יום שלישי, כ״ב תמוז תשפ״וTuesday, July 7, 2026
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A Talmida Chachama ‘If He Is A Scholar, He Is Not Sworn’ (Shavuos 41a)
As we are taught, Ein tzaddik ba’aretz asher yaaseh tov v’lo yecheta – There is no righteous person in this world who does good and doesn’t sin, there is certainly what to worry about.
In the previous columns, we laid out the mechanics of bitachon. Now, we begin the step-by-step protocol to confront anxiety and fear head-on—starting with a powerful, science-backed technique to intercept anxiety the moment it strikes and shift both body and brain out of panic mode.
We have been here before. We have seen how quickly the world turns. How Jewish suffering is minimized. How our tears are measured against the political utility of those who hate us.
Zahava’s private, locked-up grief and frustration seemed to keep her from reaching out to her sisters, who might have provided support.
Question: I find it very difficult to understand the punishment of death that was meted out to Rabbi Akiva’s students. If he was so great, we must assume that they were of a superior caliber. If so, why such a harsh punishment? Zelig Aronson Queens, N.Y.
For maximum benefit, meditate twice a day. Most people find that meditating first thing in the morning before breakfast works best.
The sedra has 2,264 words and 8,632 letters. Even though Naso’s pesukim are well below average in length (in number of words or letters), it still ranks #1 in all categories.
By Marc Gronich
First Sephardic Jew elected to NYS legislature.
The students who harassed Jewish students, destroyed property, disrupted classes, and ruined graduations with their blood libels against our nation. Your misguided protests have blurred the lines between truth and falsehood.
Breitbart became a great source of hope to all sorts of Jews, ranging from the wholly unaffiliated to Orthodox and Charedi rabbis, who could dream of a future of national empowerment and, ultimately, a Jewish state defended by Jewish strength.
Wealth can also lead one astray: Wealth hoarded by its owner is to his detriment (Koheles 5:12). Avshalom was blessed with beautiful hair (Sotah 11a) and Shimshon was blessed with strength, but these attributes led them astray.
While the perpetrators were bound by a desire to protest, surely they all shared a desire to see Israel disappear – and obviously, they also turned to violence.
With regard to the Birkas Kohanim, the Zohar comments that actions performed in this earthly world inspire astounding conduct in Heaven. When the Kohanim spread their fingers to bless the Jewish people, it rouses the Divine Presence to dwell upon His people.
Israel is blessed in the merit of the three fathers, also in whose merit the Torah was given.
Colleges and universities are surely among the most important venues for the organization and refinement of ideas and opinions.
Everyone wants to contribute something significant to the world; to play a meaningful part in the cosmic symphony we call life. This desire is an inherent part of being human.
We often fall into unhealthy religious judgmentalism. We don’t possess a reliable thermometer to measure others’ religious sincerity or depth. Yet we often speak loosely, labeling others as less frum or branding entire communities as less religious.
In about thirty seconds, I had reconfigured our life. We would settle by the sea, my husband would become a Masada guide, and I would homeschool at the water’s edge.
We don’t have to wait until we feel inspired to reach for Hashem. We reach out because we feel dry, empty, arid. That’s the moment of connection – not after the storm, but during the drought.
The medrash in Bamidbar Rabbah tells us that the Torah was given through three mediums: fire, water, and the desert. The commonality between these three is that they are all free and accessible. So too, the Torah costs nothing as it is available to anyone who seeks it.
When it comes to Israel we want as much rain as possible in the winter so that our crops will grow and the land will flourish.
Moisture for crops and vegetation? No problem; we had dew every morning. Water to drink for man and beast? No reliance on oases for us, we had be’erah shel Miriam. And so it went for 40 years.
We see that it is a Torah value to maintain composure, even under the most dire circumstances. When we look at the commentaries, we see different ideas as to why this is so, each reflecting on the human condition. Rashi says that remaining calm rattles and humiliates the enemy.
We find it hard to believe President Trump would really be upset with the Israeli threats to bomb Iranian nuclear sites. In fact, to paraphrase an old adage, if Netanyahu did not so threaten, Trump would ask him to.
If we want to savor life, the only way is to slow things down.
By Rena Vegh
At different points, members in the group yelled out as they revisited difficult feelings in the body or memories in the mind.
How many people choose to politely confront the people they’ve been hurt by without bearing a grudge, stewing, seeking revenge or sulking?
How is it possible that the earth still turns on its axis? Doesn’t everyone understand the void that now exists?
We all deal with anger once in a while. But, during the teenage years, anger is something that can take over both teenagers’ and parents’ lives. This anger can feed that bad wolf and make him grow out of proportion.
Just as Hashem spoke the world into being, perhaps He wrote His will into our very cells.
