A most impressive gathering took place this past Thursday evening in the batei medrash of Beis Yeshaya of Yeshivas Mir when HaGaon HaRav David Cohen shlita was requested by the Rosh Yeshiva HaRav Eliezer Yehuda Finkel to fortify the avreichim against the threatening waves of these present times. He also agreed to answer complex questions arising during this period from the audience, presented to him by HaRav Hillel Mann, from the staff of Nesivos Aviezer and Bircas Shmuel. The replies constituted a document for all times.

He began by clarifying that never have we experienced such a dreadful period where we are faced with Divine concealment to a degree that no one has previously imagined possible. It is a reality whereby beis medrash scholars are seized and cast into prison like hardened criminals, merely for the 'crime' of dedicating their lives to Torah. Including in these harsh times are the economic hardships imposed upon them which find them financially and altogether helpless.

He said that the Vilna Gaon's view of the fourth exile, which he named as that of the rabble, the erev rav, was erroneously accepted by the public who think that this specifically refers to the government Legislative Advisor or similarly, to the High Court, which represent the erev rav. But the Gra did not have this in mind at all but included all of the government heads of that exile.

Everyone knows that doing business with Donald Trump is problematic and Binyamin Netanyahu, who knows a thing or two about politics, knows this better than anyone. The American president is undoubtedly fond of Jews, surely much more than his predecessors, but first and foremost, he loves a man who goes by the name of Donald Trump. He loves him so much that he would be willing to sell the whole world in order to satisfy the whims and wants of that selfsame person, who, by coincidence, happens to be he himself. And en route, he recognizes no obstacles. He is prepared to sell them all down the river in order to achieve his objective, even if this seems to be an impossible one. And this can be said for the present subject at hand: a deal with Iran.

In Iranian terminology, there does not exist the concept of conceding. Submission is not a question at hand. There is the system of deception, of so-to-say, a temporary submission in order to arrive at the final objective. If this was true in the war of Shaagas Arye last year, it is sevenfold more true in its aftermath.

Part I

This series was first published 33 years ago, in 1993.

During the past generation we are accustomed to secular domination of Jerusalem, with several religious enclaves. However, it was not always thus. Jerusalem considered itself a holy city, and it was a deliberate effort on the part of anti-religious elements to break the kedusha. It was a war that began around the first World War, and continues to this very day. However, many crucial battles were fought during the first years of the State. One of these was the opening of the first mixed swimming pool in Jerusalem in 1958.

Every new insult to the sanctity of Jerusalem was fought. Each caused its pain and left its scars. Important to understanding the struggles that continue to this very day are the accounts of these earlier struggles. As Jews returned to their ancient homeland, they brought the golus back with them in the form of the life of hefkeirus as lived by the goyim. The Holy Land itself, left empty for almost two thousand years, and then beginning to be filled with the kedusha of the yishuv begun in the nineteenth century by the talmidim of the Besht and the Gra, was brought into exile by the insistence of those elements that wanted an anti-religious lifestyle. We are confident of long-term victory, but there is a long road back.

Many Waters Can't Quench The Flames