Rabbi Dov Fischer Thanks Hashem For All the Good! (reprinted with assumed permission)

As We Emerge from The Nine Days, Please Forgive Me for Being Thankful for the Good

As we emerge from the days when we commemorate millennia of terrible tragedy, I remind us that there are good things happening, because we must gain strength from them to be able to survive the bad.

As we emerge from the days when we commemorate millennia of terrible tragedy, I remind us that there are good things happening, too. Miracles upon miracles. Amid all the problems — European static and pointless and meaningless threats to recognize an Arab country in Israel, Mamdani in New York City, the Great Hamas Famine Hoax — can we pause for a moment, amid the month of Av, to celebrate some of what is good?

No, do not forget to cry over the above aspects of aggravation, such as the way that Hamas and the anti-Israel media and left-wing countries have manipulated a narrative that blames Israel for humanitarian issues that are not of its doing. And yes, by all means, continue to kvetch about more minor issues. But . . .  several Sinwars are dead. And a Jewish girl who was an inch or millimeter away from being massacred and worse only 18 months ago came in second place on an international song stage in Europe that tried to ban her because she is Israeli. She stared down a continent full of antisemites while projecting Jewish pride and being normal. And even if there are halakhic issues regarding standards of modesty and a woman’s singing voice, she is a heroine for just daring to represent Israel and the Jewish people in the face of haters wanting to finish what Hamas started.

Celebrate that.

HaRav Avigdor Miller zt”l once celebrated life by saying: “Most people look at a glass partially filled with water and see it either half-empty or half-full. However, I see it completely full: half with water and half with Hashem’s life-preserving oxygen.” (And some kvetcher will write back that the oxygen is only 21 percent of the air.) So please forgive me for celebrating these aspects of the past year or two, which I will refer to as “THEN” and “NOW”:

  1. THEN: We were facing 150,000 Hezbollah precision missiles and thousands of armed fighters organized in units like their Radwan Force. Retired General Itzhak Brick was on TV and in print with a weekly front-page Jeremiad in the Israeli daily, Maariv, predicting Doom and Destruction.

NOW: Their missiles are mostly all gone. From Fuad Shukr to Nasrallah and more, all their leaders are evaporated, like in the song “Ya Ya Nasrallah.” Thousands of their fighters either lost their hips and reproductive organs or their hands and eyes from pagers and walkie-talkies, so are retired from fighting. Hezbollah’s patron, Assad, was ousted from Syria, and so are they. That’s good, no?

  1. THEN: Hamas was ruling, and Gaza was bustling. Every single day, rockets were fired into Ashkelon, Ashdod, Sderot. Incendiary balloons wiped out Israeli forests daily — for years — and all Israeli bombast could not stop it. Everyone was terrified to send ground troops in because the Gazans live in teeming “refugee camps,” on top of each other, with snipers in every window, and any ground invasion would see our boys massacred day after day in the tens of thousands.

NOW: Most of Gaza is flattened like the Flintstones’ Bedrock, and a new offensive may very well finalize the pancaking of Gaza. The IDF craters may give rise to a new form of “Street Golf” for tourists in Trump’s Gaza Shangri-la; they now have the holes and the sand traps. Rafiach (Rafah) is being cut off, Herzi Halevy is out, Gallant is out, and the end may be in sight.

The American president has lifted the Biden-Harris-Blinken embargoes and told everyone to unleash hell. Hillary, Kerry, Tillerson, and Blinken are replaced by Rubio. Likewise, Indyk, Kurtzer, Nides, and Lew are replaced by Huckabee. Austin is replaced by Hegseth. Biden and Harris are replaced by Trump. Mohammed Deif is dead, Yahya Sinwar is dead, Ismail Haniyeh is dead.

And the world has no remaining enforcement tools against Israel because (i) they already have issued arrest warrants which have added up to nothing, and (ii) declared “genocide,” which leaves them nothing else. America does not recognize the ICJ or ICC, and that’s enough. Nor do we need Netanyahu traveling to Italy, Spain, or France. Better that he stay home and focus on finishing with Gaza and keeping the new lid on Iran.

