Former DOGE head and tech mogul Elon Musk took to X on his 54th birthday Saturday to bash the latest Senate draft of President Donald Trump's "big, beautiful bill," which would "destroy millions of jobs" and raise taxes on all wind and solar projects that have not yet started construction.
"The latest Senate draft bill will destroy millions of jobs in America and cause immense strategic harm to our country! Utterly insane and destructive," Musk wrote in the post.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/410814
US President Donald Trump called for a ceasefire deal to return the remaining 50 hostages still held in Gaza in an all-caps post to his Truth Social platform this morning (Sunday).
The President wrote: "MAKE THE DEAL IN GAZA. GET THE HOSTAGES BACK!!! DJT."
Trump told reporters on Friday that he believes a ceasefire in Gaza could be achieved this week.
“I think it’s close. I just spoke with some of the people involved. It’s a terrible situation that’s going on in Gaza, and we think within the next week, we’re going to get a ceasefire,” he said.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c79qeqg89g2o
Iran has the capacity to start enriching uranium again - for a possible bomb - in "a matter of months", the head of the UN's nuclear watchdog has said.
Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said the US strikes on three Iranian sites last weekend had caused severe but "not total" damage, contradicting Donald Trump's claim that Iran's nuclear facilities were "totally obliterated".
"Frankly speaking, one cannot claim that everything has disappeared and there is nothing there," Grossi said on Saturday.
The commentary of the Netziv regarding the rebellion of Korach makes a nimber of assertions.
1) This was a revolt of gedolim against Moshe and ultimatey against G-d!
2) The motivation of the rebels was different. Korah wanted power. Dosan wanted to cause trouble and was utilized by Korach to recruit the 250 gediolim who were not only judges in Moshe's beis din but were known fot their piety and they sinned for the sake of getting closer to G-d
3) He notes that Nazir is described as were the 250 as sinning against their souls. He says the commonality is that the Nazir afflicts himself to develop ruach hakodesh. Something he is not deserving of by his spiritual level. They felt that only by doing the avoda of Cohanim could they get closer to G-d and they were willing to sin and die to accomplish that. That is why they were not swallowed up as their fellow rebels but were were burned by holy fire as were Aron's sons, He notes that the message of Tzitzis is that spiritual greatness can only be achieved correctly through mitzvos and conforming with G-d's plan and not through sin.
Bottom line the Netziv here explains as he did with the meraglim that gedolim also have a yetzer harah to sin even for the sake of Heaven as well as for baser reasons such as power or jealousy.
In the current Mishpacha there is an article about Rav Yisroel Salanter which notes at the end that the writing of Professor Etkes was utilized. It describes his mesiras nefesh in Paris to build Yddishkeit.
It first raises the question of why he lived most of his life outside the religious community of Eastern Europe and lived amongst the emigrants and irreligious in Western Europe.
https://mishpacha.com/au-revoir-rav-yisrael/
Rav Yisrael Salanter left Eastern Europe in 1857, returning only for sporadic visits. For the next 26 years of his life, the great founder of the Mussar movement, and one of the greatest tzaddikim and geonim in the whole Russian Empire, resided in various cities across Germany — Halberstadt, Konigsberg, Memel, Berlin, Hamburg — and even spent a curious two-year stint in Paris, France.
What was behind his sudden departure? Why did he remain in Western Europe until his passing? And most importantly, what did he set out to accomplish during his long sojourn away from familiar surroundings?
He left for Germany to seek medical care for his worsening health issues. After he’d been there for several months, his observations on the spiritual state of German Jewry made him decide to remain. While Eastern Europe was then beginning its own confrontation with modernity and secularization, Germany and other Western European Jewish communities were already decades into the experience.
Since I have Professor Etkes biography I decided to compare it to the article.
In the biography it is actually Part Five the Period of Wanderings 1857 to 1883
In the article it is noted that he left Eastern Europe for health reasons and then stayed in Germany because he saw a need for his influence. In the book it states that he left because he was not able to bring about significant change in the established religious communities. In fact, Rabbi Freifeld told me the same. Namely that he felt he could produce change only in a new community or one that had been destroyed by secularism. He himself used the metaphor of a team of horses racing downhill. Nothing can be done until they reach bottom. In other words, the frum community was not amenable to his influence and he felt more productive in kiruv work. That was left out of the article.
