Why isn’t Jerusalem mentioned in the Torah? Rabbi Dovid Eliezre
Jerusalem is alluded to throughout the Torah but not mentioned by name. A land mass is described that could only be Jerusalem. The Torah kept the actual name secret to prevent everyone including non-Jews from wanting to flock there in droves. Only a few hundred people lived in Jerusalem in the 1920s. Jews have been there for over 3,000 years. We should create our own Jerusalem by praying wherever we are and facing Jerusalem.
What’s on your bucket list? Rabbi Moshe Bryski
The story of 1,090 people who ignored the famous violinist. Where were they going? Why were they rushing? Why do they need to do those things?
Is everything we do preparation for something else?
Sam Walton built Walmart, the greatest company in the world but didn’t have time for his family. On his deathbed, he said, “I blew it. Looking back, I blew it. I blew life.”
“I intend to live forever, and so far, so good.” — Steven Wright
“My luck is so bad that if I bought a cemetery, people would stop dying.” — Rodney Dangerfield
If all we do is rush from one thing to another, it becomes very difficult to imagine any existence beyond the physical.
How do you know you have a soul? “I don’t have a soul. I am a soul. I have a body. My soul is who I am. My body is housing the soul in this iteration of existence.” — Rabbi Avrohom Twersky
Souls don’t die. We will know more about this when we get there. For now, make every day count.
Death closes the curtain on our free will and ability to do good deeds.
Compile our own bucket list, but change the term. Call it a life list, things we want to accomplish in life. Put the exotic stuff aside, unless it is truly a part of you.
Establish a weekly ritual to call your parents once a week. Read the 5 books of Moses, then the Prophets. Go to shul at least once per month, or more. Pick one year to experience every Jewish holiday. Put on Tefillin more often. Mentor someone. Make a difference in another human being’s life. Make a Jewish shidduch. Visit lonely seniors.
Make your goals have lasting and enduring value. Acts of goodness and kindness. Answer the questions to the “why” of life.
Never miss an opportunity to attend a family simcha. As long as we pass on traditions to our children, Judaism will continue to thrive. That should be our legacy. Judaism is not just a religion. Judaism is the hope, guarantee and promise for the Jewish people and all of humanity.
Great debates in Judaism in medicine with Rabbi Edward Reichman MD
Abortion:
Rabbi Moshe Feinstein: Abortion is akin to homicide. Not equivalent, but akin. It’s the taking of a life. The only permitted abortion is if the mother’s life is at risk. Tay-Sachs is not a justification for abortion. Even an amniocentesis is not permitted since it could lead to an abortion. Catholicism takes the opposite view, that the mother must be sacrificed to save the fetus.
Rabbi Eliezer Waldenberg believes abortion is not akin to homicide. It can be performed to save the health of the mother, including mental health issues. Aborions up to 7th month are permitted. Theoretically postpartum depression could be a mental health issue, but now there is treatment for postpartum depression. Therefore a rabbi would be less likely to permit an abortion for that.
Donor artificial insemination: How to procure reproductive seed.
Rabbi Moshe Feinstein: A married woman who goes to a sperm bank because her husband is infertile is not an adulteress. The child is not a momser. This is because there is no physical illicit relationship between the woman and the donor. The donor is the Halachic father. If the donor is a Kohan, the child is a Kohan.
Nevertheless, Jewish law prohibits being a sperm donor. New issues crop up with sperm donors. What if stem cells are taken from the sperm? This has not been adjudicated yet.
The Lubavitcher Rebbe said that a person should be willing to give up everything including his own life to have children.
There is no US legislation limiting the number of children produced by one sperm donor. The serious risk is siblings marrying each other.
If a Jewish woman has a child with a non-Jewish man, the child is Jewish but the child has no Halachic father. The child has a genetic father, not a Halachic one. With no Halachic father, it is impossible to marry a paternal sibling.
There are 60 cases being prosecuted for reproductive specialists providing their own sperm.
3 Day Burial Controversy: Way back when, doctors would misdiagnose your time of death, which affected the entire Western world for burial purposes. “Saved by the bell” is people who would ring a bell when they were buried underground when they were still alive. People who died had to be kept above ground for a few days until it was 100% proven that death had occurred. This conflicts with Jewish law, which demands immediate burial. In israel, burial must occur within 24 hours. There is a clear prohibition on delaying burial.
Yet modern technology has ethicists and others arguing when death occurs. Nevertheless, technology also allows the exact time of death to be precisely pinpointed.
Superstition is part of Christian tradition, not Jewish tradition.
A new physiological definition of death: The invention of the respirator allowed for people to artificially be give oxygen. This meant the stopping of the brain diverged from the stopping of the heart. In the 1950s, a new condition called brain death occurred but cardiac death did not. Legal brain death allowed other organs to be transplanted because those organs were properly functioning.
