welcome to Israel, Pfizer...

Maybe Bourla should call Netanyahu 30 times and wake him up at 3am to obsessively pester him for the money....

The question asked was from a person who says he wants to be honest and true and not just do things for appearances, not to do things on levels he isn't at (ie he doesnt want to do things that make him look holier than he is).

The question he asked is that he is sitting and davening from a siddur, is careful to not talk during davening, but he does not feel his davening is special enough and isn't giving his children a strong personal impression, so he asks if he should do all sorts of movements, all external, to put on a show as if he is having a lot of focused kavana, even though he really isn't and is just putting on a show for the kids to see and be impressed and see how important it is to him and therefore impress it upon themselves as well. Or maybe because he isnt really on that level and doing these motions and whatnot is not "l'shma", maybe he should not be faking it.

Rav Zilbershtein responded with a story. A maiseh. He says a Jew went to Rav Shlomke of Zhvil and told him that he enjoys reading the newspaper in the morning before davening, but he knows that when the children will get older it will make a bad impression on them. The yid said that he takes a mussar sefer so the kids will see and reads form it, but he really wants to be reading the newspaper instead and he does not want to be dishonest - he asked Reb Shlome of Zhvil if he should read from the mussar sefer "shelo l'shma" to give his kids an impression of what is important, or should he do what he feels is honest? Rav Zilbershtein related that Rav Shlomke responded that while it is "shelo l'shma" regarding the learning of mussar, it is 100% l'shma regarding the educating of his children to the right path. Additionally, Rav Zilbershtein added, performing the movements and activities that he does not yet feel are honest and appropriate for his level will little by little change him and eventually he will reach that level.

source: Hamechadesh

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Somfalvi has suggested that there is still the possibility of Lapid and the Haredim cooperating to form a government. This comes after Lapid himself said that if he can form a government with Bennett, the Haredim would be willing to join shortly after - they would not support him in becoming PM, but they would join his government once it is up.

Maybe, maybe not, but here is Attila Somfalvi's idea.

Somfalvi suggests that a Lapid-Haredi government could happen. The only thing preventing it is Lapid's stance regarding the drafting of the yeshiva bochurim. That has been one of Lapid's main flags since day 1. While he cannot just drop it now, it has never been actualized and will not be - Lapid won't draft them. Somfalvi says the Haredun need to be allowed to learn, to work to earn - whatever they want. They can do civil service instead of being drafted. Lapid can find the solution, but he needs a mediator to propose it and push it through.

Somfalvi's mistake is really that he suggests Olmert as the mediator. I don't think Olmert has that legitimacy, though he does have the relations with both sides. I think Bennett could be the perfect mediator on this issue - Bennett has pushed his agenda for a long time to give the Haredim a mass exemption at a younger age than currently exists in order to get them out into the workforce. A younger age of exemption will allow more to enter academic studies and get respectable professions rather than starting at a later age and more being able to only take low paying positions as unskilled laborers.

If Bennett can be the mediator and get Lapid to accept his plan, at least temporarily, and not force the draft issue, the Haredim could find a way to join such a government. Bennett has proposed, has campaigned on the idea of not dealing with all the social issues and only having a government for a couple of years that deals with only the economy and corona. This could be the basis of such a government that could allow everyone to live with it. Lapid would have to bite his tongue on some of those religion and State issues and the Haredi parties would probably have to be willing to accept that some of their budgets for yeshivas might be a little bit smaller and have fewer positions of influence in the government, but overall it could be livable for everybody.

Chances of this happening are miniscule, but it sounded like a good proposal to me to get the Israeli government out of its stalemate.

There are slightly different versions of exactly what he said, so I'll just paraphrase the point of what he supposedly said.

Rav Chaim Kanievsky was, supposedly, asked if the Haredi parties should support a government that is reliant on the Arab parties, or if they should reject that and support a government of Jews but they are Leftists. What the exact wording of the question was, I do not know -I saw a few different versions, but that was the point of the supposed question (I keep saying supposedly and supposed because they video and publish everything about him nowadays. Anything that is put out in his name without some form of documentation is just supposed). 

Rav Chaim Kanievsky's answer was, again supposedly, that it is better to make a government with Arabs rather than Leftists because they do not want to create a melting pot and turn us all into secular Jews and also because their family values and respect for religion is a lot closer to our views than those of the seculars.

Supposedly he said something like that, with the point being (no matter what the exact words were, if he said it at all) that he has no problem with the Haredi parties being part of a coalition that includes, or is reliant upon, Arab parties and would prefer that over an alternate coalition that includes Lapid, Labor, Meretz, etc.

