Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch recently rejected Vice President Vance’s notion that America is, conceptually if not legally, a Christian nation.
If there’s any point in an academic dialectic about the role of religion in our country’s founding, the most cogent case that can be made is that the spiritual engine propelling the establishment of the United States was.. Judaism.
To read what that’s so, please click here.
There is something disturbing about the egla arufah ritual.
It is commanded in a case where the body of a murder victim, presumably a wayfarer, is found on a road between cities. The procedure, which involves the elders of the nearest city dispatching a calf, is called a kapparah, an atonement, yet there seems to be no sin for which the elders need to atone. That’s because part of the ritual is their declaration that they did everything they could to ensure the safety of the visitor during his visit, including supplying him with his needs before he left.
And it certainly isn’t atonement for the killer; if he is ever discovered, he faces a murder charge and its penalty.
So whom is the atonement for?
It seems clear to me that it is for Klal Yisrael.
Rav Dessler, in Michtav Me’Eliyahu, teaches that the concept of arvus, the “interdependence of all Jews” implies that when a Jew does something good, it reflects the entire Jewish people’s goodness. And the converse, too.
Thus, when Achan, one man, misappropriated spoils after the first battle of Yehoshua’s conquest of Canaan, the siege of Yericho, it is described as the sin of the entire people (Yehoshua, 7:1). Explains Rav Dessler: Had the people as a whole been sufficiently sensitive to Hashem’s commandment to shun the city’s spoils, Achan would never have been able to commit his sin.
So it may be that in the case of the murdered wayfarer, too, even if no particular person was directly responsible for the murder, what could have enabled so terrible an act to happen might have been a “critical mass” on the part of many Jews, of lesser offenses, perhaps things that Chazal likened to murder, such as causing another great embarrassment or indirectly causing a person’s life to be shortened.
In which case, the atonement would be for Klal Yisrael as a whole, interconnected as all its members are.
The idea, in fact, inheres in the very words the elders are to recite. After they declare their lack of any personal involvement in the murder, they plead with Hashem to “atone for your people Yisrael…”
And the Baal HaTurim’s comment on that phrase makes the idea explicit: “From here we see,” he writes, “that all members of Klal Yisrael are interdependent.”
© 2026 Rabbi Avi Shafran
Leaked recordings of private conversations and “hot mic” moments – when a politician or other public figure doesn’t realize that his microphone is still on – offer the best evidence of the true character and positions of the speaker. And, sometimes, those of others.
Last week, Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed was confronted with words he didn’t expect would become public. But they did, and revealed something about the candidate’s assessment of a bastion of his strongest supporters, and likely about himself.
On audio obtained by The Washington Free Beacon website from an event that Mr. El-Sayed held shortly after the death of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the candidate told staff that he wasn’t going to comment on the mullah’s death, and shared his feeling that the dictator’s demise had resulted in “a lot of people in Dearborn who are sad.”
Dearborn, of course, is a Michigan city that has the largest Muslim population in the U.S. It is the only Arab-majority city in the country.
CNN reporter Jake Tapper asked Mr. El-Sayed about his remark, prefacing his question by explaining that he “thought that quote was interesting, because the ayatollah has killed tens of thousands of innocent Iranians, not to mention the proxies that Iran has funded that have killed innocent civilians all over the Middle East.”
And then, the question: “Why were you worried about offending people who support the ayatollah?”
Mr. El-Sayed’s response to the question was revealing in itself: He tried to change the subject, citing the then-recent deaths of two American soldiers in an Iranian attack on a military base in Jordan.
“Jake,” he said, in a patronizing tone, “on a day where we’re mourning the loss of two more service members in a war we never should have fought, I think all of us ought to step back and ask whether or not everybody in Michigan, frankly, everybody in America, shouldn’t be sad.”
Funnier moments in recent politics are few. Mr. El-Sayid couldn’t deny what he had said about bereaved Dearborners – which revealed his recognition that the Arab, mostly Muslim, population of the city were sitting shiva for a mass murderer. So he pivoted to to a non sequiter, in the hope that no one would notice.
Mr. Tapper, however, tried to steer things back, “I was specifically asking you,” he said, “about comments you didn’t want to make because you didn’t want to offend people in Dearborn, which is in Michigan.”
Alas, Mr. Tapper, gentleman (or weakling) that he is, didn’t press the issue further.
In truth, though, he didn’t have to. The reality was all too apparent. The candidate had revealed the disturbing, demented and dangerous mindset of a subset of the citizenry, perhaps of himself as well.
Michigan is an imporant “swing state,” and a politically “purple” one too, neither reliably Democrat nor Republican. It voted for Donald Trump in 2024 and has a Democratic governor. It has flipped between parties in recent elections.
Mr. El-Sayed is a Muslim progressive, pursuing the Democratic party’s nomination to succeed retiring Senator Gary Peters, a Democrat. Earlier this month, Mr. Sayed refused – repeatedly – to say whether he believes that Israel “has a right to exist.”
“Nobody’s ever asked me whether I believe Palestine has a right to exist,” he huffed. (Maybe, Abdul, because the answer is obvious?)
Among his endorsers are Bernie Sanders, AOC, Rashida Tlaib and Elizabeth Warren. Enough said.
His opponent in the August 4 primary is Congresswoman Haley Stevens, who supports a strong U.S.-Israel alliance and strongly opposes the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. The race is currently too close to call.
If Mr. El-Sayed should, chalila, win the Democratic nomination, he will face a highly competitive general election matchup against presumed Republican nominee Representative Mike Rogers, Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. Mr. Rogers considers Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons to be an existential threat. And he is a steadfast defender of Israel and her right to attack Iranian proxies like Hamas.
