Libi BaMizrach

(Note: I know this article is long, but I believe it is important.  I am looking for those who will help me achieve the goals stated herein - please contact me if you would like to join with me in moving this forward.  YLO)  In an  essay published a few months ago , I described the growing tension between the Charedi and non-Charedi (secular and national religious) public. I contended that the Charedi community must acknowledge that the events of October 7 have dramatically transformed Israeli society and significantly affected the interactions between the Charedim and other societal groups, as the status quo will no longer stand. If you have been following the news, you know all my predictions have come true. The Supreme Court has ordered the government to cut funding to all yeshivos and kollels whose students do not serve in the army. The battle lines have been sharply drawn: the overwhelming majority of the Israeli public is no longer willing to put up with t...

When I first saw that Rabbi Avi Shafran's recent essay " Why a Gaza hostage deal is Dividing Religious Jews About a Sacred Tenet of Judaism " (reproduced below) was being run in the virulently anti-religious, far-left Israeli newspaper Haaretz (I could not find it any other media publication) I was surprised. . . until I read the essay. HaAretz was indeed the ideal place for this flawed and biased article, which distorted the positions of Haredim while attacking the National religious parties headed by Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir. Briefly, the article claimed that the recent support of the Haredi parties for President Biden's hostage deal was purely a reflection of the deep concern that Haredim feel about the hostages and the primacy of the mitzvah of Pidyon Shvuyim (releasing captives) apparently far more than their counterparts in the National Religious world. From constant prayers for the captives to signs about them in Meah Shearim and other fantasies th...

They say that seeing is believing In our age of technical wonders and artificial intelligence, we know that when it comes to “photographs” or “video, seeing is not necessarily believing.  They can be easily altered, and it is close to impossible to know when they are “fake.” However, when it comes to natural things that we see with our own eyes, we still take it as true that “seeing is believing”. Moreover, the notion suggests that one cannot truly comprehend an event or phenomenon until and unless one sees it for oneself. That might be true about many things, but I beg to differ, at least for two events this past week. One of them was the solar eclipse that we missed here in Israel. We didn’t get to see it, but the accounts shared by those who experienced totality describe a fantastic phenomenon. It's depicted as an awe-inspiring, almost surreal encounter that makes one feel the greatness of our Creator like few others. Virtually all recount how incredible it was to watch the m...

Preface:  I first wrote this essay about two months ago, and have been waiting for it to be published in the Jewish Press before putting it on my blog.  While I don't think it contains anything controversial, they were worried that some in the Charedi community would be upset with it.   In the meantime, much of what I predicted is coming more and more true every day, and the urgency for consideration of these ideas only grows. --------- One thing is clear to almost everyone in Israel: The world has changed since Simchas Torah.  There is no going back to the way things were. The subhuman monsters who murdered, raped, and beheaded our brothers and sisters have shaken the world.  In Israel, for the most part, there is a tremendous unity of purpose and a sense of brotherhood to fight together for our national future.  Unlike what was going on before October 7, when left and right, religious and secular, were at each other's throats, there are now countless...

  I am very grateful to my dear daughter and son-in-law Diti and Yitzi for the honor of being the Sandak at my grandson's Bris…it was an offer I couldn't refuse.   Actual Movie Poster from the 1970s I hope that I performed my role well. When considering my role, I imagined that it goes beyond just sitting there and holding the baby's legs. Chazal say that the reason that – obviously in other cases – they look for a Tzadik to be the Sandak is that the Sandak's lap functions as a Mizbeach, on which the parents offer their precious, vulnerable, tiny little son – whom they brought into the world with so much effort and love – as an offering to Hashem. Little and innocent as he is, he undergoes a painful procedure with a knife that is difficult for him and, even more so, for his mother and father. But it is a traumatic yet necessary process to become a member of the Jewish people. This past Shabbos Parshas Bo, we read about the first mitzvos that were given to Klal Yisrael....