Thursday, December 31, 2020

Helping gentiles spiritually

The verse says that Pharoah was told "Go to Yosef. Whatever he tells you to do, you should do." Rashi explains he told the Egyptians to undergo circumcision. Why would he do this? Rav Yeruchum  Levovitz explains with a verse in Vayigash where the Egyptians said, "You have saved our lives." The Medrash says they were acknowledging his saving them in this world (with food) and in the world to come (with circumcision). It is a spiritual benefit even for gentiles to have circumcision as the orla contains impurity. Rav Yeruchum explains that Yosef had helped them in the physical realm, how could he not help them also in the world to come? 

Rav Yehonasan Gefen, The Guiding Light 2, Mikeitz

Monday, December 28, 2020

What Kind Of Job Is Best For You?


A person should choose a vocation for which he has an inclination. 
We find it confirmed in the Gemara that each person is generally satisfied with the way he earns his living. In fact, some people love their vocation. That doesn't mean they are madly in love with it, but they have an affection for that kind of work and they don't want any other kind of work. This is inherent in the way people are created. -- Ohr Avigdor Shaar Bitachon, Rav Avigdor Miller

Wednesday, December 23, 2020

the optimal setting for our individual and collective growth

 


Jacob was overjoyed to hear that Joseph was still alive and that he had remained true to Jacob’s ideals. Although he looked forward to joining Joseph, he regretted having to leave the land promised to his forebears. G d therefore appeared to him and assured him that his family would grow into a nation while in Egypt.

אַל תִּירָא מֵרְדָה מִצְרַיְמָה כִּי לְגוֹי גָּדוֹל אֲשִׂימְךָ שָׁם: (בראשית מו:ג)
[G-d said to Jacob,] “Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for it is there that I will make you into a great nation.” Genesis 46:3

G‑d was not trying to soothe Jacob’s regret over leaving the Promised Land, for a Jew should regret not living in the Land of Israel. Rather, G‑d was telling Jacob that his regret over going into exile was the key to not becoming intimidated by it, and therefore, the key to overcoming it.

Since G‑d put us in exile, it follows that He has given us all the strength we need to overcome its challenges. As long as the exile continues, it is the optimal setting for our individual and collective growth and development. Here, however, lurks a great danger. When we realize that we have no reason to be intimidated by exile and that we benefit so greatly from it, we can fall into the trap of becoming habituated to it. As a consequence, we can become vulnerable to exile’s negative effects on us, and it goes without saying that we can no longer elevate it properly.

Therefore, like Jacob, we should always cultivate regret over the fact that we are not in our proper environment, the Land of Israel in the Messianic Redemption. As long as we remember who we really are and the lives we are really meant to lead, we need not fear exile; we will overcome it.1

7th Lubavitcher Rebbe

FOOTNOTES
1.Likutei Sichot, vol. 30, pp. 234–235.

Wednesday, December 16, 2020

Torah im Derech Eretz Chassidus

 A friend commented the other day that the 7th Lubavitcher Rebbe practiced a Torah im Derech Eretz Chassidus. The following I would say is an example of that:


Although the Egyptians stored up grain during the seven years of plenty, as Joseph directed them to, as soon as the seven years of famine began, everyone’s grain except for Joseph’s rotted. The populace of Egypt thus found themselves dependent upon Joseph for food. Joseph agreed to give them grain on the condition that they circumcise themselves first.
Refining the World
וַיֹּאמֶר פַּרְעֹה לְכָל מִצְרַיִם לְכוּ אֶל יוֹסֵף אֲשֶׁר יֹאמַר לָכֶם תַּעֲשׂוּ: (בראשית מא:נה)
Pharaoh said to all Egypt, “Go to Joseph and do whatever he tells you to.” Genesis 41:55

Egyptian society was steeped in the pursuit of self-serving carnal pleasure, which is reduced by circumcision. Thus, by having the Egyptians circumcised, Joseph subdued their obsession with carnal indulgence. Pharaoh himself instructed them to go along with Joseph’s condition; thus, even the living symbol of Egyptian corruption was willing to be refined, at least somewhat.

We follow Joseph’s example by remaining spiritually uncontaminated by our materialistic environment and even refining it. By strengthening our own commitment to Judaism, we influence our fellow Jews to strengthen theirs. Moreover, we influence the broader community of non-Jews to keep the Torah’s laws that apply to them (the “Noahide” laws). Thus, we will ultimately transform the entire world into G‑d’s home.1

FOOTNOTES
1.Likutei Sichot, vol. 10, p. 141.

from DAILY WISDOM: Wednesday: Refining the World (Miketz), Chabad.org

Thursday, December 10, 2020

basic human dignity

from Bitachon Weekly

 Chazal say since Yaakov lowered himself before Eisav, calling him Adoni my master eight times, therefore Hashem granted Eisav eight kings before Yaakov had any kings! Reb Yerucham Levovitz points out that from this we see how dangerous it is for a person to lower himself more than necessary; as it can turn around the entire world history. The Ramban says, during the second Bais Hamikdash we caused our own downfall into the hands of Edom by being Mach’nia ourselves to them. This was a result of the Jewish kings making a Bris pact with the Romans, and some even going to Rome which was lowering themselves to Edom. Because they put their trust [Bitachon] in the Romans, Hashem let them fall into their hands. The whole long Galus we are in, came as a result of our lowering ourselves into the Romans hands, as the Passuk a צַדִּיק מָט לִּפְנֵי רָשָע משלי כה כו :says Tzaddik lowers himself to fall before a Rasha, and Chazal say if a person flatters a Rasha, he will end up falling into his hands. Now we can understand how important your self-esteem is for your well-being. It can change your entire destiny! How imperative it is for a person to have a highopinion of himself [and of others].

----

basic human dignity is an important part of Torah and is well expressed with Torah Im Derech Eretz

Tuesday, December 8, 2020

Government is not the solution. It's the problem.

