יום שישי, א׳ אלול תשפ״וFriday, August 14, 2026
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For a brief period – a mere 30 days – the King of kings comes out to offer each of us a personal invitation to embark on a new journey together.
It does not reject galus. It recognizes that this particular galus is a constitutional democracy that gives religious minorities lawful tools to protect themselves.
On August 6, one day after Ohel was chosen as the successful bidder, a group of Camp Lavi parents obtained counsel and filed an objection to the sale of the camp to Ohel.
The impetus for the society’s creation reportedly stemmed from both a desire for camaraderie among Jewish officers and the need to foster religious solidarity and mutual support at a time when Jewish law enforcement personnel were a distinct minority in the department.
When large companies approached him with sales opportunities that would have eclipsed his existing business, he turned them down. Selling to them would make him beholden to them, and over time it would cost him his independence; they would become too important to lose.
Financial transparency, whether a couple reviewing their numbers monthly or a family being honest with a tuition committee, is not a secular add-on to Jewish life. It is closer to the Torah's own standard.
The printed volumes that established his reputation, however, present only the public face of the man. This notebook opens an altogether different window, revealing the private workshop of one of nineteenth-century Jewry's greatest scholars.
What G-d gives us will not lead us astray. But what we grab for ourselves might spoil us.
Sefas Emes answers that since Shabbos is enacted by Hashem alone, it has less influence over a person than mitzvos that he partners in.
By Arnold Fine
Can you remember the really big, important “firsts” in your life?
As I am sure most readers know, when we bentch Rosh Chodesh, the molad of the coming month is announced. But how does that work?
One of the great strengths of this series is that it succeeds with very different audiences.
Question:: Why are people allowed to establish a new synagogue when there is already one in operation in a neighborhood, and available funds are already overtaxed? Joel Grosz Via Email
By Marc Gronich
Lawler is in the political battle of his life. And flipping his seat could mean the end of Republican control in the House of Representatives.
If the events in this world emanate from the mazalos, how can we reconcile the fact that they foretold that Avraham would not have children?
By the report’s reckoning, well over two million Israelis live within a single October 7 radius of a military force that isn’t supposed to exist. And that is only the threat on which the report focuses.
What unfolds throughout the correspondence is far more than a simple exchange of ideas. Rather, the letters reveal the extraordinary scholarly discipline with which Rabbi Kahana approached every aspect of the project.
By Moshe Gantz and Joseph Miller
A knowledgeable STaM professional should welcome your questions. They should be happy to explain the ksav, the sofer, the quality of the klaf, the inspection process, and the differences between the various levels of hiddur.
By Mendi Glik
They take the music very seriously, but don’t take themselves too seriously.
From the Yellow Brick Road to the Emerald City, this essay uncovers surprising parallels between America's most beloved fairy tale and the Jewish journey through exile, identity, and redemption.
By Ava Schwartz
The shul mentors are handpicked, trained, and professionally supported so they can accompany and support boys and girls who would otherwise sit alone or simply stay home.
'Do not abandon the Torah of your mother' teaches that alongside striving for lofty ideals, a person must also practice wisdom, balance, and self-care.
By Yigal Gross
We have gotten remarkably good at playing defense. And we have mistaken that skill for advocacy.
The listening we have to do is to the echoes of the footsteps of Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov, who left their imprint in the sands of time, as recorded in the words of the Torah.
Three thousand years before behavioral economists began publishing papers on sudden wealth syndrome, the Torah was already treating this question as a serious concern.
Israel – a Jewish state standing alone in a sea of nations that would erase it – is not the crime you make it out to be. It is what a people builds when it refuses to disappear.
When Zohran Mamdani won the mayoralty, many New Yorkers who had not voted for him responded with a shrug. He had won – but how much difference could one mayor really make? More than a half-year into his administration, the answer is clear: a great deal. Far from an ideological curiosity confined to City Hall, […]
Stories like that of Yunes remind us that even amid unimaginable evil, even within the story of a murderous rampage, extraordinary goodness still exists.
