When Abraham complained to God that he was childless, God promised that his children would be as numerous as the stars in the sky:
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On another occasion, God promised Abraham that his children would be like “the sand on the seashore” (Gen. 22:17). Why are the Jewish people compared to both stars and grains of sand?
From Rav Kook Torah, here.
The Pesukim in Parshat Emor [1] introduce us to the prohibition of eating the new grain until the Korban Omer is brought:
ולחם וקלי וכרמל לא תאכלו עד עצם היום הזה עד הביאכם את קרבן אלהיכם חקת עולם לדרתיכם בכל משבתיכם:
The Sefer HaChinuch [2] explains to us that the underlying message we can derive from the mitzvah is that since grain is the most essential food of substance that Hashem gives us to live and in order to recognize Him we refrain from enjoying it until a Korban is brought before Hashem similar to a Bracha prior to indulging in food. [It should be obvious that this is only a nice idea one can learn from the Torah but certainly not a halachically binding reason.]
There’s a major discussion about the applications of this prohibition especially nowadays and outside Israel. Because this is an issue that has existed for many centuries there’s a plethora written on the topic and hopefully B”H this article will summarize the main points that are relevant for the contemporary issue.
November 4, 2016
Talk to anyone in law enforcement and they will tell you that the stupidity of criminals is a key part of solving crimes. The crooks leave clues and make huge blunders that allow the cops to catch them. Ray-Ray decides he has had enough of Peanut disrespecting him so he walks up to him at a party and starts shooting. Not only are there a million witnesses, Ray-Ray leaves the gun with his fingerprints and brags to his buddies later that he just dusted Peanut at a party. It’s not a hard case to solve because Ray-Ray is a moron.
That comes to mind when reading the stories about the Clinton secret e-mail caper. We have enough of the details at this stage to have a rough idea how we got to this point. They wanted to have a secret communication method that would not be subject to government security and Freedom of Information Act requests. They also figured that this secret system would be free from Congressional oversight. After all, if no one knew it existed, then no one could ask any questions about what was on it.
It’s not hard to imagine the conversations leading up to the decision to go with this plan versus using Google or Yahoo accounts. They figured that the reason guys like General Petraeus got caught using Gmail was that the government IT people were able to tell when people were accessing these systems via their work computers. Alternatively, they just assumed the government had access to this system like they do in the movies. Either way, they determined that using these options for personal stuff was a bad idea.
From Lewrockwell.com, here.