People are shocked and horrified over this, Rav Chaim Kanievsky is choosing the murderous and terror-supporting Arabs as coalition partners over his own Jewish brothers!?!?! Shock! Horror! See how much he/they hates the rest of us! So selfish for his narrow interests he will sell the entire country down the creek!

First, that shows how far the values of so many Jews has moved from his values, and seemingly from the values of the traditional Judaism that he represents. He does not have to prefer liberal values over traditional ones if he is opposed to them.

Second, as far as I can tell nothing new was said here (if anything was actually said at all). We have frequently seen the Haredi parties cooperating with the Arab parties to thwart potential laws that might hurt one or the other group, and in the other direction as well - cooperating to pass laws that help one or the other. They have found each other, for a long time already, to be convenient partners and on close enough to the "same page" that they have found it easy and convenient to work together often. As they say, politics makes strange bedfellows. The Haredi and Arab parties have been bedfellows for a long time already and this is nothing new.

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We spent a couple of days getting together with family, along with a relative's simcha, and relaxing.

We joined the rest of Israel out touring one day of Chol Hamoed.

But even then, while most of the Israeli tourists were running around up north or all the way down in Eilat, we went out traveling in a part of the country we thought would be slightly less traveled.

And we were successful.

We went southwest. Deep southwest.

We started out driving down to Shivta National Park. Shivta is an old Byzantine town, now in ruins, from about 1500 years ago along the Spice Route. We got there and ate some lunch before touring the ruins. Another great thing about Shivta is that there was no need to make reservations to see the site (and it was free). 

Due to Corona, many sites and trails require advance booking. Those sites are almost all busy. Also, it is hard to get reservations, as Israelis love to book several sites and only later decide which one to visit. there is no charge to make a reservation, and no penalty for skipping, so that is what happens. It is what it is, but we found a way to not have to deal with that (after trying just a little bit).

So we toured the ancient Shivta site, which is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site. There were other people there, but it was not crowded at all. We took our time and enjoyed climbing through the ruins.

From there we drove further southwest. There is a road called Highway 10 - not the well-known Road 10 on the edge of Bet Shemesh (which is really officially Road 3855), but Highway 10 that runs adjacent to the Israeli-Egyptian border. The road is normally closed to Israeli traffic for security reasons, but a few days a year they open it up, or at least most of it, to Israeli travelers.

The northwestern most edge of Highway 10 is at the very bottom of the Gaza Strip, just a bit northwest of the Israeli town called Kadesh Barnea. The road actually was only opened on the northern-most side from the junction of the town of Azuz, just a bit southeast of Kadesh Barnea, but it took us time to find that (that's what we get for not reading all the details). While we wasted some time looking for the opening of the road, it was pretty cool as we saw the closed borders and security stations. We eventually figured it out and as we got closer, there were also signs pointing us in the right direction.

Despite the road being officially open, it is still manned by Israeli soldiers securing the area, along with closed gates that they open for each car. They asked where we were going, and I said I heard the road was open and we just wanted to drive on it. The soldiers smiled, opened the gate and wished us an enjoyable and safe trip and we were on our way.

Obviously we were not going to drive all the way down to Eilat on this road, as we had no interest in going so far. Also it was late in the afternoon and they only keep the road open for some hours per day and then close it. So our time was limited, which was fine by us. 

The border is secured by a high fence with barbed wire (and probably other forms of security), which I understand is relatively new and was installed to stop the infiltrators from Sudan and Eritrea who came through Egypt several years ago. The road adjacent to the fence is actually new and beautifully paved, and I assume is only used by the security forces. The road used by the public, when open, is just a tad away from the fence and is older and not quite as nicely paved.

After driving for a while, we stopped to ask a group of soldiers securing the road where a lookout point is. They directed us to just a bit further down the road. When we got there we pulled over and got out and walked around a bit. The ground in that area is full of iron ore rocks. We also found a lot of old bullet casings - maybe from the Yom Kippur War (or maybe not). 

After checking things out there for a bit, we got back in the car and decided to drive a little bit further down the road. Someone told us there is "borot mayim" - water cisterns - in the area, and we decided to go a little further and look for them. As we got to the next group of soldiers, they directed us to the water, warning us that it won't be open much longer. We got there and the soldiers there told us we only have a little bit of time left. We parked the car and hiked out to the borot mayim. There were several other people there - some coming, some going. 

The borot mayim were actually a little disappointing. It was one hole in the ground with a bit of water. A few people were climbing down to touch the water, but without actually being able to go in and swim and enjoy, I didn't see the point. The cistern had a ladder, but the cistern was only big enough for one person at a time, and it was not particularly deep. We enjoyed the area and beautiful views and hiked back to the car. When done we turned around and went back to get off the road. From there we went to Tel Nitzana to relax, eat, daven and get ready to drive home.

what interesting trips did you take or interesting things did you do and see?

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