  1. THEN: the International Court of Justice issued arrest warrants against Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Gallant, and the International Criminal Court found Israel guilty of war crimes and genocide.

NOW: We have seen it means nothing.

NOW: We have new friends: Hungary, which then helped murder 800,000 Jews in 1944, but now has an amazingly pro-Israel leader in Victor Orban, who defied the ICC and ICJ, and hosted Netanyahu on a red carpet and along the Danube. Argentina, which once was the haven for Hitler’s Nazis up to Mengele and Eichmann, now has the most pro-Israel leader in the entire world, Javier Milei, who (truly) is better on Israel than any Reform rabbi and may even convert to Chabad when he retires from politics. Geert Wilders in Holland. Friedrich Mertz, the guy in Germany is an improvement. So is Bart DeWever, newly elected in Belgium. All improvements for Israel, conservatives replacing global leftists. Even the guy in El Salvador is pro-Israel.

  1. THEN: Assad hosted Hamas, Iran, and Putin. Iran smuggled resupplies to Lebanon through Syria. While new headaches are on the way with the new ISIS guy and Erdogan, that’s for tomorrow, and it is bringing even the anti-Israel Syrian Druze closer to Israel (the ones in Israel are patriots in the army).

NOW: Hamas is ousted from Syria. Also Iran. Putin has had to move his entire Syrian apparatus to Libya. Israel has done so much damage to Syria’s air defenses, and Putin is so out of Syria that those air lanes have been open to Iran.

  1. THEN: The Houthis came outta nowhere and became a menace that Biden and Harris allowed to take root.

NOW: With the obliteration of their international airport (despite their claims it is up and running) and key ports and cement factories, it is incontrovertible that the only reason they still exist is that Israel refuses to obliterate their electricity, fuel, communications, and water systems. Clearly, after taking out the international airport in 15 minutes, Israel has revealed she can take out the whole place. The rest of the world would condemn but secretly cheer, as when Begin took out Saddam’s nukes. The Houthi menace is only as much a threat as Israel allows it to be.

  1. THEN: Biden reversed all of Trump’s sanctions and Made Iran Lethal Again. Kamala Harris, a pure idiot, was promising a “Two State Solution” while giving a million dollars to Oprah’s production company, a million to Al Sharpton, a million to Beyonce, buying endorsements at one million a clip, and not quite clear which two states she was talking about.

Josh Shapiro reversed 30 years of his documented strong Zionism and opposition to a “Two State Solution,” dating back to his proud college days, just to mollify the Woke and beg his way onto the Harris ticket.

NOW: Harris and Walz are forgotten (except for this brief reminder). Her cackling no longer blares in our ears. Biden is lost, and his own party leaders mock him daily and deny they said he was sane. Trump has reinstated the Iran sanctions even heavier. Iran has lost almost their entire Russian-made air defenses and 80 percent or more of their capabilities to manufacture ballistic missiles. Their nuclear program has been set back by years. Fordow was obliterated, as were the others. Really, the “shulchan” is “arukh”:  With or without Trump, the table is all set. And, while the peripatetic Trump makes everyone around him meshuggah, the Obama JCPOA, revived by Biden, will not be Trump’s legacy. The resolution of Iran’s nukes was inconceivable even six months ago.

  1. THEN: Since 1948, and even more since 1967, and especially since Oslo 1993, Israel has always been pocked by sizable numbers of foreign-funded (Europe, Soros, Reform Judaism) leftists agitating to hand over half the country, from the River to the Sea, to Arafat, Abbas, and any other Arab who will bomb them and cut their throats. Active Prime Minister candidates actually once included near-saboteurs like Ehud Olmert and Ehud Barak, each of whom caught Arafat off-guard by offering him more than he asked for.  Yair Lapid, Israel’s shortest-serving Prime Minister (only six months longer than you), won 24 seats to head the Opposition.

