Hyehudi.org

As for yesterday’s riddle: not everyone knows what “keivan” means. Keivan is not only “because”, but often “when”. Again, the text is:

מגדף שחזר בו בתוך כדי דיבור אינו כלום אלא כיון שגידף בעדים נסקל

So to translate: A blasphemer who retracts immediately, his retraction is ineffective. Rather, once he has blasphemed before witnesses, he is stoned.

Maimonides is not saying witnesses are the reason he is punished. Once they hear the words, witnesses need not wait any longer to testify.

Any serious look at the history of human beings over the millennia shows that the species began in poverty. It is not poverty, but prosperity, that needs explaining…

Thomas Sowell, from here.

To recap: whom did the Maccabees battle, first and foremost? Not the non-Jews, but Jewish renegades.

I meant to add: Yeshayahu Leibowitz said, regarding the schism of observant and non-observant Jews in Israel, that civil war, like “Pilegesh Begiv’ah” (Shoftim chapter 19) is not an unthinkable eventuality.