Year: 2020

Rabbi Nachman Kahana’s Unique ‘Aliyahversary’ Celebration

Opportunity Lost

Sunday, June 21, 2020

BS”D 
Parashat Korach 5780
by HaRav Nachman KahanaThe Gemara (Bava Batra 74a) relates some of the travels and adventures of the great amora Rabbah Bar Bar Chama. Among them is the incident when the Rav met a Bedouin in the Sinai desert (some say it was Eliyahu HaNavi) who took him to where Korach and his followers were swallowed up in the ground. The Rav heard voices coming from the desert floor calling out, “Moshe and his Torah are true, and we are false”.

The Bedouin then revealed that every Rosh Chodesh the entrance to Gehennom appears at that precise place and Korach repeats his confession.

What can we learn from this repeated confession of Korach, the would be kohen gadol?

In two words, “opportunity lost”. Had Korach not been overcome by ego and ambition he would have maintained his elite position as one of the four Levites who carried the Holy Ark when moving from camp to camp. But he made the wrong choice and paid heavily for his intransigent stubbornness, even when facing an unattainable goal, actually sheer madness!

This coming Thursday, the 26th of Sivan my wife and I will celebrate 58 years since our aliya. Every year we visit the airport at 5:30 PM; the time when our plane landed, and we sit and reminisce over a cup of coffee and count the myriad blessings HaShem has given to two young kids who left their families and the land of their birth to embark on a future unknown, a future that turned out to be over and beyond anything we could have imagined.

We left behind family and friends. However, after time we merited to bring our parents and my brother and his family. For my father it was a return home since he was born in Tzfat in 1904, and for us every day was a new level of Torah and involvement in the ongoing progression of Jewish history. And we take extraordinary nachat when witnessing our children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, all born in Medinat Yisrael, stepping forward to take their places in the amazing unbreakable chain of proud Jews and Israelis in preparing the next stage for HaShem to perform His miracles for Am Yisrael.

We left behind friends who regret not taking the step towards the opportunities of their lives; indeed, opportunity lost.

HINT: The Answer Is ‘Yes’…

Were COVID-19 and COVID-20 Created in a US Lab?

By Larry Romanoff
The Unz Review

June 24, 2020

It was amusing to watch the emergence of this debate on the US-China stage. The Chinese were understandably unwilling to be blamed for the emergence of a virus in which they had no part, and thus reacted strongly to accusations the virus originated in a Wuhan lab. The Americans proved to be even more terrified at the possibility of scientific proof that the virus escaped from one of their bio-labs, and resorted to the only weapon they had which was to turn up the volume on blaming China. There were two main reasons for this state of affairs:[1] The US was the only country known to contain all the varieties that were being spread worldwide.[2] The US is the only nation in the world known to have repeatedly used biological weapons on other countries, beginning with North Korea and never ceasing. Of even more damning consequence is the known locations of about 400 American bio-weapons labs spread throughout the world, to say nothing of the pathetically-lax institution at Fort Detrick.[1][2][3]

Moreover, Trump recently claimed he could kill the entire population of Afghanistan within days. “Afghanistan would be wiped off the face of the Earth. It would be gone and this is not using nuclear. It would be over in – literally, in 10 days.” Biological weapons would seem the only alternative. Hemorrhagic Fever and Hantavirus worked for the US in North Korea; perhaps also Afghanistan.[4][5][6] Mr. Trump later denied intention to carry out his threat, but let’s dispense with the fiction of the US having no biological weapons and that Fort Detrick and the 400 foreign labs are performing only benevolent “peace medicine” functions. If it were China with the above history and SARS, MERS, AIDS, EBOLA, bird flu, swine flu, and COVID-19 first erupted in the US, the Americans would claim this as 100% proof that China was responsible. It cannot be a surprise that much of the world today is naturally tending to lay these outbreaks at America’s doorstep.

But returning to our topic of man-made COVID-19 or COVID-20, it seems everyone has been a little too eager to dismiss the possibility (or probability) of these viruses having a (human) helping hand.