A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have. Gerald R. Ford

The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help.
Ronald Reagan

Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. P. J. O'Rourke 

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. John Adams

Saturday, December 5, 2020

Four Divinely-ordained institutions

"The Book of Genesis lists four Divinely-ordained institutions: Shabbos, keshet [the rainbow], mila [circumcision], and gid hanasha, [the prohibition against eating the "sinew of weakness"]. The first two are of significance to all of mankind, the latter two have a similar meaning in the narrower sphere of the Jewish people. The Sabbath insures the survival of the spiritual and moral calling assigned to all mankind; circumcision guarantees the survival of Israel's mission. The rainbow is the emblem of the history of mankind; the "sinew of weakness" is the emblem of Jewish history. But is is the moral action of man, and the fate ordained for man by God, that together determine the sum total of all individual and communal life on earth."

Rav Samson R. Hirsch, Bereshis 32:33

Friday, December 4, 2020

Dr. ROGER HODKINSON, 29TH NOVEMBER 2020

https://www.bitchute.com/video/HbaOVR9pehji


Dr Hodkinson is a board certified pathologist in the USA and Canada. He studied at Cambridge University in the UK before emigrating to Canada in 1970. He has held a number of leadership positions in his profession both in his own province of Alberta and nationally. His career has spanned general practice, community hospitals, academia, CEO of a large retail clinical laboratory and various other entrepreneurial activities in private medicine.

Wednesday, December 2, 2020

Chief Science Officer Dr. Mike Yeadon - The PCR test is unreliable as a diagnostic tool

Dr. Mike Yeadon, the former Chief Science Officer and VP, Allergy and Respiratory Research Head with Pfizer Global R&D, is an Allergy & Respiratory Therapeutic Area expert with 23 years in the pharmaceutical industry. He trained as a biochemist and pharmacologist, obtaining his PhD from the University of Surrey (UK) in 1988.

He says that the large number of positive Covid-19 tests is not indicative of the number of active cases,. Like immunologist Dr. Beda Stadler and medical microbiologist Professor Sucharit Bhakdi, and so many other SCIENTISTS, he says that the PCR test detects remnants of the coronavirus in the RNA, but it cannot tell if they came from live viruses or those long conquered by the immune system. There are also many false positives. He says even the count of deaths is inaccurate because the deaths are marked as COVID-19 largely based on the PCR test, which is the test being used all over the world. When you hear that the infection rate is "soaring" it's based on the Polymerase Chain Reaction test.  Like Dr. Scott Atlas and so many others, he says that immunity is seen not only in antibodies, which is all that's commonly being tested for via a blood test (separate from the swab-based PCR test), but in T-cells. (Beda M. Stadler is the former Director of the University Institute of Immunology at the Insel Hospital in Bern,  Professor Sucharit Bhakdi was the was head of the Institute of Medical Microbiology and Hygiene at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, and Dr. Scott Atlas, MD is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University and former head of neuroradiology at the Stanford University hospital).

Dr. Yeadon made a video of his findings. RT says that youtube banned it; although it's back up now.  Now who is anti-science?

Some quotes from Dr. Mike Yeadon's article, "Lies, Damned Lies and Health Statistics – the Deadly Danger of False Positives," 20 September 2020.

PCR is not a diagnostic tool

"So, to this article. Its about the testing we do with something called PCR, an amplification technique, better known to biologists as a research tool used in our labs, when trying to unpick mechanisms of disease. I was frankly astonished to realise they’re sometimes used in population screening for diseases – astonished because it is a very exacting technique, prone to invisible errors and it’s quite a tall order to get reliable information out of it, especially because of the prodigious amounts of amplification involved in attempting to pick up a strand of viral genetic code. The test cannot distinguish between a living virus and a short strand of RNA from a virus which broke into pieces weeks or months ago." 

"That all said, Government decided to call a person a ‘case’ if their swab sample was positive for viral RNA, which is what is measured in PCR. A person’s sample can be positive if they have the virus, and so it should. They can also be positive if they’ve had the virus some weeks or months ago and recovered. It’s faintly possible that high loads of related, but different coronaviruses, which can cause some of the common colds we get, might also react in the PCR test, though it’s unclear to me if it does."

"Because of the high false positive rate and the low prevalence, almost every positive test, a so-called case, identified by Pillar 2 since May of this year has been a FALSE POSITIVE. Not just a few percent. Not a quarter or even a half of the positives are FALSE, but around 90% of them. Put simply, the number of people Mr Hancock sombrely tells us about is an overestimate by a factor of about ten-fold. Earlier in the summer, it was an overestimate by about 20-fold." 

"This test is fatally flawed and MUST immediately be withdrawn and never used again in this setting unless shown to be fixed."

"I have explained how a hopelessly-performing diagnostic test has been, and continues to be used, not for diagnosis of disease but, it seems, solely to create fear."

"Pillar 2 testing has been ongoing since May but it’s only in recent weeks that it has reached several hundreds of thousands of tests per day. The effect of the day by day climb in the number of people that are being described as ‘cases’ cannot be overstated. I know it is inducing fear, anxiety and concern for the possibility of new and unjustified restrictions, including lockdowns. I have no idea what Mr Hancock’s motivations are. But he has and continues to use the hugely inflated output from a fatally flawed Pillar 2 test and appears often on media, gravely intoning the need for additional interventions (none of which, I repeat, are proven to be effective)."

Asymptomatic spreading is rare

"A very long prelude, but necessary. Part of the ‘project fear’ that is rather too obvious, involving second waves, has been the daily count of ‘cases’. Its important to understand that, according to the infectious disease specialists I’ve spoken to, the word ‘case’ has to mean more than merely the presence of some foreign organism. It must present signs (things medics notice) and symptoms (things you notice). And in most so-called cases, those testing positive had no signs or symptoms of illness at all. There was much talk of asymptomatic spreading, and as a biologist this surprised me. In almost every case, a person is symptomatic because they have a high viral load and either it is attacking their body or their immune system is fighting it, generally a mix. I don’t doubt there have been some cases of asymptomatic transmission, but I’m confident it is not important."







Tuesday, December 1, 2020

What Is Wisdom?

 What Is Wisdom?

