G00d and Evil

 Ramchal (Ikkarim 03) However the truth of the existence of good and evil is that the Master placed holiness and impurity into the world. The explanation of holiness is the existence of closeness to Him and that of impurity is the existence of distance from Him. Holiness is the impact that the Master effects upon someone who is fitting for it and the influence that descends upon him. And impurity is the distancing that the Holy One, distances Himself, and the absence that He so produces. However the truth is that the Master created various spiritual powers for this purpose. And darkness and pollution are effected by them, such that in every place that you find this pollution, He will remove His holiness from there and remove His light from there, may He be blessed. And these are called the powers of impurity (kochot hatumah). 

What Is Yom Kippur?

 https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/177886/jewish/What-Is-Yom-Kippur.htm

What: Yom Kippur fast day is the holiest day of the year, when we are closest to G‑d and to the essence of our souls. Yom Kippur means “Day of Atonement,” as the verse states, “For on this day He will forgive you, to purify you, that you be cleansed from all your sins before G‑d.”1

Beyond specific actions, Yom Kippur is dedicated to introspection, prayer and asking G‑d for forgiveness. Even during the breaks between services, it is appropriate to recite Psalms at every available moment.

Mike Johnson Blows Up Trump’s Biggest Claim About Strait of Hormuz

 https://newrepublic.com/post/215537/mike-johnson-accidentally-wrecks-donald-trump-claim-strait-hormuz

House Speaker Mike Johnson just shattered President Donald Trump’s lies about reopening the Strait of Hormuz.

At a rally in North Carolina Wednesday night, Trump insisted—as his administration has claimed for weeks—that the Strait of Hormuz was open. But hundreds of miles away on Capitol Hill, Johnson revealed that couldn’t be further from the truth.

“Now that ongoing conflict obviously has had an effect on gas prices, for example, because the Strait of Hormuz is not completely open safely for commerce yet, and the Red Sea is affected as well,” Johnson said at a press conference.

“Of course gas prices are too high,” he continued. “When we get that thing resolved in the Strait of Hormuz, that will have a direct effect on that, and it will help to bring down grocery costs.”

Rabbi Sacks' Yom Kippur Message for 5770 (2009): Understanding Kol Nidrei

Why probiotics don’t usually help your gut — and what to do instead

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2026/09/17/probiotics-are-wildly-popular-theres-better-way-help-your-gut/

Fiber-rich plants, not supplements, are the best fuel for your gut microbiome.

Probiotic supplements, on the other hand, are often marketed for gut health. But there’s little evidence that they can improve or benefit gut health in healthy people, and studies suggest that, in some cases, they can actually disrupt the composition of your gut microbiome.

Fermented foods are similarly good for your gut because they contain beneficial microbes. Studies have found that eating fiber-rich plants and fermented foods can increase the diversity of your gut microbiome, which is a good thing. Having a wide variety of microbial species in your gut helps to crowd out harmful pathogens and is associated with a lower likelihood of developing chronic diseases like Type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure.

Trump administration okays sale of F-35s to Saudi Arabia as part of $24.3B military package

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/trump-administration-okays-sale-of-f-35s-to-saudi-arabia-as-part-of-24-3b-military-package/

State Department insists sale ‘won’t alter the military balance in the region,’ referring to US policy of ensuring Israel retains a military edge over potential adversaries

Saudi Arabia has long sought to buy F-35s, but officials from Israel — currently the only country in the Middle East to operate the jets — have voiced concern about their sale to Riyadh despite a push for the kingdom to normalize relations.

The State Department has notified Congress about the proposed sale, which would require the approval of US lawmakers. It did not provide a time frame for the delivery of the jets.

Canada’s Carney embraces tighter ties with E.U. despite Trump warning

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2026/09/17/trump-suggests-canada-joining-eu-could-be-hostile-act/

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney addressed European lawmakers after E.U. officials said Canada could become the bloc’s first “associate member.”

 Brushing aside new threats from President Donald Trump, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on Thursday made a forceful case for pulling closer to the European Union in the face of Washington’s hostility.

Asked about Trump’s remarks, Carney told reporters in Strasbourg, “Canadians are united that nobody is going to tell us what language we speak, nobody is going to dictate our culture, or with whom we can strike agreements.”

Carney Says Canada and E.U. 'Are Not Fair Weather Allies' as Trump Threatens Europe Over 'Hostile Act'

 https://time.com/article/2026/09/17/canada-european-union-membership-carney-trump-tariff-threats/

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on Thursday welcomed the prospect of Canada becoming an “associate member” of the E.U., just hours after U.S. President Donald Trump dismissed the proposal as “laughable.”

When speaking about forging closer ties with the E.U., Carney referenced seeking strategic autonomy through “deep co-operation in the full range of strategic capabilities, including critical minerals, defense industrial capacity, AI and compute, energy security, space and payments.” He insisted Canada and Europe must not be dependent on “individual nations or individual companies” as this “creates vulnerabilities, particularly when supposedly global companies prove national in the breach

RFK Jr. signals vaccine skepticism will continue

 https://www.axios.com/2026/09/17/rfk-vaccine-safety-anti-vaccine-gathering

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Thursday returned to the the anti-vaccine group he founded, using a keynote address to signal the Trump administration isn't done questioning the safety of routine shots and expanding carveouts to federal mandates.

He again questioned the safety of routine childhood vaccines and asserted they play a role in the development of chronic illnesses — questions that ignore decades of science supporting the vaccines' safety.

