Moshe's defense of the making of the Golden Calf

 Ramban (Shemos 32:11) ETERNAL, WHY DOTH THY WRATH WAX HOT AGAINST THY PEOPLE? Now when Moses prayed about this great sin, it would have been fitting that he do so by way of confession and supplication, similar to what he said later on, Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and just as Ezra prayed and confessed because of the faithlessness of them of the captivity, and there is no reason why he should say, why doth the Eternal etc.? Our Rabbis, prompted by this difficulty have in various homiletic ways tried to mention several reasons for Moses’ minimizing the sin before Him.

Yalkut Shimoni (795) Moshe told G-d that the Golden Calf was a good thing and that it would assist Him. G-d asked how it would assist? Moshe answered “When You make it rain it will produce dew.When you make storms it will make lightning.”G-ds replied Moshe you also are mistaken about the Golden Calf . Moshe replied “If so why are You angry with Your people and say that they have sinned a great sin?” This can be compared to a king who was angry with his wife and sent her from his house. Her defender questioned the king for what he did and also asked his wife why she was upsetting the king 

Devarim Rabbah (01:02)  When Israel made the Golden Calf, G-d desired to destroy them, whereupon Moses said to Him: ‘Master of the Universe! This Calf will be of great help to Thee.’ God then asked him, ‘How can it help Me?’ Thereupon Moses replied: ‘Thou causest rain to fall, the Calf will produce dew; Thou bringest out the winds, the Calf will bring out lightnings.’ Said God to Moses: ' So you also are going astray after the Calf! ' Whereupon Moses exclaimed before God: ' Then," Why doth Thy wrath wax hot against Thy people" seeing that the Calf is nought?’ To Israel, however, he said: ' Ye have sinned a great sin.’

Bamidbar Rabbah (02:15) Moses’ plea: Lord, why doth Thy wrath wax hot against Thy people, etc. . Moses suggested: ‘This calf which Israel have made can now be of assistance to Thee.’ He can send down rain while Thou wilt produce the dew! ‘‘But,’ replied the Holy One, blessed be He, ‘is there any such hope from him?’ ‘Then,’ came Moses’ retort, ‘if there is no substance in him, why art Thou wroth? ' ‘Lord, why doth Thy wrath wax hot against Thy people... wherefore should the Egyptians speak... For evil did He bring them forth... Remember Abraham,’ etc. (ib.11 ff.). What follows in the text? And the Lord repented of the evil which He said He would do unto His people (ib. 14). ‘His people.’ Thus has been explained the text, ‘And it shall come to pass that, instead of that which was said to them,’ etc.

Berachos (32a) Moses spoke insolently towards heaven The school of R. Jannai learnt it from here: And Di-Zahab. What is ‘ And Di-Zahab’? They said in the school of R. Jannai: Thus spoke Moses before the Holy One, blessed be He: Sovereign of the Universe, the silver and gold which Thou didst shower on Israel until they said, Enough, that it was which led to their making the Calf. 

Shemos Rabbah (43:10) When Israel made the Golden Calf, God intended to destroy them, but Moses pleaded: ' Lord of the Universe! Didst Thou not bring them forth from Egypt, a place of idol-worshippers?

Golden Calf changed the Way Torah was Given

 Sforno (Shemos 24:12) “which I (the Lord) have written.” If it had not been for the sin of the golden calf, the entire Torah would have been handed to the Jewish people (Moses) as a signed and sealed document just like the Tablets with the Ten Commandments. Instead, Moses wrote down the Torah at G’d’s command. In fact, Moses only brought the Tablets to within sight of the people in order to smash them before their eyes, so that they would understand what they had forfeited due to their disloyalty to G’d. This demonstration of Moses having smashed the Tablets was designed to shock the people into penitence. 

Bessent responds to Trump’s post about Mueller’s death - Trump is a vile human being because he is a victim

 https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5795894-bessent-trump-empathy-plea/

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Sunday said people need to give President Trump more empathy after Trump posted that he was “glad” former FBI Director Robert Mueller was dead.