In addition the book notes the health issue was a mental health issue - severe depression. Churchill and Lincoln also suffered from severe depression. Obviously, it is not politically correct to say that about a gadol
There were a number of other issues left out of the article. In other words, the article was willing to mention only that which might inspire without regard whether it provides an accurate understanding of what happened. There is no mention that the material was from a published biography and didn't even mention the name of the biography. For those who can get the biography and want to get a more realistic understanding I would recommend reading the book over the article. Rabbi Israel Salanter and the Mussar Movement Seeking the Torah of Truth published by JPS
On Friday, a federal judge blocked President Donald Trump's executive order targeting legal firm Susman Godfrey, ruling it was "unconstitutional from beginning to end."
This is the fourth defeat in court Trump has suffered since imposing punitive measures on a number of law firms that either were involved in legal cases against him or represented his political rivals.
The executive orders Trump imposed on various law firms, including Susman Godfrey, featured a number of punitive measures such as blocking their employees access to government buildings, terminating government contracts and suspending security clearance.
Friday saw District Judge Loren AliKhan conclude that in the case of Susman Godfrey, Trump's order was "unconstitutional from beginning to end."
She said: "Every court to have considered a challenge to one of these orders has found grave constitutional violations and permanently enjoined enforcement of the order in full.
White House publishes Israel Atomic Energy Commission report saying Fordo is inoperable, while Israeli sources told ABC News that the success of the strikes is ‘really not good’
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/27/russia-ukrainian-children-abduction-war-crime
As many as 35,000 Ukrainian children are still missing and thought to be held in Russia or Russian-occupied territories, according to an American team of experts, with families saying they are being forced to take desperate and risky measures to try to rescue them.
As Russian forces began their invasion in February 2022, children were abducted from care homes, from the battlefield after the death of their parents, or under coercion directly from their families.
Russia has rejected demands for the children to be returned, with an official accusing Ukraine of “staging a show on the topic of lost children” during ceasefire talks in Turkey this month.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/26/senate-iran-intelligence-briefing-00428638
A number of Senate Republicans exited an afternoon briefing on U.S. airstrikes in Iran not quite ready to endorse President Donald Trump’s claim that Tehran’s nuclear program was “obliterated.”
Trump and other top Cabinet officials have spent the last 36 hours furiously doubling down on that characterization. But after hearing from several of Trump’s top military and intelligence officials on the latest damage assessment, Senate Republicans were more restrained in their responses — even as they trumpeted the attacks’ success.
“I don’t think anybody’s been on the ground to assess the extent of the damage,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) told reporters after the briefing.
Asked whether Iran’s nuclear program was set back months, years or was obliterated, as Trump has claimed, Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) said, “All of those things are true.”
Talking to reporters on the White House lawn first thing Tuesday morning, Donald Trump let loose what may well have been the most bitter public denunciation of Israel by an American president since, well, ever.
Over and over, and over, and over, he savaged Israel’s leadership for ostensibly breaching the ceasefire he had brokered with Iran (which Israel hadn’t, but was about to), for having “dropped a load of bombs the likes of which I’ve never seen before” on Iran before the ceasefire came into effect, and generally for acting like ingrates after he had dispatched B-2 bombers to “obliterate” Iran’s three key nuclear facilities, notably including the near-impregnable Fordo.
But the overwhelming weight of his barrage was directed at Israel, generally regarded as America’s closest ally in the region, which had lost four more civilians hours earlier in a pre-ceasefire missile attack — a missile attack by the US-loathing, would-be Israel-destroying Islamic extremist regime in Tehran, which had continued to fire missiles immediately after the truce was meant to have begun at 7 am, and again more than three hours later. It was to the latest Iranian barrage that Israel was about to respond, so infuriating the US president.
Although his former chief strategist Steve Bannon assessed that Trump had been “as mad as I’ve ever seen the president of the United States,” and ascribed this to cumulative fury at “the many lies we’ve gotten from the Netanyahu government,” Trump seemed largely mollified just a few hours later, telling reporters there’d be no consequences for Israel because it ultimately “didn’t do anything” to violate the ceasefire. By Wednesday, he was praising the Israelis for scaling back the retaliation — “I was so proud of them” — and acknowledging that “technically they were right” to claim that Iran had breached the ceasefire with its morning missile fire. “It was a little bit of a violation.”
https://www.ynetnews.com/article/symgbg9nll#autoplay
At NATO summit, US president again raised eyebrows by claiming Israeli operatives entered Iran’s Fordow nuclear site after US strike—echoing a pattern of past disclosures, including Mossad missions, spy satellites and classified nuclear details
https://www.israelhayom.com/2025/06/25/trump-israel-confirmed-iran-nuclear-destruction/
As analysis of US and Israeli airstrikes on three key Iranian nuclear facilities continues, two Israeli sources told ABC News it is too early to declare the operation a success.
