By Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz
Think about it. If this year wasn’t a leap year, we would be celebrating Purim this week. Instead, Purim is a month away. But even though we have to wait a month to celebrate Purim, we can still be happy. After all, Adar is a month of joy.
But being happy, for some, is easier said than done.
Who doesn’t want to be happy? Yet, in the world around us, the search for happiness leads people in many different directions, chasing all types of superficial stimulants to cheer themselves up. This usually lasts for fleeting moments before they are returned to their sorry, empty lives.

By Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz
Our world, once again, is in a precarious situation. Actually, it has been this way since Covid spread throughout the world, felling many of our most cherished people. Many still have not recuperated from what it did to them physically and mentally. Yet, so much has happened since then, so you may be forgiven for forgetting the lockdowns, shutdowns, government overreach, collapsing economy and everything else the raging virus brought on.

By Yaakov Lappin
The overnight rescue operation of Israeli hostages Louis Har, 70, and Fernando Marman, 60, on Monday is a critical Israeli mini-success in the depth of Hamas’s last remaining stronghold of Rafah in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.
The level of coordination between the elite Counter-Terrorism Unit, the Navy’s Flotilla 13 commando unit, the Shin Bet intelligence agency and Israel Defense Forces Military Intelligence, as well as the Israeli Air Force that provided close fire support and the 7th Armored Brigade that provided ground support, is testament to a unique degree of Israeli operational capability.

By Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz
Life has become complicated of late. The world says that there is a communication explosion, but in reality, it is anything but. In the days before this explosion, people would communicate through the written and spoken word. They would visit friends and sit and talk together for hours.
People who lived far from each other would write letters – nice, long letters – filled with what was going on in their lives, with touches of philosophy and questions about how the other person was doing. People would call their friends and keep in touch every once in a while.

Dear Editor@Matzav,
I am sickened beyond words.
I live in Lakewood, NJ. And I am disgusted by the recent advertising of “Super Bowl specials” by local frum stores in our community.
It is profoundly troubling to witness businesses promoting something that goes against our hashkafah and they’re not embarrassed to do so.
The Super Bowl, with its associated culture of excess and immodesty, stands in stark contrast to the hashkafos we strive to uphold.

By Moshe Phillips
Former U.S. Middle East envoy Dennis Ross just can’t stop blaming Israel.
Speaking via Zoom for the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism & Policy, Ross offered some expected, perfunctory criticism of Hamas, Iran and Hezbollah. But again and again, he managed to bring in one-sided and unfair criticism of Israel.
Referring to Israel’s counter-terrorism actions in Judea and Samaria, Ross said: “West Bank violence [by Arabs] is not disconnected from Israel’s policies in the West Bank.”

By Jonathan S. Tobin 
Israeli Prime Minister BNibi Netanyahu’s reputation as a master political schemer and a cynical seeker of power is so deeply embedded in the public consciousness that there is literally nothing he can do without being accused of acting only to seek some sort of advantage over his opponents. Yet in the current crisis as he seeks to lead his wobbly unity government to achieve what may well be two mutually exclusive objectives—the elimination of Hamas and the freeing of the remaining hostages still being kept captive in Gaza—while being besieged by criticism at home and abroad, it may be that Netanyahu is not the one who is really playing politics.

By Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz
Parshas Yisro recounts the great day when Hashem gave the Torah to Am Yisroel, setting us apart and giving us the guide by which we live.
We studied the parshiyos leading up to this defining moment. We studied the Jews’ servitude in Mitzrayim, Divine makkos, deliverance from slavery, traversing the Yam Suf, war with Amaleik, and, finally, arriving at Har Sinai to receive the Torah.
After all they had been through, they had finally arrived at the level of belief that was necessary to receive and observe the Torah. All of creation was a preparation for this moment, and here they were camped at the Har Hashem.

By Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz
After learning the first parshiyos of Shemos, we arrive this week at Parshas Beshalach, which depicts the exit of the Bnei Yisroel from the awful experiences of Mitzrayim. So many years later, we are overcome with joy and universally refer to the Shabbos when Beshalach is read as Shabbos Shirah, the Shabbos of Song.
But as we study on, we learn that following the joyous redemption from Mitzrayim, the Bnei Yisroel began complaining, doubting Moshe Rabbeinu and expressing a desire to turn around and go back to a life of servitude.

by Suri Cohen
Community activist, international spy swapper and hostage mediator, political mastermind, mentor for troubled teens, beloved camp director and dedicated Jew.
The last text we got from Rabbi Ronnie Greenwald, two days before his death on Wednesday, January 20th, 2016 was a photo of him and a friend, up to their necks in the sunny blue waters of a Miami swimming pool. Rabbi Greenwald was radiating his trademark ebullience, and the picture was cheekily captioned, “It’s 16 degrees in Monsey.”