464
Subscribers
No data24 hours
-27 days
-730 days
Data loading in progress...
Similar Channels
Tags Cloud
Incoming and Outgoing Mentions
---
---
---
---
---
---
Attracting Subscribers
September '26
September '26
+2
in 0 channels
August '26
+1
in 0 channels
Get PRO
July '260
in 0 channels
Get PRO
June '26
+9
in 0 channels
Get PRO
May '26
+7
in 0 channels
Get PRO
April '26
+4
in 0 channels
Get PRO
March '26
+10
in 0 channels
Get PRO
February '26
+3
in 0 channels
Get PRO
January '26
+5
in 0 channels
Get PRO
December '25
+3
in 0 channels
Get PRO
November '25
+3
in 0 channels
Get PRO
October '25
+4
in 0 channels
Get PRO
September '25
+5
in 0 channels
Get PRO
August '25
+4
in 0 channels
Get PRO
July '25
+7
in 0 channels
Get PRO
June '25
+20
in 1 channels
Get PRO
May '25
+8
in 2 channels
Get PRO
April '25
+4
in 0 channels
Get PRO
March '25
+4
in 0 channels
Get PRO
February '25
+11
in 0 channels
Get PRO
January '25
+13
in 0 channels
Get PRO
December '24
+6
in 0 channels
Get PRO
November '24
+11
in 3 channels
Get PRO
October '24
+13
in 2 channels
Get PRO
September '24
+16
in 1 channels
Get PRO
August '24
+32
in 3 channels
Get PRO
July '24
+33
in 1 channels
Get PRO
June '24
+14
in 2 channels
Get PRO
May '24
+13
in 1 channels
Get PRO
April '24
+18
in 0 channels
Get PRO
March '24
+8
in 1 channels
Get PRO
February '24
+22
in 1 channels
Get PRO
January '24
+38
in 2 channels
Get PRO
December '23
+11
in 1 channels
Get PRO
November '23
+39
in 3 channels
Get PRO
October '23
+132
in 6 channels
Get PRO
September '23
+5
in 0 channels
Get PRO
August '23
+5
in 0 channels
Get PRO
July '23
+2
in 0 channels
Get PRO
June '23
+4
in 0 channels
Get PRO
May '23
+9
in 0 channels
Get PRO
April '23
+10
in 0 channels
Get PRO
March '23
+9
in 0 channels
Get PRO
February '23
+9
in 0 channels
Get PRO
January '23
+7
in 0 channels
Get PRO
December '22
+8
in 0 channels
Get PRO
November '22
+6
in 0 channels
Get PRO
October '22
+9
in 0 channels
Get PRO
September '22
+9
in 0 channels
Get PRO
August '22
+11
in 0 channels
Get PRO
July '22
+9
in 0 channels
Get PRO
June '22
+7
in 0 channels
Get PRO
May '22
+7
in 0 channels
Get PRO
April '22
+5
in 0 channels
Get PRO
March '22
+7
in 0 channels
Get PRO
February '22
+14
in 0 channels
Get PRO
January '22
+24
in 0 channels
Get PRO
December '21
+11
in 0 channels
Get PRO
November '21
+235
in 0 channels
| Date | Subscriber Growth | Mentions | Channels | |
| 08 September | +1 | |||
| 07 September | 0 | |||
| 06 September | 0 | |||
| 05 September | +1 | |||
| 04 September | 0 | |||
| 03 September | 0 | |||
| 02 September | 0 | |||
| 01 September | 0 |
Channel Posts
As of today, September 8, 2026, Amiram Ben-Uliel, who was brutally tortured for weeks until he gave a false confession, has been in Israeli prison for exactly 3,934 days.
| 2 | An article of mine with practical steps to immediately improve the shidduch world was just published in an OU Magazine called Kol Echad. I attached it. | 74 |
| 3 | An article of mine with practical steps to immediately improve the shidduch world was just published an OU Magazine called Kol Echad. I attached it. | 1 |
| 4 | The following piece is one of my all-time favorites. It is also one of six unproduced episodes of The Shidduch Chronicles, which I hold out hope will someday come to be. Picture it in your mind as you read it; I think it would be very powerful. If you agree, please share it.