“I think that given what has been done to President Trump and his family it is impossible for either of us to understand what he has been through,” Bessent said during a Sunday appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“I was with the president in the green room at Davos and there was a video playing of what may have been an illegal raid on his home at Mar-a-Lago. They are going through his wife’s wardrobe,” Bessent told moderator Kristen Welker on Sunday.  

Arson attack on London volunteer ambulances being treated as antisemitic hate crime, police say

 https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/mar/23/jewish-volunteer-ambulances-fire-golders-green-suspected-arson-antisemitic-ntwnfb

Four ambulances belonging to the Jewish community ambulance service have been set on fire in Golders Green, with police saying they were treating the incident as an “antisemitic hate crime”.

Officers were called to Highfield Road in Golders Green at about 1.45am on Monday after receiving reports of a fire.

The Metropolitan police confirmed the incident in north London was being treated as an antisemitic hate crime.

The ambulances were run by Jewish charity Hatzola, which was established in 1979 and is run by volunteers, providing free medica

RFK Jr. is a 'big fan' of this treatment and plans to widen access

 https://www.politico.com/news/2026/03/22/kennedys-latest-maha-approved-plan-could-supercharge-peptide-craze-00839137

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is poised to declare victory on widening access to one of the country’s biggest wellness fads: peptides, the building blocks of proteins that biohackers claim help quickly heal injuries and promote muscle growth and fat loss.

Kennedy’s supporters in the Make America Healthy Again Movement, which include social media influencers selling popular peptide treatments, and his pharmacist allies have applauded his remarks and say they expect bold action from him any day now.

Yet some pharmacists and doctors warn that any move by the FDA to loosen current regulations around peptides could pose serious health risks because of the lack of scientific data to support many of them.

“We’re about to unleash one of the biggest medical experiments in the history of America onto Americans as the test subjects,” Alec Ginsberg, chief operating officer at C.O. Bigelow, the country’s oldest pharmacy, said, referring to the lack of clinical data on peptide use.

Trump’s shifting Strait of Hormuz strategies raise questions about US war preparation

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/trumps-shifting-strait-of-hormuz-strategies-raise-questions-about-us-war-preparation/

After failing to assemble coalition to secure critical oil shipping route, president has resorted to a threat to hit Iran’s power plants that critics warn is illegal, may backfire

At war with Iran, US President Donald Trump is cycling through an increasingly desperate list of options as he searches for a solution to the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz. He has jumped from calls to secure the waterway through diplomatic means to lifting sanctions and now escalating to a direct threat against civilian infrastructure in the Islamic Republic.

Trump and his allies insist they were always prepared for Iran to block the strait, yet the Republican president’s erratic strategy has fueled criticism that he is grasping for answers after going to war without a clear exit plan. On Saturday came his latest attempt, via an ultimatum to Iran: Open the strait within 48 hours or the United States will “obliterate” the country’s power plants.

Trump’s aides defended the threat as a hard-edged tactic to press Iran into submission. American opponents framed it as the failure of a president who miscalculated what it would take to get out of a geopolitical mire.

“Trump has no plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, so he is threatening to attack Iran’s civil power plants,” said Democratic Senator Ed Markey, adding: “This would be a war crime.”

Ambitious Mossad plan to spark Iran uprising seems to fall short as war drags on

 https://www.ynetnews.com/article/b13n118r911l

Trump and Netanyahu embraced an optimistic strategy of assassinations and covert efforts to trigger unrest, but intelligence officials say fear of Iran’s security forces has so far prevented mass protests or a broader revolt

Ahead of the conflict, Mossad chief David Barnea presented Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with an assessment that Israel could quickly help stir opposition inside Iran, potentially leading to widespread unrest and even the collapse of the government, according to U.S. officials cited by The New York Times. Barnea also discussed the idea with senior Trump administration officials during a visit to Washington in January. Netanyahu backed the approach.

Despite doubts among some American officials and Israeli intelligence analysts, both Trump and Netanyahu publicly projected confidence that a combination of military strikes and covert efforts could destabilize Iran’s leadership. The expectation was that targeting senior Iranian figures alongside efforts to encourage dissent could spark broader protests.

