Year: 2023

DON’T Promise an Apartment!

Be the change…

An excerpt from Tzarich Iyun here:

For several years now, there has been an undercurrent of feeling that common behavior concerning children’s marriages is “abnormal,” to put it mildly. There is also a general sense that there is not much to be done about it. I have been dealing with this issue for many years, and every time I present the economic infeasibility of our existing conduct, the typical response is: “We agree with you, of course, but there is nothing we can do.” Or, in a similar vein: “This is the situation, these are the community norms, and you and I will not be able to change it.”

These kinds of responses reflect an approach whereby change can only come through intervention from above. They may even pin the blame on Rashei Yeshivah who encourage their students to demand apartments—which is far from a false accusation. However, it is worth noting that over twenty years ago (in Adar 5750), the great Torah luminaries in Israel published a joint letter declaring that the current reality that requires parents to purchase an apartment for their children “involves severe prohibitions” and even advised the correct way to marry off children. Those parents who complain today about the absurdity and impossibility of the situation might have been some thirty years old back then. Has anything fundamentally changed?

I keep this letter framed for all those who await the day when “the rabbis will wake up” to come to save us from ourselves. Everyone tells me that “public change is needed.” But the public is you and me. Rashei Yeshivah do not force parents to buy an apartment for their children. They, just like the parents themselves, are also waiting for the norm to change. But so long as it doesn’t, every groom will say to himself with some justification, “Why should I be the one to lose out?”

The truth is that change depends on us. If you and I refuse to resign ourselves to this absurd reality, there is a chance that something will change. But if we continue to wait for some higher authority to fix it, we are inevitably doomed to continue suffering from cultural standards that impoverish us all.

Continue reading…

Vietnam, Afghanistan, Ukraine… Seeing a Pattern Yet?

The Evil Strategy of “Degrading” Russia

By 

The Future of Freedom Foundation

January 7, 2023

 

One of the fascinating aspects of the war in Ukraine has been the extreme reluctance of the mainstream press and Pentagon-CIA supporters to acknowledge, much less condemn, the Pentagon for its role in bringing about this war. After all, the two concepts — the Pentagon’s bringing about the crisis and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — are not mutually exclusive. You can have both things happening — the Pentagon gins up the crisis with the aim of “degrading” Russia and then Russia falls into the trap by getting mired down in a deadly and destructive war against Ukraine.

But when one raises the first part of this equation — that is, the Pentagon’s role in ginning up the crisis — the mainstream press and Pentagon-CIA supporters go ballistic. For them, it’s heresy to point out what the Pentagon did to gin up the crisis. For them, the Pentagon and the CIA are innocent, virtuous babes in the woods that would never do such a thing. For them, the Pentagon and the CIA are nothing but a “force for good” in the world. 

But we know that the Pentagon and the CIA do engage in these types of evil machinations. In fact, they did the same thing to Russia in 1979. They lured the Russians into invading Afghanistan, with the same goal they had with their Ukraine machinations — to give the Russians their own “Vietnam,” which meant “degrading” Russia through the killing of massive numbers of Russian soldiers. 

“Conspiracy theory”? Well, not exactly. That’s because National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, in a remarkable degree of candor, admitted that they had knowingly, deliberately, and intentionally done it. He was proud of it. He was bragging about how they had gotten the Russians to fall into their trap. The entire national-security establishment loved the fact that tens of thousands of Russian soldiers were being killed in the process. The more soldiers being killed, the more Russia was being “degraded.”

Continue reading…

From LRC, here.

Woe to Those Who Call Evil ‘Good’ and Good ‘Evil’…!

The Torah on Word Games and Reality

It’s nauseating that the subject matter in this article is contested and needs to be discussed in seriousness, let alone within Israel and among “educated” Jews. Our society has sunk to such a low spiritual and intellectual state that the most basic and self-evident truths are denied in favor of fantasy and science fiction, all in the name of progress.

So be it. If society is on the 49th level of impurity, here’s a booster shot of Torah truth to raise it back up a notch or two.

The Mishna in Shevuos 29A teaches about shevuas shav, an oath made in vain, which, of course, is a serious transgression. It begins as follows:

איזו היא שבועת שוא נשבע לשנות את הידוע לאדם אמר על העמוד של אבן שהוא של זהב ועל האיש שהוא אשה ועל האשה שהיא איש

What is an oath made in vain? If one swears about something that is contrary to what is known to man; he says about a pillar of stone that it is gold, about a man that he is a woman, or about a woman that she is a man…

This is codified in Jewish law without controversy (Rambam Hilchos Shevuos 5:22, Shulchan Aruch Yoreh De’ah 236:4, etc.). It’s as basic as it gets.

Chazal offered examples of statements that are so absurd, such obvious distortions of that which is self-evident, that one who takes an oath to that effect transgresses the prohibition of taking an oath in vain. According to the Torah, one who swears that a man is a woman, or a woman is a man, is not taken seriously. He is flogged for swearing in vain.

Even if he brings a peer-reviewed “scientific” study.

There are those today, faux intellectuals, who claim there is Torah support for gender-bending madness, as they do for every perverse notion that emerges from the spiritual sewage of the Western world. It is not enough for them to be perverts and idolaters; they have to claim they are righteous followers of the Torah, in fact the most righteous of all.

When they go on their inevitable hunt for Torah sources to cherry-pick, take out of context, and distort beyond recognition, you can be sure this one won’t make it into their little basket.

Nedarim 24B is another illuminating source for dark times such as these. The Gemara discusses the legal consequences of foolish oaths and vows. For example, someone swears that he saw “like those who went up from Egypt on the road”. This is an impossible exaggeration – surely he did not see millions of people in one place – and therefore it is a foolish vow.

But is it? The Gemara continues:

Ravina said to Rav Ashi, maybe this man saw a nest of ants and called them by the name “those who went up from Egypt”, and hence he swore appropriately!

He said to him, when one swears, he swears according to our minds [according to the understanding of the average person], and we don’t refer to ants in this way.

It’s standard practice for Amalekite institutions to play word games and change the definition of common words to trick people and promote a nefarious agenda – all while “technically” telling the truth.

The Torah doesn’t accept such chicanery. If, for example, you want to advertise a pharmaceutical product as being “safe and effective”, the definitions of “safe” and “effective” have to align with what the average person understands them to be, not technical jargon (see here) that obfuscates how unsafe and ineffective many such products actually are.

The same is true with all the other word games that the snakes play to avoid giving straight answers to questions, avoid legal trouble, and, most of all, mislead unsuspecting people down a harmful path.

It doesn’t matter what they call something. It matters what normal people understand it to be.

This is supported by sources in Tanach as well. When Yaacov agreed to work for Lavan for seven years in exchange for the right to marry Rachel, he stipulated “for Rachel, your youngest daughter” (Bereishis 29:18). Why all the details? Everyone already knew that Rachel was his youngest daughter.

Rashi cites the Midrash, as follows: Because he knew that [Lavan] was a swindler. [Therefore Yaacov] said to him, I will work for Rachel. And lest you say [we agreed upon] a different Rachel from the market, therefore it says “your daughter”. And lest you say “I will switch Leah’s name and call her Rachel,” therefore it says “your youngest”. Even so, it didn’t help, for he tricked him.

They didn’t just come up with this game yesterday.

As Yeshaya 20:5 warns:

הוי האמרים לרע טוב ולטוב רע שמים חשך לאור ואור לחשך שמים מר למתוק ומתוק למר

Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil, who profess darkness to be light and light to be darkness, bitter to be sweet and sweet to be bitter.

I wonder if this phenomenon has ever been so literally true.

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