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The "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" passed Congress and heads to President Trump for his signature. The nearly 900-page bill contains many policies that will affect Americans in different ways but Agudah's top priority in the bill was the historic federal scholarship tax credit. The unlimited, and permanent, credit can generate hundreds of millions of dollars for K-12 scholarships. The bill also increases the Child Tax Credit and creates a stronger charitable deduction among many other changes that were important to our community.
"Lo, a nation rising up like a lioness — in Torah — and like a lion rearing up — in deed (the Gaon in "Aderess Eliyahu")å
The gemara in Sanhedrin notes that all of the wicked Bilaam's blessings turned out to be curses except for one: "How goodly are your tents Yaakov, your [mishkenos] Yisroel." Rabbi Yitzchok Eizik Chaver noted that throughout the Exile, a time of concealed Divine Providence for Jewry, there is no existence for our People except for the Torah.
Bilaam's intent was to curse, to abolish the houses of worship and of study during the exile so that Jewry would die out altogether. In His great mercy, Hashem established this blessing over the botei medrash where Torah was being studied so as to preserve them until the future Redemption.
The gemara at the end of Kesuvos states: In the generation in which the son of David, the Moshiach, will appear, there will be an indictment against Jewry. Rashi comments that many adversaries and antagonists will stand up against Jewry, coming upon them with rapidity, in other words, harsh decrees following upon harsh decrees.
Jewish existence lies in the Torah, so that towards the end of the period of the 'footsteps heralding Moshiach,' the Evil One will mobilize all of his powers to uproot Torah from Jewry through decree upon decree by removing Torah students from the habitat of their yeshivos to prevent the effective power of the Geula via the Torah to prevail.
Hassen Chalghoumi is the Imam of the municipal Drancy mosque in Seine-Saint-Denis, near Paris.
I am a Yishmaelite, a Moslem Imam, a man of peace, presenting here my honest testimony on this amazing people: I must admit that I believe in miracles but still, there is something unique about this nation, the Jewish people, which I believe is a living miracle. ...
A country gone berserk. In future years, when someone reviews the happenings of this past week, they'll say that he must be joking. A fabricated reality, something beyond imagination, re: the American President, the head of Military Intelligence (AMaN) and the head of the Mossad, involved in negotiations with three judges regarding the Israeli Prime Minister's daily agenda.
Not sufficient for those prestigious people was the Prime Minister's personal plea for a two week respite from legal issues dealt with in the High Court due to pressing subjects of diplomatic and military nature involving the entire world. He did not enumerate those matters because they were of top-secret interests but it was sufficient to understand from the letter that it involved subjects that were best kept under cover.
Only a few days before, we were in the midst of a harsh war and it was clear to anyone with a bit of sense in his head that this particular war had far reaching consequences. But the judges were not convinced. The same goes to the government judicial advisor who should have long been sent flying.
Originally published in 1993, 32 years ago.
Part 2
The Ketzos as A Rav
In Starri, R' Arye Leib fully observed the commandment, "Fear no man."
One time, he was arrested because of a particular psak he had issued. On another occasion, he excommunicated the chassidim of his town for thirty days. The excommunicated chassidim left Starri in order to complain to their rebbe, the Chozeh of Lublin. However, the Chozeh refused to receive them since they were under a ban.
Thirty days later, after the ban ended, he granted them an audience. However, the moment they began to voice their complaints, the Chozeh cut them short, saying: "Take care not to slight the honor of your rav, for he is this generation's Prince of Torah."
R' Arye Leib taught Torah in Starri to a small group of students, who in time became gedolim. Among them were R' Yekusiel Asher Zalman of Wozmir, author of the responsa work, Mahariaz Anziel, who served him for fifteen years, and R' Arye Lipshitz, Av Beis Din of Vishnitz, author of Arye DeVey Ila'i.
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IN-DEPTH FEATURES
"I write books, while the Alter fashions people," is an expression of the kin'as sofrim of Rabbenu Yisroel Meir HaKohen of Radin. The one who aroused his awe of the power of the Alter of Slobodke was the Prince of the kingdom of mussar and yirah in Kovno, HaRav Avrohom Grodzinsky Hy"d.
Indeed, he was like that, the outstanding student of R' Nota Hirsch (Nosson Tzvi), famed as the Alter of Slobodke. Such also was the testimony of the fashioner himself, the Alter, who once said: "This is my dividend from all my effort."
And he -- R' Avrohom -- was a talmid with all 248 of his limbs, all 365 of his sinews, from the time he first came to study with the Alter as a seventeen-year-old bochur. When the Alter died in the city of the Ovos -- Hevron, and he Reb Avrohom was in Lithuania, he wrote to his nephew, who was in Eretz Hakodesh at the time: "I so wanted to come to Eretz Yisroel while he was living there . . . a time when I could have imbibed genuine Toras Eretz Yisroel from the course of his life, from his general and particular conduct, and perhaps from his train of thought --a small amount or a vast amount which until now I haven't merited to absorb. Now Eretz Yisroel has reverted to its state of devastation -- everything, everything has already passed. I utterly regret that I left the source of living water [the Alter] during the past year and a half, and especially during the new period in the Alter's life, in Eretz Hakodesh, and I regret that I didn't go there at least for a month."
Evident from every letter, and every mark, is his great longing for shimusha shel Torah in the presence of the Alter who, in his characteristic manner, summarized the avoda of the youthful years of his great talmid [R' Avrohom] saying: "He acquired mussar with his blood; he ripped parts of his body and totally broke himself."
"But," the Alter would say, "there was a chiddush in the avoda of R' Avrohom. The sound of the breaking of his middos was not heard from a distance."
Opinion & Comment
The drafting of yeshiva students is again one of the hot issues of the day, as Prime Minister-elect Barak made it a cornerstone of his policies for more than a year. Religious parties are insisting that such a draft is nonnegotiable.
My only aim here is to refresh our memory. The Mesilas Yeshorim ("Introduction") tells us, "I did not write this work to teach people what they do not know, but rather to remind them of what they already know and of what they have already been well informed. Precisely because of their incontestable knowledge of these things and this obvious truth being known to all, they are frequently overlooked and widely forgotten." Moreover I am writing the following since it is impossible for a beis midrash to be without a chidush and arranging these matters properly is in itself a meaningful chidush.
The foremost principle of which one must be conscious is that the Torah is actually the living neshomoh of am Yisroel. It is therefore understood that our nation's existence is dependent upon its connection to Torah and to those studying Torah. When Torah study diminishes, the spring that has sustained the Torah's vitality and mitzvah observance dries up. The results are, chas vesholom, assimilation.
There are individuals or groups who, though not Torah- observant, maintain some connection to am Yisroel only because others toil over their Torah studies. These bnei Torah are the lifeline even for the parts of the Jewish Nation that are remote from our nation's heart.
It is evident that the Torah's existence depends upon true Torah scholars guarding the Torah in its authentic form. The only way to produce gedolei Torah and genuine talmidei chachomim is through their total devotion to Torah and by concentrating all their will and talents, without engaging in other matters (quoted from Maran HaRav Aharon Kotler zt'l).
It is therefore clear that from all "yeshivos" where Torah study is combined with other studies -- including the yeshiva high schools in Eretz Yisroel (yeshivot tichoniyot), the yeshivos with an officially linked university program, and yeshivos with a program for joint military service (yeshivot hesdeir) -- no real Torah scholar will emerge. The only fountains from which the Jewish nation will satisfy its existence are the yeshivos kedoshos where there is a complete commitment to Torah study.
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