Yeshiva
Beit Midrash
- Shabbat and Holidays
- Jewish Holidays
- The Three Weeks
The haftorah is the vision of the great prophet Yeshayahu. It also minces no words in describing the impending tragedy of the Temple’s destruction and of the sins of Israel that contributed and led to this destruction. In reading the words of the haftorah, one cannot help but sense the overwhelming feeling of frustration that envelops the prophet. He is the doctor who has diagnosed the disease correctly and has the proper medicines and cures to heal the patient but the patient ignores the disease and its cure. Yeshayahu complains about the thickheadedness of Israel in not understanding and realizing its true condition and its tragic result. It is Israel’s refusal to see things clearly, to ignore the long range disaster that looms over it and instead look only for short range comfort that drives the prophet to understandable distraction. His vision is real and stark, disturbing and tragic. There is a willful blindness in Israel regarding its future that strikes Yeshayahu, as a man of vision himself, as being utterly not understandable. Israel is more blind to its future and therefore necessarily as well to its past then is the donkey or the ox that recognize their sources of food and safety. But all prophecies regarding the Jewish people, no matter how sad and doomed they seem, always end on a note of hope and optimism. The eternal people will right itself and yet achieve its physical and spiritual goals and be redeemed in the cause of justice and righteousness.
Rabbis in Midrash
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Various Events FOR WHOM NOT TO VOTE
Rav Zvi Yehuda Kook stressed that Israeli politics is G-dly, so I have no problem answering this common question on a Torani blog. Also, Free-Will is a G-d-given right and obligation, to "destine one's fate" (R. Soloveichik, Kol Dodi Dofek, 67), so I obviously don't tell others how to vote. But once not a few (especially young) have already asked, a couple of personal words from experience and thoughts from chazal & Rav Kook which may be of help to others, mainly for whom NOT to vote.
P'ninat Mishpat Fallout from Failure to Install Elevator – part II
based on ruling 85007 of the Eretz Hemdah-Gazit Rabbinical Courts
