A Jew Must Live in Israel

Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, Head of Yeshivat Har Bracha, a settlement ovverlooking the city of Schem (Nablus) and facing Mount Avel, writes:

The mitzvah (obligation) of Yishuv Ha’Aretz (settling the Land of Israel) obligates the entire nation of Israel to inherit the Land, namely, to apply sovereignty over it, and settle it. As it is written (Numbers 33: 53-54): ” You shall dispossess the inhabitants of the Land and dwell in it, for I have given the Land to you to possess it…to inherit the Land…” or as Ramban defined the mitzvah: “We were commanded to take possession of the Land which the Almighty, Blessed Be He, gave to our forefathers, to Avraham, to Yitzhak, and to Yaacov; and to not abandon it to other nations, or to leave it desolate”. 

One can only respect the people who went up that stony, desolate hill, to build a Yeshiva (school) and spend their time studying old texts there. I designed the water, etc. infrastructure of the Yeshiva. It was difficult to get paid, but after two or three years they did pay me. It was frightful to drive to the site on those deserted mountain roads up the settlement, and to pass through enemy villages. The road was in fact the main street of the towns, with new mosques being erected and hundreds of children walking on the road, going to school. I was attacked only once. The courageous Rabbi reminds everybody the reason they are there.

The Antimatter Man

How to make sense of what is happening in the financial markets? TASE is about 15-20% below its peak. All my extended family are working, I am working and being paid in the University, consulting jobs are starting to flow in to the point that I am again rejecting orders, people stopped dying from coronavirus (they keep dying from other causes as before).  We have learnt to manage the epidemic and extinguishing focus infections. I can't take my eyes from the girls and tend to talk up the cashier girls, but I am impotent (even with viagra!). I schedule my working life till end of 2020 and it is approaching and can't think of an alternative nor how to continue. Most people lives without planning, day to day, but that is not my lifestyle. Weather is great. The international papers like Barron's are pessimists, they say "Wait until the unemployment benefits run out in July. That'll be the beginning of the real trouble."

Yes, but what about the antimatter men?  John Robinson and Don West are transported onto a psychotic world where their evil opposites exist and plan to change places with them. Will, The Robot and a reluctant Dr. Smith set out to find and help the real Don and John only to be pursued by a evil John Robinson.

“Lost in Space,” a 1960 TV series, centers on the tight-knit and inexhaustibly inventive Robinson family, who set off for the Alpha Centauri star system after Earth threatened to become inhospitable. Unfortunately, the Robinsons have faced obstacle after obstacle over the seasons. Don't worry, in Lost in Space every episode has a happy end.

Zsidó mesék - Kulka János

Jewish stories - the Hungarian Actor Janos (John) Kulka. His story is that they lived in Szeged, a provincial town, when the shool visited the local sinagogue. At home, he told his father, and he told him the family story, they are Jews and most of the family was assessinated in Auschwitz. Typically among us Hungarian Jews, the subject was never mentioned and it was all completely new from him. He comments that his father spoke without emotion, tried to avoid loading the children with the horror of the Holocaust.

Springtime for J

Friday morning. Wonderful fresh air, springtime  sun, the streets full of people and children all dressed in happy colours, long white legged girls, life is coming back to the city. The winter is over, hungry young pidgeons and exotic birds are busy courting on the fig trees in front of my window.

I am re-reading Xenophon and endless petty wars of the Greeks. Near the end, only one thousand Spartans (of the officer class, mistranslated) remain, spread as harmosts (governors) in one hundred islands and mini-republics. One asks a Spartiate, Tell me, how many are you? He answers: Enough to reject people like you.

Blue

I am a bit dispirited since Monday. I drove to an Industrial Park of Ashtrom in the Deep South, and met a friendly young executive and promised to submit my proposal, which we had already agreed on. When arrived home after 2 hours driving, I got a bad lower back pain. Next day I had to prepare and deliver lectures on ZOOM, did so but I felt below my average. I suspect that the dread of restarting classes and work after two weeks of holidays caused my lower back pain. Today nothing aches but I postponed a meeting in Tel Aviv because my mood is blue, melancholic, dispirited. The epidemic has been mostly stopped and my wife is happy and tired babysitting and feeding the third generation. Her agenda is full for the next week. I am getting old - next time I'll stop every 30 minutes of driving. 

Life in Kfar Sava

Daughters and grandaughters. 

Death in Manaus

Manaus, in the middle of the Amazonas rainforest. The corona virus reached them.