Hyehudi.org

From The Independent:

We all know the inspiring story of Flight 93, of the heroic passengers who forced the hijacked plane to the ground, sacrificing themselves to save the lives of others. The only trouble is: it may simply not be true. John Carlin reports from Shanksville, Pennsylvania

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Which is not to assert that the “hero” story is untrue, or even implausible. Maybe the legend does indeed correspond perfectly to the facts. And certainly, based on the records of telephone calls made from the plane, there is no disputing that a number of the passengers did indeed intend to carry out actions of great courage. But what those actions actually turned out to be is not known – or known only to a small group of people with a clear picture of what happened in the skies over Shanksville on the morning of 11 September, people in the US military who tracked the plane’s last moments as well as people familiar with, but unwilling to reveal, the full contents of the material gleaned from the cockpit voice- recorder, which was retrieved in perfect working order after the crash.

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The alternative theories, both of which have been denied by the US military and the FBI, are a) that Flight 93 was brought down by a US government plane; and b) that a bomb went off aboard (passengers had said in phone calls that one of the hijackers had what appeared to be a bomb strapped to him). If doubts remain despite the denials, if conspiracy theories flourish, it is in large part because of the authorities’ failure to address head-on questions centring on the following four conundrums.1. The wide displacement of the plane’s debris, one explanation for which might be an explosion of some sort aboard prior to the crash. Letters – Flight 93 was carrying 7,500 pounds of mail to California – and other papers from the plane were found eight miles (13km) away from the scene of the crash. A sector of one engine weighing one ton was found 2,000 yards away. This was the single heaviest piece recovered from the crash, and the biggest, apart from a piece of fuselage the size of a dining-room table. The rest of the plane, consistent with an impact calculated to have occurred at 500mph, disintegrated into pieces no bigger than two inches long. Other remains of the plane were found two miles away near a town called Indian Lake. All of these facts, widely disseminated, were confirmed by the coroner Wally Miller.

2. The location of US Air Force jets, which might or might not have been close enough to fire a missile at the hijacked plane. Live news media reports on the morning of 11 September conflict with a number of official statements issued later. What the government acknowledges is that the first fighters with the mission to intercept took off at 8.52am; that another set of fighters took off from Andrews Air Force base near Washington at 9.35am – precisely the time that Flight 93 turned almost 180 degrees off course towards Washington and the hijacker pilot was heard by air-traffic controllers to say that there was “a bomb aboard”. Flight 93, whose menacing trajectory was made known by the broadcast media almost immediately, did not go down for another 31 minutes. Apart from the logical conclusion that at least one Air Force F-16 – 125 miles away in Washington at 9.40am, meaning 10 minutes away from Flight 93 (or less if it flew at supersonic speed) – should have reached the fourth of the “flying bombs” well before 10.06am, there is this evidence from a federal flight controller published a few days later in a newspaper in New Hampshire: that an F-16 had been “in hot pursuit” of the hijacked United jet and “must have seen the whole thing”. Also, there was one brief report on CBS television before the crash that two F-16 fighters were tailing Flight 93. Vice-President Dick Cheney acknowledged five days later that President Bush had authorised the Air Force pilots to shoot down hijacked commercial aircraft.

3. One telephone call from the doomed plane whose contents do not entirely tally with the hero legend and which is accordingly omitted in the Independence Day-type dramas favoured by the US media. The Associated Press news service reported on 11 September that eight minutes before the crash, a frantic male passenger called the 911 emergency number. He told the operator, named Glen Cramer, that he had locked himself inside one of the plane’s toilets. Cramer told the AP, in a report that was widely broadcast on 11 September, that the passenger had spoken for one minute. “We’re being hijacked, we’re being hijacked!” the man screamed down his mobile phone. “We confirmed that with him several times,” Cramer said, “and we asked him to repeat what he said. He was very distraught. He said he believed the plane was going down. He did hear some sort of an explosion and saw white smoke coming from the plane, but he didn’t know where. And then we lost contact with him.”

According to the information that has been made known, this was the last of the various phone calls made from the aeroplane. No more calls were received from the plane in the eight minutes that remained after the man in the toilet said that he had heard an explosion.

4. Eyewitness accounts of a “mystery plane” that flew low over the Flight 93 crash site shortly after impact. Lee Purbaugh is one of at least half a dozen named individuals who have reported seeing a second plane flying low and in erratic patterns, not much above treetop level, over the crash site within minutes of the United flight crashing. They describe the plane as a small, white jet with rear engines and no discernible markings. Purbaugh, who served three years in the US Navy, said he did not believe it was a military plane. If it indeed was not, one suggestion made in the internet discussion groups is that US Customs uses planes with these characteristics to interdict aerial drug shipments. Either way, the presence of the mystery jet remains a puzzle.