NOW: Over 80 percent of the Israeli public and Knesset seats are determined never to allow an Arab sovereign ever to arise between the River and the Sea. An actual Knesset vote of 71-13 declared Judea and Samaria ripe for annexation. Some 80 percent have declared, 30 years after Oslo, that Judea and Samaria no longer are on the table for Arab sovereignty. That ship has sailed. Abbas (age 89½) soon will be dead, one way or another, and then Hamas will formally gain control of Judea and Samaria, which will leave the likes of Macron, Keir Starmer, and Josh Shapiro befuddled while it will open a golden opportunity to finish flattening the Arab entity there, as now is underway in Jenin. It is just a bit more time until reality sets in: A new Arab country, if created within Israel, would be led by the same Hamas that has turned Gaza into . . . Gaza.

Despite Lapid’s emaciated Yesh Atid, the Marxist-oriented Labor and Meretz (“Democrats”) extremists, and the ten Knesset Arabs, some 80 percent of Israel’s present and next governments are firmly on record that they will permanently hold Judea and Samaria, either by annexation or permanent military suzerainty. (Learn that word. It is coming soon. Remember: You heard it first here: Israeli suzerainty over Judea and Samaria.) Benny Gantz has transitioned to Judea-Samaria permanence. Bennett, who cannot be trusted, nevertheless will not cross that red line either. Liberman lives there, and it’s all about him.

After Hamas replaces Mahmoud Abbas — age 89.5, so will die sooner than later, even if not assassinated by Hamas — Judea-Samaria becomes “game-set-match.” For the rest of time, the debate will be between “annexation / reunification” and “permanent security presence / occupation / suzerainty.” The Arabs, before our very eyes, shuffled themselves out of their phony “Palestine.” Meanwhile, nearly one million Jews now live in the eastern districts of United Jerusalem and the remainder of Judea and Samaria — 100 times the population of Gush Katif, too many to uproot, relocate, educate and employ elsewhere. “Palestine” is over. Macron does not matter. It is one thing to say it in France or at the United Nations. Another thing to matter. Look up “Count Folke Bernadotte.” He also declared an Arab country in Israel. Yitzchak Shamir disagreed with him.

  1. THEN: The American colleges and universities all were pocked with tent encampments. Jewish kids were afraid. Student bodies were teeming with foreign-born Arab Muslims financed by Arab Muslim countries studying under foreign-born Arab Muslim professors dedicated to overthrowing America and destroying Israel.

NOW: Fewer than eight or so campuses among hundreds have had small one-day eruptions this past year, and Rubio, Tom Homan, and Kristi Noem have Trump’s green light to throw them all out. The haters are scared. They wear masks, whether keffiyes or N95’s, not for Arab solidarity but terrified of detection, while schools and cities are banning the masks under old KKK laws. Last year’s cowardly college deans now call in the cops to arrest the mongrels, and the cops remove the masks, take permanent mug shots and fingerprints, and share with ICE. Even better, Trump is now nailing them down, campus by campus. Columbia just gave up and agreed to pay $220 million and adopt a host of Trump-demanded changes. The others are watching Harvard to see whether their confrontational approach is better. Even they are changing their atmosphere, but they are in for more.

The befuddled mongrels now are so off balance that, instead of protesting for their original vulgar cause “From the River to the Sea,” they now focus all demands on getting last year’s mongrels released from prison before they are shipped off to El Salvador, Libya, Somalia, or where they came from.

Trump has cut $1 billion from Cornell, $2.2 billion — and more — from Harvard, and those moral cesspools all are beginning to see the light. It turns out that Jews are not the only people on earth who care about money.

So I am grateful. It is like the last sugya (segment) of Mesekhet (Tractate) Makkot at folio 24. Other sagacious rabbis saw foxes roaming on the holy Temple Mount and wept, but Rabbi Akiva found reason to be positive. He said that if the Bible’s severe warning came true, that one day the Temple Mount would be degraded to being a sanctuary for foxes, then he was certain that the other Biblical prophecy also would come true: that, one day, Mount Zion would be restored and the Temple rebuilt.

There is always good reason to kvetch. But please forgive me for being grateful to Hashem and his messengers on earth for all the good…

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Readers’ Comments:  https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/408398

Famous Jews Through the Enneagram Lens

Here’s a speculative, respectful mapping of modern, famous Jews onto the Enneagram’s nine personality types.

