Category Archives: issues of morality or ethics

Preposterous Pollsters

The results of its survey “should not be treated as genuine polling data,” announced Median Strategies last week.

For good reason. As the organization went on to say, the poll it released earlier, showing how well candidates were faring in several races, was fake.

Median Strategies admitted that it had fabricated the polling results as part of a “short-term social experiment” meant to expose how quickly false information could spread.

(Some creative vandal might want to try using “just a short-term social experiment” to excuse his breaking a neighbor’s home’s window and scrawling graffiti on its front door. I’m guessing it wouldn’t work out well for him.)

What the pollster at issue evidenced (though probably not the best word to use here), before the Wisconsin Democratic primary for governor took place, was that Francesca Hong was leading her opponent, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, by more than 20 percentage points.

That would have meant that the “progressive” Ms. Hong’s victory would surpass even that of fellow radical Abdul El-Sayed in neighboring Michigan’s U.S. Senate race. Which, were it reality, would surely further energize the radical part of the Democratic party.

Thankfully, Ms. Hong went on to lose, although by less than one percentage point. Six days later, Median Strategies owned up to its subterfuge.

Another “survey result” by the firm showed Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass leading her opponent Nithya Raman by nearly 12 percentage points in the Los Angeles mayoral runoff. Repeated inquiries by the Los Angeles Times about the methodology of that claim were what led the polling group to come clean.

And to explain that the fabricated results were intended only to examine “how purported polling information could enter and spread through the political information ecosystem without independent verification.”

Unsurprisingly, the false polls, particularly the one from the California race, spread widely through social media. The much-maligned “major media,” to their credit, largely ignored the purported polling results, since Media Strategies did not respond to any of their questions about the supposed survey’s methodology.

Even traditional surveys conducted by experienced pollsters have gotten things wrong many times. A week before the aforementioned Michigan Senate Democratic primary election, legitimate polls showed Mr. El Sayed leading by a large margin; his victory, in the end, was a very narrow one.

But a totally phony survey released as real into the mediasphere is something new, and bound to add to public distrust of polls.

The reaction to Median Strategies’ “experiment” was predictably, and rightly, negative, with many pundits accusing the firm of election interference. And, indeed, fictitious “results” presented by pollsters can easily lead to voters either being complacent or feeling hopeless, and, in either case, not bothering to vote. It can also lead some people (and they are both many and mindless) to vote for whomever they perceive as “a winner.”

My personal reaction to Median Strategies’ is less a feeling of outrage than of puzzlement.

If there were a rating system for utterly pointless experiments, at the very top of the heap would be one designed to show “how purported… information could enter and spread through the.. information ecosystem without independent verification.”

Uh, have the folks at Median been following what regularly enters and spreads through the information ecosystem without independent verification… about Israel? Or Jews?

Like the widespread contention that Israelis celebrated (or were behind) the 9/11 attacks; or that the “Zionist war-machine” (i.e. Israel) forced President Trump to attack Iran; or that Israel seeks to exterminate the residents of Gaza. Or that shark attacks in the Red Sea were remotely controlled by Israel to harm Egypt’s tourist industry.

Or that “the Jews” created COVID-19, orchestrated the assassination of JFK and the murder of Charlie Kirk or used their “space lasers” to create hurricanes. Or that Jews were behind the wildfires that plagued Europe this summer.

And so, Median Strategies’ seeking to ascertain if falsehoods can find a fertile growth medium in the muck of the internet – the source of “information” for countless people with strong typing fingers but weak mental faculties – is a little (no, a lot) like seeking to ascertain whether apples grow on trees, hens lay eggs or the sun rises in the east.

(c) 2026 Ami Magazine

Vo’eschanan – Living Martyrdom

The Jewish credo, “the Shema,” declares Moshe’s directive to us to love Hashem “with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your resources” (Devarim 6:5).

And, famously, Chazal understand “all your soul” as meaning even if being faithful to Hashem means dying as a result (Berachos 54a).

That command has been honored over the millennia in countless acts of Jewish martyrdom at the hands of enemies who sought to force their victims to violate one of the precepts for which a Jew is to die rather than transgress, or in times when such evildoers sought to uproot Torah observance from Jewish people.

Martyrdom is the ultimate self-abnegation. It is, though, not the only expression of selflessness. 

Rabbi Yisrael Salanter noted that the directive to love Hashem with all our souls encompasses not only readiness to lose our entire souls (the ultimate negation of self) but any overlooking of self-interest in the service of the Divine. 

Every situation, in other words, whereby “negation” of one’s self serves a higher purpose.

It happens often that one is faced with a situation that violates one’s sense of self, or self-image.  It might be a slight, or an open insult; a usurping of a turn at something, or an unwarranted deprivation.

If such situations are not legally actionable (like if one has suffered a financial loss or damage due to another’s misdeed), it is commendable to recognize that it is only one’s “self” that has been put at stake, and that “dying” a little – overlooking the slight – is not only the proper path to take but, most valuably, an act of Kiddush Hashem, a mini-martyrdom.