Judgment Day for Singles (Originally published Sep 25, 2019)
He was in shul on Rosh Hashana and the rabbi was speaking before shofar blowing. Something about the dichotomy of rejoicing while trembling, or trembling while rejoicing. He was neither trembling nor rejoicing. He was emotionally numb, and also a little hungry. The only dichotomy he was struggling with was whether it was better to be hosted by families for all the meals or to have some of them alone. He’d received only one invitation, for last night’s dinner, so it was academic.
He took a surreptitious glance at the women’s section. The shul always removed part of the curtain for speeches. He wasn’t sure what point they were trying to make, and suspected it was more about making a point than improving the experience for the women merely by offering a better view of the rabbi.
If the point was that they wouldn’t separate the men and women any more than absolutely required, he wasn’t impressed. He’d been davening there for three years, and there were probably a few dozen single women in the shul right now. Not one of them knew his name, he didn’t know any of their names, and there was no plausible way that would ever change. His best chance was going to a web site or WhatsApp group and finding a stranger in possession of one of their shidduch profiles to possibly fix him up with someone sitting 20 feet away. This was considered not only normal, but just about the only acceptable way.
The community — for lack of a better word — was oblivious to this situation. It was bizarre, if you thought about it. He spent roughly ten percent of his waking hours in shul, yet there was nothing to facilitate getting to know the others in the room. Unless you absolutely forced the issue or had an “in”, you might as well be dead. At the same time, the shul described itself as friendly and family-oriented, as they always do.
He was plenty separated from the women even without the curtain. And the truth was, they wanted it this way. If he tried approaching one of them after davening, they would react with discomfort and suspicion. Surely he was a creep, surely he had bad intentions, surely he “only had one thing in mind”. Yes, what he had in mind was that he wanted to get married and have children, he figured a fellow shul-going woman might be compatible, he thought she was attractive, and he wanted to get to know her and find out. How creepy. If the women had it their way there would be no curtain, but people like him would be behind a steel wall. Single men needed to be vetted before being allowed the privilege of saying hello and buying them dinner.
He tried to turn his attention away from these dark thoughts. He’d resolved not to dwell on such things this Rosh Hashana. Sure, he was going to be alone again. Sure, he couldn’t get too much into the davening, the rabbi was uninspiring, the community oblivious to his existence once the dues were received. He had a responsibility to the shul, since he davened there and they had to pay the rabbi and the electric company, but they felt no responsibility toward him and his needs. So be it. He had a great lunch waiting for him at his apartment, he would make the most of the day as it was, and God would give him the strength to enter the new year with a positive attitude.
The speech seemed to have no end, and he closed his eyes.
When he opened them he was no longer in shul.
He was standing in a large area surrounded by wispy clouds. There were thousands of people standing quietly, facing forward, heads slightly bowed. In the front was a dais, where three imposing figures sat and leered at the multitudes standing before them.
Continued at https://chananyaweissman.substack.com/p/judgment-day-for-singles?r=4wfhds. | 98 |
| 5 | Lots of interesting lessons in this week's class. https://rumble.com/v7f1e80-torah-223-yirmiya-35-36-hidden-in-plain-sight-and-much-more.html | 118 |
| 6 | Don't worry about people who warn you not to waste your vote. Since votes inherently have no value they cannot be wasted. | 155 |
| 7 | Let’s preface what follows with more Torah. Yirmiya chapter 41 teaches about the assassination of Gedalya, the governor of Jerusalem and the small remnant who remained following the destruction. His murderer, Yishmael ben Nesanya, subsequently went on a killing spree. In the chaos that followed, the few who survived made a series of mistakes and squandered their opportunity to remain in the land, shoveling the final dirt on the bayis rishon period. That is why we fast on Tzom Gedalya.