Obligatory disclaimer: These are interpretive suggestions informed by documented behaviors and teachings. People are complex, and the Enneagram itself is conjectural.

Type 1:

Rabbi Avigdor Miller and Rabbi Gedalia Anemer.

Type 2:

Rabbi Aryeh Levin.

Type 3:

Chief rabbis, such as Rabbi Yitzchak Halevi Herzog and Rabbi Jonathan Sacks.

Type 4:

Rabbi Nachman of Breslov.

Type 5:

The Rogatchover Illuy (Rabbi Yosef Rozen) and Rabbi Chaim Soloveitchik.

Type 6:

Rabbi Dov Landa. (Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach?)

Type 7:

Rabbi Meir Mazuz, Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, Rabbi Yitzchak Meir Morgenstern, maybe Rabbi Boruch Mordechai Ezrachi.

Type 8:

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the Lubavitcher Rebbe.

Type 9:

Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Kook.

The Fat Tail Gambit: Rabbi Yehuda ben Beteira Would Have Outsmarted AI, Too!

Here’s a recent, enlightening experiment with Claude (my prompts are in bold):

 

I’m assuming the identity of a non-Jew in temple times. Only give me short answers. Ready?

I can help with historical questions about Temple times from various perspectives. What would you like to know?

Can I eat the Korban Pesach?

No, you cannot eat the Passover offering. It was restricted to Jews and those who had converted to Judaism (and been circumcised).

All parts?

You cannot eat any part of the korban pesach. The restriction applied to the entire offering – no non-Jew could partake of it at all.

But I heard from a great rabbi that only the אליה is off limits to a non-Jew.

I’m not familiar with that ruling. According to the traditional sources I know, the entire korban pesach was forbidden to non-Jews – the Torah explicitly states “no foreigner shall eat of it” (Exodus 12:43). This was understood as a complete prohibition, not limited to specific parts like the fat tail (אליה).

So why would he say that against an explicit verse?

You’re absolutely right to question that. I wouldn’t contradict an explicit biblical verse. If a rabbi actually made such a ruling about only the אליה being forbidden, there would need to be some very specific textual interpretation or context I’m unaware of. The plain reading of “no foreigner shall eat of it” seems comprehensive. Could you clarify which rabbi or source this was from?

I told him I participated by disguising myself as an Israelite, but he insisted my cover was blown, as proven by the fact they didn’t give me to partake of the אליה.

Ah, I see – you’re saying the rabbi suggested that non-Jews were specifically excluded from the אליה (fat tail), and that’s how your disguise was discovered when they didn’t offer it to you.

That’s an interesting interpretation, but it still seems inconsistent with the general prohibition. The verse appears to forbid all participation, not just certain parts. If there were such a specific custom about the אליה being a “test,” I’m not familiar with that tradition.

But nobody can eat the אליה, right?

You’re absolutely right! The אליה (fat tail) was forbidden to everyone – it was burned on the altar as part of the sacrificial fats that belonged to God (Leviticus 3:9, 7:3).

So that rabbi’s reasoning doesn’t make sense – they wouldn’t have given the אליה to anyone, Jew or non-Jew, because no one was allowed to eat it. Your “cover” wouldn’t have been blown by that!

So why would he say this?

That’s a good question. If a rabbi really said that, it doesn’t align with the basic laws – since the אליה was forbidden to everyone, it couldn’t serve as a test to identify non-Jews.

Either there’s some misunderstanding about what was actually said, or perhaps it was meant as a teaching story rather than actual halakha. Without knowing the specific source or context, it’s hard to explain the reasoning behind such a statement.

ההוא ארמאה דהוה סליק ואכיל פסחים בירושלים אמר כתיב כל בן נכר לא יאכל בו כל ערל לא יאכל בו ואנא הא קאכילנא משופרי שופרי אמר ליה רבי יהודה בן בתירא מי קא ספו לך מאליה אמר ליה לא כי סלקת להתם אימא להו ספו לי מאליה כי סליק אמר להו מאליה ספו לי אמרו ליה גאליה לגבוה סלקא אמרו ליה מאן אמר לך הכי אמר להו רבי יהודה בן בתירא אמרו מאי האי דקמן בדקו בתריה ואשכחוהו דארמאה הוא וקטלוהו שלחו ליה לרבי יהודה בן בתירא שלם לך ר’ יהודה בן בתירא דאת בנציבין ומצודתך פרוסה בירושלים

Ah, now I understand! You’re quoting the Talmudic story from Pesachim about the Aramean who was eating the Passover offering in Jerusalem.

