Igros Moshe (YD III 96.9) Advice for his son Rav Reuven on becoming 20 years old You write that on the 11th of Elul you will be twenty years old – you should have a long life which is good and sweet –this is the age that there is punishment for sins also from Heaven. You ask advice as to how to behave the rest of your life . The most important thing is being strongly working in studying the Torah. Rashi notes that one can easily err and for a Torah scholar this is considered a deliberate sin. Therefore G-d should help you to grow in Torah and to know everything clearly and this will lead to doing the right thing. Thus your entire purpose and goal in this world is that your entire lifes’s effort are in Torah. If you do this I am confident that G-d will help you and send you a generous parnossa and plentiful blessing which are presents from G-d according to one’s merit and they are not the result of a job. You should not accept this G-d forbid – as an oath which is prohibited – but it should be your mental commitment. You should also train yourself in good attributes. The main thing is to avoid anger which is to be greatly avoided as well as excessively pride If you try hard G-d will help you Also this should not be accepted as an oath. You should also be very careful with honoring your mother. This is something which is extremely difficult since you have been familiar since childhood and thus it requires great effort. Even if she is forgiving disrespect you should not rely on that. You also ask about fasting. It is not proper for you and those involved in Torah study because it might interfere. Instead of afflicting yourself, you should increase your Torah study. You should be constantly aware of my words and G-d should help you always.
Monday, March 3, 2025
May a non-observant Jew be counted towards a minyan?
https://oukosher.org/halacha-yomis/may-a-non-observant-jew-be-counted-towards-a-minyan/
Shulchan Aruch (OC 55:11) rules that a Jew who is not observant may be counted towards a minyan. However, the Pri Migadim (OC 55:4) writes that this ruling of Shulchan Aruch is only true for one who believes in the validity of the Torah, though he fails to be observant in practice. However, one who denies the legitimacy of Torah and mitzvos may not be counted towards a minyan. The Mishnah Berurah (55:46) rules this way as well. Nevertheless, Rav Moshe Feinstein, zt”l (Igros Moshe OC 1:23) writes that if no one else is available one may include a non-believer as well in a minyan and recite Kaddish, Kedusha and Barchu. Rav Moshe reasons that the basis for a minyan is derived from the ten spies. The ten spies rebelled against G-d, and yet they constituted a minyan. If so, we see that all Jews may be included in a minyan, especially a Jew that was never taught to be observant (tinok she'nishbah).
Minyan – non observant Jews
Igros Moshe (OC I #23) I was asked if in an emergency whether those who profane Shabbos can be counted to make a minyan. I answered that according to our accepted halacha views they can be counted. Just as the law of Kiddush HaShem requires giving up one’s life in the presence of ten Jews nd likewise one can not say a davar bekedusha with less than ten. So since one can be obligated to die in the presence of ten Jews even if they are not religiously observant but are Jews as we learn from the spies (Sanhedrin 74) who were openly deniers which is worse than violating Shabbos it is obvious that those who violate Shabbos can be part of a minyan to say Devarim shebekedusha
Russia gloats about shift in U.S. relations with Ukraine
https://www.axios.com/2025/03/02/trump-zelensky-showdown-russia-reaction
Moscow is welcoming the apparent shift in U.S. relations with Ukraine following last week's tense Oval Office meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, President Trump and Vice President Vance.
Washington now ‘largely aligns’ with Moscow’s vision, Kremlin says
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/03/02/russia-ukraine-trump-zelensky-clash/
“The new administration is rapidly changing all foreign policy configurations,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told state television on Sunday. “This largely aligns with our vision.”
Moscow’s vision, which has focused on a push to reclaim influence over much or all of the former Soviet Union and defeat liberal democracy, has made Russia a pariah to the West. The United States has given hundreds of billions of dollars in arms and aid to Ukraine since Russia’s unprovoked invasion in 2022. Washington led allies in imposing new sanctions on Moscow; the International Criminal Court issued a warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin on charges of war crimes.
The Oval Office blowup last week, in which Vice President JD Vance accused Zelensky of insufficient gratitude for U.S. support and Trump warned that his refusal to compromise with Putin was “gambling with World War III,” has been seen here as a “gift” to the Kremlin.
