton-1800730
During Wednesday's CNN town hall, Trump said that the war in Ukraine wouldn't have happened if he was president when it began in February 2022. Trump wouldn't say who he wanted to win the war before stating that he could end the conflict in 24 hours. When moderator Kaitlan Collins pressed him on how he would resolve the conflict so quickly, Trump said he would find a solution by meeting with Putin and Ukrainian Volodymyr Zelensky.
"I have been in those rooms with [Trump] when he met with those leaders, I believe they think he's a laughing fool," Bolton said on CNN This Morning. "And the idea that somehow his presence in office would have deterred Putin is flatly wrong."
Shulchan Arukh Orach Chaim 328:2 rules that one who delays in treating a dangerously ill patient on the Sabbath is virtually considered to be shedding blood. Mishnah Berurah, se'if katan 6, adds that – for this reason – a talmid chakham must proactively publicize the laws of piku'ach nefesh, so that the community will respond with alacrity on the Sabbath when a lifesaving opportunity arises. Accordingly, I will take this opportunity to argue in favour of medically treating brain dead patients on the Sabbath, and show how this question interfaces with Sotah, whose siyum is being celebrated today in the Daf Yomi.
The halakhic sources which include a brain dead patient within the ambit of safek piku'ach nefesh [such that his/her medical treatment necessarily overrides the Sabbath] are elucidated in my online essay at <https://www.scribd.com/
Apparently, one of the sources for the RCA's conclusion is R. Hershel Schachter, Be-Ikvei ha-Tzon, no. 36. [I hypothesize so because another page on the Ematai website acknowledges that Rabbi Schachter reviewed the text of that organization's policy. See endnote to <https://www.ematai.org/learn/
However, I can respond to Rabbi Schachter (be-mechilat Kevod Torato) by pointing to R. Eliezer Yehudah Waldenberg, Teshuvot Tzitz Eliezer 18:48, sec. 3, who raises three alternate possibilities how to interpret Sotah 46b: (1) perhaps the senior residents of Luz did not voluntarily leave the city, but were rather miraculously expelled [analogous to the residents of Kushta described in Sanhedrin 97a]; (2) perhaps Luz was not a real city but was rather a metaphysical concept; (3) perhaps the residents of Luz were not Jewish and were not following Halakhah. According to any of these three possibilities, there could still be a mitzvah of safek piku'ach nefesh to treat brain dead patients.
To the latter effect, it is important to appreciate the full context of Sotah 46b. The Gemara is reporting that the Angel of Death was denied entry into Luz in reward for the mitzvah of levayah [accompanying strangers on the road] that was fulfilled by the founder of that locale. And the reason this is being discussed in the context of eglah arufah [the subject of the final chapter of Sotah] is because the Mishnah on the previous page (Sotah 45b) declares that if the elders of a city [who are obligated to bring an eglah arufah] would have failed to provide levayah, then those elders would be virtually guilty of bloodshed. R. Shlomo Yosef Zevin, Ha-Mo'adim ba-Halakhah, chapter on Aseret ha-Dibberot, envisages this Mishnah as a source for the principle that even passive euthanasia constitutes murder. [While not mentioned by Rabbi Zevin, this would then serve as a support for the aforementioned Shulchan Arukh Orach Chaim 328:2, as well as a parallel codification in Shulchan Arukh Yoreh De‘ah 336:1.] Arguably, then, the Mishnah in Sotah 45b actually teaches that we may not practice passive euthanasia on any patient, brain dead or otherwise.
R. Moshe Feinstein, while never invoking Sotah 46b by explicit reference, writes as follows in Iggerot Mosheh, Choshen Mishpat 2:75, sec. 7:
"Regarding an exceedingly senior patient who becomes ill, for sure we are obligated to heal him as much as is possible, just as with a juvenile patient. And [this holds true] even if the senior patient does not want, saying he is disgusted with his life. And it is forbidden to even raise as a consideration these matters, even if its exponent is a great physician. And even with respect to triage priority, it is logical to assume that one should not calculate this."
Seemingly, Rabbi Feinstein [or whoever wrote this responsum on his behalf, given the outstanding debate that surrounds the provenance of that seventh volume of Iggerot Mosheh] – with his comment about "senior disgust for life" co-existing in harmony with the mitzvah obligation of piku'ach nefesh – interprets Sotah 46b like Tzitz Eliezer.
Thus, it is not surprising that R. J. David Bleich [Bioethical Dilemmas, Vol. 1, chs. 3-4; Be-Netivot ha-Halakhah, Vol. 3, pp. 161-178] does indeed demand medically treating a brain dead patient at all times, including on the Sabbath, in order to comply with Leviticus 19:16. To that effect, at a 2021 conference of Agudath Israel of America [in a rare speech by a lady], Mrs. Leah Horowitz (care navigator for the Chayim Aruchim affiliate of AIA) describes how – when a patient is pronounced brain dead and the attending medical staff wishes to terminate treatment – she will work urgently to find another hospital to which the brain dead patient can be transferred for medical care [on the Sabbath no less so than on weekdays]. The latter speech is available online at <https://agudah.org/watch-
Let us hope that this halakhic dialectic – which underscores the preciousness of human life [as per the Mishnah, Avot 3:14] – will be noticed by Russian President Putin [whom I have already addressed at <http://daattorah.blogspot.
Rabbi Spira works as the Editor of Manuscripts and Grants at the Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research [a Pavillion of the Jewish General Hospital] in Montreal, Canada.
