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The Guardian lets down its guard

“First comes the hummus: studded with chickpeas, anointed with a little reservoir of olive oil, greedily smeared up with hunks of pitta [sic] bread and messy fingers. Then the tabbouleh, then some homemade falafels…”

Thus opened an article in The Guardian, the London daily that is considered Britain’s “paper of record,” like our country’s The New York Times. And, like The Times, it has a denied but evident bias against Israel and Jews.

The details of the sumptuous meal continued through several deliriously described courses and dessert (baklava and homemade chocolate, if you really must know). The writer, the paper’s sports writer and opinion columnist Jonathan Liew, was feasting at a successful North London Arab-run eatery called Cafe Metro.

He wasn’t writing a food column. It was, rather, a report on a controversy swirling around Cafe Metro and a new nearby branch of an popular upscale bakery called Gail’s.

The night before it was due to open, the bakery was vandalized with red paint. Less than a week later, all its windows were smashed in. Slogans reading “reject corporate Zionism” and various obscenities were scrawled on its walls.

Gail’s describes itself as “a British business with no specific connections to any country or government outside the UK,” but its parent company, Bain Capital, reportedly invests in military technology, including some Israeli security companies. Bad bakery!

Mr. Liew, after noting how Cafe Metro, “proudly blazons its Palestinian heritage” with a public display of flags, describes it lovingly as “a source of comfort and community in troubling times, resistance in its tastiest and most delicately spiced form.” And goes on to contend that “the very presence of [Gail’s] 20 metres away from a small independent cafe feels quietly symbolic, an act of heavy-handed high-street aggression.”

Gail’s, the writer seems to imply, has no business being a business.

Many people saw Mr. Liew’s description of the bakery’s opening, “an act of heavy-handed, high-street aggression” as, well, an act of heavy-handed Fleet Street aggression.

It was also an example of utterly corrupt journalism. Mr. Liew wasn’t quoting the Arab owners of Cafe Metro – who would be misguided enough to characterize Gail’s as an aggressor for simply existing. It was the columnist’s own ostensible statement of fact.

Making matters even more outrageous, the piece, which included no quotes from anyone connected to Gail’s, dismissed the window-smashing and paint smearing as “small acts of petty symbolism.”

A slew of complaints about the column was registered by, among many others, Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch, who called the column “disgusting,” “appalling” and “ridiculous.”

With typical droll British humor. Senior Barrister Simon Myerson referenced the paper’s record of bias, writing: “I see the Guardian is having an antisemitic moment. Sorry, another antisemitic moment.”

The Guardian later edited the piece, “repositioning” the objectional “aggression” wordage “to clarify it meant to refer to the described fears about the chain’s impact on small traders.”

Also, “to avoid misunderstanding,” the paper removed the “small acts of petty symbolism” phrase, which, it explained, “was not intended to minimize local vandalism but rather to suggest its misdirected futility.”

All of which really misses the real point. It was the framing of the entire piece that was, and remains, journalistically objectionable.

After hundreds of words extolling the gustatory delights of Arab cuisine, Mr. Liew dwells for hundreds more on how the family of one of Cafe Metro’s operators “once lived in the city of Beit Hanoun in Gaza, and now lives out a precarious and hunted existence in one of Gaza’s many temporary refugee camps…”

And he contrasts that with how “Gail’s has long been feted as a purveyor of luxury baked goods and is an unmistakable barometer of local affluence.” Even though the chain is not currently owned by Jews or Israelis, the insinuation is as obvious as it is odious.

And Mr. Liew concludes with the observation that the two businesses “have found themselves on the frontline of a war. A deeply asymmetric war, defined by gross imbalances in power and resources and platforms.”

There is in fact a gross imbalance here. It lies in the shameless portrayal of a vandalized victim as an aggressor, opposite a reverent, adulatory portrayal of an imagined victim.

(c) 2026 Ami Magazine

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Although Mr. Kent was a Trump loyalist, even to the point of endorsing the discredited “stolen election” of 2020 claim and asserting that the January 6 attack on the Capitol was an FBI plot, he turned his back on Mr. Trump last week, resigning his position in protest of the current Iran war.

The content of his resignation letter should concern us all.

Mr. Kent is entitled to believe, as he wrote, that the current war was not warranted because there was no “imminent threat” to the U.S. that would permit an American president to order to attack another country.

It’s a risible stance, considering Iran’s “Death to America” drumbeat and accelerated ballistic missile and nuclear programs – not to mention the mullahs’ employment of proxies over years to kill American citizens. But people are entitled to be short-sighted, even myopic, even stupid.

The gist of Mr. Kent’s letter, however, was not an insistence on Congressional approval or some pacifist plea. It was contemporary blood libel. And aimed at such slanders’ perennial targets.

The former security official lays responsibility for what he considers an illegitimate war squarely at the feet of Israel and her American supporters. It was they, he asserted, who forced a helpless, impressionable President Trump to attack Iran. “It is clear,” he wrote, “that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.”

He blames the Iraq war, too, on Israel, which “cost our nation the lives of thousands of our best men and women.”

That Mr. Trump might be vulnerable to outside pressure is a laughable notion. If there is anything that both supporters and detractors of the president agree upon, it’s that the man has a mind of his own and is about as pliable as a steel rod.

But Mr. Kent seems to harbor an unshakeable belief in the Jewish ability to… control things, including the president.

Mr. Netanyahu certainly made the case to Mr. Trump that Iran is an imminent threat not only to Israel, its “Little Satan,” but also to the U.S., its “Great Satan.” But Mr. Trump has regarded Iran as a threat for decades. Well before he first became president, he actually called for troop deployments to the country and seizure of control of Iranian oil. In 2018, he famously withdrew from the Obama-era JCPOA nuclear deal with Iran.

Sharing an interest with Israel – and acting in unison with her to head off the mullahs’ desire to Islamify the world – isn’t some dark conspiracy. It’s responsible leadership.

What’s more, Israeli leaders have lobbied every president in memory to go to war in Iran. That Mr. Trump decided to do so is not a sign of some gullibility but of his judgment that the time had come to remove a threat to the Western world.

Mr. Kent should never have been in a governmental position, much less a counterterrorism post. That should have been evident from the start. The evidence would have included his 2021 call to the odious white nationalist Nick Fuentes to get advice on social media strategy for a Congressional run. And his interview by neo-Nazi blogger Greyson Arnold. And his hiring of a member of the neo-fascist “Proud Boys” as a campaign consultant.

And then there’s the large tattoo on his arm, revealed in a relative’s innocent posting of him in a swimming pool, that reads: “Panzer.” The name, of course, of a famed Nazi tank.

Now, since his resignation, he has appeared on Jew-baiting Tucker Carlson’s podcast and has been lauded by the likes of Candace Owens, a reincarnation of rabid antisemite Charles Coughlin. “May American troops take [Kent’s] lead,” she posted on social media, “and look into conscientious objection to Bibi’s Red Heifer War. Goyim stand down.”

Birds of a feather…

While we can feel relief that Mr. Kent has left the NCTC, it’s deeply concerning that he was ever part of it. One has to wonder if other bigots may be lurking in government bodies.

(c) 2026 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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So does “Captain Ella,” about whom you can read here.

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But that good will is not shared by two self-promoting professed Christians who have been prominent in the public eye.

To read about the danger they represent, click here.

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Monsieur Barrot’s alleged misstep was his reaction to Signora Albanese’s comments on February 7, 2026 at an Al Jazeera forum in Doha, Qatar, on a panel devoted to “the Palestinian cause.”

True to loathsome form and to the great pleasure of her audience, the signora, like others on the panel, including a Hamas leader and an Iranian minister, railed against Israel.

Ho hum.

She accused the Western world of amplifying a “pro-apartheid genocidal narrative” and bemoaned the challenges that the “global community” faces today.

And she concluded that “We who do not control large amounts of financial capitals, algorithms, and weapons, we now see that we as a humanity have a common enemy [italics mine].”

Monsieur Barrot called Signora Albanese’s remarks “outrageous and reprehensible.” Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said her “behavior, statements and initiatives aren’t appropriate for the position she holds,” and Germany’s foreign minister, Johann Wadephul, said the lady’s position is “no longer tenable.” France, Austria, the Czech Republic, and the United Kingdom have also called for the special rapporteur’s dismissal.

Even U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, not known for empathy for Israel, said (through a spokesperson; he may have feared choking on the words) that “We don’t agree with much of what [Albanese] says, and wouldn’t have used the language that she’s using in describing the situation.”

Thus my need to reread, with incredulity, the 151 former ministers’, ambassadors’, and diplomats’ and entertainers’ (always experts on foreign affairs) rush to the defense of the special rapporteur, claiming that the media had truncated and distorted her comments.

In an open letter, the group accused Monsieur Barrot of spreading inaccurate and manipulated information, and condemned its use to discredit the UN official.

“The dissemination of disinformation by senior officials,” they wrote, “undermines international law, weakens human rights protections, and threatens the credibility of the multilateral system itself.”

Signora Albanese herself fumed that “European governments accuse me – based on statements I never made – with a virulence and conviction that they have NEVER used against those who have slaughtered 20,000+ children in 858 days” – tellingly citing the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry’s death toll claim.

So how did the signora defend her words? She contended that what she had meant by humanity’s “common enemy” was not – G-d forbid! – Israel (the topic of her rant), but rather “THE SYSTEM [caps hers] that has enabled the genocide in Palestine.”

Oh.

Even in her attempt to “explain” her words, the signora felt it important to use the disgustingly deceitful word “genocide” for Israel’s war against Hamas. Hardly surprising, considering that, during the October 7 pogrom, she urged that the murdering of innocents be placed in its “context.” And that she dismissed reported acts of the invaders’ viciousness documented by U.N Watch and the ADL as “fabrications.”

With that background, and in a speech that was devoted entirely to besmirching Israel, the special rapporteur’s claim that it was only a “SYSTEM” she was identifying as humanity’s enemy and not the usual object of her animus (and the subject of her speech) is ludicrous.

Three cheers for Monsieur Barrot, who stuck to his guns, posting on his social media, in response to the risible “contextualizing” of the special rapporteur’s Hitlerian comment: “Stop fake news. I did not truncate or distort Ms. Albanese’s comments. I simply condemned them because they are reprehensible.”

In an even semi-sane world, Signora Albanese would be reassigned to flipping pizza dough. Back in 2024, former special envoy for combating antisemitism Deborah Lipstadt described remarks the signora made as “openly antisemitic.” And last year, she was placed under U.S. sanctions, with the State Department condemning her “unabashed antisemitism, expressed support for terrorism, and open contempt for the United States, Israel, and the West.”

In some places, it’s customary to stage Purim shpiels where contemporary figures take the place of Megillas Esther’s protagonists. With Monsieur Barrot and Signora Albanese occupying space in my head, were I in charge of central casting for such a play, I have a good idea about whom I’d choose for Charvonah. And Vashti.