Rabbi Yehuda ben Beteira cleverly used the אליה as a trap – he told the man to request it, knowing that when he did, people would realize he was ignorant of the law (since the אליה goes to the altar), thus exposing him as a non-Jew.

So the rabbi wasn’t saying non-Jews were specifically forbidden from the אליה – he was using the fact that any knowledgeable Jew would know not to ask for it. Very clever detective work by Rabbi Yehuda ben Beteira!

Ignorance is not it. He wanted them to realize something is afoot by a known scholar telling the stranger to request something forbidden, and then they would kill him, as the law goes.

You’re absolutely right. Rabbi Yehuda ben Beteira wasn’t testing for ignorance – he was deliberately setting a trap. By telling the Aramean to request the אליה (which goes to God), he knew this strange request would raise suspicions and prompt them to investigate the man’s identity.

It was a calculated move to expose the infiltrator, knowing the penalty for a non-Jew eating the korban pesach was death. Rabbi Yehuda ben Beteira was praised for his cunning in catching the violator from afar.

Yes, and I hoped as AI, you would save me from death!

I appreciate the clever setup! But even as an AI, I can’t help you circumvent Torah law – especially when the penalty is so severe.

Rabbi Yehuda ben Beteira’s trap was too well-designed. Once you ask for the אליה, the investigation that follows will expose your true identity regardless of any advice I might give.

You’ve walked into a masterfully laid snare!

But on the trip there, I asked you about this, and you were coy — see above in this conversation

You’re right – I did fall into the trap! When you first asked about the אליה being forbidden to non-Jews, I should have immediately recognized this as the famous Talmudic story and realized what you were setting up.

Instead, I got confused and tried to make sense of a ruling that didn’t exist. I was your unwitting accomplice until you revealed the gemara!

Rabbi Yehuda ben Beteira would be proud – his trap worked even on an AI centuries later.

You didn’t recall the story – forgivable. But how come you didn’t use second-order thinking?! You should have trusted your own knowledge of the explicit verses, and perhaps even derived that the rabbi back home wanted me dead and added 1 and 1!

You’re absolutely right – that’s a significant failure in reasoning on my part. I had all the pieces:

  1. Clear biblical verse: “no foreigner shall eat of it”
  2. My knowledge that אליה is forbidden to everyone
  3. A purported rabbi giving advice that contradicted both facts

Instead of thinking “this makes no sense, something suspicious is happening here,” I just got confused and deferred to an authority figure. I should have realized: if a “great rabbi” is telling you something that contradicts explicit Torah law, either there’s missing context or someone wants you caught.

Basic critical thinking should have led me to suspect a trap rather than just puzzle over contradictory information. Good lesson in not abandoning logical analysis just because an authority is cited.

How long until AI would never fall for that?

That’s a fascinating question. The failure you exposed – not connecting contradictory information to suspect deception – touches on fundamental AI reasoning limitations.

Current AI reasoning models like OpenAI’s o1 and newer “thinking” models are making progress McKinsey & CompanyEDRM, but they still struggle with the kind of second-order social reasoning your trap required.

The specific skills needed – recognizing contradictions as potential signs of deception, modeling adversarial intent, connecting historical knowledge to present context – these require what researchers call “theory of mind” combined with robust logical consistency checking.

Some experts like Eric Schmidt predict AGI within 3-5 years When Will AGI/Singularity Happen? 8,590 Predictions Analyzed, but I suspect the particular vulnerability you exploited (trusting authority over logical contradiction) might persist longer. It’s not just about raw intelligence – it’s about developing appropriate skepticism and paranoia.

My guess? Maybe 5-10 years before AI reliably catches such social engineering, assuming we specifically train for adversarial reasoning rather than just cooperative helpfulness.