41:9 states as follows (Judaica Press translation):
וְהַבּוֹר אֲשֶׁר הִשְׁלִיךְ שָׁם יִשְׁמָעֵאל אֵת כָּל־פִּגְרֵי הָאֲנָשִׁים אֲשֶׁר הִכָּה בְּיַד־גְּדַלְיָהוּ הוּא אֲשֶׁר עָשָׂה הַמֶּלֶךְ אָסָא מִפְּנֵי בַּעְשָׁא מֶלֶךְ־יִשְׂרָאֵל אֹתוֹ מִלֵּא יִשְׁמָעֵאל בֶּן־נְתַנְיָהוּ חֲלָלִים
Now the pit into which Ishmael had cast all the corpses of the men whom he had slain because of Gedaliah — that was [the one] that King Asa had made because of Baasa, king of Israel. That one Ishmael the son of Nethaniah filled with corpses.
The simple meaning is that these people were slain in the course of the assassination of Gedalya, but the wording seems to implicate Gedalya in their deaths. Indeed, Chazal derive the following in Nidda 61a (cited by Rashi):
וְכִי גְדַלְיָה הֲרָגָן וַהֲלֹא יִשְׁמָעֵאל הֲרָגָן אֶלָּא מִתּוֹךְ שֶׁהָיָה לוֹ לָחוֹשׁ לַעֲצַת יוֹחָנָן בֶּן קָרֵחַ וְלֹא חַשׁ מַעֲלֶה עָלָיו הַכָּתוּב כְּאִילּוּ הֲרָגָן
But did Gedalya murder them? Was it not Yishmael who murdered them? Rather, because he should have been concerned about the advice of Yochanan ben Kareach [who warned him of the plans to assassinate him] and he was not concerned, the verse considers it as if he murdered them.
As everyone knows, IDF and state leaders received numerous, highly credible warnings in the years, months, weeks, days, and hours leading up to October 7. For example, here is how Google describes their treatment of Rafael Hayun prior to October 7:
[Rafael Hayun] is an independent, civilian Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) collector who operated a highly sophisticated private monitoring hub out of his home in Netivot. For years, Hayun legally intercepted and monitored the public handheld radio and communication frequencies used by Hamas operatives in Gaza. He regularly forwarded active warnings and intelligence directly to field commanders and special units like Maglan.
Months before the October 7 attacks, the IDF Information Security Department (led by an officer known as Col. "G") grew concerned that Hayun's broad listening setup could inadvertently compromise Israeli military communications.
Yeah, right.
At the military's request, the Israeli Ministry of Communications formally revoked his listening license and confiscated his specialized radio tracking equipment, cutting off his ability to monitor Gaza's tactical networks.
What an unfortunate coincidence.
Following the October 7 massacre, Hayun went public on national television, stating that he had intercepted detailed Hamas invasion drills as early as 2019. He claimed that if his equipment had not been seized, he would have been able to hear Hamas mobilizing in real time and potentially warn the borders. Amid intense public pressure following his broadcast interviews, the Ministry of Communications restored his license and equipment shortly after the war began.
Let’s also not forget their treatment of the Tatzpitaniot, the young women in the IDF whose sole purpose was to watch the Gaza border and report anything irregular.
Continued at https://chananyaweissman.substack.com/p/gedalya-october-7-insidious-propaganda. | 138 |
| 8 | The next three chapters of EndtheMadness Guide to the Shidduch World are short, so I am sharing them in one post. Ten years after the book was published I wrote a follow-up article on chapter 11, so first we will see the other two chapters, then the more in-depth article.
Compare the perspective in these chapters, which is rooted in actual Torah and common sense, with the establishment nonsense throughout the “Orthodox” media, which is rooted in hot air masquerading as Torah.
The “frum” media will not promote these views, nor will the establishment “experts”. Ask yourself why not, and if the answers you come up with are justified. Then decide if you should continue allowing them to steer the discussion and define the path forward.