(c) 2026 Ami Magazine

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The Gemara (ibid) sees in the aron, which contains the luchos, shivrei luchos and a Torah scroll, a metaphor for the coherence of conscience and behavior that defines a true scholar. “A talmid chacham,” Rava teaches there, “who isn’t tocho kiboro,” – whose inside [essence] isn’t like his outside [the image yielded by his behavior] – “isn’t a talmid chacham.”

My revered rebbe, Rabbi Yaakov Weinberg, zt”l, noted that the Gemara’s wording is pointed. We are not exhorted to bring our “outsides” into line with our “insides” – to first achieve purity of heart and then display its signifiers – but rather the other way around. We do right to first emulate the comportment and behavior of those more spiritually accomplished than we are – to present an image of observance and propriety – even if our souls may not be as pure as our clothing and actions seem to declare. 

That is because, in the Sefer Hachinuch’s words, “A person is affected by his actions” and demeanor. How we dress, speak and act can change who we are.

Achieving coherence of appearance and heart must be the ultimate goal for us all. But we shouldn’t feel hypocritical or despondent if, in the process of reaching that goal, we show the world a better image of ourselves than we deserve. What matters is only that we are working to bring our inner selves into line with our outer ones.

What’s more, according to a Midrash brought by Rashi on the posuk uvicheit yechemasni imi (Tehillim 51:7), Dovid Hamelech lamented the fact that when his parents conceived him, their intent was basically selfish (a thought reflected as well in his words ki avi vi’imi azovuni, Tehillim 27:10). And yet, Dovid’s father was Yishai, who, the Gemara  (Shabbos 55b) says was one of the humans who never sinned! 

The inescapable conclusion is that self-interest isn’t sin. The essential sense of self is inherent in being human, and no contradiction to righteousness. 

That, too, is reflected in the aron. It was gold within and without, yes, but there was wood (perhaps hinting to the eitz hadaas) between the golden layers. One’s toch and bar can be pure and consistent, but there is always a self in the middle. And that’s inherent in being human.

© 2026 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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To be sure, the fake images didn’t misportray what had happened. But there has been true havoc wreaked by less pedestrian imagery.

After federal immigration agents shot and killed two protesters last month in Minneapolis, Democratic Senator Dick Durbin displayed an enlarged photo of an ICE agent holding a gun against the back of the head of one, a man named Alex Pretti, who was down on one knee. It was an AI-altered image. Mr. Pretti was indeed killed in a scuffle but was not, as the photo seemed to show, summarily executed. (To his credit, though, Mr. Durbin, when informed of the provenance of the photo, apologized for inadvertently giving it publicity.)

Another manipulated photo of Mr. Pretti, who was a nurse, enhanced his facial features and portrayed him sympathetically by showing him assisting two rehabilitating veterans.

When, also last month, a group of protesters interrupted a church service in Minnesota, the White House posted a digitally altered image showing one of the demonstrators bawling as she was arrested. It was an AI-altered version of a photo of the woman looking entirely at ease.

The protest was an uncouth disturbance of a religious service. But the photo, still, was sheker.

As were those showing Representative Ilhan Omar smiling next to a man who had sprayed her with apple cider vinegar. That led to claims that the Congresswoman had staged the attack. President Trump echoed the idea on his social media platform.

Needless to say (or maybe not), there was no evidence that the attack, such as it was, was staged. The attacker, moreover, had previously made threats against Ms. Omar and has a history of online criticism against her.

There are more than enough reasons to excoriate Ms. Omar without resorting to sheker.

Then we had an A.I.-generated “newscaster” who reported that California Governor Gavin Newsom had laundered drug money for Mexican cartels. The “report” was reposted on President Trump’s Truth Social platform. And was, in case you might be wondering, entirely evidence-free.

Last October, an entirely convincing video showed a television reporter interviewing a Georgia woman about how she sold her food stamps for cash, which is a crime. The entire conversation was conjured from thin air (and AI). Neither the reporter nor the woman ever existed.

But the reaction to the video was entirely real, with some commenters railing against government assistance programs and others, since the interviewee was black, employing ugly racist tropes.

Fakes have been used to mock not only poor people but President Trump as well. One video showed an image of the White House with a voice-over that sounded exactly like Mr. Trump, berating his cabinet over the release of documents that showed his relationship with a disgraced criminal.

There was a time, a not-too-distant one, when AI-generated “memes” were obviously manufactured, no more misleading than a hand-drawn cartoon. Think the president as Superman or “Dark Brandon” Joe Biden with bright red laser eyes.

They were blatantly, silly caricatures, as anyone could see. Today, though, there are counterfeit images and entire fake videos that are indistinguishable from photos of real things and happenings that actually happened.

And, combined with a polarized, confirmation-biased and disturbingly gullible public, such evolved AI, while it might not spell the end of the human race as some fear, certainly presents an unprecedented challenge to emes.

Social conservatives and liberals alike, have utilized new AI technology to reach and fool the public. But the most aggressive use of AI to mislead seems to have come from one side of the political spectrum. It’s the side whose policies most of us, myself included, favor. But sheker is sheker, and we’re enjoined by the Torah to distance ourselves from it. Here, at least, we’re enjoined to recognize it and certainly to avoid becoming complicit in its dissemination.

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A sure way to anger an atheist is to challenge him to explain why anyone should be pleasant, or ethical or moral – beyond the mere utilitarian gain of a social contract. He will jump up and down and insist that goodness and badness exist. But, in the end, without a Higher Power’s guidance, those words are utterly fungible.  Good and bad behavior, sans a Divine Guide, carry no more ultimate meaning than good or bad weather. And flowers appreciate thunderstorms.

Parshas Mishpatim begins with the connection-letter vav, indicating that the laws that follow, many of them dealing with financial dealings, torts and other interpersonal matters, were, no less than the “Ten Commandments” and mizbei’ach laws of the previous parshah, “from Sinai,” as Rashi, quoting Midrash Tanchuma, notes.

Inherent in that vav-connector, says Rabbi Shlomo Yosef Zevin, is the fact that, for Jews, seemingly mundane business and interpersonal dealings are to be conducted ethically not as mere parts of a social contract but rather as the fulfilment of Divine command.

And, he continues, it is a distinction with a momentous difference. “Rivers of blood” have been spilled, he points out as an example, “up to and including the present,” as a result of human reinterpretation of “Thou shall not murder.”  

When killing, or stealing, or harming others are only man-made social constructs, ways will be found to sidestep them or “clarify” their application when deemed necessary. By contrast, one who accepts the Torah’s ethical laws as a divine charge will perforce treat them as truly binding and absolute, no matter what.

Those with the custom of saying a “lishem yichud” declaration of holy intent before putting on tefillin or taking an esrog and lulav in hand generally don’t do so before signing a contract or treating another person pleasantly.  

But there’s really no reason not to.

© 2026 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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But whether the future of the left wing of the Democratic Party is more accurately presaged by the election of a radical as mayor than by the downfall of a progressive governor is far from clear.

To read what I’m referring to, please click here.

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“This time I have sinned,” Par’oh admits. “Hashem is the righteous One, and I and my nation are the wicked ones.” (Shemos 9:27). 

It is the plague of hail. Why, of all the other punishments, that one?

What occurs is that the answer may lie in the Midrash brought by Rashi (ibid, 24), that each piece of hail contained a flame, and that water and fire “made peace with each other” in order “to do the will of their Creator.”

Par’oh was an idolater.  The Egyptians worshipped the Nile and, according to historians, the sun.  Idolatry entails choosing a “team” to be on.  One can be on Team Nile, Team Sun, Team Water, Team Fire…

Monotheism entails the recognition that all the “teams” (elohos) are subservient to the one Creator of all the elements (Elohim).

Perhaps Par’oh was forced to confront and internalize that fact by having witnessed, during the plague of hail, the “partnership” of opposites.

Truth be told, we are all comprised of opposites: souls and bodies.  Each has its own desideratum. The only way to “make peace” between them is endeavoring to fulfill the will of our Creator, which requires both elements to work together.

© 2026 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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The way to understand the contention that Yaakov didn’t die, I think (and it’s borne out of the verses quoted in that Gemara), is that he lives on — as the patriarch whose children, all of them, became the progenitors of Klal Yisrael — through the eternal Jewish people.

The Midrash in Vayeishev, commenting on Yosef’s dream about the sun, moon and stars bowing to him, has Yaakov wondering, “Who revealed to him that my [secret] name is ‘sun’?”

It’s interesting to reflect (pun intended) on the fact that the moon –  the symbol, in its waxing and waning, and in its role in the Jewish calendar, of Klal Yisrael –  reflects the light of the sun.  We reflect Yaakov, are the continuation of his life.

Even more interesting, according to the Tikkunei Zohar (brought by the Shela and the Bach [Orach Chaim 281]), “the image of Yaakov is carved out [i.e. visible] in the moon.”

© 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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Rashi comments on Hashem’s repetition of Yaakov Avinu’s name, calling out to him “Yaakov! Yaakov!” (Beraishis, 46:2), as a lashon chibah, a locution of endearment.

The full Midrash from which Rashi quotes, though, adds “lashon ziruz” –  a locution of motivation, a pushing to action. 

In last week’s parshah, the Midrash has Yaakov hinting to Hashem a desire for an end to the relentless challenges that had confronted him throughout his life, regarding Lavan, Esav, Rochel, Dina, Yosef, Shimon and Binyamin (43:14).

But in this week’s parshah, Hashem hints back that what might seem to be burdens are in truth opportunities, features, not bugs. Yaakov’s life was unimaginably hard. But by living it he became Yaakov Avinu.

With the term “Yaakov! Yaakov!” Hashem signals that being given the responsibility to shoulder challenges – ziruz – can be inseparable from, indeed an expression of, chibah – love.

And that is true not only when the “pushing” is coming from Above, but also when it’s coming from a parent, a spouse or a friend.

© 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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The word “eivel” — “mourning” — is composed of the same letters, in the same order, as the word “aval” — “however.”

“However” bespeaks an interruption of a thought.  And mourning — the facing of mortality forced by the death of someone close — is an interruption of life, of living, as we all do, without constantly thinking about death.

It’s interesting to note that the parsha includes not only the interruption of Yaakov’s life by Yosef’s disappearance – the source of his aveilus – but a striking interruption, too, of the narrative flow of the parsha itself, by the account of Yehudah and Tamar. 

And that narrative also presents yet another interruption, this one, of Yehudah’s life. He is suddenly, unexpectedly, forced to confront the reality of his responsibility for the fact of Tamar’s pregnancy. 

Tamar tells him, when he seeks to punish her, that he seems innocent and she seems guilty.  But, she continues, please recognize these personal items… (38:25). That, for Yehudah, is an aval – a “however” – moment too.

© 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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It has come up today in the context of a video message from Democratic lawmakers, reminding members of the military that they must refuse to obey illegal orders.

My thoughts on the matter are here.

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Does a respectable mainstream, at least presently, dominate in each party?

My take is here.

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Yet one misleading phrase still stands out: “Come eat of my hunted [food]” (ibid), says Yaakov, offering his father the goat meat he could mistake for game.  But it was neither Yaakov’s food – his mother Rivka had prepared it – nor had it been “hunted.” How was Yaakov not lying?

