Pilgrimage Revival

Posted on October 5, 2025 | Comments Off on Pilgrimage Revival

(First published in Image Magazine – Pilgrimage Revival – IMAGE Magazine)

One of the most familiar and elevating of Jewish rituals in ancient Israel was the thrice-yearly pilgrimage to Jerusalem, the Aliya Laregel. Jews came with their families and offerings to Jerusalem to celebrate Pesach, Shavuot, and Sukkot, “to behold the pleasantness of the Lord and to meditate in His sanctuary” (Tehillim 27:4). It was not only a life-changing experience; it was also life-shaping, life-affirming. It placed Jerusalem and the Holy Temple at the epicenter of every Jew’s consciousness. And it did more than that.

The Aliya Laregel was a time of bonding for all Jews, as Jerusalem was celebrated as “the city that is united together” (Tehillim 122:3), the city “which confers fellowship on all of Israel. And when? Only when the tribes ascend together on the festivals” (Talmud Yerushalmi, Chagigah 3:6). All Jews assembled in Jerusalem: the young and old, the rich and poor, men and women, the various tribes from the north, center, and south of Israel. Despite the throngs of people, “no person ever said, ‘there is no room for me to lodge overnight in Jerusalem’” (Avot 5:5). The great medieval commentator Don Yitzchak Abarbanel noted that, in truth, it is a great miracle, that in an overcrowded setting, no one ever felt uncomfortable.
Even diverse levels of religious observance were muted on the festivals. All Jews were presumed to heed the laws of ritual purity. Everyone could eat other’s food and drink each other’s wine. No Jew could be declared impure, such as with tzara’at, on the festivals. A nation that was divided into tribes – today, into political parties and religious factions – found its commonality on the festivals, with Aliya Laregel. Jerusalem, which we are taught was never divided among the tribes (Washington DC paralleled this practice), reached its spiritual apex on the holidays, as all Jews felt a deep, personal, and intimate connection with the Holy City, their nation’s capital and seat of government, the spiritual center of Jewish life, the place where the Divine presence was intensely experienced.
Imagine if Aliya Laregel could be revived today, not in the strictly halachic sense because the Holy Temple has not yet been rebuilt, but practically. Imagine if Jews from across the world ascended to Jerusalem three times a year on the festivals. The spiritual, political, and psychological benefits would be enormous and overwhelming. We would strengthen the attachment of all Jews to each other, a connection that is often frayed for sundry reasons. Most simply, we would affirm in the eyes of the world (and Jews) the profound bond between the Jewish people and the city of Jerusalem, our capital since the time of King David – and a bond that is important to underscore in light of our enemies who seek to delegitimize and disenfranchise the Jewish people from Jerusalem and the land of Israel.
Imagine if all Jews, of all backgrounds and various ethnicities, gathered in Jerusalem on Pesach to re-experience our formative moment as a nation some thirty-three centuries ago, liberated from bondage to become G-d’s chosen people; on Shavuot, to reclaim the Torah as our heritage and birthright; and on Sukkot, to acknowledge and be grateful for G-d’s protective hand that has preserved us until today, after millennia of exile, persecution, and suffering, only to return us to our land, declare independence, and reestablish the Jewish state – a feat without precedent in all of human history.
Together, we would celebrate our origins (Pesach), our mission (Shavuot), and the blessings of Divine Providence (Sukkot).
The Jewish people would be uplifted and transformed. The world – we can continue to imagine – would be galvanized to appreciate the extraordinary return of the Jewish people to the land of Israel and to the world stage in all our glory.
Reviving Aliya Laregel – the pilgrimage dimension of the three festivals – is more feasible than we might otherwise think. Many tens of thousands of Jews already come every festival to Jerusalem. The streets are packed, the Old City is alive, the Kotel is buzzing. We already have realized the vision of Zecharia the prophet: “Old men and old women will again dwell in the streets of Jerusalem, every man with his staff in his hand because of old age. And the streets of the city will be filled with boys and girls playing in its streets” (4:4).
That already is the reality – and the renaissance of Aliya Laregel will further unite all Jews and deepen our connection with Jerusalem. Start with one festival. Let’s do it!

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Rabbi Prof. Dov Fischer, OBM

Posted on October 3, 2025 | 1 comment

(First published at Israelnationalnews.com)

The Jewish world suffered a grievous loss with the passing on Monday after a long bout with illness of Rabbi Prof. Dov Fischer, beloved husband and father, Rav of the Young Israel of Orange County (Irvine, CA), attorney and law professor, author, and frequent much-read columnist for Israel National News as well as contributing editor at the American Spectator.

