letter from Rav Moshe to Menachim Begin

http://pikuachnefesh.net/?p=435&lang=en

Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, President

Copy of a letter sent by Hagaon Rav Moshe Feinstein of blessed memory to former Israeli prime

minister Menachem Begin, 13 Kislev 5738 (Nov. 23, 1977):

In wake of the situation created by the visit of the President of Egypt whose address raised

the issue of territories, thus placing the topic of territorial withdrawal on the agenda, there are

two opposing views. One sees withdrawal from some territories as a condition for the survival

of the state, while others warn that withdrawal from any of the territories endangers its very

survival. This problem is a very complicated and dangerous for it is a matter of life or death for

tens of thousands of people in Israel and it is difficult to express a concrete and decisive opinion.

We only wish to point out that when deliberating such a question, our holy Torah directs that

any decision made in this fateful matter must take into account the opinion of the experts, the

military personnel who are privy to all military secrets and all dangers and predicaments that are

liable to occur after any decision. The Law is clearly stated in Shulchan Oruch, the Code of Jewish

Law, that when one is confronted with a question of Pikuach Nefesh (life or death) one must

consult the experts. Likewise in the matter of relinquishing territories one must follow the

opinion of the most significant experts.

We trust that with your wisdom and earnestness you yourself will know how careful to be in the

final decision. We wish you great success, and may G-d Almighty guard Eretz Israel and her

borders.

Respectfully,

The Union of Orthodox Rabbis of U.S.A. and Canada

Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, President

pressing problem of the day - did Rav Moshe read newspapers?

the fact is he did - I spoke with people that delivered papers to him

https://forum.otzar.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=21600#p212205

https://forum.otzar.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=21600&sid=166087ac5b7088e082a1a82dda3dfdb2

Torah and human feelings Rav Yakov

אמת ליעקב פרשת אמור

ובאמת י"ל דלפיכך המציאו חז"ל שדין אבילות נוהג באלה הקרובים, משום דכיון דהתירה התורה לטמאות על כרחך שנפשו של אדם דוה על אלו, ורואין אנו שהתורה - או יותר נכון שחז"ל - תלו האבלות ברגשי האדם, שהרי כמו בשמחה אמרו יום א' לענין אלמנה וג'2, ולבתולה ז' ואח"כ ל' לענין מניעת תכשיטין, ויב"ח אם אמר מחמת הלולא3, כמו כן באבילות ישנה ג"כ אבילות יום א' וג' ימים וז' ימים ול' יום ויב"ח, והיינו דהם הם רגשות האדם - הן לטוב והן למוטב.

וביאור ענין זה - שהתורה מתחשבת עם השכל האנושי אף על פי שאינו האמת לאמיתה - נראה לבאר בהקדם ביאור דברי התוס' בעירובין [דף ו' ע"ב], דשם בגמרא איתא דיצתה בת קול דהלכה כבית הלל בכל מקום ולאחר הבת קול שוב אין לעשות כדברי ב"ש. והקשו שם התוס' מדוע קי"ל כבת קול זו ולא קי"ל כבת קול שאמרה שהלכה כרבי אליעזר כנגד רבי יהושע וחבריו בפרק הזהב, ותירצו וז"ל: דהתם היתה כנגד רבים והתורה אמרה אחרי רבים להטות אבל הכא אדרבה ב"ה הוו רובא ולא הוצרכו ב"ק אלא משום דב"ש חריפי טפי עכ"ל. ודבריהם צריכין ביאור, דאי נימא שהיה הדין בהחלט דאחרי רבים להטות אף נגד חריפי א"כ ל"ל ב"ק כלל, ואם לא היה ברור גם דין זה א"כ שוב קשה דמאי מהניא בת קול4

ונראה בביאור דבריהם, ע"פ מה שביארתי באריכות בחידושי לעיל בפרשת בראשית [א' פכ"ו] דהתורה מסרה לנו את המדות שהתורה נדרשת על ידיהן, ועל ידי אותן המדות אנו פוסקין כל ספק שנולד לנו באיזו הלכה - ואין לו לדיין מה שעיניו רואות, וכשהללו מזכין - אף שהאמת לאמתו שהוא חייב, מ"מ אם הרוב מזכין הרי הוא זכאי על פי דין תוה"ק דאחרי רבים להטות, ואף שאפשר שהמיעוט כיון לאמיתת האמת מ"מ התורה מסרה לנו את הדין איך שנדרוש עפ"י השכל האנושי, ועיי"ש5. ועיין בים של שלמה [בהקדמתו למסכתות ב"ק וחולין] איך שביאר הא דאמרו בגמ' אלו ואלו דברי אלקים חיים.