Dr. Mae-Wan Ho of the Institute for Science in Society cites a Journal of Virology report (Feb 2000)[7] that described a method for inducing desired mutations into coronavirus to create new viruses. “Manipulating viral genomes is now routine, and it is easy to create new viruses that jump host species in the laboratory in the course of apparently legitimate experiments in genetic engineering. It is not even necessary to intentionally create lethal viruses, if one so wishes. It is actually much faster and much more effective to let random recombination and mutation take place in the test tube. Using a technique called ‘molecular breeding’, millions of recombinants can be generated in a matter of minutes. These can be screened for improved function in the case of enzymes, or increased virulence, in the case of viruses and bacteria. In other words, geneticists can now greatly speed up evolution in the laboratory to create viruses and bacteria that never existed in all the billions of years of evolution on earth.”[8] It wasn’t widely publicised, but Dr. Ho called for a full investigation into the possible genetic engineering and dissemination of the SARS virus.[9]

Then another article in which the author explained that scientists eager to dispel the notion of an artificial origin, do so by pointing out that these new coronaviruses didn’t reflect their computer simulations, the author stating, “To put it simply, the authors are saying that SARS-CoV-2 was not deliberately engineered because if it were, it would have been designed differently.” However, the London-based molecular geneticist Dr Michael Antoniou commented that this line of reasoning fails to take into account that there are a number of laboratory-based systems that can select for high affinity RBD variants that are able to take into account the complex environment of a living organism. “So the fact that COVID-19 didn’t have the same RBD amino acid sequence as the one that the computer program predicted in no way rules out the possibility that it was genetically engineered.”[10]

The article further states that “[The] authors of the Nature Medicine article seem to assume that the only way to genetically engineer a virus is to take an already known virus and then engineer it to have the new properties you want. On this premise, they looked for evidence of an already known virus that could have been used in the engineering of SARS-CoV-2. Since they failed to find that evidence, they stated, “Genetic data irrefutably show that SARS-CoV-2 is not derived from any previously used virus backbone.” But Dr Antoniou told us that while the authors did indeed show that SARS-CoV-2 was unlikely to have been built by deliberate genetic engineering from a previously used virus backbone, that’s not the only way of constructing a virus. A well-known alternative process that could have been used has the cumbersome name of “directed iterative evolutionary selection process”. In this case, it would involve using genetic engineering to generate a large number of randomly mutated versions of the SARS-CoV spike protein receptor binding domain (RBD), which would then be selected for strong binding to the ACE2 receptor and consequently high infectivity of human cells.

“This selection can be done either with purified proteins or, better still, with a mixture of whole coronavirus (CoV) preparations and human cells in tissue culture. This preparation of phage, displaying on its surface a “library” of CoV spike protein variants, is then added to human cells under laboratory culture conditions in order to select for those that bind to the ACE2 receptor. This process is repeated under more and more stringent binding conditions until CoV spike protein variants with a high binding affinity are isolated. Once any of the above selection procedures for high affinity interaction of SARS-CoV spike protein with ACE2 has been completed, then whole infectious CoV with these properties can be manufactured. Such a directed iterative evolutionary selection process is a frequently used method in laboratory research.”

There is, incidentally, another possible way that COVID-19 could have been developed in a laboratory, but in this case without using genetic engineering. This was pointed out by Nikolai Petrovsky, a researcher at the College of Medicine and Public Health at Flinders University in South Australia. Petrovsky says that coronaviruses can be cultured in lab dishes with cells that have the human ACE2 receptor. Over time, the virus will gain adaptations that let it efficiently bind to those receptors. Along the way, that virus would pick up random genetic mutations that pop up but don’t do anything noticeable. “The result of these experiments is a virus that is highly virulent in humans but is sufficiently different that it no longer resembles the original bat virus. Because the mutations are acquired randomly by selection, there is no signature of a human gene jockey, but this is clearly a virus still created by human intervention.”