One source downplayed the damage at the Fordo uranium enrichment facility – built hundreds of feet under a mountain southwest of Tehran – saying the outcome there is "really not good."
The sources said they do not know how much enriched uranium may have been moved from the sites in advance of the Israeli and American strikes, or how many centrifuges – used to enrich uranium – are left and can be made operational in the country. To establish such details could take months, one source said, or prove impossible.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/25/gop-zohran-mamdani-midterms-00423397
Just hours after Zohran Mamdani’s apparent victory in the Democratic primary for New York City mayor, Republicans are already homing in on the 33-year-old democratic socialist as their new boogeyman ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
With the GOP preparing to defend its slim margins in Congress, Mamdani — who has vowed to hike taxes on New York City’s richest residents, freeze rent on more than a million apartments and push for city-owned grocery stores — has quickly emerged as a face for Republicans’ attack line against “radical socialist” Democrats.
Trump’s claims of crippling damage don’t address whether Tehran moved a stockpile of highly enriched uranium
https://www.newsweek.com/idf-shares-iran-nuclear-assessment-trump-doubles-down-obliteration-2090390
IDF Chief Spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin gave the assessment at a press briefing on Wednesday, June 25, though he cautioned that it is still early and the results of the strikes are undergoing evaluation.
"We fulfilled all of the goals of the operation, even more than expected," Defrin said, adding that he trusted Israeli military intelligence on the results of the strikes as they have been accurate in recent weeks.
President Donald Trump has described the strikes as causing "total obliteration" to the nuclear sites, pushing back on one early American intelligence assessment that key elements of the program had survived. The White House called that assessment false.
https://www.newsweek.com/israel-backs-trump-iran-nuclear-site-damage-2090538
The Israel Atomic Energy Commission backed President Donald Trump's assessment of the damage done to the Iranian nuclear site at Fordow, saying the U.S. strike "destroyed the site's critical infrastructure and rendered the enrichment facility inoperable."
Separately, Esmail Baghaei, spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, told Al Jazeera that "our nuclear installations have been badly damaged, that's for sure" by the U.S. and Israeli strikes.
Trump had said the strike resulted in "total obliteration" of the Fordow facility, which is deep underground inside a mountain. That characterization was called into question by a leaked U.S. intelligence report, but the White House called the early assessment false.
"We assess that the American strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities, combined with Israeli strikes on other elements of Iran's military nuclear program, has set back Iran's ability to develop nuclear weapons by many years," said the statement from the Israeli commission.
Rabbeinu Bachya (Devarim 17:15) It would do well for us to study our history and to learn what happened to the Jewish people during the centuries when their political system was headed by a king of flesh and blood. Devarim Rabbah 5,11 sums it up in these words: the Jewish kings caused many of their people to fall in battle because of their faulty policies. Shaul caused many casualties at Gilboah (Samuel I 31,1) David caused a plague (Samuel II 24,15). Achav, King of Israel, became the cause of the three year famine (Kings I 17,1). Tzidkiyah’s policies became the immediate cause for the destruction of the Temple . How was it that the entire people who had experienced a tremendous renaissance under the leadership of the prophet Samuel agreed to ask for a king? The Talmud Sanhedrin 20 dissects the wording in Samuel I 8, pointing out that the elders of the people were motivated by pure considerations asking that the purpose of the king be “to judge us,” (rather than Samuel’s sons whom they did not consider fit). The common people were motivated by the desire for their king to be a general who would lead them in war, and their sin was in saying “like all the nations.” They spelled this out in greater detail in verse 20 of that chapter. The people were agreed that they wanted a king, but they differed regarding the tasks of that king.
Mishlei (21:1) Like channeled water is the mind of the king in the LORD’s hand;He directs it to whatever He wishes.
Meshech Chochma (Devarim 17:15): … The Ralbag notes that the heart of the king is in G d’s hand (Mishlei 21:1). Thus the king has no free will but what he does is determined by G d. Shmuel was thus afraid of Shaul at this point [Shmuel 1 1:11] because Shaul was no longer king and thus had free will to harm him.