Wisdom doesn’t just mean knowing things; it means being Aware of the presence of Hashem in the world. As David Hamelech says, "Reishis Chachma yiras Hashem — The highest of wisdom is the fear of Hashem" (Tehilim 111:10). This doesn’t mean we have to be in a state of fear. It means that we have to be Aware that the presence of Hashem is everywhere. That realization is the pinnacle of wisdom. — Ohr Avigdor Hakdama

Monday, November 30, 2020

A PCR test cannot be used to diagnose anything

Professor Sucharit Bhakdi: Now anyone who has studied infectious diseases knows that a PCR test cannot be used to diagnose anything. A PCR test is a lab test that may be used to support a diagnosis. So if you think someone is ill, has fever, is coughing, and short of breath then it's quite legitimate to do a PCR test to try to find the gene of that virus that you are looking for and if you find it -- or parts of the gene because a PCR test only looks at part of the virus genome, very small parts -- then it's OK,  then you say alright, this would confirm the clinical diagnosis. But a real doctor doesn't go around testing people with a test that has never been put on the market for use to diagnose a disease. It's only there to see whether you have parts of this virus genome sitting around in your throat or nose. And then the terrible thing was that whenever this PCR test was positive that person or patient was labelled COVID-19 case....A positive PCR does not mean that you are infected. (starts at 6:00)

Interviewer: So to put it in very simple language for people  listening, what you are really saying is the the PCR test is likely to massively exaggerate the number of people who are actually suffering symptoms of COVID 19." (starts at 12:25)

Professor Sucharit Bhakdi: Oh yes, horribly, I mean so much that it's criminal to say that these are COVID-19 cases. Because everyone in the world believes oh my God now we've had 250,000 COVID-19 cases in Germany, but in fact you probably have had I won't be able even to estimate, I can tell that probably we have had 10,000 COVID-19 deaths but of these 10,000 COVID-19 deaths 90% were death due to other causes, like heart attack or stroke or whatever, it's just that they happened to test positive for this damn virus with a PCR test that lights up the moment bits and pieces of this virus or another virus that is related to this virus has gotten into your throat."

Interviewer: So Dr. Bhakdi, if this is the case, right, and of course I trust what you are saying, then why is it that we are going into lock down. Because you can't be the only person to think this I'm sure there's great sweeps in the medical profession that do.

Dr. Bhakdi: Well, to our great relief, the world's foremost epidemiologist Professor John Ioannidis of Stanford actually published a paper that was back three weeks ago and this paper is peer reviewed which means it has been seen by 3 to 4 experts, leading experts in the field and the WHO put this paper on its bulletin which means the WHO accepts that this is the correct data, alright, and you go and read that paper because John Ioannidis said what we said months ago, that this virus is no more deadly than a seasonal flu and for people under 70 it is even less deadly than the seasonal flu. If you are under 70 your chances of dying with or because of this virus are less than 0.1%. Alright. In fact they are about 0.05%. This means 5 out of 10,000 infected people may die because of the virus. 5 out of 10,000. This is so little that there is no reason to do anything. Not only are the lock-downs nonsense, everything else is nonsense, everything. And this is published. Everyone who is watching now should stop and think for a moment. Anyone can look at this paper, anyone can look at the bulletin of the WHO and should and then they should come back and say, listen, since it is now internationally accepted that this virus is not the killer virus that one thought it was, and now since the pandemic has actually come to an end, the epidemic does not exist in Europe, it does not exist in America, the number of case and fatalities have almost gone down to zero. Anyone who says that anything is being done for any scientific reason is lying.

Interview on Triggernometry channel on youtube, Nov 17, 2020

Professor Bhakdi studied at the Universities of Bonn, Gießen, Mainz and Copenhagen, and at the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics in Freiburg. He was professor of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and from 1991 to 2012 was head of the Institute of Medical Microbiology and Hygiene there.




Sunday, November 29, 2020

Charedi infection rate is lower than the general population in Israel - Israel National News

All those irresponsible people who have lambasted Charedim for months, charging them with irresponsibly infecting the country can go eat their words.

According to a report by Public Broadcasting Corporation health correspondent Katie Dor, Edelstein asked senior officials in his Ministry to examine whether conclusions may be drawn that might be used by the Health Ministry in the fight against the virus in the general sector as well.

"There were prophecies of doom that within three weeks all the haredi communities would turn red," Dor said. "Not only did this not happen, but the opposite happened; the infection index in the haredi sector is lower than in the general sector."

According to her, in the general sector there is an infection factor of 1.06 percent, and among haredim the infection factor is 0.96 percent. "The index of serious patients is significantly lower," Dor adds, "far fewer serious patients in the haredi sector compared to the secular sector and the Arab sector where it is on the rise."

Read full

Saturday, November 28, 2020

New study: Lockdown has no significant impact on COVID mortality - Technology & Health - Israel National News

New study: Lockdown has no significant impact on COVID mortality

Study based on data from 160 countries, recommends "increasing population resilience with better physical fitness."

"A new study published last week in Frontiers, a peer-reviewed journal, has concluded that government measures designed to contain the spread of the coronavirus are not linked to reduced levels of mortality.

"The study was conducted by a number of scientists from French universities and biomedicine and epidemiological research institutes, and based on an analysis of data from 160 countries, accounting for a total of 846,395 deaths over the first eight months of 2020. The authors of the study collected data on: life expectancy and its change over time; public health context (metabolic and non-communicable diseases as well as infectious diseases); GDP and government financial support; and government measures designed to fight the pandemic."

Read: New study: Lockdown has no significant impact on COVID mortality - Technology & Health - Israel National News

Thursday, November 26, 2020

Dr. Roger Hodkinson, MA, MB, FRCPC, FCAP, CEO "Masks are utterly useless."

Thank you very much. And I do appreciate the opportunity to address you on this very important matter. What I’m going to say is lay language, and blunt. It’s counter-narrative, and so you don’t immediately think I’m a quack, I’m going to briefly outline my credentials so that you can understand where I’m coming from in terms of knowledge base in all of this.