Notes

[1] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/virus-biological-us-army-weapons-fort-detrick-leak-ebola-anthrax-smallpox-ricin-a9042641.html

[2] https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/02/gary-d-barnett/the-u-s-is-the-world-leader-of-bio-weapons-research-production-and-use-against-mankind/

[3] https://www.globalresearch.ca/us-military-bio-labs-in-ukraine-production-of-bio-weapons-and-disease-causing-agents/5605307

[4] https://www.globalresearch.ca/did-trump-tacitly-threaten-use-biological-weapons/5687936

[5] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07-24/why-did-donald-trump-say-he-could-kill-10-million-afghans/11342794

[6] https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/08/21/604070/US-President-Donald-Trump-Afghanistan-war-win-without-nuclear-weapons

[7] http://europepmc.org/abstract/MED/10627550

[8] https://www.i-sis.org.uk/SAGE.php

[9] m.w.ho@i-sis.org.uk

[10] https://gmwatch.org/en/news/latest-news/19383-where-did-the-covid-19-virus-come-from

Reprinted with permission from The Unz Review.

Larry Romanoff is a retired management consultant and businessman. He has held senior executive positions in international consulting firms, and owned an international import-export business. He has been a visiting professor at Shanghai’s Fudan University, presenting case studies in international affairs to senior EMBA classes. Mr. Romanoff lives in Shanghai and is currently writing a series of ten books generally related to China and the West. He can be contacted at: 2186604556@qq.com. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Copyright © Larry Romanoff, The Unz Review

From LRC, here.

The Land of Israel Is Compared to a Woman

Courting Israel

Chazal teach that the Land of Israel is acquired with suffering, which is not the best sales pitch for aliya. Moving and acclimating to any new environment is difficult, but it seems moving to Israel has a built-in spiritual requirement for the transition to be difficult in the beginning. Why?

Making aliya is not like any other relocation. People relocate for many reasons: education, work, marriage, opportunity, health, medical, family, or simply to make a change. Many of these reasons may factor into when one will choose to move to Israel, but it should never be the driving force behind the move. The real reason to move to Israel – and to remain there – is because it is the home of every Jew, and every Jew belongs there.

The process of moving to Israel is, in many ways, like a courtship. There is the infatuation stage, typical of those who come for a trip or a year in seminary and “fall in love” with Israel. In most cases, infatuation quickly wears off, especially because vacationing somewhere and living there are two completely different experiences. The traveler is left with some fond memories and then returns to real life, finding someone else to love.

There are those who develop a greater connection to Israel and wish to visit periodically, for holidays or special occasions. They support the economy as tourists, show support for Israel in various ways, and admire those who “make the leap”. Ultimately, however, they are betrothed to another land, and their relationship with Israel can best be described as casual dating.

Then there are those who have a second home in Israel and come for extended visits, maybe even a sabbatical. When push comes to shove, however, their connection with another land is simply too strong to commit to Israel. Their love is strong and sincere, but they are like those who need to see other people, too. They can’t be tied down to one person.

Israel is like a beautiful princess with every virtue. Many admire her beauty and praise her virtues, competing for her love. But, like any woman, she wants to be desired not for her beauty and charm, but for her neshama. She has to ensure that those who love her are sincere. Her heart is tender, and she does not want to be hurt.

So, like a true princess, she is coy and enigmatic. She does not display all her beauty and bare her soul to all who come to court her – just enough to be tastefully attractive. She tests her suitors to determine whether they are sincere or superficial. She makes them work for her heart, and those who give up easily have proven themselves unworthy of it.

Those who are worthy of her will not be deterred by the challenge of winning her heart. They know that the beauty she allows them to see is only a fraction of her true beauty. They know that the unflattering aspects of her personality are largely a protective shield. She plays hard to get – but she is worth the effort.

Many are discouraged by her defense mechanisms. They call her rude, ugly, immature, unreliable, cold, unlovable. She is none of those things – entirely the opposite – but she will not give herself to those who will abandon her in difficult times. Her suitors must be tested and prove their commitment.

For more than seventy years, the Jewish people have been “dating” Israel. Many have fallen in love with the land and built beautiful lives here – not perfect lives without any problems, for such lives don’t exist, but beautiful, deeply satisfying lives.