Hashem doesn’t have to bail you out if you prevent yourself or your children from dating out of cowardice and claim you will be rewarded for it with a good shidduch down the road. That is not a demonstration of bitachon; it is precisely the opposite. The rabbis in the “Orthodox” media who promise otherwise are making it up and will not be there for you if it doesn’t work out. They don’t care about you and your children, and they face no accountability if their promises don’t come true.
No one cares about you and your children more than you do. No one is responsible for yourself and your children more than you are. No one has to defy social expectations first to make it “safer” for you.
Decide for yourself if reflexively defending the broken shidduch world, and perpetuating it out of cowardice and false bitachon, is more important and authentically Jewish than doing what you know deep down is sensible and right for you. Ultimately you are responsible for the decisions you make, regardless of the pressure, and you live with the consequences of these decisions.
Onward:
Chapter 10
When Should One Begin Dating?
We recommend for singles to start dating a year or two before they expect to be ready to marry. You won’t hear this anywhere else; the typical response to this question is some age picked out of a hat like a magic number, or some milestone related to school or work.
Once again, we recommend the same strategy that we employ in all other aspects of our life. Good sense there is good sense here as well. When one is looking for a school, a job, or a place to live, he does not begin the search the day his need begins. He begins the search at least a few months in advance, with the hope that when the time arrives he will have everything arranged. Only a madman begins to look for his next home the day his current lease expires.
Yet when it comes to dating, people almost universally believe that one should not start to look for a spouse until the day he decides he is ready to get married. That is terribly foolish and inefficient. One should start to date when he is almost ready to get married, with hopes that by the time he is fully ready he will have already found the right person. Even if not, at least he gave himself a head start with the search.
The naysayers quickly object with what they believe is a doomsday scenario: what if you find the right person immediately, and then have to string things along until you are ready to get married? (The naysayers typically reject every good idea because it can conceivably cause some discomfort, inconvenience, or complication. They would rather embrace bad ideas that cause far worse on a widespread basis.)
We offer two suggestions: change your plans and get married sooner, or maintain the relationship and thank God every day for your good fortune. If it is truly the right person, the relationship can be maintained.
We should all have this problem.
Chapter 12
Icebreakers
Continued at https://chananyaweissman.substack.com/p/when-one-should-begin-dating-and?r=4wfhds | 128 |
| 9 | https://rumble.com/v7eqg4g-torah-222-yirmiya-33-34-galus-for-the-sake-of-healing.html | 141 |
| 10 | Meanwhile, a new "haredi" party with ads on buses in Jerusalem saying anyone who doesn't learn will serve. https://hatzibur-haharedi.org/%D7%90%D7%95%D7%93%D7%95%D7%AA | 146 |
| 11 |  "At last, the Religious Zionist community has someone to vote for."
Not even a Bennett-sized yarmulka in sight. Because they know that Religious Zionism is a sham, a ghost of its former self, and really just worships the state and the IDF. | 146 |
| 12 | About six years ago I had a very complicated root canal as a result of a sports injury. It was so complicated that my dentist at the time sent me to a specialist, someone who only does root canals regular dentists can’t do. I went through a series of procedures and paid thousands of shekels in an attempt to save the tooth, because I want to keep what God gave me, and it’s surely better than an artificial substitute.
Baruch Hashem, the tooth was saved. I later switched to a different dentist in Jerusalem, an older South African man with a holistic approach that I was looking for.
He recommended a crown, and expressed confidence that he could fit one on what remained of my beleaguered tooth — which others did not think was possible or worth the effort. He succeeded, without even using anesthetic, and years later everything remained stable with the tooth.
Aside from the fact that he did great work and was delicate in doing it, I appreciated his clear disinterest in doing unnecessary dental procedures. He was concerned about the patient’s health, not gratuitous opportunities to bill him.
A few weeks ago I felt a minor discomfort in the area of this tooth. Not pain, discomfort. I hoped it was nothing, but feared the worst. It had been long enough since my previous cleaning and checkup, so I scheduled an appointment with a Meuhedet clinic; no need to go private for that.
The hygienist noted with alarm that the gums in the area of the discomfort were discolored gray. She kindly helped schedule an emergency checkup with a dentist later that day. The dentist took x-rays and told me everything was fine with the tooth. However, he said the gums were infected, and he prescribed penicillin for a week. I was greatly relieved.