If you misdiagnose someone as dead when they are not legally dead, and your misdiagnosis causes death, you have Halachically committed homicide.
Crossfire with Rabbis Manis Friedman, Yosef Schusterman, YY Schochet
Hating Israel is the new form of hating Jews. Do not accept the narrative of the NYT and CNN.
You can never have too many Sefer Torahs since everything comes from the Torah.
Successful marriage: Never ask why. Woman must be able to trust her husband, the man is the giver who must feel he is bringing something to the marriage. You can’t fool mother nature.
Doctors tell the rabbis what the medical situation is, then the rabbis consult the Torah to see what is medically permissible.
God has no grandchildren. Every child is his, irrespective of the child’s relationship with the parent.
The concept of a Minyan is biblical. 10 men is mandatory.
Friedman: Prayer can be done by praying on the meaning of the words (Kavanah), or just by the words themselves. Those words are holy themselves.
Shochet: AI: The Jewish perspective is to buy the stocks. ChatGPT can’t give you a hug, show sensitivity, or work on Shabbos. Rabbis are can.
Schusterman: Humility doesn’t mean going around thinking I’m a nobody. That’s idiotic. Humility is knowing myself, but recognizing everything I have is God-given. Humility is about being better.
Friedman: A man’s wife takes priority before the children and his parents.
Schusterman: God doesn’t kill or steal. God takes people back because their mission was accomplished. He’s not killing them. Purpose of creation is to advance to the next level. Plant to become animal, animal to become human, human to reach higher. God doesn’t steal because everything is his anyway.
Shochet: You are allowed to destroy if it’s for later reconstruction. That’s how we know God will eventually build the 3rd Beis Hamikdash.
Shochet: The rest of the world will respect Jews who know how to respect themselves.
Friedman: We don’t discuss transgender with our children. We discuss gender. Transgender is for people suffering from dysphoria. It is inappropriate to discuss at the dinner table. To make it a national conversation is really bad.
Schusterman: Righteous non-Jews have a share in the world to come, whether it is a Jewish or non-Jew0sh world to come. Non-Jews should keep the 7 Noahyde laws. Those laws are to civilize the world. You can’t function in a jungle. Jews are to take the civilized world and bring Godliness into the world through Torah and Mitzvahs. We have a different mission from non-Jews, but in both cases our job is to complete our mission.
Friedman: Affection is meant to be personal and intimate and should only happen in private.
Friedman: No middle ground on transgenderism. You can’t reason with desperation. His program used to make teenage girls to be proud Jews. Now we teach them first to be proud girls.
Schusterman: If children say they are transgender, something is wrong. You can’t let children do whatever they want and then wonder what happened. Raise healthy children.
What were they thinking? with Rabbi Chaim Block, Chabad South Texas
Moses rarely got angry, but every time he did, there were negative consequences. Nothing good ever comes from anger.
God gives us opportunities to fail. That doesn’t mean we have to fail. Our obligation is to do our very best to do the right thing.
The snake is in every one of us. It’s our Yatza Hora.
What the Torah demands of science
The Torah is not in conflict with science.
The people who pray the best are people who have jobs. To appreciate that God created the entire world, you have to experience this outside world, from business to medicine to other forms of employment.
Torah and science usually agree, but sometimes Torah and science disagree.
Talmudic scholars were not scientists.
People claim the Torah is non-literal when the literal interpretation makes people uncomfortable. If anything, that makes the Torah itself more likely to be literal.
Some twist the Torah. Others twist the science. Others smash the whole science-Torah debate with Kabbalah.
Torah is the blueprint of the world, which is described by science. Science is evidence. Torah is truth.
Ignore the bumper stickers that say “trust science.” No scientist trusts science. Trusting evidence is fine, but rarely is hard evidence offered. Statistics does not offer 100% proof.
Math has proofs. Science has a preponderance of evidence and reducing the probability of error to near 0.
There is no uncertainty in the Torah. What it says, is. 100% accuracy. Science is collecting evidence. God is a definitive answer. Evidence is only useful if you don’t already know the answer. When evidence contradicts a fundamental principle, throw out the evidence. Jews have a fundamental principle called the Torah.
Science cannot contradict Torah. When it does, the science is wrong.
Authentic Judaism never compartmentalizes. It does not separate science at work and religion at home. It does not kowtow to nature.
God is supernatural. We are not bound by nature. God can break the rules and mess with the scientific evidence. God split the sea.
Theory is less important than practice. Do mitzvahs.
From Sinai to Cyberspace with Rabbi Yosef Shusterman, Chabad North Beverly Hills
The Torah is absolute truth. So the Torah does apply to events today even though it was written thousands of years ago.
God gave Moses generalizations, general rules.
Rabbis don’t always answer the question. They answer the person asking the question.