What occurs is that “hunting” is a word we’ve seen earlier, in the Torah’s description of Nimrod: “a powerful hunter” (ibid 10:9).  And there, Rashi explains that what Nimrod “hunted” and captured were people’s minds.  He used words and subterfuge to mislead, convince and amass followers.

Perhaps here, too, Yaakov was subtly, slyly, subtly “confessing” to his father that he was engaged in a psychological subterfuge, presenting himself as someone he wasn’t, offering his “hunting” to Yitzchak, his ability to navigate a tricky and untrustworthy world. Thereby demonstrating that he, Yaakov, too, was capable of dealing with that challenging world no less than his brother, something that, as the Malbim and others explain, Yitzchak had assumed was not true.

And so Yaakov was saying, in effect, “Accept my current subterfuge as proof that I can do what you have assumed only Esav is able to do.”

© 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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“If only I had done this… or we had done that… or not done this… or not done that, we could have avoided this outcome.”

But human nature can be misleading. A thought I once heard suggests that the repetition of the phrase, “the years of Sarah’s life,” in the first pasuk of the parsha, even though the pasuk had opened with “And the lifetime of Sarah was 127 years,” teaches us to resist our proclivity to imagine that things could have been different had we only acted differently.

We might think that had Sarah not been told (as per a famous Midrash) about her son having been bound on an altar, she wouldn’t have died at the moment she did, having been spared the shock.

But Sarah’s death was divinely ordained for that moment. “The years of Sarah’s life” were the years granted her. The proximate cause of her death wasn’t its ultimate cause. Its ultimate cause was Hashem’s will.

Post-facto calculi in such things are wrongheaded.

We are certainly required to do what is normative practice to preserve our health –  but only that. Someone, for instance, who suffered from  Covid when it was raging might kick himself for having worn only a simple mask, not an expensive, surgical-quality one.  Or for having spaced himself only 6 feet from others, instead of 10. But if one fulfilled the normative obligaton and still became sick, he is wrong to agonize over not having done more. He needs to recognize the ultimate determinant: Hashem’s will.  And then do what normative practice demands, to, with Hashem’s help,  recover.

But pondering “if onlys” is pointless.

© 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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“I, too, knew,” Hashem tells Avimelech in a dream, “that it was in the innocence of your heart that you did this” (Beraishis, 20:6).

So, if Avimelech was innocent in taking Sarah, why didn’t Hashem merely prevent the king  from approaching  her?  Why were he and his family and entourage physically punished?

Perhaps the answer lies in what Avraham told Avimelech, when the king demanded an explanation for having misled him:

“Because,” Avraham explained, “I said ‘There is no fear of G-d in this place’” (ibid, 11).

A leader, that tells us, has the ability, and responsibility, to influence the mores of his society. And if a society evidences lack of “fear of G-d,” its leadership is implicated in the evil.

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Rashi’s comment on the words “it will be good for me” – “so that they [the Egyptians] will give me gifts” – puzzled me, as they surely have many, for years. Avram, who later in the parshah (14:23) spurned even a shoelace from the king of Sdom, is concerned with gifts?

An intriguing possible understanding of Rashi’s words occurred to me. Shlomo HaMelech, in Mishlei (15:27) teaches us that “the one who hates gifts will live.”

It may be that the greatest expression of that attitude isn’t only “in theory,” in hating the idea of gifts, but in actual practice – namely, that it’s the attitude toward an actual proffered gift that helps ensure life. 

And so, perhaps Avram wanted gifts to be offered to him, so that he could “hate” the fact that he was offered them… with the result being that, as he continues, “I will remain alive…” – echoing Shlomo HaMelech’s words.

Postscript: Interestingly, the concept of shunning gifts as bolstering life is reflected in a snippet from a 1960s folk song:

“Some people never get, some never give;

Some people never die and some never live.”

There is, Chazal teach us, “chachmah bagoyim,” wisdom among other nations.

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According to David S. Wyman and Rafael Medoff, in their book “A Race Against Death,” a series of national public opinion polls gauging American attitudes between 1938 and 1946 showed that between one third and one half of the U.S. population saw Jews as greedy and dishonest, and that “Jews had too much power” in the country. Some 15 percent of Americans supported “a widespread campaign against the Jews in this country” and another 20 percent sympathized with such a campaign.

Then there was the infamous German-American Bund, which, on February 20, 1939, some six months before Nazi Germany invaded Poland and just as Hitler was completing construction of his sixth concentration camp, held a packed rally at Madison Square Garden, where more than 20,000 right hands shot forth in the Nazi salute as an American flag passed by. Held aloft were posters with slogans like “Stop Jewish Domination of Christian America.”

Speeches at the rally referred to “job-taking Jewish refugees.” Flags borne by attendees were waved in approval. When an unarmed young Jewish man rushed onstage to protest, he was viciously beaten by attendees before police took him away.

Perhaps most famous of all of the Jew-haters of the time was the Catholic priest Father Charles E. Coughlin. His weekly broadcasts garnered an estimated quarter of the U.S. population at the time. His periodical, “Social Justice,” even printed weekly installments from “Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”

“Yonder comes Father Coughlin wearing the silver chain,” sang folk singer Woody Guthrie, “cash on his stomach and Hitler on the brain.”

Coughlin’s vitriol was so objectionable that he was censured by the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, and the federal government barred his publication “because it mirrored the Axis propoganda line.”

Although he was Canadian-born, by 1926, Coughlin had settled in Detroit, on the order of his superior and avid supporter Bishop Michael J. Gallagher. There he established a parish in the Detroit suburb of Royal Oak, known as the Shrine of the Little Flower. It was from that edifice that he broadcast his views.

In a 1938 speech, he threatened that “When we get through with the Jews of America, they’ll think the treatment they received in Germany was nothing.”

When, on December 5, 1938, Coughlin plagiarized a 1935 speech by Nazi Propaganda Minister Paul Joseph Goebbels, quipsters were quick to refer to Coughlin’s church as “the Shrine of the Little Führer.”

Coughlin died in 1979. He is buried in a Catholic cemetery in Southfield, Michigan.

Southfield is well-known to me. My wife and I have visited the city, and its adjacent city Oak Park, several times. West Bloomfield is another adjacent locale. Two of our dear daughters and their wonderful mishpachos live in that “Greater Detroit” area.

It is a vibrantly Jewish area. Shuls, large and small, abound. There are several kollelim for full time learning including the Kollel Institute of Greater Detroit and Yeshiva Beis Yehuda Kollel.

The city has a respected Vaad HaRabbonim and it operates the local beis din and a kashrus hashgacha division.

There are a number of mosdei chinuch in the area, including the renowned Yeshiva Gedolah of Greater Detroit. There is also Yeshiva Beth Yehudah and its affiliated Bais Yaakov, Yeshiva Darchei Torah, Mesivta of West Bloomfield, the recently opened Yeshivas Ohel Torah-Detroit and others.

And, of course, there is a kosher supermarket and bakeries and eateries. Not to mention Judaica stores and clothing stores aimed at frum clientele. In short, the Orthodox community in “Detroit” (although Southfield, West Bloomfield and Oak Park are really independent cities) is dynamic, strong and growing.

Not far down the road in Southfield lie Coughlin’s bones. Musing on that fact during our most recent visit, I had to smile, imagining what the reverend would have to say about the neighborhood he once called home.

(C) 2025 Ami Magazine

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Although there have been apostates among the Jewish people over the centuries, Rashi’s comment on the latter of the references above is germane. He writes: “[This does] not [mean] worship of their gods literally but rather the paying of tributes and taxes to their clergy.” Targum Onkelos (which Rashi cites) indeed translates the phrases as “You will worship [i.e. be subservient] to nations that worship wood and stone.”

And indeed, history has borne out the fact that our long galus has included subservience to Muslim rulers and Christian ones. Even at times when our ancestors were not being vilified and killed by those rulers and their societies, when we were “tolerated,” we were, well, tolerated, but always subjects – subjected, that is to say, to rules, regulations and whims of the dominant religion.

Even today, when human rights are seen, at least in theory and law, as encompassing Jewish rights, the de facto situation – imposed by members of societies if not necessarily rulers – sets Jews apart as worthy of scorn. Whether the animus is vomited forth from the mouths of people like Louis Farrakhan, Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens or any of a host of similar deriders of Jews, or from Islamists the world over, we remain subservient – in the sense of victims – of champions and espousers of faiths that followed (indeed borrowed copiously from) our own.

As galus goes, the current victimization of Jews pales beside the horrific things that our ancestors, distant and not-so-distant, endured. We must hope that that signifies a weakening of the domination, a lessening of our subordination to others… and the advent of what the navi Tzephania foresaw when he channeled Hashem saying “For then I will convert the peoples to a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of Hashem, to serve him with a unified effort” (3:9).

© 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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One person who has successfully gotten aid to civilians has been rewarded with… death threats. Read why here.

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Even among the brave, though, one imagines that the possibility of dying, even if fully recognized and accepted, would cause anguish. And yet, what are described as being sources of anguish to a fighter, even one ready to give up his life, are the thoughts that someone else might assume his place in occupying his new home, in harvesting his new vineyard, in a new marriage.

That points to a fundamental, if illogical, part of human nature. Losing out on something feels bad, but losing out to someone else is worse. In fact, a low salary has been shown to be less stressful on its own than the knowledge that someone else with the same skills and job is making more money. And when the anguish of “losing out” to someone else is compounded with the idea that the other’s “win” happens even before one has had a chance to experience the fruits of his labor, as in the exempted soldiers’ cases, it is all the more intense.

The inclination to envy, born of the sense of self, comes easily to us. In fact, it is inherent to being human.

That a sense of self isn’t a sin is evident in a a Midrash brought by Rashi on the pasuk “uvicheit yechemasni imi” (Tehillim 51:7); Dovid Hamelech lamented the fact that when his parents conceived him, their intent was basically selfish (a thought reflected as well in his words ki avi vi’imi azovuni, Tehillim 27:10). And yet, Dovid’s father was Yishai, who we are told (Shabbos 55b) died sinless.

We are, of course, admonished to not feed feelings of jealousy (Devarim 5:18), to not allow them to bring us to covet what another person has. But the initial feeling of resentment is part and parcel of being a human being. It’s the dwelling on it, intensifying it, that is wrong.

Its appearance, however, should not make us feel despair, only human, and challenged to resist it.

© 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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A piece on the site written by its media editor Max Tani disclosed that the Times had originally wanted to run images of Youssef Matar, a young child in Gaza with cerebral palsy, alongside its July 24 story that cited doctors in Gaza finding that “an increasing number of their patients are suffering and dying – from starvation.” While the child may, sadly, have been malnourished (ultimately, Hamas’ fault – and its intention, since Gazans’ suffering does wonders for its p.r.), his shocking physical state was mainly due to the ravages of his disease.