I’m a medical specialist in pathology which includes virology. I trained at Cambridge University in the U.K. I’m the ex-president of the pathology section of the Medical Association. I was previously an assistant professor in the Faculty of Medicine doing a lot of teaching. I was the chairman of the Royal College of Physicians of Canada Examination Committee and Pathology in Ottawa, but more to the point I’m currently the chairman of a biotechnology company in North Carolina selling the COVID-19 test.

And I might you might say I know a little bit about all of this. The bottom line is simply this: There is utterly unfounded public hysteria driven by the media and politicians. It’s outrageous. This is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on an unsuspecting public.

There is absolutely nothing that can be done to contain this virus. Other than protecting older, more vulnerable people. It should be thought of as nothing more than a bad flu season.

This is not Ebola. It’s not SARS. It’s politics playing medicine and that’s a very dangerous game.

There is no action of any kind needed other than what happened last year when we felt unwell. We stayed home, we took chicken noodle soup, we didn’t visit granny, and we decided when we would return to work. We didn’t need anyone to tell us.

Masks are utterly useless. There is no evidence base for their effectiveness whatsoever. Paper masks and fabric masks are simply virtue-signaling. They’re not even worn effectively most of the time. It’s utterly ridiculous. Seeing these unfortunate, uneducated people — I’m not saying that in a pejorative sense — seeing these people walking around like lemmings, obeying without any knowledge base, to put the mask on their face.

Social distancing is also useless because COVID is spread by aerosols which travel 30 meters or so before landing. Enclosures have had such terrible unintended consequences. Everywhere should be opened tomorrow as was stated in the Great Barrington Declaration that I circulated prior to this meeting.

And a word on testing: I do want to emphasize that I’m in the business of testing for COVID. I do want to emphasize that positive test results do not – underlined in neon – mean a clinical infection. It’s simply driving public hysteria and all testing should stop. Unless you’re presenting to the hospital with some respiratory problem.

All that should be done is to protect the vulnerable and to give them all in the nursing homes that are under your control, give them all 3,000 to 5,000 international units of vitamin D every day which has been shown to radically reduce the likelihood of infection.

And I would remind you all that using the province’s own statistics, the risk of death under 65 in this province is one in 300,000. One in 300,000. You’ve got to get a grip on this.

The scale of the response that you are undertaking with no evidence for it is utterly ridiculous given the consequences of acting in a way that you’re proposing. All kinds of suicides, business closures – funerals, weddings, etc., etc. It’s simply outrageous! It’s just another bad flu and you’ve got to get your minds around that.

Let people make their own decisions. You should be totally out of the business of medicine. You’re being led down the garden path by the chief medical officer of health for this province.

I am absolutely outraged that this has reached this level. It should all stop tomorrow.

Thank you very much.

Full transcript of the comments made by Dr. Roger Hodkinson, MA, MB, FRCPC, FCAP, CEO and medical director of Western Medical Assessments. Dr. Hodkinson made these comments at a public city meeting in the Council Chambers of the City of Edmonton in Western Canada on November 13, 2020. [This was originally transcribed by Lifesite news.]

Watch

Listen

MB is the British equivalent of the American MD degree.


FULL TRANSCRIPT: Doctor destroys ‘utterly unfounded public hysteria’ over COVID-19 | News | Lifesitenews


_____________________________________________________________________

US and British Medical Degrees Explained -www.squaremouth.com

Eliot C. Heher, MD

American Medical Degrees

First the basics. Most graduates of American medical schools receive the “M.D.” or Medical Doctor, degree. Of course graduates list the degree after their name, “Peter Rabbit, MD” and are referred to as doctors–“Dr. Rabbit”. The D.O., or Doctor of Osteopathy, is another medical degree that is awarded by 19 or so medical schools in the United States. Physicians with a D.O. degree are also referred to as doctors and are equally eligible with M.D.’s for medical licensure and practice (note that regardless of what degree a physician receives, he or she must receive and maintain a medical license from the State in which they practice, which requires extensive training after medical school).

The Ph.D. degree is a doctorate but is usually not associated with clinical practice or patient care. One very common exception is that of the Clinical Psychologist, who often have a Ph.D. or similar degree (unlike psychiatrists, who have an MD degree, Clinical Psychologists are typically not licensed to prescribe medications). Some physicians may possess both an MD and a Ph.D., though the Ph.D. is generally in an academic field involving research rather than patient care.

British Medical Degrees

In contrast, most graduates of British medical schools (and schools in countries with an historical connection to the UK, such as Australia and New Zealand), do not receive an “MD” degree but receive a degree in each of three major areas of medical study: medicine, surgery, and obstetrics. To receive a degree the graduate must pass the qualifying examination in that area. And because in many cases these physicians-in-training have gone directly from high school into a six year program that combines college and medical school, the degrees awarded are bachelors degrees.

The MB degree, which stands for bachelor of medicine, is awarded for passing the medicine exam examination, thereby qualifying as a medical doctor. This degree is really the equivalent to the MD in the United States–it’s the standard degree.

The BS, ChB and Bch degrees (which are are equivalent to one another) stand for Bachelor of Surgery (Ch=Chirurgie, which is latin for surgery). These degrees are awarded for passing the surgical portion of the exam.

BAO, which stands for Bachelor of Obstetrics, is awarded for passing the Obstetrics portion of the exam and thus qualifying in obstetrics.

Thus physician graduates of the British system posses the “MB, [BS, ChB, or Bch], BAO” degree. They may present themselves as “Peter Rabbit, MBChBBAO”, or “Peter Rabbit, MBBSBAO”. In practice, the BAO portion is often dropped for convenience: “Peter Rabbit, MBBS”.

To make things even more complicated, keep in mind that on occasion the “MD” degree is awarded by medical schools in the British system, in place of the MB. To receive an MD rather than an MB, students must complete a thesis and receive some additional training (e.g., research training) over and above what is required for the MB. Senior, academic physicians are more likely to have an MD; community physicians will typically have the MB degree.