Torah says you cannot have minyan or do a Megillah Reading through Zoom. Yet there is a law in the Talmud that says a Shofar cannot be blown in a pit because it creates an echo. You have to hear the original voice, not the echo. So even though the Talmud has no idea what Zoom is, the law still applies.
Abortion and heart transplants?
Torah talks about when life begins and ends. Life begins at conception. Abortion is allowed to save the life of the mother.
Heart transplants? When does life end? Is it brain death or respiratory death? If respiratory death, then the transplant would be impermissible. If the brain death is the criteria, then the transplant would be allowed since the heart is being removed from a dead person.
You cannot take a prayerbook into the bathroom, but you can take your cellphone there.
Surrogate motherhood: If Sarah gives the egg but Rebecca carries the baby, who is the mother?
Laws of inheritance matter. Who would you say Shiva for? Does Shomer Nagiyah apply? What if the donor mother is Jewish and the carrier of the baby is not Jewish? Or vice versa.
In general, if either woman is not Jewish, Judaism prefers they convert to Judaism.
Life does begin at conception, but there are various stages of Halachic life. The true viability of a baby is 30 days after birth.
JLI Retreat 2023
Prophecy for Beginners with Rabbi Pinchas Taylor
Prophecy is a core belief in Judaism
Prophet: Someone who receives messages from God to transmit to the people. One of 13 pillars of Judaism.
Prophets make corrections in the direction in which Jewish society is moving.
A prophet cannot change any law. The Torah is the law. Only false prophets go against the Torah.
Prophets must be wise, lucid, impeccable character, in full control of one’s evil inclination, always calm and joyous, shun materiality, devoting entire life to serving God.
God decides who gets to spread his prophecy.
Prophecies must be specific and unpredictable.
Negative prophecies that don’t come to fruition do not invalidate the prophet. It’s possible the people heeded the prophet’s warning and altered their behavior positively to ward off the catastrophe.
Israel is a prophecy. Smallest of nations. Hated by others. We were exiled but became an eternal nation.
Prophecy ended 2300 years ago when the desire for idolatry decreased. This was when the Second Temple was destroyed.
Our big prophecy is Moshiach. Miracles do not make a prophet. Miracles do not bring Moshiach.
JC was not a prophet. He did not restore the temple, gather the exiles, or bring about world peace.
Moshiach must be descendant from King David. JC has no genealogy. JC existed after prophecy ended. JC broke several commandments, including violating Shabbos.
Nostradamus was not a prophet. His predictions were all vaguely worded. He shoots the arrow at the tree and then draws the bullseye around it after.
False prophecies include Y2K and the Mayan calendar End of Days prediction.
No, the Simpsons are not prophets. Confirmation bias. Cherry-picked data.
Liberals created and keep fueling the MAGA movement
Donald Trump’s third straight presidential run has conservatives split between “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) die-hards and those singing Bob Seger’s “Turn the page.” Liberals uniformly oppose Trump for a litany of reasons. Many liberals see Mr. Trump as Frankenstein’s monster. These liberals fail to realize this makes them Frankenstein. They created Trump, nurtured him, and continue eight years later to feed, fuel and motivate him and his MAGA movement.
Understanding Trump’s initial rise requires returning to 2011. Governor Mitt Romney cleaned President Barack Obama’s clock in their first presidential debate. The Obama team realized a positive reelection campaign like Ronald Reagan’s 1984 “Morning in America” or Bill Clinton’s 1996 “Bridge to the 21st Century” would fail during tough economic times.
Romney was like Mr. Rogers, only nicer. Obama’s team successfully painted polite Midwesterner Romney as a racist, sexist, heartless, plutocratic vulture capitalist who enjoyed firing people. Obama verbally decked Romney and punched his way to a second term.
Romney and Senator John McCain before him pulled punches out of fear of blowback from criticizing America’s first partially black president. With Hillary Clinton in 2016, Republicans faced the same quandary.
Republicans needed a street brawler. Rudy Giuliani underperformed in 2008. New Jersey’s Chris Christie underwhelmed in 2012. Both opted out in 2016. Only Donald Trump remained.
Republicans overlooked Trump’s behavior because he was a ferocious counter-puncher. No blow was out of bounds. Rosie O’Donnell started a feud with him for laughs. He made her cry.
Trump’s campaign was also a fist in the eyes of smug late-night comedians. Seth Meyers roasted Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, calling him a “joke.” John Oliver dared Trump to run. Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel ridiculed him. They stopped laughing after he won.
Yet the biggest gift American liberals gave Trump was a clear policy lane. His undisciplined personal style aside, Trump was remarkably disciplined on policy. Voters felt economic angst, and Trump repeatedly hammered the same two themes of trade and immigration he had addressed for over 30 years.
Democrats focused on social issues. Voters understood at the time that abortion was legal and gay marriage was law of the land. Climate change registered at the bottom of opinion surveys.