© 2026 Rabbi Avi Shafran

Say It Sam

If the name Sam Harris doesn’t ring a bell, it’s because you’re blessedly not into the world of podcasts.

Neither am I, but Mr. Harris, holder of a Ph.D. in cognitive neuroscience and a philosopher, is a popular podcaster. Although he is halachically Jewish, he is an avowed secularist, not someone who might be expected to feel any connection to Judaism or Israel.

Which is why those who consider him a highbrow of the highest caliber have been dismayed by his bucking of the Israel-hatred that has become mandatory among the imperious intelligentsia. They can’t understand how he missed the memo.

Recently, to address his dismayed disciples’ puzzlement, he wrote a 2000 word tour de force, audaciously titled “Why I won’t debate critics of Israel.” It has been widely shared.

Mr. Harris is no knee-jerk defender of any Israeli action or leader, but has no interest in “exploring all the ways that Israel has missed the mark.”

He is interested only in the larger picture, the one that, in a reasonable world, would obscure all else. “The ethical difference between Israel and her enemies,” he states, “remains vast.” And “the global preoccupation with the Jewish state, as though it were the worst villain among nations, is contemptible… the product of perennial lies and delusions.”

Strong words, made all the stronger by his elaboration.

Militant Islamists, he contends, are “essentially, Nazis who are certain of Paradise.”

Were the IDF ever to “morph into a death cult that uses its own civilian population as human shields,” he fantasized, “if ordinary Israelis begin to celebrate martyrdom… producing generations of bright-eyed, suicidal fanatics, if the residents of Tel Aviv [would] condone the taking of Palestinian infants, old women, and other noncombatants as hostages and then gather in crowds of thousands, baying for their blood – if, in other words, the Israelis began to resemble the Palestinians, then I won’t care who wins this war.”

But of course, he continues, “there remains a world of difference between the two sides, and I believe that we should focus on how brutalizing it is for any free society to confront enemies that can sincerely claim to ‘love death’ more than everyone else loves life – for this has been Israel’s predicament for the better part of a century.”

Cutting sharply through all the “pro-Palestinian” obfuscation, he explains that “The problem in the Middle East is not, and has never been, the existence of the state of Israel.” It has been “jihadism… the belligerence and triumphal lunacy of those who take the most pernicious doctrines of Islam too seriously.”

Disentangling every strand of the region’s history is “a fool’s errand,” he further contends, “because Palestinians and Israelis have discrepant accounts of the past, and no amount of study or debate will reconcile them.”

All that matters in the here and now, he declares, is “what the current inhabitants of Israel, the Palestinian territories, and the surrounding Arab states want out of life now…. What are they willing to sacrifice for? What are they willing to die for? And what are they willing to let their children die for?”

And here he cuts to the quick. While “Israel has its religious fanatics,” he writes, they are not “the same sort of fanatics we find in Hamas or Hezbollah, and they’re far less representative of the surrounding culture.”

There is much more in Mr. Harris’ manifesto, but the following paragraph really says it all:

“If the Palestinians laid down their arms, there would be peace. There could be a two-state solution; there could even be a one-state solution…. If the Palestinians simply stopped killing Jews and stopped building a culture that celebrates pointless murder and martyrdom as its highest values, there could be a diverse, tolerant, and prosperous society between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. There could have been one eighty years ago. But if the Israelis laid down their weapons, there would be a genocide. This was obviously true on October 7th, 2023. And for anyone who has been paying attention, it has been true on every other day since the founding of the state of Israel.”

Words worthy of being displayed on every billboard in Europe and posted in every American university classroom.

(c) 2026 Ami Magazine

Humility: The Mark of Leadership

Few contrasts are as striking as the one between Moshe, the “most humble of all men,” who had to be Divinely drafted to lead the Jewish people, and Korach, who was consumed with a desire for a leadership role.

And, like deceitful populists over ensuing millennia, Korach insisted that he was merely standing up for the masses, advocating for their democratic rights. Who needs a mezuzah (i.e. a leader) if the house is filled with holy books (i.e. the magnificent masses)?

Many contemporary leaders, some more shamelessly than others, advanced their aspirations in Korach-fashion, lusting for power while claiming to be championing the people. (A rare exception was Dwight Eisenhower, the only American president who had to be drafted to run for that office.)

In the authentic Jewish religious world, true leaders are always drafted – that is to say, “elected,” not by campaigns and misleading claims but rather by unsought public acclaim. I have been privileged to have spent time in the vicinities of several, and was deeply affected by their selflessness and modesty. My rebbe, Rav Yaakov Weinberg, was one; see https://www.rabbiavishafran.com/mr-to-us/. His yahrtzeit is Shiva Asar B’Tamuz.

And, just like Moshe was accused of sins he didn’t commit, so are Gedolim today sometimes attacked for imagined misdeeds. And not only by people lacking any relationship to Torah, but even some who are meticulously observant. Frumkeit doesn’t necessarily imply ehrlichkeit.