Read the rest of the article here…

מאתר הביתה כאן (Includes English translation)…

“ונכנסתי לבית הגדול והקדוש והתפללתי בו ביום חמישי, ששה ימים לירח מרחשוון”

Rabbi Brand demonstrates at length that “Habayis Hagadol Vehakadosh” the Rambam records entering in Jerusalem (on Vav Cheshvan) was certainly the  Temple Mount, contra Shut “Minchas Yitzchak” and others.

Needless to say, the case for ascending the Temple Mount today doesn’t hinge on this at all, but on the ancient tradition identifying the Dome of the Rock with, well, the “Rock” (and much more). Still, it is a nice thing to know we retrace the steps of the Rambam, as well.

But prolific anti-Zionist rabbi, Aviad Neiger, in his anti-Temple Mount tract (ויעמד על ההר אשר מקדם לעיר p. 67-69, and elsewhere) argues the Jews were reduced to visiting a substitute location on Har Hazeisim since the time of the Geonim instead of Har Habayis.

He writes, p. 14 (Bolding, underlining, etc. omitted):

מלבד כך שהיהודים לא הורשו להכנס לירושלים ק”ו ב”ב של ק”ו להר הבית בגלל — ‘חוזה עומר’, אזי שישנה סברא שגם בשאר השנה לא הורשו היהודים להיות גם בהר הזיתים, אלא רק בחודש תשרי, ולכן מציינים באגרות חג הסוכות עד הושענא רבה (ומשום כך גם היה נהוג בימי הגאונים שראש ישיבת ‘גאון יעקב’ היה מכריז ומודיע על סדר קביעת המועדים למשך כל  שנה הבאה, והכרזה זו ידועה בשם ‘הכרזת הר הזיתים’).

So, that’s where the Rambam went, says Rabbi Neiger.

But let’s bear some facts in mind:

1. The Rambam had political connections with the Sultan, etc. then (right?), so he may have gained an exception to the general Jewish ban. Various accounts, including those quoted by Rabbi Neiger, imply there were exceptions for others. Although the Rambam does say, יצאנו מעכו לעלות לירושלים תחת סכנה. I didn’t consult Rabbi Y. Shilat’s notes on this.
2. The Rambam used his own, private Hebrew. Think: Igros Chazon Ish… I doubt he would have called an imitation spot by a borrowed phrase.
3. The Rambam saw the mountain as the Mikdash, see Rabbi Grossman here. So, the Rambam would likely call the mount “הבית הגדול והקדוש”, even without intending any structure.
4. The Rambam gives this event great significance. An ignorant Jew may have cheerfully accepted a substitute, just like many Jews today find the Kosel quite adequate (if not an improvement!). But a great Torah scholar commemorating the day he visited a neighboring mountain? (ושני הימים האלו, שהם ששי ותשיעי במרחשון, נדרתי שיהי’ לי כמו יום טוב ותפילה ושמחה בה’ ואכילה ושתיה… וכשם שזכיתי להתפלל בה בחורבנה, כך אראה אני וכל ישראל בנחמתה במהרה אמן) That doesn’t smell right.
5. The Rambam was writing to a Torah scholar, as well, Rabbi Yefet (note the Gra here).

Feel free to weigh in here, my dear readers!

UPDATE: Rabbi Neiger responded to this over here.

הרב מלבי”ם על הכתוב “עשיר ברשים ימשל” משלי כ”ב ז’:

(ז-ט) “עשיר ברשים ימשול” וכו’, “זורע עולה” וכו’, “טוב עין” וכו’, נודע מקורות העמים כי בימי קדם היו העשירים מלוים מעות להדלים ברבית, והיה החק כשלא היה לו לשלם היה לו רשות לקחת אותו ואת אשתו ובניו לעבדים ולרדות בו בשבט כרצונו, והיו העשירים מלוים להדלים ועל ידי הרבית התמוטטו לגמרי ונעשו רשים, שהרש גרוע מן הדל שהדל התדלדל מנכסיו ולרש אין כל, ואז נעשו לו עבדים, אבל עי”כ התעורר כפעם בפעם מרידה מן העם הלוים, והיו הורגים את העשירים ועושים בם נקמות גדולות, עד שעי”כ הוכרחו השרים כ”פ להקים חק לוותר את החובות או לשלמם מכיס המדינה להשקיט המרד, ובעתים האלה העשירים שלא היו מלוים ברבית רק חננו את הדלים בצדקה, היו נצולים ועמדו בכבוד ובברכה בין העם, וז”ש “העשיר ימשול ברשים” ע”י “שהלוה עבד לאיש מלוה”, אמנם הסוף הוא, שמי “שזורע עולה” שמלוה מעות ברבית לעשות עולה, “יקצר און”, כי אז “יכלה שבט עברתו” שבו רודה את הרשעים, כי יקומו עליו ויהרגוהו, ואז “טוב עין הוא יבורך מי שנתן מלחמו לדל”, לא המלוה ברבית לעשות את הדל לרש, רק מי שנתן לו מלחמו ועזרו בכספו בלא בצע, הוא יבורך מן העם.

אכמ”ל.