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The Jewish people will never forget how President Trump worked tirelessly, leaving no stone unturned, to bring every last living hostage home. One year later, our gratitude remains as strong as ever. Happy Hostage Freedom Anniversary!

Trump is definitely winning this one, decisively

Hashem, please guide us and show us how to prepare our hearts, our homes and our lives for the era of the Third Beis HaMikdash. May we merit to see the day when Your Temple stands once again in Yerushalayim as a House of prayer for all nations, bringing holiness, peace, and Your presence to the entire world. Who's with me!!! Say with ME!!

If more Jews (especially those on the front lines combating Jew-hatred) actually listen to what Lucas Gage is saying here, we might finally start figuring out how to wind down this forever war between Jews and antisemites, instead of everyone just getting "better" at fighting it. Advance apologies to whomever this may offend, but the most effective counter to Jew-hatred is for Jews to become better Jews. On a human level, Jews are highly visible, and our conduct shapes how people experience Judaism whether that’s fair or not. We need to stop pretending our behavior has no impact. And we're not supposed to say this, but being chosen means being charged with a higher responsibility. When Jews fall short of the moral and spiritual standards we've been tasked with, that failure can shape how others perceive us, sometimes unfairly and disproportionately. The goal should be to make Jew-hatred a losing strategy. If every attack makes us more committed, more observant and more united, then instead of weakening us, our haters end up strengthening the very thing they set out to destroy. Understand what I'm saying! We have a far better chance of reducing Jew-hatred by focusing our energy inward than by endlessly trying to fight every hater outwardly. While we can’t control what every antisemite says or thinks, we can control what their hatred produces in US. If Jew-hatred produces frightened, divided, embarrassed Jews, then it has accomplished something. If Jew-hatred produces holier, prouder, kinder and more united Jews, then it has backfired. Besides, isn't it far more practical to work on improving the one person we can actually control, ourselves, than to try to play whack-a-mole against a seemingly endless supply of Jew-haters, with tactics that, to-date, have too often produced more resentment and hatred against us? Lucas’s essay offers an important lesson about changing them: talk, listen, answer honestly, de-escalate and give people a path out. Judaism offers us an important lesson about changing us. It's clear to me that we need both.

Kfar Ovadia

וחתו גבוריך תימן...

For me, it's obvious that October 7th was part of His Divine plan. Consider everything that has unfolded since, and the larger process set in motion that day: A. The attack presented the world with a horrifying moral test. After witnessing a brutal, livestreamed massacre of Jews, would the nations stand with the Jewish people as they fought for survival, or would they find excuses for the murderers, send them aid, lend them moral legitimacy, and ultimately strengthen the forces seeking to destroy us? Much of the world failed that test, and look as the consequences continue to unfold. Israel’s enemies throughout the region have since been dramatically weakened, while the crisis has exposed profound weakness and vulnerability across much of the Western world, which the radical red-green alliance continues to exploit. It is our enemies who, in the aftermath of October 7th, have found themselves stripped of protection. B. October 7 presented the Jewish people with a test of our own... A warrior in Be’eri was suddenly our brother, a hostage we had never met became our sister. Their parents became our parents and their children became our children. Jews across the world gave money, flew across oceans, volunteered, enlisted, prayed, cooked, drove, donated, visited the wounded and refused to forget the captives. We showed ourselves and the world that when one Jew suffers, millions feel their pain!! One lesson of October 7 is that internal division can look like weakness from the outside, and had we been more united on October 6, perhaps Sinwar may have been far less confident to strike Israel. C. Look at how much has changed since October 7. Iran’s nuclear program has been obliterated (at least for now). Its leadership and regional proxies have been dramatically weakened. Gulf countries increasingly find themselves siding with Israel. The shekel has shown remarkable strength. Assad’s regime is gone. In the United States, the Dems have since lost control of the House Senate and White House. Leftism around the world has lost credibility, the UN has been rendered irrelevant, academia has become a joke, and the Two-State solution remains dead and buried. And most remarkable, it's made the Jewish people more united, more religious and Jews are openly having conversations about rebuilding the Third Beis HaMikdash. So when you ask “Why didn’t Hashem protect the Jews on October 7?” my answer is: Maybe the question isn’t why Hashem failed to protect us. Maybe the question is whether we recognize the forms His protection takes over the long term, not only in a single terrible moment. Becuase Divine protection does not always mean preventing tragedy. Sometimes history is allowed to unfold in ways whose purpose only becomes visible much later. October 7th brought out the best in us while bringing our enemies to their knees. Moving forward our task is to make sure that the unity, responsibility and love for one another that emerged from October 7 does not require another October 7 to reawaken us in the future.

Clearly the performance of Talmudic Rituals are working

The particular “Talmudic rituals” being performed here is called teshuvah. The Jewish people are turning back to Hashem in repentance, recommitting themselves to His Torah, and trusting that Hashem will continue to perform miracles on behalf of His Holy Nation.