The race for New York's 12th Congressional District is about more than party politics. It is a choice about whether one of America's largest Jewish communities will have a representative who will stand unequivocally against antisemitism.
The greatest factor affecting long-term growth is not the government's initial $1,000 contribution. It is consistent annual family contributions.
By Aryeh Werth
“[T]his is what happens when the sitting Mayor of New York City actively demonizes Jewish residents and normalizes antisemitism…” – GOP Gubernatorial Candidate Bruce Blakeman
By Avi Woolf
Morning prayer services cannot begin until after sunrise, making it impossible for people to attend prayer services and get to work and school on time.
The Jewish holidays – every one of them – are inextricably bound to Jerusalem and its Holy Temple.
People don’t generally erupt in cheers at the end of a brit milah. But after such a long journey, what else could we do other than join in a round of communal elation?
An hour in which nothing has to be managed, where the worst of it can be said out loud and the person hearing it neither flinches nor leaves, does something no technique accounts for.
What do Communists, Nazis, and Islamists have in common?... They agree on almost nothing else. Their creeds of race, religion, and government are mutually exclusive. Yet all three share an aim: Israel's annihilation.
Most of this obscenity has taken place in Labour controlled towns. That party, in thrall to Muslim voters, has been most energetic in trying to cover the evil up.
Other cultures have imitated and adopted versions of circumcision and Sabbath observance. But tefillin have remained exclusive to us, uncopied by any other religion.
By Avi Woolf
I wanted to make the actual Churban relatable to people... We have a G-d who is longing to be home with His children, and He doesn't have a home.
Through Chassidic teachings and timeless wisdom, this essay reveals how even our deepest collective pain can inspire healing, unity, and hope.
By Dr. Jon Lamm
The Nazis fought for total extermination... Therefore, to honor and to remember, to love and nurture, to daven and learn Torah, and to celebrate with Am Yisrael in our very own Eretz Yisrael is the ultimate act of defiance.
By Adina Broder
The antidote to the loneliness of 'Eicha yashva vadad' begins by making certain that no Jew ever feels 'Eicha esa levadi.'
By Alan Zeitlin
Claims that Jews control FIFA all rely on the same idea: that Jewish people are the secret master manipulators of the world.
By Mendi Glik
Borzutzky came to Israel to study at the Rimon School of Music in Israel – where, of all places, he discovered the Jewish spark buried deep within him. Since then, he has made aliyah, fully returned to his roots, and started a family.
The most famous of Rabbi Shimon’s opinions is that he will infer the implied logical reason for a commandment, and then use that reason to allow for exceptions when it runs against the apparent logic.
Ramban acknowledges the practice, but he doesn’t concur that it is necessarily a bad thing. In fact, he states that the idea of escalating difficult matters to higher courts is a praiseworthy practice which confers honor on the law.
Over generations, the demands of the type of crop became the character of the people. Talhelm calls it the rice theory of culture: what people do for a living quietly shapes what a society values. And it persists.
The episode is not an isolated procedural lapse. It reflects a deeper assumption that runs through the National Institutions: that "Diaspora Jewry" holds one set of views, and that the institutions may speak in its name accordingly.
He is also toying with the concept of including an event plan board where users can make checklists and invite others to view their vendors and add their personal notes and comments.
If more experienced rabbis make aliyah, communities and institutions need to invest more seriously in developing the next generation of rabbinic leaders.
By Marc Gronich
New Measures to Address Gun Violence in N.Y. The past several weeks have been particularly busy in government and politics. Two examples: June saw the celebration of Dairy Month and Gun Violence Awareness Month, even though state residents are well aware that gun violence is on the rise in the state. Dairy Month was celebrated […]
A total approaching $5,000 is certainly at the upper end of the spectrum, but it is not unheard of in communities where certain brands and accessories have become an unofficial standard.
This structure shapes the incentives of the Torah heirs. If they accept the distribution outlined in the civil will, the obligation is waived and the estate is divided accordingly.
These days the show regularly traffics in the genocide-hoax. Not by Lehrer himself, who hastens to add that proponents of Israel disagree with that labeling, but by very many of his guests.
Ever since the Hamas-led October 7 terrorist invasion of southern Israel, the use of Holocaust inversion by enemies of Israel went from being used only by pariahs to becoming chic.
When parents seek an intensive Jewish education for their children, we hand them a tuition bill that can exceed the cost of college. Something is wrong with this picture.
By Chaim Saiman
I was initially perplexed as to why the specific location loomed so large; surely Humboldt has many suitable lecture halls. But the significance of Humboldt’s elegant nineteenth-century Senate House became clear as I was being introduced at the event.
By Jewish News Syndicate (JNS)
“Senator Graham’s family appreciates prayers at this time and asks for privacy during this incredibly difficult period,” according to his office.
From the land mines and border infiltrations of the 1950s, to the suicide bombings of the 2000s, to the slaughter of October 7, 2023, Palestinian Arab terrorism has made a deliberate science of murdering civilians.
It is impossible to look honestly at such sacrifice and claim that military service and greatness in Torah are incompatible.
Political extremism rarely emerges in a vacuum. People turn to radical solutions after years of watching institutions disappoint them and their economic opportunities grow increasingly out of reach.
Israel already existed when that vote was taken. Not yet as a sovereign state – that would come the following May – but as the living substance of a nation: its land, its cities, its farms, its schools, its university, its courts, and its militia and underground armies.
By Dovid Hirsch
It is estimated that at the time of the American Revolution, there were merely 2,500 Jews in the entire 13 colonies, most of them women and children. From that period, we have over 100 confirmed names of Jews who served the Patriot cause in uniform.
There is a unique grief that belongs to an in-law child. It sits quietly in the back seat, in the shadows; it knows its place.
It is not widely known that Netanyahu was a hero long before he commanded the Entebbe operation. He played a key role in many crucial Israeli security operations, exhibiting courage and valor in the most dangerous of circumstances.
Run the test in good faith and Israel is the hardest state on his list to convict. Yet it is the only one he convicted.
By Alan Zeitlin
Kiros campaigned with streamer Hasan Piker, who has said that America deserved 9/11, ultra-Orthodox Jews are inbreds, and anyone who ever had a positive feeling for Israel should not even be able to be a dog catcher.
Neutrality “is not an option,” the Argentinian president said.
We feel guilty and want to help them, but we also feel frustrated because we might know that their pattern is self-destructive or that somehow, they’re doing this to themselves.
It strains our credulity to imagine that such tremendous tzaddikim, especially after everything they have already seen and led us through, would be in any way lacking in belief.
By Jonah Halper
Many fundraisers struggle to build lasting donor relationships and feel as though they are constantly chasing donors. Often, what separates them from those who succeed is the ability to reveal the emotional truth of the mission in a way the donor can feel.
Are you embracing time, letting each stage of life arrive and do its work? Or are you trying to freeze yourself, forever reaching back toward a younger version of yourself that is not coming back?
Aliyah is not only about leaving. It is also about carrying. And there are gifts from chutz la’aretz that I very much hope to bring with me.
President Trump’s “Memorandum of Understanding” with Iran and his reprimand to Israel for attacking Hezbollah and Vice President Vance’s increasingly regular threats to cut off weapons to the Jewish State, seems to vindicate Kissinger’s words.
One of the most common financial mistakes people make is allowing the opinions and behaviors of others to influence their own decisions.
Vance has publicly condemned antisemitism and rejected anti-Jewish hatred... Yet he has often appeared remarkably tolerant of antisemitic and anti-Israel voices when they emerge from the populist right.
By Alan Zeitlin
In Mamdani’s mind, AIPAC is a group of monsters, and someone who protested against Israel the day after October 7 is a person of conviction. Yes, it is madness, but it is working.
By Mendi Glik
Every time Levine composed a song, he wanted people to be comfortable with it right away. The tune should seem a little familiar, but with a chidush (something new).
I recommend establishing a longer-term investment account focused primarily in equities. If an institution does not need the funds for many years, the stock market can allow those assets to appreciate meaningfully over time, potentially outpacing inflation and helping offset adverse currency fluctuations.
Stripped of slogans and emotion, his statement invites a serious historical question. If Palestine was a country, when exactly did it exist? This is no mere rhetorical trick. Countries leave records, they have governments, capitals, rulers, borders, laws, armies, currencies, and diplomatic relations.
The deal’s apparent long ceasefire also only plays into the Iranian regime’s delaying tactics. We’ve repeatedly seen that “ceasefires” with the Iranian regime and its proxies mean “we cease and they fire.”
The damage that Israel and the United States did to the Islamist terror regime was undone by an agreement that rewards Tehran and vindicates former President Barack Obama.
Russia had its own reasons for opposing a complete Iranian collapse. Moscow values Iran as both a partner and a counterweight to American influence.
By Raffi Crouse
Albo insists that the highest form of divine service is performed from love rather than fear, and that even the commandments the mind resists should be done with joy, the way a person digs gladly through hard ground for a buried treasure.
While we hope and pray for continued miracles, we of course have to do all in our power to make miracles unnecessary, and one way is to do a better job explaining to the world which people are interested in genocide and which people are interested in preventing it.
The words are brief, but they open a window into the inner world that shaped everything that followed. The land had not diminished them. The giants had not diminished them. They had diminished themselves.
Israel is not an idea I support from a safe distance. It is part of my life and my family’s story.
When struck with a crisis, I turn to the writings of America's greatest crisis manager, Abraham Lincoln.
I was fortunate enough to be the high bidder of the item, and thought little of it over the years.
I was surprised that the most often cited reason to interact with non-Jews was civic, political, and legal issues affecting the community.
Dan Bilzerian, who has 30 million Instagram followers, is on the ballot as a Republican in Florida’s 6th Congressional District. While he has little chance of winning, as an extremist, vulgar antisemite, his mere presence on the ballot combined with whatever percentage of the votes he will get, is jarring.
By Mendi Glik
At his parents’ home, everyone sang – not professionally, but they all loved to sing. He has bli ayin hara 11 siblings, so you can just imagine their Shabbat table when they were growing up. Not only did everyone sing, but every sibling wanted to be the lead singer.
I wonder how many stood there, opening up their hearts and souls. How many knew that this would be their final prayer and yet they called out to Avinu Shebashamayim, ‘bring us home to Yerushalayim!’
Israel has consistently maintained that the blockade exists to prevent the importation of weapons and military materiel into Hamas-controlled territory, a claim that is strongly supported by the historical evidence.
When it comes to the technologies, medical breakthroughs, surgical innovations, and companies that have most shaped modern life since the 1990s, two countries stand out above all others: the United States and Israel.
Say what you will about a demagogic politician dedicated to reviving Marxism – one of history’s bloodiest and costliest failures – as if the catastrophic events and slaughter brought on by it never happened. But on this issue, at least he wasn’t a hypocrite.
He was among the first rabbis to embrace the internet as a platform for Torah, publishing responsa as early as the 1990s. But these were not ordinary responsa. Every ruling stood behind an idea.
In the wake of the Jewish people’s collective wedding anniversary on Shavuos, I offer five dating mindsets that I’ve gleaned from those summers – for those of us still on the journey toward our chuppah, and those genuinely offering support along the way.
By Brian Romick
The United States should absolutely use its leverage to advance peace. But that leverage should not be focused solely on Israel.
August 14, 2026 