Rav Dov was an individual of great passion, courageous, intrepid, outspoken, keenly intelligent, and with a sublime gift of expression, sometimes profound and serious, sometimes subtly sarcastic and sometimes simply funny. He was a graduate of Columbia University, a musmach of Yeshiva University’s Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, and earned his law degree at UCLA. For a time, he practiced high stakes litigation with two prominent law firms. He taught Torah in several venues – as a Rav in Jersey City and a Rebbe at Rogosin Yeshiva High School in his youth, and then in California, with a plethora of his shiurim on YouTube.

As a Rav, he was noted for his pastoral sensitivity, his kindness, his enthusiastic commitment to kiruv, and his desire to bring love and observance of Torah to every Jew. A multi-dimensional personality whose days were filled with service to the Jewish people, he at one time also served as National Director of the JDL, as the head of Likud USA, as Vice-President of the Zionist Organization of America, and on the Executive Committee of the Rabbinical Council of America.

In addition to his numerous articles, he wrote two books in the 1980s – “Jews for Nothing,” about the assimilation crisis, and “General Sharon’s War Against Time Magazine.” At the time of his death, he was in the final stages of publishing a commentary on the Chumash.

What was Rav Dov like? He was a born contrarian, as evidenced by his being a Yankee fan in the heart of his native Brooklyn, then the home of the Brooklyn Dodgers, and maintaining his allegiances even on the West Coast. His passion for truth led him to publicly challenge any deviation from Orthodoxy, including Open Orthodoxy, meticulously highlighting every errant innovation and routinely calling on the rabbinic world to speak out and defend the truth of Torah.

His frustration with the tendency of established rabbinic organizations to avoid controversy even to the detriment of Torah, Israel, and the Jewish people led him a decade ago to become one of the founders of the Coalition for Jewish Values, an public policy organization of over 2000 Orthodox rabbis. At his passing, Rav Dov was Vice President of the organization.

His truth was served on a platter of no compromise, although he took great pains to keep his relationships with those with whom he disagreed professional and never personal. As professor at two California law schools, he was voted several times the “most popular professor” by his law students and became a mentor to a generation of aspiring attorneys. Unbeknownst to the general public, Rav Dov was also a mentor and legal advisor to numerous rabbis, helping them negotiate their contracts and navigate issues with synagogue boards, and all pro bono.

Visitors to Israel National News were avid readers of his columns, which combined fierce advocacy for Israel with a remarkable range of sources, anecdotes and allusions. A typical article could contain Torah insights, political analysis, and arcane references to Seinfeld, movies, books, and legal theories. He was quite open about his personal life and medical issues in recent years, which provided his readers with a close personal connection. When his beloved wife Ellen died of a brain tumor, he shared his grief with readers, and when the lung transplant he underwent necessitated constant medical care, he joked with them about how little time he has to write and lecture. His marriage to Denise, to whom we send sincere condolences, brought him solace.

As columnist for the American Spectator, he brought to the American public Jewish ideas and values to which most had theretofore never been exposed. Most assumed that all Jews were liberals because that is how the general media monolithically portrayed Jews. Rav Dov opened them to a new and more accurate understanding of Torah and Judaism and, in the eyes of many, redeeming the Torah from the prevalent misconceptions.

As readers of Arutz Sheva (and the Spectator) knew, Israel was a special passion. Notwithstanding an unsuccessful attempt at Aliyah in the 1980’s (a contractor took his money, and that of his fellow residents in their new Yishuv in the Shomron, and declared bankruptcy, leaving them all impoverished and necessitating his move to California), he retained a lifelong love of Israel and always dreamt of returning.

Rav Dov was a classic Religious Zionist – believing with all his heart and soul in the State of Israel as the fulfillment of the prophetic vision of our return to the land after a long exile. He called out specific Israeli politicians for their poltroonery, their fecklessness, and often their lack of Jewish pride as evinced by the policies they implemented and the dangerous concessions they made – such as the Oslo Accords and the Expulsion of Jews from Gaza.

This candor was atypical of most rabbis of his generation, who preferred to take positions within a broad consensus so as not to antagonize anyone who disagreed – but who also then abdicated even the pretense of leadership. Rav Dov was not afraid of detractors. He confronted them and was always willing to debate them (some of his debates dating back decades can be found on YouTube). In debate he was polite but firm, and his arguments often left his interlocutors grasping for answers, and longing for a commercial break. He was a master orator and teacher, and until just last month, despite his ill health, he was still giving Zoom shiurim to his congregants in Irvine and elsewhere.

