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The Torah in D’varim 31:17 warns that the day will come when Hashem will hide His face from us, and we will find ourselves living under “raos rabbos v’tzaros” – many afflictions and travails. The Daas Z’keinim explains that we will experience conflicting sufferings. For example, the remedy for a bee sting is cold water, while the remedy for a scorpion sting is warm water. Warm water is bad for a bee sting, and cold water is bad for a scorpion sting. We will find ourselves bitten by both, and we are thus caught in a dilemma.

The recent demonstrations against ICE (US Immigration and Customs Enforcement) in Minneapolis are beyond belief. Yes, it’s true that a seemingly innocent woman, Renee Nicole Good, was gunned down by an ICE agent, but the jury is still out on whether her death was murder or an episode of self-defense.

In case anyone had any doubts as to where Zohran Mamdani stood with the Jewish community, he quickly dispelled them on the night of his inauguration.

Say what you want about Donald Trump, but he has accomplished major inroads when it comes to gaining peace in various parts of the world. Although Trump claims to have stopped eight wars, I am only aware of one: the Hamas-Israeli war in Gaza. Perhaps he is also including Syria and Iran and its war with Israel. Perhaps he also stopped some wars in the Congo. Nonetheless, the Gazan war is major.

Last Thursday, a group of protesters outside the Young Israel of Kew Gardens Hills gathered to protest the Israeli real estate exhibition taking place in the shul. About a hundred protesters shouted things like “Bleep the Zionists” or “Zionists get the bleep out of here,” and “There is only one solution: the Intifada revolution.” All part of the usual discourse.

Many years ago, my brother-in-law Rabbi Meyer Berglas, then of Toronto, became acquainted with a Jewish convert named Rose (today Shoshana). My brother-in-law converted her. She was a very astute and bright young woman, a nephrologist at Toronto’s Northwestern University hospital.