Osteopathic physicians with a DO also exist outside the United States. And, just as in the U.S., regardless of what degree they receive physicians outside the United States must be licensed to practice, and licensure often requires extensive training after graduation from medical school.

Wednesday, November 18, 2020

Yerushoseinu

 We are very pleased to announce that the eleventh volume of Yerushoseinu, for the year ה'תשפ"א, is now available.

 

We will be happy to mail you a copy of this volume for a minimum donation of $ 36.00

 

Please mail your request for this book together with your donation to:

 

Machon Moreshes Ashkenaz

503 South Broadway

Suite 215

Yonkers, NY 10705

 

Your donations which are tax-exempt, are vital to our work and are deeply appreciated.  

 

Thanking you in advance for your support, and wishing you a good and healthy winter.

 

Tuesday, November 17, 2020

Rav Avigdor Miller on The Rambam and Aristotle

 Rav Avigdor Miller on The Rambam and Aristotle 

Q: 

You quoted from the Rambam that we should stay away from the gentiles and wicked people. But the Rambam himself was very much involved with gentiles, in particular with Aristotle. Why?


A:

I’ll explain it to you.  When you’re sitting now by that tape recorder recording this lecture, you’re taking something made maybe by goyim and thought up perhaps by goyim. You ride on buses driven by goyim. If you have a car, so the car and the gasoline are made and supplied by goyim. 


The answer is, whatever useful things goyim have to give you, you take it; if it’s an implement, technology, you can use it. And Aristotle to the Rambam was just a useful mechanism.  He supplied him with information.  But the Rambam wouldn’t sit with him.  He wouldn’t sit with him!


Now the truth is that the Rambam wouldn’t advise us even to read Aristotle’s books. He was able to read the books and pick out of them the things that seemed to him useful. And the truth is, after all is said and done, the Rambam took from Aristotle things which he thought were completely true but they weren’t.  You know, today it's a pity because we learn the Rambam in Hilchos Yesodei HaTorah and everything there is perfect except for the few things that come from Greek philosophy. Today they’re meaningless.


So what the Rambam took from Torah is forever and ever.  But what the Rambam took by following the ways of Aristotle are useless today.  That’s why certain parts of Moreh Nevuchim are meaningless today.  And the Vilna Gaon, the Gra, says about the Rambam: הפילוסופיה הארורה הטתו ברוב לקחה, that the cursed philosophy deceived him.  The Gra says that; the accursed philosophy deceived the Rambam! So even when the Rambam tried to pick out the useful things, in some cases he was deceived.  


But that was the Rambam’s approach to Aristotle.  It’s like our approach, let’s say, to medicine.  If a gentile specialist tells you that this and this diet or this or this medicine is good for you, so it’s not associating with him.  It’s just like using his tape recorder.


TAPE # 4

Monday, November 16, 2020

Here's what hysteria does to you

 Chabad shulchim convention group photo before COVID hysteria:



and after COVID hysteria



In the sefer Chafetz Chaim al HaTorah [Va’eschanan] the Chafetz Chaim explains why the posuk of “vi’nishmartem meod l’nafshoseichem”, which includes the commandment to guard one’s health, uses the term of nefesh, rather than the term guf. He explains that while engaging in the process of guarding the physical health, one may not thereby trample on his spiritual health.


Thursday, November 5, 2020

secular subjects

 Q:

Why do you oppose the study of secular subjects? Didn’t the Villa Gaon study secular subjects?

A:

I didn't mention secular subjects at all tonight. I did not mention it at all, so I'm innocent. However, on the question of secular subjects, there's no question at all that knowledge of secular subjects comes in handy. No question at all; very handy. The problem however is where to get it from; that's something else.

TAPE # 60, Rabbi Avigdor Miller

Thursday, October 22, 2020

For most of population, lockdown far more deadly than COVID-19 -- arutz sheva

Artuz Sheva, Israel National News: For most of population, lockdown far more deadly than COVID-19
Given doubts by scientists about lockdown effectiveness, most moral choice is targeted protection for at-risk populations. Opinion

Mordechai Sones , 19/10/2

Coronavirus is dangerous to people over the age of 65 or to those suffering from certain background diseases. They should be more careful in their close contact with others, at least until enough people around them become infected and develop immunity naturally. This, according to an article appearing in Walla News by researchers and physicians Dr. Uri Gavish, Prof. Ariel Munitz, Prof. Moti Gerlitz, and Prof. Udi Qimron.

The good news is that if you do not belong to these risk groups and you get infected with COVID-19, chances are you will not become ill at all. Antibody tests in Israel and around the world confirm that most of the infected are not ill. Most of the time, your immune system inhibits the virus before it spreads and causes any symptoms.

If you still catch it, chances are your symptoms will be mild. The chance that you will survive, by the way, is higher than 99.9%. If you are a parent of preschoolers, you will surely be happy to know that coronavirus is far less dangerous to them than the flu. This, according to dozens of studies and hundreds of state and regional reports. This is also the official position of the American Center for Disease Control.

And it does not end there. Once you return to testing negative, you are likely to be immune to the virus. The chances that your immunity will last for at least a year are excellent and there is a good chance that it will last for a much longer time. Although tens of millions have tested COVID-19 positive in the last nine months, so far a negligible number of people have been reported to have been infected twice, with a large proportion of these reports found to be incorrect.

This is significant because epidemic outbreaks always subside when a large enough number of people develop immunity, whether naturally, following exposure to the virus, or through artificial vaccine. Every person who develops immunity becomes a part of the protective shield around the people in the high-risk groups, because the chance of an immune person being re-infected and passing the virus on is negligible. A nursing home or hospital employee, for example, who became COVID-19 infected and was discovered in time and recovered, becomes part of the protective layer of that institution.

Contrary to popular belief - due to the focus on rare cases or over-interpretations - there is currently no evidence of long-term side effects of the disease that are unusual in their severity and prevalence in non-at-risk patients, compared with those occurring in other common respiratory viruses.

This is evidenced in a letter by some 50 international experts to trade union leaders last month, stating unequivocally that there is no evidence of long-term heart damage as a result of coronavirus infection, noting that the media plays a key role in reinforcing these baseless speculations.