Michigan state law provides for “open” primaries, contests in which any voter, regardless of party affiliation, can cast a vote.
And so, all Michiganders who were not saddened by the demise of Ayatollah Khamenei need to turn out and vote their consciences on August 4.
(c) 2026 Ami Magazine
Affluence isn’t something the Torah extols. In Judaism wealth is neither a praiseworthy aspiration nor a meaningful achievement.
Which makes Rabbi Yochanan’s homiletic interpretation of the Torah’s words “A tithe shall you tithe [te’aser]” (Devarim 14:22) somewhat puzzling.
The Torah, he says, is hinting “Take a tithe [asser] so that [in the merit of your charity] you will become wealthy [tis’asher]” (Taanis 9a).
Even aside from the elsewhere-unduplicated promise of wealth here, we are taught that a person’s financial state is something that is decreed at the beginning of the Jewish year and cannot be changed by things he or she may do.
As Rabbi Tachlifa (Beitzah 16a) put it: “All of a person’s income [for the coming year] is determined for him [during the days] between Rosh Hashanah until Yom Kippur, except for the money he spends for Shabbos and holidays, and to pay for his children’s Torah education. If he spends less [for any of these] he is given less, and if he spends more he is given more.”
So what’s with the wealth? Why is it suddenly offered as a reward for a mitzvah?
What occurs is that Chazal define wealth elsewhere, and it does not mean a large bank account or abundance of possessions.
“Who is wealthy?” asks Ben Zoma in Avos (4:1). “The one who is happy with his lot.”
Wealth – with apologies to Wall Street – is not a tangible thing; it is a state of mind.
The millionaire who is pained by his lack of a larger yacht isn’t wealthy. The pensioner who hasn’t the slightest desire for a boat and finds joy in his modest possessions is.
And so perhaps the Torah is promising those who invest wisely in charity true wealth: joy in what one has.
A most valuable reward indeed.
© 2026 Rabbi Avi Shafran
Much of the Western world is suffering from a dangerous lack of imagination, choosing to see the “conflict in Iran” as something less than a simmering Third World War.
To read why I feel that way, please click here.
Well, does He or doesn’t He?
Hashem, that is. Does he show special favor to some or not?
That question is placed by Rabbi Ami or Rabbi Asi (Berachos 20b) in the mouths of angels, who asked the Creator about the description of Him (Devarim 10:17) in this week’s parsha: “Who favors no one and takes no bribe.”
But yet, the angels said, “You, nevertheless, show favor to Yisrael, as it is written: ‘Hashem will show favor to you and give you peace’” (Bamidbar 6:26).
Hashem’s reply: “How can I not show favor to Yisrael? I wrote for them in the Torah: ‘And you shall eat and be satisfied, and bless Hashem your G-d’ (Devarim 8:10) [meaning that only if one is satiated is there an obligation to recite birchas hamazon, the blessing after a meal], yet they recite it even if they have eaten a mere olive’s or egg’s volume!”
What a strange reply. Firstly, reciting a bracha when it isn’t required isn’t permitted – so by what right did the rabbis of the Talmud allow it for a sparse meal? And secondly, the response doesn’t answer the question! Isn’t Hashem still showing favoritism?
Unless… reciting birchas hamazon even on a small amount doesn’t represent any changing of the requirement itself for saying the bracha but is rather a new sort of fulfilment of that requirement – in other words, an embrace of being “satisfied” with less.
If we are “satisfied” with any small degree of Hashem’s blessing – if we recognize what a divine kindness even a minimal amount of sustenance is, and feel sincere gratitude for it – then our own declining to demand a more literal satisfaction, full stomachs, may be what allows Hashem to be “satisfied,” so to speak, with less from us.
In which case, His “showing favor” to Yisrael is not really that at all but rather something of a midda kineged midda, a quid pro quo – an act of perfect justice.
© 2026 Rabbi Avi Shafran
Did you know that President Trump has a soft spot.
Well, I think he does, and you can read what I mean here.
The Jewish credo, “the Shema,” declares Moshe’s directive to us to love Hashem “with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your resources” (Devarim 6:5).
And, famously, Chazal understand “all your soul” as meaning even if being faithful to Hashem means dying as a result (Berachos 54a).
That command has been honored over the millennia in countless acts of Jewish martyrdom at the hands of enemies who sought to force their victims to violate one of the precepts for which a Jew is to die rather than transgress, or in times when such evildoers sought to uproot Torah observance from Jewish people.
Martyrdom is the ultimate self-abnegation. It is, though, not the only expression of selflessness.
Rabbi Yisrael Salanter noted that the directive to love Hashem with all our souls encompasses not only readiness to lose our entire souls (the ultimate negation of self) but any overlooking of self-interest in the service of the Divine.
Every situation, in other words, whereby “negation” of one’s self serves a higher purpose.
It happens often that one is faced with a situation that violates one’s sense of self, or self-image. It might be a slight, or an open insult; a usurping of a turn at something, or an unwarranted deprivation.
If such situations are not legally actionable (like if one has suffered a financial loss or damage due to another’s misdeed), it is commendable to recognize that it is only one’s “self” that has been put at stake, and that “dying” a little – overlooking the slight – is not only the proper path to take but, most valuably, an act of Kiddush Hashem, a mini-martyrdom.
© 2026 Rabbi Avi Shafran
A “Three Weeks” thought can be read here.
There’s no way to put a gloss on the ugliness of Darializa Avila Chevalier’s and Melat Kiros’ sentiments about the US and Israel. Even more disturbing is the reluctance of saner Democratic leaders to criticize the corrosive candidates.
To read more about the implications of the above, please click here.