By Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz
These weeks we study the parshiyos of the Torah that lead up to our exit from Mitzrayim after generations of our forefathers being enslaved there. Ever since we were young children, we have looked forward with anticipation to the stories of the makkos that lead to Yetzias Mitzrayim.
We learn in this week’s parsha about the second to last makkah, which was that of choshech, darkness. Mitzrayim was frozen in a thick, blinding darkness, which prevented the people there from doing anything or moving at all. The Jews were unaffected and had light wherever they went.

By Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz
Let your mind paint the scene. At the time that Paroh decreed that all Jewish baby boys be killed upon birth, Moshe was born prematurely so that the Mitzriyim would not be aware that he was born. He was set afloat in a small boat/basinet in the Nile River, with his sister watching nearby to be able to follow him and ensure his safety. The daughter of Paroh came by and decided to rescue him. She brought him back with her to the palace and raised him as her son.

By Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz
We are now almost three months into the Gaza War, which began when thousands of Hamas terrorists crossed into Israel from Gaza and slaughtered 1,200 Jews, wounded many more, and took 240 hostages.
While the government says that it will examine what went wrong after they defeat Hamas in the current war, news agencies and others have done their own investigations and the results are damning.
Apparently, the Israeli army is as dysfunctional as many of the other Israeli government ministries and offices. Over the years, the army has built up a superman reputation, with Israelis and foreigners believing that this army is the strongest and the best anywhere.

By Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz
The Jewish people were blessed with three avos. Yaakov Avinu was the av of golus. He was the one who left Eretz Yisroel for extended periods, and the last seventeen years of his life were spent in Mitzrayim.
This week’s parsha of Vayechi is the final chapter of Seder Bereishis and of Yaakov’s life. In this parsha, Yaakov bequeaths to his children and to his progeny throughout the ages the lessons they would need to survive and excel as Jews in the Diaspora. Some of what he bequeathed is more apparent through reading the pesukim that recount his words to his sons and some require deeper study.

By Alan Dershowitz
Iran has now engaged in a deliberate act of war — casus belli — on numerous occasions against the United States. Most recently it was responsible for critically injuring an American soldier.
Since Hamas’ attack Oct. 7 attack on Israel, estimates run as high as 100 Iranian-backed attacks across the Mideast on U.S. bases, ships, and service personnel.
Iran has acted through its surrogates and proxies, including the Houthis, Iraqi militia, Hezbollah, and others.
Under the laws of war an act of war can be committed by the principal nation itself — which in this case is Iran, or surrogates acting on its behalf — with its approval or support.

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Dear Editor@Matzav,
In the hustle and bustle of our daily lives, it’s easy to become consumed by our routines and overlook the pain and suffering experienced by Acheinu Bnei Yisroel.
The plight of the hostages in Gaza and the soldiers bravely fighting against the Hamas terrorists gives me no rest.
Which is why it bothers me that it feels as though we’ve collectively allowed ourselves to become desensitized to the human toll of the current conflict.
It’s time for us to stop and be nosei b’ol, to bear the burden of the pain of our brothers and sisters in Eretz Yisroel.
They are Acheinu Bnei Yisroel, children of Hashem like we are.

By Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz
It happened last year and caused some buzz, but lots has happened since then and the story is all but forgotten. I was reminded of it this past Motzoei Shabbos as I sat at Rav Sholom Mordechai Rubashkin’s seudas hodaah, celebrating the neis of his release from a dark place six years ago.
Last year, at the Torah Umesorah Presidents Conference in Doral, Florida, there was a surprise guest appearance. The former president, who happens to own the hotel, came by and offered a few words. Donald Trump was listing the many things he had done for the Jewish people and for Israel while he was in office.

By Rabbi Warren Goldstein
In a widely reported conversation with Israel’s President Isaac Herzog, the head of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis, chastised Israel’s war on Hamas saying it is “forbidden to respond to terror with terror.”
In comparing Israel’s just war of self-defense to the barbarism of Hamas, Pope Francis repeats the sins of Pope Pius the XII, from the Nazi era, of surreptitiously supporting the forces of evil who seek to annihilate the Jewish people.
And betrays his fiduciary duty as the head of the Catholic Church to protect Christians throughout the world from the same murderous hatred directed against the Jews, not realizing that we are in this war together.

By Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz
Four thousand years ago, Yaakov fought the sar of Eisov in the eternal battle of emes against sheker, just against unjust, right against wrong.
Two thousand years ago, the war between the Jews and the Yevonim was once again a war of ohr neged choshech, light against darkness, right against wrong, moral against immoral.
It was less than a century ago that six million of our brothers and sisters were brutally murdered by the Nazis and their evil cohorts. The world said that they would never again permit a holocaust such as that to occur. To assuage their guilt, they gave the Jewish people rights to a country in Eretz Yisroel and stood by them for some years.