Felafel on Rye

A Jew is not free to serve Hashem while enveloped in the foreign pollution of Diaspora due to the foreign celestial ministers who Hashem has appointed to rule over the lands of the gentiles.

We also prepare the guys physically and spiritually for the army along with teaching them the tools needed to deal with the often frustrating bureaucracy in Israel.

The BDS group SJP (Students for Justice in Palestine) placed 'eviction' notices on Jews' dorm rooms, I'm glad. At least someone in US is telling young Jews that they don’t belong in America.

Amongst secular Jews, our rightful attachment to the full borders of Eretz Yisrael is a political bargaining chip, not an iron-clad covenant from Sinai.

Our Sages teach that when Chanukah comes around, we are to thank Hashem, not only for the miracles that He performed for us in...

About a month ago, I received an email from a 16 year-old girl from Europe, saying that she was on the way to the airport to fly to Israel. She said that her mother read my blogs at The Jewish Press and hoped that maybe I could help her, not knowing where else to turn. She wants to finish high school in Israel, make aliyah, and go into the army. Her present high school is all gentile and Moslem and very anti-Semitic. Could I help her, she asked?

Going to Mt of Olives cemetery was like visiting Jurassic Park in a jeep with dinosaurs rampaging

Normally I hate the Germans, but I have to give them credit on this one! Let their banning of brit milah be a reminder to our Jewish brothers and sisters in the Diaspora that we don’t belong in foreign lands. Unfortunately, I doubt whether the new law will affect the Jews of Germany in any meaningful way. After all, if the slaughter of 6 million didn’t make them think twice about living in that polluted, blood-stained gentile land, this new measure isn’t liable to wake them up either.

The rabbis maintain that in raising his family and grazing his sheep in an area encroached upon by Arab poachers, Zaroge is helping defend Jewish sovereignty over Eretz Yisrael.

The Torah commands, 'Honor thy father and thy mother, in order that thy days be long upon the Land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.'

All of our security and wellbeing, both in a national, military sense, and in the camp of our homes, depends on our personal purity.

A true Jewish leader does whatever needs to be done without worrying what the goyim will think.

Over the last week, from 125 hospitalizations, we are down to 34. Five out of our six units have been closed.

Rabbi Kook explains that this misplacing of priorities between the means and the goal stems from the sin of the earth during the days of Creation. By understanding the depth of this teaching, we can learn to be happy, not only when we finally attain our goals and ideals, but also at every moment of our lives.

L eading up to the holiday of Sukkot, we’ll wrap up our condensed look at Rabbi Kook’s teachings on t’shuva with a few blogs on two of the holidays most important themes – Eretz Yisrael and Torah.

We know, however, that the open graves off of Highway 443 opposite Modi'in are certainly not from the time of the Maccabees.

"Not only is Hanukah really a foolish and unnecessary holiday, it is also one that is dangerously fanatical and illiberal."

Rav Kook often studied Rebbe Nachman's writings with guests during Suedat Shleeshi meal on Shabbat

During the night, the Holy One Blessed Be He sits and roars like a lion, saying, “Woe to the children who I have exiled among the nations of the world” (Berachot 3A). It’s like a King who builds a beautiful palace for his children, but they don’t want to live there. They prefer to hang out with the harlots.

One of Rav Kook's public proclamations, sent out all over the Diaspora, years before the Holocaust, was entitled, “The Great Call”: "To the Land of Israel, gentlemen, to the Land of Israel! Let us utter this appeal in one voice, in a great and never-ending cry."

Mrs. Cherna Moskowitz: "Irv’s passion was creating and developing businesses so that he could help Israel. For him, this was the right thing to do."

Obviously, we have a good distance to go before we reach full redemption, but, for example, last week I davened Mincha on Har HaBayit with a minyan. Once upon a time, that was an impossible dream.

Now that I think about it, I made a big mistake. Instead of bringing Tevye to the Promised Land, I should have brought him to Las Vegas to meet up with Meir Lansky and Bugsy Siegel in building the town’s first casino. First he throws off his embarrassing tzitzis, then his milkman’s cap, then he shaves off his beard and finds himself a shicksa. Now that would have been a bestseller!

Two Torah scholars were sent from Israel to Babylon. Upon their arrival, they took part in official ceremonies and didn’t reveal the purpose of their visit. They were received with great honor. Gradually, they started to vent their opposition. Finally, they entered a crowded assembly and said to the Jews of Babylon, “Behold, you are a great congregation. You can be independent. You don’t need Eretz Yisrael. You don’t need Mount Moriah.” Their sarcasm was purposely stinging in order to shock the Babylonian Jews. “And you’ve also got Rabbi Ahia here. Let Ahia build an altar, and let Haninah play on a harp. But know that if you detach yourselves from the centrality of Eretz Yisrael, you have no portion in the God of Israel!”

These “civilians” are not “innocent.”

Rav Shlomo Aviner has stated that women are not permitted to serve in the army just like they are not permitted to violate Shabbat.

After all, in Avraham’s time, there were savage Canaanites living in Eretz Yisrael. And there weren’t any kosher supermarkets back then, nor religious neighborhoods, nor Jewish Day Schools and yeshivot for the kids. In fact, there weren’t any Jews living there at all. Avraham would be the first. Who needed the hassle? It made a lot more sense to stay where he was, in Ur America, where everyone knew him, enjoying the good life with the goyim, wait for Moshiach, and pretend, via the Internet, that he was actually involved in building the Jewish State.

Over the weeks, we saw thousands of children taken away from the ramp where the trains arrived and marched straight to the crematorium. No one ever walked out of those buildings.

There's plenty of blame to go around.

Starting this coming Monday, don’t miss The Jewish Press serializing of the novel, Tevye in the Promised Land, a wonderful faith-filled adventure for the whole family, covering the Tevye’s unforgettable journey to the Promised Land.