Rabbis are not always emotional – but many of our rabbinic colleagues are crushed by this loss. They speak of him as the heart of Klal Yisrael, a Rav of tremendous dedication, mesirut nefesh, possessed of an unmatched generosity of spirit, an intellectual giant, a gift of articulation, with a very sharp, incisive, and infectious sense of humor. He had a soft spot for the underdog, the oppressed, the mistreated, and the disadvantaged. His fervent love of Torah morality did not at all limit his ability to relate to people of all backgrounds, faiths, and disparate belief systems.

It is often an overused cliché to assert that someone is irreplaceable, but Rav Dov is truly irreplaceable. The influence he had on countless Jews, the joy he brought to his teaching of Torah, the shaping of hearts and minds about Israel, Judaism, and the Jewish people, can not be replaced. It can only be emulated – by rabbis of courage, vision, and resolve. His voice has been stilled but Rav Dov left a legacy of lessons, learning, and leadership that will continue to inspire generations to come.

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The Inscrutable Mr. Trump

Posted on September 30, 2025 | Comments Off on The Inscrutable Mr. Trump

(Published yesterday at Israelnationalnews, beffpre the DC summit.)

We are an interesting nation. More than 147 countries have recognized a non-existent “State of Palestine” in the last 40 years, yet we are upset when another five nations similarly sign on to this farce. We delay, postpone, and defer a declaration of sovereignty over Judea and Samaria for almost sixty years, yet we are upset when Donald Trump says he will now “not allow Israel to annex the West Bank… It is not going to happen.” Politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum – and when we don’t act, someone else does. Yet, there is little that is more vacuous than recognition of a Palestinian state, which hasn’t changed the situation on the ground an iota, and even Trump’s blustery exclamations should be put into context.

How should Israel respond, on both fronts?

In line with the columnist Salena Zito’s prescient observation almost a decade ago, one should take Trump “seriously, but not literally.” He says things, he dominates the news cycle every day, and from one day to the next, he changes his mind. He has declared a dozen times in the last half year that a “deal in Gaza”is imminent, “maybe this weekend” he says every Friday. And, from his perspective, it always is “imminent,” as it only requires Hamas’ agreement to free the hostages, lay down its weapons, and surrender. Yet, it never happens. It is a bemusing combination of bravado, wishful thinking, and showmanship; it is not statesmanship and I genuinely doubt that Trump keeps track of the details or could recite them by heart.

Note that if Israel applies Israeli civil law to Area C, or even to most of Judea and Samaria outside of the Arab population centers, Israel has, literally, not annexed “West Bank” (just parts of it) and thus not run afoul of the Trump dictate. Nevertheless, to paraphrase Ben Gurion, it always matters less what the Gentiles say than what the Jews do, and we have been perpetually negligent in asserting our rights to our biblical patrimony and consequently engendered this diplomatic chaos.

Trump – who just a few years ago in a different iteration of his diplomatic deliberations embraced Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria – could change his mind tomorrow. He is obviously concerned about potential harm to one of his concrete achievements, the Abraham Accords. But the fact that the viability of the Accords would be threatened by annexation of parts of Judea and Samaria demonstrates that they might be more tenuous than we like to believe.

After all, PM Netanyahu is not motivated by the sanctity of the land of Israel or the inviolability of our biblical patrimony but rather by Israel’s basic security needs. It is widely assumed by most Israelis, and with good reason, that a Palestinian state would not end the conflict (regardless of protestations of good faith, signing ceremonies, or Nobel Peace Prize presentations) but would be used as a launching pad for another October 7-like massacre in order to destroy Israel completely.

How does it benefit signatories to the Abraham Accords – the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, etc. – if Israel is weak and vulnerable? Undoubtedly, another massacre of Jews would generate a (brief) wave of sympathy from these nations, but would they mourn our demise, G-d forbid? Hardly. It should be a wakeup call to all Israelis that many countries with whom we have peace treaties or are currently negotiating with to sign some sort of agreement – Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and others – all walked out on PM Netanyahu’s speech. They could not bear to hear him. (To his credit, the UAE ambassador stayed. To their shame, the self-styled mediator, Qatar, hosts of Hamas, walked out.)