On election day, Trump campaigned in Wisconsin. Hillary partied with A-list celebrities. Trump’s victory equated to “Caddyshack” Rodney Dangerfield defeating Ted Knight’s Judge Smails. The slobs defeated the snobs.
Eight years later, many Democrats still have not learned. Some prop Trump up under the belief he cannot win. More plausibly, they cannot ignore him. The more President Joe Biden’s approval languishes, the more Democrats frighten voters with “Orange Man Bad.”
Democrats mock Trump, his policies, and worst of all, his voters. Indicting Trump and raiding his Mar-A-Lago home under flimsy charges emboldens him. He successfully paints his critics as wacky conspiracy theorists who insist he is a Russian spy. His supporters rush to defend him when he claims, “They’re not after me. They’re after you. I’m just in the way.” Most Trump voters are not racists, sexists, conspiracy theorists or insurrectionists. They just want a better life.
Democrats created MAGA by condescendingly dismissing Trump voters as society’s filthy dregs. Trump reminded these voters that their lives also matter.
With spiraling inflation, food and fuel prices, and crime, Democrats need better answers than blaming Trump. Even those questioning his policy prescriptions concede that at least he has them. Democrats attacking voters as Gaea-killing transphobes give Trump his opening.
Had Democrats sacrificed Obama’s identity politics, Romney may have served two very moderate terms. Flaming culture wars would have been on the back burner of a quiet, non-controversial technocratic administration. Trump would have spent a decade building bigger, better golf courses.
A 2024 Trump win would again be by default. He can win if enough voters believe Democrats, as in 2016, remain indifferent to their survival.
Christian children murdered: The unanswered transgender question
Time must not allow the Nashville massacre to fade into obscurity.
In a shocking display of brutality, a transgender individual broke into her former Nashville Christian school and shot six people to death. Three innocent children and three adult employees are no longer with us. Two Tennessee police offers subsequently shot and killed Audrey Hale, ending the threat.
The heartbreaking murders on March 28th turned the political world upside down. The LGBTQ+ community has long claimed to be victims of bullying. In the Nashville horror, the transgender person was the cold-blooded aggressor. Christians were the victims.
The typical deflection to gun control preceded the expected straw man argument about reprisals. A backlash against the LGBTQ+ community is fiction. Most Americans are good, decent people who eschew painting entire groups with a broad brush. Americans did not rampage against Muslims after 9/11 or assault Jews due to the 2008 financial crisis. No sane person would even think about blaming Caitlyn Jenner for Audrey Hale’s evil act.
Yet the shooter’s sexual orientation cannot be ignored either. It is central to the shooting, not peripheral. Rather than cower in fear of transphobia accusations, Americans must ask the unanswered transgendered question.
Is it dangerous to change genders?
Before some heads explode, this question is medical, not political. It is one thing for an adult man like Bruce Jenner to make a life-altering decision. Children could face far more risks.
Adopting a new pronoun is simple. A gender change involves complex physical alterations to the human body. These alterations can include serious surgical changes and chemical drugs.
Some drugs do cause violent behavior. Many people who consumed powder or crack cocaine committed crimes in the heat of violent rages. Crystal meth addicts often turn to violent crime to feed their habit.
It is not an attack on gay or transgendered people to ask questions about puberty blockers. Anyone who believes in science should demand that every drug be scrutinized. If Viagra, Rogaine or Theraflu were causing violence, they would hopefully be pulled from the market. The Food and Drug Administration must not hold puberty blockers to a lower standard.
The transgender movement is relatively new. It only began gaining steam in 2015. Eight years is not a lot of time to get drugs to market, much less have comprehensive studies verifying their safety and efficacy. Time horizons matter. This is why many Americans refusing to take the Covid vaccine support vaccinations for polio, measles, and other diseases.
Puberty blockers could be completely safe. Either way, the American Medical Association must release every single study done on every single one of these drugs. Experts for and against these drugs should have public debates where neither side is censored.
Rather than feel persecuted, the LGBTQ+ community should demand to know if the drugs their community is taking are safe. As with the 1980s AIDS crisis, it is far better to hurt people’s feelings than let them die.
It is totally understandable for gay and transgender people to be skeptical about motives. Studies linking being gay to pedophilia were debunked, but not until after causing many innocent gay people significant pain. Trust of others is difficult, but people on both sides of the transgender rights debate have to unite on this issue of drug testing.
Did Audrey Hale take puberty blockers? Can these drugs cause violent behavior in a percentage of people who take them? If yes, what percentage? If yes, should they be banned? Are there other drugs that can counteract potential violence?
Evangelical Christian conservatives and leftist transgender activists can agree on the most important point of all. Nothing in this world is worse than innocent murdered children.
We need to ask this hard transgender question and get honest answers before one more child of any orientation suffers an untimely violent death.