Year: 2020

Once upon a time, newspapers were solely for wealthy merchants making financial speculations based on current events — ממצא חפצך, see beginning of siman 306.

Perhaps reading newspapers on Shabbos, as did the Netziv, etc., is therefore permitted in our own time, per the Rema in siman 307:18.

This needs further thought.

A grandson of Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim told me his grandfather was originally a follower of Rabbi Y.Z. Dushinsky, and then became a follower of Rabbi Aaron Roth, famed author of Shomrei Emunim.

His grandfather recalls Rabbi Dushinsky saying the Zionists would never garner the support needed to form a state and Rabbi Aaron Roth saying the opposite (presumably, this was during the same period, not as things evolved).

The story was told to demonstrate the greater prescience of Rabbi Pappenheim’s eventual Rebbe, Rabbi Aaron Roth.

For someone else who claimed a state would never arise (although this was not stated as mere trend forecasting, but rather misguided “emuna”, see here.)

Know what cracks me up?

Academic-Welfare Bums in a government-protected Guild guilt-and-fear-mongering the “economy” (?!) cannot survive if some Jews study Torah, instead of working (not to offer an opinion here on the matter itself).