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https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/289428



















Sunday, September 27, 2020

Gmar Kasima tova

 May Hashem bless you all with a safe and prosperous year. May whatever sins we have done to cause this mess we are in be cleansed and may we seek brighter days ahead.

Monday, September 21, 2020

It’s a Schmad!

"Health Minister Edelstein says the public will be allowed to gather and pray on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, in a 'very limited' fashion." (Times of Israel)

 

This is a schmad, a religious persecution. A grand total of 182 people under the age of 70 have died from or with COVID19 in Israel. I say from or with because the death certificates list COVID19 even if the person only tested positive for it but died from cancer or a heart attack.

 

And what does it mean to test positive? It means that the PCR test detected viral matter. The person may not be infected at all. There are many cases where family members have asserted that the deceased did not have any symptoms of COVID19, but the hospitals insisted on marking COVID19 on the death certificate. He or she was exposed to the virus. That’s all. But we are exposed to many viruses every day. The body fights them off. This is the first time in history that natural processes of good health are deemed to be sickness.

 

Moreover, the test in Israel uses a very high level of magnification. In Germany, they test at 30 cycles. In Singapore 32 cycles. In America, 34. But in Israel they test at the ridiculously high level of 37 cycles. The more cycles, the more magnification. This is a hypersensitive test that detects the slightest viral matter. When the press tells you that there were 3,000 new infections the press is lying. They are LIARS. All the test shows is that the person was exposed to the virus. The person in the vast majority of cases is not now a case, not a patient, not sick. But over and over we hear of the infection rate expanding. What's expanding is testing at 37 cycles of magnification.

 

All over frum neighborhoods there are campaigns to test for the virus. Are they doing this in Chiloni neighborhoods? Some people did an experiment. They called up the health ministry and said a yeshiva bochur was exposed to somebody who tested positive. What should he do? Get tested he was told. They called again and said a university student was exposed to somebody who tested positive. What should he do? Don't get tested he was told. You might force your classmate to go into bidud if you do. This experiment was repeated multiple times with the same result each time. The government is trying to frame religious Jews in particular.

 

That isn’t to say that they aren’t harassing the entire country, just not as much. Over 1 million people in Israel have been put into quarantine over the last six months. That’s over 11% of the population. And the secret police watch over it all, creeping into phones, and spying on people, and arresting, intimidating. And very few of the people whose lives have been turned upside down have been infected to any degree. The State of Israel was founded by violent militants and they created a culture of militarism. It’s a mentality that is everywhere evident in this society but has gone to ridiculous degrees over COVID19. The leaders act like they are in a war with Arabs. They think it’s 1948. One half expects them to order everyone to shut their lights at night for fear of enemy COVID bombers locating the cities. They are pack of dictators, wanna-be military commanders who have locked a million healthy people into quarantine.

 

And what if these people really were infected? That’s actually a good thing because 98% of them don’t get sick but they develop immunity. 80% of people who test positive show no symptoms at all. 18% show minor symptoms. As Dr. Scott Atlas, MD, of Stanford University explains:

 

But there’s a more fundamental point that I want to make sure have time to address and that is this idea that somehow has evolved that we must stop cases. That was never the policy, that should never be the policy when you have an infection that 99% of people have no problem with. It’s no big deal if low risk people get the infection. It’s really irrational to somehow keep apart healthy younger people, to insist that they should wear a mask, or that there should be some limit in restaurants. If you are high risk, you are high risk. But the most recent data shows that the infection fatality rate for people under 70 is 0.04%. That’s one-one hundredth of the original number. And what that means is for people under 70 years old your infection fatality rate is less than or equal to seasonal flu. If people want to shut down things because of that kind of risk then we better shut down all the schools and restaurants during November through April [every year] because that’s the flu season. The same risk people for this are at risk to die from the flu. And so there’s been a complete loss of common sense here. (Interview on Drive in with The Morning Ritual with Garret Lewis, June 26, 2020. 6:18-11:21)

 

Dr. Atlas, a world-famous public health expert, is President Trump’s new corona virus adviser. He tells us that the way to protect the vulnerable is allow younger healthy people to be exposed to the virus:

 

It doesn’t matter that young healthier people get the infection. In fact there’s a positive. Because we know the way to get immunity in the population is to have more people who are lower risk get the infection and become immune. That’s the whole point of giving vaccines to stop the pathways of the virus to the most risky people. That’s why we give widespread populations vaccines, for herd immunity. And the way naturally to get herd immunity is to have low risk people have the infection, they build up immunity, and eventually the pathways to the high-risk people are blocked. There’s nothing wrong with more cases. The only thing that counts is protecting the people who are going to die. (Ibid.)

 

So the lockdown endangers the elderly and chronically ill.

 

I know a few people who have received positive results on the PCR test. Most have no symptoms at all. One or two have a few minor ones. I know of 4 year olds in bidud, isolation. No symptoms except mental illness setting in from the utter lunacy of the way the diabolical leaders are handling this situation. People with symptoms are better in a day or two. It's like a minor cold for most of them.

 

I have asked many people, do you know anyone who is sick. Everyone said no. Every single one said no. One had an aunt that was sick a few months ago. In six months, I found one person who knows someone who once was sick. What kind of epidemic is that? If there were an epidemic there’d be waiting lists for burials. You’d spot hearses on your street every day. This week, I was trying to find a shiduch for a 60 year old Kohen but couldn’t think of any almanas. If there were a pandemic, there would be plenty of almanas, lo Aleinu.

 

Oh, you know of a case that's severe? And your cousin knows of that case. And you all keep talking about it and talking about it. Maybe you read about it on Yeshiva World News, the misnamed Zionist propaganda website. The media repeats these stories, over and over. Everyone talks about the same single case. Sounds like a thousand people but it's one.