Responsibly, though, the report notes, the Times’ topmost editors wanted to err on the side of caution. According to communications viewed by Semafor, they worried that running the photos might call into question the paper’s reporting (smart guys!). Especially since the article claimed that many of the children suffering from hunger had been healthy kids, without preexisting diseases.

According to internal messages obtained by Semafor, the paper’s managing editor Marc Lacey expressed his concern. “Do we want to use a photo,” he asked “that will be the subject of debate when there is presumably no shortage of images of children who were not malnourished before the war and currently are?”

Sagely, executive editor Joe Kahn agreed, writing that “The story isn’t framed around people with special needs and the lead art[icle] really should not do that, either.”

And so they wisely opted not to publish Youssef’s photos. Instead, they ran, as noted last week in this space, those of Mohammed Zakaria al-Mutawaq, an 18-month-old child in Gaza, whose tiny, emaciated body was the perfect accompaniment to the news story. At least, that’s what the editors thought.

Problem was, of course, that Mohammed was also suffering from serious diseases, cerebral palsy and a suspected genetic disorder, a fact that, when publicized and called to the Times’s attention, was shared in an “Editor’s Note” (posted to the original story, not on the paper’s main social media account) four days after the article appeared and the photo of the “born healthy” child had been widely and irresponsibly republished by other media.

So, let’s recap, just to be clear: The head honchos at the “paper of record” recognized how journalistically irresponsible it would have been to accompany an article saying that healthy Gazan children were being reduced to skeletal shadows of their former selves with a photo of a child with a serious medical condition, the main cause of his sad state. And then went ahead and did precisely that, choosing a different child with a serious medical condition.

As the saying goes, you can’t make this stuff up.

If Mr. Lacey, as quoted above, is correct in his contention that “there is presumably no shortage of images of children who were not malnourished before the war and currently are,” it’s odd that no other clearly malnourished, wasting away young people have had their photographs plastered on his paper’s front page. Could it be that there may indeed be such a shortage?

I don’t know. There is certainly great need in Gaza, and Israel and the U.S. are taking serious steps to ensure that aid to residents isn’t intercepted by Hamas and criminal gangs.

What I do know is that there was a strong desire on 8th Avenue to publish some photo of an ostensibly starving child. So strong that the Old Gray Lady tripped on her skirt and fell face-first into an omelet.

As Semafor reported further, “One thing that pro-Israel critics of the Times and some staff at the paper agree on is that there is a large contingent of staff at the paper who are opposed to the war in Gaza, and blame Israel for the crisis.”

It would seem that, at least on the West Side of Manhattan, objectivity, like irony, is dead.

© 2025 Ami Magazine

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One understanding of that commandment is provided by Abaye in the Talmud (Yoma 86a): “That [one should cause] the name of Heaven to be beloved [by others] through you.”

He explains that if one conducts himself properly, studying Torah, serving scholars and conducting business with honesty, people will say “Fortunate is his father who taught him Torah, fortunate is his teacher who taught him Torah” – thereby engendering observers’ love for Hashem.

The Rambam (Yesodei HaTorah 5:11) echoes that statement, adding the importance of taking care to not “separate [oneself] too far [from normal life]”.

Causing others to love Hashem is arguably easier today than ever. Since society is so often crass and rude, even conducting oneself in a normal, reasonable way does not go unnoticed. A “please” or “thank you” or “good morning,” not to mention a smile, stands out. And if offered by an identifiable Jew, can create love for Hashem.

Another approach to the mitzvah of loving Hashem is recorded in the name of Rav Akiva Eger, based on the fact that emotions can be cultivated and harnessed.

A key to observing the “love Hashem” commandment, he suggests, is provided each day just before we recite the Shma, which introduces it. The final brachah before krias Shma in the morning ends with “Who chooses His nation Yisrael with love”; and the one before the evening recitation, with “the One who loves His nation Yisrael.”

In other words, recognizing Hashem’s love for us yields reciprocal love for Him.

As Shlomo Hamelech teaches in Mishlei (27: 19), Kamayim hapanim lapanim… – “As water reflects a face back to a face, so is one’s heart reflected back to him by another.”

What is true in human relationships is equally true in our relationship with our Creator.

© 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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I am a Zionist. I am not a Zionist.

Both statements are true, because the word, something of a war cry these days, has lost its meaning. Or, better, has multiple meanings. And it’s worth the while of anyone who cares about the Middle East, antisemitism or religion to tease out the details of the multiplicity.

As a haredi, or “ultra-Orthodox” (we dislike that pejorative), Jew, I do not subscribe to the foundational principle of the movement created by Theodor Herzl in the late nineteenth century that resulted in the establishment of the state of Israel.

Before Israel’s founding, in 1948, the religious leaders to whom most haredim like me looked for guidance opposed the establishment of a political state for Jews, even one self-defined as “Jewish.”

Theologically, they insisted, the return of Jews en masse to the Holy Land needed to await the arrival of the messiah predicted by the Jewish prophets of old (Herzl, an avowed secularist, didn’t quite fit the bill). And from a practical standpoint, they feared that a “Jewish state” would only serve to spur the hatred of Jews that forever lurks and seeks some excuse to express itself, often with violence.

So, as a Jew who believes that the Jewish religion, not any political state, is the essential expression of Judaism, I’m not a Zionist, at least not if one defines the word in its historical sense, as a believer in the Herzlian Zionist program.

At the same time, just as the religious leaders who did not back the creation of Israel in the end accepted the state once it became a fait accompli, and urged their followers in the Holy Land to participate in the country’s civil and political processes, I feel a connection with Israel and a deep concern for the welfare and safety of its citizens, many of whom are my friends or (closer or more distant) relatives.

So I am a Zionist, at least if one defines the word as a “accepter and supporter of Israel.”

There is, though, a third definition of Zionist, a new one, this one a slur, intended to refer to anyone who supports Israel’s current war against her enemies.

How Israel is waging that war is rightly open to criticism, but it is subject, too, to reasoned defense. When  “Zionist!” is angrily shouted at those who seek to offer the latter, the word is used to portray defenders of Israel as moral monsters – for the slurred’s conviction that Hamas and other terrorist entities need to be destroyed, the Israeli government’s goal.

When that government’s goal is characterized, instead, as genocide, the accusers have gone from righterous protesters to ignorant haters. And when they vent their animus by intimidating random Jews or attacking them or their synagogues or institutions, they expose themselves as nothing short of old-fashioned antisemites hiding behind kaffiyehs.

It is unfortunate – no, tragic – that a terrible toll on civilians is so often taken in the prosecution of justifiable, even necessary, wars. And eradicating the engines of terrorism in Gaza necessitates attacking the places from which they operate (including, sadly, hospitals and mosques).

But, in the end, whatever one may think of Israel’s actions, if words are to have meanings, “Zionist” can only mean either a subscriber to Herzl’s vision or a rejector of the same  who nevertheless supports the security of Israel’s citizens. When the word  is twisted to mean murderers, the twisters reveal nothing about Israel, and much about themselves,

(c) 2025 WSJ

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In his lengthy lamentation about Israel’s ostensible descent into genocide, Omer Bartov somehow overlooks a most germane distinction between Israel’s war to vanquish an enemy bent on its destruction and murderous campaigns like those that took place in Bosnia, Darfur, Armenia, Rwanda and Cambodia — and certainly the one carried out by Nazi Germany.

How Israel is waging its war against an enemy that has loudly declared its genocidal intentions is rightly open to criticism, and subject, too, to a reasoned defense. But it is a strange sort of “genocide” that can end immediately with the rulers of the attacked region simply laying down their arms, releasing those they kidnapped who are still alive and leaving the scene.

(Rabbi) Avi Shafran

Staten Island

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Her score on that count is the subject of my most recent Ami column, which you can read here.

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Even then, though, after being reminded of the halacha, Moshe demurs, telling Pinchas that “the reader of the letter should be its contents’ executor.”

It is an interesting aphorism, but was there any compelling reason why Moshe didn’t rise to the task of dispatching Zimri and Kozbi himself? It is hard to imagine the ultimate defender of Torah and Klal Yisrael not wishing to himself undertake what needed to be done to defend the Torah and protect his people. After all, the immediately preceding psukim have him punishing those who engaged in worship of Baal Pe’or.

Rav Shlomo Ganzfried, the author of the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, in his sefer Aperion, suggests a reason, beyond the upshot of the aphorism, for Moshe’s hesitancy.

He points out that Zimri had challenged Moshe, asking if Cozbi was forbidden to him. “And if you say that she is forbidden, what about the daughter of Yitro to whom you are married? Who permitted her to you?” (ibid).

Moshe feared, Rav Ganzfried suggests, that if he were the one to dispatch the sinners, it might be seen as the settling of a personal score, not the heeding of a Torah law. It might be perceived not as an act of kana’us but rather of negi’us.

It occurs to me that Moshe may not so much have been concerned with what others might think but rather demurred and invoked the aphorism of the letter-reader because of the singular nature of kana’im pog’im bo.

Normally, a violator of the law must appear in court and his case properly adjudicated. Kana’im pog’im bo is an exception to that. Thus, the executor of the punishment is acting in a way like a judge. Halacha disallows a judge from adjudicating a case if he has any relationship of pre-existing bias for or against a litigant. So Moshe may have felt he could not halachically assume the role of a kana’i here. As to who could, well, he said to Pinchas, “You read the letter.”

© 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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That’s what Chazal point to with regard to how a pikei’ach (perceptive person) like Korach could undertake a shtus, a “stupidity” like fomenting a rebellion against Moshe Rabbeinu.

The words of the Midrash, brought by Rashi (Bamidbar 16:7), are: “His eye misled him. He saw [in a prophecy] that Shmuel would be one of his descendants” and assumed that he, Korach, was thereby licensed to foment a rebellion.

Why his “eye,” in the singular?

The fact that we have a pair of eyes allows, of course, for a special sort of vision, stereopsis, which gives us the ability to perceive depth and three-dimensional structures by combining the slightly different images received by each eye. That facilitates our ability to judge the relative distance of objects and perceive depth.

Korach was focused on only one aspect, his genealogical legacy, his future descendant Shmuel. He didn’t employ the full complement of vision, and remained blind to the larger issue of what he was actually about to do – foster a schismatic rebellion against Hashem’s chosen messenger. He saw a picture, yes, just not the big picture.

Chazal famously teach that “falsehood has no feet” – that the word sheker teeters on the single “foot” of the letter kuf – while truth is stable, as each letter of the word emes is firmly grounded (Shabbos 104a).

But that same Gemara also notes that the letters of sheker are adjacent to one another in the alphabet, while those of emes span the entire aleph-beis. That fact, Chazal say, teaches us that falsehood is easily found, but truth, only with great difficulty.

I understand that to mean that one can be misled by focusing on only one aspect of something. Perceiving the truth, by contrast, requires spanning the entirety of what is seen, the “big picture,” complete with stereopsis. It’s a lesson much needed in our polarized, black-and-white, one-dimensional times.

© 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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That’s what Chazal point to with regard to how a pikei’ach (perceptive person) like Korach could undertake a shtus, a “stupidity” like fomenting a rebellion against Moshe Rabbeinu.