If I had a choice between sovereignty over Judea and Samaria and a fragile agreement with Saudi Arabia, I would choose sovereignty over Judea and Samaria. Frankly, I am tired of this hollow concern with the Arab street, how Arab leaders cannot get ahead of their people, and how even Arab despots cannot be seen as too friendly to Israel lest their people… what? Rebel? Overthrow them? Each Muslim country that is part of the Abraham Accords is ruled by a dictator, a strongman, or a monarch. They are unelected, self-appointed. They have more to fear from the lack of freedoms in their countries and their heavy-handed rule than even if they would don a kippah serugah and wear it in a mosque.

The days should be long gone when it was deemed a major concession to hear a Jewish leader speak. And enemies of Netanyahu should be reminded that walking out on Israeli leaders at the United Nations is a hoary tradition that dates back to the 1950’s. Once again, it is the soft bigotry of low expectations that purports to understand why Arab leaders can’t be expected to listen to what Israel has to say. From outright Jew haters like Iran and Turkey, it is unsurprising. But we should have little faith in the viability of Accords with leaders of countries who are presently too scared to hear what the Jew has to say.

Should Israel defy Trump? It does set a terrible precedent for Israel to acquiesce in the grandiose edict of any US president – even a friend like Trump – that he “will not allow” what is essentially a unilateral decision on Israel’s part. That hubris should be challenged or we will pay a heavy price for it in the future. In reality, all Trump can do is recognize or refuse to recognize the annexation. (Indeed, when Transjordan annexed the “West Bank” in 1950, necessitating the change of that country’s name to Jordan, only Britain and Pakistan recognized it.) Israel has been in control of all or most of Judea and Samaria for almost sixty years. For how long must its residents live in limbo?

That vacuum must be filled sooner or later, and better sooner, like today or yesterday. Jewish sovereignty over Judea and Samaria – all or most – would be the final stake in the heart of that Jewish blood-seeking and blood-sucking vampire known as “Palestinian nationalism.”

There are lingering suspicions that Netanyahu encouraged Trump to oppose a declaration of sovereignty. That would be why Netanyahu said that he would have strong responses to the countries that recognize a “State of Palestine” but only after he returned from the US. But why not before he left on his journey? This would not be the first time that Netanyahu solicited American pressure in order not to do something that he did not want to do in any event. He is cautious, unpredictable, and despite the public persona of a bold and fearless visionary, he is actually quite tentative in his statecraft. And equivocal.

There is the Netanyahu of thirty years ago who vowed to reverse the deleterious effects of Oslo, and then did not, and even signed the Hebron Accords. There is the Netanyahu who voted for the expulsion of Jews from Gaza until he at last voted against it. There is the Netanyahu of the Bar Ilan speech of 2009 endorsing a Palestinian state to appease Barack Obama, envisioning “two peoples [who] live freely, side-by-side, in amity and mutual respect,” and the Netanyahu of two weeks ago vowing there will never be a Palestinian state. There is the Netanyahu on whose watch Israel was invaded, our citizens massacred, defiled, and kidnapped, and the Netanyahu who has led remarkable victories on multiple fronts, transforming the Middle East (for how long is anyone’s guess). And that is not all.

In that, Netanyahu is Trump-like, residing in a world where spin matters more than substance. In Trump’s world, it is enough to say again and again that America has “the hottest economy in the world.” It doesn’t; inflation persists, unemployment is up, no one really knows how much revenue tariffs are raising or where are all the billions and trillions of dollars of investments promised from nations across the world. It is enough to say, in many American cities, that crime is down, when in fact only arrests are down, not crime. It is enough to say things, repeatedly, and then move on to something else.

Thus, if a Palestinian state is an existential threat to Israel – and it is – then no European country or fair-minded Arab potentate who wants good relations with Israel should support it or recognize it. And since one way to avert it is by exercising sovereignty over Judea and Samaria, Netanyahu (and Trump) can spin it in a way in which sovereignty is declared, Jewish rights and interests are advanced, the Arab world is mollified, Americans (Jews and Gentiles) who support the Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria are gratified, and Trump can move on to settling the war in Ukraine, which, we have learned, was not resolved on the first day of his administration.

Will PM Netanyahu have the courage of his convictions to declare sovereignty? We shall see but do not be surprised if this can is again kicked down the road to be used as a campaign promise in next year’s election.