Being frustrated at work or trying to get away from a difficult boss are not good reasons to retire.
Recap from last week: Velvel and his daughter Zahava decide to ask their neighbor, Mrs. Shulamis Rosner, for advice about their huge debts.
By Mendi Glik
A lot more songs during dance sets are rock or electronic style, Mordy says. It used to be more freilach, but recently the music has more of a rock, electronic, and trance vibe.
Anxiety and fear are distinct phenomena, each with unique origins and requiring different strategies for management. Anxiety prompts us to anticipate future dangers and imagine worst-case scenarios that might never occur. In contrast, fear is a reaction to a known threat that usually subsides once the threat is removed or conquered.
Beyond the specific questions, pay close attention to how the therapist responds. Do they listen attentively? Do they answer your questions clearly and respectfully? Do you feel a sense of warmth and genuine interest?
Question: I find it very difficult to understand the punishment of death that was meted out to Rabbi Akiva’s students. If he was so great, we can assume that his students were of a superior caliber as well. How did they rate such a harsh punishment? Zelig Aronson Queens, N.Y.
If you want happiness for an hour, take a nap. If you want happiness for a day, go fishing, if you want happiness for a year, inherit a fortune, if you want happiness for a lifetime, help somebody.
We forget to look in the mirror to acknowledge our beauty and successes, and instead, open every window to let in our failures and disappointments.
Like in an election, the division of the land among the twelve tribes had to be supervised by officials who made sure that there would be no fraud involved in allocating the land.
By Irwin Cohen
Without the Babe in April and May, the Yanks were close to the bottom and finished the season in seventh place in the eight team American League.
Pesach and Shavuot...represent the liberation of the body and the liberation of the mind, respectively.
The photos are perfect, varied and colorful; the writing tells many unique, personal, and interesting stories which shed light on different segments of Israeli culture and society (not all of it religious), and many, though not all, of the recipes are relevant to us Orthodox Jewish ladies.
The road to Gehinnom is paved with good intentions – such as the unwarranted benefit of the doubt that too-credulous well-intended leaders and negotiators give their undeserving counterparts.
Ostrov writes that Rabbi Kaufman had a limp in his walk and a fire in his heart. He did, indeed.
Since the case of early second night Yom Tov involves infringing on a holier day for the sake of a less holy one, it seems more analogous to davening Motzaei Shabbat Maariv and reciting havdalah after plag on Shabbat afternoon.
This ideology accuses countries like the United States, Canada, Australia, and Israel of an ongoing genocide. The adherents had to perform some intellectual contortions and prevarications to make that accusation.
How do Torah scholars make more peace in the world?
By Ariela Davis
The Pomerantzes love living in Maalot and encourage other olim to think about the advantages of moving to areas outside of the center!
R’ Elazar states that all agree, though, that on the holiday of Shavuos, we are obligated to eat and drink because it is the day on which the Torah was given. R’ Shimshon Nachmani, the renowned Zera Shimshon, notes that this conclusion seems paradoxical. We would think that the day commemorating the giving of the Torah would be dedicated solely to spirituality, to Torah study.
By Elie Klein
The tweens who were forced to attend their friends’ bar and bat mitzvah celebrations via Zoom have spent much of the subsequent years missing school to attend the military funerals of family, friends and neighbors.
The Boston Globe reported that by the end of November 1967, more than 400,000 members of the Jewish faith are estimated to have observed the commandment to wear Phylacteries (tefillin) at the city’s Western Wall, formerly known as the Wailing Wall.
While recognizing the disruptions to day-to-day life caused by the project, Rojas assured attendees that it was carefully planned to maintain safety, improve efficiency, and minimize overall project duration.
We do not simply remember what once occurred, we relive the experience as we tap back into the power of kabbalas haTorah.
By Marc Gronich
Perhaps the most concerning part [as to his] stance on Israel is his comparison of Israel’s actions to apartheid and genocide. His opposition to U.S. financial support for Israel demonstrates a level of ignorance that distorts the realities of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict..., Assemblyman Ari Brown (R – Cedarhurst, Nassau County), told The Jewish Press.
To deserve the name Numbers, this week’s sedra contains numbers galore – starting with a count of the adult male population of each of the 12 tribes, with a total of 603,550 men age 20 and up.
Having lived in Israel now for almost 20 years, with the daily dramas we endure, the interconnectivity of events become readily more apparent and harder to overlook.
While, Donald Trump is not, by any stretch, Barack Obama when it comes to Israel, the emerging Trump Middle East doctrine is eerily reminiscent of the Obama New Beginning speech at Cairo University at the beginning of his first term.
Considering that, at least for the first meal of yom tov we want to keep our energy and focus on Torah learning for most or all of the night, the emphasis should be on quality rather than on quantity.
