Parashat & Current Events

Yonatan ben Uziel rendered this verse, “On that day, the eulogy in Jerusalem shall be as great as the eulogy of Achav bar Omri who was killed by Hadad-Rimon ben Tav-Rimon in Ramot Gilad, and the eulogy of Yoshiyahu ben Amon who was killed by Paro Chagira in the Valley of Meggido.”
How did Achav and Yoshiyahu merit such impressive eulogies that they were used as examples of great eulogies which will be held in the future in Yerushalayim?

It appears to me that we are reliving the time of Gideon, when there is too much “dead wood” resisting and delaying our advance to the next stage of redemption.

Rabbi Yochanan (in Sanhedrin 108a) – expounding on the Torah’s statement that Noach was “righteous in his generation” (Bereishiet 6:9) – states that “had he lived in another generation, he would not necessarily have been considered righteous.”

Rashi explains that had Noach lived in Avraham’s time, Avraham’s righteousness would have outshined all of Noach’s deeds. Yet, neither Rabbi Yochanan nor Rashi explains how Noach was inferior to Avraham.

The key to understanding Noach is the action he took upon leaving the ark…

The mathematical formula for calculating the number of connections between a given number of objects is n times (n-1) divided by 2. Accordingly: on the premise that every Torah mitzva connects with every one of the other 612, the number of connections formed (613 x 612 divided by 2) is 187,578.

The great Moshe Rabbeinu, and perhaps other illustrious Torah scholars knew how to decipher the inherent meanings of all the 187,578 Torah connections, which no one is able to perform today.

Reb Yisrael and his sons erected their succah adjacent to the kitchen door of their palatial home in one of the Five Towns of Long Island, NY, as they had done for years in the past. But this year was different. Reb Yisrael had just learned from his rabbi that one of the reasons for residing temporarily in a succah is in case one’s destiny was decided on Rosh HaShana to be expulsion into galut, the departure from the comforts of home into the succah could be considered to be that galut.

On Sunday we were witness to an immense chillul HaShem when representatives of the four Arab Knesset parties arrived at the president’s residence to discuss who they would support for Prime Minister.

The spokesman, Dr. Achmed Tibi stood before President Rivlin as a proud Arab and stated, “We are not guests in this country, we are the ba’alei batim – owners of the land”.

And the President did not respond!