The words of the Midrash, brought by Rashi (Bamidbar 16:7), are: “His eye misled him. He saw [in a prophecy] that Shmuel would be one of his descendants” and assumed that he, Korach, was thereby licensed to foment a rebellion.

Why his “eye,” in the singular?

The fact that we have a pair of eyes allows, of course, for a special sort of vision, stereopsis, which gives us the ability to perceive depth and three-dimensional structures by combining the slightly different images received by each eye. That facilitates our ability to judge the relative distance of objects and perceive depth.

Korach was focused on only one aspect, his genealogical legacy, his future descendant Shmuel. He didn’t employ the full complement of vision, and remained blind to the larger issue of what he was actually about to do – foster a schismatic rebellion against Hashem’s chosen messenger. He saw a picture, yes, just not the big picture.

Chazal famously teach that “falsehood has no feet” – that the word sheker teeters on the single “foot” of the letter kuf – while truth is stable, as each letter of the word emes is firmly grounded (Shabbos 104a).

But that same Gemara also notes that the letters of sheker are adjacent to one another in the alphabet, while those of emes span the entire aleph-beis. That fact, Chazal say, teaches us that falsehood is easily found, but truth, only with great difficulty.

I understand that to mean that one can be misled by focusing on only one aspect of something. Perceiving the truth, by contrast, requires spanning the entirety of what is seen, the “big picture,” complete with stereopsis. It’s a lesson much needed in our polarized, black-and-white, one-dimensional times.

© 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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Yes, and in math class, an equation has a “Final Solution.”

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What has always occurred to me about their use of that word is that a daily factor in the lives of Klal Yisrael in the desert was a “bread” of sorts: the mon. It is called bread in several places, including Shemos 16:4 and Tehillim 78:25.

The mon, of course, was an unprecedented and undeniable miracle, a heavenly intervention that nourished Klal Yisrael. So perhaps the metaphor was meant to reassure the people that, despite the fears expressed by the meraglim about the fearsome occupants of the land, the conquest would proceed apace, just as miraculously as the food that had fallen each day to nourish them.

It’s a truistic idea but one worth focusing on these days: Wars are fought with manpower and weapons, but are won only with the help of Hashem.

The Chasam Sofer, I discovered, also saw the mon as the metaphor’s reference, and he expounds on it more deeply (echoing the Ohr Hachaim). The produce of the Holy Land, he explains, contains not only a physicality but also a special spiritual element. Ahead of the invasion of Can’an, that element was divinely withdrawn from the land’s produce and transformed into the mon. It was that embodiment of holiness that sustained Klal Yisrael over all the desert years.

And its removal from Cna’an’s produce left only the raw physicality of the land’s produce — mere “bread,” devoid of its erstwhile holiness — for the Cna’anim. And that, in turn, left them entirely vulnerable to being vanquished.

May we merit that all who threaten Klal Yisrael meet the same defeat.

© 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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But it’s smooth sailing if you’re an anti-Jewish terrorist entity like Hamas, which, without official fundraisers, receives largesse from a number of eager sources. 

There’s Iran, of course. Any cause holding the promise of dead Jews is a shoo-in for the mullahs. And they go the extra mile, offering would-be killers not only cash (according to the State Department, up to $100 million annually to Hamas and other assorted such gangs) but also weapons and training.

Then there is Qatar, which has covered salaries of government (i.e. Hamas) employees in Gaza. And there’s no lack of private groups and individuals in places like Algeria, Sudan, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates who are more than happy to aid evildoers. And don’t forget the lucrative smuggling of weapons, chemicals and electronics. And income from sham “humanitarian” charities in Western countries.

Like the U.K., at least according to a recent investigation by Israel’s Channel 12. The Brits? Who knew? Not many, it seems, at least until now.

Hamas is banned in the U.K. as the terrorist organization it is. And no one is accusing the country’s government or official entities of intentionally funding it. The problem is that it may be enabling aid to Hamas, by supporting efforts with nefarious connections. By taking, in other words, the famed road of good intentions to an unexpected but not uncommon terminus.

The U.K. and, to be fair, Canada and the European Union, as well as Switzerland, Norway, Sweden and others, have sponsored a project of UNICEF, the U.N. Children’s Emergency Fund, whose beneficiaries are designated by a Hamas-run office, the Ministry of Social Development (MSD).

The program provides monthly cash payments to 546,000 Gazans the MSD deems needy.

The MSD’s head is Ghazi Hamad, a member of Hamas’ politburo. The U.S. Treasury Department identifies him as a “senior Hamas official.”

NGO Monitor, a group that investigates non-governmental organizations, found a document from back in 2022 that shows how the U.K. Foreign Office was aware even then of the involvement of Hamas, “a proscribed group,” with the program. The office was concerned about “severe reputational damage” that revelation of the connection might cause Britain.

All respect is due to traditional British fussiness about appearances, but blimey, there’s a rather larger issue here, namely handing funds over to a member of a terrorist movement and allowing him to disburse them as he sees fit. 

And the U.N. agency “is just the tip of the iceberg,” according to NGO Monitor’s legal advisor, Anne Herzberg, “because 13 U.N. agencies are operating in Gaza. There is very little information into how these other U.N. agencies are operating.” 

What’s more, there are also Hamas operatives active in the U.K., including Zaker Birawi, a head of the Palestinian Return Center, who has helped organize weekly anti-Israel protests in London. A former member of the Hamas politburo, Issam Yusef Mustafa, a U.K. citizen, is the biggest fundraiser for Hamas in Europe.

In response to a query from Jewish Insider, the British Embassy in Israel insisted that “Hamas is a proscribed terrorist organization in the U.K., and funding or supporting it is a crime.” The embassy, moreover, “categorically reject[s] the false and irresponsible allegations in the Channel 12 investigation,” and maintains that “No U.K. funding was provided to the Ministry of Social Development in Gaza.”

That, though, wasn’t the investigators’ allegation. It was that UNICEF funds the MSD, with cash provided by the U.K. It’s the old “I didn’t give the killer a gun, I just left it on his nighttable” excuse.

The U.K. claims that its Foreign Office monitors where funds provided to UNICEF  end up. But allowing a Hamas honcho to be a conduit doesn’t inspire confidence in the effectiveness of that supposed oversight.

Recently, the U.K., along with France and Canada, threatened Israel with “concrete actions” if it does not lift restrictions on humanitarian aid and work with United Nations agencies. 

Humanitarians, heal thyselves.

(c) 2025 Ami Magazine

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Mishpacha Magazine asked me to contribute, as part of a symposium, a short essay on the topic of a lesson I would want my children to internalize. The symposium was recently published, and my contribution is below.

(As it happens, although the below was written months before then end of my 31-year tenure as Agudath Israel’s director of public affairs, it turns out to be a most timely idea for me.)

A lesson that has become concretized in my life, and that I have sought to impart to my children (and to anyone else who will listen – the progeny are a captive audience) is what Rabi Akiva famously said when he found himself sleeping in the wild, with the candle he had lit blown out by the wind, his rooster alarm clock devoured by a cat and his donkey killed by a lion (Berachos 60b).

Namely, “All that the Merciful One does is for the good” – an attitude that reflected the motto of his teacher, Nachum Ish Gamzu,  “This, too, is for the good.” 

And when Rabi Akiva repeats that sentiment as well to the people of the nearby town as they, unlike him, were marched into captivity, he is reminding them of the same, even as they are experiencing great adversity. We may not see the good in what happens to us right away – or ever – but it is still for the good.

There’s nothing wrong with wishing for peace and calm and stability. But when adversity arrives, we can either kick and scream (to no avail) or seek to accept and come to terms with the challenge.

What began to teach me that lesson (though it took long to absorb it) was the knowledge that my father, a”h, as a teenager, was banished with other members of his Novardhok yeshiva by the Soviets to Siberia. Those boys could easily have felt hopeless. Yet they grew in unimaginable ways during their Siberian ordeal.  And survived the war to marry and raise families. Families that raised families of their own…

And in my own life, although I never faced anything like Siberian exile, I saw how “bad” things could be good things well-disguised. Our family moved to new cities twice and each exodus was from a wonderful place, leaving me devastated to be leaving. In each case, the new city loomed depressingly.

And yet, each move turned out to be a great brachah. As did an unexpected seeming professional downturn, which I deeply bemoaned at the time but that I have come to see as a true blessing well-camouflaged.

The life lesson of understanding how good can lie beneath what seems its opposite is even reflected in halacha:  “Just as one offers a blessing over good,” Chazal teach and the Shulchan Aruch codifies, “so does one offer a blessing over bad.”

I still need to fully internalize that truth; it’s one that needs constant chazarah. But I have experience born of having seen it realized. And I hope that my and my wife’s children will come to appreciate it as well.

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Betcha can’t guess the identity of the invaders. well, you can find out at here.

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To read about the issue, please click here.

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The Midrash speaks about the end of history and quotes Ovadiah (1:18): “And the house of Yaakov will be fire and the house of Yosef flame; and the house of Esav, straw. And they will light them aflame and devour them. And there will remain nothing of the  house of Esav…”

Rav Kornitzer quotes its continuation: “And where did Moshe say this? [In the words] ‘it is the olah on its mokeid throughout the night until the morning… And the kohein will lift up the deshen [ashes ]… and place it next to the mizbei’ach’ ” (Vayikra 6, 2-3). A puzzling citation.

To explain it, he quotes his forebear the Chasam Sofer as casting the kohein’s lifting of the terumas hadeshen as the need for the kohein to not avert his eyes from the “lowly of worth.” He has a responsibility to lift them up and bring them to a holier place. 

Rav Kornitzer asserts that the kohein’s responsibility is paralleled in our own vis-à-vis the rest of humanity – that we are in galus (the “night”) to spread knowledge of the Torah and to, by our dedication to Torah, attract those among other peoples, the “deshen”, to join us. That, he contends, is what will bring about the fulfillment of Ovadiah’s prophecy, the destruction of evil.

He then quotes another Midrash: “Rabi Yosi ben Kisma’s students asked him when Moshiach will come. He responded ‘This is the law of the olah’ ” (Vayikra 6:2).

Concludes Rav Kornitzer: “When the Jews fulfill their mission and ‘lift up the deshen’… Ben Dovid will arrive, may it be soon in our days.”

Sadly, the galus didn’t end in Rav Kornitzer’s days. May it end in ours.

© 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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The Baal HaTurim sees that as a hint to the Gemara’s contention that one should “tithe so that you will become wealthy” (Taanis, 9a), that giving charity will result in the giver’s benefit .

The Vilna Gaon discerned a somewhat different message in the palindrome, namely, that life plays havoc with fortunes, and therefore giving tzedakah to others will merit others’ supporting us or our descendants in our times of need. What goes around, in other words, comes around. 

He cites the Gemara in Shabbos 151b:

“Rabbi Ḥiyya said to his wife: When a poor person comes to the house, be quick to give him bread so that they will be quick to give bread to your children. She said to him: Are you cursing your children? 

