Angels lack free will

 Rambam 13 Principles

The fifth principle That He is the One that is fitting to serve and to exalt and to make His greatness known and to do His commandments; and not to do this to that which is below Him in existence - from the angels and the stars and the spheres and the elements and what which is composed of them. As they are all designed and there is no judgement and no free choice in their actions - only to Him, may He be blessed. And so [too], it is not fitting to serve them in order that they be intermediaries to bring them closer to Him, but rather to Him alone should they direct their thoughts and leave everything besides Him. And this fifth principle is that idolatry (worship of others) is prohibited, and most of the Torah prohibits this.

Declare that all Rabbinic mitzvos are really Torah Mitzvos

 

Chasam Sofer[i](Kovetz Teshuvos #58): I wrote to you previously that “Innovation is prohibited by the Torah.” [chadash assur] I did not write that Orlah or Kelayim…but innovation. That is because I understood from our Sages that it is required to be one who preserves the Torah. They warned against those who provide an opening and seek leniencies for the radicals of our people who desire them. If these radicals find a minute crack, they will greatly expand it into a breach…. Therefore, it is best to elevate and exaggerate the nature of the prohibition [and say that Rabbinic prohibitions are Torah prohibitions]… That is because due to our many sins there is a great increase today of people who say they have no concern with Rabbinic prohibitions since G‑d did not command them… We find the wicked writing on Shabbos because they claim it is only a Rabbinic prohibition. They have no concern with anything which has been commanded only by our Sages and not by G‑d Himself…

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[i]  חתם סופר (קובץ תשובות סימן נח): על מה שכתבתי במכתבי הקודם החדש אסור מן התורה הנה לא כתבתי ערלה וכלאים ופגול לא ירצה, כי אם החדש, כי מזקנים אתבונן שראוי להיות ממקימי התורה, ונזהרו מלפתוח פתח ולחפש קולות לפריצי עמינו, אשר אותם הם מבקשים, ואם ימצאו סדק כמחט של סדקית, יפרצו פרץ על פני פרץ,... וטוב להעלות האיסור.... כי בעוה"ר רבו אלו בזמנינו עד שיאמרו אין אנו חוששין לדברי רבנן ה' לא צוה... והרשעים כותבים בשבת על דעת שהוא דרבנן, והם אינם חוששין לאיסור דרבנן ה' לא צוה...

Alarmed by COVID spike, Orthodox move to make the sukkah safer

 https://forward.com/news/455434/orthodox-alarmed-by-covid-spike-seeing-risks-in-sukkah-normally-a-symbol/

A sukkah is something of a paradox.

It’s a symbol of safety. In prayer, the word is literally translated as shelter — often, a shelter of God’s peace, spread over the supplicant.

Yet its occupants are also not supposed to feel too safe. The roof of a sukkah must be sparse enough to see the stars, and it must be a temporary structure. In this way, it’s a reminder of the fragility of life, and the human need to rely on the Almighty.

Indeed, a sukkah usually has such an airy feel that Orthodox Jews thinking about sitting in one during a pandemic might have reasonably thought that it would be safer than sitting in synagogue. But they would have been wrong.

To Save a Stranger’s Life

 https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/community/articles/to-save-a-strangers-life

 Kidney donations are on the rise among Orthodox Israelis

 One day more than a decade ago, Rabbi Yeshayahu Heber, an Israeli school principal and yeshiva teacher, suddenly felt too weak to walk up the stairs. He went to his doctor, who sent him to the hospital, where he soon learned that both of his kidneys had stopped working. He began dialysis, a time-consuming and painful process that was brightened only by his roommate, a teenage yeshiva student named Pinchas Turgeman. After about a year on dialysis, Heber received a kidney from a friend. Then, as he recovered, he helped locate a willing donor and match for Turgeman, who had also lost his brother in Israel’s Second Lebanon War in 2006. But Turgeman passed away a few weeks before the scheduled transplant. The loss hit Heber hard.

“I decided I needed to do something,” he recalled, and he thought up the idea of forming an organization to help encourage and facilitate live kidney donation. “So the day that Turgeman died is also the day Matnat Chaim was born.”

Covid disbelief amongst Chareidim

 I heard an eyewitness that Hadassah hospital is filled with young unvaccinated Chareidim with Covid. The minyanim have very few who wear masks. The following was recentlty published in Family First of Mishpacha magazine - no mention of masks or vaccination

 