Ohn ben Peles, the Midrash recounts, a confederate of Korach’s, was saved from the latter’s fate by Mrs. Ohn. After plying her husband with enough wine to put him to sleep, she sat outside their tent and uncovered her hair. So when Korach’s supporters came to fetch her husband and saw the immodest woman, meticulously religious folks that they were, they turned on their righteous heels and left. 

The upshot: Even religious people can fall for would-be-dictators’ lies. 

© 2026 Rabbi Avi Shafran

Naso – An Opportunity, Not an Ordeal

I cringe when I read portrayals of the law of Sotah ritual as some sort of “trial by ordeal.”

That phrase conjures images like the 17th century Salem witch trials, when Puritans invoked “tests” to determine whether someone was a witch. Or earlier times in Europe, when the accused was subjected to an often life-threatening experience. Only if he or she perished as a result would the accused be declared innocent (and, oftentimes, dead). And if the suspect survived being, for instance, bound and thrown into deep water, the unfortunate would be found guilty and subsequently executed.


By contrast, the Sotah law kicks in – or kicked in, until the Churban Bayis Rishon (and, according to one opinion in the Talmud it was never used) – when a man suspects his wife of being unfaithful, warns her to not seclude herself with a specific other man, and she ignores the warning.

The ritual has her drinking a concoction consisting of water, a bit of dirt from under the Temple’s marble floor, a bitter herb and the rubbed-off dried ink of the text of the Torah’s description of the Sotah ritual, including Hashem’s name.
 
If the woman is guilty of betraying her marriage, the Torah explains, she and the man with whom she sinned will, upon her drinking the concoction, suffer a terrible death.  If she’s innocent, she will suffer no ill effects and, on the contrary, will be blessed with healthy children.

The Sotah-drink ingredients are, if unappetizing, innocuous.  And so, it would take a divine intervention to bring about the punishment.

Interestingly, though, and tellingly, if the wife chooses to simply dissolve her marriage and forfeit the financial support promised her at her wedding, we compel the husband to grant her a divorce, and she suffers no other penalty. She is not forced to imbibe the Sotah drink.
 
So there is no “trial by ordeal” here. What there is, rather, is a way to establish an accused woman’s innocence of adultery, a means of returning love and trust to her marriage.
 
The entire point of the Sotah ritual, in other words, is to convince a jealous husband that his wife has remained faithful to him. Which explains why, unlike in every other case of a suspected crime or sin, we involve a Divine intercession – Hashem’s own assurance that the woman is innocent. 

The ritual is not intended as a way to convict, but to restore marital peace, in which Hashem Himself, as the “third partner” in a successful marriage (Kiddushin, 30b), has a stake.

Which explains Rabi Yishmael’s comment (Shabbos, 116a) about the ritual: “In order to make peace between a husband and his wife, [Hashem in] the Torah says: My name that was written in sanctity shall be erased in the water.”

© 2026 Rabbi Avi Shafran

Behar — Don’t Serve Servants

“They are My servants, whom I freed from the land of Egypt” (Vayikra 25:55).

Although the Talmud’s comment on the phrase “They are My servants” – “but not the servants of servants” (Bava Kamma 116b) – has a technical, halachic meaning, it also hints at a broader one.

In other words, not only does it say that a Jew cannot own another Jew, it also signals that Jews are not to indenture themselves to causes other than the Jewish mandate. Not to a political party, social cause or personality. A Jew’s exclusive ultimate role is to be a servant of Hashem.

Because the freedom we were divinely granted from Egyptian bondage was not what many consider “freedom” – libertinism, the loss of all fetters. It was a passage from being “servants to servants” – to Egyptians and Egyptian mores – to becoming servants of Hashem. As Moshe, in Hashem’s name, ordered Pharaoh: “Let my people go so that they may serve Me” (Shemos 9:1).  

The Hebrew word for freedom, cherus, the Mishna (Avos, 6:2) notes, can be vowelled to render charus, “etched,” as the Aseres Hadibros were on the luchos.  “The only free person,” the Mishna concludes, “is the one immersed in Torah.”

True freedom doesn’t mean being retired and moneyed, lying on a beach with sunshine on one’s face and a cold beer within reach, without a care or beckoning task. 

In the words of Iyov, “Man is born to toil” (5:7).  True freedom, counterintuitively, comes from hard work.  Applying ourselves to a higher purpose liberates us from the limitations of our inner Egypts, and is what can bring true meaning to our lives.

Indian poet and Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore wrote:

“I have on my table a violin string. It is free to move in any direction I like. If I twist one end, it responds; it is free.

“But it is not free to sing. So I take it and fix it into my violin. I bind it, and when it is bound, it is free for the first time to sing.”

A timely metaphor, as we progress from Pesach, the holiday of our release from bondage, to Shavuos, the day we entered servitude to the Divine. And when, like on Pesach, we will sing the words of Hallel.