Rav Avigdor Miller’s Advice
I appreciate Rav Avigdor Miller’s advice. Many years ago, my father asked Rav Miller about a shidduch candidate for me. He replied that the young man’s father was employed and G-d fearing; he came on time to minyan and attended the 15-minute Mishnah class between Mincha and Maariv.
Baruch Hashem, I married the young man and had three children who are devoted to chinuch.
Today, we conduct major investigations before a phone call is even made. Perhaps in the wake of this crisis, we can be more non-judgmental and assume a chazakah of goodness in other people.
Mrs. Sara Grossman
Abortions Are Never Necessary
Re “Abortion Should Be Legal” (letters to the editor, May 22): Each human life is created in the image of G-d and has priceless value. Both mothers and children have equal dignity and value in the eyes of G-d and therefore every effort must be made to rescue both when their lives are endangered.
First, definitions: An abortion is a procedure carried out with the intent to produce a dead child. Intentionally killing a child is never necessary to save the life of a mother – but a procedure done with the intent to separate mother and child can be necessary. This is called “preterm parturition.” You can read about Preterm Parturition from medical experts at www.aaplog.org.
When a mother’s life is in imminent danger during pregnancy, those who oppose abortion can ethically support preterm parturition because, even if the child is delivered too early to survive outside the womb and tragically dies as a result of delivery, the procedure was not carried out with the intent to kill the child.
High-risk pregnancies should be carefully monitored and the wellbeing of both patients – mother and child – should be taken into consideration in all treatment-related decisions.
Legal abortion came about to sanction the elective, direct, intentional killings of children through all nine months of pregnancy. In fact, the vast majority of abortions today are committed in cases where there is no imminent danger to the mother. They are carried out because the child is so-called “unwanted.”
There is no need to support legal abortion when one’s admirable desire is for women’s lives to be protected in cases of imminent risk.
Lauren Enriquez
Houston, TX
Communications Manager, Live Action
The Arabs Hold the Key to Peace
You reported last week that Joe Biden said any move from Israel to annex the West Bank “will choke off hope for peace.”
I couldn’t disagree more. The real obstacles to peace are Palestinian rejectionism and unwillingness to accept Israel’s existence. Indeed, the Palestinians teach their people – especially their children – that the land from the river (Jordan) to the sea (Mediterranean) is Arab” and encourage terrorism against Jews.
To achieve peace, this must stop. But the last 25 years have proven that the leaders of the Palestinians don’t plan on stopping. The Palestinians desperately need intelligent, peace-loving leaders. Maybe, one day…
In the meantime, Israel has no choice but to use a “big stick.” It should cease supplying electricity, water, medical aid, and money to its self-proclaimed “enemy” until it changes its destructive ways and chooses to live in peace.
Mr. Biden, I hope your future statements will reflect the reality of the Mideast conflict. I would like to be able to vote for you.
George Epstein
Los Angeles, CA
Whoever Controls Education, Controls the Future
The conclusion of Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks’s column last week was spot on: “whatever you seek to create in the world, start with education.”
American public schools are free, but they don’t teach freedom of thought. The values and morality of the Judeo-Christian ethic have been replaced with a progressive agenda and the attendant atheism that justifies it. Anti-religious bigots are the gatekeepers of the hiring committees, the curricula, and the purchase of textbooks.
President Trump is making America great again. If we are to keep America great, though, we need to drain the swamp in academia. The left knows all too well what it has accomplished with the monopoly of thought it cultivates in American classrooms. We need to take back our country.
Just as our children were the guarantors that Hashem needed to give us His Torah, so too a new generation of Americans educated amidst freedom of thought and respect for ideas will insure the protections of our Constitution.
David Ferster
Missionary Alert
I went through my mail the other evening and found an envelope that looked like one of any number of tzedaah envelopes I regularly receive. I didn’t notice that there was no name or return address until I opened it and found nothing but a small book titled Changed with a picture of a young boy on the cover.
The author’s name is Tom Cantor. It didn’t look very Torahdig, and I immediately became suspicious. I glanced at the back cover and leafed briefly through the book, which confirmed my suspicions: It was a missionary work. Readers, beware.
Chana Blumenthal