He said to her: the yeshiva of Rabbi Yishmael taught that galgal hu shechozer ba’olam – it is a ‘cycle that repeats in the world’.”

In other words, wealth and destitution come and go, in individual lives and in family lines. Great fortunes are made and lost, and rags can lead to riches.

Media mogul and billionaire Oprah Winfrey was born into an impoverished family in Mississippi; she went to college on a scholarship.

Socialite Jocelyn Wildenstein, who inherited billions from her art dealer husband, died dependent on $900 Social Security payments.

And those people’s descendants might find themselves in entirely different statuses from their antecedents. Wealth recycles, something to remember when approached by a beggar. 

© 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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To read what evoked that thought, please click here.

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“Because,” he explains, “of the thing that [the Mitzriyim] plotted against them [i.e. Klal Yisrael]” (Shemos 18:11).

Rashi, in explanation, cites the Mechilta: “… the Mitzriyim thought to destroy Yisrael by water and they were themselves destroyed by water.” And he quotes Rabi Elazar (Sotah 11a), punning on the word “plotted,” which can also mean “cooked,” that “in the pot that they cooked up they ended up being cooked.”

What strikes me is that it is irony – here, that the means the Mitzriyim employed to kill Jews ended up as the agent of their own downfall – that moves Yisro to perceive the Divine hand.  

It is such a Purim thought. In Megillas Esther, too, although Hashem’s name is entirely absent, His hand is perceptible through the irony that saturates the story: Haman turns up at just the wrong place at just the wrong time, and ends up being tasked with arranging honors for his nemesis Mordechai. All the villain’s careful planning ends up upended, and he is hanged on the very gallows he prepared for Mordechai. Haman’s riches, according to the Book of Esther, were given to Mordechai. V’nahafoch hu, “and it was turned upside down.”

Amalek may fight with iron, but he is defeated with irony.

Shortly after Germany’s final defeat in WWII, an American army major, Henry Plitt accosted a short, bearded artist painting on an easel in an Austrian town and asked him his name. “Joseph Sailer,” came the reply.

Plitt later recounted: “I don’t know why I said [it, but] I said, ‘And what about Julius Streicher?’” – referring to the most vile and antisemitic of Nazi propagandists.

“Ya, der bin ich,” the man responded. “Yes, that is me.” And it was.

A reporter later told Major Plitt that, had only “a guy named Cohen or Goldberg or Levy… captured this arch-anti-Semite, what a great story it would be.”

Major Plitt, in fact, was Jewish.

Stars and Stripes in late 1945 reported that Streicher’s possessions were converted to cash and used to create an agricultural training school for Jews intending to settle in Eretz Yisrael. 

And when Streicher was hanged at Nuremberg in 1946, his final words, shouted just before the trap sprang open, were: “Purim Fest 1946!” – a rather odd thing to say on an October morning.

© 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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Rav Zevin compares the apparent question/answer disconnect here with what transpires in Ki Sisa, when Moshe asks Hashem to “Let me know Your ways” (33:13) and is responded to with “You will see My back but My front will be unseen” (33:23).

What gives?

In both cases, explains Rav Zevin, the response expresses the reality that we cannot perceive justice, or even any sort of sense, with our limited purview of history. We are like a person first seeing the “burial” of a wheat kernel and its decay in the ground without having ever seen the stalk of wheat that emerges as a result, and the loaf of bread to which it will eventually contribute.

Elokim – the midas hadin, strict justice, name of Hashem – tells Moshe to rest assured that the din he perceives is not detached from “I am Hashem” – the sheim havaya that implies rachamim, benevolence. The din is but a prelude to rachamim, and the redemption of the Jews is at hand.

And the ultimate redemption, too, as hard as it may be to spy, is forthcoming no less.

© 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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“A man went out from the house of Levi and took a daughter of Levi” (Shemos, 2:1). We know the references are to Amram and Yocheved, but their names are not provided.  Likewise with Moshe’s sister (2:4) whom we know to be Miriam but is unnamed. Same with Doson and Aviram, who are named in parshas Korach (Bamidbar 16) but not here in Shemos. And “the daughter of Par’oh,” we know, from Divrei Hayamim, was named Bisya. But in our parsha she has no name .

And what names are introduced for other dramatis personae seem pedestrian in their meanings. See Rashi 1:15 on Shifra and Puah.

What occurs as a possible message in the abundance of namelessness is that even simple people, those who haven’t established any sort of “name” – fame or distinction – for themselves, are capable of accomplishing great things; of, by their choices and actions, “making a name” for themselves. Every Tom, Debby and Harriet, in other words, can play a role as pivotal as those played by Amram, Miriam and Bisya. What matters isn’t one’s credentials but, rather, one’s actions.

And the idea that we should not feel limited is something the Kotzker famously commented on with regard to the Midrash stating that Bas Par’oh’s hand, extended to baby Moshe, elongated to reach him. She apparently reached out for something that was well beyond her reach, which is why the miracle had to happen. And yet she reached out all the same.

When one is seeking to do good, she (or he) should not feel constrained by “reality,” be it physical distance or any lack of credentials.

© 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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And, at least in one recent case, counterproductive.

To read about it, click here.

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It’s also misguided to be resentful.

Yosef reassures his brothers that he harbors no ill will for their having plotted against him. “Although you intended me harm, Elokim intended it for good” (Beraishis 50:20), he tells his siblings, echoing his earlier words “It wasn’t you who sent me here, but rather Elokim (ibid 45:8). 

Those statements, Rav Yeruchom Levovitz, the famed Mir mashgiach, explained, were not mere polite, comforting words of forgiveness. They meant precisely what they say: that Hashem was ultimately the reason for his having been mistreated and sold into servitude. [Note the use of “Elokim” in both psukim, indicating din, pure justice]. It was part of a plan.

In his Daas Torah, Rav Yeruchom writes that Yosef was telling his brothers that they really had nothing to do with his life’s trajectory, that they had essentially been mere tools that were used in order to bring him to who he had become, the viceroy of Mitzrayim. 

And so, Rav Levovitz  continues, every person who feels wronged by another should not automatically be angry at his oppressor, since he is where Hashem wants him to be. Would anyone, the mashgiach asks, think to rail against a stone that fell on him? The oppressor is but a stone, the means by which Hashem’s plan for the injured person is furthered.

It’s an attitude vital for living a Torah-informed life. 

“Take this rule,” says Rav Yeruchom, “firmly in hand.”

© 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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The kidnapping and gagging of a professor?  An administrator’s cancellation of the professor’s class? . A warning that he’d be fired unless he taught a certain point of view? Three strikes, you’re out.

To see the answer, click here.

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Some commentaries understand that as indicating that the Egyptians protected livestock and shunned the consumption of meat. Ibn Ezra writes that the Egyptians were “like the people of India today, who don’t consume anything that comes from a sensile animal.”

Pardes Yosef (Rabbi Yosef Patzanovski) references the Ibn Ezra and explains that the ancient Egyptians considered the slaughter of an animal to be equivalent to the murder of a human being.

Although far distant in both time and place from ancient Egypt and India, some people in the Western Hemisphere today have come to embrace the notion that the sentience of animals renders them essentially no different from humans.

To be sure, seeking to prevent needless pain to non-human creatures is entirely in keeping with the Jewish mesorah, the source of enlightened society’s moral code. But those activists’ convictions go far beyond protecting animals from pain; they seek to muddle the fundamental distinction between the animal world and the human. A distinction that is all too important in our day, for instance, when it comes to issues pertinent to the beginning or end of life, or moral behavior. 

A book that focuses on “the exploitation and slaughter of animals” compares animal farming to Nazi concentration camps. Its obscene title: “Eternal Treblinka.” Similarly obscene was the lament by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals founder Ingrid Newkirk that “Six million Jews died in concentration camps, but six billion broiler chickens will die this year in slaughterhouses.”

But even average citizens today can slip onto the human-animal equivalency slope. American households with pets spend more than $60 billion on their care each year. People give dogs birthday presents and have their portraits taken. Such things might seem benign but, according to one study, many Americans grow more concerned when they see a dog in pain than when they see an adult human suffering.

We who have been gifted with the Torah, as well as all people who are the product of societies influenced by Torah truths, consider the difference between animals and human beings to be sacrosanct. 

It is incumbent on us to try to keep larger society from blurring that distinction.

© 2024 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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You can read what I mean here:

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But they’re there, and, in a way, more threatening. You can read about some of them here.

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“Why,” he asked, “was it that Esther ruled over one hundred and twenty-seven provinces? Because Esther, who was the descendant of Sarah, who lived one hundred and twenty-seven years, would rule over one hundred and twenty-seven provinces.”

Many explanations of that strange juxtaposition have been offered. What occurs to me is that almost all that we know about Sarah is that she caused Hagar to flee from Avraham and Sarah’s home and then, after the maidservant’s return,  banished her and her son Yishmael because of the latter’s sinful actions (see Rashi ibid 21:9). Yishmael’s character and tendencies, she feared, might come to influence Sarah’s own child, Yitzchak.

Esther spent most of her life in a foreign environment, as queen of ancient Persia (and its 127 provinces). But she maintained her connection throughout with her cousin Mordechai and their faith. She was impervious to the influence of her surroundings.

Perhaps that was what Rabi Akiva’s confounding comparison was meant to convey: that Sarah’s alacrity and vigilance regarding Yitzchak provided her descendant Esther the ability to withstand the influence of her environment.

And it may be that Rabi Akiva’s use of that thought as a literal “wake-up” call to the students was itself part of the lesson, namely that one has to be, as Sarah was, wide awake and fully aware of one’s surroundings, lest their undesirable elements infiltrate his life, or that of those for whom he is responsible.

© 2024 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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Whatever the builders’ aim was, though, it was a development that, as the Torah recounts, merited divine interference. But the words introducing the endeavor are strange. The would-be builders said to one another:

“‘Come, let us mold bricks and bake them well.’ They then had the bricks to use as stone, and the clay for mortar” (Beraishis, 11:3).” What is the significance of their mode of construction?

In 1927, Tomáš Masaryk, then-president of then-Czechoslovakia and a leader friendly to Jews, visited the Yishuv in Eretz Yisrael and was received by its leader, Rav Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld. 

According to the book about Rav Sonnenfeld, Ha’ish al Hachomah, one of the things he discussed with the European leader was the danger posed by technological advances. And he pointed to the pasuk above as an example of how such progress is often born of a misguided attempt to deny the ultimate importance of Hashem. The Bavel builders, he explained, shunned the natural stone available to them, opting instead for their advanced “brick technology.” In so doing, they were declaring their “independence” from the divine.

I’m reminded of the story of the group of scientists who inform Hashem that His services are no longer needed, that their knowledge of the universe now allows them to run it just fine themselves, thank You.

“Can you create life like I did?” the Creator asks. “No problem,” they reply as they confidently gather some dirt and fiddle with the settings on their shiny biologocyclotron.

“Excuse Me,” interrupts the heavenly voice. “Get your own dirt.”