והנה בעירובין [דף י"ג ע"ב] איתא: ג' שנים נחלקו ב"ש וב"ה הללו אומרים הלכה כמותנו והללו אומרים הלכה כמותנו יצאה ב"ק ואמרה אלו ואלו דברי אלקים חיים הן והלכה כב"ה, ועיי"ש. ולכאורה מאי שנא מכל פלוגתא דתנאי או אמוראי שודאי כל אחד אומר שהלכה כמותו, ומאי שנא מחלוקת ב"ש וב"ה דמשמע דכאן היתה מלבד כל מחלוקתם גם מחלוקת אחרת שהללו אומרים הלכה כמותנו והללו אומרים הלכה כמותנו. והנראה לבאר הגמ', דבאמת היתה כאן מחלוקת חדשה - והיא כללית - מלבד כל פרטי דינין שנחלקו בכל התורה כולה, שב"ש אומרים הלכה כמותנו וב"ה אומרים הלכה כמותנו, כלומר שנחלקו היכא דישנו רוב ומיעוט אלא שהמיעוט הוא חריף טפי - דב"ש אזלי בתר החריפי ומשום דהחריף יכול לכוון יותר אל האמת לאמיתו, וב"ה סברי דאזלינן בתר השכל האנושי - ואף שזה אינו אמיתת האמת, אבל מכיון שלפי השכל האנושי נראה שכן הוא האמת הרי הדין כאותו הרוב. ולפ"ז נמצא דלב"ש לעולם יש להשגיח בב"ק, שהרי הב"ק בודאי הנהו האמת האמיתי, וכיון שבפלוגתא זו נפסקה ההלכה דאזלינן בתר השכל האנושי גם לדעת ב"ש, א"כ ע"כ אית לן למיפסק כדברי ב"ה בממה נפשך - דלדידהו הא לעולם הילכתא כוותייהו, ולב"ש הא לדידהו משגחינן בב"ק, ודו"ק.

ואפשר6 דלפי מושגם באמת נחלקו ג"כ בפרק האשה שנתארמלה [כתובות דף י"ז ע"א] בענין כיצד מרקדין לפני הכלה, דב"ה סברי דיאמר כלה נאה וחסודה, וב"ש ס"ל דיש בזה חשש שקר, והיינו דב"ש סברי שבשום אופן אסור לשנות מהאמת לאמיתה, ולכן אפילו אם אחד קנה מקח רע מן השוק אסור לשבחו - שהרי לפי האמת האמיתית הרי זה מקח רע, וב"ה סברי דכיון דלעולם בעינן שתהיה דעתו של אדם מעורבת עם הבריות א"כ אין זה נחשב לשקר, והיינו שצריך להתחשב עם האמת של רגשי האדם, ודו"ק היטב.

ונבין לפ"ז מה דאיתא בספרי קבלה דלעתיד לבוא תיפסק ההלכה כבית שמאי, והיינו משום דרק בעולמנו צריכים אנו להתחשב עם האמת הנראית לרוב בני אדם, אבל לעתיד לבוא שאז תתגלה האמת האמיתית בודאי תהיה ההלכה כב"ש, ודו"ק.

measles

https://www.jdn.co.il/j_world/1145162/0

אסיפה מיוחדת התקיימה בבית האדמו"ר מסאטמר שליט"א בקריית יואל לאור מחלת החצבת. בישיבה השתתפו מתנגדי החיסונים והתומכים ולבסוף פסק האדמו"ר כי הורים שמסרבים לחסן את ילדיהם לא יכולו לשלוח אותם לתלמוד תורה ולבית הספר

אסיפה מיוחדת התקיימה השבוע בבית האדמו"ר מסאטמר שליט"א בקריית יואל לאור מחלת החצבת המשתוללת בחודשים האחרונים בניו יורק, כאשר מאות הורים שמתנגדים לתת לילדיהם חיסונים גרמו להתפרצות המחלה בכל מרכזי החרדים במדינה וגררו את זעם השלטונות.

ביום חמישי הגיעו קבוצה של מתנגדי החיסונים הגרים בעיר פאלם טרי – קרית יואל, לבית האדמו"ר מסאטמר שמכהן כרב העיר, אחרי שהנהלת המוסדות של החסידות בקרית יואל החליטו לא לאפשר לילדים שלא מחוסנים להגיע לתלמוד תורה ולבית הספר לבנות. זאת אחרי שמשרד הבריאות במדינת ניו יורק התחילו לתת קנסות על מוסדות שיאפשרו זאת.

יחד עם מתנגדי החיסונים הגיע הרה"ג ר' אלי' בער וואכטפויגל שליט"א וגם פרופסור ממרכז הרפואי באוקלוהמה סיטי דוקטור מיאן שתומך באי מתן חיסונים. בנוסף הגיעו גם 3 רופאי ילדים שמטפלים בילדי העיר קרית יואל, בראשות הרופא החרדי ר' אברהם יושע ווערצברגר וראשי חברת הצלה.