Many others came not looking for love but with a list of demands, scrutinizing the land with a microscope, sneering at any blemish. This land is not good enough for me, they proclaimed! The land was hurt by their betrayal, and responded with the pride of a true princess. I see many blemishes in you as well, she replied, with no need for a microscope or scrutiny. You are covered in warts from head to toe. I was willing to overlook your faults if you loved me, but since you don’t love me, I will make your life intolerable. You can return to your mistress. One day you will realize what you gave up.

Still others have flirted with Israel, enjoyed a dalliance with the land, but can’t make a commitment. The land waited patiently for them, offering her love, but has been deeply disappointed by the lack of reciprocity. Like any woman with dignity, she has finally made an ultimatum. You need to decide once and for all. Either settle down with me, or we cannot see each other any further.

For generations, the Jewish people have dated Israel. It’s time to settle down and get married.

_______________________

Copies of my sefer, Go Up Like a Wall, are available at no charge upon request

www.chananyaweissman.com

Should You Wear a Corona Mask? The Unsettled Science

Excerpted from “In This Together”:

The Science Behind Wearing A Face Mask.

The final reason you might elect to wear a face mask is that you are convinced by the scientific evidence. You believe that donning a cheap or homemade face mask will protect you and others from a disease which you have a 0.45% chance of contracting and a 99.94% chance of surviving.

On the 4th March the State’s Chief Medical Officer, Chris Whitty, said:Why you would imagine that the science shows that wearing a face mask will stave off the minuscule threat of infection is difficult to say. For many, perhaps it is because that is what the mainstream media (an organ of the State) told them. However, the State has said other things at other times.

“In terms of wearing a mask our advice is clear, that wearing a mask if you don’t have an infection really reduces the risk almost not at all.”

On the 23rd April the State’s Chief Scientific Adviser, Patrick Vallance said:

“The evidence on face masks has always been quite variable, quite weak.  It’s quite difficult to know exactly, there’s no real trials on it.”

On the 24th April the State’s Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, said:

“The evidence around the use of masks by the general public, especially outdoors, is extremely weak.”

On the 28th April the State’s Ministry of Defence Chief Scientific Adviser, Dame Angela McLean, representing the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), said:

“The recommendation from SAGE is completely clear, which is there is weak evidence of a small effect in which a face mask can prevent a source of infection going from somebody who is infected to the people around them.”

An unusually clear and consistent message from the State. On the 4th of June the UK State’s Secretary of Transport, Grant Shapps, told the English that we did have to wear face-masks on public transport? Shapps said:

“That doesn’t mean surgical masks, which we must keep for clinical settings. It means the kind of face covering you can easily make at home….wearing a face covering offers some – albeit limited – protection against the spread of the virus.”

Wearing a clinical N95 face mask is frowned upon by the State. Better to wrap a scalf around your head, a bandanna, old handkerchief or one of those paper face masks you used to be able to buy from the market before the State put all the stall holders out of business.

Begging the question, what new scientific breakthrough emerged between the 29th April and 4th June to convince the State that wearing a torn T shirt on your face will save you and others from COVID 19? Albeit limited.

Obviously N95 standard face masks are better suited to the task than a bit of rag. So what is the scientific evidence that N95 masks could protect you, or someone else, from a viral respiratory infection.

Jacobs, J. L. et al. (2009) concluded:

“N95-masked health-care workers (HCW) were significantly more likely to experience headaches. Face mask use in HCW was not demonstrated to provide benefit in terms of cold symptoms or getting colds.”

Cowling, B. et al. (2010) found:

“None of the studies reviewed showed a benefit from wearing a mask, in either HCW or community members in households (H).”

bin-Reza et al. (2012) meta analysis discovered:

“There were 17 eligible studies. … None of the studies established a conclusive relationship between mask/respirator use and protection against influenza infection.”