Or, as Carl Sagan said, “If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”

© 2024 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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Rashi and others suggest that the use of Yehoshua’s original name alludes to the fact that, even as he was about to become the leader of Klal Yisrael, Yehoshua’s original name is used to show that he maintained the humility that had always been part of his character. 

A twist on that observation is suggested by Meshulam Fayish Tzvi Gross (who had a weekly chavrusa in Kabbalah with Rav Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn; and who, as Herman Gross, patented several inventions).

In his sefer Nachalas Tzvi, Rabbi Gross calls attention to the differential of circumstances between when Moshe changed Yehoshua’s name and when, in our parshah, the latter’s original name is employed.

When Hoshea bin Nun was faced with the need to stand up to the other scouts of Eretz Cna’an, to have the independence, clearheadedness and courage necessary to state the facts about the land, Then, Moshe was telling Hoshea, who was exceedingly humble (as Sifri in Shelach notes),  to recognize his greatness, his ability to oppose the other meraglim’s report, to not succumb to peer pressure, to have full confidence in himself.

Moshe expressed his hope that Hashem would aid him in that. And so he added a hint to Hashem’s name to Hoshea’s – saying, “May Hashem save you from the intrigue of the scouts” (Sotah 34b).

Now, though, as Moshe is preparing Yehoshua to lead the people into Eretz Yisrael, posits Rabbi Gross, the Torah uses Yehoshua’s original name pointedly, as a message to him – that the independence and bravado that were necessary back when the land was being scouted are not longer needed for – in fact, in a sense diametric to – the assumption of leadership.

A true leader needs what was Yehoshua’s essence: humility. 

It’s a lesson that most contemporary leaders seem ignorant of, and would do well to absorb.

© 2024 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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But human consumption of food is qualitatively different from animals’ feeding. That is the essence of the words “[Hashem] subjected you to the hardship of hunger and then gave you mon to eat, which neither you nor your ancestors had ever known, in order to teach you that a human being does not live on bread alone, but that one must live on all the words of Hashem.”

That pasuk is often understood as meaning simply that our lives are made meaningful by following Hashem’s words. But its deeper meaning is something else: While we may think that our souls are nourished by the vitamins, minerals, proteins and fats in what we eat, the Torah is telling us that our true life nourishment comes from something ethereal, holy, that permeates our food, something instilled there by Hashem’s  will. That was the lesson of the mon, that our lives’ engines and their fuel are not ultimately physical. It’s a concept philosophers call vitalism. 

And the wordings of our birchos hanehenim hint at that fact : Shehakol nih’yeh bid’varo, borei pri ha’etz, hamotzi [by His decree] lechem. We don’t just say thank You for what we are about to eat but express the fact that the food is caused by, and imbued with, something divine, and that it is really that invisible element that provides us human life.

R’ Chaim Vital quotes the Arizal as saying that the highest spiritual level is accessible by concentrating on our brachos, because they are not mere expressions of gratitude but, rather, means of sublimating and refining the base element inherent in the physical stuff we are eating. “And he [the Arizal],” R’ Vital writes, “impressed the importance of that upon me greatly.”

Those of us who have been saying brachos from childhood too easily fall into reciting them by rote, often mumbling them without thinking much, if at all, about their words’ meanings. 

We do well to watch and listen to the newly observant when they make brachos, and strive to emulate their concentration on what they are saying.

© 2024 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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Emphasis is on the word “some.”

To read about some other, more perceptive, indigenous people, please click here.

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Who knew?

To read why I wax somewhat cynical regarding that revelation, click here.

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Like the saga of the ma’apilim, the “insisters,” those Jews in the desert who repented of having spoken negatively of Eretz Yisrael and insisted, even against Moshe’s warning, on short-circuiting (pun intended) the prescribed years of desert wandering and “going up” into the Holy Land immediately.

Some, like the Munkatcher Rebbe Rabbi Chaim Elazar Spira, a fierce opponent of nascent religious Zionism during the early 1900s, saw in the ma’apilim a precursor of “those sects that went up to Eretz Yisrael by force to establish colonies and wage war against the nations.”

Rav Tzadok HaCohein, who died in 1900, had a very different approach. He wrote that the ma’apilim felt that, despite the warning against going directly into the land, it was a case of “Whatever the host tells you to do, heed him, except when he says ‘leave’” [Pesachim 86b].

Although the provenance of that text’s final phrase – “except when he he says ‘leave’” – is questioned by some commentaries, the idea Rav Tzadok means to convey is that the ma’apilim felt justified in disobeying the Divine order, that their plan was in fact ultimately consonant with the Divine will. 

But, while they had a point, Rav Tzakok continues, it was not the right time for such brash action. Noting the first word in Moshe’s admonition that “it [the plan] will not succeed,” Rav Tzadok writes: The word ‘it’ is often interpreted by Chazal to mean ‘it, but not another,’ [here] implying that at another time [in history] ‘it will succeed’.”

And, he concludes, “that is our time, the era leading to Mashiach.”

That era has proven prolonged. And the state of Israel is a reality. The question of whether its establishment was a wise endeavor or a dangerous one is moot today. We can only hope that the redemption Rav Tzadok saw implied by the pasuk – even if it didn’t take place in the 1900s – will happen soon, speedily, in our days.

© 2014 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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Well, of course he followed Divine orders carefully, puzzle many commentators. What is the significance of stating the obvious fact? 

An interesting approach is offered by the Chasam Sofer. The Talmud, he points out, describes the daily schedule of service in the Mishkan and Beis HaMikdash and notes, inter alia, two things: that the menorah-lighting takes place simultaneously with the burning of the afternoon incense on the mizbei’ach haketores (Yoma 15a); and that the cohein bringing the ketores would become wealthy as a result of performing that service (Yoma 26a). 

Thus, suggests the Chasam Sofer, Aharon’s “not changing” means that he never took a day off from the menorah-lighting, which he could have allowed someone else to do, to take advantage of the wealth-producing ketores-offering. In other words, he shunned material gain that was available to him.

A simpler approach is taken by R’ Simcha Bunim of Peshischa, who interprets Rashi’s comment as “And Aharon didn’t change himself.”

“Power tends to corrupt,” British historian Lord Acton famously wrote in 1887. That adage – as true about fame and privilege as it is about power – has been borne out by countless examples since and presently.  

Aharon, however, despite the new exalted status he had received, born of the special mitzvah entrusted to him, remained… Aharon.

© 2024 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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The inclusion of even infants in the Levi’im count is particularly striking, considering that the role of those counted is “mishmeres mishkan ha’eidus” – the guarding, or protection, of the sanctuary. A baby can’t protect anyone; he himself needs protection.

The most compelling explanation, offered by, among others, the Avnei Azel (Alexander Zushia Friedman, the author of the Ma’ayana Shel Torah compendium), is that the guarding here is not born of physical strength. The very existence of viable Levi’im is itself what offers protection. The security is sourced in the spiritual.

In Rabbi Friedman’s (loosely translated) words: “It is a common mistake that some make by assuming that the interests of the Jewish nation can be protected through martial and political means. Only the holiness and spiritual power of the guardians can actually offer protection… ‘If Hashem will not guard the city, for nought does the guard stand vigil’ (Tehillim 127:1)”

Rav Aharon Feldman, shlit”a, the Rosh Hayeshiva of Yeshivas Ner Yisrael in Baltimore, recently penned a heartfelt, elegiac essay about the security failures that allowed the tragedy of October 7 to happen, and how the future fate of the Jewish people in Eretz Yisrael (and everywhere) is dependent on the nation’s embracing its role as Hashem’s chosen people. 

Based on the warnings and lamentations of the nevi’im, Rav Feldman  imagines Hashem saying: “I… decided to wake you up with a powerful shock. I wanted you to realize that hitherto you were successful in your wars and in building up My land, not because of your cleverness or your army, but because I watched over you and granted you success. I wanted you to see that when I removed my support for you for a moment, your cleverness disappeared and your army fell to pieces.”

The essay shocked some in its straightforwardness. Stark truths are often shocking. But the Rosh Yeshiva’s rumination should not have surprised anyone. It was only the echo of Dovid Hamelech’s declaration above, and of the implication of the fact that even a baby among the Levi’im can be a conduit of Divine protection.

© 2024 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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My thoughts are here.

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What chills those cockles, though, is that we’ve seen this play before. In 2005, 21 Israeli settlements in Gaza were unilaterally dismantled and the strip was rendered Judenrein. With the Gazan populace’s approval, Hamas quickly took charge and, well, the rest is tragic history. 

Today, six months since the merchants of murder demonstrated the depth of their hatred and barbarism, Gaza’s infrastructure has been destroyed. Hospitals (aka military arsenals), schools (aka missile bases) and countless homes (some of which were just homes). Roads, sewage systems and the electrical grid – are in ruins. 

Whether the unprecedented death, destruction and displacement Hamas has brought upon Gazan civilians has convinced them that supporting evil doesn’t pay can’t be known at this time.

But, embracing hope, the U.S. has called for a revitalized Palestinian Authority to administer postwar Gaza ahead of eventual statehood.

The P.A.? Please.

In Mahmoud Abbas’ kingdom of corruption in Yehudah and Shomron, government jobs  are doled out to supporters; international aid enriches officials; basic services are spotty; elections haven’t been held for nearly twenty years. 

Mr. Abbas, of course, was elated by the U.S. endorsement of even a “reconstituted” Palestinian Authority. And, in March, he announced the formation of a new cabinet, to demonstrate his readiness to step up to the reconstruction plate.  

Tapped for prime minister is Mohammad Mustafa, a longtime Abbas adviser. He pledged to form a technocratic government and create an independent trust fund to help rebuild Gaza. 

The U.S. National Security Council welcomed the development, contending that “a reformed Palestinian Authority is essential to delivering results for the Palestinian people and establishing the conditions for stability in both the West Bank and Gaza.”

The key word there is “reformed.”

The signs are hardly encouraging. According to Palestinian Media Watch, the new Palestinian Authority’s minister of women’s affairs, Muna Al-Khalili, offered praise in 2018, for Dalal Mughrabi at an event honoring the terrorist, who in 1978 led a group that hijacked a bus and murdered more than three dozen riders, including 12 children. “A quality resistance operation,” Al-Khalili gushed, proclaiming that the attack “proved that Palestinian women are capable of carrying out the most difficult missions.” The most heinous ones, at least.

And, mere weeks after the Shemini Atzeres massacre, Ms. Al-Khalili hailed the “right to resist the occupation” until Palestinians achieve “self-determination, freedom, independence in its sovereign state whose capital is Jerusalem…” 

An equally disturbing member of the “revitalized Palestinian Authority” is its minister of religious affairs, Muhammad Mustafa Najem. He has called Jews “apes and pigs” who are full of “conceit, pride, arrogance, rioting, disloyalty, and treachery.” He sermonized that Muslims should “afflict the Jews with the worst torment.”