White House asked McGahn to say he didn't believe that Trump obstructed justice

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/white-house-asked-mcgahn-to-say-he-didnt-believe-that-trump-obstructed-justice

The White House asked former White House counsel Don McGahn to say publicly that he did not believe that President Trump obstructed justice, Fox News confirmed Friday -- although McGahn’s attorney said they never perceived the request as a threat.

“We did not perceive it as any kind of threat or something sinister. It was a request, professionally and cordially made,” McGahn’s attorney William Burck said in a statement.

There Are No Trump Mysteries

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/05/08/trump-tax-lowry-226864

The surprise about the big New York Times story on Donald Trump’s tax returns is that there are no real surprises.

Trump’s taxes have been an obsession of the left since he, in violation of a long-standing and worthwhile norm, reneged on his promise to release his returns during the 2016 presidential campaign.Pieces were written urging some brave whistleblower to come forward with them. Rachel Maddow excitedly broadcast leaked (and not particularly shocking) returns from 2005, presumed to be a mere appetizer. Democrats counted as one of the advantages of taking the House that they could use an obscure law to demand the returns. Indeed, the dispute resulting from the administration’s refusal to turn them over is probably headed to the Supreme Court.

All the while, the expectation, or at least the suspicion, is that the returns contained some awful secret, perhaps evidence that he is a tool of the Russians.

And here, the Times has obtained Trump’s tax information spanning a decade from the mid-1980s to mid-1990s, and the revelation is that he wasn’t doing as well as he said in public, lost a boatload of money in a period that nearly destroyed him, and made aggressive use of any tax advantage available to him.

In other words, exactly what anyone paying any attention, and not beholden to perfervid conspiracy theories, would have expected.

Yes, the amount of the reported loss, $1.17 billion is remarkable (although as Josh Barro of New York magazine points out, is surely inflated for tax purposes). Some of the details, especially Trump reporting a bigger loss than nearly any other taxpayer in this period, are memorable.

Surely, Trump doesn’t like having all the particulars extensively on the record and publicly discussed and mocked, but can anyone say that they are surprised?

Even some of Trump’s alleged obstruction, which you’d expect to involve back-channel scheming (and there was certainly that), was out in the open.

He pressured Jeff Sessions in public to unrecuse. He publicly called Michael Cohen a rat. He told Lester Holt on a TV news broadcast that he fired James Comey because of the Russia investigation (specifically that it didn’t have anything to do with him). And he’s made no secret that he yearns for an attorney general who will protect him.

You can add lurid details to this basic picture, and Robert Mueller did, but it’s hard to find a game-changer.

None of this is to defend or excuse Trump’s business practices and accounting, or his conduct in office. It is merely to say that he’s an extravagantly known quantity, and will likely win or lose in 2020 based on what we already know rather than the fruits of further investigation and fact-finding. 

the Balfour Declaration Rabbi Berel Wein

'FIGHT ZIONISM,' SAYS SHEIKH AT CALIF. U'S ANTI-OPPRESSION WEEK

jpost

A sermon to "fight Zionism" preached by Sheikh Osman Umarji concluded the Muslim Student Union's (MSU) Anti-Oppression Week event at the University of California, Irvine (UCI).

The Anti-Oppression Week was an event organized by the Muslim Student Union at UCI, aimed at supporting the Palestinians against the state of Israel.

The Rabbi and the Professor

aish

One of the regular participants was a professor at the Hebrew University, Robert J. (Yisrael) Aumann. Once a promising yeshiva student, he had eventually decided to pursue a career in academia, but made his weekly participation in Rav Gustman's shiur part of his schedule, along with many other more or less illustrious residents of Rechavia and Jerusalem.

The year was 1982. Once again, Israel was at war. Soldiers were mobilized, reserve units activated. Among those called to duty was a Reserves soldier, a university student who made his living as a high school teacher: Shlomo Aumann, Professor Yisrael Aumann's son. On the eve of the 19th of Sivan, in particularly fierce combat, Shlomo fell in battle.

Rav Gustman mobilized his yeshiva: All of his students joined him in performing the mitzvah of burying the dead. At the cemetery, Rav Gustman was agitated: He surveyed the rows of graves of the young men, soldiers who died defending the Land. On the way back from the cemetery, Rav Gustman turned to another passenger in the car and said, "They are all holy." Another passenger questioned the rabbi: "Even the non-religious soldiers?" Rav Gustman replied: "Every single one of them." He then turned to the driver and said, "Take me to Professor Aumann's home."

The family had just returned from the cemetery and would now begin the week of shiva -- mourning for their son, brother, husband and father. (Shlomo was married and had one child. His widow, Shlomit, gave birth to their second daughter shortly after he was killed.)