What can be done in response to those Western countries recognizing a Palestinian state? A proud country would call in the ambassadors of those countries to the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem for a tongue-lashing. Some of those countries – like Britain, France, Belgium, and others like Turkey – maintain consulates in Jerusalem that for years have functioned (due to Israeli fecklessness) as embassies to “Palestine.” Those consulates should be closed forthwith, the diplomats accredited to the PA should be barred from Israel and sent to live in Ramallah, the special parking privileges, and VAT exemptions their diplomats enjoy in Jerusalem should be revoked, and whoever protests should be expelled as persona non grata.

Let’s face it. The notion of Britain and France as world powers is nostalgia, certainly in France’s case, the French having not won a war in over a century and not distinguishing itself in the century before that. That both continue to serve on the UN Security Council – while real powers with economic, political, and military muscle like India and Germany, even Japan, are excluded – is an anachronism. Most of Europe is in decline, being overrun by radical Muslims, and intimidated by the Islamist terror that visited London, Paris, Nice, Brussels, Barcelona, Madrid, and other cities.

Their appeals to morality and their concern for Palestinian lives are unconvincing. They are frightened and have been intimidated by their growing Muslim population to turn on Israel. And given these countries’ wretched history with the Jewish people from medieval times through the Holocaust, they did not need much prompting.

Trump’s musings, Netanyahu’s hesitations, and Europe’s perfidies are all ephemeral. What is permanent and enduring? The words of our prophets that have been realized in our time, such as those of Jeremiah (31:4) who proclaimed in one of the direst times in Jewish history, “you shall again plant vineyards on the mountains of Samaria; the planters shall plant and shall enjoy it.” And (31:7), “I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the uttermost parts of the earth.” And (31:10), “for G-d has rescued Jacob, and redeemed him from the hand of one stronger than him.”

That is real. We can either choose to defer and let others dictate our future, or as people of faith, take our destiny in our own hands. If the nations of world are determined that their path to survival is through a Palestine that will temporarily pacify their mobs, then we can either acquiesce now and passively observe our decline or stand firm against the mobs and be witnesses and midwives to the redemption of Israel. The choice is ours.

Gmar Chatima tova to all!

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Extreme Cancel Culture

Posted on September 19, 2025 | 3 comments

(First published at Israelnationalnews.com)

One can hope that the assassination of Charlie Kirk is a watershed moment for the United States but, sadly, political violence has been ubiquitous in American life for almost two centuries. Four presidents have been murdered, Gerald Ford was shot at twice, Ronald Reagan once, Harry Truman was saved by his security team (one of whom was killed), FDR as President-elect was shot at (the mayor of Chicago was killed), and two former presidents running again for office (Teddy Roosevelt and Donald Trump) were both hit and survived. (Roosevelt, in fact, continued to give his speech with a bullet in his chest.)

Yet, Kirk’s murder has especially touched people across the world, and not only because he was a young husband and father in the prime of his life. Charlie Kirk wasn’t a politician. He was what young people today called an “influencer,” a purveyor of ideas and opinions, a spokesman for conservative values, a shaper of young minds, and one of the most powerful countercultural forces to ever appear on American college campuses. His bold challenge to those who differed with him – “Prove Me Wrong” – typified his self-confidence as well as his willingness to dialogue with ideological opponents. Quite possibly, he was perceived by his killer as even more dangerous than most politicians.

Charlie Kirk was also the victim of cancel culture, taken to its logical though gruesome and hideous extreme. For well over a decade (perhaps even four decades, if one counts the conservative speakers harassed and driven from campuses in the 1980’s), there have been persistent efforts to silence people who hold views disfavored by the liberal elites. It was started by advocates of a nuclear freeze and appeasement of the Soviet Union, but was accelerated by proponents of one side of the various culture wars that waft through Western society: abortion (both pro and con), issues relating to race, women, same sex relationships, transgenders, etc. As we know, there are many places in the world today – even so-called free societies – where supporters of Israel face harassment, threats, silencing, social distancing, and cancelling.

It happened to me on several occasions, for a variety of ideological positions (all rooted in Torah) I was not supposed to have, even twice including death threats. I never paid much attention to the canceling attempts, which failed because no one I knew that mattered paid any attention to the cancelers either. As I have never been on social media, I was spared the invective directed at me, nevertheless shared with me by good-hearted souls who didn’t want me to miss out. Ignoring social justice warriors was always the best tactic – and never apologize – and they really do go away after a brief period of time.

Canceling takes the form of social pressure, censorship, termination of employment, bullying, assaults on family, and of course, character assassination. The difference between character assassination and actual assassination is a difference in degree, not in kind.