 

But we don't make public health decisions by talking about a single case you know. You can go view car wrecks with body parts all over the road. Hard thing to see. Are you going to ban cars forever? How about a visit to the hospital rooms of cancer patients? It's gruesome.  Every ward in the hospital is gruesome, even the maternity ward has tragedies. Maybe you’ll view a film of a person choking to death on a chicken bone? That's quite hard to watch. If you saw that would you say that we should never eat chicken again? We can never eat again because you know a case of one guy that choked. People get struck by lightning. Should we lock ourselves in our houses every time a cloud appears in the sky? People get electrocuted. Should we remove all electronics from our lives. Have you ever seen a person get electrocuted? It’s horrible.

 

This is not how you make public health decisions. You need to look at data. The health minister of Israel, an aspiring dictator, told us today that he won't tolerate any discussion on the lockdown. He'll take you to a corona ward and you'll understand. That's how he makes decisions for the entire country. No need for data. No need for an understanding of immunology. Just loudmouth declarations of emotion -- Israeli style. 

 

In Israel, presently there are 480 seriously sick people from COVID19 out of a population of 9,200,000. That is a tiny percentage. Meanwhile, 7,000 people will die this year in Israel from illnesses produced by cigarette smoking. 2,500 will die from pollution, 900 will die from the flu. How do I know, because that's what happens every year. So where were the lockdowns last year, where is the ban on smoking, why don't they fix up the factories in Haifa? It's been many years since birth defects were reported to result from that pollution in Haifa. Anybody shut down the factories? All you life lovers, where have you been? Surely that would cost less than the $6.5 billion NIS that this lockdown is going to cost, to go with the billions from the prior lockdowns. Are we so concerned with human life -- one life is like the universe? That one concept has become the whole Torah in the goyisheh brains of some people. Suddenly, we care about life? 10,000 a year are dying from the illnesses I just described. I never heard hysteria about them before. Just ban smoking, you'll save 70,000 people a decade. No lockdowns required. 800 die a year from second- hand smoke! You can save 8,000 innocent people a decade. And what about the million and a half babies that have been aborted in Israel? You love life so much? You value every Jewish life? Where have you been?

 

Maybe the difference is that banning smoking will not obstruct religious practice. Maybe closing or fixing the factories won't destroy the Jewish religion. Ah, maybe that's it. And maybe that's why this latest lockdown starts on eruv Rosh Hashanah and goes through Simchas Torah! Can they be any more obvious? 

 

Want to know who knows what a fraud this all this? The Prime Minister. Netanyahu was caught on video, riding in a car, saying “By the way, don’t have to worry about this Corona. It’s all nonsense.” I have seen the video. He knows it’s nonsense, but he is shutting down the country, shutting down the Orthodox communities in particular.

 

So what will be with tefillah on Rosh Hashanah? That will be permitted by the masters, the kings, the dictators of the so-called Jewish democracy in a "very limited” fashion.  You hear that? Very limited.  For 70 years they have waited for this. And now they can conduct their schmad and portray themselves as heroes for all who are too naive, too stupid to see it. 

 

So what are the limitations? Essentially, it’s that 20 people can daven together outside, you know, in the parking lot. All day long in a parking lot in the heat, suffocating under a dirty mask with pieces of garbage and pigeon crap under their feet. In shuls, it’s a 10 person limit in most cases, in larger buildings more ‘capsules’ are permitted by the tyrants. But Rosh Hashanah davening cannot be staggered. It’s an all-day thing. You can’t have the first minyan at 7:00 and the second minyan at 9:00. So what does this mean? You can fit only a small portion of the men in the buildings. And what about the women? Everyone finds a parking lot and some kind of shatz? This is what these animals, these pigs want to do to Rosh Hashanah. Woe to klal Yisroel to have fallen to such a state. And all who supported the Zionists over the decades bear the guilt!

 

And what do alleged Orthodox Jews say about this? What do the people who claim to know just what Rosh Hashanah means, what Yom Kippur means, what a minyan means? Have they traded in Torah Judaism for the latest religion: pukuach nefesh. That's the new religion. Life! Life!

 

How goyish is that? It's totally goyish. Life without Torah makes you a goy. This worship of life for life’s sake is goyish. The average age of death from or with COVID19 in Israel is 80.4. One of the heads of Sharei Tzedeck hospital said that they didn't lose one young healthy person and nearly everyone who died there had a year to live from other illnesses. Yes, we must get those terminally ill 80 year-olds another six months at the expense of our religion, at the expense of their grandchildren’s lives.

 

That’s not to say that lockdowns help them. As I explained the lockdowns limit herd immunity and endanger the terminally ill. But we have all become so hysterical about conquering death, about life for life’s sake, about extending the age of mortality just a tiny little bit so we can brag at World Health Organization conferences that the State of Israel is high in the rankings, we have become so irrational with this goyish, secular goal that we actually are endangering people by obstructing herd immunity. We have become simpletons.

 

We endanger people in other ways too. I have a family friend whose father feared going to the doctor during this time and suffered a massive heart attack. He is now a vegetable on life support. Others have reported such stories. There are many cases of suicides among the elderly who can’t deal with all the isolation. Dr. John Ionnides one of the most respected scientists on the planet says that a billion people worldwide are in danger of starvation because of the lockdowns. Lockdowns are not just inconvenient, they cost lives. Dr. Scott Atlas estimates that the far more limited restrictions in America kill more people each month than the virus has in its entire run.

 

Nobody conquers death. We will all die someday. Those who live for olam hazeh can’t deal with that. They want to push of the gehennim that awaits them by staying alive at all costs rather than by doing teshuva.

 

Goy! Shaygetz! The doctors who cause this hysteria are apikorsim. They are Esav. So, too, are the so-called rabbis that bow to them. The baal habatim are running klal Yisroel right now, except in a few faithful communities.

 

The yomim noarim lockdown is only part of this schmad. We have been in one kind of lockdown or another since Pesach. There are two yeshiva ketanas near my home. One was shutdown entirely until they moved the whole thing to some kind of lockdown facility in another city. Another is partially open. 2/3 of the bochurim and the Rosh Yeshiva are in bidud. He’s been in bidud numerous times. He returns, he goes back. He’s not sick. He was in the presence of a bochur who was in the presence of somebody who tested positive for exposure to the virus. Nobody is sick. I stopped by the building this morning. The place is nearly empty of rabbis and bochurim. There were as many Arab construction workers in the building as Jews.