Rav Gustman entered and asked to sit next to Professor Aumann, who said: "Rabbi, I so appreciate your coming to the cemetery, but now is time for you to return to your Yeshiva." Rav Gustman spoke, first in Yiddish and then in Hebrew, so that all those assembled would understand:

"I am sure that you don't know this, but I had a son named Meir. He was a beautiful child. He was taken from my arms and executed. I escaped. I later bartered my child's shoes so that we would have food, but I was never able to eat the food -- I gave it away to others. My Meir is a kadosh -- he is holy -- he and all the six million who perished are holy."

Rav Gustman then added: "I will tell you what is transpiring now in the World of Truth in Gan Eden -- in Heaven. My Meir is welcoming your Shlomo into the minyan and is saying to him ‘I died because I am a Jew -- but I wasn't able to save anyone else. But you -- Shlomo, you died defending the Jewish People and the Land of Israel.' My Meir is a kadosh, he is holy -- but your Shlomo is a Shaliach Zibbur – a Cantor in that holy, heavenly minyan."

Rav Gustman continued: "I never had the opportunity to sit shiva for my Meir; let me sit here with you just a little longer."

Professor Aumann replied, "I thought I could never be comforted, but Rebbi, you have comforted me."

I heard a slightly different version from one of my sons who heard it from his yeshiva rebbe who said he was there when Rav Gustman spoke

he said that Rav Gustman said that his son had come to in a dream the night before urging his father to be menachem avel because he had been reincarnated as th son who had been killed in battle

Ancient Stone Tablet Suggests The Bible Got Something Right

.iflscience

Archaeologists have recently noted an inscribed tablet dating from the 9th century BCE, known as the Mesha Stele, might contain the name of Balak. The stone, which has been heavily chipped and cracked over the centuries, is written in the ancient language of Moabite. Dating back to 840 BCE, the black basalt stone was unearthed around the ruins of the biblical town of Dibon in present-day Jordan in the 1800s. It’s now held in the Louvre art museum in Paris, although Jordan has demanded its return.

Its 34 surviving lines tell the story of how King Mesha of Moab triumphed over the Kingdom of Israel. In fact, it is also one of four known contemporary inscriptions containing the name of Israel. Reporting in Tel Aviv: The Journal of the Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University, archaeologists are now unsure about whether conventional interpretations may have mistranslated the name of a monarch in Line 31. Previously it was assumed to read “House of David,” but the researchers now cautiously argue it could actually read “Balak.”

The confusion is largely due to the crumbling condition of the Mesha Stele. So, the researchers used new high-resolution photographs of the stone that better highlight the original lettering. The new images appear to show that the name on Line 31 has three consonants, the first of which is the Hebrew letter "beth," which sounds like "B." The team can't be too certain this correspondents to Balek, however, this king was mentioned as being a rival of Mesha.

If their hypothesis is on the money, this would be the first reference to Balak outside of the Bible, suggesting he was a real historical figure.

AS MEASLES CASES CLIMB, OUR MISSION IS CLEAR: TAKE DOWN THE THREE-HEADED ANTI-VAX MONSTER | OPINION

https://www.newsweek.com/measles-anti-vaccination-anti-vaxxers-misinformation-monster-1420977

Finally, there is a new and scary element to the anti-vaccine movement in which some of its national leaders or organizations appear to have targeted specific ethnic groups to flood them with misinformation through pamphlets, teleconferences and hotlines.  This development may explain the recent measles outbreak in New York among the Orthodox Jewish community, resulting in many hospitalizations and sending at least six patients to intensive care.

Taking down the triple-headed American antivax monster will be a formidable task. To begin, I’ve written a book, Vaccines Did Not Cause Rachel’s Autism, to counter the misinformation. Unfortunately, even with measles returning, as a nation we’ve not shown much appetite for standing up to the antivaccine movement or its leadership. The media empire is still mostly intact and the PACs are as active as ever.

Trump ‘Quote’ Originated as Satire

https://www.factcheck.org/2019/05/trump-quote-originated-as-satire/

Quick Take

President Donald Trump didn’t call for the “death penalty” for “suicide bombers,” as social media posts say. That’s a made-up quote from a satirical story published in 2017.

Israel's 71st Independence Day: 'We Love Israel'

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/262915

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Did Attorney General William Barr deceive Congress?

foxnews

William Barr, the attorney general of the United States, now faces a likely contempt citation for failing to comply with a congressional subpoena and for misleading Congress. This is about the Mueller investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Isn't the investigation now complete? How did the attorney general's veracity become an issue and thereby extend the life of the investigation?

Barr knows the DOJ is not in the business of exonerating the people it investigates. Yet he proclaimed in his letter that Trump had been exonerated. When the report revealed 127 communications between Russian agents and Trump campaign officials in a 16-month period, and the expectations of those officials of the release of Hillary Clinton's hacked emails, that is hardly an exoneration.

Was Barr's testimony before Congress deceptive? In a word: Yes.