‘Putin Is on the Inside’: Shock as U.S. Caves to Russia in Cybersecurity Fight
The White House is reportedly dropping Russia from its list of threats to cybersecurity and is instead honing in on China, part of the Trump administration’s apparent broader effort to curry favor with the Kremlin and push for a peace deal that would end the country’s ongoing war in Ukraine.
According to The Guardian, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has received a new list of directives that largely omit Russia as a threat to monitor. Part of the Department of Homeland Security, CISA monitors cyber threats made to the United States.
These directives were listed out in a memo, which singled out China and the protection of local systems as priorities, according to the newspaper. The document, however, failed to mention Russia—despite the country previously being a seminal focus at the agency.
Was 40-year-old Trump recruited by the KGB?
The former head of Kazakhstan’s intelligence service, Alnur Mussayev, recently claimed in a Facebook post that Donald Trump was recruited by the KGB in 1987, when the 40-year-old real-estate mogul first visited Moscow.
Mussayev isn’t the only ex-KGB officer to have made such an assertion. Several years ago, Yuri Shvets, a former KGB major now resident in Washington, D.C., served as one of the key sources for Craig Unger’s best-selling book, “American Kompromat: How the KGB Cultivated Donald Trump, and Related Tales of Sex, Greed, Power, and Treachery.”
Just after Mussayev made his claim, another ex-KGB officer living in France, Sergei Zhyrnov, categorically endorsed the allegations in an interview with a Ukrainian journalist. According to Zhyrnov, Trump would have been surrounded 24/7 by KGB operatives, including everyone from his cab driver to the maid servicing his hotel room. Zhyrnov said that Trump’s every move would have been recorded and documented, and that he could have been either caught in a “honey trap” (“All foreign-currency prostitutes were KGB — one hundred percent,” he said) or perhaps recorded bribing Moscow city officials in order to promote his idea of building a hotel in the Soviet capital.
Trump’s Old World Order
Does he want deals with Russia and China to carve up the planet? He should tell Americans.
Cut International Law Down to Size: National Sovereignty Trumps Utopian Alternatives
The ongoing International Criminal Court (ICC) and International Court of Justice (ICJ) cases against Israel reveal a problem more fundamental than the mistreatment of Israel. The cases illustrate the dangers of expanding the definition and role of international law beyond its severe limitations to reduce the sovereignty of nations. Ireland’s ICJ intervention highlights the destructiveness of reinventing international law into a utopian solution for the world’s ills.
Sunday, March 2, 2025
Israel halts humanitarian aid to Gaza
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/404721
Israel's political echelon decided this morning (Sunday) to halt the transfer of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip after the first phase of the ceasefire concluded overnight.
The decision to halt the transfer of humanitarian aid comes in the wake of the Prime Minister's Office's announcement last night that Israel is prepared to extend the ceasefire in accordance with the outline proposed by US President Donald Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff.
"With the conclusion of the first stage of the hostages deal and in light of Hamas's refusal to accept the Witkoff framework for the continuation of the talks, to which Israel has agreed, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has decided that, as of this morning, the entry of all goods and supplies to the Gaza Strip will be halted," the Prime Minister's Office stated,
"Israel will not allow a ceasefire without the release of our hostages. If Hamas persists in its refusal, there will be additional consequences."
Why Europe Can't Defend Itself Without Donald Trump
https://www.newsweek.com/europe-defense-spending-military-nato-donald-trump-2037104
There were no U.S. forces taking part in NATO's biggest exercises this year. This may have always been the plan, but European nations going it alone on Ukraine's doorstep took on a fresh significance as U.S. President Donald Trump and his administration rewrote Washington's relationship with the continent.
Decades of sidelining defense spending after the end of the Cold War has allowed European countries to maintain prized social welfare systems, but has also left them with yawning capability gaps on defense and a deep reliance on the U.S. that has become increasingly unpalatable to the White House. There is no shying away from this from European officials, nor a desire to—there is a universal acceptance, privately and publicly, that the continent has been lamentably lax.
Despite alarm bells ringing for years, and even more loudly since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the continent's leaders have still struggled to summon the political clout to significantly boost military spending. For most Western European members, the threat is geographically too far away—it is hard to make a convincing case to budget more for militaries when that could mean cuts to sectors such as health care, or further tax increases in what are already some of the world's most heavily taxed countries.