Shouldn’t Shavuot’s commemoration of Matan Torah mandate a spiritual celebration?
The Mishna (1:2) for Maseches Rosh Hashana states that there are four periods when Hashem sits in judgment: Pesach for grain, Shavuos for the fruit of trees, Sukkos for water, and Rosh Hashana for humanity.
If one can embrace it without compromising the rest of the day, the experience of Torah learning on this night can deepen one’s connection to Torah for the whole year to come.
Everything we do in life requires sustenance, and it’s no coincidence that the Torah uses the word lechem to describe not only bread, but all food in general.
By Maayan Zik
Lechem with the Hebrew letters lamed-chet-mem means bread, but can also be a stand in for abundance, livelihood, and sustenance.
It has been asked, aren’t there other foods that are tastier and more exciting than bread? Are we not instructed to consume “fat meat and old wine” to celebrate Yom Tov? Doesn’t bread seems so banal? Is that all that married life is, as exciting as bread?
Trust in Hashem’s ability and desire to provide for us and focus our efforts on simply providing avenues for him to do so.
By David Curwin
The connection between war and welding becomes clearer when we consider that, in ancient times, combat involved close physical contact – just as welding fuses elements together.
The struggle to settle our sacred homeland continues. Nearly 80 years after the founding of Medinat Yisrael, and despite our yearning to live in peace with our neighbors, many still deny our rightful presence in this land. The Simchat Torah war of the past year and a half is not a new chapter, but […]
It is doubtful that the decision will have any significant impact on the issue of the constitutionality of public tuition assistance to yeshiva parents.
By Aryeh Werth
There’s criminal aspects of anti-Jewish hate crimes, and I think those are the most chilling because everyone understands that someone’s being attacked because they’re Jewish. The other aspects are bias incidents, discrimination, and subversive antisemitism that exists in language, exists in education, exists in different ways – and that’s a very large focus of the office.
Start And Final ‘Aleph Lamed Chol, Yud Keh Kodesh’ (Shavuos 35b)
The conflict between different parts of our mind and the denial of certain thoughts provide a tidy explanation for the contradictory ways in which people behave.
A promise is a promise and it'll only take me a minute, I can surely do this without any problems!
It seems to me that most people do not discuss the adjustment period after the death of a loved one. Hence, I am continuing to write this diary…just a bit longer.
If you wouldn’t have a spare copy, you’d have to pay cash, so it’s not fair to make me accept your spare copy!
ear is part of our survival instincts. When we are faced with danger, our body goes into what scientists call fight or flight mode.
Posthaste ‘And He Simply Uttered Bread’ (Shavuos 26b)
By Mendi Glik
As a teenager, we used to go on Yom Yerushalayim to the Rikud Degalim (March of Flags). The whole city filled with boys and girls dressed in blue and white holding flags of Israel in their hands, storming the streets with dancing, joy, and happiness, celebrating Yerushalayim.
Now if only Dina had been alive… an audible sigh escaped, and he glanced around to make sure Zahava hadn’t heard. Of all the people in this world, why Hashem had to pick his lovely, gentle wife to die young was a mystery to him.
A narrow lens doesn’t just blur what matters—it warps scale. We lose the ability to gauge how much something matters.
Question: I find it very difficult to understand the punishment of death that was meted out to Rabbi Akiva’s students. If he was so great, we can assume that his students were of a superior caliber as well. How did they rate such a harsh punishment? Zelig Aronson Queens, N.Y.
Keeping a journal has also been found to be helpful in remediating homesickness. When writing, it’s important that your daughter focus on the positive and all of the fun that she is experiencing.
By Marc Gronich
One of the bills Cohen wants to see voted for would require that when drivers pass bicyclists, they have to give the bicyclists a minimum of three feet so they can have a fair share of the road.
In a city torn by conflict, we remember: Yerushalayim is meant to unite us – with each other, and with Hashem.
By Avi Ciment
A while back, the first hostages came out, I recall viewing a video with a split-screen down the middle showing Hamas’s insidious reaction on one side juxtaposed with the Israelis on the other side. The difference between good and evil was palpable.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
Words can injure and inspire. Words can bless or curse. Words can create new moral facts, such as when we make a promise.
Indeed the laws of Shemittah were meant to be given at Har Sinai because the original plan was that we would enter the land of Israel a short while later, not forty years later.
By Alan Zeitlin
Greenblatt said it was Trump’s intervention that resulted in hostage Edan Alexander being freed and added that sometimes you just have to do what you have to do, talk to the worst people in the world to actually make progress, that’s the reality.
One possible explanation that Rashi finds in the Midrash is that all of the general principles were received at Har Sinai; however, many of the specifics were taught by Moshe in the land of Moav immediately before the crossing of the Yarden.
July 3, 2026 
