In the 11th hour Habayit Hayehudi and Eli Yishai's Yachad party nearly came to a deal to run together. Whatever happened at the last moment, it did not work out, and Yishai is running his party alone. I guess he isn't as responsible as Tzippi Livni...

I might add, that for somebody with so little to offer, he was pretty obstinate in his demands for power and influence. So he'll run alone and we'll see where he ends up...

בעוד חודש וחצי נלך כולנו לבחור בין שליט שיש לו אנגלית מבוסטון, איפור כבד וחליפות יוקרה – לבין מנהיגות ישראלית, אמיתית, אכפתית, לא מזויפת ולא מלאכותית.
אנחנו נציג מנהיגות בגובה העיניים.

— בני גנץ - Benny Gantz (@gantzbe) February 19, 2019

Out of responsibility to the united [right wing]bloc, it is important that the votes of the students of Rav Mazuz will go to Shas, being very close to the minimum threshold.

  -- Spokesperson for Habayit Hayehudi, informing Eli Yishai that his merging into their party is now off the table

That's a very nice sentiment, but since Eli Yishai is not backing down, as of now, and will be running as an independent party, the votes of Rav Mazuz's students will [mostly] not go o Shas but will go to Yachad and will most likely be wasted. Thus, by not bringing Eli Yishai in, they are not helping Shas and they are allowing Yachad's votes to be wasted. They are not obligated to help Eli Yishai or Shas, but there is clearly no truth to what they are saying...

this is funny.. they are both sharp and witty and make for a fun debate/argument..

waking up this morning to the news of an agreement between Lapid and Gantz to merge the parties (with a rotation between them in the Prime Minister's seat, should they win, makes the election season much more interesting.

The biggest immediate effect and question raised, in my opinion, is about Eli Yishai.

Netanyahu went out on a limb yesterday and, as part of his continued efforts to avoid right wing parties from missing the minimum threshhold and wasting votes, after pushing Habayit Hayehudi and Otzma lYisrael to form a bloc, pushed Habayit Hayehudi to form a bloc or merge with Eli Yishai's Yachad party. They came to a tentative deal after Netanyahu made a generous offer promising extra ministerial positions, a senior government position for Eli Yishai, and a reserved spot in the Likud list for an additional candidate.

It looked like a tentative agreement was reached after Netanyahu's efforts, but then came the killer. Aryeh Deri responded negatively to the agreement and said that if Eli Yishai is given such a promise and merged with Habayit Hayehudi and offered a spot in the government, Shas will not recommend Netanyahu as PM to the President after the elections. All is good, but not with Eli Yishai in the picture.

Now, Habayit Hayehudi and Netanyahu have a problem. To continue with the deal or not? It won't even help, if Deri is not bluffing.

This morning's news of the Lapid-Gantz merger makes it even more complicated.

Now Deri has nobody else to recommend besides for Netanyahu. Gantz without Lapid was an option, but with Lapid it is not. So, if Habayit Hayehudi pulls in Eli Yishai, against the threats of Aryeh Deri, what does Deri choose - Netanyahu with Eli Yishai or Gantz with Lapid but no Eli Yishai? Can Habayit Hayehudi now clal his bluff and continue with the merger knowing Deri has no other option or do they drop Eli Yishai because Deri continues to veto that possibility?

If the #SpaceIL mission is successful this Thursday, Israel will become the fourth country to land an aircraft on the moon. Good luck, Beresheet!🚀 https://t.co/aO5R50eaKY

— Buzz Aldrin (@TheRealBuzz) February 20, 2019

Despite you being people who keep tradition, you have now broken your tradition of submitting your party list at the last moment

 -- Judge Chanan Meltzer, head of the Central Electoral Committee, to the UTJ representatives submitting the party list for the upcoming elections. UTJ submitted one of the first when they usually submit last

The trend now in fundraising is matching funds. it has been big for a while already, but recently there has been an explosion of sorts of organizations running massive fundraising campaigns with matching funds, turning your, for example, 100nis donation into 200nis. Personally I am somewhat skeptical that there really are matching funds being donated in many of these cases and assume much of those matching funds were donated, or going to be donated, anyway and they are only being called matching funds in order to encourage more nations to capitalize on the supposed matching funds. Or maybe there is nothing at all and it is just a marketing bluff.

Be that as it may, whether they are real or not, the question was posed to Rav Chaim Kanievsky asking if when I donate 100nis and the organization really gets 200nis from it, can I consider my donation to have been 200nis, or is my donation only what I actually physically donated - the 100nis in this example?

While it might seem obvious to me or you, this fellow decided to ask the question anyway...and Rav Kanievsky answered that you can only count your actual donation, the 100nis in our example, as your tzedaka donation, not the matching funds. However, Rav Chaim Kanievsky added, you do get some extra merit for the extra money that was donated because of you...

The more interesting question on the concept of matching donations is the second one in the Kikar article and it has nothing to do with money. Rather, matching donations of pages of gemara to be learned..

A yeshiva decided to run a learning campaign in honor of one of the donors of the yeshiva planning a visit. They wanted to finish shas among all the boys and have a siyyum. After dividing everything up, the boys found themselves still short a number of tractates.. They went to a by in the yeshiva who is the biggest masmid and capable of learning the balance all on his own and asked him to take on himself the balance of the learning. This young man refused saying that they always rely on him to learn the extra stuff, so he does not want to do it. He then offered a matching contribution of sorts - for every amount of the balance taken by any of the other boys, he would match it and learn an equal amount, thus enabling the completion of shas.

A short while later, some of the boys backed down from their commitments saying it was too much and they would not be able to do it - the siyyum would only be on the majority of shas, not the entire shas. The masmid heard that and said if they are not learning their parts, he won't learn his matching parts, and the siyyum will still be on a lot but not on nearly everything.

They went to Rav Chaim Kanievsky asking if he should have to learn his portion and commitment to make a bigger siyyum even though the others backed out.

Rav Kanievsky did not want to get into the halachic issue but said what one boy commits to learning should have no connection what anyone else learns, and if he committed to learning a certain amount he should really learn it, even if he has a good claim. The argument presented is not appropriate regarded learning torah.

you know how when a bar mitzva boy gets called  "chassan habar mitzva"? for example, when getting his aliya to the torah on his bar mitzva shabbos...

well, now you have a bar mitzva boy who was really also a chassan, and not just given the title for his bar mitzva...

According to Kikar, a young boy in Mea Shearim got married the day after turning bar mitzva. This 13 year old boy in Mea Shearim married a beautiful 12 year old kalla. I don't know if in this community they consider 8th grade to be kollel, or if he now has to leave school and find a kollel that he can learn in, or if maybe he will go out to work...or maybe his wife will support him in kollel for a few years in her work as a teacher or a programmer...

The young couple's families are from the burqa/shawl ladies community, and while they marry their children off very young, members of the community say this was unusual even for their community and most of them opposed it. The father himself was out of town and only learned of it upon his return. He got upset when discovering what happened and was arrested for his behavior, but then released shortly after.

Mazel tov!