By Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz
It is interesting that as we enter the period of the most enjoyable weather, following the Yom Tov of Shavuos which celebrates Matan Torah, for several weeks we lain parshiyos that depict unfortunate behavior by the Jews in the desert.

By Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz
While I was in Eretz Yisroel last week, I came across a pithy saying I had never seen before. In Hebrew, on a keychain in a store in Zichron Yaakov that doesn’t cater to tourists, it said that wealth is achieved when you have everything that money can’t buy.
I had the good fortune to spend ten days in Eretz Yisroel from before Shavuos until Motzoei Shabbos.
Being there was refreshing, invigorating, and an opportunity to recharge my spiritual reserves through learning, connecting with my rabbeim, and being and davening in holy places.
When I’m in Israel, I get chizuk from watching people. Simple people. Good people. People who look holy and people who don’t.

By Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz
In the initial days of this world, when there was little more than the earth and the sky, the sun, the moon and the stars, the world was waiting. Even after Adam was created and settled into the garden, le’ovdah uleshomrah, the world was still in a state of anticipation. The doubt would remain for centuries on end.
Throughout the generations that followed, despite Noach’s lone piety in a world of darkness, Avrohom Avinu’s perception of a Creator, and Yitzchok’s readiness to be offered as the ultimate sacrifice, something was missing.
Even as Yaakov studied through the long nights and his sons marched forth, an army of soldiers of the Ribbono Shel Olam, the world was not yet perfect.

By Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz
We don’t have to be too knowledgeable to recognize that the world is sinking to levels unparalleled since the days of Greek and Sedomite hedonism. You don’t have to be a student of history to be able to perceive how pathetically immoral and debased the world has become in just the past few years. The nosedive is driven by the culture elites, promoted by the media and codified by “progressive” lawmakers and government leaders.

By Chaim Gold
A day before, it appeared that the second test in the Machzor Sheini of Daf HaYomi B’Halacha would be a routine Dirshu test despite it being a bit of a milestone. Lomdei Daf HaYomi B’Halacha were completing the laws of tzitzis and progressing to the laws of tefillin. The test in Eretz Yisroel was scheduled for this past Friday morning, 5 Iyar/May 6.

By Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz
This week, we celebrate Lag Ba’omer and the legacy of Rabi Shimon bar Yochai. We celebrate the conclusion of the plague that affected the 24,000 students of Rabi Akiva, who were expected to transmit the Torah to future generations. Their loss was such an overwhelming tragedy that we mourn them until this day.
This year, we mark the first yahrtzeit of the 45 holy people who perished at the Lag Ba’omer celebration in Meron. We mourn the recent passing of Rav Chaim Kanievsky, who mastered the Torah and epitomized its greatness. And the pain of those who perished suddenly from Covid is fresh in our thoughts as we contemplate the enormity of losing 24,000 anoshim gedolim in one period.

By Ben Cohen
It took several days, but eventually, the world’s media grasped why the scandal at Frankfurt Airport last week, when more than 100 Orthodox Jews were prevented by the German airline Lufthansa from boarding a connecting flight to Budapest, was so shocking.
It was Dan’s Deals, a travel website popular with the Orthodox Jewish community in New York, that originally broke the story of the ordeal of 127 Orthodox Jews who traveled in separate groups and different classes on a journey that began at New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport on May 4. The website diligently pieced together the voices of several passengers who alleged that Germany’s national airline had collectively punished those on the plane who were visibly Jewish.

By Dick Morris
To hear the howls of the left and the cheers of the right, you would think the Earth was shifting under our feet with the report that the Supreme Court had decided to overrule Roe v. Wade. The fact is that not much will change.
The Mississippi law under review only bans abortions after 15 weeks, almost up to the start of the second trimester. It does nothing to limit them before 15 weeks — four months! If you don’t know you are pregnant after four months, you need more than a pregnancy test. You need to have your head examined.
Especially with the 15 week deadline publicized and well known, it is almost inconceivable that a pregnant woman would be surprised to learn that she is with child after 15 weeks.

By Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz
This week’s parsha of Emor contains the various Yomim Tovim that we celebrate, as well as the obligation to count the days between when the korban ha’omer is brought on Pesach and the day which commemorates Kabbolas HaTorah. We refer to the obligation as Sefiras Ha’omer and the seven weeks when the count is conducted as the Yemei Sefirah, the period in which we currently find ourselves.

By Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz
Here we are into the third week of Sefirah, the second perek of Pirkei Avos, and studying Parshas Kedoshim, all intertwined and charged with the theme of the posuk found in this week’s parsha of “Ve’ahavta lerei’acha kamocha.”