Smith, J.D. et al. (2016) undertook further meta-analysis of the available studies on face masks. They stated:

“We identified 6 clinical studies … In the meta-analysis of the clinical studies, we found no significant difference between N95 respirators and surgical masks in associated risk of (a) laboratory-confirmed respiratory infection, (b) influenza-like illness, or (c) reported work-place absenteeism.”

Radonovich, L.J. et al. (2019) undertook a study of healthcare workers to assess the relative effectiveness of face masks and respirators:

“Among 2862 randomized participants, 2371 completed the study and accounted for 5180 HCW-seasons. … Among outpatient health care personnel, N95 respirators vs medical masks as worn by participants in this trial resulted in no significant difference in the incidence of laboratory-confirmed influenza.”

Long, Y. et al. (2020) looked at six randomised clinical trials (RCT’s) of face masks to ascertain if they protected either the wearer or others around them from any viral respiratory illness. They didn’t:

“A total of six RCTs involving 9171 participants were included. There were no statistically significant differences in preventing laboratory-confirmed influenza, laboratory-confirmed respiratory viral infections, laboratory-confirmed respiratory infection and influenza-like illness using N95 respirators and surgical masks….The 4 use of N95 respirators compared with surgical masks is not associated with a lower risk of laboratory-confirmed influenza.”

Face masks work well for surgeons who want to avoid dribbling or sneezing into their patients, but are useless when it comes to stopping viral infections. In terms of preventing the spread of COVID 19, there is no evidence that they achieve anything at all.

As far as anyone knows viruses spread through tiny long residence time aerosol particles. The virions – the spiky ball we are all now familiar with – are much, much, smaller than the weave in the fabric, even of N95 clinical face masks.

If your hope is to protect yourself against a viral respiratory infection, covering your face with with a face mask you bought online is about as useful as concrete lifebuoy. So how does the State justify their silly policy? It seems analysis released by the Royal Society DELVE Initiative on 4th May, convinced SAGE to change their advice.

There are no RCT studies anywhere in the analysis which show any protective benefit of face masks for stopping viral respiratory infections. This is because there aren’t any.

However, it does cite some MSM articles, a number of studies about water droplets spread when you exhale, which are obviously stopped when you cover your face and some statements from the U.S. Center for Disease Control. None of which is relevant to demonstrating that face masks protect against viral respiratory infections.

It also cites some studies which again found no benefit from face masks.

Brainard et al. (2020) stated:

“The evidence is not sufficiently strong to support widespread use of face masks as a protective measure against COVID-19.”

The Royal DELVE also cite studies with no conclusions:

Canini et al. (2010)

“The lack of statistical power prevents us to draw formal conclusion regarding effectiveness of face masks in the context of a seasonal epidemic.”

It is impossible to see how the Royal Society concluded from their analysis that face masks should be widely worn. Which is probably why they didn’t. Ultimately they offered no conclusion at all:

“Face masks could offer an important tool for contributing to the management of community transmission of Covid19.” 

They could, but they almost certainly don’t. Nor is there any reason to think they will.

Read the rest here (libertarian philosophy)…

Thanks to a dear reader for the link!

Is Shabbos MUCH Better in Eretz Yisrael? Nah…

Yes, I know that’s a major Aliyah selling point. But let’s peek under the surface.

I’m not even talking about the fake “Jewishly observant” Shabbos observance, including multifarious Heterim and the like, especially in Eruvin. And taking buses too late on Friday and too early after Shabbos (mercifully paused now).

Did you know all manned technical work behind the scenes, all the high-tech projects on computer servers, for instance, all happen during our Holy Days when companies can afford more downtime? Why is this Ma’aseh Shabbos any less than the political football of “public workers” publically working on public train tracks?!

Indeed, the Zehut proposal of changing the Israeli “national day of rest” to Sunday with longer Fridays, mad and Cursedian on its face, actually has some merit (assuming the State has any place legislating this, at all! And as though the State can “give” people days off of work, reimbursed from the money tree!). As the Zehut platform pointed out, this would allow traditional Israelis to attend sports arenas and beaches on Sundays, while “keeping the Seventh Day holy”.

דון מינה ואוקי באתרה.