A week later the discomfort was gone but the gums were still gray. Not wanting to take any chances, I scheduled an appointment with a nearby American dentist who came highly recommended.
Meuhedet didn’t forward the x-rays, so I had to get zapped again and pay handsomely for the privilege, as this time I was going private. The dentist took one look at the x-ray and immediately said “The tooth is a goner.” I would need an extraction and an implant, the sooner the better.
I was devastated. After all I had been through, I was going to lose the tooth, just like that? And I was going to have to go through a difficult surgery, have metal and whatnot grafted to my mouth, and months of recovery?
The dentist reassured me that it wasn’t such a big deal. He proudly noted that Israel is the country with the most implants (I assume per capita) in the world. He acknowledged that the surgery isn’t always successful, but said I shouldn’t worry about it. The cost would be about 10,000 shekels from start to finish, and he would try to squeeze me in for an appointment in the coming days.
I asked if there was any alternative. He said I could stay on antibiotics and buy a few months, but the tooth would have to removed inevitably. He sent me for a CT scan and scheduled the extraction for the following Tuesday. He also renewed the prescription for antibiotics.
I was very uncomfortable and distraught. His cavalier attitude and excitement about implants disturbed me as well. Over the next few days I davened hard. I really wanted to keep the tooth Hashem gave me, for which I had invested so much already to save. I didn’t want to go through a lengthy, complicated, expensive surgery. I didn’t want an implant. Please, Hashem, if at all possible, save the tooth. And if getting an implant was really necessary, really the right and necessary step, it should go well and be good for my health.
I got the CT scan and the dentist confirmed that there was enough bone for an implant.
That Sunday, two days before the scheduled extraction, I called the office of the South African dentist, the one who did the crown, and advised them of the situation. I asked if he would review the x-rays and give his opinion. Sure, email them over.
Continued at https://chananyaweissman.substack.com/p/if-i-blindly-trusted-doctors | 138 |
| 13 |  +2Feed a hungry IDF soldier, suckers. So much for Jews being good with money. | 135 |
| 14 | In last week’s Torah class we studied Chapter 32 of Yirmiya. At the end of the class saw a Midrash on 32:31 with a very sobering message: Hashem was so disgusted by what He saw on day one of the first Beis Hamikdash that He already had in mind to destroy it. The language is stark (Yalkut Shimoni from Vayikra Rabba 12:5):
אָמַר רַבִּי הִלֵּל בַּר הִילֶנִי, כָּזֶה שֶׁהוּא עוֹבֵר בַּמָּקוֹם הַמְטֻנָּף וְעוֹקֵם חָטְמוֹ
Rabbi Hillel bar Hileni said, It is like one who passes through a filthy place and wrinkles his nose.
Many Jews today place a disproportionate emphasis on rebuilding the Beis Hamikdash, as if this is the urgent call of the hour, it will bring redemption, or even signify redemption. They lose sight of the fact that we already had two Batei Mikdash, spanning over 800 years, and they were destroyed because Hashem was most displeased with what He saw. The message is clearly not to make an avoda zara out of going to Har Habayis and fantasize about a physical building, but to finally rectify the problems that drove Hashem’s shechina away from the Beis Hamikdash in the first place.
Hashem doesn’t need us to build Him a place that stinks. We have a lot of filth to clean up before we are ready and worthy to talk about a lofty house for the shechina.
The class is embedded above.
Speaking of filth and stench that drives away the shechina, let’s talk about the IDF and Tzohar missionaries. In last week’s issue of The Kefira Times, David Stav manages to outdo himself. I will remind you that Stav is the chairman of Tzohar and Chief Rabbi of Shoham, so his words carry tremendous weight in the Irreligious Zionist world, and fairly represent their ideology.
His sermon is called “The Lord Your G-d Walks in the Midst of Your Camp”. This is a favorite citation of intellectually dishonest phonies who wish to impose their un-Jewish ideology on the Torah. God walks in the IDF! Therefore the IDF is holy! Therefore serving in the IDF is holy, and those who serve are holy! Therefore everyone should serve!
Before getting to the typical hijacking and distortion of Torah sources to legitimize his preconceived conclusion, let’s go straight to David Stav’s closing words:
The Torah says that G‑d is present in the camp. It does not say that He is present in the beit midrash, or in the field. He is with the soldiers. Only someone who has faced danger to his own life, or to the lives of his friends, truly knows what closeness to G‑d means. The prayer a soldier offers before going into battle carries a closeness to G‑d greater than what a person in the beit midrash might experience even during Ne’ilah. G‑d walks in the midst of your camp. That is, of course, a reason to strive for holiness – but it does not preclude the possibility of failure. The Torah opens a door for us this week to both possibilities that can unfold in the camp. In no case does it exempt us from being there.
This is utterly deranged.
First of all, Stav has the audacity to derive from a pasuk stating that Hashem’s presence is in the army camp that this is to the exclusion of other places, even the Beis Midrash. What a darshan!
The holiness of Batei Midrash is amply documented, so Stav’s lunacy does not merit copious debunking. I will simply refer to Avos 3:6, which teaches that if ten people study Torah together the shechina settles among them, and this is true even if five, three, two people, or even a single person is studying Torah. Needless to say, the Beis Midrash is a constant home to the shechina.
I understand that missionaries like Stav desperately need to push the notion that the IDF is a holy place, not a stench-filled sewer that drives away the shechina, but he is literally pretending that the IDF is the only place where the shechina dwells. That’s quite a push of the Religious Zionist kefira envelope. Did they claim that even a few years ago?
Continued at https://chananyaweissman.substack.com/p/tzohar-apikorsim-amputate-the-torah. | 170 |
| 15 | Rabbi Moshe Tendler zt”l took a great interest in my personal life, and even fixed me up with three women over the years, though without success. I think I was 24 years old, still fairly new to dating despite having started EndTheMadness a year earlier, when the following occurred. I’d gone out with someone a couple of times and it was off to what seemed like a fantastic start.
I was excited and optimistic, and shared this with Rabbi Tendler after shiur. Naturally, I expected him to share my excitement.
Instead, he encouraged me to go out with someone else as well.
I was flabbergasted. Why in the world would I want to do that?
“The girl has the same privilege,” he added.
The relationship with this young lady took a bizarre turn and fizzled out shortly thereafter, and I didn’t have anyone else to date at the time, so the advice was moot — but it really got me thinking. To that point I was against the idea of dating more than one person at a time, but, like my vaguely positive impression of vaccines, it was a widespread societal norm, and I’d never really thought about it. Rabbi Tendler’s jarring advice forced me to confront my preconceived notions, and, unlike most people, I did just that.
In the end, I completely changed my mind about this. I realized that being open to seeing another person, at least at the early stages of dating, is entirely appropriate and sensible, while refusing to do so can be self-defeating. It certainly shouldn’t be a dogmatic, pseudo-religious expectation not to consider more than one person at a time.
I should note that Rabbi Tendler gave me other dating advice over the years that I respectfully declined, even though I gave more weight to his advice than that of random interlopers in my personal life. That is the way it should be. People don’t understand the proper balance in the dynamics between a Rebbe and a student, when we must listen, when we are foolish not to listen even if we have that right, and when it’s fine to respectfully consider their words and decide to go in another direction.
Anyway, this is one of the few but significant times over the years I have completely changed my mind about something in light of new information or simply being forced to rethink my preconceived notions. Halevai everyone would be more open to this. There’s nothing shameful about changing your mind, and it’s far better than persisting in being wrong.
I devoted a chapter in EndtheMadness Guide to the Shidduch World to this topic, which I am sharing for free for the first time. Before getting to that, a couple more anecdotes on the subject from my personal experience.
1. I was fixed up with a girl and called her. She apologized that she could not go out with me, because someone she had gone out with two weeks ago had just called her for a second date. I have no idea why she would want to go out with someone who took two weeks to get back to her, or why this would preclude her from going out with me, but whatever.
