Opinion

I am currently writing from Israel, where we spent Shavuos and will be remaining for another week as we celebrate our grandson Gavriel Zahler’s bar mitzvah.

I will need to be very brief, as I am on a borrowed computer, facing a busy day ahead. The celebration with family and friends in the Old City was beautiful, as you may imagine. I will add that we walked to the Kosel on Shavuos morning to take part in the “chavayah,” or experience of davening with thousands of other Jews at sunrise. I highly recommend the experience… at least for one time.

If finally happened. A reaction to a company against the Left. Anheuser-Busch, manufacturers of the ever-popular Bud Light, consumed by serious beer guzzlers throughout the country, ran into unexpected trouble recently.

In a few weeks’ time, we will be reading Parshas Korach, which of course relates the story of the rebellion of Korach and his followers against the leadership of Moshe Rabbeinu. Remarkably, Korach opens his salvo of accusations with “For the entire assembly – all of them – are holy and Hashem is among them; why do you exalt yourselves over the congregation of Hashem?” (BaMidbar 16:3)

The Mishnah in N’darim (9:10) records Rabbi Yishmael as declaring, “All daughters of Israel are beautiful. Unfortunately, however, sometimes poverty robs them of their beauty.” That mishnah ends by noting that when Rabbi Yishmael died, the daughters of Israel held a special eulogy for him.

I have a truly good friend from the rabbinate, an officer and a former president of a major Modern Orthodox rabbinic organization. This is an organization that years ago accomplished many things for American Orthodoxy.

This past Friday, Erev Shabbos, was also Rosh Chodesh Iyar. The Mishnah B’rurah (493:5) states clearly that even for those who practice the mourning customs of S’firah starting from the beginning of S’firah (second day of Pesach), they may nonetheless get haircuts and even get married on that day due to the confluence of Rosh Chodesh and the oncoming Shabbos.