Against minhag of Arizal Rav Moshe Feinstein

 שו"ת אגרות משה אורח חיים חלק ד סימן צט

וגם בלולב שנוהגין הרבה מדקדקין לברך קודם התפלה, תמיהני מהא דתדיר קודם, ואולי טעמם הוא מהא דהביא המג"א בסימן תרנ"ב סק"ג דהשל"ה כתב שינענע בסוכה וכשיחכו עד אחר חזרת הש"צ דשחרית יהיה טירחא דצבורא גדול לצאת מביהכ"נ להסוכה ולברך שם, שלכן דחו מעלת תדיר מפני מעלה זו, אבל תמוה לדחות מעלה המפורשת במתני' וילפינן מקרא, מפני מעלה זו דלא תניא במתני' ובשני התלמודים. אך אולי כיון שיש מעלה לאחוז הלולב כל היום שזה הוזכר בגמ' סוכה דף מ"א ע"ב שאר"א בר' צדוק מנהגן של אנשי ירושלים, והרמ"א כתב בסעי' א' שהוא גם לאחוז הלולב כשנכנס מביתו לביהכ"נ וגם בשעת התפלה, שודאי הוא כוונה לאחוז כל הד' מינים כאופן קיום המצוה, וממילא מוכרח לברך קודם לעשייתן, שבשביל זה לא קשה מתדיר קודם, שדין הקדימה הא פשוט שאינו למנוע מעשיית מצוה שהוא בכל היום אף שהוא רק מעלה בעלמא ולא לחיובא, אלא להקדים למצוה שג"ז נעשית רק פעם אחת ביום אף שהיא דאורייתא, שבתדיר איכא רק ענין קדימה ולא בטול בשביל זה אף מזמן קטן למצוה אחרת שאינה תדירה שנוהגת כל היום. אבל א"כ בזמננו שאף המדקדקים במצות אין נוהגין במעלה זו של אנשי ירושלים לבד יחידי סגולה הרי יש לאלו שאין נוהגין במעלה זו לברך על הלולב אחר חזרת הש"צ קודם ההלל מדין גמור דתדיר קודם, ואולי זהו כוונת המחבר שכתב ועיקר מצותו בשעת ההלל. 

 

To appreciate this properly it is important to know that Rav 

Moshe apparently held the view if the Gra that the Arizal was not Divrei Kabbalah as opposed to the Bal HaTanya

Dedication of Hebrew Yad Yisroel

 

Rabbinic Halacha - Consequence of violating or ignoring?

 Recently was asked whether aside from Rabbinic lashes there are consequences for violating or ignoring Rabbinic halacha. For example not keeping the 2nd day of Rosh HaShanna or a gambler serving as a judge or witness

Israeli study:3rd shot gives 10 times more antibodies protection

 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/313613

A serological study carried out at Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan has found that the antibodies levels in people who have received the third dose of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine are ten times higher than in people who received the second dose.

The study was conducted by the Weizmann Institute of Science, the Ministry of Health, the Technion, the Hebrew University, the Gartner Institute at Sheba Medical Center and the KI Institute, and measured antibody levels a week after the administration of the vaccine.

The findings were published today (Thursday) in The New England Journal of Medicine.

 According to the study, the third dose restores the vaccines effectiveness against the coronavirus to 95% after the level of protection drops in the months following the administration of the second vaccine dose.

Cyprus appeal opens for Briton convicted of falsely claiming Israelis raped her

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/cyprus-appeal-opens-for-briton-convicted-of-falsely-claiming-israelis-raped-her/

 A Cypriot court’s conviction of a young British woman for lying about being gang-raped by Israeli tourists was a miscarriage of justice, lawyers appealing the ruling said on Thursday.

The unnamed woman, who was 18 at the time of her arrest, alleged that she was raped by up to 12 Israelis in a hotel room in the seaside holiday resort of Ayia Napa in July 2019.

She has accused Cypriot police of having forced her to sign a retraction statement, after which the Israeli suspects were released.

There’s no vaccine for hypocrisy: On Republicans’ opposition to COVID-19 vax passports

 https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-our-dishonest-vaccine-passport-debate-20210414-3xdmbrtq6bgdlc7neydooprjce-story.html

Despite the conservative outrage, there is nothing new about government mandates requiring proof of vaccination. All 50 states currently require some form of compulsory vaccination for children attending K-12 schools, and various states also mandate vaccination for college students, as well as employees in nursing homes and health-care facilities. There are also branches of local government that have already announced they will mandate the COVID-19 vaccine in certain venues, and more are likely to follow. For example, Erie Country N.Y. Executive Mark Poloncarz announced that starting in the fall all fans and staff attending home games of the Buffalo Bills and Sabres must be vaccinated. Some conservatives oppose already existing vaccine mandates, and it is logically consistent that they would similarly oppose government-mandated proof of COVID-19 vaccination in the same or similar contexts.

Eitan Biran’s grandfather questioned, sent to 5 days of house arrest

 https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/israeli-court-petitioned-over-suspected-kidnapping-of-italy-cable-crash-survivor-679458

 Shmuel Peleg, the maternal grandfather of the six-year-old boy who was the sole survivor of a cable car crash in Northern Italy in May, was questioned by the police on Tuesday and sent home to five days of house arrest after he illegally took the grandchild to Israel, The Jerusalem Post has confirmed.

Earlier in the day, the boy’s paternal relatives, who were assigned the custody of the child, petitioned a family court in Tel Aviv to ask for his return.

Eitan Biran was picked up on Saturday at his Pavia, Italy, home for a routine visit by his grandfather, but it later emerged that the boy had been illegally brought to Israel on a private flight.

Republican Covid denial

Perceiving the reality of G-d only by prophets and the holy tzadikim

 ספר מאור ושמש - פרשת חוקת

והנראה בזה דהנה מתחילת הבריאה עד עולם אי אפשר להשיג מציאות ה' יתברך כי אם על ידי עבדיו הנביאים והצדיקים הקדושים אשר על ידיהם נפעל נסים ונפלאות ומשדדים המערכת, על ידם רואים כל אפסי ארץ כי יש אלהים בישראל כמו שמצינו בכל תנ"ך ובגמרא כמה מעשיות שעל ידי הנפלאות שעשו הצדיקים נתקדש שמו יתברך שמו וכל הגוים הודו שאין אלהים כי אם בישראל: