יום שני, י״ג אב תשפ״וMonday, July 27, 2026
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By Rabbi Yehuda L. Oppenheimer
Between Yaakov and Avraham stands Yitzchak – often the least discussed of the Avot, but nevertheless the most relevant to us.
Financial research shows that wealth, even when substantial, rarely survives more than three generations. What seems permanent in one era often fades in the next.
By Alan Zeitlin
Lebowicz performs across the country for synagogues and organizations that want clean, kosher comedy that still makes them laugh. His comedy is easily accessible, drawing from Jewish laws and customs as well as from some popular culture that everyone is familiar with.
That the injustice was later recognized – and that his name is publicly honored – reflects a society willing to confront its grave mistakes.
After I spoke at my father’s memorial and received that feedback, I knew what I had to do: I was going to write his biography. Then, I could show my family members and future generations the full picture of who their Zaidy was. They would be able to learn from him and emulate his ways.
For me, the dissemination of conversation during services had not, in the past, been so much a violation of halachic decorum, but an annoying impediment to clearly hear the ba’al tefillah and ba’al koreh enunciate each and every word.
Nobody ever started keeping Shabbos because a rock was thrown at them or because they were told that if they do not, they are a bad Jew. People embrace Shabbos because they were lovingly invited to experience it, shown its beauty, exposed to its meaning. They were invited to learn about why it is important and right for them.
For all his caution, Pius XII never suggested that it was wrong to fight Nazi Germany; rather, he operated within a long-standing Catholic moral framework that recognized the tragic necessity of war under certain conditions: the “Just War Theory,” which does not glorify violence; it constrains it.
The editors made one decision and held it absolutely: not a single word was changed, misspellings included, half-finished sentences included.
There is something uniquely powerful about the prayers of a child. Watch a young child daven, and you will see a kind of purity that is difficult to replicate in adulthood.
The outright wrongheadedness inherent in each of these statements needs to be exposed. Not just for Israel’s well-being, but for America’s.
By Alan Zeitlin
Reactions were swift, with some saying it was an offense to our community to no longer have a Jewish Heritage Day and others saying it was not a big deal and there could be innocuous reasons.
Avodas Hashem is shaped not only by obligation, but also by how we understand the human being, by the moral awareness embedded within us and by the way we see the world and our place within it.
Measured globally, the fleet is modest in size. Within the eastern Mediterranean, it ranks among the most capable forces, with clear advantages in technology, training, and readiness. Larger fleets operate in the region, yet Israel’s navy is structured for high-intensity missions and rapid response.
Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik famously began his work The Lonely Man of Faith with the stark words, “I am lonely.” He wasn't talking about a lack of friends. He was talking about the inherent loneliness of a person of faith, the realization that your deepest commitments might never be fully understood by the world around you.
It was at that Chabad in North Brooklyn, on Bedford Avenue, where I experienced the kindness of the Jewish community and, during dinner, felt a warmth in my chest that I immediately knew was G-d.
AI can generate, summarize, and analyze. But it cannot become you. It cannot build your character.
Now that he had served out his time and would soon be eligible to rejoin the world, why was he not eager to undergo the purification ceremony to be administered by the kohen which would be his ticket back to freedom?
In both cases, a fanatical regime chose to double down on ideology, sending its own youth to die.
We have just emerged from our shelters, literally and figuratively, after six weeks of war. The air is heavy with mixed emotions shaping how we approach this moment. There is relief, but also grief. Pride, but also fatigue. Nothing feels simple or settled.
There’s no good reason for any Jew who is pro-Israel to resist using the term Zionist to describe themselves. Zionism is a team sport, and the object of the game remains what it has always been: the saving of Jewish lives.
For what it’s worth, there are people who are honest about the use of AI.
Carter’s handling of the Iran hostage crisis was the defining culmination of an administration that never understood the revolution it was appeasing, epitomized by his own U.N. ambassador Andrew Young, who in February 1979 was still serenely predicting that Khomeini would be hailed as “a saint” once everyone “got over the panic.”
Since October 7, hate crimes against Canadian Jews have skyrocketed. In recent weeks, shots were fired at area shuls in two separate incidents. Police have now banned pro-Palestinian protestors from demonstrating in Jewish areas.
Critics of circumcision frequently frame the issue as one of children’s rights or bodily autonomy, but this framing overlooks the reality that parents routinely make irreversible decisions on behalf of their children in many contexts, including vaccination, medical treatment, and education.
By Alan Zeitlin
While at the height of his powers as the host of his top-rated Fox News show, Carlson brought on rapper Kanye West, who said some questionable things about Jared Kushner, but Carlson deleted a portion where West said that he’d prefer his children celebrated Chanukah instead of Kwanzaa for “financial engineering.”
By Mendi Glik
In the concentration camps and the gas chambers, Jews were murdered on the cursed soil of Europe. And while their brothers and sisters in the United States couldn’t do much for them, the little they could do was to shout.
We are not there to reason on behalf of G-d. If G-d promises that something will happen, it will happen. How? That’s not our business. Our business is to fulfill the positive commandment of Kiddush Hashem and G-d will work out the rest as He did with the ram that showed up to save Yitzchak.
That story about the crumpled white shirt deeply changed my life. So often, when I felt confined by circumstances and life’s difficult conditions, I returned to that white shirt and challenged myself to rise above my frustration.
Despite the original Shulamit not being a name (but rather a description), in post-Biblical times, that word came to be used as a personal name given to Jewish girls, and in the last generation or so has actually become quite popular.
Anyone who has gone through a traditional yeshiva education is familiar with this unique aspect of Jewish tradition. Torah study is not just for knowledge, nor is it merely a mitzvah to study, but it is also a redemptive, elevating process.
In that sense, this article is itself an act of haggadah. The goal is to point at what is happening around us and say: look, this is what the hand of G-d looks like in history. That obligation falls on every Jewish parent and teacher…whenever history offers a teaching moment. And this year, history is not being subtle.
Traditionally, we are supposed to limit eulogies in the Hebrew month of Nissan, as it is the season when our people’s liberation from slavery in ancient Egypt was brought about by G-d.
By Yossi Baumol
When one thinks about a miracle, in order to give thanks to the Ribbono Shel Olam, it is insufficient to give thanks only for the miracle itself; one must also understand the means, the circumstances, the causes that He set in motion, how the Ribbono Shel Olam orchestrated events – and every separate reason, every cause, every factor is a miracle in itself.
If we’re asking questions solely for the purpose of receiving answers, we’re missing the point.
As slaves to Pharaoh, our time was not our own. The gift of freedom also granted us the gift of time, and our very first commandment shapes that gift by giving us the Jewish calendar, a framework for our days.
Beginning in 1947, the JRSO searched out heirless Jewish assets and unclaimed property in the American-occupied zone of Germany and distributed them to Jewish institutions and organizations, primarily in the USA and Israel.
Mrs. Klein replied, It doesn’t seem fair that I should pay you for two idle hours when there’s still work that could be done!
Values such as kibbud av va’em and the importance of supporting children as they build their lives are deeply ingrained. These are not obligations people take lightly.
If the Temple Israel shooting isn’t a wake-up call to Congress to get its act together, I don’t know what is.
Before Mamdani’s meteoric ascent to power, October 7, 2023, tore away the last pretense. Hamas named its massacre Al‑Aqsa Flood and proclaimed it a religious war – a summons to Muslims in all Arab and Islamic countries to join the battle.
Unacknowledged stress doesn't stay quiet. It finds other exits. It comes out in how we speak to our children at the end of a hard day, in the walls we build around our hearts, in the subtle withdrawal from connection and meaning.
Other challenges in life can pass through us with resilience, but nothing can replace those we love and can no longer see. The pain remains; we simply get better at carrying the broken pieces of ourselves.
The critique is not merely legal but civilizational: instead of producing, building, or creating, the gambler sits passively, hoping that chance will deliver profit.
While Israel is recognized as a leader in trauma care and innovation, participants emphasized that the central challenge is not a lack of expertise or activity, but that the current system is too fragmented to effectively meet the scale and complexity of the growing national need.
The Mincha is the simplest of all offerings – flour, oil, a measure of frankincense. Ingredients drawn from the rhythm of daily life. Nothing extravagant. Nothing that signals wealth or status. Nothing that would draw attention in the courtyard of the Mishkan.
By Ariela Davis
Despite the desperation of seminary kids and tourists to get out of the country in time for Pesach, those of us who have chosen to build our lives here wouldn't want to be anywhere else.
It is not just that those outside the Jewish community see American Jews as weaklings who cannot defend themselves; it is that too often we see ourselves this way.
By Alan Zeitlin
I thank G-d nobody told me in the 491 days about my wife and daughters, Sharabi said. I think it would have hurt my chance to survive.
Every Jew, regardless of ideology or level of religious observance, is part of this collective project. Continuing to rely on abstract terms such as Knesset Yisrael or Klal Yisrael can lift Jewish peoplehood out of lived reality and recast it in theoretical terms.
The initiative was established to express profound gratitude to the community of scholars who balance intensive high-level Torah study with the rigors of military service.
This arc – frank acknowledgment of failure, followed by unconditional reaffirmation – is not incidental to the haftarah. In truth, it is one reason the whole institution of the haftarah exists.
Back in 1960 bibliography, Yaakov Ya’ari made the first attempt to actually count how many times Jews have published versions of the Passover Haggada, and he came up with an incredible 2,717 different editions.
Sheps comments at the beginning of the Haggadah that we are all teachers on Seder night and we are all students.
There are really two kinds of religious life. The first is built out of inspiration... This second life is not built out of inspiration. It is built out of return.
I’ve always been struck by that phrase “nesa liban,” “their hearts lifted them.” There is something deeply human in it, a quiet rising of the soul toward purpose.
Ashrei is a very important prayer, and the most important pasuk in it is: “Poseiach es yadecha (You) open Your hand and satisfy each living thing according to its need.”
By contrast, the more nebulous offense of fraud and breach of trust, which sits at the heart of the charges in Cases 1000 and 2000, has long been criticized by legal scholars for its vagueness.
From a pro‑Israel standpoint, the danger is not only that Gaza has turned the party leftward; it is that the moral and political reflex to stand with Israel under fire has been replaced by a posture of suspicion, apology, and punishment.
Carlson may have inadvertently done more for Chabad fundraising than any giving-day campaign.
When it comes to selling real estate during war, patience suddenly becomes a national virtue.
Alongside true nuclear explosives, there is also the radiological category – dirty bombs or radiological dispersal devices. Iran’s 60‑percent uranium could be fashioned into several such weapons, dispersing uranium dust or fragments over a city with conventional explosives.
Iran’s enemies feared not open confrontation, but stalling tactics. An agreement that would relieve pressure, allow Iran to regroup, and perhaps wait for a weaker American administration in a few years. From a cold political perspective, buying time was the obvious move.
That outside-the-pale groups Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow would attack Israel and America for bombing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s regime should come as no surprise.
By Alan Zeitlin
Even more bizarre is that both The New York Times and The Washington Post referred to Khamenei as avuncular. Normal people rarely use that word. I’ve heard it uttered less than 10 times in my life.
By Avi Ciment
If we only look through life seeing the bad without bringing into account G-d’s infinite goodness, then our perception and understanding of life and of G-d – not to mention our ability to grow – is limited.
The European response underscores something deeper about NATO’s structure. Its collective‑defense clause – Article 5, so often invoked as sacred text – is riddled with escape hatches.
Yet a motley crew on the left and right are not happy about the idea that national decline is a choice the president firmly rejects.
It is the only book in Tanach where G-d’s name does not appear. There is no open miracle, no prophecy, no explicit divine intervention.
On Tisha B’Av, Rav Moshe would wear a threadbare garment that was beginning to tear. One could see the grief in his eyes and his longing for the yeshuah with all of his soul.
Clothes do not make the man, but they frame the role he occupies.
The Jews of Shushan did not change their location. They changed the way they carried their covenant. For a moment, they stopped guarding it and started living it.
The removal of Maduro, who personally anchored the Iran–Venezuela axis and defended Hezbollah’s presence, abruptly deprives Iran of a loyal partner at the apex of this system and signals to other leaders in the region that acting as a host for Iranian and Hezbollah activities can end in arrest, indictment and loss of power.
This sort of technology unlocks immense potential in many fields – for its ability to increase efficiency, to handle menial tasks, and even shortcut the difficult work of creative synthesis, what we would call chiddush. It is no wonder then that the public has been engaged in a frenzied adoption of AI in nearly every field of activity.
Esther believes in herself, not because she knows she’s externally beautiful or talented or popular, but because she knows that G-d believes in her.
By Alan Zeitlin
Carlson has great skill in magnifying and minimizing what he wants to, and is a charismatic con-artist who is unlikely to be discredited by a kind man who cares about decorum.
By Alan Zeitlin
Carlson has great skill in magnifying and minimizing what he wants to, and is a charismatic con-artist who is unlikely to be discredited by a kind man who cares about decorum.
Liu, Hughes, and the other USA Olympians give me hope that despite our differences, we remain strong; we remain winners.
Liu, Hughes, and the other USA Olympians give me hope that despite our differences, we remain strong; we remain winners.
Though Mordechai received no prophecy regarding the correct course of action – hence the term perhaps – this does not prevent him from issuing clear directives to Esther. He reflects on the situation and discerns what action Hashem expects from both of them.
In the beginning, we were summer friends. Possibly we exchanged a letter or two during the year, but when summer came, we embraced each other, so happy to be together again.
There is a categorical difference between criticizing a government and singling out the world’s only Jewish state for obsessive denunciation while displaying indifference toward, or even apologetics for, far graver abuses elsewhere.
Distinct. Individuals. Representing tribes. But in Terumah, at the moment of donation, before they are placed and named in detail, they are called something else. Avnei miluim. Stones defined not by their brilliance, but by their necessity.
By Miriam Feit
Talking about miracles – I can definitely say: I hope for a special miracle on this Purim day!
The Mishkan gives Bnei Yisrael predictability through clear instructions, agency through voluntary offerings, collaboration through shared labor, embodiment through materials and craft, and containment through a defined sacred space. It is the Torah’s first blueprint for communal healing.
Our calling is not merely to take in and reflect surrounding culture, but rather to shape it, to serve as a light unto the nations by embodying and promulgating the Torah’s Divine values.
When Israel is viewed as the outcome of national liberation and survival after catastrophe, support feels natural. When Israel is cast primarily as an aggressor or colonial anomaly, support must be defended constantly.
By Alan Zeitlin
Canadian-Israeli David Greaves, president of the Israeli Olympic Bobsled and Skeleton Federation, told The Jewish Press: It was shameful and careless and is the reason why Jews are unsafe in the streets of many places around the world. Imagine the uproar if he did that to an athlete from any other nation.
Priesthood is hereditary, only allotted to a few individuals. Holiness, by contrast, is applicable to, and attainable by, each of us.
By Alan Zeitlin
Qatar has already spent an estimated $6.5 billion to brainwash college students to hate America and Israel, while Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens seek to make Christians feel that support for Israel is a yogurt that has now soured.
A sizable number of Israel’s supporters still call themselves Zionists. That includes many people who will never seriously consider making aliyah, let alone do it.
By Mendi Glik
At age six, Harris started to play the violin. His parents sent him to music school because his uncle had given him a violin, and he joined the school orchestra, which he played in for five years.
The Torah’s language about the ger, the yatom, and the almanah is not sentimental; it is structural. These identities are not about eliciting pity but about embedding protection into the very framework of halacha.
Because Mishpatim is the Torah code designed for living in the Land of Israel. Courts, damages, property law, social responsibility – these are not abstract ethics. They assume land, sovereignty, and society
The Torah deliberately places civil law alongside the drama of revelation. At the very moment when heaven meets earth – amid thunder, lightning, and awe – the Torah turns our attention toward human responsibility: how society is ordered, how power is restrained, and how justice is preserved.
At this point, describing the ensuing campaign as mere bias is no longer plausible. What has emerged over decades is an institutional war on Jewish sovereignty.
The speech sparked excitement and inspiration. It provided something rare: a vision of Jewish strength rather than just a lamentation about the hatred Jews face.
The Jewish people did thank Hashem, but they waited. They waited for the sea to split, for the danger to pass, for the story to reach its resolution. And only then, in a powerful, collective, composed moment, they sang. It was magnificent. It was holy. It was exactly right.
By Miriam Feit
So much hatred and evil, deception and lies – Brainwashing…so many people fail to realize.
The Israelites have survived slavery, survived the plagues, survived the waters closing behind them. But survival is not the same as readiness. Freedom does not erase the patterns that oppression carves into the mind and heart. The Torah does not rush past this truth; it lingers in it.
July 24, 2026 