Watching Trump’s Monday Deadline for Iran

 https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/iran-war-us-israel-news-updates-2026?mod=WSJ_home_mediumtopper_pos_3

President Trump’s threat to “obliterate” Iranian power plants set off a cascade of alarm bells around the region with Tehran saying it would respond in kind. Oil-exporting Gulf countries said Iranian reprisals could further endanger the world economy.

Trump made his threat in a social-media post late Saturday, saying that if Iran doesn’t fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which carries a fifth of the world’s oil supply, within 48 hours the U.S. would act. Iran contended that the U.S. threat raised issues under international law against targeting civilian infrastructure.

Meantime, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations warned on Sunday about Iran's potential to launch longer-range ballistic missiles that could hit much of Europe. It comes days after Iran carried out one of its farthest missile launches on record, targeting Diego Garcia, a joint U.S.-U.K. military base in the Indian Ocean.

Jeffries tells Trump to keep his 'reckless mouth shut' after president calls Democratic Party 'greatest enemy'

 https://www.foxnews.com/media/jeffries-tells-trump-keep-his-reckless-mouth-shut-after-president-calls-democratic-party-greatest-enemy

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-NY, rebuked President Donald Trump on Sunday and said he should keep his "reckless mouth shut" after the president called Democrats the "greatest enemy" in America.

"Now with the death of Iran, the greatest enemy America has is the Radical Left, Highly Incompetent, Democratic Party! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DJT," the president wrote on Truth Social.

Apparent antisemitic arson attack targets Jewish ambulance service in London

 https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/article-890851

Several ambulances belonging to Jewish volunteer emergency medical service Hatzola Northwest were set ablaze in Golders Green, London, in a suspected antisemitic arson attack early on Monday morning, surveillance footage shared on social media appears to show.

The footage appears to show several hooded or masked men pouring gasoline on the vehicles before fleeing the scenes.

Four ambulances appear to have been destroyed in the incident.

Iran threatens to hit power plants in Israel, Gulf if its electricity sector is targeted

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog-march-23-2026/

Iran will retaliate to an attack on its electricity sector by targeting Israel’s power plants as well as power plants supplying US bases with electricity in regional countries, a statement by the Revolutionary Guards says.

The statement seemingly retracts earlier threats to desalination plants in the region, which are crucial for providing drinking water in Gulf countries.

IDF Spokesperson: 'We are facing more weeks of fighting in all sectors'

 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/424392

IDF spokesman Brigadier General Effie Defrin announced that the Iranian regime is being undermined by Israel's ongoing attacks and estimated that the fighting will continue in the coming weeks.

He noted that "we fired interceptors in Dimona and Arad, but unfortunately we were unable to intercept the missiles. Our investigation revealed that the failures in the incidents are not related to each other."

"The threats we saw tonight are not new. These are missiles that were fired throughout the operation and that we have successfully intercepted in the past. We investigate every such incident. Over 95% of the launches are intercepted," he added.

Democrats seek information on Jared Kushner’s potential ‘conflicts of interest’ in Middle East

 https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5792597-kushner-business-middle-east-democrats/

Two top-ranking Democrats are seeking more information regarding Jared Kushner’s business dealings in the Middle East following reports that he has been attempting to shore up billions of dollars for his private equity firm while also helping lead negotiations with governments in the region.

Rep. Robert Garcia (R-Calif.) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) wrote in a letter to the White House on Thursday that they had “serious concerns” about whether Kushner, President Trump’s son in law, was being allowed to leverage his political influence for personal financial gain.

Their inquiry comes days after The New York Times reported that Kushner had recently spoken with potential foreign investors about raising $5 billion for his investment firm, Affinity Partners, citing five people with knowledge of the discussions.

The scrutiny is not new for the firm or Kushner, who previously faced accusations of an improper quid pro quo after the Saudi government, led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, invested $2 billion in the company shortly after Trump left office in 2021.

Trump has consistently brushed off allegations of conflicts of interest related to his family’s business dealings, signaling before retaking office that he had no plans to divest from his companies, including Truth Social, or stop his family from engaging in overseas activities.

“I prohibited them from doing business in my first term, and I got absolutely no credit for it,” he told the Times in January. “I didn’t have to do that. And it’s really unfair to them.”

“I found out that nobody cared, and I’m allowed to.”

Who is the biggest alleged grifter in the Trump administration?