 

Same with shuls. They are shells of their former selves. Long running shiurim have stopped. There are signs on the walls not to use the books. Minyan that used to be packed are poorly attended in part because of the rules limiting attendance. One shul that always had people learning in it, at least a half a dozen at all hours save maybe 2 – 5 AM has now 1, 2, sometimes none. A know a guy who went there for slichos today. He said they raced through slichos so fast like they were trying to catch a train. He’s not going back he said. This shul is not Dati Leumi. It’s not even yeshiva-light. It’s one of the more yeshivish places, so-called Israeli yeshivish which we are told means really schtarke. The place is nearly closed and has been so for months. I know teenage boys who used to go there after school to learn Gemara. The boys are in a funk now, they are in a daze. They don’t know what to do with themselves There are many like this. There are bochurim all over the streets, just wandering around.

 

Yiddishkite is largely a religion of the mind. Duties of the heart comprise many of our most basic mitzvos. A person needs peace of mind to function as a Jew. All this government oppression, police oppression, tergiversations, instability, and panic are destroying people’s minds.

 

Pint sized weddings are being held on rooftops. Young women wait their whole lives for the weddings. They dream of their weddings. It’s their one moment in the spotlight, the kickoff of their lives. How about starting your life with a whimper?

 

I have been to online bar mitzvahs, vorts and shalom zachars in parking lots. In my town historically, shalom zachars are packed. You can’t get in the room. And parking lot shalom zachars? 4 people show up. They stay 10 minutes.

 

The wicked ones have been trying to destroy Torah for two hundred years. They want to turn us into Esav, into materialists who worship worldly things. The haskalah took many. Then Zionism stole away so many more. The lure of land, and armies and flags and building construction was too much for many. It appealed to their yetzer hara for materialism.

 

But it didn’t grab everyone. A small portion of klal Yisroel stayed faithful. So now we have corona. It is yet another trick. Ah, we’ll make this one into a mitzvah too. We are saving lives! Life. Guard your health says the Torah. “Vi’nishmartem meod l’nafshoseichem.” The same communities where fatty diets are the mainstay and children are stuffed with candy poison day and night suddenly are screaming to guard the health. The same Israelis who inspect every fruit with their dirty hands, pick up every donut before choosing one to buy, who put their bare rolls on the dirty food store conveyor built are suddenly obsessed with disease transmission. Hypocrites!

 

In the sefer Chafetz Chaim al HaTorah [Va’eschanan] the Chafetz Chaim explains why the posuk of “vi’nishmartem meod l’nafshoseichem”, which includes the commandment to guard one’s health, uses the term of nefesh, rather than the term guf. He explains that while engaging in the process of guarding the physical health, one may not thereby trample on his spiritual health.

 

And what is spiritual health if not Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur? What is life without a real Rosh Hashanah? What is life with a “very limited” Yom Kippur? That's life? No, it’s not life. It’s death. Do you hear me? It’s death.

 

And what about the talks we get year after year. Our life hangs in the balance. It will all be decided on Rosh Hashanah. Did we mean it? Are we just parroting words? 

 

We shall see who means in just a few days. We shall see who really believes in the power of Rosh Hashana and who has sold his soul to the secular, heretical Zionists, Esav and his little army.

 

Esav came with 400 men. Yaakov davened to Hashem.

 

Which are you? What are you going to do?



 

Sunday, September 20, 2020

boundless goodness

 

The boundless goodness of God, that is unfathomable to the limited powers of human understanding, טובו, is the prime mover and mark of all His loving actions. (The English word "God" is also derived from His goodness). Despite its fullness, it does not act blindly, but changes according to the worthiness and need of the person to whom it is given. To the faithful, it is expressed as a bounty in recognition of their worthiness, חן, to the undeserving, as mercy, חסד, and even to those who have forfeited it or could never lay claim to it, as compassion, רחמים.


God's benevolent action is not sparing with its love, but extends לכל בשר, indiscriminately to all, although in differing amounts.


R' Marcus Lehman, Passover Haggadah, p. 236

Friday, September 18, 2020

לשנה טובה

 

לשנה טובה
 תכתב ותחתם
 לאלתר
לחי'ים טובים וארוכים
 !ולשלום 

Wednesday, September 16, 2020

continuation in the future

 

“It is an important characteristic of God's boundless love, which allows us to conclude from the fact that He has not hitherto allowed us to suffer want, that in the future too, He will not permit us so to suffer. The narrow human attitude, While sparing with its love, is quite the reverse. The greater the benevolence we have received from our fellow-men in the past, the less right and the less expectation do we have of receiving similar benevolence in the future. Only with God's inexhaustible and patient love is the benevolence already received a guarantee of its continuation in the future. This is an aspect of God's loving rule that recurs constantly in our holy writings, and especially so in our prayers."


R' Marcus Lehman, Passover Haggadah, p. 237

Saturday, September 12, 2020

love, inexhaustible, unbounded love

 

“The actual Essence of God is love, inexhaustible, unbounded love. Where both this love and the name of God are unrecognised and God therefore finds it necessary to maintain and preserve His glory from lack of recognition and waywardness, it is 'כבוד ה the glory of God which procures recognition by storm, judgement and punishment. Where God appeares in punitive form, as in the overthrow of the
Egyptians, and with devoted love, as in the liberation of His people, He reveals Himself ובעצמו בכבודו in His glory and His whole real Being. Here God appears on the one hand as the sublime, unapproachable and inviolable Holiness, who disseminates death and fear, whereas on the other hand He appears as the source of all love and blessings, all existence and hope, or expressed in other terms: as הקדוש on the one hand, and ברוך הוא the other. קדוש expresses the concept כבודי

(ונקדש בכבודי ) whereas the description of עצמו in shortened from is ברוך הוא”


R' Marcus Lehman, Passover Haggadah, pp. 131-2