There is a reason why I call it madness, folks. Was she betrothed to this man because she met him once? Was she an aguna, anchored to him, until it reached a definitive conclusion? How many people are passing up great opportunities, superior opportunities, because of this foolish, self-defeating “rule”?
By the way, the story has an interesting coda. A year later she called me up out of the blue and asked for a mechila. I had completely forgotten who she was, and had no idea what she was talking about. She begged me for a mechila anyway. Of course I granted it, she thanked me with great relief, and hung up. Only later did I figure out who it was.
Continued at https://chananyaweissman.substack.com/p/dating-more-than-one-person-at-a?r=4wfhds | 156 |
| 16 | https://rumble.com/v7efope-torah-221-yirmiya-32-buying-a-worthless-field.html?e9s=src_v1_ucp_a | 162 |
| 17 | I promise you, I really don’t want to keep writing about Tzohar and their Mickey Mouse rabbis, but what they published in last week’s issue of The Kiddush Kefira Times must be spread far and wide as a warning and a call to action. It is outright apikorsus, a war against the Torah in the name of the Torah, and they are pumping this apikorsus to hundreds of Jewish communities in Eretz Yisrael and beyond.
I am not going to explain in great detail why what I am about to share is apikorsus. It is self-evident to religious, God-fearing Jews with an elementary level of education. I am writing for people who already get it so they can be aware of this outrage in our midst and hopefully do something about it.
Last week I wrote about how the editor of The Kefira Times, a “religious” Zionist media mogul by the name of Shlomo Ben-Zvi (bio here), fabricated the notion that membership in the Jewish people is dependent not on being shomer Torah u’mitzvos, but on participating in the IDF, and had the gall to attribute this to Moshe Rabbeinu. If you missed it, you can read it here.
This week he dropped the fig leaf covering up the apikorsus, writing as follows:
Law and religion should come home, to be discussed, debated, and decided locally, municipally…The idea of minhag, custom that crystallizes into law, was the backbone of Jewish legal thinking throughout history. We need to bring it back.
Let each city hold autonomous jurisdiction over personal status, over most of the issues discussed between the covers of the Shulchan Aruch. How would that work? Take a hotly disputed issue: should same-sex marriage be condoned of condemned? Different tribes give different answers, and many feel passionately about it. Decide it locally. Tel Aviv will condone it, Bnei Brak will condemn it, and Ra’anana will argue the matter until some compromise emerges, one that satisfies no one completely but ensures that everyone is heard and no one is ignored…
…The Torah opens the parashah with this idea…Let us be free to decide, for ourselves, our own liberties, our own expression of who we really are.
According to the editor of The Kefira Times, distributed to tens of thousands of Jews every week, the entire corpus of halacha is up for public debate and public vote. So the Torah itself teaches.
Ben-Zvi also returns to distorting the notion of Jewish tribes by making reference to “the chiloni tribe” and “the charedi tribe”. In actual Judaism, of course, there are twelve tribes that all stood at Har Sinai and said “Na’aseh v’nishma”, accepting the Torah in its entirety (written and oral alike), and entering into an everlasting covenant with Hashem. Each tribe has particular characteristics, just as every child has a unique personality, but on the fundamentals there is no difference.
According to Ben-Zvi, however, a tattooed bum who rejects the Torah and even God Himself, or otherwise does whatever he wants and reinterprets the Torah however he sees fit, can claim membership in a perfectly authentic Jewish “tribe”, the chiloni tribe.
Judaism is a welcoming club that accepts everyone! They can reject the entire Shulchan Aruch if they wish! The only things they can’t reject are Zionism and the IDF…
Why not an avoda zara tribe, a Molech tribe, and a Sodom tribe?