No, neither the old P.A. nor its “new and improved” version – as a bard once put it, “meet the new boss, same as the old boss” – is a path forward for Gaza. Any respectable government there will have to be something truly novel, an administration whose focus is on the wellbeing of its citizens, not on murdering citizens of a neighbor.

Could that happen? 

The latest poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, on March 20, showed that Gazans’ support for continued Hamas control over the Gaza Strip showed a 14-point rise over the prior three months to more than 50%.

If that reflects Gazans’ true feelings, no sane, responsible government will emerge in the territory. The only grounds for hope are the many reports of Gazans who quietly admit that they hate Hamas but are afraid to speak up. 

Their fear is understandable. Hamas has warned Gazans that anyone seeking to undermine its administration of  the territory will be treated as a collaborator – which, of course, means execution. 

Are there enough Gazans who prefer peace to endless bloodshed and who will vote that preference in some future election? 

I’m not taking bets.

(c) 2024 Ami Magazine

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An “aptronym” is a person’s name that is amusingly appropriate — like that of the lawyer named Sue Yoo, or of BBC meteorologist Sara Blizzard.

I’ve got another one, at least for Hebrew speakers. To read what it is, click here.

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Kosher species require cud-chewing and split hooves, yet the camel, the text states, is forbidden “because it chews its cud, but does not have a [completely] split hoof”; and the pig, “because it has a cloven hoof that is completely split, but will not regurgitate its cud.” The “becauses” are seemingly misplaced, since the reason for the species’ forbiddance is for the lack of one kosher sign, not the presence of one.

Similar wording is used regarding the two other “one sign only” species mentioned, the hyrax and the hare.

The Kli Yakar perceives something poignant in the placement of the kosher signs after the “becauses.” He writes that “their pure sign adds extra impurity to their impurity, as we find that Chazal compared Esov to a pig that sticks out its hoofs when it lies down to make it appear as if it is kosher, but its inside is full of deceit. This represents anyone whose inside is not like his outside, in the manner of the hypocrites … Therefore, the pig’s split hoof is a sign of impurity because the split hoof can deceive people and make it appear as if it is kosher.”

The Chashmonai king Yannai, before he died, told his wife “Don’t be afraid of the Perushim [Torah-faithful Jews] or of those who are not Perushim, only of the hypocrites who present themselves as Perushim, for their actions are those of Zimri while they ask for reward like Pinchas received” (Sotah 22b).

Presenting oneself as a better version than that of one’s reality, Rav Yaakov Weinberg, zt”l, once told me, isn’t wrong – if one aspires to that better version. As the Chinuch put it, “what is on the outside can awaken the inside.” 

But pretension for the sake of pretension is being, well, piggish. 

© 2024 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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A New York Times article from August 18, 2000, by Laurie Goodstein addressed Senator Lieberman’s religious convictions. It ended with something I said and that Mr. Lieberman repeated on several occasions on the campaign trail. The article is below:

Lieberman Balances Private Faith With Life in the Public Eye

By watching Senator Joseph I. Lieberman carefully, Americans may receive a lesson in the rituals and the realities of living as an Orthodox Jew in America.

Mr. Lieberman attends an Orthodox synagogue, but outside of temple he rarely wears a yarmulke. He eats kosher food and keeps the Sabbath, but unlike many strictly Orthodox men he shakes hands with women. If he could not shake hands, how could he campaign?

Mr. Lieberman refers to himself as an ”observant Jew,” not Orthodox. It is an intentional distinction that his staff laments has been overlooked in all the coverage devoted to the first Jewish politician to run for vice president.

”He refers to himself as observant as opposed to Orthodox because he doesn’t follow the strict Orthodox code and doesn’t want to offend the Orthodox, and his wife feels the same way,” said a Lieberman press officer who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Mr. Lieberman’s aides said they could not make him available for an interview during the Democratic National Convention.

Despite his hesitation to embrace the label, Mr. Lieberman is by practice, heritage and synagogue membership best described as a modern Orthodox Jew. Orthodox Jews try to live according to Halakha, the vast body of Jewish law, and so practice a stricter form of observance than those who belong to the other Jewish denominations — Conservative, the next most traditional, followed by Reform and Reconstructionist. For every prohibition in the Halakha, however, there are exceptions argued over by generations of rabbis.

Mr. Lieberman’s form of observance makes clear that Orthodox Judaism is a continuum that ranges from lenient to stringent interpretation of Jewish law.

”It’s not a denominational difference,” said Rabbi Norman Lamm, president of Yeshiva University. ”It’s individuals who are different. Some individuals within Orthodoxy are more strict than others. But there is a certain amount of wriggle room in Jewish law. There is a degree of flexibility, but the basic commitment must be to the integrity of the law itself.”

Take, for instance, the prohibition on shaking women’s hands, one of many ways in which the Orthodox separate the sexes. The original reasoning was that contact between the sexes should not arouse erotic impulses, rabbis say. Today, in an era when men and women are far less segregated, some Orthodox Jewish men will shake a woman’s hand only if she extends hers first. Some men will extend their hands first, and some will not shake a woman’s hand under any circumstances.

While the Orthodox world is complex, there are two basic distinctions. The ultra-Orthodox, or haredim (meaning ”those who tremble” before God), have traditionally kept an arm’s length from secular society. They include the Hasidic Jews who replanted their Eastern European communities in America, retaining visible signs of their separateness like black hats and side curls.

Modern Orthodoxy, by contrast, tries to integrate the observance of Jewish law with participation in contemporary life.

”Modern means we see it as a religious imperative to engage the modern world, the secular world,” said Rabbi Barry Freundel of Kesher Israel, the temple where Mr. Lieberman worships in Washington, ”and to take that which is of value in that world and make it part of our world.”

Mr. Lieberman was raised in a religiously integrated neighborhood in Stamford, Conn. At home, his family kept kosher and observed the Sabbath. As a high school student, he stayed home from the prom, which fell on the Sabbath, even though he had been voted prom king.

Unlike many Orthodox Jews, he attended public school, not a Jewish day school. He studied the tenets of his faith at Sunday school, at afternoon Hebrew school, and on his own, Mr. Lieberman said in an interview in 1993. He said he left Jewish observance for a time and returned when he became a parent, sending his children to Jewish day schools.

Many of Mr. Lieberman’s most basic religious rituals are intimate acts. He prays three times a day. At morning prayer, Rabbi Freundel said, the senator lays on tefillin, the small leather boxes that contain four biblical passages written on parchment, binding the boxes to one arm and his forehead with leather straps.

He and his wife, Hadassah, keep kosher, adhering to the Jewish dietary laws. They do not mix milk products and meat, and keep separate sets of dishes for each. When he is traveling, aides say, he eats tuna sandwiches, or fruit and vegetables.

Most important, Mr. Lieberman keeps the Fourth Commandment to observe the Sabbath as a day of rest and delight in God’s creation, from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday. Observant Jews are supposed to refrain from writing, using electricity, driving and talking on the telephone.

Mr. Lieberman, with the help of his two rabbis, Rabbi Al Feldman in New Haven as well as Rabbi Freundel, has derived a way to reconcile the requirements of Jewish law with his responsibilities as an elected official. Jewish law teaches that one may break the Sabbath if the matter involves ”concern for human life.” Mr. Lieberman and his rabbis have interpreted that by drawing a line between governing and campaigning. That means he will not break the Sabbath to campaign, but he is required to break the Sabbath to cast a Senate vote or take crucial action on public policy.

In the critical weeks before the Nov. 7 election, Mr. Lieberman has said, he will not campaign on the six days that coincide with the Jewish holiday season. He will instead be in synagogue for Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, which falls on Sept. 30 and Oct. 1, and Yom Kippur, on Oct. 9. The first two days of the Jewish harvest festival, Sukkot, are on Oct. 14 and 15, and Simchat Torah falls on Oct. 22.

Mixed with the pride that many Orthodox Jews have voiced in Mr. Lieberman, there has been some whispering about a few of his and his wife’s omissions. For instance, Hadassah Lieberman does not routinely cover her head with a hat, scarf or wig, standard practice for the married, traditional Orthodox woman who is supposed to dress modestly.

Mr. Lieberman, by going bare-headed outside temple, is not violating Jewish law. But in the last few decades, some Orthodox Jews have come to regard wearing a yarmulke, or kippah, in public as a sign of ethnic pride and identity. Mr. Lieberman has decided not to, Rabbi Freundel said.

”He has never wanted to be the Jewish senator,” the rabbi said. ”He has wanted to be the senator who happened to be Jewish, and wearing the kippah would change the perspective. If you met someone wearing a kippah, the Jewishness is immediately on the table. That is not how he wanted to be known.”

”Safety issues” are another factor, Rabbi Freundel said. Last weekend, just before Mr. Lieberman stepped out of Kesher Israel synagogue in Georgetown after services, a Secret Service agent asked him to remove his yarmulke before walking home, the rabbi said. The yamulke made the senator a ”visible target.”

”There is no question that taking off your yarmulke in the face of danger is permissible,” Rabbi Freundel said.

In interviews, Orthodox leaders said they regard Mr. Lieberman as a worthy representative of Orthodox Judaism, and understand the compromises he has made.

Rabbi Avi Shafran, director of public affairs for Agudath Israel of America, said: ”He’s running for vice president, not chief rabbi. Therefore, there might be some things we would consider not thought out from a religious perspective, but we’re not here to critique his religious life.”

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Not so the poles that are placed in rings on the sides of the aron – and that are to remain there permanently. Like the aron itself, they are wooden but covered with gold. But only “gold,” not “pure gold” like the aron’s inner and outer boxes.

In his sefer Nachalas Tzvi, Rav Meshullam Gross notes that difference and sees in it the fact that those whose lives are dedicated to Torah-study, symbolized by the aron, must be pure-hearted and not motivated by ulterior motives. Those who support them, however, who are symbolized by the poles with which the aron was carried, may condition their support on other things.

Ulterior motives do not cancel the merit of Torah-support or other meritorious giving. As the Talmud (Pesachim 8a) teaches: “One who says: I am contributing this coin to charity so that my son will live… is a completely righteous person.”

A common ulterior motive in philanthropy is honor. That is why donors’ names on plaques in shuls, Jewish outreach centers and yeshivos, or on the edifices themselves are perfectly proper.

In fact, such displays can constitute great merits in their own rights.

One of the most generous donors to Torah causes was Joe Tanenbaum, whose name, along with his wife Faye’s, graces wonderful institutions not only in his adopted city Toronto but across the globe. As a child, he hadn’t received a thorough Jewish education and he wanted others to have every opportunity to Jewishly educate themselves.

He was, though, by all accounts, a most modest man. A story that made the rounds many years ago is that he was once asked why he wanted his and his wife’s names to be prominent on the facades of the countless Torah-promoting buildings.

His reply was that, in the event that one of his future descendents should for some reason not receive a Jewish education or fall away from the Jewish path, he hopefully imagined the young person seeing the name Tanenbaum on an edifice and, carrying the same surname or knowing it was in his or her genealogy, becoming sufficiently intrigued to enter its doors.

© 2024 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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To read about his idea, and my thoughts about it, please click here.

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