Most of the assaults and homicides of US presidents have been perpetrated by mentally deranged individuals, with Lincoln’s killer, John Wilkes Booth, a Southern zealot, being one of the very few exceptions. Kirk’s assassin presents as a kindred spirit – motivated by fierce antagonism to Kirk’s ideas and feeling no need to prove him wrong. The attack on free speech – a bedrock of liberal societies – is considered justified in many circles, as are attacks on people who speak freely. Not all speech should be supported or consequence-free but reasonable people should be able to distinguish between, say, those who are pro- or anti-abortion, and those who tastelessly celebrate the murder of someone who thinks differently than they do. The former is a clash of values regardless of how passionately one clings to either position, and should be debated. The latter, as happened several times in the US in the past week, are rightfully fired from their employment and denounced publicly. They have the right to speak, but no inherent right to work for any particular company, which most cogently recoils from employing someone whom their clients or customers might find repugnant. Where can we draw the line? At attempts to enforce a new and fabricated morality that conflicts with traditional morality, with such enforcement a staple of cancel culture.

What exacerbates the problem is the flippancy with which opponents are vilified, and called “Hitler,” “fascists,” “Nazis,” “dangers to democracy,” or “threats to society.” No one should be surprised when an advocate for whatever tries to murder his ideological antagonist whom he deems to be Hitler, or a Nazi. He thinks he is doing the world a service. It should not be lost on anyone that while the right generally believes the left to be misguided but salvageable, the left believes the right to be evil, immoral, and incorrigible. The horrific results of that equation are inevitable.

We have not yet emerged from the morass of cancel culture and its real threats, not in the US nor in Israel. The vituperative descriptions listed above are freely tossed about in Israeli society, especially by haters of the Prime Minister. The breakdown of civil society, the inequitable enforcement of the law, the rights afforded some groups and people but not others, and the outright violations of the law that may result in arrests but never serious prosecutions – including threats to many ministers and attempts on the lives of others – are the real threats to democracy in our time.

Indeed, recent claims by politicians on the left that Netanyahu will cancel the next election or that he is planning to win by cheating, will invariably attract some provocateurs who will take the law into their own hands, rationalize it, and find more support among the leftist elites in Israel than we would like to believe. Those claims are evocative of our sages’ dictum that “he who disqualifies others, disqualifies them with his own flaws” (Kiddushin 70a). They would love to cancel elections if they are left in power, one reason the elites in Israel have coalesced around the most undemocratic institution – the judiciary – and guards their privileges zealously. It also feeds their narrative that the right can never win because the whole country is against them, and if they do, it means they cheated. That claim is obviously false but also incendiary.

Is there a way forward?

Rav Chaim Yosef David Azulai, the great Chid”a (1724-1806), cited the prophet’s admonition (Hoshea 14:2-3), “Return, Israel, to the Lord, your G-d… Take your words with you and return to Hashem…” and explained that taking our words with us means that “the beginning of repentance is guarding our tongues,” monitoring our speech, being conscious of both the short- and long-term effects of what we say or write. For sure, the crawl spaces of the internet and social media have allowed people to write with such animosity, usually in anonymity but polluting society nonetheless, and finding many like-minded haters to egg them on and reward with likes, checks, subscriptions, etc.

It is not entirely clear that American society can preserve itself from the consequences of cancel culture, given that the politics is so polarized, hate speech proliferates, and few can see any good or even humanity in their ideological foes. Most American women, for example, will not date a man with whom they disagree on political or cultural issues. People live in their own information silos and have little interest – and sometimes an aversion – to stepping outside themselves and interacting with others who profess views contrary to theirs. They would rather go through life lonely and angry than re-think even one position of theirs.

Jews should know better, but our society too has been infiltrated and infected by these foreign notions, and too much attention is lavished on even tiny groups of protesters if the media elites admire the cause for which they are protesting. But we should know better because on the eve of the Days of Awe we again confront the reality of our lives, what is important and less so, what we should prioritize, de-emphasize, or ignore completely, and how G-d’s nation must show the world how disparate groups can live together in harmony when what unites them far exceeds what divides them.

It all begins with “taking our words,” seriously, guarding our tongues, respecting differences of opinion because no two of us think alike, being extremely judicious as to whom we label enemies, and regaining a sense of our mutual destiny. If we accomplish that, we will merit not only the blessings of life, peace, prosperity, and meaning, but we will also hasten the coming redemption.

Shana Tova to all!

And may I heartily recommend my book, “Repentance for Life,” very timely, and available at https://kodeshpress.com/product/repentance-for-life/ ? Yes, I may and will. Enjoy!

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