Here’s something the Mickey Mouse rabbis at Tzohar won’t tell you. The actual meaning of the word “chiloni” isn’t “secular” or “non-religious”. The Yerushalmi in Maaser Sheni 31a (53b in the Oz Vehadar edition) states the following:
Continued at https://chananyaweissman.substack.com/p/tzohar-the-new-reform-movement. | 227 |
| 18 | https://chananyaweissman.substack.com/p/everyones-role-in-fixing-the-shidduch?r=4wfhds | 203 |
| 19 | https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/431686
The army that abandoned you promised to learn lessons from October 7. But the sheep sure didn't. | 221 |
| 20 | One of the biggest problems of this confused generation is that kofrim, reshaim, azei panim, and intellectually dishonest ideologues set the discourse, instead of yirei shamayim, tzaddikim, and humble, emesdik talmidei chachamim.
That’s why we are bombarded with cynical rhetoric about milchemes mitzva from people who are lax about much of the rest of the Torah as a lechatchila. Oh, they can cherry-pick a pasuk, make a slogan out of it, and act as if that’s all there is to say on the subject. How impressive! How profound! They can even hijack a line from the Rambam, as if they are such ardent followers of the Rambam, and the Rambam would consider them inside the pale.
These are the sort of people who travel the world seeking pleasure and gluttony, noting that Rav Hirsch wanted to see the Alps to admire Hashem’s creation. How pious! They can’t tell you anything else Rav Hirsch said, and certainly don’t share his zealotry against those who “reform” the Torah, but when it comes to globetrotting they are faithful disciples of Rav Hirsch. Never mind that they aren’t stuffing their minds with Torah like Rav Hirsch, admiring that aspect of Hashem’s creation first and foremost, before stuffing their bellies and making sure they see exotic faraway places, for purely spiritual reasons, of course.
How many people stop and consider what the Torah has to say before making up their minds, instead of working backwards to hijack a source after the fact? How many people clear their minds before studying Torah, recognize that they are about to interface with divine wisdom, with God’s objective truth, and humbly prepare to adjust their pre-existing views accordingly?
From my anecdotal experience, not many. Most people aren’t grounded — and I’m talking about “frum” people. They’re just doing what they do, and lying to themselves about why they are really doing it. They have an abusive relationship with the Torah, whereby they magnify the sources they like and dismiss or explain away the sources they don’t. For them Torah study is not sacred, but a game, a text to be exploited in whatever manner suits them. Chazal and Gedolim are to be respected when it suits them and explained away (or worse) when not.
With this in mind, let’s talk about Jewish armies and exemptions from military service servitude, which we hear so much about from our wonderful “protectors” and their dutiful minions down the food chain. Clear your mind of their propaganda and rhetoric and see what the Torah teaches in this week’s parsha, Shoftim (Devarim 20:1-9).
Immediately we are taught the most fundamental lesson, which is emphasized over and over again in Tanach:
כִּי־תֵצֵא לַמִּלְחָמָה עַל־אֹיְבֶךָ וְרָאִיתָ סוּס וָרֶכֶב עַם רַב מִמְּךָ לֹא תִירָא מֵהֶם כִּי־יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ עִמָּךְ הַמַּעַלְךָ מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם
When you go out to war against your enemy, and you see horse and chariot, a host of people more numerous than you, don’t be afraid of them, for Hashem your God is with you, Who brought you up from the land of Egypt.
For all the rhetoric about a “manpower shortage”, the Torah instructs us not to be afraid of such things — provided we are in Hashem’s good graces, of course. The Torah never emphasizes the importance of hishtadlus in terms of having a large, powerful military; on the contrary, this is consistently downplayed, lest we think our success depends on it. That’s one of the surest ways to anger Hashem and bring about defeat, God forbid!
We do have an obligation to physically prepare for war, but we’re not supposed to get carried away with it. Our primary hishtadlus is getting right with Hashem, not making an avoda zara out of military “service”. If are right with Hashem, there is no such thing as a manpower shortage; Hashem will fight for us, and we must not be afraid. If, God forbid, we are not right with Hashem, no number of soldiers will be able to protect us.
Continued at https://chananyaweissman.substack.com/p/manpower-shortages-and-religious. | 201 |
