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This Google Custom Search looks only in this website. HaRav Yerachmiel Gershon Edelstein zt"l
Rabbeinu was born on 2 Iyar, 5683 (1923), just over 100 years ago, in what was then the Soviet Union. He was the first born of his father, HaRav Tzvi Yehuda zt"l, the rav of Shumiatz in Russia, and later the rav of Ramat HaSharon just north of Tel Aviv and author of the sefer Ben Aryeh. His mother was Miriam, the daughter of HaRav Mordechai Shlomoh Mowshowitz zt"l the rav of Malestova. In this home that was an heir to an illustrious heritage of great Torah scholars, Rabbeinu grew up.
The atheistic Communist authorities closed all of the traditional chadorim. There was only one large Jewish school of some 400 pupils, but they were not allowed to teach any Torah.
When rabbeinu reached the age of Chumash study, his father took him out of the communal school and sent him to the only practicing melamed there was in the city at that time.
Agudath Israel of America is outraged by the antisemitic commencement address given at the CUNY Law School graduation. The use of a commencement speech on May 12 at the City University of New York (CUNY) Law School to deliver a wild tirade against Israel was an ugly example of the sort of hatred that has been reported on CUNY campuses, as on others, that crosses the line of antisemitism.
Student activist Fatima Mohammed's libels about Israel, characterizing the country's responses to attacks from without and within its territory as indiscriminate murder of innocents and asserting that Israel encourages "lynch mobs," are textbook examples of the vilest sort of propaganda. Equally odious is her accusation that the U.S. government deserves condemnation for its imprisonment of "Palestinian political prisoners" — those convicted of terrorist activities.
Health Minister Rabbi Moshe Arbel has appointed a committee to examine the medical community's actions on Yemenite, Oriental and Balkan children. It was created in response to the criticism of the draft of a report which an internal team of the Health ministry prepared, collated by a student in the ministry and reviewed by the then person responsible for preventing racism, Professor Itamar Groto, deputy director of the Health Ministry at the time.
In an interview to the daily "Yisrael Hayom," Finance Minister Betzalel Smotrich said:
"A student in the Betzalel Academic Institute for the Arts costs the country 38,000 shekel a year. It is a government subsidy. There are students in gender studies and the arts which we help to finance. A normal, standard country invests in the humanities, arts and culture.
"I am not one to downplay the humanities or Betzalel, but what do they contribute to the national productivity by throwing paint on walls and calling it art? Why are we subsidizing this? Because it makes our country 'normal'?
"We back the theater with an annual fifty million shekel and the movie industry with some ninety million shekel, so why can't I support other enterprises, like the yeshivos, which I help with far smaller sums."
This was too much for someone. One who served in the past as the Justice Minister, a Likud man in the past and today a rabid Netanyahu enemy — Dan Meridor — responded with an acerbic attack:
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Outstanding Articles From Our Archives
IN-DEPTH FEATURES
by Rabbi H. Helman
Giving The World An Idea of What a Genuine Mussar Scholar Is . . .(from the Introduction to Ho'odom Biyekor)
Part One
His Will and His Wishes
Many visitors, including many gedolei Torah, came to comfort HaRav Wolbe's family during the shivoh. One of the roshei yeshiva who came was HaRav Yonoson David, rosh yeshivas Pachad Yitzchok, with whom the family fell to discussing one of the Mashgiach's directives. In his will HaRav Wolbe wrote expressly, "I should not be eulogized, neither orally, nor in writing." How could this request be reconciled with the obvious need to provide some evaluation of the Mashgiach's life and work?
After some discussion HaRav David responded that to present stories from his life in a way that portrays his greatness would certainly not be to his liking. If however, the idea is to instruct and encourage bnei Torah, and provide them with guidance in life there can surely be no objection, for throughout his life, that was the Mashgiach's deepest yearning.
Members of HaRav Wolbe's family and many of his talmidim have put tremendous effort into assembling the material that is presented in the following pages (and that will be appearing over the following weeks). Their sense of loss and bereavement is apparent in every line.
Opinion & Comment
by Mordecai Plaut
One can go a long way with just an apparently simple desire to do good. Even deciding merely to "do good," will get one started in the right direction. Of course, the achievements will remain limited and far from their ultimate potential unless they are supplemented with all the Divine guidance that is contained in the Torah, but the aspiration to do good is an important and essential first step, as Rav Leff has so eloquently explained in the last issue and in this issue.
However, this must mean a desire to do genuine good. It would certainly be enough if he had a desire to do what G-d wants. But it would seem that it is also pretty good if he has even a nontranscendant conception of good, say, as something that everyone will praise. It may be fully enough if his conception of the good is of something that those who have a real G-d-based conception will praise.
We can see this awareness at work in a statement made by US President Teddy Roosevelt who put it clearly while discussing the importance of condemning evil while cautioning about the excesses that come from unbridled muckraking. Roosevelt noted that he saw a lot of ferment.
"So far as this movement of agitation throughout the country takes the form of a fierce discontent with evil, of a determination to punish the authors of evil, whether in industry or politics, the feeling is to be heartily welcomed as a sign of healthy life.
"If, on the other hand, it turns into a mere crusade of appetite against appetite, of a contest between the brutal greed of the "have nots" and the brutal greed of the "haves," then it has no significance for good, but only for evil...
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