The big picture: A pre-midterm pause on Kennedy's vaccine rhetoric ended weeks ago, when he stood with the president as Trump signed an executive order calling for fewer childhood vaccinations, splitting the childhood MMR vaccine into three shots and delivering vaccines at separate medical visits.

Vance secretly tried to help Clinton defeat Trump in 2016

 https://www.israelhayom.com/2026/09/17/report-vance-secretly-tried-to-help-clinton-defeat-trump-in-2016/

Before he was Trump's running mate, Vance reportedly pressed a top Clinton adviser to fight harder in the Midwest, according to Vanity Fair.

A person who served as a liaison between Vance and Clinton's campaign told the magazine that Vance asked to be connected with Sullivan, who later went on to serve as national security adviser under President Joe Biden. At the time, the future vice president was known mainly for his best-selling memoir "Hillbilly Elegy," which was later adapted into a popular and influential Netflix series.

Vance's office denied the report ouright. "A lot of people asked the vice president for advice in 2016," his spokeswoman, Taylor Van Kirk, said. "He never worked for any campaign, but he called on both Republicans and Democrats to take care of working-class towns like Middletown, Ohio. We reject 100% the claim that he tried to help Hillary win."

In 2016, Vance publicly declared that he could not vote for either Trump or Clinton, and ultimately cast his ballot for independent candidate Evan McMullin. At the time, he even warned that Trump could become "America's Hitler." The turnaround came in 2021, when Vance aligned himself with Trump and the MAGA movement.

Freud: The Making of an Illusion

"But Freud, even stripped of his scientific pretensions, is destined to remain among us as the most influential of twentieth-century sages. Without those pretensions, in fact, his cultural sway becomes a more intriguing phenomenon. Although the peers who knew his writings perceived the flaws in his system,6 intellectuals in later years were spellbound by his self-portrayal as a lone explorer possessing courageous perseverance, deductive brilliance, tragic insight, and healing power. Much can still be learned from that episode of mass infatuation, in which I myself naïvely participated fifty years ago. And the seriocomic history of the psychoanalytic movement itself is instructive as a cautionary demonstration of what can happen when a pseudoscience, lacking any objective means of adjudicating internal differences of judgment, becomes a worldwide enterprise whose outposts inevitably loosen their ties with the founding c"

 "By exaggerating Freud’s competence in various respects, this Freudolatry has obscured the central drama of his career. His temperament and self-conception demanded that he achieve fame at any cost. His apologists tell us, as Freud himself did, that the cost was irrational opposition from a prudish world. As we will see, however, the cost was much steeper: it was nothing less than his integrity as both a scientist and a physician. Although many readers expect a sensible book about Freud to manifest its objectivity by weighing certain hard-won contributions against certain errors or excesses, such predetermined evenhandedness renders him more puzzling than he actually was. We have been told, for example, that he disregarded every element of scientific prudence and that he achieved fundamental breakthroughs in psychological knowledge.8 How, then, did he do it? No one can say; the attempted explanations vaporize into the useless notion of “genius.” It is better, I suggest, simply to ask what the biographical evidence tells us at every juncture. If, as a result, we lose a former hero, we may at last gain a consistent picture of the man."

Start reading this book for free: https://read.amazon.com/kp/kshare?asin=B01NAYNITF&ref_=kar_wh_ca

Here’s what a Fed rate hike means for your mortgage, car loan and credit cards

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2026/09/16/heres-what-fed-rate-hike-means-your-mortgage-car-loan-credit-cards/

The Federal Reserve raised interest rates Wednesday for the first time since 2023, but that won’t mean the mortgage rate or car loan you’ve been eyeing will suddenly shoot up.

Fed action is one piece of the puzzle in how banks determine loan rates and could contribute to a trend of interest rates slowly rising over time

Fed rate changes often have a more direct effect on shorter-term loans, or loans with variable rates, such as adjustable-rate mortgages. Those rates can move up and down as the Fed’s rate does.

Vance: US cannot let its Mideast foreign policy be ‘subservient to Israel’

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/vance-us-cannot-let-its-mideast-foreign-policy-be-subservient-to-israel/

US vice president says allies sometimes disagree, Trump has shown he’s ready to ‘part ways’ with Netanyahu for sake of American interests; envoy Huckabee insists relationship ‘solid’

US Vice President JD Vance said Tuesday that Washington can’t let its policies in the Middle East be “subservient” to those of Israel, and must place its own interests first.

Asked if America would go to war with Iran or some other power to defend Israel against an existential threat, Huckabee said only, “If it was in America’s best interest, the president would act. But that’s what he’s required to do.”

Sen. Cassidy says measles surge will be administration’s ‘terrible legacy’

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2026/09/16/trumps-third-surgeon-general-nominee-nicole-saphier-face-senate/

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana) on Wednesday said the nation’s worst measles outbreak in the United States in 35 years is “going to be a terrible legacy for this administration,” citing recent deaths in Pennsylvania.

“Misinformation and misguided policies are leaving children and adults unprotected against disease that we know how to prevent,” Cassidy, a physician and chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said at the outset of a hearing for three key administration nominees.

“It deeply concerns me to see politicians giving medical advice which has zero scientific backing. Scaring mothers into delaying or even altogether skipping their child’s vaccine is wrong, and it makes America sicker, not healthier,” said Cassidy, who lost his primary bid for reelection this year.